Adding Insult to Injury: Faith and the Contemporary Moral Crisis (#6)

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In the previous installment of this series (#5) we learned that human beings discover what is good for them through experience. Each new generation must be taught the knowledge of the good acquired and tested by billions of individuals over thousands of years. The knowledge of what is good for us is communal and traditional. It should be obvious to any thoughtful person that no individual can acquire this knowledge from private experience alone.

Allow me to anticipate my final diagnosis of the contemporary moral crisis: the crisis was precipitated when modern culture abandoned the notion that human beings acquire experiential knowledge of the good as a community and transmit it through tradition. Simultaneously, modern culture adopted a romantic notion of the good as a feeling of well-being and an individualist view of how we come to know the good. Only by gross inconsistency, sheer arbitrariness and threats of coercion can modern culture assert a moral order that limits the behavior of individuals.

Not surprisingly, when Christian moralists appeal to the Bible to determine what is good and right they are met with incredulity and hostility from the dominant culture. Appealing to the Bible strikes modern people as strange for two reasons. First, the Bible preserves a view of the good learned by a community over many thousands of years and passed on in a tradition. Since our contemporaries don’t understand that communal experience and tradition are the only ways human beings can learn about the good, they reject our appeals to the Bible for this reason alone. They would reject the authority of any other community and tradition.

Second, Christian moralists don’t just appeal to the long-term experience of a community. They also equate the view of the good presented in the Bible with divinely revealed moral law. The rules and laws of the Bible present themselves not only as discoveries of what is good for human beings but also as divine commands. The consequence of not adhering to the good is experiencing something bad as a natural result. But the consequence of disobeying a divine command is divine wrath and punishment.

Perhaps this second aspect of the Christian moralist’s message is the primary reason for the hostility of the culture. It’s one thing to warn people of the natural negative consequences of their actions. It is another to invoke divine disapproval and threat of punishment in addition to the natural consequences of the bad act. The first may cause people to smile at our naiveté, but the second will be taken as an insult and will evoke anger. It adds insult to injury.

But it’s not just outsiders who experience difficulty reconciling the good with the right and comprehending the relationship between learning about the good in communal experience and learning about it from a divine command. Believers, too, are often disturbed by the thought of God punishing bad behavior with pain in addition the act’s natural consequences. Or, perhaps they are troubled even more by the thought that God might command something unrelated to any obvious good and punish transgressors even when natural negative consequences are wholly absent. The moral crisis touches the church more than we would like to admit.

I want to begin to address these difficulties by considering the issue of why a divinely commanded moral law may be needed above and beyond humanly discovered good. I am assuming for the moment that we at least understand the reasonableness of looking to the moral tradition contained in the Bible for instruction about the good. As I argued above, it is most wise for an individual to accept the moral authority of a long, continuous community and tradition above private feelings and experience or abstract theory. But why divine commands?

(1) In view of human wickedness and the human tendency to degenerate into sensuality and violence, we can see the value of divine guidance and inspirations to help lawgivers, prophets, religious and moral reformers formulate the truly good for the community. This is certainly how the Bible sees it. After the fall in Genesis, chapter 3, humanity keeps on its downward moral trajectory until there is only one good human being, Noah. From the biblical point of view the customs of the peoples surrounding Israel are evil and inhumane. The laws given by God through Moses, however, are good and wise (See Psalm 119!).

Even though most of the moral laws in the Bible could have been learned—and in some cases were learned—from communal experience, human beings are inclined to follow their immediate desires rather than reason. And this inclination can even poison the moral traditions of whole cultures, for example, Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18 and 19). Hence, from the biblical perspective, God’s decision to educate his people about the truly good by giving laws is a gracious and kind act.

Next week we will consider a second reason divine commands are necessary: God has good things in mind for human beings that extend beyond individual and even communal well being, and only God knows this good.

To be continued…

How Do YOU Know? Faith and the Contemporary Moral Crisis (#5)

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To understand and deal with the contemporary moral crisis it is first necessary to get clear ideas of the good and the right. I think we’ve accomplished this in the first four parts of this series. The good is what is truly good for us in the most comprehensive sense and the right is what corresponds to moral law. But these concepts are still rather abstract. Perhaps it’s time to talk about how we know what specific things and actions are good for us.

The Good and Experience

We don’t come into the world knowing very much about what is good for us. As infants and small children we need adults to protect us from bad things and provide us with good. Almost immediately adults begin to teach us the difference between good and bad. Somewhere along the way to adulthood we learn from trusted others and from our personal experience enough to survive. We learn about what is good for our physical bodies. Fire, electricity and busy streets are dangerous. We need to eat our vegetables and drink our milk. We also learn social goods and evils. We don’t bite our playmates and we share our toys.

But all the adults in our lives were themselves at one time children and had to learn what is good and bad from the previous generation of adults…and that generation from the one before it. We can’t just keep resorting to the previous generation. From where did the knowledge of what is good and bad for human beings originate? Remember what we said in earlier posts: to say that something is good for us means that it enables us to flourish and achieve our end. The goodness of a thing or an act is revealed when it actually causes human beings to flourish and achieve their ends. It can’t be known theoretically. To say it another way: human beings learn what is good for them by experience.

