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Does the Bible Really Say That? — Scripture and Same-Sex Relationships—A Review (Part Three)

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Today we continue with part three of my review of Karen Keen, Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships, focusing on chapter two:

“Same-Sex Relations in Ancient Jewish and Christian Thought.”

Where We Stand

Each chapter in Keen’s book contributes something important to her argument, and chapter two is no exception. To grasp precisely what this chapter adds let’s keep in mind her conclusion, which I stated in part one of this review:

Because loving, committed same-sex relationships embody justice, goodness, and human flourishing, do not cause harm to the people in the relationship or the human community, and unwanted celibacy causes great harm and unhappiness to gay and lesbian people, faithful deliberation and application must conclude that the Bible allows and even blesses covenanted same-sex relationships.

Reading between the Lines and in the Margins

As is obvious from its title, chapter two surveys ancient Jewish and Christian views on same-sex relationships. Keen documents the universally negative view of same-sex relationships in the Old and New Testaments and in such Jewish writers as Philo and Josephus. Although she delays detailed examination of the biblical texts that refer to same-sex intercourse, she briefly mentions two Old Testament texts (Lev 18:22 and 20:13) and three New Testament texts (1 Cor 6:9-10; 1 Tim 1:9-10; and Rom 1:18-32). She admits that these texts condemn same-sex relationships. Progressives, traditionalists, and Keen agree on this point. But this consensus does not settle the hermeneutical issue, that is, how to interpret and apply these texts. For even traditionalists admit that there are many biblical commands—for example, about modest dress, gender specific clothing, not eating blood—that we are free to set aside because they address circumstances that no longer exist or the reasons they were originally given are culture-bound and not universal.

According to Keen, to decide whether or not the biblical prohibitions against same-sex relationships are universally binding we must ask what kind of same-sex relationships the biblical authors had in mind and why they condemned them. In her survey of biblical texts she discusses five discernable reasons why the Bible may condemn same-sex relationships:

1. “Violation of gender norms”

2. “Lack of procreative potential”

3. “Participation in pagan practice”

4. “Participation in common or religious prostitution”

5. “Unrestrained or excessive lust”

Concerning the question of what kind of same-sex relationships the biblical authors had in mind when issuing their condemnations, Keen relies on the “progressive” argument that the biblical authors denounce practices that involved “exploitation and misogynistic gender norms” rather than loving, covenanted same-sex relationships. Hence we should not without due hermeneutical reflection apply these texts to practices not in view when originally written. I find it interesting that Keen does not say whether or not she agrees with this “progressive” argument, even though it becomes apparent in succeeding chapters that it plays a vital role in her argument. She is very careful here and elsewhere to protect her evangelical credentials from being tainted by association with progressivism, Christian or secular. Maintaining rapport with her target audience depends on it.

Analysis of Keen’s Argument

As we discovered in our close reading and in-depth analysis of chapter one, this chapter is also more than mere description. It makes an argument and sets an agenda for the book’s further argument. In her description of ancient views of same-sex relationships she grants the fact of the Bible’s condemnation of same-sex intercourse, and ironically this admission is the beginning gambit of her argument for their legitimacy:

1. By granting the Bible’s prohibition of same-sex intercourse without conceding her overall case, she neutralizes one of the traditionalist’s best arguments, that is, the seemingly obvious assumption that the Bible’s repeated condemnation of same-sex intercourse applies to any form of such intercourse. Why people engage in same-sex intercourse is completely irrelevant. For the traditionalist, the absence of concern about the motivations for same-sex relationships within the Bible speaks volumes about how it views them. Anyone arguing otherwise bears a huge burden of proof.

2. In a second astute move, Keen asserts without argument—you hardly notice what she is doing—that the reasons (or intentions or motives) for a biblical author’s condemnation of same-sex intercourse determine the legitimacy and scope of the prohibition. Hence if we become convinced that the reasons for the condemnation were misinformed, based on shifting cultural norms, prejudiced, or arising from ignorance, we may reject or correct them.

