“The possibility of coherent community action is diminished today by the deep mutual suspicions and antagonisms among various groups in our national life.
"As these antagonisms become more intense, the pathology is much the same. . . . The ingredients are, first, a deep conviction on the part of the group as to its own limitless virtue or the overriding sanctity of its cause; second, grave doubts concerning the moral integrity of all others; third, a chronically aggrieved feeling that power has fallen into the hands of the unworthy (that is, the hands of others). . . .
"Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: An excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all. . . . Blind belief in one's cause and a low view of the morality of other Americans--these seem mild failings. But they are the soil in which ranker weeds take root . . . terrorism, and the deep, destructive cleavages that paralyze a society.”
-Hugh B Brown quoting John Gardner. From an address given to the BYU student body on May 13, 1969, when Hugh B. Brown was First Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jeusus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
“If I say to an American that the country he lives in is a fine one, aye he replies and there is not its equal in the world. If I applaud the freedom its inhabitants enjoy he answers ‘freedom is a fine thing but few nations are worthy of it.’ If I remark on the purity of morals that distinguishes the United State he declares ‘I can imagine that a stranger who has witnessed the corruption which prevails in other nations would be astonished at the difference.’ At length I leave him to a contemplation of himself. But he returns to the charge and does not desist until he has got me to repeat all I have been saying. It is impossible to conceive of a more troublesome and garrulous patriotism.
-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835
“[There] are…perils which can be understood only if we realize the ironic tendency of virtues to turn into vices when too complacently relied upon; and of power to become vexatious if the wisdom which directs it is trusted too confidently. The ironic elements in American history can be overcome, in short, only if American idealism comes to terms with the limits of all human striving, the fragmentariness of all human wisdom, the precariousness of all historic configurations of power, and the mixture of good and evil in all human virtue. America’s moral and spiritual success in relating itself creatively to a world community requires, not so much a guard against the gross vices, about which the idealists warn us, as a reorientation of the whole structure of our idealism. That idealism is too oblivious of the ironic perils to which human virtue, wisdom and power are subject. It is too certain that there is a straight path toward the goal of human happiness; too confident of the wisdom and idealism which prompt men and nations toward that goal; and too blind to the curious compounds of good and evil in which the actions of the best men and nations abound.
…
“A too confident sense of justice always leads to injustice…Genuine community, whether between men or nations, is not established merely through the realization that we need one another, though indeed we do. That realization alone may still allow the strong to use the lives of the weaker as instruments of their own self-realization. Genuine community is established only when the knowledge that we need one another is supplemented by the recognition that the “the other,” that other form of life, or that other unique community, is the limit beyond which our ambitions must not run and the boundary beyond which our life must not expand.
…
“In the present situation even the sanest of our statesmen have found it convenient to conform their policies to the public temper of fear and hatred which the most vulgar of our politicians have generated or exploited…Constant proof is required that the foe is hated with sufficient vigor. Unfortunately the only persuasive proof seems to be the disavowal of precisely those discriminating judgments which are so necessary for an effective conflict with the evil, which we are supposed to abhor. There is no simple triumph over this spirit of fear and hatred. It is certainly an achievement beyond the resources of a simple idealism. For naïve idealist are always so preoccupied with their own virtues that they have no residual awareness of the common characteristics in all human foibles and frailties and could not bear to be reminded that there is a hidden kinship between the vices of even the most vicious and the virtues of even the most upright.
…
“There is irony in the Biblical history as well as in Biblical admonitions. Christ is crucified by the priests of the purest religion of his day and by the minions of the justest, the Roman Law. The fanaticism of the priests is the fanaticism of all good men, who do not know that they are not as good as they esteem themselves. The complacence of Pilate represents the moral mediocrity of all communities, however just. They cannot distinguish between a criminal and the Savior because each violates the laws and customs which represent some minimal order, too low for the Savior and too high for the criminal.
…
“We…as all “God-fearing” men of all ages, are never safe against the temptation of claiming God too simply as the sanctifier of whatever we most fervently desire. Even the most “Christian” civilization and even the most pious church must be reminded that the true God can be know only where there is some awareness of a contradiction between divine and human purposes, even on the highest level of human aspirations.
…
“…[I]f we should perish, the ruthlessness of the foe would be only the secondary cause of the disaster. The primary cause would be that the strength of a giant nation was directed by eyes too blind to see all the hazards of the struggle; and the blindness would be induced not by some accident of nature or history but by hatred and vainglory.”
