"Inclining apparently to avoid moral trespassing and seeking above
all to be scholarly, not admonitory and didactic, the ethicists,
philosophical and religious, have left out what is crucial -- the primary
ethical stuff. For the depiction and pursuit of actual virtues, the terribly
homely business of learning how to be polite in difficult circumstances;
always prompt; courageous when threatened: temperate when zig-zagging looks
right; 'just' when advantages lie in injustices: these and more are the
achievements, the habitual achievements, that make up the virtues. Without
these, there simply is no primitive working content for the moral life.
Surely there is, then, no clarity about moral concepts either."
(Paul Holmer)
I
Our session is entitled "The Uniqueness of Christian Ethics," but I
take it that the issue before us is not really the mere uniqueness of
Christian ethics--which, after all, might consist in some relatively trivial
point of behavior, even one marking the way of Christ as ethically inferior to
other moral traditions or outlooks. Rather, it seems to me that what we are
really interested in here is whether the moral system (including a properly
ethical or theoretical component) of the way of Christ is significantly
superior to systems associated with various other religious and secular
traditions. If so, it will certainly be unique.
Perhaps it is not proper to say it in today's social and intellectual
atmosphere, but I confess at the outset my belief that from the traditionally
accepted teachings of Christ (including His example) there can be drawn a
morality and an ethical theory that is significantly superior to the other
systems which have been concretized in the history of the earth. In what follows
I shall try to explain what I understand by this. While confessing I will also
confess that I have been socially conditioned to believe in the significant
superiority of the ethics of Christ. But it does not follow that there are no
good reasons to sustain that belief. We are socially conditioned to accept many
beliefs which are also rationally supportable, as well as many which are not.
Finally, I confess that it would be very surprising if the participants in
this conference did not agree with me. Perhaps I shall be surprised. But I find
it difficult to imagine this particular sub-class of the population concurring
with some such comment as the following:
"Well, it is true that one is no better off morally for being a
Christian. The relation (whatever it may be) of God to our lives as disciples of
Jesus in the Kingdom of God has no general tendency whatsoever to help us either
to understand moral reality better than in optional life forms or to realize
that reality more fully in our individual lives. The degree of understanding and
realization of moral ideals has no regular connection with being a
Christian or not being. Nevertheless, I choose to continue my life as a
practicing Christian and to recommend such a life for adoption by others."
Not that the moral advantage (if there is such) is the only thing that
matters about Christian faith and life. Prudential, social, aesthetical and
possibly other considerations, such as historical truth or pure cosmological
theory or ontology, well might be cited in an overall comparison of the
Christian way with others. Nor do I suggest that Christians base their
relationships to God or to other personal beings upon moral superiority.
Precisely not, according to the view of Christ and Him friends! But on
the other hand it is not clear to me what it would mean to be a follower
of Christ and yet to allow that the possibilities of moral understanding and
life are equal or better as, say, a Buddhist or Mohammedan, or as a strictly
secular Marxist or Hedonistic Utilitarian, or as an Existentialist of the
Sartrian variety. In any case, it would certainly make news if we were to decide
here that there is no moral advantage associated with the Christian religion.
(Less worthy of note would be a decision that we cannot know the way of Christ
to be ethically superior, or that there is no objective scale of comparison
against which such judgments could be made.)
II
If there is a moral advantage to being (in some sense) a Christian, what is
it? Clarifications are required before we can respond to this question.
First of all, we are not speaking of an advantage which automatically accrues
to all who sincerely apply to themselves the term "Christian." We do
not suggest that every person who identifies with Christianity is in a better
moral position than anyone who does not. A recent poll reports that four out of
five people in The United States now identify themselves as Christian. This
could easily throw one into despair. Kierkegaard's poignant question presents
itself: "If we are Christians--What then is God?"1 So, in
short, I do not here wish to make any claims about the moral superiority of
Christianity as a cultural identification--though the moral significance
of that identification as contrasted with others might also prove interesting to
explore.
But if our question is not about the moral advantage of Christianity as a
general cultural form, what is it about? It is, I suggest, best understood by
reference to a certain picture of the good person and of praiseworthy action
which is derivable from "the definitive Christian moral teachings."
