Good, in a scriptural sense, means that which improves you. Nothing more, and nothing less. What is evil? Evil, in a scriptural sense, means that which degrades you. Nothing more, and nothing less.
While these definitions are simple, they are powerful, and their implications are tremendous in impact and eternal significance. To know whether something is good is quite simple, as long as you know these definitions.
How do you tell good from evil? You use “the Spirit of Christ [which] is given to every man, that he may know good from evil.” (Moroni 7:16) This is your conscience, your individual repository of light. It is your sincere understanding of what improves and what degrades.
The difference between good and bad is a matter of information . The more information you have, or the greater your awareness of reality, the better the decisions you can make. While anyone can make the proper decisions within the scope of information they possess, not everyone has the same degree of information. To obtain a life of abundant joy, you must learn everything you can about reality. An abundant life requires abundant information. While the two great commandments (love God and love your neighbor) are simple, the degree to which you can apply them depends on the depth of your understanding of reality. What it means to live these commandments will differ for all people depending on their degree of awareness.
As you wend through life, your awareness will increase to the degree that you seek for more understanding and live true to what you already know. At every stage, you must be careful in how you judge between good and evil.
Find the things that bring you more joy than you have. Choose actions that optimize improvement. For every action, consider:
- What are the consequences of this action? Though the accuracy and expanse of your understanding of consequences can (and should) grow over the course of your life, and though they will enable you to affect much greater good, the question itself does not change. Your capacity can grow or diminish, but the question remains the same.
- Will this action benefit? Your understanding of benefit can and should grow as you learn and apply more truth. From day one, however, you can and should adopt this as your criteria of choice in all things. Another growth area is to learn to measure benefit globally: to truly value the benefit of others as you do benefit to yourself.
You should record and remember your reasons so that when challenges come you can resist them. Make a list of the pros and cons when you made the decision. Write it down on paper. Write a pro and a con column, and write out everything you can think of, then make your decision, considering only what is written on the list.
By focusing on defined pros and cons, you may be shocked to realize just how influential your desires are. You see, as humans we are very apt at coming up with reasons for why we do what we do after the fact. In other words, we are very good at pretending to be rational, but this is almost never our means of deciding. Remember that human nature doesn’t produce good desires. Our natural desires will always lead to something less than what God could provide. Our rational capability is the tool God has provided for us to overcome our natural desire on the one hand, all the while increasing our knowledge for future decisions. Confining yourself to what is on the written list will help you detect and overcome your natural desires.
Even when overcome in the moment of decision, desires have a way of growing back over time. The typical way of dealing with this is to change our minds and invent reasons why we did. The list will provide a record of why you chose what you did. When the doubts come, you can check your list. If there is no new information, you can throw out those doubts. If there is new information, you can consider it in conjunction with everything on your list. If you go by that method, and you pick what benefits the most, you will never be led astray.
If you are making decisions properly, you should be able to provide material reasons for exactly how they benefit. Under this framework, there need be no doubt that you are making the best decision you can. Under this framework, the best choice will be clear, you will be able to identify the rare circumstances where all options are equally beneficial, and you will also have a ready way to address any new information that may appear.