Christian Ethics by Ronald Preston (Part 2)

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Welcome to the second part of my summary of Ronald Preston's essay on Christian Ethics.

In part 1, I looked at the basic ethical message drawn from the gospel accounts of Jesus. The key innovation of Christian ethics was its radicalised form of love or agape. This was a completely disinterested and selfless form of love.

In this part, I look at how that message was adopted and transformed by St. Paul and other early leaders of the Christian church. I close by examining some common criticisms of Christian ethics.

1. St. Paul and the Early Church

Although there is no direct account of the teachings of Christ in Paul's various letters, Preston thinks it clear that he grasped the basic message as being one of love (Romans 13).

Unlike Jesus, Paul offered specific guidance to members of the early church. A good example of this comes in 1 Corinthians 7, when he answers questions on the subject of marriage. When giving this specific guidance, Preston argues that Paul demonstrates a failure to fully absorb the Christian message. This is particularly evident in his sexist teachings with respect to the place of women.

One notable aspect of Paul's teachings is that they were not otherworldly. He did not suggest that the followers of Christ abandon the interests worldly existence and sit about waiting for the End Times. So he did not embrace the full apocalyptic import of Jesus's teachings.

Moving beyond Paul, the later books of the New Testament (Colossians, Ephesians etc) show the early church struggling to keep to the radicalism of Jesus. This is perhaps understandable: after the apocalypse failed to come, the church leaders had to find some way to keep Jesus's message relevant. Preston argues that they did so by regressing slightly, by downplaying the centrality of agape and by adopting a patriarchal view of society.

One final development can be observed in Hebrews and Revelations: the almost complete abandonment of the message of love. For example, in Revelations there is no express desire that sinners will repent and accept Christ; rather, there is an exultation in their expected punishment. This seems contrary to Jesus's core message.

Preston closes this part of his discussion with the observation that it has always been difficult to make the Christian message relevant. This has led to innumerable distortions, mutations and revivals.

2. Common Criticisms of Christian Ethics

Preston ends his article with a brief list of the common criticisms of Christian ethics. They are:

1. Christianity is intolerant and breeds intolerance: Preston accepts the force of this criticism, pointing out the fierce factional fighting that has often overcome followers. He also makes reference to the legacy of anti-semitism.
2. Christianity offers only a morality of reward/punishment: This is the idea that people are scared into good deeds by the threat of damnation and the hope of salvation. This, it is argued, is a corruption of the true nature of agape, which encourages us to abandon these self-interested goals.
3. Christianity is repressive: This is the idea that the impossible goal of agape gives rise to a repressive and guilt-ridden psychology. It is detrimental to true personal growth and fulfillment. This is tied to a final criticism.
4. Christianity provides an ethics of immaturity: Here, the claim is that Christian teachings encourages people to abandon careful, contextual thought about ethical questions. Instead, they are encouraged to develop reactionary attitudes based on the virtue of "conscience". Preston thinks this is a mistake. The doctrine of conscience does not necessarily mean the abandonment of thought; it only means that actions should be done out of proper conviction.

Christian Ethics by Ronald Preston (Part 1)

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I'm blogging my way through every article in The Blackwell Companion to Ethics. Today, it's a biggie: Christian Ethics by Ronald Preston.

Preston's essay covers quite a lot of ground. He begins with a blitzkrieg-style history of the Christian faith, noting its changing relationship with the contemporary culture. He follows with a quick introduction to the basic questions and methods of Christian ethics. He then looks at the ethical teachings from the gospels and the writings of St. Paul. He closes with some criticisms of Christian ethics.

In this part, I am going to skip the historical introduction and dive straight into the basic questions, methods and gospel teachings. In the next part, I will cover St. Paul and the criticisms.

1. Basic Questions and Methods
Obviously, the most distinctive aspect of Christian ethics is that it is based on the Christian faith. This has two basic components: God exists, and is disclosed to us in the ministry and teachings of Jesus.

Despite this religious grounding, Christian ethics is concerned with two basic questions that are shared by most schools of ethical thought:

• What is the right motive from which to act?
• What is the right action in particular circumstances?