3. As a corollary to #2, Keen implies that it is possible to form an exhaustive list of all the reasons (or intentions and motives) for a biblical prohibition. If none of these reasons can be convincingly shown to be applicable to all same-sex relationships, then the universal scope of such commands is placed in grave doubt. Notice how in this move Keen shifts the burden of proof from those who affirm some types of same-sex relationships as permissible to those who deny all of them. Something that had been obvious—that the Bible condemns same-sex intercourse—now becomes problematic. Unless the traditionalist can prove the universality of the (often unspoken) reasons behind the command, the traditionalist stands defeated and the possibility of biblically approved same-sex relationships becomes plausible.

4. By establishing the necessity of discovering the underlying reasons for the Bible’s prohibitions against same-sex relationships in order to determine their present-day scope and specific application, Keen has opened the possibility of excluding loving, covenantal same-sex relationships from these biblical prohibitions. If the underlying reasons for the biblical condemnations have to do with the presence of coercion and abuse rather than with the biological sex of the participants, a case can be made that these texts do not condemn loving same-sex relationships.

Brief Critical Remarks

Regarding #1: Keen’s gambit may not be as effective as it seemed at first. Her admission that the Bible condemns same-sex relationships may seem like a bold lateral move to throw the traditionalist off balance. But traditionalists could call Keen’s bluff and press their argument by insisting that they will not allow a hermeneutical strategy based on speculation and silence to undermine the plain meaning of the text. That would be a very unevangelical thing to do!

Regarding #2 and #3: Does a divine command’s legitimacy depend on our ability to discover a rationale for it that makes sense to us? Keen keeps reminding us that she is an evangelical, believes as do all evangelicals in biblical inspiration, and that she seeks God’s will in these texts. Also, she wishes to present arguments that evangelicals can accept without giving up their evangelical faith. As an evangelical, should not Keen acknowledge the possibility or even likelihood that God possesses reasons for his commands that are hidden from us? Why should God need a reason for his commands—one that makes sense to us anyway?

Regarding #4: Keen adopts an interpretative strategy that allows her to dismiss a specific biblical command—no same-sex intercourse—because it does not embody the ethical principle that the interpreter thinks it should have embodied. If followed consistently, this strategy would sweep away all biblical wisdom and instruction embodied in the law and even in the teaching and life of Jesus and his apostles in favor of our own sense of what it means to be a loving, just, and faithful person. (Isn’t this the essence of progressive strategy?) After all, where do we learn what a Christian understanding of love, justice, and faithfulness is but in the specific commands and examples in the Bible?

Next Time: I will examine chapter 3, “Key Arguments in Today’s Debate on Same-sex Relationships”

Scripture and Same-Sex Relationships—A Review (Part Two)

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Today I will continue my analytical and critical review of Karen Keen, Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships. In this essay I will describe and analyze the argument of Chapter 1, which bears the title:

“The Church’s Response to the Gay and Lesbian Community: A Brief History.”

Summary: Gay People Are Human Too

The first sentence of Chapter 1 captures the message the chapter in one word: “When it comes to same-sex relationships, there is one thing we cannot forget: people.” Gays and lesbians are real people. Keen’s goal in this chapter is to expose the ways the church has dehumanized gay people and advance the process of re-humanizing them in the mind of the church. According to Keen, the church’s lack of understanding of gay people clouds its ability to form accurate and just judgments about the Christian legitimacy of same-sex relationships. Correcting the caricatures and demystifying the “ghost stories” about gay people are the first steps toward reading the Bible with an open mind.

Premodern Attitudes

John Chrysostom (347-407) called same-sex intercourse a “monstrous insanity.” Martin Luther argued that same-sex desire derived from the perverting influence of the devil. Matthew Henry asserts that such desires are divine punishments consequent on a prior abandonment of God. Keen could have expanded this section indefinitely, but these few examples serve to represent the church’s dominant premodern attitude. Keen also documents some pre-modern medical explanations for same-sex desire but points out that they usually picture gay people as mentally ill or suffering from disease.