Community and Tradition

But we cannot learn all we need to know about what is good and bad for us through our own experience! Indeed, by the time we can survive without constant supervision, we’ve already learned from others a way of thinking about the world and hundreds of rules about good and bad. We are born into a human community that is already heir to thousands of years of traditional wisdom. We inherit billions upon billions of years of human experience. Hence knowledge of good and bad comes to the individual in the form of traditional wisdom formulated in rules, maxims, advice, observations and sometimes in laws. And the best and most enduring parts of this wisdom are often preserved in fables, parables, and proverbs. In every age there are wise men and women who pay special attention to this tradition, collect it, organize it and write it down. We are all the beneficiaries of their work. (In the past, education consisted primarily of teaching this wisdom to the next generation…but that is another story.)

Notice that although experience is the original teacher of good and bad, the lessons of experience are mediated to individuals by language, the language of rules. Though the rules derived from the collective experience of the human race are not infallible, it seems foolish indeed for an individual to flout the lessons learned from billions of years of human experience in favor of their limited and as yet incomplete experience in living. Nor would a theoretical notion, such as autonomy or equality, suffice to overturn the authority of such a huge reservoir of experience. Traditional wisdom is derived from millions of completed lives, observed and assessed from within and without. Hence if we really desire the truly good we should acknowledge the limits of our individual wisdom and pay reverent attention to the wisdom of the moral tradition.

Where are We and Where are We Going?

We’ve learned some important lessons. Human beings learn what is truly good for them through experience and this good can be confirmed again and again by experience. But we’ve seen that we cannot discover what is truly good for us from our own private experience. We depend on the experience of generations of those who came before us. These lessons help us understand some things about the biblical vision of the good and the right that are often obscured in contemporary discussions. In anticipation of future posts consider this: given what we’ve learned about how human beings actually come to know the good, it should not be surprising that Christians look to the laws, parables, proverbs and direct moral teaching of the Old and New Testaments to learn what is truly good for them. Everyone looks to moral tradition in one form or another. We have no choice. But Christians understand the moral tradition contained in the scriptures to be based on more than mere human experience, and it is concerned with a wider horizon and a greater end than life in this world. Christians believe that this human experience was elevated and deepened by divine revelation and providence and by the working of the divine spirit.

To be continued…

Moral Law—So Yesterday! Faith and the Contemporary Moral Crisis (#4)

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The Right

In the first three installments of this series, we examined the concept of “the good” for its relevance to morality. We discovered that the good is not by itself a moral category. Strictly speaking, the mere fact that something is good for us does not obligate us to seek it. It leaves undecided whether or not we are at fault for refusing it. In my view, a sense of obligation is an essential feature of moral experience. And this requirement leads us to the concept of “the right.”

Hence the concept of “the right” is indispensable for moral reasoning. If something is good because it is “good for” something else, then something is right because it corresponds to a norm, standard or authority. The answer to a math problem will be right when the student understands the symbols and follows the rules for the operations. A history of a Civil War battle is not right unless it corresponds to the facts. In the same way, a human action is morally right only if it measures up to a moral law. And an act is morally wrong if it breaks a moral law.

Human Law

We are familiar with the concept of human law, that is, law legislated by the state. The state claims authority to make and enforce laws to regulate the behavior of its citizens. A law is a statement that forbids or requires a certain act and prescribes the penalties for infractions. It is legislated by a legislative authority, enforced by an executive and adjudicated by judges.

But we know that the state is not the ultimate moral authority and that demands of the state are not right simply because it commands them. Human laws can be right or wrong, just or unjust, good or bad. There is hardly any need to marshal examples of unjust laws. They are all too common in human history. But we can judge a human law to be wrong only when we see that it is out of line with a higher law by which human laws must be judged.

Natural Law

What is this higher law? And how is it legislated and made known? On what authority, and who enforces and adjudicates it? For many thinkers, nature is a prime candidate for this higher law. After all, nature exists independently of human culture and law. So, let’s consider the possibility that there is a natural law that stands above legislated law.

Upon consideration, natural law can mean only in two things. Natural law either describes (1) the basic physical laws according to which nature invariably works or it describes (2) the conditions and actions required for human flourishing.

In neither sense of natural law do we come under an obligation to act or refrain from acting. In the first case (1) we have no obligation to act consistently with basic physical laws, since we have no freedom of choice in this area. Obligation and moral law concern only free actions. In the second case (2), natural law merely describes “the good” or what is good for us, and, as we noted above, the concept of the good does not include the concept of the right.

Natural law can have the force of moral law only if the order of nature reflects the will of a moral authority above nature. If there were no God or anything like God, the order of nature would be a brute fact with no moral authority. Our actions would be limited only by nature’s physical laws. There would be no class of actions that ought to be done or that ought not to be done. The idea of an unjust or wrong human law would make no sense.

Creation

However, for Christian theology the order within nature reflects the will of the Creator. The world is the creation of an infinitely good, just and wise God. Hence the true order of nature, including those actions that enable human beings to flourish and achieve their natural ends, possesses moral authority.

Hence we are obligated to seek to know and follow the law of nature, that is, those conditions and actions that enable human beings to function properly, flourish and achieve their end. In this way, what is good for human beings (“the good”) and our obligation to obey the moral law (“the right’) converge in the will of God. Or to say it another way: if we consistently do the good, we will also be acting rightly. And if we consistently do the right, we will also be achieving the good.

