The Christian Hope Or End-Times Fancies?

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Christianity presents itself as more than an ideal of human life in this world, a vision of a harmonious and just human community. It offers more than inspired knowledge of the secrets of the divine world. And it is more than a way of dealing with guilt. These benefits may enhance wellbeing and happiness in this life, but they do not address ultimate human longings. We long for a quality of life, being, community, knowledge, joy, freedom, and love that we cannot attain in this world. Our longings reach further than our minds can conceptualize or our imaginations can picture.

What is the Christian hope, the final form of the salvation Christianity offers? What should we seek and expect? And what is the ground and assurance of this hope? In this and the upcoming essays I want to address these questions.

In my view, many discussions of the Christian hope are obscured by an unhealthy fascination with the apocalyptic imagery and eschatological timetables associated with the transition from the present order to the new order. People lose sight of the hope of eternal life in intimate closeness to the eternal God. Instead, they become engrossed in current events, looking for signs of the approaching end. They stockpile food and construct safe houses for the coming collapse of society. They treat the Book of Revelation like some people treat the works of Nostradamus, as obscure texts on which to impose their own fancies, good for entertainment but not for edification. Or, they make their views of eschatology into an orthodoxy that becomes a test of one’s Christian faith. The nature of the millennium becomes as important as the fact of Christ’s resurrection!

A sober treatment of the Christian hope must remain focused on its ultimate fulfillment and not let itself be distracted by the imagery of transitions. What then is that hope? As I indicated above, it is eternal life in intimate union with the eternal God. But what does this mean? Popular religion speaks vaguely of an “afterlife” or of survival beyond death. Some people want another life like they want another house or another car. But why think another life would make you any happier than this life does? Does eternal life mean simply living forever? But why would living unendingly be a good thing? One can imagine conditions under which immortality would be a curse that would make us long for death.

Paul sometimes uses apocalyptic imagery when speaking of the transition from this life to eternal life. But when he speaks of the ultimate state of salvation he speaks of eternal life and immortality. His favorite expression seems to be “being with the Lord.”

I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. (Phil 1:23-24)

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead (Phil 3:10-11).

We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. (2 Cor 5:8)

After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. (1 Thess 4:17)

John speaks with cautious confidence when he says this

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure (1 John 3:1-3).

John keeps the focus on the hope of being like Christ and seeing him “as he is.” This hope does not encourage us to look for signs of the end or bury our end-time bunkers deep. Instead it motivates us to “purify” ourselves and live as Christ lived in the world. Nor does Paul connect apocalyptic imagery of transitions to speculation about times or seasons but to becoming like Christ in his sufferings and death.

The end of the story is being “with the Lord” and “like Christ.” And so is the beginning and middle of the story! At each stage our task is the same. Let God handle the times, seasons, and transitions.

Are Darkness and Evil Rooted in God’s Nature?

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This is the third and final installment of my review and critique of Thomas Oord’s book The Uncontrolling Love of God. In the previous two essays I described and analyzed Oord’s argument and criticized three of his crucial assertions. Today I will address a fourth assertion.

4. God’s Nature Limits God.

For Oord, the problem of evil focuses on absolving God of responsibility for the evil that plagues our world. Oord argues that the problem of evil cannot be dealt with as long as we view creation as a voluntary divine act. If God voluntarily created our world then God either allows or positively wills the evil that occurs within it. And no being that allows or permits, much less positively wills, the horrible evils that happen in our world can be considered loving. Oord “solves” the problem of evil by concluding that God did not choose to create a world with randomness and freedom, which are the necessary conditions for evil. Because God is love by nature, God creates our world by necessity.

Oord contends not only that God is love by nature but also that love is the preeminent divine attribute and limits the other attributes. God’s power extends only as far as his love. God cannot act contrary to his loving essence and must express that essence by creating. Let’s listen to some of Oord’s claims:

“God’s loving nature requires God to create a world with creatures God cannot control” (p.146).

“By contrast [to John Sanders], I do think God’s nature dictates the sort of world God must make” (p.148).

“God’s love is uncontrollable, not only in the sense that creatures cannot control divine love but also in the sense that God cannot stop loving” (p. 161).

“Essential kenosis says limitations to divine power derive from God’s nature of love” (p.164).

“Essential kenosis says God’s self-giving, others-empowering nature of love necessarily provides freedom, agency, self-organization and lawlike regularity to creation. Because love is the preeminent and necessary attribute in God’s nature, God cannot withdraw, override or fail to provide the freedom , agency, self-organizing and lawlike regularity God gives. Divine love limits divine power” (p. 169).

Is God a Prisoner of His Nature?

For many readers, the familiar idea that God cannot contradict his nature seems correct. God cannot lie or sin or die. We could add that God cannot act in an unloving or unjust way. I too agree with these statements. But Oord goes further.  He contends that God’s nature limits God, which in effect makes God a prisoner of his nature. The traditional teaching that God cannot contradict his nature was never understood as “limiting” God, that is to say, depriving God of an option that God might otherwise have willed to use for some good purpose. On the contrary, the idea that God cannot die or sin or act unlovingly expresses God’s unlimited perfection! It would be silly to say that there is something good or great in dying or sinning that God is missing because he cannot do it. Dying is not something you. It is something that happens to you. Nothing just happens to God!

But Oord insists that “Divine love limits divine power”? In the traditional doctrine of God, God’s power is thought to be unlimited, which means that God’s power extends to everything that is logically possible. Oord adds a further qualification by excluding some logically possible things. Specifically, Oord wants to exclude God using power to control or coerce his creatures. These actions are, according to Oord, logically possible, but given the priority of divine love in the divine nature, are impossible for God. It is logically possible for God to prevent evil actions but impossible for God actually to do this. God cannot act contrary to his loving nature, and his loving nature demands that he give irrevocable randomness and freedom to creatures.

Darkness and Evil Within the Divine Nature?

