Absolutely relative

"Humanism has no way to provide absolutes. . . . On the biblical basis, there are absolutes, and therefore we can say that certain things are right or wrong, including racial discrimination and social injustice."

(page 128)

Part 3 of 4 of this review of Francis Schaeffer’s How Should We Then Live examines the author’s claims that Christian ethics are the only absolute standard for society.

How does one make the claim of absolute morality, when one at the same time doubts the reality of the underpinnings of one’s belief system? Why is there is sometimes serious disagreement among the faithful as to what constitutes the absolute rules? If the Bible is the word of an omniscient and omnipotent God, then why isn’t the Bible clear to anyone who reads it? Whence the textual inconsistencies and conflicts within the Bible itself?

The humility of mystery and doubt

"True religion begins in doubt and continues in spiritual exploration. Debased religion begins in fear and terminates in certainty."

-Neal Gabler

The belief that God explains the otherwise inexplicable is woven into the fabric of human history. These unsubstantiable beliefs necessarily engender doubt. Christian apologists from antiquity to today have candidly addressed the inevitable doubt that arises as a natural consequence of sola fide, beliefs resting on faith alone.

Certainly an all-powerful God can construct and insist upon absolute moral standards, but no mere mortal can fathom the mysteries of an all-powerful God; mystery by definition cannot be understood by those invoking it. Human understanding is itself necessarily relative, constrained by the limits of the senses, logic and human intelligence. This opens the door to the relative, competing and ever-evolving historical interpretations that are Christian morals.

Schaeffer asserts that the Christian Bible, as God’s revealed word, removes this veil of mystery. Yet even if you accept the Bible as the word of God, the Bible is not perfectly clear to any who read it. The complexities of human language limit precision: many words and phrases don’t translate clearly from one language into another, or have multiple or vague meanings, or change meaning over time, and so on. Biblical errors and contradictions muddy the water further. There are no original sources for any part of the Bible; translators pick and choose from among the later various and varied sources that have survived. Critical textual analysis shows that these sources are inconsistent with one another; incomplete; show evidence of copying errors and deliberate mistranslation. (note 1.) The variant creeds of Christianity are built upon such vagaries.

All of this begs a humbler representation of the standards of Christian morality, and a less harsh representation of moral systems that come from influences other than author’s version of Christianity.

Christian standards shift historically

Ironically, the Christian Bible is humanistic: It is the work of men of letters, both the original authors and the priests, scribes and theologians who followed. The authorship of the various parts of the Bible is unclear, and there is strong textual evidence of multiple versions and revisions even in the earliest extant writings. The standard theological argument is that these men who wrote and modifed the Bible were inspired by God. Yet these men have historically disagreed widely about the content, interpretation and emphasis of the Bible.

The ideas of Biblically-based Christianity have, like any other ideas, wandered and evolved over their history. Chistianity grew:

• from a Jewish tradition of theology and laws which evolved for over a half of a millenium into the Old Testament, itself which slowly developed from a set of polytheistic beliefs into a monotheistic belief system;
• from a flurry of early Gospels and letters winnowed over a few hundred years into a mostly agreed-upon New Testament canon, chosen by various committees and dominant churches;
• to the Nicene Creed, created by a committee of bishops convened by the Roman emperor Constantine, who, from the contemporary wealth of competing and contentious Biblical interpretations, wanted a single orthodox interpretation upon which to build a state religion;
• via inclusions and exclusions and excisions of various pagan ideas, notably Arianism, Platonism and Aristotelianism;
• to the many schisms between factions, the largest being the Great and Western Schisms, and the emergence of Protestantism, each split driven in large part by differing Biblical interpretations;
• up to modern times, where there are many thousands of Christian denominations, sub-denominations and sects, all differing regarding various aspects of Biblical interpretation and emphases, with varied versions and translations of the Bible, all contending over the moving and disputed target of orthodoxy.

How does one adopt the correct interpretation, that “straight opinion” that is orthodoxy, when there are many interpretations which themselves change over time?