Without belaboring the point in the manner it deserves, I will take this vague
but necessary phrase to refer primarily to the central New Testament texts which
deal with what we ought to be and do. These include Matthew chapters 5-7 and 18,
Mark 8:34-38 & 12:28-36, Luke 14 & 15, John chapters 13 - l7, Romans 8
& 12-14, 1st Corinthians 13, Galatians 5 & 6, Philippians 3 & 4,
Colossians 3 & 4 and the 1st Epistle of John. But I also mean to include
among the definitive Christian moral teachings the time-tested interpretations
and expressions of these and similar passages from the Bible as a whole which
have developed during the history of the Church and which have found a broad
constituency among those who thoughtfully and deliberately accept as the
overriding imperative of their lives: to be like Christ. From these
writings and traditions there emerges, it seems to me, a moral ideal for
personality which is superior to comparable ideals from other traditions. What
does this mean?
III
Frankena and of course many others regard morality as (whatever else)
"an instrument of society as a whole for the guidance of individuals and
smaller groups."2 In my view, however, the moral guidance
offered by society always has to do primarily with what sorts of persons we must
be in order to be good persons. Our actions certainly are important. and
are morally significant in numerous ways, but our character is of much greater
importance morally than are our actions, to others as well as to ourselves. The
moral quality of my actions as my actions, and not merely as an instance
of some general type of action, is dependent upon my character: the pervasive
and long-range governing tendencies of feeling, thought and will which I have
acquired through the experiences and choices that determine my life as a whole
and of which my actions are only a very partial expression.
Now Aristotle, as is well known, pointed out that "Actions...are called
just and temperate when they are such as the just or temperate man would do; but
it is not the man who does these that is just and temperate, but the man who
also does them as just and temperate men do them."3 Kant
emphasized the distinction between acts which are right (those with
universalizable maxims) and those which are praiseworthy (those where the
respect for law present within them is the determining ground of the actions).4
But increasingly in the modern period we have come to emphasize the (presumed)
moral worth of the right action as an abstract type, treating actions as having
a moral quality separable from the moral praiseworthiness that involves the
action's ground in the life of the agent. (The excessive emphasis on rights
which, it seems to me, is so characteristic of contemporary moral thought, is at
least highly consistent with this drive toward moral externalism.) No doubt some
good purposes are served for moral theory by singling out and specifying the
general types of actions which are characteristically done by the good person.
This may be especially attractive in an age which places as little stock on
inward states as ours does, and finds it almost impossible to comprehend the
idea of an ineluctably hidden or implicit self or soul as a significant factor
in human life and morality. But I am inclined to think that the mere action
correctly identified as the just, temperate, etc. act, or the "right"
act generally, has no moral worth at all as distinctive from a certain
prudential and social value. ("Honesty is the best policy.") Whatever
is left over to count as 'rightness' once the moral substance of the agent is
extracted from the action should perhaps not be treated as a moral value. All
moral considerations aside, of course, my neighbor will prefer that I not lie to
him, steal his auto, or molest his children. It certainly is also in my interest
not to do these things. To be able to single out the abstract type of act and
understand its significance for society is obviously important for human life.
But I am unwilling to agree that that importance is a moral one, or that
morality is seen at work in the guidance which society gives merely to secure
acts of the abstract types characteristic of the good person. I would like to
reserve moral significance for what essentially contributes to or constitutes a
part of the moral worth of persons, what makes them good as persons; and the
mere (even frequent, even exceptionlessness) commission of acts which are the
same in abstract type as those characteristically performed by the good person
does not do so.
The morally good person will usually be, I would argue, "useful" to
himself or herself, and to society, as are no others. One recalls Aristotle's
observation that the virtues are chosen "for themselves (for if nothing
resulted from them we should still choose each of them), but we choose them also
for the sake of happiness, judging that by means of them we shall be happy."5 Nicolai Hartmann insightfully comments on how good
persons are also goods:
"Persons are goods for one another and just because of their moral
quality; to his fellow-citizens the just man is a good of a higher order,
likewise the friend to his friend. But to be a good in this way presupposes the
morality of the person. It cannot therefore constitute it. The goods-value
depends upon the moral value. For the person has the moral value in himself, in
his purely inward, secret disposition, independently of whether he becomes a
good to anybody."6
The morally good person is, I suggest, to be thought of as one who is admired
and imitated just for what he or she is, and without any essential reference to
specific relationships, talents, skills or useful traits they may have. Kant
spoke of the moral character which he called "good will," and
contrasted it with natural qualities of mind or temperament and gifts of
fortune. He noted that talents and gifts of fortune "can never give
pleasure to an impartial, rational spectator" if they are unaccompanied by
good will.7 The pleasure here in question is not just any
pleasure, but the special one associated with the attitude of admiration.