--Reinhold Niebuhr in The Irony Of American History, 1952
Showing posts with label Philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philosophy. Show all posts
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Lessons from the Book of Job
It is time for what is becoming my quarterly blog post. No politics this time, or at least not directly.
Until this last year I’ve always had a rather cartoonish understanding of the Book of Job. I knew it only superficially as the story of a man who became the object of a “wager” between God and Satan. Satan bet God that if Job were no longer blessed then he would abandon God. Satan caused all manner of terrible things to happen to Job but Job stayed faithful and was blessed. The End.
This version of the story teaches little more than “suck-it up and don’t complain.” And it only encompasses the fist two chapters and the last; it completely ignores the intervening 39 chapters. It also completely misses the point of the book.
Satan’s challenge to God was an effort to prove a common misuse of faith: He wanted to show that there is a simple correlation between blessings and righteousness; that “blessings” (prosperity, wealth, health, freedom from obstacles, and freedom from temptation) either cause righteousness or result from it in a simple way that is easily and readily accessible to the human mind.
The Book of Job is a refutation of this simple correlation. This doctrine is taught elsewhere, of course, such as in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, where Christ teaches “[Your Father in heaven] causes his sun to rise on the evil and good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matt 5:45) But nowhere is it taught more beautifully than in the Book of Job.
Taking Satan’s bait and biting into the idea of simple correlations can play out on every scale of the human experience, from within our own heart to international relations. And while it would be fun to blast the ignoramuses that exploit natural disasters to “prove” their own righteousness and the wickedness of whoever was effected (such as blaming hurricane Katrina on Gay Pride celebrations or the Haitian earthquake on a 200 year old pact with the devil), such obvious distortions are easily dismissed with a little thought and a nudge or two from the scriptures (for example Luke 13:1-5.) It is at the personal and interpersonal level where a correct understanding of the role of suffering and its relationship (or non-relationship) to righteousness can make or break the human spirit. It is here that we see these forces play out in the book of Job.
The first two chapters set up the story, we as readers see that the cause of Job’s suffering is not his wickedness; quite the opposite: it is because God knows of his righteousness that Job is chosen by the Lord to be his champion. This, however, is unknown to Job and the friends who come to comfort him. Job’s friends assume that his suffering is the result of some unconfessed sin, Job does not speculate on the cause of his suffering other than to rebut his friends and to maintain his righteousness.
The depths of the pain that Job is suffering can be felt in his words:
“Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? ...Or why was I not hidden in the ground like a stillborn child?”
(3:11,16)
“What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient? Do I have the strength of stone? Is my flesh Bronze? Do I have any power to help myself now that success has been driven from me?”
(6:11-13)
“I loath my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God: Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me….Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head for I am full of shame and drowned in my affliction.”
(10:1-2,15)
Job’s friends come and try to comfort him. But they do not seek to comfort him as the Lord does, by sharing his burden, mourning with him, comforting him, or serving him. Instead they try to preach to him, quote scripture at him, and show him where he went wrong. They see his suffering as evidence of God’s displeasure with him, and his complaints as proof of his unrighteousness. As Job grows more insistent in proclaiming his righteousness and louder in his laments his friends grow increasingly blunt in their accusations. They tell him that all he needs to do is repent and pray harder and his suffering will go away (see, for example, 11:13-20.) They tell him to just walk away from his suffering and quit complaining (18:2-4.) They tell him that God is perfect and perfectly just therefore if Job is suffering it is because he deserves to suffer (34:5-12). But Job refuses to concede, he knows of no wickedness that he has done that would warrant such a punishment. He tells his friends that: “…as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness, and my tongue will utter no deceit. I will never admit you are right; till I die, I will not deny my integrity. I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it; my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live.” (27:3-6)
One of Job’s remarkable strengths is the way he maintains his integrity, even in the face of accusations from his friends who present “proof” that his suffering is the result of sin.
