Tag Archives: Ethics

20 Saturday May 2017

Posted by in law, Philosophy, Politics

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When people speak about separation of religion and politics, particularly “legislating morality” as improper, they display a stupendous ignorance. 

For example, why is it wrong to lie to get someone’s money? Well, that is fraud. Why is fraud wrong? Because it is lying? Why is lying wrong? The answer to that question is itself a moral proposition. 

Morality is either a type of aesthetics or is based upon some sort of transcendent proposition: some morals may be more functional than others (everyone lying would soon destroy all commerce), but even caring about the effects is a moral decision.

The basic premises of Western law have a theological basis – a legislative morality: Consider this proposition:

God has ordained contracts of various kinds, Melanchthon wrote, to facilitate tate the sale, lease, or exchange of property, the procurement of labor and employment, and the lending of money and extension of credit.” God has called his political officials to promulgate general contract laws that prescribe “fair, equal, and equitable” agreements, that invalidate contracts based on fraud, duress, mistake, or coercion, and that proscribe contracts that are unconscionable, conscionable, immoral, or offensive to the public good. Melanchthon was content, for the most part, to state these general principles of contract law in categorical form. Occasionally he applied these general principles to specific cases. He condemned with particular vehemence loan contracts that obligated debtors to pay excessive rates of interest or entitled creditors to secure the loan with property whose value far exceeded the amount of the loan, unilateral labor and employment contracts that conditioned a master’s obligation to pay on full performance from the servant, and contracts of purchase and sale that were based on inequality of the exchange.

Law and Revolution II

Howard J. Berman

Harvard University Press 2003

Kierkegaard on the Impossibility of a Secular Morality

27 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by in Ethics, Kierkegaard, Philosophy, Uncategorized

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His own own experience, rather than any theoretical requirements, convinced Kierkegaard that man’s real predicament is to be placed between a thoroughly esthetic way of living and a thoroughly religious one. No permanent footing can be maintained on a purely ethical basis, and in this respect Kierkegaard stands opposed to all efforts to make morality self-sufficient. Ethical principles are intrinsically ordained to the religious outlook, and a secular morality is either unaware of its religious significance our only esthetic discourse about being moral. The genuine alternatives are still the world and the cloister, the esthetic and the religious kinds of existing. Recollecting his own battle at playing the Romantic genius and also the tremendous upheaval involved in his return to Faith, Kierkegaard was inclined to state the contrast is being between “perdition and salvation”–between which there can be no compromise for reconciliation.

James Collins, The Mind of Kierkegaard (London: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd., 1954) 46-47.

An easy illustration of this can be found when one tries to establish even the most “self-evident” forms of ethics: Why is murder wrong? If you say, Because killing is wrong? The next step is “Why?” Because you killed a person. “Why is it wrong to kill a person?” Where does one stop searching for an answer to the “why”? Wherever one stops implies a religious position (to use Kierkegaard’s term) or an ethical (I simply find this distasteful).

The implicit esthetic morality of many people is apparent in the tremendous transformation taking place in ethics (particularly sexual ethics) in the West — and the speed in which it has happened. It seems that a great deal of public ethics was merely a matter of taste. Indeed, the “religious” positions of many people seem to be little more than taste and convenience.

Kierkegaard: “The Ancient Tragical Motif as Reflected in the Modern”

28 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by in Ethics, Kierkegaard, Philosophy, Uncategorized

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(From Either/Or, vol. 1)

The primary theme in this essay is to compare the “ancient” and the “modern” tragedy: particularly in the manner of how the “hero” relates to the world of the story and to the audience. Like everything in Kierkegaard, the essay does not neatly resolve into proposition.

For instance, on his way to discussing ethical and aesthetic guilt, he makes this observation about “modern” politics — which is remarkably true of present, “

While, therefore, everyone wishes to rule, no one wishes to accept responsibility.

