Tactical Faith

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Ethics

Talking to the World about Christian Morality III: Becoming What We Are

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Filed Under: Apologetics, Ethics, Philosophy, Worldview Tagged With: , , ,

When Bob was probing the possibility of homicide, we found that he could ask (at least) three kinds of why questions. One “why?” can be answered with an explanation about whether it is in fact legal or moral. Another “why?” could be answered with an explanation of why it is immoral to murder. If, after having the morality explained, he asked another question, such as “Why should I care if it is bad or good?”, then the only recourse is an appeal to the enforcement mechanism (punishment or reward).

In the 2nd post, we looked at how Christians are often criticized for holding to a childish kind of morality, because we have a tendency to point directly to God as the ground for morality, and both we and our critics tend to understand God’s place in morality as the ultimate enforcement mechanism. But we noted at the end of the 2nd article, that God grounds morality in a way far deeper than an enforcement mechanism. In fact, if we think that God is primarily a punisher of sin and rewarder of righteousness, his desire to show mercy and the self-sacrificial act of Jesus on the cross seem a bit out of character. But God’s forgiveness, his reckoning of faith as righteousness, is a sign that God’s relation to morality is not primarily as some transcendent lawgiver and judge.

So, what is God’s relationship to morality? In what way does God ground ethics?

In some ways, the answer I’ll give (and I hope I’m right!) is too obvious to be of much interest. In other ways, we seem unable to grasp it. But here it is: God grounds morality because all things exist as a result of his character and thus are sustained insofar as they function in accordance with his character, and deteriorate/die/are corrupted insofar as they function in a manner opposed to his character.

Most of us talk about this, but then we immediately fall into a discussion of a law as the standard. But the law isn’t the standard. God is the standard. The law is guidance—or instruction, as “Torah” would be better translated—to understanding who God is. For the key to righteousness is not following a law, but loving what is good, or, rather, he who is good—God—and growing to be more like Christ—the perfect image of God.

To take one more simple step: Humans were created in the image of God. Which means that we are fundamentally beings that are meant to reflect, to present, to image God. That, in turn, means that to be what we really are, we must reflect the character of God. And, of course, the clearest manifestation of God’s character is found in Jesus Christ.

What is that character, by the way? Love. All the Torah and the prophets are summed up in the dual commands to love God and love neighbor.

So, what does this mean about Christian ethics?

First, the law is not central—at least not in the sense in which we normally think of law. Law serves as instruction toward the character of God. It is not the case that “all have sinned and fallen short of the law.” It is, rather, that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” We have not been imaging God. We’ve turned against his character, by turning away from God, and ultimately becoming destroyers of his creation—by destroying ourselves, our neighbors (Cain being the first to do so), and the world around us.

Second, and this is the point of this series, the instruction we’ve been given in Scripture, and most clearly in the person of Jesus Christ, is tied to what we are.

This second point might seem kind of obvious, but the way Christians talk about and respond to ethics suggests that we’re not getting the point of it.

Let me offer a quick story to emphasize this point.

Some time ago, I was speaking to the senior class of a Christian private school. I was to talk about identity in Christ. In my usual thick-headed way, I began the discussion by asking the students what it meant to have their identity in Christ. They interpreted this phrase “identity in Christ” as being equivalent to “I am a Christian,” which seems to mean “I have made a profession of belief in Christianity.” But I pushed a little, because finding our identity in Christ must mean more than that some legal transaction has taken place in heaven’s books. Surely it means something like we see ourselves somehow united to the very person of Christ…that we cannot think of ourselves without thinking of Jesus, or something like this. Isn’t that what having some particular identity means?

What was interesting, though, is that it didn’t take long for these students—children of Christian parents who were paying good money to send their children to a school that would support their faith—to admit that they felt that being a Christian seemed to be against who they felt they were.

Consider that. Who are you? How does one define oneself? While some may reference some attribute that they have, it seems that who we are relates somehow to those things that we desire, that we love (from pizza to parents).

Now consider what these youth were bold enough to admit: They felt like God came into their lives primarily to stop them from doing things that they loved, or strongly desired. In fact, it was in those moments where they felt “most alive” or that they were about to do something in which they would become wholly transported into that act. Consider for example two unmarried teens who have been dating for years, they feel wholly in love with one another, and they have an opportunity to be alone one evening. It is in those moments that it seems Christianity comes in to say, “Stop! Hold back!” And, indeed, that seems to be the case almost all the time. Christianity, yes, is about faith and love—we are saved by faith in Jesus’ sacrifice, not by our own works. Nevertheless, the morality of Christianity seems to be a morality of living almost exactly like the world—but you can’t do quite as much.[1]

So, is that what “identity in Christ” means: Being a little less than the world?