One of the more subtle ways that the deceiver attempts to separate us from God is to get us to believe that our life and the path it will take is completely know to us, and can be controlled by us through a simple set of rules and rituals. He would have us believe that salvation is through the law rather than Christ, he would have us believe that if we continue to suffer from the effects of sin or any other of the effects of the fall that it is because we have not prayed hard enough, that we have not purified ourselves enough. Like Job’s friends using Job’s own complaints as proof of his unworthiness, the father of lies tries to get us to believe that the temptations he places before us are proof that we are unworthy of the Love of Christ. He wants us to believe that faith in Christ will take away our struggles, sorrows and temptations, and that, if it doesn’t, either we have failed or Christ has. The truth is much more powerful, but less easily understood: it is that we must to come to Christ with a broken heart and contrite spirit (2 Nephi 2:7), have faith that Christ’s grace is sufficient for us, and understand that, while the Lord can give us strength to helps us with our problems, we live in a post-fall world: sometimes the cup will not pass but must be drunk to the dregs. (see 2 Corinthians 12:7-10)
We cannot even judge our own righteousness by the presence or absence of sin, pain, temptation, suffering, strength, knowledge or capacity, let alone that of any other soul. Those are not standards of righteousness; the only standard is this: Have we come to Christ with real intent, with a broken heart and contrite spirit covenanting to do good and follow his will with all the strength we have, however great or small that strength may be and any given moment? Do we have faith in the strength of Christ?
Until this last year I’ve always had a rather cartoonish understanding of the Book of Job. I knew it only superficially as the story of a man who became the object of a “wager” between God and Satan. Satan bet God that if Job were no longer blessed then he would abandon God. Satan caused all manner of terrible things to happen to Job but Job stayed faithful and was blessed. The End.
This version of the story teaches little more than “suck-it up and don’t complain.” And it only encompasses the fist two chapters and the last; it completely ignores the intervening 39 chapters. It also completely misses the point of the book.
Satan’s challenge to God was an effort to prove a common misuse of faith: He wanted to show that there is a simple correlation between blessings and righteousness; that “blessings” (prosperity, wealth, health, freedom from obstacles, and freedom from temptation) either cause righteousness or result from it in a simple way that is easily and readily accessible to the human mind.
The Book of Job is a refutation of this simple correlation. This doctrine is taught elsewhere, of course, such as in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, where Christ teaches “[Your Father in heaven] causes his sun to rise on the evil and good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matt 5:45) But nowhere is it taught more beautifully than in the Book of Job.
Taking Satan’s bait and biting into the idea of simple correlations can play out on every scale of the human experience, from within our own heart to international relations. And while it would be fun to blast the ignoramuses that exploit natural disasters to “prove” their own righteousness and the wickedness of whoever was effected (such as blaming hurricane Katrina on Gay Pride celebrations or the Haitian earthquake on a 200 year old pact with the devil), such obvious distortions are easily dismissed with a little thought and a nudge or two from the scriptures (for example Luke 13:1-5.) It is at the personal and interpersonal level where a correct understanding of the role of suffering and its relationship (or non-relationship) to righteousness can make or break the human spirit. It is here that we see these forces play out in the book of Job.
The first two chapters set up the story, we as readers see that the cause of Job’s suffering is not his wickedness; quite the opposite: it is because God knows of his righteousness that Job is chosen by the Lord to be his champion. This, however, is unknown to Job and the friends who come to comfort him. Job’s friends assume that his suffering is the result of some unconfessed sin, Job does not speculate on the cause of his suffering other than to rebut his friends and to maintain his righteousness.
The depths of the pain that Job is suffering can be felt in his words:
“Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? ...Or why was I not hidden in the ground like a stillborn child?”
(3:11,16)
“What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient? Do I have the strength of stone? Is my flesh Bronze? Do I have any power to help myself now that success has been driven from me?”
(6:11-13)
“I loath my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God: Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me….Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head for I am full of shame and drowned in my affliction.”
(10:1-2,15)
Job’s friends come and try to comfort him. But they do not seek to comfort him as the Lord does, by sharing his burden, mourning with him, comforting him, or serving him. Instead they try to preach to him, quote scripture at him, and show him where he went wrong. They see his suffering as evidence of God’s displeasure with him, and his complaints as proof of his unrighteousness. As Job grows more insistent in proclaiming his righteousness and louder in his laments his friends grow increasingly blunt in their accusations. They tell him that all he needs to do is repent and pray harder and his suffering will go away (see, for example, 11:13-20.) They tell him to just walk away from his suffering and quit complaining (18:2-4.) They tell him that God is perfect and perfectly just therefore if Job is suffering it is because he deserves to suffer (34:5-12). But Job refuses to concede, he knows of no wickedness that he has done that would warrant such a punishment. He tells his friends that: “…as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness, and my tongue will utter no deceit. I will never admit you are right; till I die, I will not deny my integrity. I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it; my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live.” (27:3-6)
One of Job’s remarkable strengths is the way he maintains his integrity, even in the face of accusations from his friends who present “proof” that his suffering is the result of sin.
