Finitude (cont.)

15. Finitude, however, is not in itself either a good or an evil. It is a condition and a context which can be turned to either purpose. If we respond to the uncertainty of finite existence with fear and grasping, we make something very different of it than if we respond with attraction and love. Finitude then becomes an occasion for anger, hatred, pride, greed, covetousness, lust, gluttony—all the basic building blocks of sin that have in turn been built into the massive construction of modern evil: totalitarianism, brutality, indifference to the suffering of others, the easy resort to violence, the subordination of others to one's own ends, the cult of the self, whether taking the form of individualism or masquerading as service to ideals that only I (or my coterie) understand and am therefore obliged to impose on you.