Sinning in Public: A Morality Dialogue

Setting: Two friends, sitting around a living room of a Sunday afternoon.

Pieter: Hey, let me ask you something, an ethical hypothetical if you will.

Theophilus: Shoot.

Pieter: Ok, say one day a guy’s driving along, minding his own business, when he sees a person apparently stranded by the side of the road.

Theophilus: Uh-huh.

Pieter: Now, there doesn’t seem to be any urgency really, let alone any injury, but the man has a bit of time so he offers to give the stranded person a lift.

Theophilus: I’m with you.

Pieter: So just imagine that the person he picks up is a youngish teenager, say 16. He seems to be nice enough, and grateful enough for the lift, but there’s one problem: the kid swears like a sailor. In fact, he swears like a boat-load of drunken sailors who’ve been at sea and away from any civilizing influence for over a year.

Theophilus: Hmmm. I get the picture. So what of it?

Pieter: Well let’s assume, for the sake of discussion at least, that this language really bugs the man –the owner of the car – say even that the man is a really religious person, a pious man, and that the kid isn’t just swearing but using the Lord’s name in vain left and right.

Theophilus: Ok, I get it, he feels uncomfortable. What’s the question?

Pieter: Well, what should the driver do?

Theophilus: Keep driving.

Pieter: But remember just who is doing the favor for whom. It’s the driver’s car, the driver’s time, which he is employing selflessly in the service of this kid.

Theophilus: And for that he is no doubt to be commended.

Pieter: Right! So here he is, acting the part of the Good Samaritan and all, and this kid is making him feel really awkward and, well more than awkward, he’s really deeply offended.

Theophilus: I see.

Pieter: So, well, here’s the crux of it – doesn’t the driver have the right to ask the kid to cut it out or, well, get out and find another ride?

Theophilus: Ahhh, I see now. So the question is whether or not the owner of the car has a right to expect, and then demand a certain level of moral behavior within his sphere, his personal space.

Pieter: Yes, I suppose.

Theophilus: Well of course we’re leaving aside the question of whether or not the language truly is immoral, or the relative immorality of this versus that language.

Pieter: For now.

Theophilus: Then we are just asking whether, assuming the owner of the car believes the language to be immoral, does he or does he not have the right to expect and demand his moral boundaries be respected within his personal space.

Pieter: Exactly.

Theophilus: Well, what’s really at issue? Are these two the only people in the car?

Pieter: Yes.

Theophilus: So it’s not a question of protecting any influence over others. If there were perhaps a small child in the back seat, it could be argued that the owner is merely concerned over the child’s coming to imitate the assumed immoral language.

Pieter: No, that’s not a factor here.

Theophilus: Alright. Well what’s the concern? Is the man concerned that he will come to emulate the immoral and impious speech? Maybe he’s afraid he’ll hear a certain turn of phrase a dozen times and it will slip into his thought patterns some time down the road?

Pieter: Certainly not! As I said, the man is very pious. Further, he’s not a young man, so it’s highly unlikely that his behavior could be affected in any way by this kid’s. No, for the sake of discussion, assume that it’s impossible the passenger’s behavior would in any way affect that of the driver.

Theophilus: Humph. Well I must confess, I don’t see the problem.

Pieter: So the driver would be within his rights?

Theophilus: No, I don’t see why the driver cares, let alone is offended.

Pieter: But he’s the going out of his way to help out. It would be a slap in the face to have to sit there and endure something so offensive!

Theophilus: Why take offense? The passenger is not swearing at the driver, not insulting him, or threatening him in any way correct?

Pieter: Not directly.

Theophilus: Well how would he be offended indirectly? How does he take offense period?

Pieter: I mean, the use of the Lord’s name is one of the Ten Commandments for crying out loud!

Theophilus: True, but first of all we’re not talking about the degree of offense, whether this word or that word is a little bit worse than that one, we are assuming just that the man believes the speech to be immoral. Secondly, since the man is religious, I think it’s safe to assume he believes the source of that moral standard to be God himself.

Pieter: Indeed.

Theophilus: Right, so since the standard is God’s would not the offense also be God’s?

Pieter: Of course, God would… I mean the man would believe God objects to any immorality.

Theophilus: Yes, of course. Now if we were talking about one of the other Commandments, like the one forbidding theft, then we’d perhaps be having a different conversation, maybe the man would have a certain right to defend his property (then again, maybe not come to think of it), but in this instance certainly, since no one is being harmed, it seems clear to me that the only party with any right to take offense is God himself. And I guess I would assume He can stick up for himself.

Pieter: Of course, but…

Theophilus: But here’s what I’m really concerned about, I know that for myself, that when I am in the company of others who don’t respect a certain moral view that is important to me, I slide frighteningly quickly from merely taking note of the fact, to judging them in my heart.

Pieter: Hmmm.

