School of Athens

The Boston Review has a great article up about Brazil’s new policy to require high school students to learn philosophy. From my experience, some people would look at this and think, “What a waste of time.” It wasn’t even that long ago that Stephen Hawking ignorantly stated that “philosophy is dead” (apparently unaware that such a statement is a philosophical statement…perhaps it would be better to say that Stephen Hawking is holding the memorial service for Philosophy and having her preach at the memorial).

Of course, having philosophy drilled into the minds of young people is always a good thing. After all, it used to be (prior to the 19th century) that people received liberal arts degrees not for a vocation, but to become better people. After gaining their degrees they would either take up a trade (and then apply their knowledge as they saw fit) or pursue an advanced degree where then they specified their vocational training. The liberal arts (which included philosophy, or reasoning) was always meant to round out an individual, to teach him how to think and not what to think. We have certainly lost that; one of the most common questions brought before anyone getting a degree in philosophy is, “But what are you going to do with that?” It never dawns on people that focusing four years of your life on nothing but thinking actually prepares you better for the world than getting a vague degree in business or management or even pre-law.

Studying philosophy opens people up to a world of ideas. It forces people to be open-minded because they must constantly be subject to changing their minds. They must evaluate everything they see and think through all possible solutions for problems they encounter. We can look to some of our political problems and see that good ole’ American pragmatism has ended up an abysmal failure. Thus, we must go back to our roots (our nation was founded by men trained in the classical arts) or accept the fact that our government will not last.

With that said, in some hypothetical world where I was allowed to develop a four year program for students in high school focused on philosophy, that they were required to take, I would make it look something like this, using the following books (as a side note, this list will also be helpful to anyone who wants to get into philosophy on his or her own):

First Semester

Textbooks: Socratic Logic: Socratic Method, Platonic Questions and Philosophy 101 by Socrates, both by Peter Kreeft.

The reasoning behind these two choices is very simple. The first book deals with proper thinking (logic, reasoning, etc). In order to study the history of ideas, one must first know how to think properly. Thus, it only makes sense to help students learn how to think in a logical manner. The reason I would pick Socratic Logic is that (1) it’s a very easy read since Peter Kreeft is a masterful writer, (2) it comes with built-in homework, but in an easy to understand format, and (3) the appendixes cover how to dialogue in a Socratic manner as well as how to properly structure an essay – all tools that are essential for the development of every student.

The second book is a very simple introduction to philosophy. The book doesn’t really present the various ideas, but instead shows the importance of philosophy. Kreeft finds a way to demonstrate to everyone why philosophy is important to study. This would help ground the student and answer the inevitable question, “Why do I need to know this?”

One research paper would be required. The paper would be the student’s explanation of why the study of philosophy is or is not important. After getting comments and grades back from the teacher, the student would be allowed to rewrite the paper, either changing his thesis or defending his thesis against his teacher’s critiques. The purpose of the papers, however, would simply be to help the student learn how to structure an essay and to think critically – the content wouldn’t be all that relevant.

The quizzes in this class would be more in the traditional multiple choice, short answer format as the majority of the semester would be dealing with reasoning and logic (leaving little room for open-ended questions).

Second Semester

Textbooks: The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists, Plato’s Republic, and Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Nicomachean Ethics 

The second semester would essentially begin the student’s leap into the world of philosophy by beginning with the Greeks. Before anyone says, “But this is Western!” it should be noted that Plato was influenced by Pythagoras, who was influenced by early Eastern philosophy while he was off in India studying. Thus, the hard line between East and West isn’t really all that hard; much of what we get from the Presocratics and even Plato matches up with Eastern thought.

That being said, it is important to understand the ideas that really shaped our modern world. Since we are dealing with Freshmen in high school, only exerts would be selected from each of these books (preferably the most important parts, with the other parts being summarized in lectures – but it would all be up to the teacher’s discretion). The overall goal would be for the student to learn the foundations of Western thinking.

In this class, one position paper (6-8 pages) would be required, with the focus being on anticipating objections to the student’s position taken in the paper. This too would help foster critical thinking. The tests would need to be more open-ended questions allowing for more short answers and essays; this is to ensure the students don’t simply regurgitate the lectures, but are in fact wrestling with the ideas.

Third Semester

Textbooks: Fountain of Knowledge by John of Damascus, City of God by Augustine, The Metaphysics of the Healing by Avicenna (Ibn Sina), and the Philosophical Writings of Duns Scotus

The objective would be to introduce students to Western Christian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, and scholasticism. These three branches have influenced the Western world tremendously, so it’s good to study their origins. While all three works cover and assume the existence of God, these books are meant to challenge the student into evaluating and interacting with the ideas, not necessarily accepting them.

In this class, one position paper (8-10 pages) would be required. The tests would be more essay based.

Fourth Semester

Textbooks: A Shorter Suma of the Suma or On Being and Essence by Thomas Aquinas, The Prince by Machiavelli, Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

Essentially this semester would serve as the break in the history of philosophy, covering the major philosophers up to the Enlightenment. It would show where scholasticism and classic philosophy ended up, with the thinking of Aquinas, Machiavelli, and Hobbes. The students would need to write a position paper (10-12 pages) explaining how one or all three of these philosophers were influenced by those who came before them. It provides the student time to see the connections between everything they’ve read up to this point.

