1 Thessalonians 5:21
Test everything; hold fast what is good.
One consequence of believing in Catholic Faith is that it becomes impossible to ever speak of any real thing as purely evil. Even the devil has his good points for Catholics because, as a creature, he still possesses existence, intelligence, power, and will and these things are in themselves intrinsically good since they were made by God. True, the devil has perverted them all by his fallen will, and is the most evil creature in the cosmos, but even his evil cannot totally eradicate good or he would cease to exist. This means that good and evil are not opposites. Evil is dependent on good while good does not need evil at all. Turning our view toward more mundane visions than the uttermost pit of Hell, we find that most people, even the ones we don’t much like, have gifts, qualities, ideas, etc., which we ignore only at the risk of turning a blind eye to something good God might want us to see. That is why Paul gives the command in today’s verse. Everything, especially the stuff and people we are tempted to ignore and reject, has something good hidden there and we are test it to find out what it is. Discernment is a key virtue of Christian maturity.