One of the more subtle ways that the deceiver attempts to separate us from God is to get us to believe that our life and the path it will take is completely know to us, and can be controlled by us through a simple set of rules and rituals. He would have us believe that salvation is through the law rather than Christ, he would have us believe that if we continue to suffer from the effects of sin or any other of the effects of the fall that it is because we have not prayed hard enough, that we have not purified ourselves enough. Like Job’s friends using Job’s own complaints as proof of his unworthiness, the father of lies tries to get us to believe that the temptations he places before us are proof that we are unworthy of the Love of Christ. He wants us to believe that faith in Christ will take away our struggles, sorrows and temptations, and that, if it doesn’t, either we have failed or Christ has. The truth is much more powerful, but less easily understood: it is that we must to come to Christ with a broken heart and contrite spirit (2 Nephi 2:7), have faith that Christ’s grace is sufficient for us, and understand that, while the Lord can give us strength to helps us with our problems, we live in a post-fall world: sometimes the cup will not pass but must be drunk to the dregs. (see 2 Corinthians 12:7-10)
We cannot even judge our own righteousness by the presence or absence of sin, pain, temptation, suffering, strength, knowledge or capacity, let alone that of any other soul. Those are not standards of righteousness; the only standard is this: Have we come to Christ with real intent, with a broken heart and contrite spirit covenanting to do good and follow his will with all the strength we have, however great or small that strength may be and any given moment? Do we have faith in the strength of Christ?
Saturday, October 17, 2009
A response to comments
First a mea culpa- I was posting on another blog about Gay Marriage and rather than try and cram my thought into a response section I referenced my post here, so if that is why you’re here I’m flattered. But my wife told me that I really should have linked directly to the post, not just my blog. Sorry guys my bad. It is right here.
Russ- It sounds to me like you are understanding point perfectly. When my understanding of a commandment conflicts with my understanding of Justice, Justice wins. But this is really a fairly simplistic way to explain it. It isn’t so much that I would expect my understanding of a Justice to allow me to just ignore commandments. As I see it what really happens is that I use my understanding of Justice to help me understand how the commandment is intended to be applied. Let me use an example that I’ve used in church before. There are several scriptures that say things along the lines of “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” I’m not sure that that is an exact quote, but something along those lines. When my wife was working at a school she was given a copy of a book called “No Greater Joy.” Basically, it advocated, based on the scripture above, and others, beating your children (it even gave suggestions as to which kinds of sticks worked best.) I would suspect that the authors of this book would say that beating children doesn’t violate the attributes of God. Because if God is Just and he commands you to beat your children then beating your children is Just. Beating children in my mind violates several of the attributes of God (Justice, Compassion, Teaching, etc.) Therefore the commandment is not to be interpreted literally, what it means is teach your children discipline, God’s attributes let me know that this is to be done in the best way we know how. Maybe back in the day when the Old Testament was being written the best way that anyone new to teach discipline was beating, so when whoever wrote those scriptures wrote them he was directing the people of his time to follow what God wanted (discipline) in the best way he knew how (beating.) But now we know that beating isn’t the most effective way to teach discipline so we teach it in other ways. What it is that “lets” us interpret the commandments in this way (rather then following them literally as the authors of the book suggest) is that, as Joseph Smith taught in Lectures on Faith, we first have a correct understanding of the attributes of God.
The mental construct of a conflict that I used in my original post was to help illustrate my point. Of course if we see a problem we should seek study further, and to refine our understanding of both the attributes of God and his commandments. If we pursue a path based on developing and understand of Gods attributes, then we can take that and develop an understanding of the commandments that he has given. By developing a better understanding of his attributes we develop a better understanding of his commandments. But if we pursue a path that that put obedience to the commandments first, without checking them against the attributes, in the hope that by obeying the commandments we’ll then understand the attributes there is no check – if we get a commandment wrong there is nothing to stop us from living it anyway.
