Two Kinds of Good
One
The Story of Solomon and the Two Women
When Solomon had received wisdom from God, so much wisdom that he was said to be the wisest king who had ever lived and who ever would live, a case came up for his judgment. And the case was destined to exhibit his wisdom to the world.
This was the case: two women both claimed to be the mother of the same baby. This was before genetic testing, so there wasn’t any scientific way to figure out who was the real mother. And this was Solomon’s solution: he said, “Cut the baby in half, and give one half to each woman.”
Pretty grisly solution. But one of the women was all for it. She said, “Fine, cut the baby in half. That’s fair.” But the other woman said, “No! Don’t kill the baby! Give it to her. I’d rather let her have the baby than have it killed!” And Solomon declared then and there that this second woman should have the baby.
He decided that the envious woman, the woman who just wanted an equal material share, the woman who didn’t want a baby for herself so much as she wanted the other woman not to have a baby, Solomon decided that she should not be the mother to the child.
But the woman who saw that there was something precious about the child, something that would be lost if the child were divided up, that woman had the right attitude, and she got the baby.
Two
Two Kinds of Goods
The story of these women shows that there are two kinds of goods. One is the kind of good that you get by aggressively staking your claim to some finite resource.
Pizza is sometimes like this. If you try to share it with a lot of people, everyone will only get, at most, a slice. And then sometimes there are arguments about who got the bigger piece, and – oh no! – he got two pieces and I only got one!
This first class of goods are goods outside of you. They are extrinsic to the human person, they do not involve a perfection of either your body or your soul. This is what the first woman cared about. She was content to just have an equal share of the body of a dead child, even if it was infinitely less than the whole child.
Then there are goods that you don’t ever get by taking them away from someone else. These are perfections within the person. And that’s what the second woman cared about. She wanted an inner good: the intrinsic good of her baby’s well-being. And she expressed the perfection of being a good mother.
And she won.
Three
Things Outside You
Things which are neither perfections of body or of soul are the normal objects of envy.
That’s why the tenth commandment talks about not coveting your neighbor’s stuff, because his livestock and his house and his household staff and all the other things that belong to him are external things, and if he has them, it means you don’t (and vice versa).
So if what you care about is external stuff, then you are caring about finite resources, stuff that diminishes when you share it.
This could be a pizza. It could be money. It could be homes…One of the most coveted external things today, which is also a finite resource, is other people’s attention. If large numbers of people are watching your YouTube video, they’re not watching my YouTube video. If they’re commenting on my post, they’re not commenting on yours.
So we all get involved in this desperate attempt to be popular, which means, we’re all trying to carve out a piece of the pizza of other people’s attention. Which is just a violation of coveting my neighbor’s good, in this case, his popularity.
But none of this external stuff brings happiness. None of it gives life. At the end of the day, if you pursue it with desperation, competition, and envy, it won’t give you any more happiness than half an infant corpse.
Four
Internal Goods
What we are called to pursue are the internal perfections of the human person. Physical perfections, perfections of certain skills and abilities, the perfections of natural virtue: prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. And, most importantly, the divine perfections of faith, hope, and charity.
These are not inherently finite resources. Whether I have them is not determined by whether someone else has them. You don’t add to your store by taking from someone else’s.
Remember in the parable of the virgins, how the foolish virgins asked for oil, and the wise virgins told them that that wouldn’t work?
That’s because you don’t get virtue by just taking some from someone else. It only comes from your own effort and your own openness to God.
When it comes to personal excellence – the excellence of the body, soul, or spirit – everyone has to receive it and acquire it in themselves.
Which means you don’t have time to waste being envious of others. If you really care about excellence and virtue and love, you know that there’s no point wasting time being resentful of other’s success, or plotting to take it away. You don’t covet your neighbor’s goods if external goods aren’t what you care about.
The woman who cared about love, she was the one who deserved to be the baby’s mother. She was the one who went away happy.
Five
The Eucharist – the one physical good that isn’t diminished by being shared
So we have to make a choice. Are we going to care about physical ownership and a lot of attention? If so, we’ll live lives of desperate competition and envy. Or will we care about love and goodness?
Will we choose to frantically fight to carve out a chunk for ourselves out of what doesn’t really matter? Will we choose the perfection of love and virtue, whole and intact – like the one woman?
Actually, there’s one case where we don’t have to make that choice.
In the Holy Eucharist, Christ has offered us a miracle. We each receive His entire physical substance. There the host is split in two but Jesus remains intact and complete in both pieces. Also, we each receive His whole attention. And, finally, we each receive the power to develop our capacity for love, truth, and virtue, as far as we can.
So when you receive the Eucharist, ask the Lord to help you care about what really matters. Ask Him to free you from the hyper-focus on what is less important, and the envy such focus enslaves us to.