Our suspicions are rightly raised when we hear a thinker using one divine attribute to limit the others. Oord speaks as if God were essentially love but not essentially power or eternity or justice or others. It seems to me that we ought to reject out of hand the attribution of incoherence and disharmony to the divine being. Instead we ought to allow all the divine attributes modify and enrich each other. If we believe God is perfect in every respect, we should also assume that there is no tension much less conflict between divine love and divine justice or power or eternity or omniscience. God’s love is just and his justice is loving. And God’s love is powerful and his power is loving.

Oord, to the contrary, defines God’s love independently of the other essential attributes and seems to base his definition of divine love on a human conception of love. He then uses this human conception to restrict divine power. Consequently his conception of divine power is likewise distorted. Oord seems to think of divine power as force and coercion, which must be limited by divine love. Divine power is obviously conceived as the possibility for evil as well as good. Amazingly, this move grounds the tension in creation between love and evil in a tension within the divine being. Hence to escape rooting evil in the divine will Oord places its possibility in the divine nature! The problem of evil has infected the divine being. And God must continually overcome his possibility for evil. Evil has been eternalized.

But divine power is not the possibility for good or evil, love or coercion. Divine power is the power of being; it is unambiguously good. God is the power of his own being and consequently the power for the being of creatures. God’s power always manifests itself in creation as giving being. There is no reason to see any tension between God’s power and his love. Every act of love is also an act of power. God loves by giving being in all its richness to creatures.

Conclusion

In sum, Oord solves one problem of evil only to create an even worse one. He succeeds in absolving God of any responsibility for evil by transferring the possibility for evil from the divine will to the divine nature. However, the price of this transfer may be greater than many are willing to pay. If the suffering we endure in this world is somehow rooted in the unfathomable divine will and purpose, we can still hope that evil will be overcome and “every tear will be dried.” But if evil is rooted in the eternal divine nature, God has no place to stand to pull us out of the pit. How can he sympathize with our pain when he is distracted by his own suffering? How can God “lead us not into temptation” when he must continually overcome his own temptation?

Coming Soon: Eschatology. What can we know about something that hasn’t happened yet?

God and Evil: Three Steps to the Wrong Answer

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In my previous post I began a review of Thomas Oord, The Uncontrolling Love of God. I focused mostly on describing the argument of the book as fairly as I can. Today I want to explain where and why I disagree. Allow me to summarize what I said last time: Oord “solves” the problem of evil by limiting divine power and freedom in favor of divine love. According to Oord, love is the dominant divine attribute, and it limits the scope of the others. God cannot refuse to love, for that would contradict his nature. Hence God must create a world of creatures and give them freedom. God has no choice. When creatures misuse their freedom by doing evil and when the randomness of physical processes produces suffering, God is not to blame. As I said in the last lines of the earlier post,

“At no point is a divine decision involved actively or passively in the occurrence of evil or even in bringing about the conditions that make evil possible. Hence God cannot be blamed for genuine evil at any point in its genesis or history.”

According to Oord, this understanding of the divine nature solves the problem of evil. (For a fuller explanation, read the previous post, which bears the title, “Must we Limit God’s Power to Solve the Problem of Evil?”)

I will organize my comments around several of Oord’s presuppositions and assumptions, which, if you accept, will lead you to accept the conclusions of the book. If you do not accept Oord’s assumptions you probably will not accept his conclusions.

“Tragedy Needs an Explanation”

This assertion forms the title of Oord’s first chapter. Of course everyone feels the need to ask “Why did this happen?” when tragedy strikes us or those we love. We want an explanation, and not having one intensifies the suffering of injury and loss. But what kind of “explanation” counts as a satisfactory explanation? Reading his first chapter shows that for Oord, “explanation” means a coherent harmonization of the facts of nature, human experience of evil, and the idea of God. Oord excludes any “appeal to mystery” or expressions of trust as simplistic, if not irresponsible (p. 64, p. 89). He says,

“Simplistic responses to life’s difficult questions—“I just trust God”—leave many of us unsatisfied. We need better answers. Believers want to reconcile randomness and evil with the idea that God acts providentially” (p. 27).

Apparently, for Oord adequate explanations must make all things clear.

If you accept this thesis you will need to look for rational clarity in your explanation of tragedy. And Oord’s doctrine of God makes things clear. We understand perfectly why every evil event happens. God had to create a world where evil was possible, and God bears no responsibility for any genuinely evil event. God did not cause it or permit it. Crystal clear! But will such clarity really satisfy? For some people, perhaps it will. But others may find a loving but effectively powerless God very unsatisfying. Why can’t God be both powerful and loving! And why should we shy away from divine mystery? Should we expect the ways of God to be clear to us always? Hence I reject the presupposition that we should look only for “clear” explanations and refuse to consider those that resolve the problem in the depths of the divine mystery. Could a non-mysterious God be the Creator and Lord of the Bible?

Some Evils are Gratuitous.

This assertion is central to the argument of the book. Without it the argument fails. Throughout the book, Oord refers to some evils as “genuine” or “gratuitous.” Other evils are “necessary” and may produce good results in the long run. Pain, for example, warns of physical damage and danger. But “genuine” evils never produce anything good; or not enough good to outweigh the evil suffered. Oord defines genuine or gratuitous evil as

“events that all things considered, make the world worse than it might have been…Genuine evils happen, and they have no greater overall purpose” (p. 68, 65).

In other words, some evils are so outrageous and horrendous that not even God can redeem them or turn them to the good—not in a million years, not in all eternity! Now, if you admit that there are evils so destructive that not even God can redeem them, Oord has won the argument. For a loving God would not allow such evils if he could prevent them, and if God’s allows irredeemable evil when he could prevent it, he cannot be the loving God we believe in.

In response to these assertions about “genuine” evil, we must ask Oord how he knows that some evils cause so much damage that not even God can repair or redeem them? His answer is simple. He knows it because of the way it makes him feel. He says this:

“I cannot imagine, for example, any instance of rape to be necessary to promote greater good. Genocides are genuine evils too” (p. 66).

What he “cannot imagine” cannot be true. In the book’s first chapter, Oord does what almost all of the advocates for gratuitous evil do. He recounts horror story after horror story and banks on the emotional appeal of such stories dissuading us from trying to explain them as redeemable in some way. It is what I call in my book, The Faithful Creator, the “rhetorical argument from evil.”