Theophilus: So what I would ask the man – the owner, assuming he were seeking my opinion – is whether or not he is perhaps in some danger of committing the grave error of judging another’s soul. In this case, the man could be seen as presuming God’s prerogatives in two ways: he is taking offense where the offense is God’s alone, and his is judging the soul of a fellow creature of God’s, a role God is said to be fairly protective of.

Pieter: Well I wouldn’t go that far.

Theophilus: How far would you go?

Pieter: I just mean that the man isn’t condemning the kid or threatening him with hellfire or anything, so come on, lighten up a bit!

Theophilus: Well the question at hand is a moral or maybe, for this man, a purely religious one, so let’s deals with it on that basis. I’m not sure what I’d say to the man if he were just some guy offended by - maybe the political opinions of his passenger, but since we are discussing the offense purely on religious terms, we should take that angle to look at the root of the issue.

Pieter: Maybe.

Theophilus: Well you’ve said that the man is pious, a Christian no doubt?

Pieter: That he is. Yes, a very committed Christian.

Theophilus: Right, well we don’t need to address what a Christian believes about the Ten Commandments, and in any event we are still assuming that the speech violates the man’s moral/religious principles regardless.

Pieter: Of course.

Theophilus: Well then what would scripture say to the man’s question?

Pieter: Which one?

Theophilus: The one about what he should do in the situation.

Pieter: I think the man should insist that the moral guideline be respected.

Theophilus: Fine, but does scripture say that? Does anything command him to do that other than his own feelings? Is a Christian obligated to object to others not following his moral precepts in his presence? Is he even permitted to do so in these cases?

Pieter: Why ever not?

Theophilus: Why indeed. Well there’s a passage that’s leaping to mind, something to do with Christians who have different moral standards and how not to do things that could cause another to stumble.

Pieter: I think I know which one you’re talking about. So what?

Theophilus: Well, hang on a minute; I’m going to find the passage online here …. Ok, yeah, this is it. It’s in Romans, chapter 14. Paul is apparently writing to people, fellow believers, who have differing views on things like dietary restrictions and the observance of various holy days and things like that. Secondary issues to the faith, I think it would be safe to say.

Pieter: Probably. But you said that doesn’t matter – that the severity of offense is beside the point.

Theophilus: Quite right. It’s not relevant to address how egregious the offense is maybe in God’s eyes, but it’s relevant to note that the issue before Paul is secondary because, just like in our hypothetical, we aren’t talking about harming others for example. If Paul were talking about differences of opinion as to the morality of theft or murder, I’m just guessing he’d draw a pretty firm line.

Pieter: Alright, duly noted.

Theophilus: So, back to the passage, what Paul is really doing is saying two different things at once. He says that, in regards to food for example, he is persuaded that there is no such thing as unclean food. But he doesn’t expect everyone to share his opinion and he definitely doesn’t tell others to violate their consciences on the subject. So, on the one hand, he’s telling those with the stricter standard to keep their practice in faith but not to judge others who don’t also follow it. On the other hand, he tells those with the looser standards not to be a stumbling block for the others, that is, not to eat the objectionable food in the presence of those who object.

Pieter: Precisely, so the person should try not to give offense right?

Theophilus: Well of course, but the question is, Who gets to say that, and to whom?

Pieter: Go on.

Theophilus: Well this is Paul, right, and he’s writing to different factions within the Church. Which is to say, being one with authority in the Church, he is writing to those who are obligated, at least to listen to him, if not submit to his wisdom. Moreover, with that authority, he is saying two distinct things to each of two different factions. He says to those with the looser standards, whom he labels the strong and among whose number he counts himself, to not be a stumbling block, but, to those with the stricter standards, whom he calls weaker, he repeatedly commands them to withhold judgment. In fact! Look here; he says that apparently, for some things at least, ‘it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.’ Ha! Paul, that old moral relativist at it again!

Pieter: Now it’s my turn to say ‘Humph!’

Theophilus: Well, again the main point is that he is counseling different things to different people. To the strict he counsels keeping faith and humility; to the lax, he advises patience and perhaps shared accountability. And here’s where this seems relevant to the issue at hand. The owner of the car is the one with the stricter standard. If he calls himself a Christian then Paul’s word must at the very least be accorded a high level of respect, whose advice to someone in what seems just like the man’s situation, is to withhold judgment.

Pieter: Alright, but wouldn’t he also say to the other person to not be a stumbling block?

Theophilus: Of course…

Pieter: See!

Theophilus: …If they both submitted to the same moral or religious authority. If Paul had two members of the Church arguing over the boundaries of appropriate language, then certainly, he would say to the one, “judge not,” and to the other, “don’t cause your brother to stumble.” But this is key: the two people in the car do not share the same standard let alone the same authority. Well, at least they don’t acknowledge the same authority.

Pieter: But that can’t be right. Swearing is one thing and breaking a clear commandment is another! That’s not debatable for a Christian.

Theophilus: Right you are.

Pieter: See!

Theophilus: …For a Christian. It seems like what you’re saying now is that using the Lord’s name in vain is not one of those issues for which Paul would say differences should be respected. But the fact that the passenger is not himself a Christian, or not known to be one, puts him in precisely the same position as the strong Christian in Paul’s letter. Which is to say: he is innocent of the law. Innocent perhaps due to his utter ignorance of the standard.