Where Are We?

Where are we in the series? We’ve arrived at a way to conceive of the union of the good and the right: the will of God is reflected in the created order. So far, so good! But there is much more ground to cover. Do human beings have ends beyond nature? Is there a divine law not given in nature? How do we learn what is good and right? If good and right ultimately coincide why do we need both concepts, and which is primary?

To be continued…

 

Says Who? Faith and the Contemporary Moral Crisis (#3)

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Last week (#2) we concluded that we call a thing “good” when we want to express the relation of being “good for” between it and something else. To say a particular hammer is good is to say that it is good for doing what hammers are meant to do. In analogy, to say a particular human being is “good” is to say that this human being is capable of doing and actually does what human beings are meant to do. In the same way, a particular human action is good if it does for human beings what human actions are meant to do for human beings.

Notice that hammers, human beings and human acts can be called “good” only if we know what they are meant to be and do. And the idea that human beings are meant to be and do certain things and not others implies that they possess natures and ends. Put as simply as I can, a nature (or essence) is the design plan or structure of a thing that makes it the kind of thing it is. Inherent in the idea of a design plan of a thing is its proper function and purpose. Just as a hammer’s design plan suits it for driving nails but not for threading needles, human nature directs human beings to certain ends and not others. And certain acts enable human nature to function properly to achieve its intended end and others do not.

The idea of the good is relevant to moral issues only if human beings possess natures that determine the conditions under which they can function properly to achieve the end at which their nature aims. Without the idea of human nature and its end, the “good” will always be reduced to the “pleasant”. And the pleasant is not a moral category. Whether you find a certain activity pleasant or not cannot by itself demonstrate whether or not it is good for you. As we will see in the course of this series, at the center of our contemporary moral crisis is the loss of faith or even the explicit rejection of the idea that human beings possess natures and ends. Human nature and its ends have been replaced by the arbitrary human will. (See the series on the God and the Modern Self for more on this shift.)

Philosophers from Aristotle onward attempted to describe the perennial and essential features of human nature and the ends toward which it is naturally directed. Aristotle’s work on this subject in Nicomachean Ethics exercised profound influence on western ethical thought, and it still commands respect today. Although I value such naturalistic ethics and I am happy that many thinkers engage in it, as a Christian theologian I cannot limit myself to examining human nature apart from my faith in God as the Creator of human nature, Jesus Christ as the perfect example of a good human being and union with God as the end of human nature.

For Christian moral thought, the idea that human beings possess natures and an ends is securely grounded in the confession of God as the maker of heaven and earth. God created human beings “in his image and likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Throughout the Bible God deals with human beings as if they were designed to function properly by doing certain things and not others. Certain individuals are set forth as examples of “good” human beings. Jesus Christ serves as the supreme example of a perfect human life. Certain commands direct us to engage in activities that show us the best of which human beings are capable, chiefly the commands to love God above all else and our neighbors as ourselves. The resurrection of Jesus Christ and our union with him in faith and baptism ground our hope of eternal life and union with God in the general resurrection.

In sum, the Christian understanding of the good is determined by the following convictions: (1) the most important characteristic of human nature is that it is the image and likeness of God, (2) human nature’s proper function is to image the perfect character of God in the world as informed by the example of Jesus Christ, and (3) human nature is directed by its Creator toward the end of eternal life and union with God. Nothing can be considered good or good for human beings that contradicts or inhibits these three principles.

These three foundational principles provide us with the lenses with which to read the Bible along with the church to fill out in greater detail the character of a good human being, that is, a picture of what the Creator intended human beings to do and become.

To be continued…

Words and Weapons: Faith and the Contemporary Moral Crisis (#2)

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“Discussion of theology is not for everyone,” warned Gregory of Nazianzus in the heat of the late 4th century controversy over the Trinity. It is for serious minded and thoughtful people. It’s “not just another subject like any other for entertaining small-talk, after the races, the theater, songs, food, and sex: for there are those who count chatter on theology and clever deployment of arguments as one of their amusements” (Oration 27, Chapter 3).

Basil the Great describes the controversy of his day (late 4th century) as like a great naval battle:

“Imagine, if you will, the ships driven into confusion by the raging tempest, while thick darkness falls from the clouds and blackens the entire scene, so that signals cannot be recognized, and one can no longer distinguish friend from foe…Think of the cries of the warriors as they give vent to their passions with every kind of noise, so that not a single word from the admiral or pilot can be heard…they will not cease their efforts to defeat one another even as their ships sink into the abyss” (On the Holy Spirit, Chapter 30).

In a very different setting, Matthew Arnold spoke of his age as dwelling on “a darkling plain, Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night” (Dover Beach, 1867).

As I look out on the moral crisis that has engulfed our culture, I see the trivialization of the serious of which Gregory complained, the explosion of violent passion Basil describes and the ignorant, nocturnal clash that so troubled Matthew Arnold. My first inclination is to stay out of it and let the enemies vent their passions on each other. Recoiling from the combatant’s sword and the referee’s flag, I prefer to carry the medic’s bag. And yet, perhaps, there is something I can do even during the heat of the battle. For not everyone is enraged all the time. Some have not yet joined the fray, others are resting on the sidelines, and still others wish to stay neutral. And some, only a few perhaps, long to understand what is happening and why and what to do in response.