The question of motive has held particular fascination in Christian thought. Some suggest that motive is irrelevant, that what is important is the objective consequences of the action. But for most Christians motive is crucial because it is through right motive that we engage in "spiritual formation".

This brings us to the phenomenon of moral casuistry, which is the bringing of motivation to bear on particular decisions. Casuistry got a bad name during the Counter-Reformation because it was seen to carve out ridiculous exceptions to conventional moral rules. For example, the concept of "philosophic sin" held that no action was sinful unless the agent was thinking about God at the time of commission.

Although this is clearly disreputable, Preston thinks that the flaw was with those who made use of casuistry not with the idea itself. Indeed, he maintains that casuistry is essential: it involves the careful use of thought in applying general principles to particular circumstances. Christian ethics would be an exercise in ignorance without it.

On to the gospels.



2. The Teachings of Jesus


(a) The Basic Motif
Although it's oversimplified, Preston treats the four gospels as roughly homogeneous. That is: they provide a reasonably unified vision of Jesus's ethical message. He acknowledges the difficulty with this -- in particular, he notes that John's gospel is a more philosophical reflection on Jesus's message -- nonetheless he ploughs ahead.

The first thing to note is that Jesus was a Jew. His ministry and teachings were a unique and idiosyncratic take on the central ethical message of Judaism: the imitatio dei. His teachings are made through his actions, pithy sayings and parables; they are not made through scholarly interpretations of the Jewish law.

There is a basic motif to his ethical teachings: they radicalise conventional reciprocal morality. In other words, they push us towards an extreme form of empathy, trust and fellow-feeling. Consider:

• He says there is no limit on forgiveness for injuries (Matt 7:12)
• He says we should love our enemies (Matt 6:14)
• He says there shall be no restrictions on neighbourly love (Luke 10: 29)

There are many other instances where Jesus seems to preach an ideology of extremity (e.g. his injunction against even thinking about adultery). And yet in spite of all this, he rarely gives specific advice or rulings on ethical matters (e.g. Luke 12: 14). He offers no concrete guidance on modern social or political issues. The sole exception appears to be his comments on divorce and marriage (Preston has some doubts about the authenticity of these).

(b) Agape or Christian Love
The radical import of Jesus's teachings have been unified under the concept of Agape or Christian love. Agape is a type of disinterested, other-oriented love. It is to be contrasted with Eros, which is a type of self-interested or self-aggrandising love.

For example, I may love to engage in scholarly research, and I may think of the pursuit of knowledge as something noble, but my love can only ever fall within the realm of eros because I am getting something out of it.

Agape is love purged of its self-interested aspects. It enjoins us to cultivate an unselfconscious empathy with our fellow man, and a deep respect and worship for God.

One of the more extreme interpretations of Christian love arises in the Lutheran tradition. Luther famously admonished Christians to abandon the idea that doing good works would get them salvation. This was because good-works-doctrine always had an element of self-aggrandisement to it.

(c) The Impossibility of Christianity
This radical type of love is often criticised for being out of our reach. Indeed, Christian groups have often struggled to stay true to the ideal and have tended to revert to a more commonsense morality.

They have justified this move in two ways. First, they claim that Jesus's message was apocalyptic: it only made sense to follow it if one believed in the imminent destruction of the world. Indeed, many of his teachings would seem to threaten social stability (e.g. "give no thought for the morrow...").

Second, they have made a division between what is possible for members of holy orders and the laity. It may be possible for those living a cloistered monastic existence to approach the radical ideal laid down in the gospels, but it is not possible for the laity. They need to operate within the more traditional commonsense morality, particularly because agape provides no obvious concrete ethical guidelines; it is more an abstract emotion.

Preston has two responses to these charges of impossibility:

• First, having an impossible ethical standard is actually good. It brings us closer to appreciating the depth and range of God's love.
• Second, it is good that Christianity only provides an abstract motivational ground for ethical behaviour. If it provided concrete rules (like Judaism and Islam) it would need constant reinterpretation and would thereby lose its timeless relevance.

