Tractatus

The Tao and Nontheistic Morality

I usually refrain from using this space except when I have quite a bit to say about a subject. But I have been ruminating some on the idea of a transcendent order, and so I'd like to do some public ruminating as well. So this will ramble some and I make no pretense towards a cogent thesis.

It started, as so many conversation these days do, with a Facebook comment exchange. The first instance caught me off guard. The post was about an elderly gentleman who gently approaches women approaching an abortion clinic. He does not moralize, condemn, or criticize. He simply talks to them about their situation and the decision they have to face. He believes that life is precious, and by all accounts he is genuinely concerned that these (usually young) women are about to make a decision that could haunt them forever. I was caught off guard that anyone would find this man problematic. If I try really hard, I can understand that the clinic might want to find a way to prevent him from interfering with their "business" - the self-interest of any entity, corporate or otherwise, is generally what will preserve it. But this Facebook interlocutor referred to this old man derisively, and suggested that what he was doing was actually reprehensible. The conversation developed from there, and eventually this interlocutor was forced to admit that there was no reason why I was not free to terminate his life, except for the fact that I might not like the legal consequences. But he could, of course, offer no basis for the legal rule itself. The worldview he adopts is purely functional materialism, in which there are no transcendent morals. I can only admire his intellectual honesty: he was willing to take his view to the logical conclusion that there is no moral problem with me sticking a knife in his ribs.

Most people are unwilling to concede this as a result of their worldview. As a student of philosophy, I have been a witness to the convoluted ethical systems designed to preserve the essential elements of basic morality without needing to invole transcendence. My contention is that even this fellow, though playing brave, is at his core unwilling to part with certain central ethical tenets. He does not need to be convinced that it is immoral to take an infant from his mother and use the baby as kindling for a fire.

C. S. Lewis uses this premise - that men generally resort to some standard - in his delightful and dense work The Abolition of Man. He calls the overarching tradition of morality the "Tao" - shorthand he adapts from his study of Eastern religions. The idea is that individual moral principles develop out of the transcendent moral standard. The individual tenets of morality are the branches of the tree, and they are dependent on the tree itself for their existence.

This notion is implicated in the writings of the modern "declinists" (Mark Steyn and others) who remind us that a civilization can only live on its accumulated cultural capital for so long. Eventually, that capital is spent and we are left with nothign but a list of protected groups and a menu of empty platitudes from which to choose. Similarly, I think, the branches can only survive so long without the tree.

I find it cute and mildly amusing - but at the same time, despairing - when atheistic (right or left) writers posit their code of basic morality as a substitute for traditional morality. Look here, they seem to be saying, we can develop a perfectly serviceable system of ethical behavior without needing to invoke some invisible deity who never shows himself. But the exercise is self-defeating. Why are these serviceable ethics? Because they preserve the species? Why is the species worth preserving? Even in vapid leftist productions like the movie 2012, the suggestion is that the species needs to demonstrate it is worth saving. (Battlestar Galactica makes a slightly more convincing showing on this point. For one, they explicitly address it when facing murky ethical dilemmas; they also include the theme of God or gods or a transcendent universe or something.) But the assumption is that showing that we are virtuous in some inviolable way is the criterion by which we decide whether the species is worthy of survival. But why? On the assumption of Darwinian evolution, the virtuous species should be concerned only with its own preservation, regardless of how many or whatever members of that species need to die. Or even avoiding biological theories of origins, what makes humanity worth saving, if Don Cheadle can't convince Dick Cheney to let the masses on to the Ark?

There is no answer. To implicate a more current example, why should we think severe income disparity is a problem? To what greater principle can we appeal that the concentration of resources should be evenly divided? Is that somehow a transcendent principle on its own? The absurdity of that response is clear on its face.

