Tag Archives: ethics

Christian Stoic or Social Justice Christian?

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The Stoics

Like all philosophical schools in the ancient world—Platonists, Epicureans, Academics, et al—the Stoics sought the truths, attitudes and conditions that would facilitate a good human life. They observed that such negative emotions as fear, desire, and anxiety are generated by thoughts about attaining or avoiding that over which we have no control. Clearly, these negative emotions are incompatible with the good life. The best life is one of undisturbed contentment with the gift of existence in our inner being wherein we are always in the immediate presence of good things that cannot change. For the Stoics, there is only one thing and one place over which we have control, that is our own free will. It is the only thing that we can have purely by willing it. The external world, including our bodies, operates under other laws over which we have no immediate control and to which we must adjust. And the free will of other human beings is completely beyond our control because it is totally under their control. To banish negative emotions, we must refrain from desiring to control that over which we do not have immediate and total control. Stoics determine to accept the flow of the events that happen in nature as their lot. These external events cannot threaten or even touch the inner world of free will unless we allow it to do so.

Social Justice Christians

There is a kind of Christian ethics that in effect proposes that we ought to remain in a state of discontent and outrage until we right every injustice done in the world. And because we cannot accomplish such radical changes in the world by appealing to the free will of others by doing good, speaking truth, and setting good examples, these same Christians resort to using force: intimidation, insults, rudeness, disruption, legal action, and, yes, even violence.  Apparently, these social justice Christians think that the coming of the kingdom of God depends on our human efforts to establish their ideal political order that includes everybody, believers and non-believers, saints and sinners. They turn the Stoic understanding of a good human life inside out. What matters most are the external conditions of life: equal access to bodily pleasure, equality of material goods, equality of social respect, and equality of external freedom. Because this level of control over the external social, political, and natural order is impossible, these social justice Christians ensure that everyone is angry, unhappy, fearful, and offended all the time. Not a happy life.

The Christian Stoic

There are, of course, great differences between Stoic metaphysics, cosmology and theology and the Christian view of God, creation, salvation, and providence. Jesus’s teaching concerning God’s providence and against the need for anxiety, however, bears some resemblance to the Stoic doctrine of limiting our concern to the place where we have immediate control, our free will. Jesus tells us to trust and align our wills with God’s will. Also, neither in Jesus’s teaching nor in the rest of the New Testament is there the slightest hint that Jesus’s disciples ought to seek to remake the world into a social justice paradise by political means. That day is an eschatological hope dependent completely on God’s power. To attempt to control the world in the name of God in a way only God can produces only tyranny and rebellion. The only community in which there is a little hope for an approximate realization of the kingdom ethics taught in the Sermon on the Mount is the church, that is, the community of those truly converted to Jesus Christ in their inner being. But history demonstrates that this kingdom community has never become a concrete reality even in the church, the community divinely commission to become such. Much more is it a vain dream that it will be realized in a society of the unconverted!

What is the Christian Stoic to do? First, we must understand that apart from God’s grace in the Holy Spirit our free will is not free in the most radical sense, that is free to know and love the true God above all things. Only God can make God present to our minds so that we can know and love him in this way. But given God’s grace, we can love God in return for his love for us. In loving God above everything else we live free from anxiety about all those things over which we have no control. Moreover, we know that the God who loves us possesses power to control all things for our good.

Christian Stoics know they cannot right every wrong and transform the world into a social paradise. This task is not under their power and therefore is not their job. Their main job is, with the help of God’s grace, to allow themselves to be transformed into the image of Christ. From that transformed inner world they can turn outward to do good, speak truth, and love neighbor and enemy. God may use their good works and words to transform others.

Christian Stoics refuse to be unhappy because the external world does not submit to their control. We have come to know that our primary task in life is purification of our own souls. That in itself is a dauting task and the work of a lifetime.

The Bible and Christian Ethics (Part Three)

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Before we can make further progress in our series on “The Bible and Christian Ethics,” we need to distinguish among three concepts: the universal moral law, ethics, and a way of life.

Distinctions

Universal Moral Law

In the previous essays I spoke of a universal moral law as the set of the basic moral rules known everywhere, at all times, and by all people through reason and conscience. The Bible demands that we live according to these rules, but it does not claim that they are grounded or known exclusively through its commands.

Ethics

Ethics is a rational discipline of reflection on morality—on the grounds, justification, ways of knowing, extent, and application of morality. Every society articulates moral rules, but not every society produces a rational account of those rules. Christian ethics is a theological discipline that reflects rationally on the Christian way of life for the Christian community. This series is an exercise in Christian ethics.