Fifth Semester

Textbooks: The Second Treatise on Government by John Locke, Discourse on Methods: Meditations on First Philosophy by Renee Descartes, Ethics by Spinoza, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume

Here is where students would be thrown into the Enlightenment (beginning with reading Sarte). They would learn the beginnings of it with Descartes, the influence it had on ethics (via Spinoza, where they would also learn of Spinoza’s opposition to Descartes), the influence it held on the government (via Locke, where they’d learn about the beginning of democracy), and the impact it had on religion (via Hume, where they’d learn about modern-day atheism). Here students would be required to take a position (10-12 pages) on one of the Enlightenment issues presented, either arguing for a certain philosopher’s viewpoint or against it. The tests would be completely essay based.

Sixth Semester

Textbooks: Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, Thus Spake Zarathustra by Nietzsche, Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life by Soren Kierkegaard

This class would be interesting because they would read the last great Enlightenment thinker (Kant) and begin with the post-modern period (via Nietzsche). Kierkegaard would introduce the students to existentialism while Freud would introduce the students to modern philosophy. The class would serve as a transition from the ideas of the Enlightenment into postmodernism.

The students would need to do a position paper (12-14 pages). The tests would be essay based.

Seventh Semester

Textbooks: The Plague by Albert Camus, Being and Time by Martin Heidegger, Of Grammatology by Jacques Derrida, The Essential Zizek, by Slavoj Zizek

The beginning of their senior year, the students should be prepared to cover modern continental philosophy from Camus and Heidegger to Derrida and Zizek. The objective would be for the students to evaluate the beliefs, understand why those beliefs exist, and then to critique those beliefs.

No paper would be required as they would begin on their senior thesis paper. This paper only applies for the class and does not hold the majority grade for the class, thus there is no fear of failing to graduate if the paper is less than stellar. However, the paper would be a project that dealt with a subject in philosophy that they wanted to research and take a position on. They would need to research other philosophers for this paper as well as utilizing the ones they’ve already covered. All told, the paper would need to be 20-30 pages long.

Eighth Semester

Textbooks: Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell, God and Other Minds by Alvin Plantinga, Practical Ethics by Peter Singer, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory by Alasdair MacIntyre

Their final semester would cover two of the biggest issues in analytic philosophy – theism and ethics. Both sides of theism issue would be presented, with students reading about how God doesn’t exist (or how it’s irrational to believe God exists) and about how God does exist (or how it’s at least rational to believe God exists). On ethics, one of the more popular ethicists would be covered (Singer) as well as a counter to Singer via MacIntyre. The main objective of this class would be for the student to take everything they’ve studied and apply it to modern philosophical problems, whether it be over the existence of God, ethics, and so on. They could even take this chance to develop their own political philosophy, ethics within business, vocations that need philosophers and why, and the list goes on. This could even be their senior project. So long as they could demonstrate that they held the ability to synthesize and evaluate everything they’ve read up to this point.

_____________________

Now, of course the above is a pipe dream, and not an ideal one at that. However, it’s just what I’d like to see at some point. Of course, if such classes were added, it’d only make sense to offer electives for students who are highly interested in philosophy. Those electives could cover metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, social institutions (government), anthropology, economics, and law. This would allow students who are interested in philosophy (or in vocations impacted by those categories, which is almost all vocations) to hone their studies. It would also introduce them to other thinkers, such as Plotinus, Cicero, Anselm, Blaise Pascal, Karl Marx, Adam Smith, Renee Descartes, Jean-Paul Sartre, Richard Swinburne, and the list goes on.

Some may debate the practicality of having this in a high school and certainly there are legitimate arguments against it. Perhaps I’ll never see anything like this instilled in a high school. Even so, there’s no excuse for this current program not to exist across college campuses. Whether one is going to be a doctor, a lawyer, or anything else, he should understand philosophy as philosophy guides everything we do. To be ignorant of ideas is to be ignorant of the self; ignoring philosophy is like ignoring one’s need to eat healthy food. And if our society is to last, we need to go back to our roots, otherwise we’ll have nothing to stand upon.

Though modern humanists have attempted to cast doubt both on God’s goodness and whether or not His goodness begets an ethical ought, one can know via deductive reasoning that God is good and from His goodness derive a moral ought (found in the theological concept of theosis). The philosopher Stephen Law, as recently as 2009, issued what he called the “Evil-God Challenge,” stating that theists have no rational position to assume that God is good. Along the same lines, Kai Nielsen argues that Christians lack sufficient reasons to label God good; Nielsen takes the argument further to state that even if it were shown that God was good, such a statement would carry no moral ought with it. In contradiction to both claims, it is seen that one can know via deductive reasoning that God is good. Likewise, in knowing that God is good, Christianity points to theosis as the ought derived from the statement, “God is good.”