He does not show that a particular evil is irredeemable. How could any mortal do that? How could he know that the final resurrected, redeemed, and glorified state of rape victims or the victims of genocide will be worse than it could have been had not these evils affected them. Only God knows what God can do. So, no human being can know whether or not some evils are irredeemable unless God reveals it.  Instead of demonstrating rationally or on the basis of revealed truth the reality of irredeemable evil, Oord in effect silences us with the thought “How dare you justify this evil by making it redeemable!” Or, “What kind of person could “imagine” rape and genocide making the world a better place!”

I admit that just as he cannot show that some evils are irredeemable, I cannot show clearly that all evils are redeemable. I would not presume to try. But I can hold on to this hope because it is grounded in the resurrection of Christ.

Some Events are Truly Random.

This thesis also is crucial to Oord’s argument. Oord begins his argument for randomness by giving examples from common experience. The outcome of a coin toss, the timing and landing place of a leaf that falls from a tree, and the time and place of a lightning strike seem to common sense to be random. And Oord argues that we ought to trust our common sense to tell us the truth in this case. He explains,

“Most of us are realists, in one sense or another. And the way we act presupposes our belief in the reality of genuine randomness…If we are to make sense of life, we need to take everyday experiences of randomness seriously. We should believe our intuitions regarding randomness tell us something true about reality” (pp. 32-34).

The author then appeals to modern natural science’s incorporation of randomness into its theories. Quantum physics has discovered no way to determine the future state of certain subatomic particles from their previous states. Biology assumes randomness in the process of mutations that bring about variety in the biological world.

(Note: I would argue that one cannot prove that a particular event is truly random. To “prove” something is to show that it follows from the preceding conditions. But the very definition of true randomness or chance is that it does not follow from the preceding conditions, that those conditions do not determine the outcome. Randomness as a concrete event is unknowable.)

I agree that certain events seem to be random as far as we can determine. But this is a rather trivial conclusion. The real question is “Are some events random to God?” Only if Oord can show that the randomness we experience is also experienced by God in the same way, will his argument work. But his only arguments for this conclusion derive from extrapolation from our experience in common sense and natural science. Because we cannot know the full causes of some events, neither can God. He says it this way:

“If the dominant views of science and philosophy are correct in their affirmations of randomness and chance, theologians such as Augustine, Calvin and Sproul are wrong” (p.41) in their contention that God knows and, in a special sense, causes all things.

The validity of Oord’s extrapolation from human experience to divine experience is crucial to his case. Note that he uses the same method here he used when he argued in thesis two that our experience of evil as “gratuitous” and irredeemable shows that it is also gratuitous and irredeemable to God. This assumption was also evident in thesis one where he rejects “appeals to mystery” and seeks rational clarity. We are beginning to see a deep presupposition of Oord’s perspective come into view. Oord and thinkers like him assume that the methods of common sense, natural science, and philosophy can see reality as God sees it, at least with regard to evil and physical laws. This presupposition is well articulated by Alfred North Whitehead, the founder of Process Philosophy:

“In the first place God is not to be treated as an exception to all metaphysical principles, invoked to save their collapse. He is their chief exemplification” (Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1929), p. 521).

For process thought, God and the world fall under one grand system of metaphysical principles. And if they are subject to the same laws they must be simply two aspects of the one eternal reality. God is a part of the world or the world is a part of God.

Traditional thinkers such as Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Karl Barth, and others assume a radical difference between God and the world, Creator and creation. Hence they never extrapolated directly from human experience to divine experience. The laws and limits that define and delimit creation do not apply to God. For God created all things and determined their laws and limits.

The most fundamental reason I reject Oord’s detailed arguments and conclusions is that I reject his fundamental assumption that God and the world can be understood under the same categories and laws and concepts.

Next time, I will discuss the fourth thesis: “God’s Nature Limits God.” I am sure you have heard this idea many times. Perhaps you thought it self-evident. Nevertheless, it is false. And next time I will explain why.

 

Must We Limit God’s Power to Solve the Problem of Evil?

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Something Different

Today, I am doing something I don’t usually do in this blog. I am reviewing a book, a very provocative, sometimes infuriating, book. Let me explain why. Last October InterVarsity Press published my book, The Faithful Creator: Affirming Creation and Providence in an Age of Anxiety. A few weeks later InterVarsity Press published Thomas Oord’s book The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence. These books could hardly be more opposed to each other. After some communication with Oord, he graciously invited me to join him on a panel with two other theologians that will meet at the annual meeting of the Christian Theological Research Fellowship in San Antonio, November, 2016. The theme of the discussion is the problem of evil. My presentation will bear the title, “Faith, Hope, And The Rhetoric Of Despair: Providence And Evil After Ivan Karamazov.” In preparing for this paper I read Oord’s latest book. And I thought I would share some thoughts on the book. I cannot summarize or respond to every argument in the book. But I hope to give you the heart of its central argument. I am sure you have heard these ideas even if you are not familiar with the books, authors, and labels.

Open and Relational Theology

Let me give you some background. Within the past 30 years, certain evangelical theologians have begun to advocate a view of God and providence called “open” or “relational” theism. I have written articles and sections of books explaining and criticizing this movement. John Sanders, Gregory Boyd, William Hasker, Clark Pinnock, Terence Fretheim are well known exponents of this view. Thomas Oord places himself broadly within this school of thought. But he also criticizes many of his fellow open and relational theologians for not following the basic logic of the position consistently to its end. In The Uncontrolling Love of God, Oord presents a modified open and relation view he calls the “essential kenosis” model of providence. Even if you know nothing of the general open and relational model, I think you can pick it up as I review Oord’s modified open and relational model of providence.

Oord’s Argument For a Limited God in Context

Oord’s argument in its simplest form contends that the problem of evil can be answered only by giving up the traditional doctrine of omnipotence. God’s power is not unlimited but limited. So, God cannot control all things. Hence God is not responsible or culpable for the horrendous evils that occur in the world. But Oord knows that this simple solution raises a host of questions for Christian believers, and he devotes most of the book to addressing them: How limited is God? Are God’s limits natural or self-imposed? What thing or things limit God? And does this limited God measure up to the God of Christianity?