Eventually we come back to humanity's only problem: replacing God with something that isn't God. Every proposition is dependent on some other proposition except one: I Am that I Am. If we attempt to replace the only non-dependent fact/force/entity with something that is dependent, we don't even have a house of cards - we have a pile of cards, and we can pick some and use them, but we know all along we're just pretenders. If God is the lawgiver, we substitute some other law. If God is our hope of salvation, we devise our own strategies. If God imports ultimate meaning to all existence, we will build a culture build on distracting ourselves from this unavoidalbe truth.

This post was prompted by this unsupported and unsupportable list of commandments by the prominent libertarian Penn Jillette. They all seem like generally reasonable propositions. But why do they seem reasonable? What is it that we rational animals instinctively compare it to that makes us think they are sensible? And if we can't anwer that, then surely we cannot answer why they matter at all. We might as well negate all of them and call that our list of commandments.

God is the rightful holder of first place in all things, prime mover, ultimate meaning, sovereign, redeemer, creator. The world's problems, as commentators are wont to discuss, are all attributable to the human heart. And every defect of the human heart stems from this one central root of sin: that we make not-God to be God.

The Word Became Flesh: Advent and Evangelism

I was raised in the American evangelical tradition, in Baptist churches in New Jersey. These are the sorts of churches that would be non-denominational in other parts of the country. They are independent but not fundamentalist, preaching from the Scriptures and baptizing confessing believers. I don't know if they were members of any convention, but they were certainly not under the governing authority of any other body.

The traditions of my family are also decidedly non-liturgical. The idea of a sacred calendar or a catechism seemed foreign and even vaguely Romish to me. Reciting creeds and chanting in unison was done on occasion, but more an exercise of congregational unity and instruction than a matter of ritual or liturgy. After all, ritual is Pharasaic: perhaps beautiful, perhaps useful in some ways, but ultimately legalistic and contrary to a gospel of freedom.

A Gospel of Grace - I would not have used the term three years ago except perhaps at random. Since my complete giving over to Reformed soteriology (or Calvinism, as it is commonly called), I have had occasion to participate in some forms of worship that I would have previously considered questionable. I have recited parts of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, joined in congregational readings from the Book of Common Prayer, and even meditated on the Heidelberg and Belgic Confessions.

I am still not a member of a formal liturgical denomination. But recently, among Presbyterians, I was struck by the concept of "Advent" (and by extension the concept of a "sacred year" that runs in tandem with the calendar we consult daily). The season of Advent is one of expectation; as R.C. Sproul describes in his thoughts on Christmas, history was so pregnant with this moment of the incarnation that it could not have been a moment sooner or a moment later.

So this is the season of expectation, of reflection that God the Son was preparing to lay aside his glory and come to earth to walk among mortals - as one of them! I have remarked on the scandal with which John confronts his readers when he declares simply "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us". The image we want to have is that of pure, ethereal spirit, like clear and burning light, suddenly being mired in the basest of elements, the creaturely, secreting, digesting, procreating flesh.

If you'll indulge me, these are the words to a song by the Christian group Downhere. I think they pose the question well:

How many kings, stepped down from their thrones?
How many lords have abandoned their homes?
How many greats have become the least for me?
How many Gods have poured out their hearts
To romance a world that has torn all apart?
How many fathers gave up their sons for me?
Only one did that for me

This is the season of expectation of this miracle. The recalcitrant question, of course, is: why?

There are books on the subject, so I just want to address a few points of "why". Probably the most rehearsed answer is "love", citing John 3:16. This is legitimate, of course; the Scriptures are unambiguous that it was the Love of a God Who is Love that motivated Him to partake in this glorious and gruesome redemption. But this is not a complete answer to the question "why". The problem with the incompleteness of this answer is that it has left open the door to what I consider misunderstandings of the nature of the redemption.

A recent news story about a Times Square jumbotron ad got my attention on this subject.  

The American Bible Society shares my awe about the Deity choosing to mire Himself in His creation, and they even capitalize on the season of Advent in prompting us to reflect on the impending arrival of our God-Man Redeemer. And so their message, "God came near because you were worth the trip" is even more starkly misplaced. Am I being a grinch about this, over-analyzing what was meant to be an exposure for the Gospel in perhaps the nation's busiest intersection?