(We way envy the person who is fortunate or talented without admiring them, and
those we admire may have or exemplify nothing which we would envy--that is,
which we would like to have while remaining otherwise just the same sorts of
persons we are.) And Kant's "spectator" should, of course, not only be
impartial, but also sensitive, intelligent and well-informed about the
possibilities of human personality. But, with these additions, I think is
correct that there is a wide-spread and penetrating insight into human goodness
(not rightness of action), quite accessible to ordinary persons of good sense.
My claim is that to the type of common moral insight which Kant had in mind,
operating under ideal conditions, the Christian model of the good person will
commend itself both as unique and as better on the scale of human goodness than
the historically developed alternatives.
Henry Sidgwick's general concept of good as the desirable may
also prove useful here:
"...--Meaning by 'desirable' not necessarily 'what ought to be
desired' but what would be desired, with strength proportioned to the degree of
desirability, if it were judged attainable by voluntary action, supposing the
desirer to possess a perfect forecast, emotional as well as intellectual, of the
state of attainment or fruition."8
The good person might then be thought of as the desirable one, in the sense
of the one we would desire to be "if it were judged attainable by voluntary
action, supposing the desirer to possess a perfect forecast, emotional as well
as intellectual, of the state of attainment or fruition."
IV
But is it possible to say anything more about the good person than that he or
she is the type of person one would desire to be, given certain ideal
conditions? I think that it is, and that much more has been said, by
teachers of religion and outstanding literary figures, as well as by the great
moral philosophers. The discussions of human virtue by Aristotle, Hume and, in
our century, Nocolai Hartmann are representative of the philosophers. What does not
seem to me to be possible is to find an illuminating general formula that
comprehends all of human moral excellence or, as Hume puts it,
"personal." Aristotle's attempt to find such a formula in the doctrine
of the mean, if that is what he is doing there, does not, finally, serve
that purpose well. It is drawn from considerations of how one trains for
excellence in any art,9 and no doubt also expresses some significant
truth about how those acknowledged to be masters of "the art of life"
calibrate feeling and action to avoid excess and defect in the given situation.
But I do not see how we can eliminate "intellectual" virtue either
from Aristotle's account of human virtue or from any adequate account, and the
mean is of no use in explicating it.
Hume also is troubled by a dichotomy within virtue. He "... defines
virtue to be whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the
pleasing sentiment of approbation; and vice the contrary."10
Among these pleasing mental features he distinguishes those which are useful
and those which are agreeable, either to himself or to others.11
But it seems possible that some mental traits which please might well have
nothing to do with moral worth: cleverness, for example, or intellectual
creativity (genius). Indeed, Hume includes just such traits in his lists of
moral qualities. Also, the relation of usefulness to moral worth or value is and
has been one of the main problems for moral theory, and much the same could be
said for agreeableness or pleasantness. Moreover, the relation between the
useful and the agreeable is unclear, and there is no reason given to suppose
that the disjunction, agreeable/useful, is complete. (From Cudworth on, the
moral "intuitionists" have thought not.) One suspects that instead of
a definition or formula of essence for personal merit one is being offered only
a two membered list.
Possibly an open ended list of virtues is as close as we can come to a
statement of what the good person is like. That seems to me to be precisely the
case. Aristotle in one place lists as "the forms of virtue,...justice,
courage, temperance, magnificence, magnanimity, liberality, gentleness,
prudence, wisdom."12 So far as I can tell he never commits
himself to having a complete list of the virtues, and other virtues than the
above are mentioned in various passages. Hume's list is much longer, including
under the useful such traits as justice, fidelity, honor, veracity, allegiance,
chastity, humanity, benevolence, lenity, generosity, gratitude, moderation,
tenderness, friendship, industry, discretion, frugality, secrecy, order,
perseverance, forethought, judgment; and under the agreeable such traits as
serenity, cheerfulness, noble dignity, undaunted spirit, "facetious wit or
flowing affability," and "a delicate modesty or decent genteelness of
address and manner."13 He also makes no pretense at a complete
list. Hartmann discusses such virtues as justice, wisdom, courage, self-control
(the "Platonic" virtues, he calls them), along with others from Aristotle's list. To these he adds brotherly love, truthfulness and
uprightness, trustworthiness and fidelity, trust and faith, modesty, humility,
aloofness, sociability; and, as a third group of moral values, love of the
remote, radiant virtue, personality and personal love. But he explicitly
indicates that one cannot exhaustively list all that falls into the realm of
moral values.14
V
Let us suppose, then, that when we speak of the moral uniqueness and
superiority of Christian ethics we are primarily referring to alternative models
of the good person. We are saying that among these models one can be
identified as the Christ model. If that model is one which contains certain
character traits or virtues not found in the others, then it will be in that
respect unique. And if it is one which as a whole would be chosen over the
others by persons in conditions ideal for the making of the choice, then it is
morally superior to the others. Corresponding to the unique character traits in
the Christ model will of course be certain duties or moral obligations.