First, let’s set the argument of Oord’s book into the larger context of argument from evil to atheism or some form of modified theism.

The General Philosophical Argument from Evil (Simple Version)

  1. An omnipotent God could prevent every instance of genuine evil
  2. A perfectly good God would want to prevent every instance of genuine evil.
  3. Genuine evil exists

Therefore:

  1. Either God is omnipotent but not good.
  2. Or, God is good but not omnipotent.
  3. Or, God is neither omnipotent nor good.
  4. Or, there is no God at all.

You can see clearly from the two arguments below how Oord’s overarching argument is driven by the general argument from evil:

Oord’s General Argument #1

  1. A God of love would want to prevent all genuine evil.
  2. Genuine evil occurs in the world.
  3. Hence, either there is no God of love or God cannot prevent all genuine evil.

Oord wishes to affirm the existence of a loving God, so he accepts the conclusion that “God cannot prevent all genuine evil.” But why can’t God prevent all evil? This question leads us to the next argument:

Oord’s General Argument #2

  1. If genuine randomness in physical processes and genuine creaturely freedom exists in the world, God cannot control everything that happens.
  2. Genuine creaturely freedom and randomness in physical processes exist in the world.
  3. Hence God cannot control everything that happens (including events that are genuinely evil).

In relation to the general philosophical argument from evil, we can see that Oord accepts conclusion #5 (God is good but not omnipotent) and rejects #4 (God is not good), #6 (God is neither omnipotent nor good, and #7 (There is no God).

Oord’s Critique of Other Open and Relational Thinkers

But now Oord faces a barrage of questions. It is not enough to say that God is loving but not omnipotent. One can imagine many loving but totally powerless beings. Why should we consider this loving but not omnipotent being “God”? Many thinkers who agree with Oord’s argument so far take this question very seriously and give this answer: God is not intrinsically, that is, by nature, limited. God limits himself. God freely decides to create a world where randomness and creaturely freedom exist. Once they exist, of course, God cannot determine the outcomes that randomness and freedom produce. But they do not exist by necessity. They exist only because God chose to create them. God was unlimited before creation but after creation God limits himself to give creation room to exercise freedom to love or hate, to choose good or evil. God chose to allow the possibility of genuine evil for the sake of the possible good. The ground of the possibility of good and evil is the same: creaturely randomness and freedom. But God never does evil or approves of evil. God does everything he can—other than reverse his decision to create creaturely freedom and randomness—to prevent genuine evil from occurring. In this way, these writers think they’ve preserved the deity of the loving but limited God…and solved the problem of evil.

Oord disagrees. He argues that the divine self-limitation theory does not do justice to the love of God. It makes God’s love for creatures a choice for God instead of the chief attribute of his nature. It implicitly makes God’s omnipotence the chief attribute because God could have chosen never to create and could yet reverse his decision if he wanted to do so. God could choose not to love, even if he never actually does so.

The Essential Kenosis Model of Providence

Oord offers an alternative to the divine self-limitation theory: “The Essential Kenosis Model of Providence.” According to Oord, if “God is love” in his essential being, he always loves and cannot refuse to love. God cannot contradict his essence. “God must give freedom and cannot override the gift given” (p. 171). God does not choose to limit himself. God is essentially self-giving, or self-emptying. Though he never explicitly says this, it seems to me that Oord thinks God creates the world by necessity, that creation is implicit in the inner nature of God. And if God creates by necessity, God has always been creating the world. I will pursue the consequences of this line thought in the next installments of this review.

Oord considers his model of providence superior to the models proposed by other open and relational thinkers (e.g. John Sanders) for two reasons. (1) The “essential kenosis” model possesses an inner coherence not present in the others. It makes love the master divine attribute in a radical and consistent way. Divine love judges and limits the exercise of all other divine attributes. (2) It really solves the problem of evil. In the “essential kenosis” model of providence, God cannot interfere with creaturely freedom and can never coerce creatures. God must create and give freedom to creatures. God has no choice. We know God does not desire or even allow evil because he does not even choose to create free creatures. God has no choice about this. They exist by necessity of the inner logic of divine love. Hence the problem of evil is solved. At no point is a divine decision involved actively or passively in the occurrence of evil or even in bringing about the conditions that make evil possible. Hence God cannot be blamed for genuine evil at any point in its genesis or history.

Next Time: I will offer some critical reflections on the fundamental presuppositions, central arguments, and implications of this book.

 

Lies, Lying, and Liars

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Have you read what the Bible says about lies, lying, and liars lately? Pretty strong words! “The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy” (Proverbs 12:12). Jesus spoke of the devil as “a liar and the father of lies” (Jo 8:44), an obvious reference to the lie the serpent told to Adam and Eve. Paul lists lying among some outrageous sins, saying that the law was not made for good people but “for slave traders and liars and perjurers” (1 Timothy 1:10). As a child who more than a few times lied to get out of trouble, the verse that really scared me is found in the scariest book in the Bible, Revelation:

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur (Revelation  21:8).

And there are so many more condemnations of lying. But as the essay progresses, you will see why the Bible presents the Ninth Commandment as the paradigm case of lying:

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor (Ex 20:16).

Falsehood and Lies

Why is the Bible so hard on liars? Let’s think for a while about the nature of the lie and the act of lying. A lie is a falsehood asserted knowingly and with the intention of deceit. But not all falsehoods are lies. Some are simply mistakes. A simple falsehood is a statement that does not correspond to the facts it mentions. The statement, “Highfield’s car is worth over $100,000.00,” is a falsehood. A falsehood, whether intentionally or unintentionally told, misstates what is real and unreal. In many cases, the practical consequences of believing a falsehood are insignificant. It makes little day-to-day difference whether I believe our solar system contains seven or nine or ten planets. However, believing and acting on a falsehood can have grave consequences. If I belief falsely that my car’s brakes are in working order, I may find myself in danger on a mountain road.