No, it is not.

Identity in Christ is at least like being part of a sports team. Would an Alabama football player think that he was just like the other college students (he enjoys good food and the various fun things that college students do), but does a little less (can’t eat all that junk food, has to avoid some fun things because he has to go to the gym or practice, etc.)? Of course not!

The life of the football player is only seen as less if we ignore the fact that he has a purpose, and that excellence in that purpose requires a different life from the rest of the world.

Christian morality is not about stopping people from doing things—though it of course calls for us to stop doing things. Christian morality is about calling us to something great—and this great thing to which we are called is hindered by all the vices that the world declares to be the stuff of happiness.

Now, I should launch into a long discussion of a Christian’s purpose—because even here the sense that Christianity is about becoming less infiltrates our understanding. What is the purpose of a Christian life? To reflect God’s glory, of course! And what does that mean? Don’t sin!

But “don’t sin” does not mean stop doing things—it means stop missing the mark![2] Which, simplified, means, “Hit the mark!” And, if I may interpret that, surely means something like, “Do that for which you were created!”[3]

Thus, sin is about not doing that for which we were created. Sin is about becoming less.

Christian morality is about becoming those kinds of people who, like the well-trained and well-built football player, can carry out our purpose with that excellence and focus that gives us a fulfillment that a piece of cake or a night of binging alcohol and illicit sex could never give us. Christian morality is about becoming what we are.

So, why shouldn’t Bob kill Sam? Because Bob would be undermining both Sam’s being and his own. He would be acting against his nature—even if it felt good to do it—and so would be undermining the possibility of that rich fulfillment for Sam, Sam’s loved ones, and, of course, for himself as well. And such a loss of purpose and fulfillment, if not turned away from in repentance, will haunt him as he becomes that wraithlike[4] shadow of what he could have been.

So, too, we can at least partly agree with Wittgenstein’s claim in the Tractatus with which we began this series:

There must indeed be some kind of ethical reward and ethical punishment, but they must reside in the action itself (6.422).

Thanks be to God that, if only we repent and turn to him, he forgives us and draws us out of that slavery to sin and death!

[1] That is, we hold in the highest respect Christians who are model economic machines—they make good money, plan a good retirement, possess nice things. It’s just that they should go to church, give a portion to charity and tithe, and don’t do as much of the stuff that the world does (keep sex within marriage, don’t smoke or drink—at least not too much,  don’t use vulgar language—at least not too much, don’t watch too many rated-R movies, don’t get too ostentatious with your possessions, etc.).

[2] As most of you probably know, the Greek word for sin in the New Testament (transliterated as hamartia) means “to miss the mark,” as in an archer who misses the target.

[3] What, though, does it mean that our purpose for being created is to reflect the glory of God? Surely, it means that we image God in the same way as Jesus. So, too, it means that we are meant to rule over the earth under God, overseeing and directing creation in a way that reflects God’s creative activity (see Gen 1 and 2). So, too, we are meant for the redemption of creation (see Rom 8), indeed we are even participating in Jesus’ act of redemption (Col 1:24). That we are called to great glory and power is almost an understatement (see the exalted language of Eph 1:18-23—pay close attention to what Paul writes in v. 23!).

[4] As I learned while reading The Lord of the Rings, “wraith” has the same etymology as “wreath”—they both refer to something that is twisted. Thus, the image of the Ringwraiths is that of humans bent and twisted by a love that is itself bent and twisted.

Knowledge, Understanding, and Love II: Ignorance and Information Technology

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Filed Under: Apologetics, Philosophy, Worldview Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Remembering vs. Reminding: Fit

In the previous post on this issue, we ended by asking why we should blame technology for our strange (but organic) mix of arrogance and foolishness. Why not simply suggest that people are just not as nice and humble as they should be, and so we should try to be nicer and humbler? In this post, we’ll reflect further on Plato’s Phaedrus and begin to see how the claims in that brilliant dialogue relate to the warnings of C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man, and, of course, Scripture.

To begin, let’s look at the problem that Socrates, in his telling of the myth of Thamus and Theuth, suggests arises from writing: The loss of the ability to remember.