Actions which offend against those obligations will be wrong, and all
others will be innocent or right. The virtues and duties peculiar to the
Christ model of goodness will of course be reflected in patterns of practical
reasoning peculiar to the Christian.
But what are the peculiarly Christian virtues, the character traits which
constitute the good person on the Christian model? Certainly it is easy enough
to mention in this connection the three so-called "theological
virtues" of faith, hope and charity, made much of in the moral philosophies
of Augustine, Aquinas and other Christian philosophers.15 However, it
seems to me that if we are to find anything distinctively Christian about faith,
hope and love--and what religious tradition could possibly just omit
them, especially at this point in history--we must view them in specific
concretizations, in peculiar ways of having faith, hope and love (or ways of
them having us) . In any case, I suspect that they are better understood as attitudes,
not character traits at all; for I doubt that they are characterizable as
behavioral dispositions, as is the case with, say, honesty and courage. The New
Testament depiction of love as the fulfilling of the law seems to preclude it
from being one character trait among others and to place it in the position of
an overall quality of life within which the various character traits that are
virtues, along with their corresponding actions, are sustainable and even
"natural." Likewise for faith and hope. More on this later.
To locate the specifically Christian virtues we must look at the paradigmatic
situations in the Gospels where Jesus is teaching people how to live. There is
none more crucial for this purpose than the one recorded in "The Sermon on
the Mount," of Matthew chapters 5 - 7, or in its companion sermon on the
plain, of Luke 6 (verses 17 and following). The overall tendency of these
discourses is to upset the notions of well-being
("blessedness") and of righteousness which dominate under the rule of
earth (of man) and to substitute for them notions which apply when people turn
into the rule of heaven (the 'kingdom' of God). The theme of the first (in man's
way) being last (in God's) and the last (in man's way) being first (in God's) is
the focus of much of what Jesus taught and did. It has to be kept constantly in
mind as his words are read. Thus the "blesseds" of Matthew 5 and Luke
6 are taken from among those usually regarded as the cursed, and the "woefuls"
of Luke 6 from among those usually regarded as blessed.
Following the "blesseds" of Matthew 5 we have the declaration that
common people, not just the great and the glittering, can be the salt of the
earth and the light of the world. Jesus then immediately has to forestall the
idea that he came to destroy the law and the prophets (5:17), which his hearers
understood as in effect sanctioning the human kingdom's view of who is blessed
and who is woeful. Jesus' way of preventing harmful misreading of his intent
with his gospel of God's rule over human life is to say that to enter that rule
one does not set aside or destroy "the righteousness of the scribes and the
pharisees," but one goes through and beyond it. (vss. 17-20) Then come his
great illustrations of what this "going beyond" means.
These illustrations fall into five major areas of life, and are designed to
make clear, without systematic exposition, what the "righteousness
beyond" is like. First are illustrations from situations where the
aggressiveness of the male human being is displayed: toward other men (5:21-26),
toward women (27-32), and toward God (33-37). Second are illustrations which
deal with situations of harm (38-42) and threat (43-48). Third are illustrations
bearing upon religious practices: almsdeeds (6:1-4), prayer (5-15) and fasting
(16-18). Fourth are illustrations of how we are to relate to material goods and
provisions (6:19-34). And fifth are illustrations of how we are to 'manage'
other people: not by condemnation (7:1-5), not by forcing good things upon them
(vs. 6), but through God (7-12). It is in these and similar passages, if
anywhere, that we will find the distinctively Christian virtues. Of course we
must remember that illustrations are not laws, and that the letter kills. The
approach of Christian ethics is entirely to the inward personality. It does not
say, for example, "Sure, I'll turn the other cheek, and then I'll knock
your head off. I've done what Jesus commanded." It doesn't insist on going
the second mile for someone who does not need it, "Because Jesus said
to." But it seeks to foster the kind of persons for whom such behavior will
be reasonable and even agreeable in appropriate circumstances--for whom it would
then seem quite "natural," quite "in character," as it was
for Jesus himself.