Knowledge is Power

Francis Bacon famously said, “Knowledge in itself is power.” If you have knowledge you have power, and in so far as you are ignorant or misinformed you are vulnerable. If you have a certain skill or have access to the latest technology, you have more economic and physical power than those who do not. If you are able to persuade millions of people that you know how to cure all social ills, you will command the power of millions of bodies and minds. If you know someone’s dark secrets, you have them at your mercy. If you have secrets, you will do your best to hide them. Knowledge is power! Ignorance is weakness! And falsehood is ruin!

Lies, Lies, and More Lies

People don’t lie gratuitously. Lying is always a means to an end; it is an act designed to gain power. Under the impression of imparting knowledge (power) to someone else, it offers falsehood (weakness) instead. In doing this, the liar exercises power over others or keeps others from exerting power over them. We do, feel, and think many things that we would be ashamed for others to know. When someone asks us about one of our secrets or is in a position to discover them, we feel the impulse to lie to cover ourselves. In this case, our aim in lying is to protect ourselves from others. We tend to judge this type of lie less harshly that the next one. Let’s call it “defensive lying”. Nevertheless, even this type of lie does harm to us and others. Instead of avoiding our shameful acts or confessing them we compound them by lying. Perhaps if we practiced the discipline of confession we would develop greater self-control and find ourselves less self-deceived in moments of temptation. Confession is the practice of telling the truth to God.

Some lies are designed, not to protect ourselves from others, but to gain power over them. These liars are on offense. They intend to seduce, manipulate, and deceive others into acting in a way that benefits the liar and harms the victim. A dishonest car dealer, a seducer, and a swindler intend to cheat us through deceit. A false witness intends to bring us to ruin through abuse of the legal system. Crooked politicians hope to gain political power by making false promises, lying about their opponents, and covering up the ugly truth about themselves. Quite reasonably, we tend to judge these liars more harshly than the previous class. They lie for the purpose of inflicting harm—to reputation, to liberty, property, and even life. And the Bible is even harder on false prophets who lie in God’s name to the spiritual detriment of others!

A More Excellent Way

I am not going to enter into the tortured case logic of lying: Can you lie to an intruder to protect life and property? Is refusing to answer a question a kind of lie? Is allowing someone to remain ignorant when we could enlighten them a lie? Is it okay to lie to spare someone’s feelings? May you lie when it “harms no one”? Clearly, from a certain point of view the seriousness of a lie can be determined by the seriousness of the harm it causes. But human judgments about the seriousness of the harm a lie causes to others are fallible and limited in scope. We often fail to take into account spiritual harm or the lost opportunity for love and unity.

In the Bible, there are two sides to the issue of lying, a negative one and a positive one. The negative one is obvious but the positive one is subtle. Of course, Christians should not be liars. But more than that, we should love truth and be willing to confess our weakness, sins, and faults. We should try to live our lives so that we have nothing to hide. If we trust in God’s power, we will be less concerned about gaining advantage over others and we will feel less vulnerable to others. If we love God, we will love others and will want to do them good. Speaking truth is an act of love. Lying always offends against love.

Sometimes the Soul Needs to Listen to the Body

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Nine days ago I underwent surgery for an inguinal hernia. My recovery from the anesthesia took longer than I expected, and I’ve been exhausted the whole nine days. What surprised me is how much my physical trauma manifested itself in my psychological moods and thoughts. I kept thinking I would use the physical recovery time to read and perhaps write a little. But instead I felt two disturbing moods come over me. I felt no energy for work, and when I tried to get something done my concentration failed me. Usually, I feel so many ideas clamoring for expression that I feel no lack of creativity. So, I feel like I’ve got nothing accomplished in the last nine days. And in those moments the thought crept in that my creative days are over. Nothing will change, ever! Compounding my inability to work was a burden of guilt (I can think of no better word.) for not accomplishing anything really worthwhile. My book project languishes, and I don’t feel like writing an essay for Ifaqtheology. But as I am pulling out of my funk, I’ve started thinking about the ethical and theological implications of these experiences.

God created us body and soul, physical and mental. And sometimes we downplay the intimate unity of body and soul. From an ethical point of view the soul/mind is supposed to rule the body. The body sends demands to the soul/mind, and the mind is supposed to judge the merit of those requests, measure them against other demands and the moral law. The body does good work for us, but it needs the eyes of the mind to enlighten its myopic vision of the good. But in the last nine days, I’ve learned that sometimes the body is smarter than the mind. The mind can be driven by wishes and theories to ignore the facts. The body stays stubbornly in the realm of fact.

I find it very interesting that the body can communicate with the soul/mind in a way that the mind can translate into thought and proposed action. In my case, my body was not urging me toward immoral actions so that my mind/soul had to be on its guard to redirect its urgings. My body was telling me to rest and let it heal. It communicated that message in clumsy ways as the body always does. It simply communicated a feeling of sleepiness, tiredness, pain, disinterestedness, and lack of creative energy. My mind at first was confused at this. “No, we have work to do! Books to read! Essays to write!” I was treating my body’s messages as if they were telling me to do something immoral, to be lazy, to shirk my duties. It took my mind nine days to accept the truth that my body knew from the start. After a physical trauma, my work, my duty, is to give my body time and leisure to regain its strength. I just have to believe that it will happen and I will know the joy of productive work again. Sometimes the soul needs to listen to the body!

A Study in Vice

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The Bible describes moral life in terms of virtues, vices, and actions. Virtues and vices have to do with dispositions of character. Actions concern movements from the self toward the external environment. The English word virtue derives ultimately from a Latin word that means power, that is, a learned skill that enables one to act appropriately. And the English word vice comes from the Latin word for fault, defect, or failing. A vice is not a power but a weakness, a lack of power. Virtues complement each other and together create harmony within the soul and promote harmony with others. Vices contradict each other and pull the soul in many directions at once and they set the vicious person against others. A virtue like courage or love is called a power because it enables us to act in a self-determined way regardless of the circumstances. Vices or weaknesses of character make us vulnerable to losing control of our behavior and becoming emotional slaves to our circumstances.