In riots participants use sticks, broken bottles and bricks as weapons. In moral controversy combatants use words. Words can convey information or express feelings. They can illuminate the mind or evoke emotion. And the emotions they instill can be positive or negative. Many—too many—contemporary discussions of moral issues consist primarily in expressions of emotion, approval or disapproval, in the absence of conceptual clarity and precision.

The Good

In this series I want to address this lack of conceptual clarity. I’d like to begin by reflecting on the concepts of the good and the right, two of the most basic categories necessary for conducting reasonable discussions of moral questions.

I find it interesting that even though the word “good” is very general and bland, it is indispensable for discussions of morality. The meaning of the word can range from weak expressions of esthetic pleasure to assertions of superlative excellence. It can be used to express personal preference or pronounce moral judgment. It can be (mis)used as synonym for the “right” or it can mean the “pleasant”. Given the wide range of meanings for the word good, it would seem important to be clear and specific in one’s use of the term in serious moral discussions.

Examination of all the ways the word good is used shows that in every case, except in reference to God or its misuse to mean the right, it is used in a relative sense; that is to say, something is declared to be “good for” something else. Apart from God, who is absolutely good, any finite good can be “good for” one thing but bad for something else: Salt is good for preserving meat but bad for snails.

A thing can be “good for” someone in two senses: it can give pleasure or promote well-being. Likewise it can be bad for someone in two senses: it can cause unpleasant feelings or reduce well-being. To say that something is good in the first sense is to express the connection between it and a feeling of pleasure. Examples are abundant: that was a good meal, a good show, a good experience.

But an experience can give momentary pleasure and not be “good for” one in the sense of promoting one’s well-being: “Overeating is not good for you.” And an experience can be “good for” your well-being but not be especially pleasant. We can readily offer examples: “Eat your vegetables because they are “good for” you,” “Moderate exercise is “good for” you,” and “Honesty is the best policy.” These assertions declare that possessing these goods, regardless of whether or not they give immediate pleasure, advances your well-being. We can distinguish these two meanings of the word good by naming one “the pleasant” and the other “the productive”.

Let’s draw a preliminary conclusion. To engage in fruitful moral discussions it is important not to confuse the two meanings of “good”, the pleasant and the productive. If one party uses the word good to mean the immediately pleasant and the other party uses it to mean that which is productive of long-term or ultimate well-being, the discussion will be futile.

We can hardly dispute a claim that someone finds something pleasant or unpleasant. The claim is the proof! Hence this type of assertion about goodness is not subject to rational debate—although feelings of pleasure or displeasure can still be expressed in reaction to such claims. (Example, “I find disgusting what you find pleasant.)  But a claim that something is productive of long-term or ultimate well-being is subject to discussion and dispute.

What is the difference? The difference is this: the assertion that X is productive of long-term or ultimate well-being is a claim about what our physical, psychological, moral or spiritual natures require for proper and optimum functioning. This can be true only if within these dimensions of human existence there are objective structures and inherent ends, subject to rational analysis; additionally, these structures and ends must remain constant regardless of our subjective feelings.

Analysis of the concept of the good has led us to the concept of human nature, its proper functioning and its ultimate end. Is there such a thing as human nature, and, if so, how can we discover what is “good for” it? Do human beings have a natural (and perhaps a supernatural) end, and do we know what it is? These questions lead us to our most basic beliefs about God and creation.

To be continued…

Forget Truth!…Is Christianity Even Good? Faith and the Contemporary Moral Crisis (#1)

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Christianity has its critics and always has. From the beginning it faced opposition from religious and political authorities, from cultural arbiters and from grassroots society. Paul noted that many of his fellow Jews considered the message of the cross unworthy of God and the Greeks dismissed it as foolish (1 Cor 1:18-25). The Romans disparaged Christians as “atheists” and “enemies of the human race.” And the cultured elite of the Empire considered it superstitious. Depending on the spirit of the times, the Christian faith has been attacked as rationally incoherent, historically false, politically subversive and morally bankrupt.

Christians have been characterized as backward, snobbish, clannish, cultish and self-righteous. If I may be allowed a broad judgment, it seems to me that in the first three centuries of the church the major criticisms of Christianity were moral in nature. Christianity was attacked as a corrupting influence on society that produced political subversion, social conflict and moral decline. And many of the early Christian apologists dealt with these charges in their writings.

At least since the Enlightenment, the dominant challenges to Christianity have been intellectual. Philosophers challenged the possibility and need for revealed religion. They focused their critique on the biblical miracles, dismissing them as myths, legends or lies. And historians challenged the authenticity and historical accuracy of the New Testament writings. After Darwin, many critics challenged the truth of divine creation and even denied the existence of God, urging that the theory of evolution removes the need for a supernatural explanation for life. Understandably most modern defenders of Christianity dealt primarily with these intellectual challenges. Answering the question “Is Christianity true?” has been the dominant concern of modern Christian apologetics.