VI
With reference to these central teachings of Jesus, I shall comment now on
what I take to be two uniquely Christian virtues: One unique trait of persons
good on the Christian model is their active generosity toward those who harm
them or are hostile to them. By this is not intended a mere non-retaliation,
nor an abstract benevolence toward all persons, including, incidentally, those
who harm and threaten us. The concreteness of the situations used by Jesus to
convey his teaching on this point must be felt or vividly imagined by
extrapolation from our own experiences--the stinging pain combined with
unalloyed good-seeking for the one inflicting it--in order to understand the
uniqueness of this virtue:
"Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that
curse you and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that
smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy
cloke forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to
every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them
not again." (Luke 6:27-3)
There is here a progression from love, to doing good, to going beyond
ourselves (in blessing and prayer) for the benefit of those harming us, to
giving over and above what is taken. It seems likely that there is also a
progression on the other side: one of evil--from being hostile toward us (an
enemy), to hating, to cursing (verbal abuse), to mistreating through physical
abuse and the taking of our possessions. The generosity commended and commanded
is further characterized by how it responds to those who only ask for our
goods, and how it does not later seek the return of goods taken from us.
It is necessary to re-emphasize that these words of Jesus are not laws,
but are illustrations. One who can think of morality and moral goodness
only in terms of laws will find the teachings of Jesus simply outrageous or
impossible. As I see it, these teachings are indications of what children of The
Kingdom will be constrained to do, and be able to do, in many circumstances,
perhaps most, because of the faith, hope and love--not precluding
understanding--present in them. We are not here dealing with behaviors of weak
and wimpy, depressed and gloomy people. (No blessings through grinding or
gritted teeth, if you please! And how dreadful to be 'loved' by people who are
not loving. "Love bombing" is a technique now used by certain cults to
brain-wash inductees.) The call is for and to people who know God well and life
well and who act in truth, with a cheerful confidence and strength that would
impress Nietzsche. As Robert Adams comments in his valuable corrective to Susan
Wolf's disastrously flawed analysis of "moral saints":
"The substance of sainthood is not sheer will power striving like
Sisyphus (or like Wolf's Rational Saint) to accomplish a boundless task, but
goodness overflowing from a boundless source. Or so, at least, the saints
perceive it."16
A second unique trait in the peculiarly Christian configuration of virtue is
certainly presupposed in the active generosity toward enemies and others just
sketched. That trait is forgiveness, which more than anything else
characterizes the moral character of the Christian. I am not, of course,
referring to God's forgiveness of us, with its well-understood priority in
Christian teachings, but to forgiveness as a human disposition and activity. The
emphasis of Jesus upon forgiveness between human beings is quite reasonable, in
view of the fact that without forgiveness merely decent human relations become
for the most part impossible between persons close together in the events of
life. The lack of a constant flow of forgiveness goes far to explain why family
and other contexts so frequently prove to be disaster areas. Jesus seems
actually to have even made God's forgiveness of us contingent upon our forgiving
one another. (Matthew 6:12. 14-15) I suspect that this is because forgiveness is
not a unilateral action, not an imposition of one person upon another, and can
only be received from God by one who lives in a pervasive orientation of
forgiveness.
His drumbeat emphasis on forgiveness (always involving straightforward
dealing with the offending person and the community, it seems) finally evoked
from his disciples the (typically legalistic and therefore totally wrong-headed)
question: "How often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?
Till seven times?" No, came the reply, "Until seventy times
seven." (Matthew 19: 21-22) Of course the legalist will conclude that on
the 491st time we are free to not forgive. That isn't the point, however. The
point is that we are to be constantly disposed to forgive, to not base our
future relation to others on grievance over past injuries. It is this
disposition which stands out as a unique trait in the overall pattern of
Christian virtues, and is to constantly displays itself in the day-to-day
activities of the Christian.
