Morality with Calvin and Hobbes

Yesterday, while at my sister's house, I pulled a Calvin and Hobbes comic book off the shelf and started browsing. Many of the comics took place around Christmastime and reflected on the subjects of such good and evil actions as might be expected of a mischievous young boy. One particular comic stood out to me in which Calvin asked, "Hobbes, do you think our morality is defined by our actions, or what’s in our hearts?" To which Hobbes answered, "I think our actions SHOW what’s in our hearts."

There's a lot of truth in that. The way I see it, we wouldn't take a certain course of action unless that action was already in-line with what's in our hearts. This echoes a sentiment I made ages ago, that we are the kind of people that do the things we do. If we steal our neighbor's favorite doll and hold it for ransom, that says something about the content and character of our hearts.

Of course, there are surely some things in our hearts that don't show by our actions. If we're filled with a strong desire to pelt our neighbor with a slushball (which is a snowball made with slush), but hold ourselves back by remembering that Santa may be watching, the intention to throw the slushball was still there. On the other hand, it was another feeling of Calvin's heart that prevented him from throwing the slushball, so it could be said that his inaction was a reflection of another aspect of the character of his heart. Unfortunately for Calvin, that aspect was probably greed, and I'm afraid that Santa is not so easily fooled. At least, I know that our True Judge isn't.

Our True Judge is, however, very fair. He knows about the wars that go on in our hearts - one desire struggling against another. He knows that we all have both good and bad desires in us, planted there by our own natures, our human natures, and the influences of the devil and of the Holy Spirit. The motivations behind throwing or not throwing slushballs may be mixed and complex, even though the action itself seems fairly straightforward. Either you did it or you didn't do it. The real question is why you threw the slushball or held yourself back, and that question is much more difficult to answer.

It's often considered fair to judge people by their actions, and it's certainly true that their actions reflect the character of their hearts, but like all reflections, it may not be a perfect mirror-image. Calvin counted not throwing the slushball as a good deed, and it was certainly a better choice than throwing it, but if his choice was motivated by a desire to fool Santa into thinking he was a saint who deserves a mountain of awesome presents, perhaps the choice wasn't as much of a good choice as Calvin thought it was. "Good" choices can be made by those with less-good intentions, and less-good choices can be accidentally made by those whose intentions were totally good.

At the same time, a truly good person would not do something totally evil, and a truly evil person (if such a being exists) would have a hard time doing something purely good, and each would have at least a brief internal struggle before the choice was made, so perhaps it could be said that our actions reveal the content of our hearts. At the very least, one indicator of our character is how long and hard we wrestle against ourselves (or our consciences or inner demons) before we make our choice.