Pieter: Now you lost me.

Theophilus: The passenger is innocent in regards to his use of language, even so far as using the Lord’s name in vain, in the same way that the strong Christian without use for holy days and special diets is; his conscience does not recognize the standard.

Pieter: (Grumbles.)

Theophilus: Paul would not enjoin a non-Christian to not be a stumbling block to another person whom he does not yet recognize as a brother in Christ. It’s a question of standing. If Paul believed he had any spiritual authority he would certainly advise the kid to hold his tongue out of respect for some issues and out of obedience for others. And the man could do likewise, but only if the kid is a fellow Christian with whom he has some standing, maybe a friend, relative or fellow Church member. But… but… to the owner, who is a Christian, Paul’s advice, I think, would be unchanged. He would say “judge not.”

Pieter: But certainly the passenger ought to become a Christian.

Theophilus: I’m guessing Paul would agree with you there.

Pieter: So…

Theophilus: So, is the best way to preach conversion by starting out correcting someone’s vocabulary?

Pieter: (Sighs.) You keep dancing around it. I’m just staking out a simple view and you keep moving the ground underneath things.

Theophilus: You give me more credit than I’m due.

Pieter: I just mean that you’re good at scoring debate points, but I’m not convinced.

Theophilus: Of what?

Pieter: That a person going out of his way to help another person doesn’t have the right to expect not to be offended in the process.

Theophilus: Put it this way: I take it for granted that for a Christian at least, it is a requirement to never give offense to anyone else without a compelling reason; unless there’s some greater good being aimed at perhaps.

Pieter: So now the Christian is the one doing the offending? He’s the one doing the good deed!

Theophilus: Well, think about it. We’ve agreed that this kid is clueless. He doesn’t intend offense. He has no standard whatever with respect to the use of the Lord’s name, let alone simple ‘swear words.’

Pieter: That’s the problem!

Theophilus: Well, perhaps for him. But again, within the bounds of the example, he is with respect to language as Paul is to food: without a standard. He could be wrong about this, but he is utterly innocent of violating any standard of his own as he has none! If God has a standard then God will take care of it. I can think of no way for the Christian to communicate his discomfort – his objection – without giving offense; without inevitably causing the kid at least the feeling of being judged.

Pieter: Now you have the man being everyone’s judge again.

Theophilus: Well, what other reason would he have for voicing his objection? I think we’ve established that no one can take offense but God, the same individual with the sole right to judge. No one is being harmed or even tempted to sin in any way. So the background expectation of all Christians to not offend or insult is still in place.

Pieter: No, no, no! The man is uncomfortable, and in his own car, on his own time, which he is using to help others who turn around and offend him while he’s at it!

Theophilus: Well, if he’s merely uncomfortable, I think he should deal with it. If that’s the only issue, I believe the prior expectation to not offend holds. The Christian needs a non-self-interested reason to trump the always binding injunction to love and respect his neighbor.

Pieter: Look, you’re being awfully hard on this guy. Now you have him needing to constantly run around helping out anyone in the least way needy, exhausting his personal resources in the process and not even allowed to so much as open his mouth to express his personal preferences.

Theophilus: Yah, it almost sounds like allowing oneself to be sacrificed for the good of others doesn’t it?

Pieter: Don’t be cute.

Theophilus: No, I’m not being cute. I’m completely serious. Jesus didn’t invite his followers to just occasionally give away some of their disposable resources in order to feel a little better about themselves, he commanded his disciples to follow him in the kind of life which he led, which was one of total self-surrender to God expressed mainly through service of others, others who most of the time not only didn’t appreciate it, but also might insult you in the process, heck, they might even just kill you for it!

Pieter: Well we don’t all have to be Jesus.

Theophilus: True enough. Thank God for forgiveness.

Pieter: It seems to me that now you are the one judging the Christian man. And ironically enough, you’re judging him for his being judgmental. Who are you to judge?

Theophilus: Well it’s true, someone could easily be tempted to judge this man and thereby fall into the same trap I am counseling him to avoid.

Pieter: You’re not going that easy on him to be sure.

Theophilus: Well, if I judged him, then I would undoubtedly need forgiveness. And hopefully, I would follow my own advice and not step in to give him said advice unless…

Pieter: Unless?

Theophilus: …Unless he asked for it, or unless I thought I had sufficient standing in our relationship to offer it. In this hypothetical I’ve been assuming the man asked me for my opinion.

Pieter: Well he did, that’s true.