The Issue at Hand

From the view of the humanist, theistic ethics, specifically Christian ethics, seems to be without justification for both its belief that God is good and that one ought to follow the divine commands of God. The humanist argues that one must know God is good before accepting His commands, but in order to know that God is good, one must utilize a standard external to God – ‘God is good’ does not necessarily follow from ‘God is powerful’ or ‘God is perfect’.[1] In doing so, the theist concedes that the moral foundation of goodness is found in human reasoning and not in God, for God must be evaluated.

However, the Christian would be wise to argue that knowing God is good logically follows from a belief in God; if something finite exists then God is good as anything finite requires a creator. The claim is seemingly self-evident, meaning to question the claim borders on delusion. Just as it is self-evidently known to a person that he is conscious, so too should it self-evidently be known that if God exists and there is a creation, He is good.

Furthermore, since Christians believe that humans are made in the image of God, it follows that if God is good then humans are to be good as well. One can take this even further to read that not only should humans be good, but also they should be good as God is good (i.e. humans should be morally perfect). Christianity teaches that such moral perfection, or holiness or righteousness, is found in the act of theosis.

Definitions

Before continuing, it is important to understand exactly what is meant by some terms that will be used to support the thesis. To understand the term theosis, one can use Donald Fairbairn’s definition that theosis is, “…[T]he process by which human beings are made, in some sense, divine.”[2] Of course, as Fairbairn points out later in the same paragraph, in the process of becoming divine there is still a clear distinction between humans and God; one becomes divine while still remaining human, or one becomes like God in all things except essence and being. Drawing from St. Maximus the Confessor, theosis is the idea that God becomes incarnate within the individual, allowing the person to be morally perfect as God is morally perfect.[3]

Theosis begins with virtue ethics, the idea that one’s inner disposition must be changed in order to change one’s outer actions. According to Peter Kreeft, “…[V]irtue means, the power of anything to accomplish its specific function…Presently, virtue also signifies moral goodness; the practice of moral duties and the conformity of one’s life to the moral law; uprightness; rectitude.”[4] Thus, the idea of theosis rests upon the implied belief within virtue theory that there is a grand function to human life, or a telos, and the call of all humans is to live up to that telos. Virtue, however, is different from theosis in that while virtue makes humans better humans, theosis makes them divine.

Finally, one should understand that when the term “humanist” is used, it is meant to read “secular humanist.” For the sake of redundancy and space, however, it is safest to shorten the term and simply clarify it. While a Christian can be a humanist – and should be a humanist – Christian humanism, while loving humans, recognizes God as properly above humans. Secular humanism, however, seeks to bring man to great heights without acknowledging God; in short, secular humanism refers to anyone who is an atheist, agnostic, or finds God’s existence irrelevant to anthropic ethics.

Theanthropic Ethics

Before understanding the ought from theanthropic ethics, it is first important to understand that God is good. One must understand that God is wholly good and not imperfectly good, or good with a little bit of evil. God is a whole and must be perfect. To use the language of Robert Spitzer, since God is the unconditioned reality (nothing precedes Him), by logical necessity God must be simple (not composed) and perfect (lacking in nothing).[5] Since God is perfect, He must either be good or evil, and wholly so. He cannot be both (as this would violate the law of non-contradiction).

Therefore, if God were evil then He would be perfectly evil. Were one to treat evil as a substance (which is difficult to imagine), one would ask what is at the core of all evil acts. Through a simple use of deductions, one would easily arrive at the conclusion that pride is at the core of all evil acts.[6] Yet, pride can still be used in some good ways when it is used in moderation. In its extreme, however, pride is motivated by narcissism, or extreme love of the self. The more narcissistic a person is, the more apathetic he is to those around him. Narcissism requires the love of the self to the exclusion of all others. A narcissistic mother does not torture her baby; rather she neglects the baby if the baby interferes with the mother’s desires. Therefore, if God were evil He would be the ultimate narcissist.

If God were the ultimate narcissist, then nothing would exist; since something exists, it shows that God is not a narcissist and therefore God is not evil. If the root of evil is narcissism and narcissism is the focus on the self to the exclusion of others, and if God were wholly perfect in all things, then God would be too focused on Himself to have ever created anything to begin with. Yet, something exists. Therefore, God is not evil, which apophatically means God is good.

Since God is good and has created humans in His image, He has called humans to live a theanthropic life. The theanthropic life (or theanthropic ethics) is one where an individual human lives as God. It is the constant act of prayer, contemplation, action on that contemplation, and the petition of the soul to wholly trust in God.[7] Theanthropic ethics goes beyond natural ethics, teaching that the ultimate good, or moral perfection, can only be found in the person of Jesus Christ. While those outside of Christ can accomplish the ‘good,’ they cannot accomplish the ‘Good,’ which is only obtained through theosis. Yet, the Good is recognized as more than an abstract concept, but rather as a Person.[8] Therefore, the theanthropic life is not one in search of conformity to an ideal, but instead conformity to a Person.

Since God, being good, created the world, it follows that He created man with a good telos. The entire point of virtue within the theanthropic life is to make humans better humans, to achieve their telos.[9] In order to be good as God is good, humans must first live up to being humans. Sadly, in Christian teachings, the Fall (the events of Genesis 3) inhibited the ability to always choose the good. Due to sin, humans are incapable of achieving their telos and moving beyond their telos, which in turn puts a divide between them and God.

