Psalm 52

"You love evil instead of good"

Similar to Psalm 1, Psalm 52 presents a contrast between the wicked and the righteous and their respective destinies. 

The wicked boast, lie, devise treachery, and love evil more than good. Because of this God will bring them down and uproot them from the land.

The poet, by contrast, is a flourishing olive tree in the house of God, the same arboreal image from Psalm 1. The poet trusts, praises, and hopes in God. 

I'm struck by the start and ending of the psalm. In the opening lines, "You love evil more than good." In the final line (CSB translation), "I will put my hope in your name, for it is good." 

I've always been interrupted by Stanley Hauerwas' assertion that before we can act we must see. Moral description precedes moral action. Get the description wrong, misperceive the evil and the good, then everything downstream by way of action goes awry. A lot, therefore, is hanging on what we consider to be the evil and the good.

For example, last semester I was leading a Bible study with some ACU students and we were reflecting on the Gospel of John. In Chapter 3 we spent some time talking about this text:

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

In John 3 there is no wrathful God judging the world. Rather, we judge ourselves in how we respond to the light. John 3 says this clearly: "And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light." The light enters the world, and we sort ourselves out. Some love the light and others love the darkness.

And yet, I asked the students, how do you define the light and the darkness? Everything hinges upon that definition and description. The words "light" and "darkness" are just semantic containers which can be filled with very different moral visions. The same goes for Psalm 52's use of the words "good" and "evil." 

This is a live question because there is a great deal of intra-Christian conflict about what constitutes good versus evil and light versus darkness. The label "Christian" itself has become a semantic receptacle that can contain very different moral visions. The task of moral description is acute and pressing for, in my estimation, many purported follows of Jesus are coming to love evil instead of the good.