That's it for now. In part 2, I will look at St. Paul and the criticisms of Christian ethics.

Jewish Ethics by Menachem Kellner

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I'm blogging every article in The Blackwell Companion to Ethics. Today, the essay on Jewish Ethics by Menachem Kellner is my muse.



1. What is Jewish Ethics?
When looking at ethical traditions such as Judaism, one is always confronted with the question: what is distinctively "Jewish" about a strand of ethical thought? There is always a tendency for particular traditions to either (a) reflect secular thought or (b) become absorbed into secular thought.

This is certainly a problem encountered when looking at modern Jewish scholarship. Modern Jewish scholarship has become predominantly secular, so it is not really worthwhile considering it as a separate branch of thought.

If we wish to locate a distinctively Jewish brand of ethics we must look, instead, to the Rabbinic and Biblical tradition. There, we find the Halakha, which is a highly ritualised set of behavioural restrictions encompassing diet, hygiene, dress, and also civil, criminal and moral laws. It is the Halakha that most clearly embodies "Jewish" ethical thinking.



2. The Biblical Roots
The Jewish Bible (roughly equivalent to the Christian Old Testament) is the foundational document for Judaism. And the ten commandments, handed-down to Moses at Mt. Sinai, are the foundation of biblical ethics.

A couple of things need to be said about these ten commandments. First, is that there are many many more commandments in the Bible. Indeed, there are many more within the book of Exodus. These tend to be overlooked. Second, of the ten commandments, six deal with what we might call "conventional moral matters", i.e. prohibitions against murder, theft, perjury and so forth. The other four commandments deal more explicitly with worship and respect, both of God and of one's parents.

It is with these worship-based commandments that Kellner thinks we find two of Judaism's major contributions to ethical thought: the Divine Command metaethics and the doctrine of Imitatio Dei.

The Divine Command metaethics makes God the source and origin of ethical truth. Kellner suggests that this follows from the idea of God creating us in his image. And it is this "creation in his image" that supports the doctrine of Imitatio Dei (imitation of God).



3. Imitatio Dei and the Golden Rule
One of the central messages in traditional Jewish thought is that the good and moral life is one in which we observe God's commands. It is through this observance that we imitate God and gain salvation.

The observance in question is not limited to what we are calling conventional morality, i.e. it is not just about killing, lying, thieving or fornicating. It involves observance of all the practical commands and edicts laid down in the Halakha. This includes the dietary prohibitions (Kosher), the restrictions on dress, the keeping of the sabbath and the guidelines for rearing livestock.

Thus, for Judaism, the imitation of God is worldly, pragmatic and quite precise. This can be contrasted with Christian and Platonic ideas of imitatio dei. For Platonists, we must try to abandon the worldly for it is impure, impermanent and imperfect. For Christians, God has become man in the body of Christ and this switches the goal from one of imitating God to one of imitating Christ.

One noteworthy development of the imitatio dei doctrine comes from the Rabbinic tradition. The story is told that Rabbi Hillel, when asked by a gentile to be taught the entire Torah, replied with admirable brevity:

What you dislike don't do to others; that is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary.

What we have here is a version of the Golden Rule. Arguably this is superior to the Christian variation because it is formulated in the negative, i.e. in terms of non-interference. It is suggested that this rule is an outgrowth of the imitatio dei doctrine: because we are all made in God's image, we all deserve equal moral respect.



Conclusion
There is, of course, much more to be said about Jewish history and the Jewish contribution to the intellectual world. However, once we move beyond the Biblical and Rabbinic foundation, we get a fractured and increasingly secularised picture.

The most important thing about traditional Jewish ethics is that it encompasses the pragmatic aspects of everyday life (diet, dress etc.) and does not separate this practical element from what we call morality.

Reasoning about God (Part 3): The Varieties of Reason and the Definition of God

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This is part of my series on The Non-Existence of God by Nicholas Everitt. I am currently looking at Chapter 1 "Reasoning about God".

