Strength and Goodness

In my Logic and Critical Reasoning class, we discussed how an argument can be strong or weak, or in other words, how it can be a good argument or a bad argument. And for my The Bible as Literature class, I wrote about Samson, who was clearly physically strong, but apparently not morally good. These lessons have reminded me that "strong" and "good" are not actually synonyms. Being strong is not necessarily good and being weak is not necessarily bad, though of course that all depends on what kinds of strength, weakness, goodness, and badness we're talking about.

If someone is physically strong, one could say that one is "good" at doing physical things. But that's not what I mean when I say that someone is Good. The goodness that I am describing involves kindness, justice, mercy, and charity. People are good if they want to do good; their ability or inability to do good (or to do anything at all) is irrelevant. People are good if they are good in heart. The body has nothing to do with it.

However, there is one kind of strength that can be appropriately linked to goodness, and that is moral strength. As I see it, moral strength is the capacity to stand by one's principles despite the difficulty of doing so. It's not always easy to Choose the Right, so it sometimes takes a kind of moral strength to do so.

It is or at least should be clear to everyone that physical and moral strength are not related in any way. There are many, many people, both in the real world and across all genres of fiction who are both physically strong and morally weak. Conversely, there are also many people who are physically weak but who maintain a great deal of moral strength with their pure hearts and true conviction.

Physical strength and capability are not inherently good or bad. Strength can be used for good or evil, and people can be good or evil regardless of their level of physical strength. However, in this increasingly darkening world, moral strength is becoming ever more important. There are or soon will be times when it will not be possible to be good without being morally strong.

Through practice and exercise, I intend to develop both physical and moral strength, but I know that those two kinds of strength have hardly anything to with each other and that one of those kinds of strength is infinitely more important than the other.