We cannot generate from within ourselves everything we need to survive. We are possessed with a desire for life. To live we need things that nature supplies. And to live well we need the companionship and cooperation of other people.  That is to say, we have desires and those desires are rooted in human nature. One of the four cardinal virtues is temperance. Temperance is the power to restrain and direct our desires so that they achieve their natural purposes but do not lead us into behaviors that are damaging to ourselves and others.

In many New Testament translations, desire (epithumia), when it is not moderated and directed by temperance, is translated “lust.” In older translations, it is sometimes translated “concupiscence”, and Christian moralists sometimes designate it “inordinate desire” or “unnatural desire.” Lust or intemperate desire is a very general concept. It is made specific by the type of object desired. Lust has come to mean inordinate desire for sexual gratification. Inordinate desire for money is called greed or avarice. Inordinate desire for food is called gluttony, and inordinate desire for rest is called indolence or sloth. Lust, Gluttony, Greed, and Sloth are four of the traditional seven deadly sins. These four are simple extensions of desire for physical things. The other three, wrath, envy, and pride, are more complicated and have a personal and spiritual component.

Envy

Now I want to consider vice of envy because it combines inordinate desire with another vice that intensifies its destructive power.  Envy is more than desire; it is desire for what rightfully belongs to someone else.  The envious person doesn’t simply desire the girl or boy, the car, house, or diamond. Envy is more than desire for recognition and reward. Envy resents the person who possesses something we want. As it grows envy becomes less about the desirability of the thing we want and more about the fact that the other person has it and we don’t. Why should you have the girl, the gem, or the money, and not I?  Why should you receive the honor and not I? Envy leads to all sorts of bitter thoughts and rationalizations, which in turn find expression in faultfinding, gossip, and lying. The cold wolf of envy often cloaks itself in the warm robes of righteousness, justice, and fairness.  He can call on God and all that is holy to justify his bitter judgment. And words can spiral out of control, producing anger, rage, hatred, and even murder.

The vice of envy illustrates well how sin against the neighbor is also sin against God. The question, “Why should he or she have that thing and not I?” is really an accusation against God. “God, why did you give the girl or boy, the money, or honor to that person and not to me?” If we trusted and loved God we would be satisfied with what he gives us. If we believed God loved us, we’d be satisfied with how God distributes his good gifts. And if we loved our neighbors, we’d rejoice with them over their blessings. Our tendency to envy others shows that we resent God and consider him unfair. If we believed that God is just, we’d leave judgment about who deserves what and who rightfully owns what to him alone.

Jealousy

The word jealously is often used as a synonym for envy.  In my view, we should reserve them for different vices; they have different objects. Jealousy like envy involves a desire, but in jealousy’s case the desire is to keep what one already possesses (or what one thinks he or she possesses) from falling into the hands of someone else. And the object over which one is jealous is almost always a person, not a physical object. It can be a spouse, friend or relative. I may think I am entitled to the exclusive attention of my friend or parent or spouse. A jealous husband or wife, for example, grows inordinately angry at the attention another man or woman pays to his or her spouse and resents the spouse’s apparent enjoyment of this attention.

Jealousy like envy has deep roots. If we feel insecure about the faithfulness of our spouse or friends, will we burn with jealousy when they give or receive attention from another person. Jealousy, too, is inordinate desire, not simply the desire for affection and faithfulness from the beloved, but selfish to the point of robbing the beloved of living their own life. The jealous person demands not only that the beloved love them but that she or he love no one else. From this description, we can conclude that jealousy also refuses to love and trust God. If we loved God above all things and trusted his love for us, we would not be so devastated at the thought of someone else robing us of our beloved. If we hold on to God, we will know that all good things come from God and that he will take care of us even if we are betrayed. God will be faithful even if the whole world becomes faithless.

Jealousy also violates the second greatest command. Jealousy as inordinate desire seeks to absorb the beloved and rob them of friendships with others. It is far from a jealous person’s thought to rejoice in the beloved’s joys and successes or to glory in his/her development toward maturity. Jealousy produces nothing good. Instead, it drives the beloved spouse or friend further away. Though on one level the beloved might mistake jealousy for love, on another level the beloved knows that they are not loved at all but only valued as a means to a selfish end.

The jealous person places the desire to be loved above the desire to love, and here the inordinate nature of jealousy comes clearly in to view. The proper order of love is to accept God’s love and return that love to God in praise, trust, and obedience. Jealousy can find no soil in such a heart. The jealous person loves no one but themselves, and even this self-love is an illusion because “to love one’s self in truth is to love God.” (Kierkegaard, Works of Love). If you don’t love God or your neighbor, you cannot love yourself truly. For you don’t desire or strive for the best for yourself.

Now we are in a position to see why the New Testament warns against such dispositions of the human heart. Envy and jealousy indicate disharmony in a person’s character. Hence when they are expressed and acted upon, they create conflict rather than promoting harmony among people. Whereas people that display contentment, self-control, gratitude, and love can live together in harmony, people who envy and are jealous cannot get along with each other.

I don’t think we can free our hearts of envy and jealousy by sheer will power. As I said above vices are weak, thoughtless, and defective. They are not things to root out but holes that need filling. So, instead of attempting futilely to change ourselves, we should contemplate God’s love for us, trust completely in God’s faithfulness, and meditate on the true order of love, which is God, neighbor, and self. At the same time, we must put the virtues into practice in our external actions. We will find that our hearts follow.

Please Don’t Say Everything You Think!

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Today, in a world ablaze, I say to myself, to other Christians, and to all people of good will: “Please, please do not say everything you think.” Our minds and memories are full of evil, selfish, petty, and blasphemous thoughts.  Who is without sin? Who will deny it? When I was young I thought Jesus’ teaching against swearing applied only to certain words or perhaps to the act of placing yourself under a curse. Don’t use God’s name except in reverence, don’t say “Jesus Christ!” or “Damn!” But I did not notice verse 37, which I have emphasized below:

33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one (Matthew 5:33-37).

Verse 37 condemns and warns against speaking a single word designed to wound or express anything other than respect, love, and truth or do anything other than good. We think many hateful, prejudiced, selfish thoughts. Don’t say them! Once you do, they will escape your control and take on a life of their own; and they will eventually turn on you.