In part 2, we covered three standard religious objections to the use of reason. If we agree with Everitt's responses to these objections, we will have dismissed them and embraced the use of reason when it comes to God.

In this part, we will look at the varieties of reason available to us and what our working definition of God should be.


1. What Type of Inquiry is this?
The first thing Everitt wants to do is clarify the type of inquiry he is engaging in. He is not engaging in a psychological or sociological inquiry into God-belief. In other words, he is not interested in the complex psycho-social factors that might explain why a particular person has a particular belief.

Instead, Everitt is undertaking an epistemological inquiry into God-belief. In other words, he is interested in whether there are any good reasons for believing in God. This is the more important question and is not tethered the psychology of believers.

The distinction is important because noteworthy figures (e.g. Marx and Freud) have tended to engage in a psychological critique of religious belief. Some think such critiques are devastating. But Everitt argues that psychological critiques do not really damage the object (i.e. God) of the belief. That said: psychological critiques might be relevant to certain arguments in favour of the existence of God (e.g. argument from religious experience).



2. The Varieties of Reason
To this point, Everitt has argued that reason is necessary, perhaps compulsory, when it comes to assessing the existence of God. But what can we expect from a reasoned debate or argument?

In response, Everitt suggests that we cannot expect too much. There are many different types of reason and they are of varying strength. Thus, to say we will use reason to assess God's existence, is not to say we will offer definitive proof one way or another. Everitt provides a useful scale for the varying strength of reasons, which is illustrated below.

Although he is not explicit about it, Everitt seem here to be embracing a Bayesian approach to reason and belief. The idea is that belief is not an all-or-none concept. Instead, the strength of our convictions is constantly being revised (upward or downward) as we encounter more evidence and argument.


3. God: Proper Name or Description?
The final issue addressed by Everitt in the opening chapter is what our working definition of God should be and indeed whether we need a working definition at all. A problem stems from a philosophical distinctions between proper names (like "George Washington") and descriptions (like "First President of the USA").

The distinction may seem frivolous, but some have argued that proper names and descriptions have different logical properties. Specifically, proper names are true in every possible world (no one else could be George Washington), whereas descriptions are only true in some possible worlds (someone else could have been first president).

At first glance, it may seem like "God" is a proper name: it takes a capital "G" and needs no definite or indefinite article. But if this were true, we could never ask what the term meant. For example, if I told you "Brutus assassinated Caesar", you might ask me what "assassinated" meant, but it would seem odd if you asked what "Brutus" meant. Those kinds of questions do not arise in the case of proper names.

So it seems God must be a description of some sort. Everitt provides a list of descriptive attributes we can associate with "God":

• Creator and preserver of life, the universe and everything
• Omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent
• Conscious or minded
• Eternal, not possessing a physical body
• A suitable object of worship

Everitt argues that such a descriptive definition follows a long tradition and so should be acceptable to most religious believers.

Reasoning about God (Part 2): Three Religious Objections to Reason

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This is part of my series on Nicholas Everitt's The Non-Existence of God. I am currently looking at Chapter 1 of Everitt's book. 

In Part 1 I introduced the problem of religious epistemology: we would like to use the method of logic and evidence (reason) when assessing the credibility of the God Hypothesis but some religious intellectuals object that Faith gives us direct epistemic access to God.

Everitt suggests there are three typical religious objections to reason: (i) it is blasphemous; (ii) it is irrelevant; and (iii) it is inconclusive. Let's look at each of these objections and see whether they are acceptable.

1. The Blasphemy Objection

Many figures in the history of religious thought have deemed the use of reason to be blasphemous. Why? Presumably because using reason to establish the existence of God would place reason on a pedestal over God. This is just wrong: God is primary, reason is secondary.

The purest exemplar of the "reason is blasphemous" line of thought is that humourless reformationist: Martin Luther. Consider the following quote from the man himself (Everitt pg. 3):

[R]eason is the Devil's harlot, and can do nothing but slander and harm all that God says and does...Therefore keep to revelation and do not try to understand.