Five Options within Conservative Churches

Keen next surveys five stages or stances that have characterized conservative churches over the past sixty years. Although Keen views these differing approaches as ordered chronologically she also recognizes that they exist simultaneously at the present time. I will simply list them in order in Keen’s own words:

1. “Gay [Christian] people should stay in the closet.”

2. “Gay [Christian] people are perverts and criminals.”

3. “Gay [Christian] people are hapless victims who need healing.”

4. “Gay [Christian] people are admirable saints called to a celibate life.”

5. “Gay [Christian] people are ________.”

Under heading five Keen attempts to picture the landscape at the time of her writing. She describes four group stances: celibate gays, ex-gays, same-sex attracted evangelicals who deny the reality of same-sex “orientations,” and gay affirming evangelicals. Although she writes about these four stances in a descriptive style, she clearly favors the “affirming” position. The thesis of her book, after all, is that evangelical churches can and should adopt the “affirming” position as biblically and doctrinally sound.

Analysis

It might seem that this chapter (“A Brief History”) simply sets the stage for the book’s argument by documenting the history of the subject and surveying contemporary options without making an argument. However, I want to suggest several ways in which the chapter argues against the traditional view and for the affirming view.

1. Keen’s description of how premodern authors spoke about gay people makes a subtle argument. Keen clearly expects the contemporary reader to cringe upon hearing gay people described with such terms. Figures of the past who expressed disgust and hatred toward groups with whom contemporary society has become sympathetic lose credibility with modern audiences; they are made toxic by being labeled racists, sexist, or homophobic. Given contemporary society’s sympathies, rational and biblical arguments critical of gay people fall on deaf ears because of suspicion that they are rationalizations for irrational animus.

2. Rehearsing traditionalists’ dubious arguments and implausible speculations about the origins of same-sex desire leaves the impression that the conclusions traditionalists draw about biblical morality must also be false or at least doubtful.

3. Keen urges us to cease thinking of issues in abstraction from people. Gay people are individuals with feelings, experiences, and stories. In doing this she not only draws on society’s sympathy for gay people (See #1 above), but prepares readers to accept the self-reported experience of gay people as proof of three important assertions within her argument: (1) people do not choose to become gay, (2) they cannot change their orientation, and (3) maintaining a life of celibacy is very difficult, painful, and lonely.

The Perils of Critique

Before I offer any critique I need to address a huge obstacle that makes effective criticism of this book almost impossible: Karen Keen’s book—and others like it—is autobiography as well as argument. It concerns personal identity, feelings, and experience as well as thought, history, and biblical exegesis and interpretation. It is almost impossible for most audiences to separate these two dimensions. The overarching narrative—sometimes unspoken but always implicit—is a compelling story of oppression, suffering, agony, and suicide on the one hand and courage, determination, and endurance on the other. And indeed the persuasive power of the book lies in its brilliant combination of autobiography and rational argument. Since the two aspects are woven together in a seamless argument, any critique of the rational aspects of the argument will be taken as a critique of the personal aspects, as a poisonous attack on the person making the argument. Telling other people what they feel, dismissing their sense of identity, or denying their self-reported experiences appears to most contemporary people as arrogant, judgmental, and profoundly insensitive.

What is the sincere critic to do? Some critics rush blindly into this rhetorical trap and say the stupidest things. Needless to say, no matter how clever their arguments, they lose the audience the minute they open their mouths! Others see the trap, realize that their situation is rhetorically untenable, and decide not to say anything. Their cowardly silence allows weak and fallacious arguments to take cover under a strong narrative. Lack of objection will be taken as acquiescence.

I do not wish to be a coward or a fool. For…

Timorous silence is duty neglected.

Incautious speech is duty betrayed.

I hope to avoid both.

Critique

It is too early to develop an extensive critique of the argument contained in this chapter because in the following chapters she expands the three arguments I have outlined. Additionally, the book constitutes one big argument and needs to be assessed as a whole. However, I will venture some preliminary observations on these three arguments.