Through Christ, however, God has made it possible for humans not only to be good, but also to become divine. As St. John Damascene writes,

“Now, the virtues are natural, and they are also naturally inherent in all men, even though all of us do not act naturally. For, because of the fall, we went from what is according to nature to what is against it. But the Lord brought us back from what is against nature to what is according to it – for this last is what is meant by ‘according to his image and likeness.’”[10]

Thus, while virtue is inherent to the nature of humanity, due to sin men abandon the natural and partake in the unnatural. Through the Incarnation, however, Christ assumed the entirety of what it means to be human and thus gave power to man to achieve his telos.[11]

It should be noted, however, that the theanthropic life does not end with virtue, but rather uses virtues as a means. It could be said that while virtue aids man in becoming man, theosis aids man in becoming God (or divine). As Lossky points out, “The virtues are not the end but the means, or, rather, the symptoms, the outward manifestations of the Christian life, the sole end of which is the acquisition of grace.”[12] Virtue is the changing of the intellect and the attitude, but in conjunction with theosis grace works within a person to allow him to act on the intellect and become good as God is good.[13]

Humanist Objections to Christian Ethics

Of course, to some the above explanation of the theanthropic ethic – that God is good, created humans to be good, and then calls humans to be good as He is good – fails to provide a satisfactory defense for Christian ethics. Turning again to the critiques of Christian ethics, one would question how one can know God is good and, further, how one can develop a moral oughtness from God being good. Turning to Stephen Law, one reads,

“Consider a different hypothesis. Suppose the universe has a creator. Suppose also that this being is omnipotent and omniscient. However, suppose he is not maximally good. Rather, imagine that he is maximally evil. His depravity is without limit. His cruelty knows no bounds. There is no other god or gods – just this supremely wicked being. Call this the evil-god hypothesis.”[14]

Thus, one could argue that even if God is supremely narcissistic, He created humans simply to gain pleasure from torturing them. Certainly, this would still be an act of narcissism. One could also theorize that being a narcissist God wanted other lesser beings to recognize how great He is and to serve Him fully, irrespective of how He treats them.

Nielsen points out the contradiction Christians end up in if they wish to show that God is good, they must rely on a non-theistic standard of good. Since the believer is left pointing to an “outside criteria” to prove God’s goodness, “…God cannot be the only criterion for moral belief, let alone the only fundamental or adequate moral criterion. We must look elsewhere for the foundations of morality.”[15] The argument is a type of Euthyphro dilemma where either God arbitrarily declares what is good or God is good by some standard external to Himself, negating that He is actually God.

The final objection is that even if God is good, there is no reason to believe there is a grand telos to human ethics. As Nielsen theorizes, humans have a ‘purpose’ in everyday life, but there is no grand purpose, or a metanarrative of purpose.[16] He states that one can pursue happiness and purpose, but only the happiness and purpose one creates. The ultimate end for Peter is different from the ultimate end of Paul. Even if God is good, it does not follow that humans are called to be good as God is good; one must still rely on a source external to God in order to know the moral ought.

Christianity Triumphant

Law’s objection to God’s goodness holds no weight when one considers narcissism as the root of all evil. In fact, the implications of his argument actually defeat the argument. First, if God created humans in order to torture them so He could gain pleasure, this would indicate that God had a need for something. Of course, a perfect being can have need of nothing, thus if God had need of something then he would not be God.

The traditional Christian narrative concerning creation is that God created out of love, not out of need; He created as a sacrifice, not as a gain. He gained nothing out of creation, thus no perceived need was met. If God needed humans in order to be more loving, then He would not (1) be loving (as He would be creating humans for personal gain) and (2) God would not be God, as He would need something. Likewise, if God created humans to torture them, He would not be God, as He would have need of something.

Secondly, and more importantly, we can imagine a God who would create humans in order to torture them. Yet, we can think of a God even more evil that would not create humans because He would be so concentrated on Himself He would never think of humans. Therefore, the original syllogism – that because something exists, God must be good – stands true.

In referring to Nielsen’s argument that in order to prove God’s goodness one must point to an outside standard, the argument is that God’s goodness should really be self-evident. One can think of a man who thinks he is dead. He continues to argue he is dead. In order to prove to the man he is alive, one will have to use circular reasoning; this is because the act of denying what is self-evident is inherently illogical, thus any defense will give the appearance of being illogical as well. Humans innately know by the mere fact they exist that God is good; this is not relying on an outside criterion, but simply recognizing the tautological fact, that God is God.

Likewise, there certainly is an oughtness derived from God’s goodness. As Vigen Guroian explains, humans are incapable of choosing the goodness (their telos) because of sin, thus God, in His goodness, came down in human form in order to deify humanity.[17] Being created in the image of God and called to the theanthropic life, to become like God, creates one of the strongest forms of oughtness provided among all systems of ethics.