But it seems to me that since the middle of the 20th century the apologetic situation of Christianity in the western world and particularly in the United States has changed dramatically. The most urgent question has shifted from “Is Christianity true” to “Is Christianity good?” Could we be returning to the situation that characterized the first three centuries of the church in which Christianity’s opponents ignored the question of truth and challenged Christianity’s goodness? Even in the modern era there has been an undercurrent of moral criticism of Christianity. Deism denied the need for a divinely revealed morality, and the Romantic Movement developed an individualistic and subjective definition of the good that justified transgressing moral conventions.

Karl Marx argued that Christianity justified suffering and oppression and robbed the majority of humanity of well-being in this life by promising rewards in the next life. Friedrich Nietzsche blasphemed Christianity as a slave religion, contending that its teaching about sin, compassion, humility and the need for forgiveness kept people from achieving their natural excellence. And Freud explained moral rules as rationalizations of irrational impulses buried deep in the human psyche.

The so-called “sexual revolution” of the 1960s brought to the surface the undercurrent of Romanticism that has always been just under the surface in American culture. It rebelled against the conventional moralism of respectable society, adopting the Romantic definition of the good as individualistic and subjective. It manifested itself most visibly in the youth culture of drugs, free love and rock ‘n’ roll. And the postmodernism of the 1980s borrowed from Marx, Nietzsche and Freud—the so-called “masters of suspicion”—to ground the instinctive moral rebellion manifested in the sexual revolution in a theory of deconstruction and suspicion. This theory interprets all truth claims, social structures, moral rules, esthetic norms, religious beliefs—that is, any objective construct whereby one person or group sets the rules for other persons or groups—as manifestations of the hidden desire for domination.

This is the situation in which Christians must proclaim, explain and defend the Christian vision of life today. You may think I am too pessimistic, that there are many people in the United States, perhaps the majority, who have not adopted moral nihilism as a philosophy of life. You are probably correct about the number of thoroughly consistent nihilists: there are relatively few. But the metric by which I am measuring the moral situation is different. I am gauging the situation by two symptoms that I think indicate an underlying crisis:

(1) How many people do you know who can give a coherent moral explanation for rightness or wrongness, goodness or badness of a particular moral belief they hold? Don’t most people, Christians as well as non Christians, simply appeal to their feelings and choices to justify their moral beliefs? But such justifications merely imitate the nihilistic culture; for that is how it justifies its rebellion against moral rules it doesn’t like!

(2) Imagine yourself standing before a group of your contemporaries, whether the group is chosen at random from society or is comprised of people from your church. Now what reaction would you expect to receive if you argued from a natural or revealed moral law that a certain behavior—especially if it is connected to the sexual revolution in any way—is immoral, that measured by an objective moral standard the behavior is wrong and bad? I think you know the answer to these questions. Modern people, including church-goers, have lost confidence that there is a moral order, that there is a way we are supposed to live our lives.

And, if Christians nevertheless assert such a moral order we will likely face something like what our brothers and sisters faced in the first three centuries. Are we ready?

Next week we begin to explore the vocabulary in which moral discussions are conducted: good, bad, right, wrong, justice, and more.

Heaven and Earth Reconciled: God and the Modern Self #16

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This installment completes this series. So, perhaps now would be a good time to let you in on a theological assumption I have made throughout this series: We can arrive at a Christian understanding of God only by viewing everything in the Bible and everything reason may tell us about God through the prism of Jesus Christ. For Christianity, God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is eternally Father, Son and Holy Spirit, everlasting self-giving love. There is no other God. Every divine attribute and action, every biblical narrative and assertion, before it can be legitimately incorporated into the Christian doctrine of God, must be harmonized with the vision of God that has come to light in Jesus Christ. The event of Jesus Christ is not merely a revelation of God; it is the revelation of God. In Ephesians 1:10, Paul tells us that it was always God’s secret plan “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.” And this text also sets the agenda for theology. All ideas about God must be brought to unity under Christ.

Operating on this theological assumption, I examined the ideas of divine omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence in view of the vision of God that was brought into view by event of Jesus Christ. What seemed so menacing when contemplated in isolation appears as such good news when seen light of Jesus. God’s power can no longer be understood as the arbitrary will for domination. Now we know that it is the life-giving Life that appeared in Christ. The true character of God’s omnipresence is revealed in the incarnation of the Son of God. God can be with us, in us and united to us without displacing us. We no longer fear God’s absolute knowledge of us because now we understand this knowledge as the wisdom of his love. God knows how to love us, care for us and save us.

I also applied this theological assumption in our quest to understand who we are in relation to God. We cannot see ourselves as God sees us by studying history or reflecting on our feelings, thoughts and experiences. Nor can we understand ourselves by collecting biblical texts about human nature, sinfulness or destiny, unless those texts are brought to unity “under Christ.” For Christian theology, Jesus Christ is the revelation human nature and destiny. The event of Jesus Christ is the event of God uniting humanity to himself and bring it to its definitive perfection and its final destiny. In Christ we find no conflict between God and the full flowering of human perfection and happiness. Jesus Christ is God and humanity united in perfect harmony. To do the will of God and to seek our greatest good are one and the same endeavor. For God to work his sovereign will and to love the world in Christ through the Spirit are one and the same project. Just as we learn from Christ that God is self-giving love, we also learn that the perfection of human nature is self-giving love. And “self-giving love cannot compete with self-giving love” (p. 213).