When I was a teen I loved the Book of James. Perhaps it was because I felt such a need for wisdom. Life is so complicated and living in human society presents so many difficulties. James’ extensive instructions about the use of speech grabbed my attention. I have since that time tried (and often failed!) to put into practice James 1:19-20:

19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires (James 1:19-20).

James nails it. Anger makes its first external appearance in speech! James urges us to listen, get the whole story, allow reason, wisdom, and common sense experience teach us what to say, if anything at all. Don’t speak when angry. Better yet, learn where anger comes from and deal with the root problem. As I said in a previous post, anger is a reaction to insult. But Jesus told us to bless those who curse us. How can we do this? It can be done only if we refuse to be insulted, because we are clear that our dignity depends on God’s love and not the momentary thoughts of other human beings.

I heard many sermons on James 3:1-12, which is one of the most extensive discussions of the dangers of speech in the New Testament. And those preachers were right to preach often on this text. The power of words is deceptive. They are so easy to utter! But they can unleash hell, war, and murder:

3 Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.

3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water (James 3:1-12).

Oh, how we love to express our opinions, prejudices, and fancies…especially on religion and politics! We love the sound of our own voices! For the moment we feel as wise as our words boast. The tongue is so close to the brain and takes so little energy to operate. It works almost automatically. James warns us that teaching is a serious act. Teachers will be judged with stricter judgment. We don’t get off the hook by claiming that we are not “official” teachers. In any act of teaching in any context from a casual conversation to a blog post to a Facebook comment we should take seriously our responsibility to tell the truth and do something good. The tongue is so difficult to control that James uses self-control in speech as the gold standard measurement of maturity. Learn to discipline your speech and you will have learned to control every other impulse and passion.

A fire! A fire sparked by hell’s flames! That is what James calls uncontrolled speech. Thought is an internal act while speech is an external act. Speech is the gateway through which the demons within escape into the world to spread their poison. Oh, how sweet it is to let the poison out! Keep the gate shut! Let reason and wisdom, the twin guards, do their work.

In a culture where we can speak to the whole world through the media at our finger tips, allow me to say it again: “Please, please don’t say everything you think!” Don’t say it yourself, and don’t “like” or “share” any words you would not say yourself. Liking or sharing or forwarding anything that violates Jesus’ and James’ teaching is just the same as saying it yourself. We are not less guilt of a crime because we get someone else to do it for us. Let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no” be “no”. Bless and do not curse!

 

Christian Morality—Arbitrary, Irrational, Outdated?

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The Christian vision of the moral life is often ridiculed as arbitrary, irrational, or outdated. It’s too strict! It’s too serious! And it’s unrealistic about what human beings can do! We hear such things quite frequently in the media and from our secular friends. Sometimes the voice from which we hear such challenges comes from our own hearts. As I explore the specific contours of the Christian moral life, I will keep these accusations in mind, addressing them explicitly or implicitly in every essay.

Arbitrary

Before rushing to defend Christianity it is always wise to turn the tables on the critics to discover whether or not they can defend their criticisms from the very charge they make, in this case, of being arbitrary, irrational, or outdated.  What does it mean to assert that a moral rule is “arbitrary”? The English word arbitrary is derived ultimately from the Latin word for “will” or “willful.” The decisions we make should be informed by reason and wisdom gained through experience. But we succumb to arbitrariness when we ignore or suppress reason and follow fancy or prejudice. We become impatient and decide to “take a chance.” A moral rule is arbitrary, then, when it finds its origin in the whimsical impulse of a single will. Does any aspect of the Christian vision of the moral life fit the definition of arbitrariness?

Irrational

What about the charge of irrationality? The question of the rationality of a belief or action or moral rule concerns how the belief or action or rule is held by the one who asserts it. Is it held for good reasons or poor ones? One acts rationally if one acts for good reasons and irrationally if one acts for poor ones. The question of truth or falsehood is very different issue. It concerns the relationship between the assertion and the real state of affairs. Does it correspond or not? Critics often confuse the two questions.  Are critics saying that Christians hold their moral beliefs for reasons that should not count as evidence? Or are they saying that the moral belief in question is false? Or are they simply hurling thoughtless accusations that mean no more than “I don’t like what you are saying!” or “I don’t get it!”? I suspect that in most cases the last alternative applies.

Outdated

To say something is outdated is to depart altogether from moral categories and move into aesthetic categories. Clothes, hair styles, and carpet become outdated after a while, that is, they no longer appeal to our aesthetic tastes. The process of changing tastes is fascinating. Why do some old things seem outdated while others remain “classic,” or others make a comeback as “retro”? Clearly, fashion is based on some kind of social agreement, seemingly arbitrary in origin, but perhaps subtly articulating some wish or self-image of the age. However that may be, to speak of a moral rule as outdated assumes that it was at one time in style.  And “in style” is not a moral category any more than “outdated” is. Instead of taking the trouble to argue that a moral rule that was once thought to be right, just, and good, is no longer so, the critic misapplies aesthetic categories to moral issues. It’s much easier to dismiss something as “not in style” than to argue that it is wrong. The former appeals to the public’s subjective tastes and the latter can be substantiated only by appealing to a moral law that transcends subjective tastes.

Ends, Means, and Reason in Morality

Human beings act to achieve ends. Morality seeks to guide human actions toward the right ends and right means by which to achieve those ends. Often, a moral vision proposes an ultimate or highest end toward which all actions should be directed and by which they should be measured. All other ends and means should be subordinated to that chief end.  Almost all moral systems assume that individual human beings need to be directed to ends that transcend their private interests and momentary whims and passions. The long term health and happiness of an individual is a more worthy end than momentary pleasure, especially when the immediate pleasure damages the prospect of achieving the long term end. Since no one can achieve the human end alone, the good of the community within which one lives must take precedence over the private ends of the individual. Hence most moral rules concern interpersonal relationships, and seek to promote peace, harmony, and justice within the community by limiting individuals’ pursuits of their private interests when those pursuits seriously disturb the peace of the community.  Reason comes into play in morality through the necessity of making judgments about the relationships of ends and means to each other and to the supreme end of all actions.