Theophilus: Far from judging the man, I intend (you know those things paving the road to hell), I intend, to be judging the standard by which the man and myself would both measure ourselves. What is at issue, it seems to me, in this discussion is by what standard a Christian is called to measure him or herself, not in how well or poorly any individual actually measures up. Of course all of us fall short. Of course the differences between the way any two people fall short is insignificant in the long run. But when one is talking about the standard, it is important to be precise, lest everything else measured by a faulty standard suffers. The danger for the moralist or religious person is primarily the pride of seeming to more closely measure up. Just look at how Jesus dealt with the religious leaders in his time, for acting like they were relatively better off. For me, the standard is Christ, and often that is interpreted for us through the writings of scripture. See, the point is that anyone who is in the position of defending their own behavior – whether the man while judging the kid, or someone else while judging the man’s judgments – is in very serious danger of trying to set up the standard to their own benefit. I take it for granted the self-justification is one of the more dangerous temptations for humankind but is especially so for the religious person.

Pieter: Hmmm.

Theophilus: But even if we hypothetically cut the man all the slack in the world, and assume he is as pure as the driven snow, that it would be impossible for him to presume to judge anyone else, we are still back to our earlier concern.

Pieter: And what was that?

Theophilus: The fact that, for the Christian, there needs to be the assumption of first doing nothing that runs counter to love of one’s neighbor, including simple respect and avoiding the giving of offense, without a strong reason. There’s also the not insignificant missional concern.

Pieter: Oh boy, now what?

Theophilus: Well, as I said before the fact that if one’s selfless motive is to seek conversion, one needs to be mindful of how the other party is likely to receive the overture. If a Christian approaches someone with the opening tactic of correcting their speech, how likely is that person to be interested in the person’s religion and how likely is he to write the person off as just another hypocrite?

Pieter: Now you’re calling the guy names.

Theophilus: Not necessarily, I’m not calling the person a hypocrite, just noting that given the relative prevalence of religious hypocrisy, an opening move of correcting someone’s speech is not very pragmatic and might further confirm the person in their rejection of religion, or that particular religion, as a whole.

Pieter: Well.....

Theophilus: Look, it’s this simple. To justify communicating a moral standard to another person, one either needs to have standing as a friend or authority, or one must have a compelling reason to justify what I take to be the normative posture for Christian action: that of putting the self-interest of others ahead of one’s own. An example of this would maybe be seeking to avoid some harm to another person – which could be oneself or a third party.

Pieter: Right.

Theophilus: And I think we’ve established that there is no harm to another person or to the Christian man in this situation.

Pieter: I guess.

Theophilus: And there is clearly no standing of relationship or authority between the parties…

Pieter: Yeah.

Theophilus: So, what other consideration could there possibly be?

Pieter: Look, that’s very impressive and all, but I say, if it were my car and my time, I don’t need to go out my comfort zone to keep some other person from feeling bad!

Theophilus: Well, that may be ultimately true, but it’s hard to see how Paul or anything else in the gospel would support that view.

Pieter: I have rights over my stuff.

Theophilus: Hmm, that strikes me as a very American view, but not a very Christian one.

Pieter: Oh great, now we’ll blame America for everything.

Theophilus: No, it’s just to say that American ideals are very self-centered. The whole structure of the government is designed to protect people’s right to be as selfish as they care to be as long as they don’t harm anyone else’s right to be selfish.

Pieter: What’s wrong with that?

Theophilus: Well it’s outside the scope of this conversation to say, and perhaps it is the least bad way to set up a civil government, but it’s hard to see how one could square basing a stand upon this kind of demand for private sovereignty with the Christian view. Take for example the Reformed tradition, where that tradition’s view of personal sovereignty is expressed in The Heidelberg Catechism’s question and answer number one.

Pieter: Oh, do enlighten me.

Theophilus: Well, the response to the question of what is to be the Christian’s only comfort in life and in death is that, “I am not my own, but belong in body and in soul, in life and in death, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.” The view here would be that we do not properly speaking ‘own’ anything, not even our very selves. (How’s that for an American heresy!) Instead, we are merely stewards of everything we are given, including our life and health.

Pieter: Oh, and I suppose you live up to this?

Theophilus: By no means! That’s kind of the point. No one really lives up to it. Again we’re talking about the standard by which actions are measured. We are not to judge, but neither are we to excuse, least of all ourselves. If we judge others, we preempt God’s judgment; if we excuse ourselves, we preempt God’s forgiveness.

Pieter: Well isn’t that profound.

Theophilus: Yes, actually, but I’m obviously not the one making this stuff up.

Pieter: Look, I admit that you’re good at this. You even seem to enjoy this, but that doesn’t make you right.

Theophilus: What would make a view right?

Pieter: I don’t have time for this now. Really, I don’t want to keep arguing. I still think I’m right and nothing you can say would convince me otherwise.

Theophilus: (Sighs.)

Continue reading

Conversation Part III: Morality - Theistic, Christian and Otherwise

(continued from previous)

The conversation on the moral superiority of religion vs. atheism is in a way not interesting to me. If that argument were a horse race, mine would still be in the stable, biding his time, thoughtfully munching hay. As I've tried to say, I don't think being religious or having faith is itself any kind of virtue precisely because I do not recognize any strict epistemological dichotomy between faith and reason. (This is why I always gag when I hear someone lauding 'people of faith' in the political realm. The grouping 'people of faith' is beyond vacuous. What a stupid category of people to be in favor of.)