To close this series I will quote the last paragraph of the book God, Freedom & Human Dignity:

“At the beginning of this book I expressed concern that we may hold back part of ourselves from God because we fear that God is in some way our competitor, that we might lose something if we give ourselves to God and that God may not be wholly for us. I hope by now we can see that there is not the slightest ground for such fears. The very opposite is true. God is so much for us and we are made so much for God that only by returning ourselves to God utterly may we become truly ourselves and live life to the full. In loving God for God’s sake alone we will find genuine freedom and in allowing ourselves to be loved by God we will discover our true dignity” (p. 217).

Next week I will begin a series that deals with the creeping moral crisis that is engulfing modern western culture and the challenge the culture’s moral nihilism poses to the Christian vision of human life. In my experience, contemporary discussions of morality consist of incoherent assertions of prejudice and outbursts of emotional anguish, mixed with rude protests and not so veiled threats of violence. Hence my approach will be to search for what went wrong and to clarify the alternatives that reveal themselves in that search. I think we will discover that the loss of robust Christian doctrines God, creation, sin and salvation preceded and facilitated the loss of a coherent moral vision. And only by regaining a deep understanding and belief in these Christian teachings can we successfully weather the storm about to break on the gates of the church.

Am I Really Worth It? God and the Modern Self #15

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How much are human beings worth and why? In the late 18th century, Immanuel Kant answered that basis of human dignity (or worth) resides in the mysterious core of our being where we create ourselves by ourselves. Other answers have been given: our dignity lies in our rational nature, which excels all other creatures. Or, our worth must result from achieving moral excellence, military glory, or some other accomplishment that marks us for distinction. Recently, the answer has become that I deserve respect from others simply because I want it, assert it and demand it. But even as I assert my dignity, I could still ask in my heart, “Am I really worth it?”

There is something unsatisfying about these answers. I may wish for the mysterious power of self-determination and self-creation that Kant postulates but I can’t conceive it clearly or feel it intensely. But my inherited characteristics, my limits and my unworthy qualities press in on me from a much closer range. If I attempt to feel my worth by contrasting my intelligence with unreasoning creatures or counting my accomplishments, I could achieve only a relative worth. Others possess greater intelligence and have achieved greater glory. And even if I managed to convince myself that I am greater than all other creatures, I would know in my heart that my worth is still limited. I could imagine being greater and better than I am. In that knowledge, I could still feel unworthy and unhappy. And I can’t help but notice that asserting my worth and demanding respect, though it expresses my desire for worth and respect, does not make them real. Shouting at the world does not change it. I could still ask, “Am I really worth it?”

When asked about the basis of human dignity Christians usually refer to our creation “in the image of God.” And that is a good answer. At least, it’s a good first answer. The problem, however, is that it is unclear exactly what that means. Does the “image” refer to our rational nature? Does it point to our assignment to rule over creation? Or is it a moral quality that can be lost and regained? Each of these answers has found brilliant defenders throughout Christian history. Hence merely asserting that we are created “in the image of God” still leaves us with questions. And each of the proposed explanations of the “image” refers to a quality or a role that never escapes the realm of the comparative and the limited. I could still ask, “Am I really worth it?”

There is another theme in the Bible that touches on human worth. And its meaning is much clearer than the image of God theme. Perhaps you have noticed that I have been using the words “dignity” and “worth” interchangeably in this essay. This is because the word dignity is derived from the Latin word for worth. The word dignity does not resonate with the English language as well as the word “worth.” Dignity is vague but worth is clear. We know that something is worth something if it is worth something to someone. The word dignity sounds mysterious and even vacuous.

Hence the question “How much is a human being worth and why?” can be answered only by specifying who values human beings and how much. Does this mean, then, that if no other human being values me I am worth nothing? Does my dignity rise and fall with others’ attitudes toward me? No, it does not.  And here is why.

That other theme in the Bible and Christian history is that we are worth something because we are worth something to God. God loves us! God does not love us because we possess certain excellent qualities or that we have achieved something admirable. Everything excellent and admirable in us is caused by God’s love. God’s love for us has no cause outside God. God’s love is the beginning, the explanation and the cause of everything worth loving in us. So, “Am I really worth it?” Yes, you really are because God’s love is the cause of everything real. God’s love for you is real and eternal. It cannot change.

But how much does God love me? Perhaps God loves me more than human beings love me, but is there a limit to God’s love? If God’s love is finite, is my worth is finite as well? And if my worth is finite won’t I still dream of greater dignity and hence experience unhappiness? No, God’s love for you is infinite!

In the New Testament, the proof of God’s love for us is that he gave his Son for us (John 3:16; Romans 5:8; Ephesians 5:1-2; Galatians 2:20; 1 John 4:9-11, and so many more). How much does the Father love Jesus his eternal Son? The Father loves his Son as much as he loves himself! How much does the Father love us? Since he gave his Son for us–and he loves his Son as much as he loves himself–we know the Father loves us as much as he loves himself!

“Am I really worth it?” According the New Testament, God thinks you are! Don’t look at yourself for evidence that you are loved, that you are worth it. Look to God and know that the giving love of the Father and the self-giving love of the Son demonstrate how much God thinks you are worth.