I know that because I am human I make mistakes and there will be times, as you say, when I misunderstand the attributes and so end up living a commandment in a way that God did not intend. You are right I err on the side of assuming that my understanding of Justice is correct. Because we can’t go through life without making mistakes I think that it is just as important to choose the types of mistakes we’re going to make. Would I rather fail at obedience or justice, would I rather be too much mercy or not enough?
Anonymous,
I think you are making my point exactly. Let us run thought the step by step logic using the Spanish inquisition as our example. If I have what I’m calling a conservative approach, I read the scriptures and find a record of God telling people to destroy those not of the faith. Now I know that God is Just so I tell my self, it is Just of me to destroy people not of the faith, and off I run to chop off heads, or burn Jews or whatever. But if instead I understand that God is Just and I read those same scriptures, I can then know that they do not give me permission to run around chopping off heads. It is our understanding of the attributes of God that helps keep us from over generalizing. Putting the attributes in the prime position doesn’t invalidate the commandments, it helps us to understand and apply them correctly. Like you said it is not the commandment that is wrong it is the application.
Russ- It sounds to me like you are understanding point perfectly. When my understanding of a commandment conflicts with my understanding of Justice, Justice wins. But this is really a fairly simplistic way to explain it. It isn’t so much that I would expect my understanding of a Justice to allow me to just ignore commandments. As I see it what really happens is that I use my understanding of Justice to help me understand how the commandment is intended to be applied. Let me use an example that I’ve used in church before. There are several scriptures that say things along the lines of “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” I’m not sure that that is an exact quote, but something along those lines. When my wife was working at a school she was given a copy of a book called “No Greater Joy.” Basically, it advocated, based on the scripture above, and others, beating your children (it even gave suggestions as to which kinds of sticks worked best.) I would suspect that the authors of this book would say that beating children doesn’t violate the attributes of God. Because if God is Just and he commands you to beat your children then beating your children is Just. Beating children in my mind violates several of the attributes of God (Justice, Compassion, Teaching, etc.) Therefore the commandment is not to be interpreted literally, what it means is teach your children discipline, God’s attributes let me know that this is to be done in the best way we know how. Maybe back in the day when the Old Testament was being written the best way that anyone new to teach discipline was beating, so when whoever wrote those scriptures wrote them he was directing the people of his time to follow what God wanted (discipline) in the best way he knew how (beating.) But now we know that beating isn’t the most effective way to teach discipline so we teach it in other ways. What it is that “lets” us interpret the commandments in this way (rather then following them literally as the authors of the book suggest) is that, as Joseph Smith taught in Lectures on Faith, we first have a correct understanding of the attributes of God.
The mental construct of a conflict that I used in my original post was to help illustrate my point. Of course if we see a problem we should seek study further, and to refine our understanding of both the attributes of God and his commandments. If we pursue a path based on developing and understand of Gods attributes, then we can take that and develop an understanding of the commandments that he has given. By developing a better understanding of his attributes we develop a better understanding of his commandments. But if we pursue a path that that put obedience to the commandments first, without checking them against the attributes, in the hope that by obeying the commandments we’ll then understand the attributes there is no check – if we get a commandment wrong there is nothing to stop us from living it anyway.
I know that because I am human I make mistakes and there will be times, as you say, when I misunderstand the attributes and so end up living a commandment in a way that God did not intend. You are right I err on the side of assuming that my understanding of Justice is correct. Because we can’t go through life without making mistakes I think that it is just as important to choose the types of mistakes we’re going to make. Would I rather fail at obedience or justice, would I rather be too much mercy or not enough?
Anonymous,
I think you are making my point exactly. Let us run thought the step by step logic using the Spanish inquisition as our example. If I have what I’m calling a conservative approach, I read the scriptures and find a record of God telling people to destroy those not of the faith. Now I know that God is Just so I tell my self, it is Just of me to destroy people not of the faith, and off I run to chop off heads, or burn Jews or whatever. But if instead I understand that God is Just and I read those same scriptures, I can then know that they do not give me permission to run around chopping off heads. It is our understanding of the attributes of God that helps keep us from over generalizing. Putting the attributes in the prime position doesn’t invalidate the commandments, it helps us to understand and apply them correctly. Like you said it is not the commandment that is wrong it is the application.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The Tripartite Dilemma
There are three components to the dilemma. Three statements, not all of which can be true at the same time. If we want to discuss them in an abstract way they can be stated like this: God is X. God has commanded Y. Y is contrary to X. Obviously at least one of these statements is false. I believe that how we resolve this conundrum is one of the key differences between a religious liberal and a religious conservative. But to really understand this we need to fill in the variables.