A Way of Life

A way of life is a comprehensive set of rules, often unarticulated, for living in a particular community. It incorporates the universal moral law but includes much more. It embraces also the traditional wisdom and customs learned by communal experience and a vision of human living inspired by its views on human nature and destiny—all of which are set within its understanding of the divine. A community may be called to a way of life more demanding—but usually not less—than the universal moral law instructs. Christianity is a way of life that incorporates everything right and good taught by reason, conscience, and experience into the vision of God and humanity revealed in Jesus Christ.

The Christian Way of Life

Each traditional community embodies the basic universal moral rules in its own distinct way, given its unique history and identity and beliefs. The ancient Israelites, as I said in previous essays, incorporated the universal moral law into their laws but embodied it in distinct ways and augmented it in view of their beliefs about God and their unique calling to be the holy people of a holy God.

Christianity incorporates within its way of life the universal moral law as mediated by the Old Testament law along with the wisdom embodied therein. In continuity with ancient Israel the church understands itself to be God’s special people, called to live in a way consistent with the character, identity, and expectations of Israel’s God. As Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And referring to Leviticus, Peter urges believers living among pagans, “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15-16).

But Christianity does not merely continue the Old Testament way of life unchanged. It reorients everything with a view to Jesus Christ—his teaching about his Father, the kingdom of God, the life of peace, love of enemies, purity of heart, and suffering for righteousness sake. The apostolic teaching points to Jesus’s humility, obedience, and self-giving, especially as exemplified in the cross, as the model for all Christians to follow (Phil. 2:5-11; 1 Peter 2:21). This new Christ-centered way of life places the universal moral law and traditional wisdom about what is good for human beings within a new order, but it does not delegitimize them.

Christians are expected to be good people by universal moral standards. Christianity calls on all members of the Christian community not only to avoid criminality and behavior reprehensible to everyone but also to the highest ideals of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and all the other pagan moralists as a minimum standard. Christians must not lie, steal, murder, commit adultery, or dishonor their parents. They must also rise above the common vices tolerated by the world. They do not curse, use profanity, gossip, or slander. They are not greedy but content, not arrogant but humble, not selfish but generous. They do not envy, get angry easily, act rudely, or boast (1 Cor 13:4). They are just, honest, kind, and faithful in all their human relationships. They control their passions: they are not gluttons, drunks, quarrelers, pornographers, fornicators, adulterers, or greedy. They love their wives and husbands, and they take care of their children. They exemplify the full spectrum of inner virtues: courage, prudence, humility, patience, faith, joy, peace, and love. Above all, they love God with their whole being and seek him in everything they do.

The Way Forward

I have argued that the Christian way of life set out in the New Testament is a combination of the universal moral law known by conscience and reason, traditional knowledge of a good and wise life learned though communal experience, and the Old Testament’s vision of a holy people in service to a holy God—all placed in relation to the definitive revelation of God and human destiny in Jesus Christ. Everything in the Christian way serves the end of transforming us into the image of Christ and achieving for us the destiny he pioneered, eternal life in likeness and union with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The New Testament’s inclusion of the universal moral law, traditional wisdom, and the Old Testament’s vision of the holy people as a part of the Christian way of life validates their force for the Christian life. Each component of the package is important and possesses its own weight. Many mistakes made in current debates among Christian ethicists result from neglecting this fact. In the next essays I will address the proper role of the Bible in discussions of moral issues where reason, conscience, and traditional wisdom have something to say. Specifically, I want to return to the issues of same-sex relationships and transgender issues and apply to those disputes the view of the Christian way of life I have developed in the previous two essays.

Sheep and Wolves—How to Tell the Difference (DEI Series Conclusion)

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In the previous essay I promised to explore three reasons why I do not believe that the principles of diversity-equity-inclusion philosophy as advocated by the academic champions of Critical Race Theory are mandated or supported by the Christian faith. I dealt with the first reason in the previous essay, arguing that DEI philosophy is a worldly political theory designed for governance of everyone within a sovereign state. Christianity is not a worldly political theory and does not obligate Christians to support any such philosophy. Today I will address the other two reasons and bring this series to a close.