The only reason I pick up the gauntlet here is because the 'new atheists' so consistently seem to hold the opposite view in that they portray having religious faith in general as an inherently morally dangerous enterprise and thereby not holding such beliefs as inherently morally superior. (This is especially so for Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins, Dennett is much more sophisticated as is perhaps to be expected.) They do this without significantly distinguishing between different religions based on the content of their teachings and without distinguishing between actions taken by nominal believers that utterly contradict the tradition's teaching (hypocrites) and those taken in response to agreement with the broadest streams of the tradition.

At the same time that they do not deign to actually engage the content of the traditions they lump together, they speak from a perspective which is impossible to define and, as I will argue, is unable to defend its own moral standing on the same grounds it criticizes the theistic worldview. So we have a group of people speaking as if from a moral high-ground which they are completely unable to give a reasonable defense for holding, denouncing another group that, however in-credible you find its basis, at least has very specific internal reasons for holding its moral perspective. This confusion is why my horse is out of the barn. I am not out here to win the argument between theism and atheism or religion and secularism, but to significantly reframe it.

First I will describe how materialist or secularist assumptions do not entail a morality. Second, I will revisit the case of the morally hypocritical atheist. Third, I will consider some secular sources of morality and look at how the materialist's own assumptions interact with his moral beliefs. Fourth, I will attend to an important mistaken conclusion from the case for morality depending on something transcendent. Fifth, I will return to the case of the one inherently dangerous element that can attend secular morality.

It is of course very common for philosophers or theologians to speak analogically of 'height' or 'transcendence'. The secularist or materialist worldview on the other hand is a flattened perspective. The strict materialist or secularist is one who insists on understanding everything immanently and thereby cuts off the possibility of appealing to any external criteria. The mechanism of flattening a worldview comes in re-description. The materialist points to a perceived dimension of height or transcendence and reduces it to another, immanent, level of explanation - for example the biological, political, psychological or economic. Viewing everything flatly doesn't change what counts as morality, it redescribes behavior previously thought to be moral on another, amoral, level.

So not only is there no longer recourse to terms like God to defend desirable criteria, anything substituted for God is either itself a transcendental term, belief in which is equally or even more inexplicable, or, if it is truly immanent, fails to be able to provide criteria able to qualitatively assess the immanent world.

I propose that for the word morality to have any meaning, the morals must actually represent something really real, not merely an appearance of one thing that is really just some natural epiphenomenon.

The atheist employing the idea of morality derived from universal human feelings or common sense is missing the fact that flattening the world into two dimensions has removed the possibility of morality even being a useful word. The flat world is the world reduced of its transcendent dimension which is the dimension ideas like morality lived in. In the flattened world, morality is no longer really right or wrong - who could have the authority to say so? - it is just whatever the interest group or species with the power to do so defines it as. If we're going to start down the road of reductionism, we should have the courage to follow through to its logical conclusions unless compelled otherwise.

The game of reductionism is a dangerous one, its sword really is two-edged. If one starts with an assumed naturalism or materialism in order to say that all kinds of religious phenomena are just expressions of various natural phenomena, fine. But to be consistent one has to be able to swallow the conclusion that human morality, all of it, is just a chimera as well. If one dislikes that conclusion and knows of some other way of coming up with a basis for morality, I'm more than willing to listen. But beware, as Hitchens mentions in his book (and then ignores the implications of): nobody has been able to come up with a logically convincing and consistent secular basis for morality at least since David Hume pointed out the impossibility of bridging the gap from is to ought. As in, these are the facts; therefore, this is or is not as it should be. No pile of facts is big enough to constitute a single qualitative judgement on the rightness or wrongness of any other fact. If you can't provide a foundation either, then you have to admit that with respect to morals the theist and the atheist are on exactly the same ground relative to one another.

The theist operates upon a morality consistent with his worldview which is itself largely based on faith, the atheist operates upon a morality he has no rational basis for but takes to be correct based on faith. The atheist cannot provide a rational defense of the reality of his morality given his metaphysical views for exactly the same reason that the theist cannot coerce belief in the ground of his morality. The theist has at least the luxury of being internally consistent in his views, the atheist does not, and the discomfort of this leads to all manner of logical abuse.

This amorality of materialism is where my point of the impossibility of a morally hypocritical atheist originates. We've agreed, atheism as such, has no moral content and I am happy to add that neither does theism. What morality a theist holds comes from the character of the god he believes actually exists. The work is done on the level of faith that God exists. But once this is believed, the basis for morals, for good or ill, is firmly in place. The atheist believes himself to be 'neutral' or without any faith commitments as regards the existence of any gods. I don't buy it, but for the sake of argument, fine - he has no faith in regards to the existence of God or gods. He still hasn't explained how he could begin to defend morality from its detractors or conjure up a particular moral perspective, let alone one from which to denounce the theist from.