There is only moral relativism

These problems, particularly the historically shifting and conflicting moral interpretations, are clear evidence of a changing and relative system of Christian ethics, which are as plastic as the non-Christian ethical systems Schaeffer rejects. Introducing the idea of progress does not restore the absolute: Progress is transient. (note 2)

Not surprisingly, the author’s examples of the moral relativity of secular ethics were not balanced by similar examples from Christian ethics:

• Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (NASB). If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death.

  Christians differ markedly about which among the many moral prescriptions and proscriptions of the Old Testament must be followed. Many claim that Jesus took all the Old Testament laws off of the books; most pick and choose, ignoring those they feel do not apply to the modern world (some of the sexual laws, dietary laws, laws around disease, laws around sacrifice, etc.), and the picking and choosing is contentious, particularly on subjects like homosexuality.

• A large number of today’s professed Christians believe that homosexuality is a sin, and a large number believe it is not; this is a modern shift, as even fifty years ago, the great majority of Christians believed it was a sin, one punishable as a crime against society.
• Christians divorce for just about any reason today, but for most of Christian history it was considered immoral for all but a few reasons, according to Biblical interpretation, adultery the chief reason. There is still serious differences among Christians on this topic.
• Christians no longer destroy each other and others for being heretics but did so for most of their history; today it is immoral. Why wasn’t it immoral then?

Schaeffer argued that England finally proscribed the international slave trade in the early 19th century due to men like Wilberforce acting on the basis of Christian morals. He acknowledged that Christians generally treated slavery as a morally acceptable institution for the previous 1,700 years, which he found regrettable, but typically did not let this taint his system of absolute morality. By the time of Wilberforce, Christendom had for several hundred years controlled much of the world as colonial powers and operated their colonies by enslaving the native population. Slavery went on in the British Empire as well as the United States for decades after the international trade of slaves was abolished. While Christians were at the forefront of modern abolitionism, they were also at the forefront of the modern use of slaves and the biblical justification for such illiberal behavior. It is no surprise that great morality and immorality was exhibited by Christians in this chapter of history; one would find similar behaviors under other systems of ethics, behaviors rationalized by appeals to those self-same ethical systems, behaviors ultimately and simply human. (note 3)

The ethic of strength over weakness

Schaeffer argued that all ethical systems save his own Biblically-based system lead to an ethic of strength over weakness. Rome, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, with their history of great brutality and cruelty are correctly described by the author as clear examples of such an ethic. But history suggests that such an ethic has always been present, in all secular or religious societies, applied individually and up to the largest scale.

The Bible unequivocably describes an ethic of strength over weakness. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s; slaves, obey your master. The Old Testament is rife with examples of such an ethic, either with the Israelites sallying forth to take land, killing and taking property, slaves and concubines from the vanquished, or with Israelites being vanquished, and crying out to their God to give them the power to once again become dominant and slay their captors. The Hebrew God was worshiped because he promised that he would destroy the enemies of anyone who worshiped him and eschewed other gods, and anyone who didn’t would themselves be destroyed.

The New Testament version is no different in essence: Those who don’t believe in Jesus as the Son of God are consigned by the all-powerful God to eternal damnation in Hell. Christendom codified this on the earth by socially and legally marginalizing, exiling or destroying those who were not part of the Faith; it would seem that the Christians of pre-modern Europe and Asia Minor preferred to carry out what was supposed to be God’s final judgment themselves; there are still strains of this today echoing in Christian politics.

More generally, if the ethic of strength over weakness is not tempered by societal rules, proscribing the worst behaviors of the strong over the weak, then a society cannot grow and flourish. Even the strong recognize this, as circumstances can change, and the strong can quickly become the weak, or vice versa. But the strong have always dominated societies and controlled the interpretation and codification of ethics, laws and customs. The strong do not willingly give up their power, so laws and their administration generally reflect what favors the powerful. At best the strong attempt to reign in their worst self-tendencies so as to allow the society they dominate to flourish, thus allowing themselves to grow in power. At worst, they form authoritarian political structures that enforce their hold on power at the expense of the weak.