Regarding #1: This argument relies on the rhetorical advantage gay people have acquired over the past few decades. For a variety of reasons, including the HIV/AIDS crisis of the late twentieth century, a sympathetic media, and decisions by the Supreme Court there has developed a social consensus that gay people have been innocent victims of prejudice and violence. This consensus narrative places an unwarrantedly heavy burden of proof on those who argue the traditional thesis from the Bible. For there is no logical connection between the cringe worthy way in which traditionalists of the past spoke about same-sex activity and the truth of their conclusions about biblical teaching on this subject.

Regarding #2: Discovering that many arguments offered to support a thesis are weak or less than demonstrative does not prove that the thesis is false. For sure, rehearsing a litany of the weakest arguments in support of a conclusion tends to create doubt in the listener. However, the mere possibility of doubt does not justify rejecting the thesis in favor of its negation.

Regarding #3: Indeed gay people are people. And I agree that we ought to speak and act toward them as human beings worthy of respect. However, this is true of every person we meet. There is no connection between remembering that an individual is a person worthy of respect and affirming everything they feel and do as morally upright or accepting their self-described experience as evidence for the “affirming” thesis.

Next Time: We will examine Keen’s survey of what the Bible says about same-sex relationships.

Surviving a Cultural Apocalypse : Advice to Churches

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This essay concludes my five-part review of Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. In the interest of space I will skip a summary of the arguments presented in the four previous essays and ask the reader to consult those essays in preparation for this conclusion.

Optimism and Pessimism

In general, I am an optimist. My optimism is grounded in my faith and hope in God. God’s good will most certainly will be done in the end despite appearances to the contrary. But I am not optimistic that the cultural trends described in Trueman’s book can be reversed. Nor is Trueman optimistic; for as the title of the book foreshadows the modern self has “triumphed.” The dominant culture assumes that the psychologized, sexualized, and politicized self is the only morally acceptable view of the self, and it considers those who disagree as ignorant, bigoted, and oppressive. Efforts to marginalize traditional Christians and churches are growing in frequency and intensity. Recent court decisions, anti-traditional policies of big corporations, media caricatures of conservative Christians, indoctrination by educators, and censorship by social media giants do not bode well for the social position of confessing Christians in the USA. Legislatures and courts have recently expanded anti-discrimination laws to cover those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer. These new laws threaten to restrict the “freedom of religion” to the silent spaces of the inner self.

It is against this “rather bleak analysis” (Trueman, p. 402) that Trueman offers three bits of advice to the church:

The Moral Blindness of False Compassion

(1) “The church should reflect long and hard on the connection between aesthetics and her core beliefs and practices” (p. 402). The modern self was created in part by replacing moral categories grounded in moral law with aesthetic ones grounded in inner feelings. The LGBTQ movement has been propelled forward not by ever deepening moral insight but by rehearsing narratives of oppression, victimhood, and personal unhappiness that evoke “sympathy and empathy” (p. 403) from a culture that has already accepted the psychologized, sexualized, and politicized self. It is disturbing but not surprising that huge numbers of self-identified Christians have without knowing it assimilated to that culture. Many churches talk and act and worship in aesthetic categories and are silent about sin…unless the sins are also “sins” for the secular progressive culture. For the most part, churches long ago assimilated to what Phillip Rieff (The Triumph of the Therapeutic) called the “therapeutic culture,” marketing themselves to society as supporting the common good and promoting individual wellbeing. In response to this assimilation, Trueman calls on churches “to forgo indulging in, and thereby legitimating, the kind of aesthetic strategy of the wider culture” (p. 403). We must not allow false compassion and threats from progressive culture, to replace reason, moral law, the scriptures, and tradition as the determining factors in our moral teaching. Indeed, the church needs to rediscover Christianity’s “dogmatic, doctrinal, [and] assertive” core (p. 403).

