“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I am certain that you have heard it before, as it is a very common phrase. There is great truth in this cliche, but there is also a major flaw and an omission which leads down, what I find to be, a very interesting line of thought. Explore with me.
The sense in which this old saying works is in its standard application. People may intend well but they screw it up and create hell on earth. It’s as if it could be a mission statement for human institutions of all types. There is no doubt in my mind that many people who have understood this use it to their benefit in masking their own intentions for hell on earth. There is a great deal of money to be made and power to be gained in having hell on earth. This is a case of bad intentions paving the road to hell by using the good intentions of others. The examples of this are all around you in your everyday lives. With a little effort you can see people pitted against one another while a different group benefits from the battle of intentions all around you. Hell indeed.
Now for the major flaw and omission. The road to heaven is also paved with good intentions. Bad intentions will surely never lead anyone to heaven. The former cliche about the road to hell becomes less useful when this other fact is realized. If it isn’t the good intentions which make the difference between heaven and hell then what is it?
The answer is not as simple as one thing, but I believe the answer is still simple. Clearly, the people I mentioned earlier who have bad intentions and may use other people who have good intentions play a big role, and for obvious reasons. As for those with good intentions paving this road to hell, the two major factors which come to mind are, first, incompetence and second, lack of principles or lack of correct principles. Many of the worst dictators in history either believed they were doing right or claimed to be on the side of good. They were missing incredibly important base principles.
Having a desire to enrich your friends or countrymen is a good intention. When the principles of not harming or taking from others are ignored in the pursuit of those ends hell will reign.
Your favorite politician is overwhelmingly likely to be either one of the aforementioned sociopaths with bad intentions or an unprincipled, busybody do-gooder. It’s no wonder we always feel like we are spiraling to hell.
To solve this problem I suggest we all need to learn correct principles and hold ourselves and others to those standards. Start with the non-aggression principle, it is a major off-ramp onto the road to heaven.