Evil and Personal Responsibility

Much is being said today about coming up with a psychological profile of Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui but in all of the discussion we are missing a very fundamental point, to explain a behavior does not justify that behavior. We can look at all the various factors that led up to the gunman’s maniacal rampage but all that does not make it any less heinous or evil.

We have an odd tendency in our culture to want to humanize villains and make them more understandable. Somehow this allows us to continue functioning in our society. What is shocking to me is that it should do quite the opposite. If we really begin to understand that these people were like us in many ways what does that say about our own capacity to do evil?

Beyond that there are some other considerations I would like to address. It is more foundational than what I presented in my previous post. Namely that we need to stop trying to explain away evil behavior under an avalanche of psychological babble and call it for what it is. This slaughter was an evil, premeditated mass killing by a wicked individual who was warped and twisted at his core. The personal responsibility for his actions rests with him, not with his circumstances.

Let me explain where I am coming from. We can look at his background such as his being an immigrant that moved here from South Korea with his parents at age 8. We can evaluate his socio-economic situation to see that perhaps he was “under privileged.” We can scrutinize the verbal, mental and perhaps even physical abuse that he endured growing up (although physical or sexual abuse hasn’t been mentioned yet I am sure if they look hard enough they will find someone who will say he was skipped in the lunch line or pushed at recess). We can dissect his psychological condition looking for depression or other indicators.

Again, all of these are factors that may explain his behavior but we are missing one key element in the whole discussion, that of personal responsibility. All of these are external factors to one degree or another. What we are missing is the reality that as human beings we have a will that governs our decisions and because of which we are ultimately individually responsible.

Cho chose not to talk to others growing up. Cho chose not to take the mental health when it was offered to him. Cho chose to take pictures of girls in his literature class and get kicked out. Cho chose to buy two handguns. Cho chose to plan a homicidal attack on his fellow students. Cho chose to make a 23 page manifesto and add video and still shots of his planned rampage. All of this flowed from his heart which was evil and which he freely chose to do. He may have been influenced by these other factors but the bottom line is that the evil choices reside with him.

We have what philosophers or theologians refer to as “will,” “volition,” “choice,” or “personal responsibility.” These decisions flow from our heart or the seat of who we are as a human being. Cho was neither mentally incompetent nor was he coerced into his behavior. This means that he is personally and fully responsible for his actions.

We are looking for people to blame for this tragedy. It is fine for us to consider these other factors in society that shape a person’s heart towards deeper levels of evil or the influences that inform a person’s actions. Each of us has a propensity towards evil that the Bible calls our “sin nature.” However, God in His mercy has also given common grace to us so that we are not as evil as we could be. Yet there are influences that we consciously or unconsciously allow to shape our heart and ultimately we become the people we have chosen to be.

My mention of violence in our culture is one of those influences that has and does shape who we are as people. A steady diet of violence has a small but steady incremental impact on us individually and as a society. But we must recognize that we have chosen for it to be so. Again, identifying a factor or factors that influenced a behavior may explain it but does not justify it. For that we must stand alone in judgment of our behavior. As a society it would do us much better to call evil for what it is rather than dismissing it based on its factors.