…and we will wipe Europeans from the face of the earth

Face to face with events such as Nice, the Bataclan, Madrid, Boston or London, we ask with horror: How is this possible? How come a human being feels an urge to kill children or tourists or young couples? What is killing the innocent good for?

When a child is born, he or she lives in the world of fairy tales. The line between good and evil is clear; a bad warlock against a brave prince, an ugly witch against a beautiful princess. Only later, children are surprised to realise that both positions are part of their own souls, that both the good prince and the evil warlock are part of them. And that even the parents, mum and dad as archetypes of kindness and bravery, perceived as absolutely good by children, are people comprising both the good and the evil.

Judaism has always categorically refused to see the world as dualistic, comprised of children of the light and children of the darkness. Of us, the good ones, beating the other, the bad ones. Bible heroes are no action-movie stars, fighting spectacular battles and winning all fights. Scriptures – and please, let’s read the stories regardless of whether we do believe in God or not – bring a different message: heroes have their flaws and cowards have their virtues. Hero Noah falls asleep naked and drunk; Abraham forces Hagar and Ishmael out of the family; Moses does not enter the Promised Land; king David has his affair with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. Also, if one is called, it does not mean that the other one is refused. Jacob is called, however Esau is not damned. On the contrary – we all sympathize with Esau; and with Hagar and Ishmael.

Christianity has adopted the same approach. We have our parable about wheat and weeds and we know that it is better to let them both grow together. But above all, Christianity will always perceive the truth not as something, but as somebody. It is often mentioned that Pilate asked the wrong question in the trial of Jesus. Had he asked “Who is truth” instead of “What is truth”, he might have gotten the answer because the founder of Christianity said about himself: “I am the truth”. This is not just a theological curiosity. When interpreting the world from this perspective, one is never the owner of finite truth. Yes, I believe in one, absolute Truth above us, in heaven; however here, on earth, I cannot own it, because my comprehension is limited, if nothing else. Instead of trying to own the Truth, one can try to serve it humbly. As Emanuel Radl said, when arguing, it does not matter if we are right, if we own the truth. What matters is if the Truth owns us – because we do no establish it, we are born into it.

Karl Popper, who knew better about Nazism, is the author of a profound statement: “The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell.” The temptation to establish a kingdom of light now and here, to establish heaven not in the end times but now, in the middle times, is great and mighty – by wiping the evil, the weeds, the Christians, the Jews, Europeans from the face of the earth and by simply becoming self-appointed children of the light.

But this is mental maturity of a child who does not understand that the real world of our heroic deeds and falls is a little bit more complicated than the one of fairy tales.