As a post script, listen to the words of the 12th Century theologian and spiritual writer Bernard of Clairvaux:

“Could any title be greater than this, that He gave Himself for us unworthy wretches? And being God, what better gift could He offer than Himself? Hence, if one seeks for God’s claim upon our love here is the chiefest: Because He first loved us (I John 4.19). Ought He not to be loved in return, when we think who loved, whom He loved, and how much He loved?… In the first creation He gave me myself; but in His new creation He gave me Himself, and by that gift restored to me the self that I had lost. Created first and then restored, I owe Him myself twice over in return for myself. But what have I to offer Him for the gift of Himself? Could I multiply myself a thousand-fold and then give Him all, what would that be in comparison with God?” (On Loving God)

Note: This installment can be read as a companion to chapter 15 of God, Freedom and Human Dignity (“God’s Love as the Ground and Measure of Human Dignity”).

Questions for Discussion

1. Discuss the Kantian and modern-self views of human dignity. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each?

2. What is your view of the biblical theme of “the image of God”? Do you agree that its meaning is rather vague?

3. What are the implications of thinking of the word “dignity” as “worth”? What is gained and what is lost by this interpretation?

4. Discuss the shift to grounding human dignity in God’s love and away from grounding it in qualities we possess.

5. Discuss the idea that God’s loves us as much as God loves himself?

6. Reflect on how we may appropriate the secure foundation and magnitude of our worth advocated in this essay? How would internalizing this view of our worth affect our joy and confidence in life? And how would it affect the way we treat other people?

 

Next week: The conclusion to the series!

“Jesus Means Freedom”*: God and the Modern Self #14

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We are getting close to the end of our series! Today I want to explain why the freedom Jesus promises is so much better than that promised by the modern self. In a culture where most people view freedom as the power to do as you please and become whatever you want, the claim that trusting and obeying God leads to freedom will certainly meet with skepticism. Even many believers think we have to give up some freedom in order to do the right thing always and take on the image of Christ. I want to show that this is not true. The way of Christ is freedom and leads to ever greater freedom. Jesus means freedom!

First, let’s recall that in installment #7 of this series we discovered that the modern self offers a purely external freedom and ignores the inner limits on freedom. In response, we emphasized the decisive importance of those inner limits. We do not know ourselves or the possible consequences of our actions well enough to insure that simply doing what we want or making choices autonomously will lead to happiness. But securing our happiness is the very reason we want freedom! We think we know how to make ourselves happy better than anyone else does, and on the whole that may be true. Experience shows, however, that we don’t know either.

Second, recall that every view of freedom must take into account four factors: self, other, power and exemption. The modern self’s view of freedom leaves out of consideration the most serious “other” that limits our freedom and takes no notice of the only power that remove that “other.” In the teaching of Jesus and the rest of New Testament, the thing we most need is liberation from that inner “other” that consists of sin, blindness, ignorance, guilt, corruption, fear and falsehood. This inner “other” keeps us from embracing fully our true identity as images of God, as children of God. We don’t have power to do the right thing always and become “perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). Even if we had unlimited power and opportunity to do as we please we could not attain what would lead to our ultimate happiness, unless we also possessed power over the inner “other”.

Jesus promised power to overcome the inner “other”. Only the Creator knows the creature better than it knows itself. Indeed, God knows us infinitely better than we know ourselves. He made us! He knows what is wrong with us and how to correct it. God knows what we are, why we are here and what will make us supremely happy. God’s creative power unleashed in Jesus and the Holy Spirit enters our inmost selves and imparts healing, renewing, transforming and empowering power. The alienating “other” is replaced by the Holy Spirit. Supported and liberated by God’s power we gain strength to become what we were created to become: living images of God united to God in love through Christ in the Holy Spirit, sharing in his life, light and joy. And this state, when achieved, is supreme happiness.

As long as we are in this world we cannot foresee all the consequences of our actions, but we know that God does foresee! And God loves us and works all things for our good (Romans 8:28). We need not fear that we will miss our joy because of our inability to foresee the future.

Does this state qualify as freedom? According to Mortimer Adler, the following general definition of freedom covers all specific types: freedom is the ability or power whereby we can make what we do our own action and what we achieve our own property (The Idea of Freedom, vol 1, p. 614). What about the condition I described above in which we live as images of God united to God in love through Christ in the Holy Spirit, sharing in his life, light and joy? Is this state genuine freedom, according to Adler’s definition? Yes, it is. In this state, as God’s child and image, we do only what we truly want to do and we become only what we truly are. We can do what we please because we are pleased by imaging Jesus. And we can become whatever we want because we want to become what God wants for us. And because we were created for God, to love God and become like him, we do and become what leads to our ultimate happiness and joy.

So, do we have to give up some freedom to do the right thing always and to take on the image of Christ? The answer is an unequivocal and joyous “No.” Jesus means freedom! The freedom Jesus brings imparts the thing we most want from freedom: happiness. No regrets. No disappointments. And no limits!

*The title of a book by Ernst Käsemann.

Note: This post can serve as a companion to Chapter 14 of God, Freedom & Human Dignity (“The Freedom of the Children of God”).

Questions for Discussion

 1. What are examples of ways in which believers as well as unbelievers think living a good life involves giving up some freedom?