Being created by God also implies a telos for all humans. As some Thomists have pointed out, the very fact that humans try to find everyday purpose in life shows that within human nature is a natural inclination to find an overall purpose.[18]

Ultimately, Christian ethics points beyond virtue ethics and requires man to work with God to become God in all things except essence and being.[19] One can trust that God is good as such knowledge is self-evident, but also recognize that God is not arbitrarily laying down laws for His followers to follow, but calling His followers to partake in His ontological goodness by living the theanthropic life.[20] Thus, God is good, not by some external standard but by His own nature and He calls humans, who are in His image, to fulfill their telos by virtue, but then to exceed their telos by partaking in His goodness.

While I could appeal to the Church Fathers on this matter – specifically how St. Ignatius, a disciple of John, refers to those who deny that Christ is present in the bread and wine as “heterodox” – it is easier to appeal to Scripture. Many Christians in the Protestant tradition are too quick to dismiss the Church Fathers; rather than offer a treatise on why we should include them in our interpretations, it is best simply to take the Scripture for what it is.

Biblical Context of John 6:53–60

The context of John 6 provides the set up and meaning for the contentious passages concerning partaking in Christ’s body and blood. Chapter 6 opens to John recounting Christ feeding the five thousand people with just a few loaves of bread and a few fish (vv. 1–14).[2] After performing the miracle, John recounts that Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee to avoid being made a king (v. 15).

The next day the crowd located Christ on the other side of the sea and sought him out because he had given them food (vv. 22–26). It is here where Christ rebukes the crowd for not seeing the deeper meaning in his feeding of the five thousand people, notably that he is the eternal bread of life that cannot run out and is always plentiful (vv. 27–29).[3] He then begins to explain that he is greater than Moses; while Moses gave the Israelites temporal bread in the desert, he [Jesus] gives eternal bread that also grants eternal life because he is the bread that comes down from Heaven (vv. 30–52). It is here the Jews question what Christ means by such a confusing statement, which leads to vv. 53–60 where Christ makes what was then (and is now) a baffling statement about eating his body and drinking his blood. The seventh chapter of John deals with the ramifications of Christ’s words as the Jews seek to kill him, causing Jesus to flee Judea.

In a broader biblical context, this passage helps to demonstrate that Jesus truly is the Messiah, which is the intended purpose of the Gospel of John (John 20:30-31). However, in order to demonstrate that Jesus is the promised Messiah to the Jewish population, John presents quite a few themes in the entire Gospel, specifically Christology, ecclesiology, pneumatology, theology, and eschatology.[4] Whereas John 1 serves as a preamble to the Gospel of John, in many ways John 6 serves as the solidification that Jesus is the Messiah, by showing that He descended from Heaven and offers eternal life.

Meaning Analysis

While many people will grant that the main point of John 6 is to show Jesus as the Messiah, one can wonder why exactly John goes to great lengths to focus on Christ saying He is the “bread of life.” Certainly if the phrase is merely symbolic, or a metaphor as some contend[5], then John would have little need to include it in his Gospel. He could have opted for a less offensive metaphor, or another memory of Christ’s teaching that He was the bread of life while not mentioning eating of his flesh or drinking his blood. Yet, despite his options, John chose to use Eucharistic language in this particular passage.

Looking to the immediate context, one can see that John shows the repugnance of both the Jews and other disciples as a way of indicating that Christ was talking about something beyond a metaphor. Metaphors might upset people to varying degrees, but once explained metaphors can usually be tolerated; yet with Christ this is not the case. Verse 60 shows that Jesus’ own disciples admitted that it “…[I]s a hard saying… ,” thus showing that the immediate audience took what Christ said as something more than a metaphor. One can see in the next chapter that John states the Jews sought to kill Christ after the events of John 6:53–60. While some have argued for alternative reasons for the Jews and disciples being so offended[6], Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland contend that,

The Jews were seriously offended by the repugnant idea of eating flesh – even the Greco-Roman world viewed any kind of “cannibalism” with horror. And if Jesus meant to be understood as speaking figuratively, what in the world did his remark mean?[7]

Thus, it is quite easy to conclude that the original audience took Jesus’ saying prima facie and did not see it as a metaphor.

As stated, however, when John wrote his Gospel he had a particular audience in mind, specifically Christians who needed confirmation that Jesus truly was the promised Messiah. Therefore, while John 6 serves a partial purpose of displaying Jesus as the Messiah, it also strengthens the practice of the Eucharist. According to The New Interpreter’s Bible,

The syntax of v. 53 (“unless…”) makes clear that eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man is a condition for receiving the gift of life. …The strong emphasis on the Eucharist reflects a shift in the primary audience to whom the Fourth Evangelist understands these words of Jesus to be addressed. The primary audience is no longer the audience in the store (the Jewish crowd), but the readers in John’s own time. …The insistence in v. 53 on both the fullness of the incarnation and the participation in the eucharist may be the Evangelist’s attempt to counter developing docetic or gnostic tendencies within his community that wanted to deny the bodily aspects of Christ and of Christian experience.[8]

John therefore includes the saying of Christ for the purpose of reminding Christians exactly what they are partaking in when they engage in the Lord’s Supper; while arguing for transubstantiation (that the bread and wine become the same substance of Christ) may take John 6:53–50 beyond its exegetical scope, it is equally incorrect to take the Lord’s Supper as pure symbolism or metaphor.