The Church as a Moral and Theological Community

(2) The church “must also be a community” (p. 404). The church must form strong and intimate communities based on a common faith and moral vision in self-conscious opposition to the dominant therapeutic culture. These communities must meet together often to encourage, teach, and support members to live thoroughly Christian lives. Apart from such communities, individual Christians are vulnerable to the ever-present pressure to assimilate.

Recover Reason and Moral Law

(3) “Protestants need to recover both natural law and a high view of the physical body” (p. 405). Protestant neglect of natural moral law is one reason churches have been so easily assimilated to the aesthetic view of morality. Traditionally, Protestants grounded their moral teaching in specific biblical commands or principles derived from commands. A thing is wrong because the Bible says it’s wrong. Does this mean that the absence of a biblical command against something gives us permission to do it? Or, what happens when clever theological “experts” create all sorts of confusion about the meaning of a command? In future essays I plan to pursue these failings at great length.

For Trueman, recovering “a high view of the physical body” involves rediscovering God as the creator of the body, Jesus Christ as the savior of the body, and the Holy Spirit as the purifier and life force of the body. The church must resist the culture’s view of the body as a mere means of sensual pleasure or as nothing but raw material for us to drug, cut away, and shape as we please. I wish that every church could hear and take heed to the following words from Trueman:

And closely allied with this is the fact that the church must maintain its commitment to biblical sexual morality, whatever the social cost might be. If, as Rieff claims, sexual codes are definitive of cultures, then an abandonment of Christian sexual morality by the church can be done only on the basis of a rejection of the sacred framework of Christianity and at the cost of the loss of Christianity as a meaningful phenomenon (p. 406).

I placed the words “whatever the social cost might be” in the above quote in bold because I believe the cost doing this will be very high. Many will find it too high. But the cost of assimilation is even higher:

“What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” (Matt 16:26).

Sex, Identity, and Politics: Two Incompatible Moral Visions

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Where Are We?

In previous essays I’ve tried to get to the roots of the moral crisis that engulfs contemporary culture. At the origin of this crisis stands the abandonment of the long-accepted notion that human beings acquire experiential knowledge of the good as communities 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.

Given its subjective view of the good, modern culture can no longer make sense of the right as a moral rule that conforms to the moral law. Hence the “right” becomes a private assertion of “what is right for me” or it is identified with legislated human law made through the political process. The simmering crisis becomes open conflict when society’s subjective views of the good and right become concrete disagreement about specific moral behaviors. These disagreements can be settled only by coercion in one of its modern forms: protest, cancellation, intimidation, or legislated human law.

Christians who submit themselves to the authority of Jesus Christ and the scriptures and retain the traditional view of the good and the right find themselves under fire. When confessing Christians oppose the dominant culture’s subjective view of the good and the right they are made to appear backward, oppressive, insensitive, cruel, and downright hateful. Indeed, they are portrayed as enemies of humanity worthy of marginalization, legal proscription, and even persecution.

Clash of Moral Visions

We are now at the point in our discussion of the moral crisis where I need to speak about specific behaviors. And I want to begin with the body and sex. In the contemporary controversy over the use of our bodies we see most vividly the clash between two irreconcilable moral visions. During the course of the last one hundred years Western society has been increasingly sexualized and sex has been politicized. The reasons for this development are complex, and I will explain them in greater detail later in this series. However I will say this in advance: progressive culture from its beginnings in the Enlightenment to today sees Christianity as the greatest enemy standing in the way of its advance. With the rise of the Romantics in the early nineteenth century, nascent progressive culture came to see that Christianity’s limiting of sexual relations to lifetime marriage between man and woman grounded in a sacred moral order served as the foundation of conservative and traditional culture. The family is the perennial bearer of tradition. If society is to be made into a progressive utopia, Christianity must be marginalized if not destroyed. If Christianity is to be destroyed, marriage and the traditional family must be destroyed. And marriage and the traditional family can be destroyed only by removing the limits on sexual activity and transforming the meaning of sex. Sex must be removed from the sacred moral order and reconceived as a means of self-expression and self-fulfillment. Without tradition, isolated, and with their identity being reduced to race and gender, individuals may then be willing to become wards of the progressive state and its educational institutions.