This problem might seem the most obvious: When we have all the information at our fingertips, we concern ourselves less with memorization. But why does that matter?

Consider those things that you best remember as opposed to those of which you must be reminded. What is the primary difference between these two? Well, a host of things can make you remember things—significant pain or pleasure linked to the experience of remembering or simple drilling and repetition, as well as other activities. But those things that are easiest, or most natural, to remember are new pieces of information that fit with what you already know and augment one’s grasp of how things work or how they really are. It is like finding that puzzle piece that settles easily into the empty space. My wife describes her experience of getting a degree in business after having worked in business for some time in this way. She barely needed to study, despite learning new things, because those new things complemented so well what she had experienced. They just fit.

Perhaps the beginning of understanding is in recognizing that all the knowledge one has must be put together like a puzzle, while knowledge qua knowledge is the possession of discrete pieces of information without any awareness that or how they need to be put together. This difference between understanding and mere knowledge is why someone who has a host of fancy degrees may struggle like a novice in a new job when compared to the high school dropout who has been working that job for ten years. Experience gives a sense of where all those numbers and figures and ideas and skills fit together in the real world.

When we know where things fit, we remember them. When we do not know where they fit, we need to be reminded again and again. And when we can be reminded again and again, we no longer feel the urgency of seeing how things fit so that we might remember them. The omnipresence of information technology encourages a mind full of fragmented facts, which in turn results in a worldview that is itself fragmented (i.e. lacking cohesion, coherence, or even containing contradictory elements).

The Ethics of Understanding

Experience doesn’t merely help you understand where things fit, it shows why the things you learn matter. There is a close relationship between understanding where/how things fit and why they matter. In fact, why they matter may be the very thing that makes them fit.

This issue of the “why” gets us to the heart of Socrates’ critique of writing. In the myth, Thamus says the following: “[T]hey will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own.”

This statement at first appears simply to describe the difference between relying on a written account as opposed to memorization. But, if we examine more of the Phaedrus, as well as other writings of Plato’s corpus, we find that much more is being said here. Let me explain.

Immediately upon telling the story of the origin of writing, Socrates criticizes written speeches. He complains that a written speech “roams about everywhere, reaching indiscriminately those with understanding no less than those who have no business with it, and it doesn’t know to whom it should speak and to whom it should not.”[1]

This problem is not unfamiliar to us. Think of that time you wrote something on social media, were interpreted wrongly, and suffered a deluge of unjustified criticisms. When someone who cannot properly grasp the meaning of something reads the information and misuses it, we see the failure of information access for many. What does Socrates propose instead? Discourse, or the dialogical pursuit of knowledge called “dialectic”: “The dialectician [as opposed to the written speech] chooses a proper soul and plants and sows within it discourse accompanied by knowledge—discourse capable of helping itself as well as the man who planted it, which is not barren but produces a seed from which more discourse grows in the characters of others. Such discourse makes the seed forever immortal and renders the man who has it as happy as any human being can be.”[2]

Dialectic between one who knows and one worthy of dialogue results in an ongoing discourse within both of them. That discourse then grows and gives birth to new discourse—new questions and ideas and awareness of areas in one’s life in need of growth. And if you know where it fits and so see its importance, it will develop a discourse within you, so that this idea ceases to be an external idea that you have to struggle to remember. Rather, it becomes a discourse within you that touches all of life and begins to (in)form the way you live. All new information that relates at all to this bit of knowledge will add new levels of questions, new ideas or new development of old ideas, and, in general, a richer and more beautiful way of living in the world.

What is the hallmark of one who is worthy of dialectic? Anyone familiar at all with Plato should know the answer to this: The realization that I am ignorant—far more ignorant than I usually recognize.

On the other hand, what is the hallmark of almost every argument today, particularly in light of access to the internet, the most easily accessed bit of information technology in history? An insufferable know-it-all attitude. Written speeches versus written speeches. And no understanding arises, no meaningful dialogue, no discourse. Nothing that could possibly be mistaken as making a person “as happy as any human being can be.”

Rather, given our arrogance and pursuit only of that information that supports the position we already have, we rarely have discourse with others or within ourselves, and so become “difficult to get along with, since [we] merely appear to be wise instead of really being so.”