Freedom versus Coercion

(2) DEI philosophy is not compatible with Christian ethics as taught in the New Testament. I can deal with this issue briefly because I addressed it already in the essay of June 4, 2021. As I argued in that essay, though Christianity is not a worldly political philosophy and does not obligate us to support any worldly political philosophy, some political orders are more compatible with Christianity than others. Christians surely want to live in a political order where they can freely embrace and practice faith in Jesus. Likewise, if Christians embrace Jesus’s Golden Rule they should also wish others to enjoy freedom to refuse or embrace Christianity. For this reason I argued that, if given a choice between classical liberalism and DEI political philosophy, clear thinking Christians will choose classic liberalism. I concluded the June 4th essay with these words:

Traditional liberalism embraces the truth of the saying, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” In contrast, the philosophy of DEI aims at the unattainable goal of perfection and in doing so becomes the enemy of the good. DEI is not rational because it mistakes its utopian visions for politically achievable plans. It is not psychologically sound because it assumes people will in the long run acquiesce to having their property and positions taken away and redistributed to others in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It is immoral in that it employs coercion, racial prejudice, theft, and injustice to achieve its goals. Hence DEI politics is most certainly not mandated by Christianity. And in contrast to liberal political philosophy, it is not even compatible with Christianity.

Ethical Incompatibility

(3) Diversity, equity, and inclusion, as understood in critical theory, are not Christian ethical principles. Nor are they compatible with Christian ethics. First, let’s get clear that the way of life set forth in the New Testament by Jesus and his apostles applies only to Jesus’s disciples, to his Church, that is, to people who claim to be and really are Christians. Now let’s take diversity, equity, and inclusion one at a time and assess their relationship to New Testament ethics.

Diversity

DEI philosophy treats diversity as a positive value in itself. According to this viewpoint the racial, ethnic, and gender makeup of the personnel within an institution—college, business, government agency, or private club—should reflect the proportions of those identity groups within society at large. Disparities in these proportions signal racism, sexism, or some other ugly prejudice as their hidden cause.

Christianity as described in the New Testament does not view diversity as a standalone value. When the NT mentions diversity of gifts and offices within the church (1 Cor 12; Eph 4), it always sets diversity in the context of unity and harmony. And it never seeks to reflect the diversity of group identities within society at large. Diversity is not an end in itself to be sought at the expense of other qualities central to the identity of the church. If the DEI philosophy were applied to the church, it would destroy it by making something other than faith in Christ the principle of inclusion.

Equity

DEI views equity through the eyes of group identity and social conflict. It is political to the core. Members of different racial groups must be treated differently to correct the inequalities among them. The Christianity of the New Testament views human beings within a universal frame. The gospel is preached to all people. All are invited to believe and participate. Within the family of believers, there are poor, widows, orphans, aged, sick, imprisoned, and others in vulnerable positions. Christian ethics is unambiguously clear that those within the church who are able to help those in need are obligated to do so (Matt 25:14-46; 1 John 3:17; James 2:14-17). However, Christian ethics does not countenance treating people differently based on race. It views people as individuals with their own strengths and weaknesses, resources and needs. We should rush to help the sick and the poor. The well and the rich do not need our assistance. Compassion, love, generosity, and hospitality are Christian virtues. Equity is not.

Inclusion

DEI philosophy makes inclusion a central moral principle, as if excluding anyone from any group or institution is always wrong. Of course, this notion is illogical and impractical. Inclusion is meaningless unless the group into which you want to be included has an identity, and identity involves exclusion as well as inclusion. If everyone is included in everything, no one is included in anything! (For more analysis of inclusion, see the essay of May 29, 2021.) DEI uses the rhetoric of inclusion to urge inclusion of certain favored (not all!) previously excluded groups.

The Christianity of the New Testament invites and welcomes people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. But it invites them to believe the gospel, repent of their sins, be baptized, and take up the life of a disciple of Jesus. It welcomes all who do this. However, if you do not believe in Jesus, do not want to stop sinning, if you reject baptism, and want to live according to the flesh, you are self-excluded. You cannot be a Christian unless you believe and live as a Christian! Christianity does not exclude or include anyone based on race or economic status.

Conclusion to the Series

I felt compelled to write this seven-part series on the diversity-equity-inclusion philosophy not so much because it is a destructive, divisive, impractical, and irrational political philosophy—though it is that!—but because I have had to endure the little sermons of some who proclaim that DEI philosophy is plainly, even supremely Christian. It is extremely painful to listen to such displays of pious ignorance and virtue signaling. Even with the most generous interpretation I can manage, it seems they have allowed the superficial resemblances of diversity, equity, and inclusion to Christian principles and their over-charitable—not to say naïve—interpretations of these terms to blind them to their true meaning and destructive implications. But I am very clear that DEI philosophy is not a Christian way of thinking. It is rather a deeply cynical deification of the primitive forces of nature. And opening the door of the Christian fold to this wolf in sheep’s clothing is an act of treachery in which I will not participate.