We’ve Been Here Before

But the clash between moral visions is not new. The New Testament is replete with warnings about this collision of worlds: two opposing kingdoms (Col 1:3), life and death (Col 2:3), visible and invisible (2 Cor 4:18), the way of the Spirit and the way of the flesh (Gal 5:13-26), and many others. One of the clearest contrasts is found in Colossians 3:1-14. Paul contrasts two ways of living as opposition between two orientations, to things above or to earthly things:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

The New Testament clearly views the moral life as an essential aspect of a comprehensive and internally consistent way of life, at once religious, spiritual, and moral. Its specific moral rules are not isolated and arbitrary. The moral prohibitions in Colossians 3:5-11, quoted above, are interrelated. All of them deal with “earthly things.” The list in verse 5 centers on misuse of the natural urges of physical body: “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed.” The list in verse 8 has to do with misuse of our need for acceptance and fellowship from others: “anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language.” The physical dimension cannot be separated from the social and neither from our relationship to God. We use our bodies to communicate with others and our physical urges almost always involve interaction with others. They can be used to honor God or disrespect him.

Body, Soul, and God

The New Testament affirms the created goodness of the body. But the body is not absolutely good. Its goodness lies in the possibility of its proper use as determined by the intention of creator. It can be misused and misdirected. Those whose minds, hearts, and wills are set “on things above” want to use their bodies for the Lord, but those whose minds, hearts, and wills are set “on things on the earth” view their bodies as instruments for their own pleasure and power. Those who direct their minds toward Christ desire to learn the purpose for which God created their bodies and the rules for their proper use. To those whose minds are set on earthly things, the Bible’s moral rules for the proper use of the body seem strange, unnatural, and oppressive.

The Bible speaks of human beings as body and soul. We are physical and mental. We possess freedom at some levels of our being, but at other levels the automatic processes of nature operate apart from our choice or awareness. The Bible is not concerned with the philosophical problem of the composition of human beings, with debates about the nature of the soul and the relationship between soul and body. It is concerned with the orientation of the whole human being toward or away from God. But the Bible acknowledges what we all know from experience, that there is a hierarchical order in the relationship between body and soul. The mind is the ruling aspect and the body needs to be ruled and guided by the mind, which in turn needs to be informed by the moral law and common sense. Our minds enable us to gain the wisdom we need to discern between good and bad and right and wrong. The body apart from the mind possesses no conscious knowledge of the good and right. It works more or less automatically and instinctively. (Contemporary culture reverses the order by looking to the irrational passions–in contemporary terms “the inner self”–for guidance about what is real and good.)

Now consider the two directions mentioned Colossians 3:1-14 again in light of our created nature as body and soul. Paul speaks of the two ways of living, two possible orientations to God of our whole persons. As whole persons we are body and soul, but the body must be guided by the soul. But the mind must be illuminated by moral and spiritual truth from above in order to guide the body to its proper end, which is to serve God. Paul urges us to set our minds and hearts on “things above.” Unless the mind is set on “things above” it cannot lead the body to do good and right. When the mind forsakes “things above,” the body begins to dominate the mind, which then becomes a mere instrument we use to seek out ways to please the body. It thinks only about “earthly things.” Instead of rising higher to become more and more like God, human beings fall to earth to become mere smart animals. Dangerous ones too!

The Good, the Right, and the Bible

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In the previous essays we learned that human beings discover what is good for them through reason and 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.

The contemporary moral crisis was in part precipitated by modern culture’s abandonment of the notion that human beings acquire experiential knowledge of the good as a community and transmit it through tradition. In place of the notion of universal human nature and the goods necessary for its health, 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. Not only do many people today reject the ideas of human nature, moral law, and the good and right as discovered and defined in tradition, to their ears these ideas sound completely foreign and incomprehensible.