The idea of partaking in Jesus’ flesh and blood is repeated throughout Scripture. In Matthew 26:26-28 we read,

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

The same language is used in Mark 14:22-25, Luke 22:14-23, and even 1 Corinthians 11:23-29. John certainly would have been aware of such language, so for him to include a passage that solidifies a literal reading of “flesh and blood” would indicate that John understood Christ’s own words to be literal.

Further, the internal evidence doesn’t seem to lend itself to metaphor or symbolism. By saying “verily, verily” Christ indicated that He was making a very strong statement of authority, not something that had to be read into. It seems odd to say that this passage is symbolic or metaphorical when evangelical Christians are unwilling (and rightfully so) to say that Christ’s miracles were metaphorical, that His resurrection was metaphorical, or that the events preceding this passage were metaphorical. After all, if it is possible for Christ to raise from the dead, certainly it’s nothing for Him to be present in the bread and wine presented to His followers.

A final way around this passage as forcing one into accepting that Christ is present in the bread and wine at the Eucharist is to say that the passage has nothing to do with the Lord’s Supper, as Calvin did.[9] However, such a reading is not likely when, once again, we consider the context John was writing in. As evangelical scholar Andreas J. Köstenberger writes, “On a secondarily level, however, John may expect his readers to read Jesus’ words in light of the church’s observance of the Lord’s Supper, though not necessarily in a sacramental sense.”[10] The New Interpreter’s commentary, however, drives the point home:

In Hebrew, the double formula “flesh and blood” emphasizes the corporeality of human existence, and its use here is thus an affirmation of the incarnation of the Son for Man. For the Christian reader, however, the double formula has unmistakable Eucharistic associations.[11]

When considering the cultural context John was writing it’s almost impossible to see 6:53-60 as not relating to the Eucharist.

Meaning for the Modern Age and Conclusion

In light of John 6:53–60, evangelical Christians must rethink how they approach the Lord’s Supper, or more appropriately, the Eucharist. In partaking in the Eucharist Christians are engaging in more than a mere act of symbolism, but a very mystical act that unifies the believer with Christ’s body, and unifies the local body with each other (1 Corinthians 10:16–17). The fear of the Roman Catholic Church should not prevent us from seeking the truth. Likewise, we do not have to buy into transubstantiation (as in the Roman Catholic tradition) in order to believe that Christ’s essence is in the bread and wine.[12] We can say with a straight face that we really are partaking in the body and blood of Christ – eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood – without agreeing that we are partaking in His substance, just His essence.

Thus, upon reading John 6:53–60, believers are to recognize that they partake in Christ’s spirit through faith, but also partake in his body through the Eucharist. In both they are unified with each other in the local body, and ultimately unified together in the universal Church. Therefore, when Christians come together for the Lord’s Supper, an aura of respect should be prevalent among the congregation. One should truly seek the forgiveness of his brother before partaking in the body of Christ (Matthew 5:24). During the taking of the bread and drinking of the wine the church should recognize it’s unity in that moment and then seek to live that unity in perfect holiness as they depart; for Christ is present in the Eucharist as he stated quite plainly in John 6:53–60.

For those who aren’t familiar with the premise of The Walking Dead (WD), it’s a show on AMC that deals with how society would handle the zombie apocalypse. As you can imagine, society doesn’t handle it very well. What differentiates the show from normal zombie flicks, however, is that it’s more focused on the human response to the apocalypse rather than millions of zombies running around in shopping malls attempting to devour whatever is in their path (except for each other, which leads to one of the great mysteries of the universe: Why don’t zombies eat each other?).  The show focuses on the human interaction during a time of great crisis when the future is entirely uncertain; while WD has its fair share of monsters (or, “walkers” as they’re called in the show), in many ways the show demonstrates both the greatness of humanity and how, in our own way, we too can be monstrous even without being zombies.

Season 2 demonstrates the above brilliantly, specifically in the last few episodes. Earlier in the season, one of the characters – a boy named Carl – was accidentally shot by a stranger named Otis. Otis was shooting at a deer for food and the bullet passed through the deer and into Carl. As it happens, Otis lives on a farm with a family where the patriarch is a veterinarian (yet somehow knows how to operate on humans – the MacGyver of veterinarians). Problem is, he lacks the necessary equipment to operate on Carl. Thus Shane (another character in the show, not the boy’s father) and Otis embark on a quest to bring back the equipment. The good news is the equipment is easily found a few miles away at an abandoned FEMA shelter. The bad news is the FEMA shelter is abandoned because there’s a bunch of zombies wandering around it. Why they chose to stay there rather than wandering off, who knows.

Shane and Otis break in, get the equipment, but are noticed by the zombies. Rather than letting bygones be bygones, the mindless horde of flesh-eaters decides that Shane and Otis look quite tasty. The two men, objecting to the advances of the zombies, decide to make a run for it. In the process, Shane hurts his leg and hops along. As he and Otis slowly move towards their truck it becomes obvious that the zombie horde will catch up with the two men. Shane tells Otis to take the equipment and get it back to the farm to save the boy. Otis rejects the offer and chooses to continue to help Shane. Shane, realizing a sacrifice needs to be made, pulls out his gun and shoots Otis in the leg, leaving Otis as zombie bait while Shane makes his escape. Shane gets the equipment to the farm and in turn saves Carl’s life.