Let us fill them in thus: God is just (any attribute of God would fit here, Merciful, Loving, etc.) God has commanded genocide (1 Samuel 15:3). Genocide is unjust.
There are a vast number of ways to resolve this type of conflict, but I believe that they can all fall into three basic categories: the atheist resolution, the liberal resolution, the conservative resolution.
The atheist resolution is this: if God has commanded genocide and genocide is unjust then God is not Just, therefore God is not God (or God does not exist), this is a fascinating argument for another time and nowhere near as simple as it sounds from this brief description. I’ve made my choice, God exists. What I really want to explore is the liberal and conservative resolutions.
The conservative resolution is this: God is Just, God commanded genocide, and therefore genocide is just. In other words Justice is defined as being God’s will, so whatever God wills becomes Just because God wills it, or alternately in a less harsh interpretation God would never command anything that was unjust, therefore when it appears that he has commanded something unjust we in our error-prone human ways simple don’t understand or don’t have all facts and when we do we will see that God was right to command as he did and therefore we should follow what he has said without further question. One simplistic way to think of it is that God outranks justice and can tell justice to be whatever he determines it to be. Conservatives worship obedience, and conformity to God’s word. The conservative view puts the commandments of God in a primary position, and the attributes of God in a secondary position. Obey the commandments and you will be just. The commandments limit Justice.
The liberal resolution is this: God is just, Genocide is unjust, and therefore God did not command genocide. In other words God is defined as being Just, so whatever is Just is God’s will. Therefore when there is a conflict between what we believe is God’s word and what we believe is Justice, Justice wins. In our error-prone human ways we are apt to misunderstand or even occasionally willfully distort God’s words for our own ends. To use the mental simplification from above Justice outranks God, God is God because he Just. The liberal view puts the attributes of God in the primary position. Be just and you will keep the commandments. Justice limits the commandments.
What do I mean by limits the commandments? By limits I mean that no commandment can be understood in a way that would violate Justice. So if there are 10 ways a commandment could be understood, and 4 are unjust I throw those interpretations out. I use my understanding of the attributes of God in order to help me understand what he means by his commandments. Contra wise some people advocate using the commandments to understand the attributes of God. Often these people will claim not to interpret at all; they just follow what God says. In reality they are interpreting too, choices are being made about how best to live the commandments and what they mean, but without rooting that interpretation in something larger than the words themselves the interpretations can quickly start to violate the true fundamentals (justice, mercy, love, hope) In the extreme this unanchored “Good is what God says it is” has been used to justify things like the Spanish Inquisition. This attitude it is what is at work when religious today people use the words of God to justify religious intolerance of Muslims (or when extremists of any faith use the words of their God to just bigotry), or dehumanizing attitudes toward homosexuals.
The liberal reasoning makes conservatives very uncomfortable- it sounds as if one is trying to replace God’s Justice with one’s own, and this seems to be the height of arrogance. It can appear that we are placing our own view of what is right above that of God’s. In essence the liberal view is that we understand the principle of Justice better than we understand God’s word. What conservatives do not appear to understand is that the conservative approach is just as arrogant, their underlying assumption is that their understanding of God’s words trumps their understanding of Justice.
We were watching a movie that briefly featured Gandhi, I don’t know if this quote is actually from him or was from the writers of the script but it lays out the problem nicely. It was something like this “For too many years we have believed that God is Truth, when we should have believed that Truth is God.” This same thing could be said of Justice, Mercy, Hope, Love or any of God’s other characteristics.
Without an understanding of the underlying structure-the true goodness of God- and the way that that structure informs and lights the commandments, we cannot understand the commandments properly. It is not possible to work backwards and still get the right answer. We can’t say that because God commanded something it is Just, because we could be misunderstanding the commandment.
This world is an imperfect place, and so it is possible that we will make mistakes. There will be times that we misunderstand what justice really is. They question is what kind of mistakes do we want to make? Not- how can I make no mistakes? We stand before the judgment seat of God would we rather be saying: “Forgive me I tried to be just, I didn’t think that what I was asked to do was just, I was wrong and I’m sorry.” or “Forgive me I knew that what I was being asked to do was unjust but I did it anyway because that’s what I thought you wanted.” As for me I’d rather try and be just (or merciful, or full of charity) and fail occasionally on obedience, than succeed on obedience and fail on justic
Let us fill them in thus: God is just (any attribute of God would fit here, Merciful, Loving, etc.) God has commanded genocide (1 Samuel 15:3). Genocide is unjust.