Now I certainly do not hold that only in Christianity do we hear of
generosity toward enemies or of forgiveness. No one who has read the Bhagavad-Gita
(Hindu) or the Dhammapada (Buddhist) and the sermons of Gotama could
possibly think that. Nevertheless, it seems to me that such generosity and
forgiveness as is exhibited and taught by Jesus is qualitatively very different
from that in Hinduism and Buddhism. It is affirming and optimistic in a way
impossible to outlooks that are world-and life-negating, to use Schweitzer's terminology.17 Divestment of
passion,18 extinction of desire,19 and extinction of the sense of individuality, if not
individuality itself,20 simply do not yield a generosity or a
forgiveness that equates to what is sponsored in the person and teachings of
Christ. But these two (of course closely related) traditions come as close to
Christ's teachings about generosity to enemies and forgiveness as any, to my
knowledge. Various Stoic authors of antiquity also emphasized generosity and
forgiveness, but, it seems, mainly as a counsel of prudence--the smartest way to
"get through it." Though I do not put it forth as a proven fact, it
seems to me that we have here two significant respects in which the Christian,
ethic is unique. I would, even more diffidently, suggest that they also
constitute a distinct superiority for the Christian ethic, in the sense
explained above.
VII
Perhaps the strongest objection to what I have thus far said
will be that generosity to enemies and forgiveness of the sort advocated by
Jesus Christ is just not possible: that the Sidgwickian condition on the good,
that it be "attainable by voluntary action," obviously fails for the
two traits in question viz-a-viz real human existence. "To err is
human, to forgive is divine," don't you know, and ergo not human.
But "attainable by voluntary action" does not mean attainable by
totally unaided voluntary action. When told that they must forgive a brother
seven times in a day the apostles cried out: "Lord, increase our
faith!" (Luke 17:5) They were exactly right in doing so. Faith, love and
hope must be given. That, by the way, is why they are, fundamentally, not
virtues, which are, as Aristotle correctly saw, acquisitions or attainments. I
do not suggest that faith, hope and love enter those who do nothing to receive
them. The merest gift must, after all, be accepted, received, in some way. But
the New Testament teaching clearly places them all much more on the side of
gifts or graces than on the side of attainments, even attainments divinely
assisted. Thus, faith is created in our hearts, we are told, as we listen to the
word of God in the Gospel of The Kingdom. (Romans 10:8-17, & cf. 1:16-17)
Hope, the joyous expectation of those good events which our confidence in
God's Rule causes us to anticipate, rises as experience of trials certifies our
faith. (Romans 5:3) We are saved by hope. (Romans 8:24) And this hope does not
let us down or "make us ashamed," for as we live in it "the love
of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto
us." (Romans 5:5)
Love as a presence in us thus presupposes, includes, faith and hope, as is
clear from St. Paul's language when he invites us to consider what love (agape)
does:
"Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one. Love is never
boastful, nor conceited, nor rude; never selfish, not quick to take offence.
Love keeps no score of wrongs; does not gloat over other men's sins, but
delights in the truth. There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to
its faith, its hope, and its endurance. Love will never come to an end." (I
Corinthians 13:4-8 NEB)
It is to be noted that this does not say we do, or are to do, these
things. (A well-meaning minister once suggested that I should put my name in the
place of the word "love" and then read these verses. It took weeks for
me to emerge from the cloud that came over me.) Another New Testament writer
tells us that God is love. No doubt He is capable of the things Paul here
attributes to love.
In any case, love (inclusive of faith and hope) now re-enters the moral arena
as the "condition of the possibility of" the realization of the
specifically Christian pattern of virtue, including of course active generosity
to enemies and forgiveness. It is a "presence" (the ontology of all
this is not clear) that is communicated to us through a course of
experience which we have a part in but cannot reduce to a formula. It is a power
in its own right, in us but not "of" us, with which we can more or
less willingly and intelligently cooperate as we "work out our own
salvation with fear and trembling," sensing that "it is God which
worketh in us both to will and to do his good pleasure." (Philippians
2:12-13) Christ is "in" us and, being divine, communicates to us, in a
good Athanasian manner, the divine nature, making "attainable by voluntary
action" what would otherwise be out of the question for us. God's
"can" now implies our "ought." Faith, hope and love are, in
this way, the foundation of the highest moral realization.
VIII
There is surely required some comment on where this leaves the non-Christian.
Without the "can" they obviously do not have the "ought."