The show presents the act as disgusting and Shane is obviously the villain in the act and to most people Shane certainly is a villain; leave it to a philosopher to question common sense. The moment I saw what Shane did I was appalled, and then I realized that what he did is entirely ethical under most modern ethical theories. So I did what any sensible Christian philosopher would do, I asked what Thomas Aquinas would do. If Thomas Aquinas lived during the zombie apocalypse, what would his response be on how we who are living should act against the (un)living?

Sadly, Aquinas was a rather large man, so chances are if the zombie apocalypse broke out he wouldn’t last. After all, being large we know he wouldn’t be able to run for long distances or very fast. But in the brief time period of his survival from the zombie horde it would be safe to say that Aquinas would roundly reject Shane’s actions; in fact, under Thomistic ethics there is simply no way to justify killing an innocent in order to save the life of another innocent. Yet, I’m not sure that Aquinas goes far enough. Is virtue enough to stop Shane from killing Otis?

I argue that only through theanthropic ethics (theanthropic = God-man, or a human life lived in the Divine) could one look at Shane’s actions and find a justification for moral repulsion. Ultimately, Shane’s actions are selfish and not sacrificial; theanthropic ethics relies on love as the foundation and Shane’s actions simply weren’t loving.

The Failure of Current Ethical Theories to Explain Our Moral Outrage

Most audience members experienced some initial revulsion at Shane’s actions. There was almost a prima facie rejection of Shane’s actions, as though collectively everyone thought, “I would never do that!” Yet, while the show is fictional, it serves as an appropriate analogy for real life situations; remember that in Nazi Germany many people faced the decision of killing an innocent in order to save their own lives, or to save the lives of others. German soldiers were told to kill Jews or face having their own families killed or being killed themselves. We can also think of the modern-day tragedies in Africa where RUF soldiers, or some other guerilla group, forces young children to kill innocent farmers or face being put to death themselves. So while I do write this article a bit tongue-in-cheek, we should understand WD does a magnificent job of presenting a very real ethical dilemma.

Sadly, almost all systems of ethics can justify Shane’s action of killing an innocent man in order to save Carl’s life (or to save Shane’s life). I can give a brief run-down here, though the list (and explanations) are hardly comprehensive:

Utilitarianism – this is the ethic that easily justifies Shane’s actions (and for those keeping up with the show, we’re seeing this ethic continue to arise on whether or not they should search for the missing girl, how to handle the zombie barn hoedown, and the like). Utilitarianism teaches that one is obligated to beget the greatest good (or happiness) for the greatest number of people. When looking to Shane’s actions we see Shane was faced with a few options:

(1) Continue to run with Otis, which would almost certainly lead to their deaths and subsequently Carl’s death, thus leading to the loss of three people from their group

(2) Sacrifice himself by shooting his own leg, forcing Otis to continue on. Of course, Otis had no obligation to Shane’s own group, thus Shane would be committing an act of disservice for his group because they would lose him

(3) Sacrifice Otis in order to get the medical supplies to Carl, thus saving the life of a young member of the group, someone who could help repopulate the earth once the zombies had sated their appetites

Thus, from the Utilitarian perspective Shane was merely aiding the human race by ensuring that (1) Carl was saved and (2) a more productive member of the two groups (himself) survived the ordeal. One can’t show any moral outrage at Shane because he brought about a greater good, even if the means are a bit uncomfortable.

Ethics of the Übermensch – Under Nietzsche’s view of ethics, Shane was simply creating a new ethical framework and then living within that framework. That framework put Shane at the center and gave him the power to act above all others. As the episodes go on, one can see that Shane is attempting to persuade those of influence within the group that his own ethical viewpoint is the valid one. He is acting as the Übermensch, so he can’t be faulted; as Nietzsche would say (or as I would paraphrase Nietzsche), “There is no right or wrong, just interpretations of actions.”

  Evolutionary Ethics – Shane is simply ensuring the survival of the fittest. By finding a way to survive the situation and outwit the circumstances that nature has thrown in his way, one cannot say he is wrong; he is allowing his genes to continue on (and by the time the show is over, he will probably have slept with at least half of the female survivors on earth).

Deontology – If Kant lived during the zombie crisis he would be the ultimate survivor; he would simply read his works to them and the monotony of his works would convince them he was a fellow zombie. Aside from this, however, Kant’s ethics simply wouldn’t work for most people. That’s because Kant’s ethics do not bend, but are rigid. Is it wrong to lie to the Nazis to save the life of a Jew? Most people would agree that it’s not only ethical to lie in this situation, it would be unethical to tell the truth. Kant would stamp his German foot down in a fit of rage and say that if it’s wrong to lie, it’s wrong to lie. So while Kant’s deontology would condemn Shane, it would inevitably lead to everyone dying because it wouldn’t allow for a change in conditions (in fact, Hershel could be viewed as a deontologist; that even in the zombie apocalypse he won’t kill the zombies because they’re “people”).