It is a kind of immediacy and self-concern which marks the modern over the ancient tragic hero:

In ancient tragedy the action itself has an epic moment in it; it is as much event as action. The reason for this naturally lies in the fact that they ancient world did not have subjectivity fully self-conscious and reflective. Even if the individual moved freely, he still rested in the substantial categories of state, family and destiny. This substantial category is exactly the fatalistic element in Greek tragedy, and its exact peculiarity. The hero’s destruction is, therefore, not a result of his own deeds, but is also a suffering, whereas in modern tragedy, the hero’s destruction is not really suffering but action. In modern times, therefore, situation and character are really predominant. The tragic hero, conscious of himself as a subject, is fully reflective, and this reflection has not only reflected him out of every immediate relation to state, race, and destiny, but has often even reflected him out of his own preceding life. We are interested in a certain definite moment in his life, considered as his own deed. Because of this the tragedy can be exhaustively represented in situation and dialogue, since absolutely nothing in the immediate remains anymore. Hence, modern tragedy has no epic foreground, no epic heritage. The hero stands and falls entirely by his own acts.

The tragedy lies in a kind of guilt, but it is a guilt which comes upon him — as opposed to the ethical guilt of sin: “Hence, if he goest to the goes to the dogs, it is not tragic, but it is bad.”

He [the lecturer before the “Symparanekromenoi”] then draws out the element of the “comic” or “ridiculous”

the courage, which would thus be the creator its own destiny, aye, its own creator, is an illusion, and when the age loses the tragic, it gains despair. There lies a sadness and a learning power in the tragic, which one truly should not despise, and when a man, in the preternatural manner our age affects, would gain himself, he lose himself and becomes comical. Every individual, however original he may be, is still of a child of God, of his age, of his nation, of his family and friends. Only thus is he truly himself. In in all this relativity he tries to be the absolute, then he becomes ridiculous.

At this point, we can see the ridiculousness of our own (even more “modern”) age in its extraordinary claims of self-definition. There are many, many ways where this observation plays out: in theology, the exemplar Jesus who is merely a symbol against (Roman) oppression; in ethics, in psychology, in politics ….

The desire to be autonomous, to determine for oneself (to “know good and evil” in the language of Genesis 3), promises to make us our own creators. The result is comic — although bitterly so.

Perhaps there is a way to understand history as the continual unfolding of noetic effects of sin versus God’s redemption:

In the New Covenant God makes a new nation, a new people who are regenerated by God; who are kept by God. The rebellion is the false belief that a utopia is possible in the rejection of God, in the creation of our own “new” humanity. Is this age, that rebellion is a bitterly comic “tragedy”; in the age to come, that continued rebellion is hell for those who insist upon it.

More on Denying God’s Existence and Yet Oddly Confirming God’s Law

01 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Image of God, imago dei, Uncategorized, Van Til

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This quotation from Van Til adds some nuance on the question of whether one must acknowledge God’s existence to be subject to God’s moral law:

After the fall, therefore, all men seek to suppress this truth, fixed in their being about themselves. They are opposed to God. This is the biblical teaching on human depravity. If we are to present the truth of the Christian religion to men we must take them where they are. They are: a) creatures made in God’s image, surrounded by a world that reveals in its every fact God’s power and divinity. Their antithesis to God can never be metaphysical. They can never be anything but image bearers of God. They can never escape facing God in the universe about them in their own constitution. Their antithesis to God is therefore an ethical one; b) because of God’s common grace, this ethical antithesis to God on the part of the sinner is restrained, and thereby the creative forces of man receive the opportunity of constructive effort. In this world the sinner does many ‘good’ things. He is honest. He helps to alleviate the sufferings of his fellow men. He ‘keeps’ the moral law. Therefore the ‘antithesis’ besides being ethical rather than metaphysical, is limited in a second way. It is one of principle, not one of full expression. If the natural man fully expressed himself as he is in terms of the principle of ethical hostility to God that dwells in his soul, he would be a veritable devil. Obviously he is nothing of the sort. He is not at all as ‘bad as he may be.’

Strange, Daniel; Strange, Daniel (2015-02-03). Their Rock Is Not Like Our Rock: A Theology of Religions (p. 92). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. Quoting: Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, p. 45. (By the way, I am finding Dr. Daniel Strange’s book quite useful.

Do the Commands of God Create Moral Duties for Those Who do not Believe in God?

