Character DevelopmentIf you think deeply about it, you'll understand the great value of an environment that provides human beings with choice and the possibility of developing good character or poor character. When we tell children to "make good choices," are we just hoping they will manage to stay out of trouble for the day, or that the "good choices" will become habits and the children will grow into people who naturally do the right thing? A world that permits the development of moral character —one that makes it possible for persons to become the immeasurably precious and even glorious beings that they sometimes do become—is of much greater value than any world that does not. . . . If personality and character are not regarded as having a very great value, it would clearly be wrong of God to permit the actual suffering and wrongdoing that occurs in order to procure it. But the moral development of personality is possible only in a world of genuine freedom. If you take this down to the level of raising children, and you suggest that it might be better if we could prevent them from doing anything that is harmful, you realize that if you do that, you will destroy their lives. They have to choose, they have to learn, and they have to grow. To nurture moral perfection, horrendous moral crimes must be permitted by God—though he himself never approves of, actualizes, or requires them. Nurturing moral perfection (within a suitable world) and not allowing wrongdoing is impossible. If children are never permitted to do wrong, they will never become capable of developing a nature or character that resolutely chooses the good. Good persons must live in a world where doing evil is a readily available option. Producing people with character without giving them choice is impossible, because the capacity to choose is a part of character. From The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus. Copyright © 2015 by Dallas Willard. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
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