Christian Moral Vision—Deliberate, Rational, and Never Out of Date

Christian morality also values reason, proposes a highest end, and subordinates and orders other ends to that chief end. God is the highest good and chief end of all things. And by “God” Christianity does not mean merely a supreme being but the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ whose character and purpose has been disclosed in Jesus. This God is the highest good toward which all our striving should be directed. The second highest end is the good of our neighbor. Our private interests must be subordinated to the good of others, and the “good” of others is defined by and subordinated to the love of God. By the “neighbor” Christianity means each individual we meet and the community constituted by those individuals. How can human striving after God, loving the neighbor, and seeking our own good be harmonized? Or can they?

Christianity envisions a universal community where the highest good of each person and the whole community are harmonized perfectly and directed to the supreme good. This community includes not only human beings; it includes God and the whole creation. God’s purpose in creating will be fulfilled in the formation of this community:

“ [God] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ (Ephesians 1:9-10).

Jesus Christ is the perfect union of God and humanity. In him, the hostility and distance between God and man has been overcome. Sin has been defeated and death swallowed up in victory. The mystery of God’s will is that God will extend and expand the sphere of Christ to include “all things in heaven and on earth.” Fragmentation and disharmony will be replaced by unity. Given God’s plan to unify “all things” in Christ it should not surprise us that unity, peace, and love are at the center of Christian morality:

3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called;5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:3-6).

13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. (Col 3:13-15).

Christianity envisions a moral community that in the present age strives for the unity, peace, and love that will characterize the perfect divine/human community that God will bring about at the end. Every action that Christian morality forbids is forbidden because in works against this community. And every action it encourages promotes this community. And this ordering all things toward their end of union with God in Christ is where Christianity’s use of moral reason is most evident.

Conclusion

Perhaps a rational and thoughtful person could argue that the Christian moral vision is based on a false view of the highest good and ultimate end of human life. And we might wish to take seriously an attempt to argue that Christianity ranks goods in the wrong order. But the charge that Christianity’s moral vision is arbitrary, irrational, and outdated can be dealt with rather swiftly. Clearly Christianity’s moral rules are neither arbitrary nor irrational, since they are based on the Christian community’s experience of God’s revelation in Christ’s resurrection and its hope for a future perfect community. And, if they direct us truly to our chief end, they are certainly not outdated.

Next Time we will examine envy, covetousness, and jealousy, showing what they are, how subtly they touch all our relationships, and how they fail to embody the future unity of “all things” in Christ.

A Good Human Being is Hard to Find and Finding a Good Christian is Even Harder

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Jesus summarized our duty to God in the command to love God with our whole being and our duty to other people in the command to love our neighbors as ourselves.  But what does it mean to “love God”? And what does it mean to “love your neighbor”? Sadly, many people within our culture are so alienated from the Christian way of understanding human life that they do not know the answer to these questions. Some even reject the idea of there being a right answer. In the previous two posts, I began to explore what it means to love our neighbors.

Paul charts the course for us in his ethical teaching. In last week’s essay,  I quoted 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, where he lists 7 things love does and 8 things love won’t do in relation to others. In Romans 13:8-10, Paul does something similar; but here he relates the love command to the negative provisions of the Ten Commandments:

8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Paul makes it clear that love should never be defined in a way that makes breaking the commandments the loving thing to do. Never! In coming weeks I plan to explore in detail some ways in which the Bible’s moral commands show us how to love our neighbors.

Today, however, I want to pursue a related set of questions: is the Christian moral vision recognizably “good” by all people of good will and sound reason? Is there a universal moral law? Or, is there such a thing as “a good human being”, and would a person who lived according to Christian moral vision be “a good human being”?

The New Testament writers clearly assume that to a certain extent everyone recognizes the difference between good and evil and right and wrong. And there is a huge overlap between the Christian vision of a good human being and the pagan vision of a good human being. I shall quote a few examples:

3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer (Romans 13:3-4).

Paul speaks here of the Christian’s relationship with those responsible for maintaining the civil order. No society can tolerate murder, robbery and theft, lying under oath, armed rebellion, and other anti-social behaviors. Consequently, everyone recognizes an honest, truthful, faithful, peaceful, self-controlled, and helpful person as a “good human being.” The angry, murderous, thieving, lying, out-of-control person is universally condemned as a “bad human being.” In Paul’s view, Christians have even more reasons and more power to be “good” in the area of social virtues than pagan do. Clearly, pagans do not think the distinction between a good person and a bad one is arbitrary. The virtues and behaviors that make a good person good are recognizably good and beautiful.

Peter also assumes that the difference between a good person and a bad one is universally recognizable, and pagans know the difference:

11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people (1 Peter 2:11-15).

13 Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14 But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed (1 Peter 3:13-14).

As did Paul in the earlier quote, Peter assumes that everyone recognizes the difference between behaviors and attitudes that contribute to the stability and welfare of a society and those that do not. The “good lives” of Christians refute the false accusations of some pagans. Indeed, Peter envisions Christians as model citizens that outdo the pagans in embodying the highest social virtues.

Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, and other Greek and Roman moralists agree that a good human being should possess the virtues of prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. These virtues are also praised in the New Testament along with many others that are implicit within them or consistent with them. I think one can argue that Jesus calls his disciples to a higher standard than even the highest pagan moralists do. But the most pressing issue in morality does not center on its ideals but on our failure to live up to those ideals. The pagans have high ideals but fail miserably to live up to them.

Hence the first imperative of the Christian moral vision is to become good human beings in the universally recognized sense. Christians don’t live by a totally alien and weird morality. We should at least live up to the best pagan morality, displaying prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. We should be kind, helpful, trustworthy, gentle, compassionate, honest, peaceable, faithful, patient, and generous. How can we rise to the heights of loving our enemies and doing good to those who hate us if we’ve not internalized the more basic virtues? By all means aim to become a good Christian, but understand that you cannot be a good Christian unless you are also a good human being.

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