Luther's distinction between the magisterial and ministerial uses of reason is embraced by one of the leading contemporary Christian apologists, William Lane Craig. The magisterial use places reason above God; the ministerial use directs that reason can only be used in support of God, not against him. Only the ministerial use of reason is allowed.

This argument seems to make a virtue of faith. But is this an acceptable tactic? To answer that question we need to distinguish between two possible meanings of faith and show how both meanings tacitly rely on reason.

Lutheran Fideism
The first meaning is the Lutheran fideism I have just described. This implies that faith is the tenacious rejection of reason: it is a belief accepted without supporting evidence. It is not clear that this is a coherent position to hold: it seems to be offering us reasons (the primacy of a revealed God) for rejecting reason.

The incoherency is laid bare when we consider Luther's admonition that we must "keep to revelation". This admonition can only be made after we have reasoned our way to a particular set of beliefs. Consider: there are many proposed revelations (Everitt cites the claims of Peter Sutcliffe - the Yorkshire Ripper), if we are to "keep to" one of them, it must be one that we have first verified on the basis of reason.

Anselmian "Faith Seeking Understanding"
The second meaning of faith is perhaps more common. It is the suggestion that we accept a proposition not because we fully understand it, but because we think that a full understanding is available. For example, I accept that Fermat's theorem has been proved, not because I have checked the proof myself, but because I think it is possible to do so if one wishes.

It is suggested that the typical religious believer is in the same position with respect to belief in God. They may be brought up in a religious community where everyone believes and where respected authorities suggest there is a sound basis to the belief. In such a situation, faith is a rational option.

The problem with this understanding of faith is that is does not reject reason at all. It simply outsources or delays the use of reason.



2. Reason is Irrelevant
This objection can be given shorter shrift. It is the suggestion that reason is irrelevant to the God question because God's existence is not a rational belief claim like, say, claims about the existence of cats or dogs.

Two noteworthy figures are associated with this type of objection. First, and most famously, Soren Kierkegaard who said belief in God was non-rational and that it would be folly to try to prove its rationality. A similar argument, grounded more in the philosophy of language, was developed by Wittgenstein. He argued God-talk was not operating in the same language game as cat-talk or dog-talk. That is: it was not something that could be assessed in terms of truth or falsity.

These line of thought can be easily dismissed by considering the sheer volume of religious scholarship that does try to use reason to prove the existence of God. The library-shelves groan under the collective weight of works by religious authors who think God-talk is assessable in terms of truth and falsity.


3. Reason is Inconclusive
This final objection is popular among those dismiss the relevance of science to the question of God. It is the suggestion that reason is always inconclusive on the matter of God's existence. We can make use of it to a certain extent, but it will only take us so far. This is because there is no conclusive evidence to be adduced. No "aha" moment to be arrived at.

Two responses to this third objection:

• We must first examine all the available arguments. Only then will we be able to say that they are inconclusive.
• Although the arguments might be inconclusive on an individual basis, they may work when considered collectively.

Conclusion

We have considered three classic objections to the use of reason when it comes to God. We have found them all to be unjustified or else tacitly reliant on reason. The image below provides the final balance sheet.

In the next part of my summary, I will consider Everitt's views on the varieties of reason, their affect on our beliefs, and what our working definition of God should be.

Reasoning about God (Part 1): Philosophy and God

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This is my series on The Non-Existence of God by Nicholas Everitt. Chapter 1 focuses on the role of reason in assessing the existence of the Big Guy. I will spread my summary over several posts.

In this first post, I will consider Everitt's claims concerning the centrality of God to religious belief; and his highlighting of the clash between Faith and Reason.

1. The God Hypothesis in Philosophy of Religion
Philosophy can garb itself in sophisticated verbiage, but it all boils down to asking three basic types of question:

• Ontological Questions: These are questions about existence. What exists? How did it get that way? How does it work? What are things made of?
• Ethical Questions: These are questions about appropriate behaviour. What should I do? How should I treat others?
• Epistemological Questions: These are questions about knowledge. How do I know what exists or what I should do? What tools (logic, evidence, experiment etc.) can I use to gain knowledge about the world?