(Another hypothesis might be that one could just be a hypocritical human being. I have no idea what this would mean. The (biological?) definition of 'human being' implies no morals in and of itself. For example, let's say I'm a human being that just happens to enjoy rape and murder. But those are such value-laden terms! Let's try to be more neutral and objective. Really I just like (or rather am programmed) to spread my genetic material and get rid of competitors for successful completion of such. Perhaps this behavior is part and parcel of being human like it is for so many other purely biologically determined species. After all, we don't speak of bacteria committing rape or wolves murdering. They're just animals being animals, the perfectly flat biological definition of which rules out morality or immorality. For me to be hypocritical in my actions, I would have to hold some further belief about humanity that entailed that the forceful spreading my genes and disposing of rivals was wrong. If I don't believe any such thing then maybe I just have a different idea of humanity than someone who does. Such a one would either need to convince me that their idea of humanity is the right one or else how true morality can be derived without any tradition-based view of humanity.)

Frankly I find the solution of morality coming from 'human solidarity' to beg as many questions as it attempts to answer. I am not convinced humans have such an inborn idea of solidarity with their species. My evidence for this is strictly empirical. Even if they did though, this would not necessarily constitute morality. At most I could go along with the human animal having an evolved sense of protection of its own extended kin network or tribe; one protects and cares for those sharing one's own genetic material. But this is not morality anymore than it would be for any other species. A Water Buffalo protecting her calf from a pack of Lions might look noble to you and me (because we're anthropomorphizing), just as the human mother going without food to feed her child might bring tears to our eyes. But come on, set the sentimentality aside for a minute and let's really follow the skeptical rabbit hole all the way down. If morality is just nature's way of tricking the individual organism into caring about the next generation and the genetic community's survival more than its own, then we have not yet found something that could rightly be called morality.

For another way of showing why secular alternative sources for morality are not logically compelling, allow me to illustrate how reductionist skepticism of religious morality works just as well on secular morality by translating a paragraph intended to dismiss the specificity of religiously derived morals. I will put the original vocabulary in parentheses and my suggested substitutes in brackets.

"To invoke a (heavenly)[common-sense secular] morality you must be specific in your judgments. If (God)[reason or conscience] told you this or that action is unethical, be prepared for an answer that will get you no where close to justice. (God)[Reason] tells you its wrong? Well (he)[it] tells me it's right. This is the kind of relativism we keep (out of)[in] real courtrooms for a reason. You can swear on the (Bible)[human solidarity or the categorical imperative] (or not), but the moment you pull it to your side to defend yourself you will be very quickly dismissed." [Because why in the world should anyone else care if you think one should feel solidarity with the species or only act in a way that one could consistently will that everyone followed a similar course of action. What if they happen to think that that's perfect nonsense and choose to (unhypocritically) act in whatever way they please?]

My belief that reductionistic worldviews do not have sufficient criteria to muster any morality whatsoever is the reason that secular humanism - so proud of its morality - is, and always will be, so utterly unappealing to me. Philosophically it contains all of the 'weaknesses' of Christianity and nihilism without the consistency of either. Secular humanist thinkers who attempt to defend morality are, in my view, just sentimentalists unwilling to give up the ghost. The only philosopher's doubt who gives me pause is the nihilistic laughter of a Nietzsche. If there is no God then there really is nothing.

Allow me just to anticipate another common objection before it's made. It is often said that the theist who argues for the dependence of morality upon a worldview including a certain kind of God as I do (or at least some other kind of transcendental principle), is demeaning humanity and himself. The argument goes that humanity had morality before religion - people knew it was wrong to kill before they had the ten commandments (Though if it were really such universal common sense, then why would it still happen so much?) - and that further it is scary to assume that any particular theist would be out raping and pillaging if only he lost certain of his beliefs about God.

It is important to see why this misses the point completely.

I do not think that I would go out and commit a whole slew of abominable acts if I woke up tomorrow completely lacking in faith. I would probably continue in largely the same behavior I do now based upon what I have been taught is right and wrong (some of which very well might be wrong). The difference is that I would no longer have any rational reason for committing moral acts and refraining from immoral ones. I would still believe that rape and murder were wrong but I would no longer have any reason why they were.

The fallout of the above is that while both the Christian and the materialist atheist can be moral, and both probably will have some type of morality, the Christian must be moral, while the materialist's flattened worldview makes morality optional, a commitment of faith not derived from his more fundamental commitments. This means that materialist atheists or any others who assume their own neutrality must give up their presumably privileged position from which they adjudicate the morals of others.

So again we come around to the point of a certain danger inherent in secular morality. I am not reneging on my point of the moral neutrality of theism vs. atheism in general. The danger of secular morality is not that it doesn't have any morals, or has worse morals, but in its utter confidence in their rightness; its perceived lack of faith. Faith seeks assurance, secular moral reasoning seeks, and too often thinks it has found, certainty. This is why (at least three of) the 'new atheists' sound so like fundamentalists to much of even their atheistic audience. They are so unabashedly confident in the way that only one who believes his ideas derive from reason alone can be. (Atheist fundamentalists largely share a philosophy of knowledge with their Christian cousins. Fundamentalism in Christianity has not to do with the doctrines believed but in how one thinks those beliefs are arrived at; not with what is believed but how those beliefs are held. Orthodox Christians have been around for millenia, fundamentalists are a very modern phenomenon and, to my mind, are basically heretics.)