But how could one come to recognize one’s own ignorance when one in fact has access to so much information? Indeed, how could Socrates who seemed capable of out-arguing almost any person he spoke to declare his own ignorance? Even more, am I arguing that Christians should consider themselves ignorant in order to have better discussions with people? Recognition of one’s own ignorance sounds a bit like “humility,” but we Christians possess the truth, do we not?

We will dig further into these questions in the next one of this series. But perhaps reflect on this idea: It is perhaps more correct to say that the truth (or perhaps better, Truth) has possessed us, rather than that we have possessed the truth. Believing the latter leads to pride; the former, humility.

[1] Plato, Phaedrus 275d.

[2] Plato, Phaedrus 276e-277a.

Can I lie now?

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Filed Under: Blog Post Tagged With: ,

A lot of ink has been spilled over the subject of lying and whether or not a lie is justified. It’s an important topic, but not one that is as controversial as some folks would like you to think. My thoughts here are after the fashion of Corrie Ten Boom and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  I make the argument with a contrite and prayerful spirit all the while using what I view is a very commonsensical approach.  I acknowledge first and foremost that this issue is complex and even harder to live out.

I was having a conversation on this very topic at one of our Reasonable Faith meetings here in Birmingham. This has been several years ago now, but at the time, one of the participants was making the argument that lying was explicitly condemned under the Law, and as such, there was never justification for lying to anyone. This struck several people in the group as being unreasonable, as well as unbiblical. As we sipped our coffee we explored this idea in a completely abstract and safe environment. No one was holding a gun to our heads demanding that we give the names of those we were hiding. There were no spies on the rooftop while the city officials questioned us. We were safe, sipping our Americano’s from the local coffee shop. We had nothing to fear.

But fear of death and imprisonment is precisely what many people have had to choose if their little ruse was found out. Corrie Ten Boom is one of many Christians who was willing to lay down their life in order to protect the innocent. She was even willing to lie to the authorities when asked direct questions about who they were aiding and abetting. Christians in the 21st century also have to deal with issues like this. There are underground house churches all over China. Christians in the Middle East who would hide Yazidi girls from thugs and brutes. Christian missionaries in the east, who have to protect those who leave their religion that they were born into. So, while abstract in a coffee shop in Birmingham, this is a very real question at present to many all over the world.

So, on the face of it, I would disagree with my fundamentalist friend about his interpretation of Exodus 20:16. I double checked the King James version to make sure it didn’t flatly say “Thou shalt not lie”, but even the KJV is more nuanced than this. The commandment is “Don’t bear false witness”. Now is “Bearing false witness” the same thing as “Lying”.  I think they are for the most part talking about the same thing. Now, to be sure, there is the issue of motive. Maybe this is where someone like Dietrich Bonhoeffer starts to inform my thinking. In his magnum opus “Ethics” Bonhoeffer continually refers to the “will of God” as being preeminent, thus the highest authority in which we as Christians have to answer too. And how do we know what this will is? Well, if we apply the Golden Rule to any one of the situations above, then we find ourselves looking the answer straight in the face. To do unto others as you would have them do unto you seems to answer all my questions about what the will of God is in situations like that. If I am on the other side of the line I would not want myself to be given over to evil men. I would also not quarrel or condemn my protectors, concerning the mode in which they chose to protect me, even if that meant lying about my whereabouts.

Is it a sin though? Whether or not I condemn anyone is not to say the act was sinful or not. I am not the arbiter of righteousness. Speaking plainly, I might retort that even if this is a sin before God, so what? Would God not forgive a person who was honestly trying to protect someone else. This kind of protection is not without its liabilities. Typically the threat of imprisonment or sometimes death is not only multiplied to the individual, but also to their family members. This motive for protection is in line with the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. There is not ill gotten gain achieved when a lie like this is conceived on the lips of the protector. No one becomes pregnant with further evil motives at the behest of safeguarding the innocent. So, even if I believed that lying to protect the innocent was a sin, which I do not, I do believe it would be a pardonable sin and one which would not result in a habitual sinful act being perpetuated for selfish motives in the future. The prohibition to lie is to restrict the individual from using falsehoods for personal gain. And in such a case, there is no personal gain for those risking their own neck for someone else. Hence, my argument for a sinless lie comes to fruition.
For me this is a fairly open and shut case. I would have no problem whatsoever in lying to evil men or even to good magistrates if it meant protecting an innocent person from being imprisoned by an unjust or corrupt law or system. In my mind, some men don’t deserve the truth. And as for biblical examples, Rahab seems like a good place to start.