01 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Ethics, Francis Schaeffer, Romans, Uncategorized

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I will post a review of the remarkable book Did God Really Command Genocide by Paul Copan & Matthew Flannagan. For the moment, I offer the following addendum to a discussion and objection to the Divine Command Theory of ethics (the understanding that something is morally obligatory because God commands it to be so, whether or not human beings understand the source of that obligation).

An objection discussed on page 155 of the book raise by philosopher Wes Morriston:

In order to successfully issue a command, one must deliver it to its intended recipients. This brings us back to the problem of the reasonable nonbeliever. On the fact if, God has not succeeded in speaking to her. And since she is a reasonable non-believer, God has not even succeeded in putting her in a  position in which she should have have heard a divine command. How then, can she be subject to God’s commands? How can her moral obligations be understood by reference to what God has commanded her to do?

Copan and Flannagan respond to the argument in terms of its philosophical merits. What I propose to add to their argument is a Scriptural response. Paul in Romans 1 & 2 directly addressed Morriston’s argument. In Romans 1, Paul explains that human beings actively seek to suppress the knowledge of God and his ethical condemnation of human sin:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Romans 1:18–21 (ESV). Yet, despite the fact that human beings (the “reasonable nonbeliever”) deny any knowledge of God or God’s moral communication, human beings are well aware of the moral content of God’s communication: “Though they know God’s righteous decree” (Rom. 1:31). The “reasonable nonbeliever” apprehends God’s moral communication (“righteous decree”) in their conscience (which is exactly the basis upon which Morriston and other atheists seek to condemn the God of Scripture for being immoral). Paul makes clear that God’s moral authority is not premised upon the unbeliever being consciously aware of God having issued the command. The unbeliever’s moral conscience is a sufficient ground:

12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

Romans 2:12–16 (ESV). Francis Schaeffer in his book The Church in a Post Christian Culture puts it this way:

Let me use an illustration again that I have used in other places. If every little baby that was ever born anywhere in the world had a tape recorder hung about its neck, and if this tape recorder only recorded the moral judgments with which this child as he grew bound other men, the moral precepts might be much lower than the biblical law, but they would still be moral judgments. Eventually each person comes to that great moment when he stands before God as judge. Suppose, then, that God simply touched the tape recorder button and each man heard played out in his own words all those statements by which he had bound other men in moral judgment. He could hear it going on for years—thousands and thousands of moral judgments made against other men, not aesthetic judgments, but moral judgments. Then God would simply say to the man, though he had never heard the Bible, now where do you stand in the light of your own moral judgments. The Bible points out in the passage quoted above that every voice would be stilled. All men would have to acknowledge that they have deliberately done those things which they knew to be wrong. Nobody could deny it.

Francis A. Schaeffer, The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, vol. 4 (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1982), 41–42.

 

Above the machine-gun turret

17 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by in Culture, Ethics, Literature, Uncategorized

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Ivanov, the Stalinist interrogator, is speaking to the Rubashov a loyal son of the Revolution who now needs to go. Rubashov is in prison wandering if and when he will be executed and of what crime he will need to confess. This section here is an interesting discourse on ethics and puts politics into focus.

But the importance of the discussion comes in the last clause of the last sentence:

‘I don’t approve of mixing ideologies,’ Ivanov continued. ‘There are only two conceptions of human ethics, and they are at opposite poles. One of this is Christian and humane, declares the individual to be sacrosanct, and asserts that the rules of arithmetic are not be applied to human units. The other starts from the base principle that a collective aim justifies all means, and not only allows, but demands, that the individual should in every way be subordinated and sacrificed to the community — which may dispose of it as an experimentation rabbit or a sacrificial lamb. The first conception could be anti-vivisection morality, the second, vivisection morality. Humbugs and dilettantes have always tried to to mix the two conceptions; in practice, it is impossible. Whoever is burdened with power and responsibility finds out that on the first occasion that he has to choose; and he is fatally driven to the second alternative. Do you know, since the establishment of Christianity as a state religion, a single example of a state which really followed a Christian policy?  You can’t point out one. In times of need — and politics are chronically in a time of need — the rulers were able to evoke “exceptional circumstances”, which demanded exceptional measures of defense. since the existence of nations and classes, they live in a permanent state of mutual self-defense, which forces them to defer to another time the putting into practice of humanism — ‘

Rubashov looked through the window. The melted snow had again frozen and sparkled, an irregular surface of yellow-white crystals. The sentinel on the wall marched up and down with shouldered rifle. The sky was clear but moonless; above the machine-gun turret shimmered the Milky Way.

Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler

 

Shame and Honor and the Internet

14 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by in 1 Peter, 2 Corinthians, Culture, John

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The Bible speaks of being as being profoundly concerned with shame and honor. Jesus repeatedly warns against seeking glory from mere human beings, but rather to only seek glory which comes from God. In John, Jesus even defines true faith as being the opposite of seeking glory from human beings:

John 5:44 (ESV)

44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

The great promise of the Christian life is glory:

1 Peter 1:6–7 (ESV)

6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Even our gravest sorrows will be turned to glory:

2 Corinthians 4:16–18 (ESV)

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

But we are also told that such thinking is outdated. Yes, in the ancient world and in some “traditional” societies shame and honor matter, but we moderns are not bound by such considerations.

It turns out, that as Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, the Bible is an up-to-date book, because this concern about shame and honor, the need for glory to cover up our nakedness, the weakness of us all runs the Internet.

Jon Ronson writes in the New York Times of the brutality of Internet shaming, of how the need to get glory from human beings matters more than all else — and that losing such honor will ruin ones life:

Still, in those early days, the collective fury felt righteous, powerful and effective. It felt as if hierarchies were being dismantled, as if justice were being democratized. As time passed, though, I watched these shame campaigns multiply, to the point that they targeted not just powerful institutions and public figures but really anyone perceived to have done something offensive. I also began to marvel at the disconnect between the severity of the crime and the gleeful savagery of the punishment. It almost felt as if shamings were now happening for their own sake, as if they were following a script.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?smid=fb-share&_r=2

It is a great article, which you would do well to read.

As a Christian with the responsibility to speak in public, I noted that this point will be my point, because there are positions which I do and must take. No matter how carefully I explain that I hold no malice toward anyone because of their ethics, it is considered a place beyond the pale to hold such positions. It is wrong and even criminal to hold that Christians are not permitted to do certain things. To call such things “sin” is hateful — which is surely strange because the people who take the greatest offense deny the existence of sin.

In the end it is honor and shame which drive our hearts.

Oswald Chamers, The Psychology of Redemption.2

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by in 1 John, Anthropology, Biblical Counseling, Hamartiology, Matthew, Oswald Chambers, Romans, Uncategorized

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In his Psychology of Redemption, Oswald Chambers writes:

“For by Him were all things created . . .” (Colossians 1:16). Did God then create sin? Sin is not a creation; sin is the outcome of a relationship which God never ordained, a relationship set up between the man God created and the being God created who became the devil. God did not create sin, but He holds Himself responsible for the possibility of sin, and the proof that He does so is in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Calvary is God’s responsibility undertaken and carried through as Redemption. The essential nature of sin is my claim to my right to myself, and when sin entered in, the connection between man and God was instantly severed; at-one-ness was no longer possible.

One may contend that Chambers has put the emphasis in the wrong place: “sin is the outcome of a relationship”. Isn’t it true that, “sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4) and “sin is not counted where there is no law” (Romans 5:13)? Without question, sin does entail ethical and relational aspects. But we must understand that such ethical considerations are grounded one’s relationship to God.

Consider, for example, the paragraph in 1 John 3 which contains the phrase “sin is lawlessness”. Notice first that John uses the ethical dimension to demonstrate the relational defect:

4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.
5 You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.
6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.
7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.
8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.
10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

Notice also that John restates and summarizes the nature of sin in the final clause of verse 10, “the one who does not love his brother”. Jesus himself grounds the ethical dimension of the law in the relational aspects, both toward God and toward human beings:

34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.
35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
38 This is the great and first commandment.
39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:34-40.

What about Paul stating that without law there is no sin? In that same letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul writes: “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10).