The Christian may take decisive action, but if she is thinking Christianly, she must do so in fear and trembling. She may err greatly, but if she is a Christian, she is aware of this possibility just about better than any, called so often as she is to repent for past mistakes. If she continues to consciously err in disregard of her professed beliefs then she is a hypocrite and should be named as such. The strict materialist as we have seen cannot be called a hypocrite if he denies the reality of any morality. But if he does feel a moral calling, the secular moralist, if he fools himself into thinking he has banished faith and proceeds by the pure light of reason, will come to his conclusions without-a-doubt and will proceed without caution. Woe to those who get in his way!

This goes to the point about the dangerous confidence of a nation like America. I don't necessarily disagree with defenses of the pleasures and privileges of living in America. The point I was making didn't have to do with life in America, but the life of America and Americans on the rest of the world. The Roman empire was undoubtedly a fine place to live too, if you were a citizen. But I hardly think the Romans patting of themselves on the back for the height of their civilization went over that well with those unfortunate enough to be labeled barbarians. The confidence of America in its status as such a great (the best!) place to live is why it has been so damned confident spreading its wonderful way of life to places like the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam, Central America and Iraq, countries and civilizations whose "thanks but no thanks" isn't very readily listened to. "No," says America, "You don't understand how great it is to be an American. Just try it!"

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Conversation part II: Present and Future Focus in Christianity

(continued from previous)

For the sake of the current discussion we'll call the two elements of the Christian tradition under consideration by the shorthand of present and future focus. The present focus is the spirituality of everydayness, the cultivation of moment-by-moment awareness. It includes both the consider the lilies stuff and the validation of finite historical human life itself. The future focus is eschatology, the orientation toward an ultimate end stuff.

Now when I talk about this as a strand within Christian thought, I don't mean the kind of strand that can be pulled out and employed on it's own. Pulling one strand out, any more than hypothetically, unravels the whole thing. (If you follow the metaphor, this is precisely what I take secular culture to have done: pulled out of traditional cultures the elements that it liked while ignoring their overall context. To switch metaphors, I take the ethics of secularism to be a kind of plucking of religious fruit which ignores the roots necessary to actually produce this fruit in the first place.) So, though the strands of Christian teaching can be talked about to some extent independently, they are always interrelated and when separated from one another completely, snap, so to speak. Perhaps it would have been better to speak of the sides of coins which are much more obviously just different angles of the same reality.

While I would understand why a secular onlooker would counsel the religious believer to just develop certain aspects of religion and ignore others (because this is precisely what he has done) the Christian cannot understand this as any more than being told to try and run faster by hopping on one leg.

Given these two distinctive strands of Christian teaching, we turn to some common criticisms and problems they are alleged to lead to. Many would argue that a person is at great risk of abdicating her everyday responsibilities to the extent that she gets caught up in mystical ideals of living in the moment, and to the degree that she thinks about the afterlife, she will ignore the needs of life around her. Notice that in both cases the Christian is criticized for the same thing: a lack of focus on the material, 'real' world around them.

The way that these criticisms apply to the instance of the clergy is instructive here. On the one hand, religious leaders are regularly criticized for being too otherworldly, talking about heaven and saving souls when people are hungry and dying. On the other hand, the criticism is most often paired with the reasoning that they do this in order to secure power and amass wealth in the here and now. So which is it, are the clergy too focused on this world or the next? Is Christianity to be blamed equally because it produces people both like St. Francis, the preacher to birds, and people like St. Dominic, the heresy hunter? Which one is the real Christian, neither, just one of them, or both?

Now obviously I would share anyone's disgust with any member or class of the clergy that would use talk of afterlife to extend their own material advantage. Take the most egregious examples: a Priest pocketing money from indulgences sold to the poor in order to shave years off Purgatory, baptisms in the New World used as justification for immediately killing the 'Christian' savages and conveniently taking their land, or just the charlatan televangelist tricking people out of their disposable income. These are our textbook cases of abuse of Religious privilege or authority.

So the question becomes: are these individuals too focused on their present lives, or are they too focused on heaven such that they allow themselves to commit such heinous actions in this then-devalued present life? But this is exactly the wrong question to ask.

On the one hand, it seems clear that these clergy are paying all the attention in the world to the present. They show clearly by their actions, that though they might hypocritically preach about the next life, this life is the only one that really matters to them. (It's hard to imagine even the most cynical atheist sincerely alleging my exemplars to be acting out of the true sense of Christianity. The whole point of being a hypocrite is that one's actions belie one's convictions.) On the other hand, seen Christianly, they are obviously not paying enough proper attention to their present life. Our wayward Christians do not need to tone down one part of Christianity and crank up another part, they need to practice Christianity! The answer is not to take a balanced approached to this life over against eternity, as if these were two different substances to be taken in equal measure, but focus on both lives, or aspects of life, rightly.

