deceitful than if they are good, well behaved, and careful; such parents
love children who are useless to the public more than children who are
useful to it.432 There are also many personal obligations related to goodwill,such as
paying workers, paying interest on loans, honoring agreements, taking
care of deposited valuables, and other things like that. Some of these
obligations fall under criminal law, some fall under domestic law, and
some fall under moral law. In the case of these obligations, too, people
who have goodwill and people who do not, differ in their mindsets.
People who have goodwill fulfill these obligations justly and faithfully
because it is a principle of goodwill that people should act justly and
faithfully toward everyone with whom they have any business or inter-
action (see §§ 422 and following above). The same obligations are ful-
filled quite differently by people who have no goodwill.
The Recreations Related to Goodwill
Are Lunches, Dinners, and Parties433 As we all know, social lunches and dinners are customary everywhere.
They are planned for various reasons. For many people they serve to
build friendship or promote family togetherness; they serve for enjoy-
ment, for fundraising, and for showing gratitude. They are also a cor-
rupting influence used for persuading people to join some faction. Those
in power use them to build their own reputations. Courts of monarchs
use them to put on a magnificent display.
The only lunches and dinners that relate to goodwill, however, are
those that involve people who love each other because they share a com-
mon faith. In early times, Christians used to have social lunches and din-
ners for exactly this purpose. Called feasts, they were instituted to lift and
unite Christians’ hearts and spirits. The dinnersthey held stood for the
associations and connections people formed when the church was first
being established, because the evening when the dinners would occur has
that meaning. The lunchesthey held, however, stood for people coming
together in the second phase of the church’s establishment, because that
is what morning and daytime mean.
While they were at the table, they would have conversations on vari-
ous subjects—both domestic and civic issues. In particular, they would
discuss topics related to the church. Because the events were feasts of