The long history of authoritarianism and coercion in Christendom clearly demonstrates that the practical political outcome of Christian society has been predominantly one of strength over weakness, the best precepts of Christ notwithstanding. Christian societies are no different in that regard than non-Christian societies, despite repeated assertions by the author to the contrary.

The relative interpretation and piece-meal application of ethics

Galbraith suggested that "one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy . . . is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."(J.K. Galbraith, from 'Stop the Madness,' Interview with Rupert Cornwell, Toronto Globe and Mail (6 July 2002)) 

Laws can be written or unwritten, enforced or ignored, obeyed or disregarded, fair or unfair, and administered fairly or unfairly, in any combination; these choices are heavily affected by those in power. Laws are constructed to provide societal order, in part a response to societal events and needs, in part from ethical standards, in part from the impulse of the powerful to remain in power.

For example, the totalitarian USSR was a self-described federal republic: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It had a parliament, elections, and a Constitution that was more liberal in some ways than that of the U.S. Individual citizens had input in local government (soviets). Officially, the Orthodox Church was allowed to continue operating. It had many of the outward trappings of a liberal democracy. Yet it was in fact a cruel authoritarian oligarchy, a monstrous lie unless one were part of the Communist Party elite.

Even in societies which protect individual freedoms, such as the United States, where laws rather than monarchs rule, laws and ethics are much more plastic than often represented. On the large scale, they are usually applied more fairly in a liberal democracy than in an authoritarian regime, but unfair laws or unfair application of the law hurts however many citizens to whom it is applied. The history of U.S. treatment of native Americans is one such example. For another, the history of African Americans in the U.S. on the whole reads more like a totalitarian history than that of a liberal democracy, with first outright legal enslavement explicitly codified or carefully ignored in the antebellum Constitution, followed by 150 years of distorted laws and law enforcement that continued to deny black citizens their postbellum Constitutionally-amended rights. (note 4) These are difficulties common to the application of all ethical systems; the Christian ethical system is not an exception.

Universal ethics

The practical plasticity of all ethical systems does not mean that they are random or completely inconsistent. There may exist no absolute standard, but historically there has persisted a basic universal sub-set of ethics, found in most if not all societies.

Nearly every human is born with a conscience; they just don’t always act in accord with it. When two or more people get together, their needs and desires can conflict, and agreed upon ethical rules become necessary to allow them to live together; these rules have proved remarkably similar from the dawn of history: proscribing murder, stealing, bearing false witness, and calling for some form of the Golden Rule. They have been recorded throughout history, from the Code of Hammurabi to Mozi to the Torah to the Bible to the Koran to the tenets of Existentialism. They are neither unique to the Bible, nor was the Bible the first to codify them; certainly these basic ethical rules well pre-dated their first historical appearances.

The best of religion is the call for the protection of the weak, and relatedly, the insistence on caring for others, for following the Golden Rule. Many people on this earth, past and present, have made concerted efforts to behave this way, following their religious creeds. Many people not part of a major religion have also behaved in such manner, even avowed atheists.

In any event, all systems of ethics have proven to be easily corrupted, under Christendom and under non-Christian societies. Both Christian and secular institutions and culture have produced extended examples of illiberal authoritarianism, repression and great violence; terrible things have been done in the name of secular ideologies, and terrible things have been done in the name of God. No worldview can be demonstrated to have a superior approach to moral standards.

End of part 3 of 4.

(The fourth and final part of this review of Francis Schaeffer’s How Should We Then Live suggests an alternative answer to the question regarding how we should then live, and attempts to answer the original question posed in part I: How did this book influence U.S. Evangelical Christians to become more politically active? Part 1 of this review can be found here and part 2 here.)