What we've been calling putting too much focus on one's present life or the afterlife is really not an error of where one is looking but in how one is looking. It's a qualitative not a quantitative error. One must not look to this present life as an end in itself but rather as a participation in and preparation for the next just as one must not look to the next life as an escape from this life but as a fulfillment and redemption of its beautifully created intentions.

Christian perspective then is bi-focal, it is properly focused simultaneously both on the creation around one and the eschaton toward which that creation yearns. Again, the question is not over which world one is looking to but what one sees the world as. If one sees the earth as creation then it is impossible to devalue it. When one looks at human beings who, though sinners and fallen, are fellow creatures they will be seen as image bearers of God. And one who viewed his fellows as such would be utterly incapable of committing the acts our exemplary hypocrites are guilty of. It's a little harder to learn to see this way than to walk and chew gum at the same time, but it can be done.

Now, when I mentioned above that our hypocrites can be seen, regardless of what they profess, as acting based on the assumption that this world is all there is, I'm not saying that their clearly immoral behavior is the only way of acting based on that assumption. There are plenty of examples of saintly types among atheistic folk too. But I'm curious on what particularly secular grounds an atheist can both tell the clergymen that it is wrong to do what he is doing, which he probably knows, and why. In other words, without disingenuously resorting to the authority of the believer's tradition, on what grounds other than personal preference could the atheist tell the clergymen, or a fellow atheist for that matter, that his actions were as despicable as we believe them to be.

My advice to the mis-behaving Christian is quite simple: act like a Christian. Christianity has plenty of reason for opposing all of this loathsome behavior and absolutely no reason for supporting it. The actions we criticized happen not because of, but in spite of the individual in question's Christian belief, if in fact they have any. The atheist could similarly tell the immoral atheist to act more atheistically. What could that possibly mean? Again, I'm not saying that atheism necessarily leads to immorality, but I honestly don't know how it could ever oppose it other than arbitrarily. Christians have no problem finding grounds to criticize the hypocrisy of their fellow believers and to tell them that they lack the right quality of behavior. And that is a good thing! What resources does atheism have for assessing correct and incorrect qualities of another's behavior, Christian or not, in the first place? The question is: can one be a morally hypocritical atheist?

Another problem brought up in this regard is the idea of religious action resulting from obedience to a call of some sort. We are fine with people being religious up to a point, but we don't like even the structural possibility for someone to hear a calling to some kind of radical life or action. We are worried about someone obeying if they believed, like Abraham, that God was commanding them to sacrifice their son.

My understanding of the Christian faith and Christian ethics means that this possibility cannot be ruled out. The nature of Christian faith means that one's ethical commitments are in a sense 'open ended,' that is, structurally open to include following through on something one does not fully understand. This leaves one open to undertaking heroic and selfless actions, but I acknowledge that there absolutely is the danger of also doing great evil. Those who have sincerely believed that God commanded them to do something vary from Moses leading his people to freedom and Jesus laying down his life for others, to Spanish inquisitors and 911 hijackers.

Enlightenment rationality tried to solve the problem of religious violence stemming from faith and obedience by advocating a mode of deafness to voices other than one's own conscience. But the danger of deafness is just as great as that of listening to the wrong voice. I would submit that it does not solve the problem of humanity's proclivity to commit evil and could even exacerbate it.

The reason it does not solve the problem is that the call one is deaf to could just as easily be that of the orphan or the widow and the voice of reason or conscience one follows can just as easily self-justifyingly lead to evil as that of a false god. The reason it could be even worse to blindly follow reason is that the follower of reason does not believe himself to be following anything and is thus even more confident and certain that his actions are just than the believer. The Christian believer who acts on faith knows that he can err, even that error is likely, and he thus should be more willing to question his motives. Doubt of course is the correlate of faith, not its opposite. The actor who believes his actions are wholly derived from reason has no reason to doubt his conclusions. These are the people we must watch out for.

Just think of all the wars that have been justified by serving the greater good, freeing those under dictators and burning villages in order to save them. The advocates of these wars probably believed just as strongly that their cause was just as the terrorist believes he is doing God's will. And the victims of secular wars are just as dead as those of religious wars. I also believe it is no coincidence that the two most dangerous empires of the 20th century, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., are nation states wholly founded on enlightenment philosophies of progress and justice which they believed were neutrally derived from reason. [1]

The problem with hearing any 'voice' whether one believes it's God or conscience, is one of discernment. And this is really the point all the way back to my original post on wrestling with a sense of vocation: the work of discernment is hard. It can be as tiring as wrestling with angels, or devils. This is what the apostle meant when he said that one must test the spirits to see if they are of God.

1. This is a paraphrase of Stanley Hauerwas from Resident Aliens

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