Morality and the Bible

Not surprisingly, then, when Christians 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 the Jewish and Christian communities over many thousands of years and passed on in a tradition. Since our contemporaries do not acknowledge that communal experience and tradition are the only ways individual human beings can learn about the good, they reject appeals to the Bible as a moral authority. They would reject the authority of any other community and tradition for the same reason.

Second, Christians do not 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 human discoveries of what is good for human beings but also as divine commands. The natural consequence of not adhering to the good is enduring something bad. But the consequence of disobeying a divine command is divine punishment.

Perhaps this second aspect of the Christian message is the primary reason for the hostility of the ascendant culture. It is one thing to warn people of the 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 warning may cause people to smile at our naiveté, but the second will be taken as an insult and will evoke anger.

But it is 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 that God punishes bad behavior with pain in addition to the act’s natural consequences. Perhaps they are troubled even more by the thought that God might command something unrelated to any obvious good and punish transgressors even when negative consequences from the act itself are wholly absent. The moral crisis touches the church more than we would like to admit.

God and Morality

Why might 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. I admit that those totally sold out to the romantic view that the good is whatever gives us a pleasant feeling will not grant this assumption. I will address their rejection in due time. For now, I want to address those who are at least open to the idea that it is wise for an individual to accept the moral authority of a long-continuous community and tradition above private experience or abstract theories. But why divine commands?

In view of the human tendency to degenerate into sensuality and violence, we can see the value of divine guidance and inspirations to help lawgivers, prophets, and religious and moral reformers formulate rules that guide a community toward what is truly good. 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).

Admittedly, most of the moral laws in the Bible could have been learned from communal experience and they are similar to the highest moral aspirations of nations other than ancient Israel. However human beings are inclined to follow their immediate desires rather than reason and experienced-based wisdom. 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 act.

A Christian Morality?

What does viewing biblical morality as divinely commanded add to the moral authority of the Bible considered as a deposit of wisdom from a long-continuous community? The previous section began to address these questions. As I suggested there human beings tend toward sensuality and violence as individuals and as civilizations. And, although it is possible to learn much about what is good for human beings from experience, most people are more interested in immediate pleasure than the truly good. Hence the moral traditions of whole cultures can become polluted and self-destructive or so marginalized that they have little impact on the mass of individuals. The Bible assumes that human civilization has become so corrupt that divine intervention is necessary. The story of the Old Testament includes divinely commissioned lawgivers and prophets sent to a degenerate culture to reveal what is good.

There is also another reason Christian teachers invoke divine commands. Human experience is limited to life in this world. Experience can teach much about what promotes human happiness and flourishing in this life. But belief that God is creator of this world sets human life into a larger context, beyond the range of what can be learned by ordinary experience. If our sole end is living long and well in this life, then good is whatever helps us achieve this goal. But if God created human beings for a greater end, then good is whatever helps us achieve that end.

If we have a God-intended end beyond living long and well in this body, only God can tell us what it is and how to achieve it. We cannot learn this good from individual or collective experience. It should not be surprising, then, that Christians view the moral rules Christians live by as divine commands. This view makes perfect sense, because in Christianity the humanly chosen goal of living long and well is subordinated to the divinely chosen end of eternal life with God. This shift changes everything. Life in the body as a whole is now directed beyond itself. Living long and well in this life alone is no longer the end that determines what is good. We need God’s help both to know and to do the truly good. Those who believe that Jesus is the risen Lord will gladly receive his and his apostles’ instructions about how to live in view of the true end of human life revealed in him.

There are two big reasons the moral life to which the New Testament calls us seems strange and oppressive to our age: (1) even experienced-based moral rules, which focus only on living well and long in this body, sound strange and oppressive to many people. Never in any society has the majority been virtuous, even by Aristotle’s standards! (2) Unless one wholeheartedly embraces the Christian vision of the God-intended end of human life, living here and now in faith for that unseen end appears extremely foolish.

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…