“Rules in a Knife Fight?” Or, the Roots of Today’s Moral Chaos

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Reason is dead! Requiescat in pace! Or, at least it’s on life support when it comes to morality. Civil discussions of social or individual morality in the public square, in the workplace, in public schools and universities, in social media, and even in church have become impossible in contemporary culture. Moral chaos reigns not only between Christians and secularists but among secular people themselves and among people who claim to be Christian. People don’t discuss moral issues anymore, they fight about them. Discussions are about searching for truth and presuppose people’s desire to know and conform to the truth. Fights are about power, domination, and forced submission of one party’s preferences to another’s.

Believers in truth and reason could gather around reason’s grave and lament its death. We could withdraw into our homes, houses of worship and homeschools and wait for a miracle or for Jesus’s return. And any regular reader of this blog knows that I am not opposed to a strategic withdrawal, especially in contrast to assimilation to dominant culture. On that theme see my May 12, 2017 review of Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option. But I do not believe we ought to acquiesce just yet. To the contrary, I believe Christians should speak up for reason and truth. But speaking up for reason and truth won’t be as easy as asserting that reason is a necessary instrument for finding truth and truth is the way things are whether we like it or not. As true as this assertion is, to our culture it sounds like fighting words designed to exert power and demand submission. How do you reason with people for whom reason is dead, and how do you urge people to submit to truth when for them truth is just another word for preference?

First, I do not believe reason can ever truly die. Nor can anyone ever really abandon the assumption of truth. So, our first task is to probe the contemporary mind, seeking its most basic presuppositions and beliefs, which serve as the hidden foundations of its incoherent moral rhetoric. Where shall we look for these foundations? Every moral theory or rhetorical style of talking about morality presupposes beliefs about basic human nature and the nature and will of God. It is guided by beliefs about what constitutes human dignity, how happiness can be achieved, and what are the greatest threats to human dignity and the most sinister roadblocks to achieving happiness.

Here are three presuppositions that guide the modern mind, which is shared to one extent or another by everyone touched by the western worldview:

  1. Human dignity is grounded in human freedom. And human freedom is the power of the self to decide what it will do and become. Maximum dignity requires maximum freedom. Maximum freedom is achieved when we possess total control over ourselves, our situation, and our destiny. Any limit on freedom is a limit on dignity. And any limit on dignity is an insult.
  2. Happiness is achieved by exercising our maximum freedom to do and become whatever pleases us. What counts as a happy state is determined totally by the preferences of each individual. The modern mind acknowledges no general rules, such as “love God and your neighbor,” for achieving happiness.
  3. The greatest threats to human dignity, freedom, and the prospect of happiness are God and belief in natural law or traditional morality enshrined in law. Since the modern mind links maximum dignity to maximum freedom, the idea of being dependent on and responsible to God, the Creator of all things, is the most serious threat to dignity and freedom. Even people who say they believe in God will not accept any view of God that limits their maximum freedom. They assimilate God to their preferences. The second most serious threat to dignity, freedom and the prospect of happiness arises from other people who are inspired by their belief in God or moral law or traditional morality to impose their morality on others, whether through social pressure or state power.

The history of the last 350 years can be written as the struggle of modern people to free themselves from the “oppressive” forces of God and institutions that support traditional morality. One institution, social practice and philosophy after another has been exposed as “oppressive”. And indoctrination into this ideology has been so effective that the majority of our society can make no persuasive response even to the most radical and total rejection of all limits on the freedom of individuals to do and become whatever they want. We are close to becoming a nihilistic society, that is, of surrendering to the ideology that “all things are possible,” that there is no moral law and nothing real; there is nothing that cannot be or ought not to be changed and shaped according to our collective or individual preferences. This is the relentless logic at work in the hearts and minds of our neighbors and friends, and even in our own; and this is the pernicious logic that makes it inevitable that rational discussions will be replaced by knife fights. Our situation is captured by Harvey Logan’s famous line from the 1969 movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: “rules in a knife fight?”

That famous scene is a parable of contemporary moral discourse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPqhm36sjVE

Hence the first step to addressing the moral chaos that dominates contemporary moral discussions is digging down to the ancient foundational beliefs that led to this chaos. The next step is to demonstrate the absurdity of these foundational beliefs. And the third step is to argue for, proclaim, and live on an alternative foundation, one that secures authentic human dignity, freedom, and hope for happiness. And that foundation is God, the creator and savior revealed in Jesus Christ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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…