Religion tries to answer these basic philosophical questions. Examine any major religion, and you will find a set of ontological claims about the origins of the universe, the mechanics of the universe and the events in human history.

Examine any major religion and you will also find a set of moral prescriptions about how one should live one's life and how one should treat other people.

Everitt argues that for most religions the God hypothesis is at the root of its ontological and ethical claims: God is the ultimate ontological entity which explains all other aspects of reality, including moral values. Thus, although religions are not just about God, it is appropriate to dedicate significant attention to the God question.


2. Where do we Begin? Faith vs Reason
So we are dealing primarily with an ontological claim (although note: the moral argument). In order to establish the truth or falsity of this claim, we need to begin with an agreed-upon epistemology. In other words, with an acceptable method of inquiry.

Well, what is the most acceptable method of inquiry? Most people might think we should use the tried-and-tested methods of logic and experiment (call this "Reason"). This is the foundation of the scientific rationalism that has revolutionised the modern world. And Everitt would certainly like it if we could agree on this method in advance.

But there is a problem. Religious philosophers and intellectuals have often objected to the use of Reason when it comes to God. They would like it if Reason could be supplemented, or perhaps even replaced, by "Faith" (which can be defined in various ways). Faith would allow us to believe in God without needing to engage with Reason.

So we cannot even begin to approach the standard philosophical arguments for the existence of God until we have dismissed Faith.

Everitt does not shirk this task.

In Chapter 1, he looks at three traditional invocations of Faith and asks what we should expect Reason to tell us about God. In Chapter 2 he examines Plantinga's argument for a "reformed epistemology".

That's it for now. In the next post, I will cover the three traditional objections to Reason.

Index for posts on The Non-Existence of God

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Nicholas Everitt's book, The Non-Existence of God, is one of the best introductions to the philosophy of religion. As can be guessed from the title it is written from an atheistic perspective. This is a perspective I share, and since I enjoyed his book so much, I thought it would be worthwhile summarising the main points in each chapter. Adding commentary and examples of my own along the way.

Everitt's book is comprehensive and introductory: it covers every major argument for the existence of god (including arguments that were developed in the late 20th century), but it does so in a fairly perspicuous and welcoming manner. It is not a laborious and exhaustive treatment of the topic. If you wish to be exhausted, you will have to go elsewhere.

This post is an index for all others.


CHAPTER 1: REASONING ABOUT GOD

• Philosophy and God
• Three Religious Objections to the Use of Reason
• The Varieties of Reason and The Definition of God

CHAPTER 2: REFORMED EPISTEMOLOGY

• Part 1 - The Foundationalist Menace
• Part 2 - The Attack of the Plantingas
• Part 3 - The Revenge of the Sceptic

CHAPTER 3: ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS


CHAPTER 4: COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS


CHAPTER 5: TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS


CHAPTER 6: ARGUMENTS TO AND FROM MIRACLES


CHAPTER 7: GOD AND MORALITY

• Part 1 - Is there a moral argument for God?
• Part 2 - Owing Duties and the Euthyphro Dilemma
• Part 3 - The Kantian Argument
• Part 4 - Ward and Trethowan
• Part 5 - The Supervenience of the Moral

CHAPTER 8: RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

• Part 1 - Argument v. Experience

CHAPTER 9: NATURALISM, EVOLUTION AND RATIONALITY


CHAPTER 10: PRUDENTIAL ARGUMENTS


CHAPTER 11: ARGUMENTS FROM SCALE


CHAPTER 12: PROBLEMS ABOUT EVIL


CHAPTER 13: OMNIPOTENCE

• Part 1 - Self Contradiction, Divine Power and the Definition of Omnipotence
• Part 2 - The Superheavy Stone and the Sinful God
• Part 3 - God's Self-Destruction and Relativised Omnipotence
• Part 4 - The Problems with Relativised Omnipotence

CHAPTER 14: ETERNITY AND OMNIPRESENCE

CHAPTER 15: OMNISCIENCE

CHAPTER 16: CONCLUSION