They might seem to be absolved of responsibility for the Christian virtues
(though I would prefer to say they are deprived of the opportunity). But we
should perhaps say instead that, while they do not have the "can" of
the indwelling divine love, they nevertheless can obtain it. They have, in
Aristotle's language, the potentiality for receiving divine love. Somewhat as a
child who cannot do numbers can learn to do them, or the person who cannot drive
safely while drunk can (at least in some cases) avoid drinking, and thus drive
safely.
If it is true that the superior pattern of moral goodness includes virtues
supportable only by indwelling faith, hope and love from Christ, does not that
obligate every person to obtain that indwelling if at all possible? In simple
language, is there a moral obligation on every informed person to follow Christ?
To defend an affirmative answer to this question would at least require a
demonstration that his moral pattern is the superior one for all human beings,
and I certainly have not done that here. But I will suggest that any ethical
system should be considered inherently hypocritical--perhaps not in intent,
but in effect--if it does not impose the duty of adopting appropriate and
necessary means for getting into position to do what it holds one is morally
obliged to do. One has not only the duty to be truthful, but also the duty to do
what lies in ones power to become (able to be) truthful. And if only eating
beans (pace Pythagoras) made one able to be truthful, then one ought, one has a duty,
to eat beans--at least so long as they are available.
IX
I'm afraid I have said a lot of infuriating things here. Moral
superiority or even uniqueness is a terribly inflammatory topic, especially when
associated with religion. But it is at least an interesting question of fact
whether Christian faith, hope and love are indispensable for realization of the
specifically Christian virtues (if there are any), or are indispensable, even,
for the realization of "secular" virtues, such as honesty, justice and
benevolence, to the degree demanded by secular morality itself.
I conclude with an observation about "saints."
There is something oddly wrong, unfocussed, about the picture of the saint as
occupying the strenuous upper reaches of moral attainment, and the
resultant association of saint with hero. I believe this to be because what most
characterizes the saint, pervasive faith, hope and love, are really conditions
of significant moral attainment, found in the raw but earnest beginner--one who
has not yet the settled dispositions of, say, guilelessness or courage, much
less those of generosity toward enemies and forgiveness. Indeed, who ever
attains these virtues as fully as they desire and as they ought? Thus the saint
more comfortably fits in the category of the child than in that of the hero,
though there remains something heroic about the saint because what is in them
lifts them above the course of 'ordinary' human behavior.
NOTES
- Soren Kierkegaard, Attack upon 'Christendom',
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1959), pp. 110-111. Return
to text.
- Wm. K. Frankena, Ethics, 2nd edition, (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1973), p. 6. Return
to text.
- Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. II, ch. 4. Return
to text.
- The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals,
First Section. Return to text.
- Nicomachean Ethics, l097b 3-5. Return
to text.
- Nicolai Hartmann, Ethics, 3 vols., Stanton Coit,
transl., (London: George Allen and Unwin LTD, 1932), vol. II, pp. 167-168.
Return to text.
- The Fundamental Principles, etc, opening paragraph
of the First Section. By contrast, one of Hume's statements of the nature of
virtue is: "...a quality of the mind agreeable to or approved of by
every one who considers or contemplates it." In An Enquiry
Concerning the Principles of Morals, L. A. Selby-Bigge. ed., (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1902), p 261n. Return
to text.
- Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, (New York:
Dover Publications, Inc., 1966), p. 111. Recall Dewey's concept of the good
as the satisfactory. Return to
text.
- Nicomachean Ethics, ll06a 25 - 1106b 10.
Return to text.
- Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals,
p. 289. Return to text.
- Op. cit., 268, 277 and elsewhere.
Return to text.
- Rhetoric, 1366b, 1-3. Return
to text.
- Hume, Enquiry, etc., pp. 277-278. Return
to text.
- Hartmann, Ethics, Vol. II, p. 226. Return
to text.
- Henry Sidgwick, Outlines of the History of Ethics,
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1968). pp. 131, 143. Return
to text.
- Robert Merrihew Adams, "Saints," The Journal
of Philosophy, 81, #7 (July 1984), p. 396. Return
to text.
- Albert Schweitzer, Civilization and Ethics,
(London: Unwin Books/ A. & C. Black, 1961). p. 42. Return
to text.
- Lin Yutang, The Wisdom of China and India, Modern
Library, (New York: Random House, 1942), p. 364. Return
to text.
- Op. cit., p. 345. Return
to text.
- Op. cit., p. 109. Return
to text.