The problem is that we were patently not "worth" the trip. The Bible tells the story that true Love is making the trip for those who are not worth it. What is this love that God has shown the world? Paul tells us in Romans that God's love is demonstrated by fact that He sent His Son while we were yet sinners, and he is rather unequivocal about the fact that sin makes us worthless enemies of a just and holy God. Jesus, after exhorting His listeners to return evil with good, explains a little further: "But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil."

This "love" that is the answer on every tongue when asked why God came to Earth is a very precious love. It is a love that loves the unworthy. And this is the crux of the problem: Jesus was born, lived, died, and rose not by any means because you were worth it, but rather, to make you worthy! "For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." Like the centurion in Luke 7, we must be ready to say "Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy..."

I submit that the message of the Gospel is not that a loving God saw the plight of a people with intrinsic worth and "made the trip" to do something about it. Rather, God, according to His good pleasure, loved a fallen and unworthy people and demonstrated it by making some of them worthy.

The video is well-intentioned and correct in that it means to communicate that Jesus Christ came to save sinners, and you, reader, viewer, listener, are a sinner. So in the midst of your walk to Lord and Taylor (or wherever people go as they walk through Times Square) or before you click over to Amazon or NewEgg (for my readers) observe the season of Advent by reflecting on this incomprehensible truth:

God came near even though you were not worth the trip.

Merry Christmas to all.

And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Koran Burning - Too Much and Not Enough

As a concept, I don't believe in "book burning". The eradication of evil or even merely dangerous ideas is not possible in this way. It is an infantile attempt by hubristic authoritarians to end the uncomfortable opposition of their own ideology. It is usually the equivalent of yelling STFU as loudly as possible, knowing that as long as you are louder and more persistent than your interlocutor, you won't actually be forced to confront their opposition. Attempts to burn, ban, or otherwise banish all existing expressions of a concept or scheme is offensive to my Anglo-American blood, steeped as it is in such things as the Common Law and the American Constitution.

So far, most commentators have been trading on the ambiguity in motivations for burning. A magisterium banning an idea and destroying all written expressions thereof is entirely different from an ecclesium rejecting contrary ideas. Compare, by way of example, the Roman church banning and prohibiting the printing of Luther's works, and Luther casting into the fire the Papal Bull declaring his ideas and himself anathema.

All this to dispel the confusion between book burning a la Fahrenheit 451 and symbolic burning.

As to the response, I wish someone would clearly articulate the "provocation" position so as to draw out the cultural suicide aspect. It is indeed provocative because it draws to light important features of Islamic society that are important. It is they who harbor the sort of ideological intolerance that results in the truly abhorrent form of book burning. (If I have to stop here to explain that I don't mean that all practicing Muslims are violent, just... no, just go read something else.) 

I will say what I have not heard from this pastor in Florida: Islam is a false religion that contradicts the revealed Word of God and denies the person and work of Christ. Therefore, I find whatever their prophet and holy writings teach to be absolute heresy, blasphemous, and indeed anathema. Islam is a cult that leads to destruction.

If an event were to feature Koran burning as part of a larger critique of the anti-Western and anti-Christian message of Islam, I would probably endorse the spectacle. As it stands, I see it as a spectacle qua spectacle that avoids serious criticism of the theological and doctrinal differences between these two major world religions.

As a final note, a small Florida church burning some Korans is probably less a provocation than building an Islamic worship center named after a provocative Muslim figure on the grounds of the greatest success of Islamist action against the West. When that was all abuzz, we were told it was a simply matter of constitutional rights and nothing more. Where is that insistence now?

The double standard is laughable, and it is promulgated in a self-destructive way by cultural lightweights that we elect to office and elevate to prominence on our national media platforms. Given the latest rumor in the news, Imam Rauf may have recognized that he was in "intellectual check", and has consequently appeared to moved his king out of this precarious position.