2. Consider the four factors of freedom: self, other, power and exemption. How does a Christian theory of freedom define each factor? Contrast this understanding with how the modern self defines them.

3. Discuss the claim that we desire freedom because we desire happiness. Compare and contrast the Christian and the modern self’s views of how freedom leads to happiness.

4. Discuss the seemingly paradoxical idea that trusting and obeying God leads to freedom, whereas simply doing as one pleases does not.

Next week: We will finally answer the question of why the Christian view of the human self and of the way we are supposed to relate to God in love and obedience does justice to the idea of human dignity.

Two Views of the Self: God and the Modern Self #13

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In the last two installments of this series we looked to Jesus for insight into our true identity. As we can see in the Gospel narratives, Jesus understood his identity in relation to his Father.  And Jesus teaches us to seek our true identity also in our relationship to our Father in Heaven.  Jesus is the Son of God and we too are God’s children. According to the New Testament, if we wish to know who we are and how to live in keeping with our true selves, we must look to the way Jesus lived. When we look at Jesus we see one who trusted and obeyed God no matter where that led him. Does this view of the self do justice to human freedom and dignity? This question will set the agenda for the rest of this series.

Grasping the dominant cultural views of human dignity, freedom and happiness requires inquiry into its understanding of the self. This central concept gives us the subtitle for our series, “the modern self.” The “self” is the modern way of speaking about what used to be called the soul or human nature. The transition to the idea of the self signals the modern shift away from viewing identity as determined by one’s place in society or nature or by God’s creative will. Now the self is an identity we choose and enact for ourselves.

(Example: A popular quote for email signatures or Facebook “likes” articulates the modern self this way: “People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds; it is something one creates.” These words are taken from Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, The Second Sin [1973], p. 46).

Whereas body and soul are not conscious of all the processes and activities going on within them, the self is self-consciousness. The self is me insofar as I am aware of myself and control myself. To speak of the human being exclusively as a self ignores the unconscious, automatic and determined aspects of our existence.

Even though the self is a modern concept and is much narrower than the Christian understanding of the human being, I will risk speaking of a Christian understanding of the self so we can compare it with the modern views. In an earlier installment (#6) I summarize three views of freedom held by western thinkers over the last 2500 years. We noted that each view contained four factors: self, other, power and exemption. Every view of freedom envisions a self that is exempted from an other by a power. Views of freedom are differentiated by the different ways they define these four terms. For example, the circumstantial view of freedom thinks of the self as transparently manifested in a set of immediate desires, and it views the other as external circumstances. It considers the power by which it is exempted from the other as its own individual or collective physical force. And it sees exemption as an open field where it can do as it pleases. Note that in this most common view of freedom, the self is the ego of ordinary awareness. It is the “I” in sentences like, “I want lemon pie for dessert.” It’s not hidden or corrupt or blind.

The New Testament teaching about freedom defines these four terms very differently. (1) As our study of Jesus’ life and teaching demonstrated, Christianity understands the true self as having the nature and identity of a “child of God” and an “image of God”, whose natural activity is obeying, loving and imaging God. In the Christian assessment, the self is not identical to the ego of ordinary awareness. For our immediate or even considered desires are corrupted and distorted by the other, so that Paul, in speaking about the tension between the flesh and the Spirit, can say, “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit…They are in conflict with each other, so that you cannot do what you want” (Galatians 5:16. (2) The other is the sin and blindness that block our obedience, divert our love and tarnish our image. This other is not outside of us but within, so close to us that we mistake it for our very self. Paul speaks to this distinction between the true self and the other in many places:

“For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin” (Rom 6:5-7).

“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds” (Eph 4:21-23).

(3) The power that exempts us from thralldom to the other is the grace of God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. The other is not external circumstances but a weakened condition of the soul, guilt, blindness and misdirected desire. Hence we cannot get loose by our own or any human power. We need a new creation. Only God can do this.

(4) The field of exemption is the uninhibited exercise of love and obedience to God. It is the wide open range where we can actually image God in all our acts. For Christianity, then, freedom is the graced condition, untroubled by sin, wherein a child and image of God possesses power to conform to the character of God in every aspect of life and to experience perfect unity of will with the Father.

A greater contrast with the modern self could hardly be imagined. The true self is not a pure will that arbitrarily makes laws for itself, asserting its independence from every force and framework by following its own capricious desires. It does not create itself. The true self is the image of God that experiences its identity in relationship to its creator and savior as it grows ever more like Jesus in its affections and actions.

Note: This post can serve as a companion to Chapter 13 of God, Freedom & Human Dignity (“The Emergence of a God-Centered Identity”)

Questions for Discussion

 1. Describe and discuss the significance of the distinction between the modern self and the traditional soul.

2. What are the four aspects of freedom, and why is each aspect necessary to any definition of freedom?

3. How does the “circumstantial” view of freedom define the four aspects of freedom listed in this essay?

4. Contrast the way each of the four aspects of freedom is defined in the New Testament with the way they are defined in the usual secular understanding of freedom.

Next Week: We may still wonder, however, whether this condition is really freedom in a sense that could be recognized by anyone who has not already begun to experience it. Does it really fit a reasonable definition of freedom? Is it desirable above other “freedoms”?