 

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Notes

1. Is the Bible infallible? Inerrant?

If absolute morality is less than it seems, claims of Biblical infallibility and inerrancy, which surfaced in the 19th century, are not at all what they might seem. Infallibility means there can be no errors, and inerrancy means there are no errors. Francis Schaeffer, as a self-described fundamentalist, has made his own claims of Biblical inerrancy. When the errors that exist in the Biblical text are pointed out, Schaeffer and fellow fundamentalists fall back on the oddest argument: The Bible is inerrant in its original text. This is most convenient for Schaeffer et. al., since there is no extant original text! The problem is particularly acute regarding the New Testament.

There are many documentable errors and contradictions found in the Bible, and many defenses of those errors. One of the most historically interesting is Tom Paine’s Age of Reason. Paine, typical of our founding fathers, was a Deist, and argued that many of Christianity’s claims were unsubstantiated in his reading of the Bible.

2. All ethical systems are relative. The Christian philosopher Steve Wilkens, in his survey of ethical systems, Beyond Bumper Sticker Ethics, points out that all ethical systems, including those derived from the Bible, are less than absolute. Each have their strengths and weaknesses, and are each incomplete. Wilkens emphasizes that a complete set of ethical rules is impossible to construct, and that ethical choices must be made, often for the most difficult situations. He still argues that Christian ethics provide a superior starting place for such choices, a more modest claim than that of Schaeffer.

3. Slavery and Christianity. Howard Thurman, a Black minister, in his book Jesus and the Disinherited, was asked on a visit to India:

"What are you doing over here? I know what the newspapers are saying about a pilgrimage of friendship and the rest, but that is not my question. What are you doing over here? ... More than three hundred years ago your forefathers were taken from the western coast of Africa as slaves. The people who dealt in the slave traffic were Christians. ... The men who bought the slaves were Christians. Christian ministers, quoting the Christian apostle Paul, gave the sanction of religion to the system of slavery. ... During all the period since then you have lived in a Christian nation in which you are segregated, lynched, and burned. Even in the church, I understand, there is segregation. ... I am a Hindu. I do not understand. Here you are in my country, standing deep within the Christian faith and tradition. I do not wish to seem rude to you. But sir, I think you are a traitor to all the darker peoples of the earth. I am wondering what you, an intelligent man, can say in defense of your position."(p. 18)  His response to this, the subject of his book, is well worth reading: Thurman emphasizes the love Christianity offers to all, and differentiates it from the Christianity practiced by his oppressors, the same Christianity that was practiced by the British in colonial India, and by European Christians throughout the world during Christendom’s colonial period. /p>

It can be noted further that when examining the Bible, it seems at best neutral on the direct subject of slavery, at worst to support it.

4. Simple Prays a Prayer. Langston Hughes’ character Jesse “Simple” B. Semple, who has been described as a kind of black Everyman, provides a window into African American life in the first half of the 20th century. The wit of Simple delivers some of the hard truths of the coercive Christian narrative as felt by black people in the United States. In Hughes’ 1944 story Simple Prays a Prayer, Simple says,

"I prayed for white folks, too, even though a lot of them don’t believe in religion. If they did, they couldn’t act the way they do. ... Jesus said, 'Love one another' didn’t He? But they don’t love me, do they? ... They Jim Crow me and lynch me any time they want to. ... I’ll bet you if Christ does come back, not only in the South but all over America, there would be such another running and shutting and slamming of white folks’ doors in His face as you never saw! And I’ll bet the Southerners couldn’t get inside their Jim Crow churches fast enough to lock the gates and keep Christ out. Christ said, 'Such as ye do unto the least of these, ye do it unto me'. And Christ knows what these white folks have been doing to old colored me all these years."(The Early Simple Stories, Langston Hughes, p. 28-32) .

5. Thank God for Jesus and Mo! All ethical systems are not just relative, but subjective rather than objective. And who better to make the point than the barmaid in a conversation with Jesus and Mo? Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and uncountable other religious and ideological systems make absolute and objective truth claims, some of which are inarguable, that is make claims that cannot be investigated or verified. But many claims made are inherently dubious; as mentioned in note 1 above, the religious texts of Christianity contain numerous contradictions and errors. We all live in a subjective and relative world.