“Simul Justus et peccator.” This Latin phrase is a core doctrine of the Lutheran faith. It states that all people are righteous, yet sinners at the same time. By recognizing that we are all simultaneously righteous and sinful, and by becoming vulnerable and obedient enough to pray for our enemies, hate will be transformed to love and violence replaced by peace. While this may seem like a straightforward process, in reality, it is extremely complex. Accepting, and more importantly, loving someone who has different cultural practices, different religious beliefs, and different moral values is not only difficult, but contradicts our human tendency to believe that everything we say, do and learn is right and good. How can someone else be right and good if their beliefs are different from our own? The only way to grasp this incredibly perplexing and complex task is to pray for those who we perceive to be different from ourselves and find examples to lead us, …show more content…
There are certain points in the plot in which the father and the son ignore the possibilities that other survivors are right and good as well. They, selfishly, believe they are the only good people left in the world, and that they need to “carry the fire.” This ignorance led the father and son to miss incredible opportunities. However, this ignorance is not exclusive to the father and son. Almost every character in the story fails to acknowledge that everyone has a bit of good in them. This is one of the core reasons the world is in such disarray. At the end of the story, in a time of need, the boy decides to take a chance and trust someone other than his father. The boy is greeted not only with goodness, but with supreme love. The man eventually saves the boy. The father and son erred by failing to recognize people can be righteous and sinful simultaneously. People are not exclusively good or evil, there is a massive gray