There are a vast number of ways to resolve this type of conflict, but I believe that they can all fall into three basic categories: the atheist resolution, the liberal resolution, the conservative resolution.
The atheist resolution is this: if God has commanded genocide and genocide is unjust then God is not Just, therefore God is not God (or God does not exist), this is a fascinating argument for another time and nowhere near as simple as it sounds from this brief description. I’ve made my choice, God exists. What I really want to explore is the liberal and conservative resolutions.
The conservative resolution is this: God is Just, God commanded genocide, and therefore genocide is just. In other words Justice is defined as being God’s will, so whatever God wills becomes Just because God wills it, or alternately in a less harsh interpretation God would never command anything that was unjust, therefore when it appears that he has commanded something unjust we in our error-prone human ways simple don’t understand or don’t have all facts and when we do we will see that God was right to command as he did and therefore we should follow what he has said without further question. One simplistic way to think of it is that God outranks justice and can tell justice to be whatever he determines it to be. Conservatives worship obedience, and conformity to God’s word. The conservative view puts the commandments of God in a primary position, and the attributes of God in a secondary position. Obey the commandments and you will be just. The commandments limit Justice.
The liberal resolution is this: God is just, Genocide is unjust, and therefore God did not command genocide. In other words God is defined as being Just, so whatever is Just is God’s will. Therefore when there is a conflict between what we believe is God’s word and what we believe is Justice, Justice wins. In our error-prone human ways we are apt to misunderstand or even occasionally willfully distort God’s words for our own ends. To use the mental simplification from above Justice outranks God, God is God because he Just. The liberal view puts the attributes of God in the primary position. Be just and you will keep the commandments. Justice limits the commandments.
What do I mean by limits the commandments? By limits I mean that no commandment can be understood in a way that would violate Justice. So if there are 10 ways a commandment could be understood, and 4 are unjust I throw those interpretations out. I use my understanding of the attributes of God in order to help me understand what he means by his commandments. Contra wise some people advocate using the commandments to understand the attributes of God. Often these people will claim not to interpret at all; they just follow what God says. In reality they are interpreting too, choices are being made about how best to live the commandments and what they mean, but without rooting that interpretation in something larger than the words themselves the interpretations can quickly start to violate the true fundamentals (justice, mercy, love, hope) In the extreme this unanchored “Good is what God says it is” has been used to justify things like the Spanish Inquisition. This attitude it is what is at work when religious today people use the words of God to justify religious intolerance of Muslims (or when extremists of any faith use the words of their God to just bigotry), or dehumanizing attitudes toward homosexuals.
The liberal reasoning makes conservatives very uncomfortable- it sounds as if one is trying to replace God’s Justice with one’s own, and this seems to be the height of arrogance. It can appear that we are placing our own view of what is right above that of God’s. In essence the liberal view is that we understand the principle of Justice better than we understand God’s word. What conservatives do not appear to understand is that the conservative approach is just as arrogant, their underlying assumption is that their understanding of God’s words trumps their understanding of Justice.
We were watching a movie that briefly featured Gandhi, I don’t know if this quote is actually from him or was from the writers of the script but it lays out the problem nicely. It was something like this “For too many years we have believed that God is Truth, when we should have believed that Truth is God.” This same thing could be said of Justice, Mercy, Hope, Love or any of God’s other characteristics.
Without an understanding of the underlying structure-the true goodness of God- and the way that that structure informs and lights the commandments, we cannot understand the commandments properly. It is not possible to work backwards and still get the right answer. We can’t say that because God commanded something it is Just, because we could be misunderstanding the commandment.
This world is an imperfect place, and so it is possible that we will make mistakes. There will be times that we misunderstand what justice really is. They question is what kind of mistakes do we want to make? Not- how can I make no mistakes? We stand before the judgment seat of God would we rather be saying: “Forgive me I tried to be just, I didn’t think that what I was asked to do was just, I was wrong and I’m sorry.” or “Forgive me I knew that what I was being asked to do was unjust but I did it anyway because that’s what I thought you wanted.” As for me I’d rather try and be just (or merciful, or full of charity) and fail occasionally on obedience, than succeed on obedience and fail on justic
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