Theanthropic Ethics in the Zombie Apocalypse

Certainly the “theanthropic ethic” is a Christian ethic, which begets the question, “Is a Christian ethic really better to anything else presented?” After all, Christians seem to be jerks. The most famous and celebrated Christian holiday, Christmas, elicits images of a zombie apocalypse (or is it zombpocolypse?) every year during “Black Friday.” Atheists and non-Christians are obviously sometimes far more moral than their Christian counterparts – think about how American Christians tend to focus on homosexual marriage and abortion, but how hard it is to find them fighting poverty, slave labor overseas, climate change, or other social ills. In the zombie apocalypse one of the last places you’d run to is a church, out of fear of being turned away or finding out the church had allied with the zombies (zombies are the walking dead and if you’ve seen some Christian services then you’ve seen the walking dead).

Thankfully, in discussing Christian ethics or ethics in general we’re not dealing with what is, but with what ought to be, or the justification behind what ought to be. Though Christian ethics is more than an ideal, it is best to say that we’re dealing with the ideal and not the real. We’re not dealing with the present state of affairs, but with what all Christians (and humans) should aim toward.

Christian ethics begins with virtue ethics, the teaching that humans were created to pursue happiness and must gain an inner disposition to achieve this happiness. This happiness isn’t meant in an epicurean way, that each one pursues pleasure, but instead that in finding “happiness” one will have found the ultimate good. Basically, it’s vague, which has been a plague for virtue ethics since Socrates began to toy around with the idea. While virtue ethicists would like to treat this happiness as the ultimate good, when asked to define the happiness you’re going to get a lot of absolute answers (meaning none of them are absolute).

We’ll put aside the issue of happiness for now, except to say that happiness cannot deal with temporal happiness or material items for happiness. After all, how could we obtain happiness in a zombie apocalypse? At that point, happiness becomes hard to find in the situations of life, leading us to conclude that life isn’t worth living unless there is an ultimate happiness we’re heading towards.

Putting the issue of happiness aside (for now) we can look to exactly what virtue teaches us. Aristotle brought up a lot about the habits of virtue – we come to know what the right thing is, or what the good is, and then make a habit of acting towards it. At first we have to force ourselves to act good, but eventually it just becomes a natural thing we do without even thinking about. We think of how we raise children; we teach them to open doors for the elderly and at first they have to make a conscious decision to do so, but as they get older and get used to doing it, it simply becomes a habit, something they naturally do. Thus, they become “naturally” good.

Essentially, virtue teaches that we are to change our inner disposition so that we’re consistently choosing to do the right thing regardless of the situation. Rather than setting up rules – like deontology – we ‘organically’ pursue the good so that we will act different in certain circumstances, yet remain good. When we see a zombie, we’ll recognize that it’s okay to kill it in self-defense (unlike Hershel), but we’ll realize it’s wrong to kill an innocent to save our own lives (unlike Shane).

One doesn’t have to be a Christian to accept the virtues either, especially considering that virtue theory really arises from a Socratic-Platonic-Aristotelian base. Even Thomistic Virtue is better seen as Ibn Sina’s (Avicenna) virtue theory, which is based on Aristotle. The four cardinal virtues – justice, courage, prudence, and temperance – make us better humans, something you don’t have to be a Christian to recognize. As fallen humans we tend to be beasts, we tend to be zombies without being actual zombies; we become mindless drones who lose control of our brains and walk around devouring the minds of the living, the thinkers, to satisfy our sinful desires (don’t believe me? Look at the political process in America). Virtue fixes this, virtue makes us more than a zombie and restores our humanity.

If virtue can be said to make us human, then theosis is what makes us divine. It’s hard to give a definition to theosis not because it hasn’t been defined, but because in our modern times when we face pantheism and the “New Age” movement, the idea that we become “a god” inherently sets off the heresy alarm. But it should be noted that this teaching has been around since the beginning; we’ve just abandoned it in the West.

Essentially, theosis is the process that makes us like God in all things except essence and being and all of this is accomplished through grace. We don’t become “gods” in the Mormon sense where we get our own planets, nor do we become one with God in the Hindu sense, where God is just a type of Brahma that we unify with. We still remain distinct from God, yet unified to Him through grace. This is best represented in the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.

Paul teaches that faith, hope, and love drive the Christian ethic, but love is at its foundation. I would contend that what Paul says is almost a commentary on Christ’s teaching of the two greatest commandments; we are to love the Lord God with all our hearts, minds, and souls (our entire being), and the second is like it, to love our neighbors as ourselves. In short, the two greatest commandments summarize the theanthropic life, and Paul is merely adding commentary on what that means. Whereas virtue makes us better humans by living in a good fashion, theosis makes humans Divine by teaching them to live in love, to live in a God-fashion. In other words, happiness is God, the purpose of life is God.

Thus, humans are called to love God and to love God’s image (humans), and this is true happiness. This is why Jesus says the second greatest commandment is like the first, because if we love God then we must love those who have His image. This would mean that to destroy the image of God would display a lack of love towards God Himself. The perfect verse that demonstrates this is one I wrote about a while ago, Proverbs 14:31. As I stated in that post, depending which translation one reads, it’ll either say that if one loves God, one will help the poor, or that if one helps the poor, one then loves God. This is a case where though the two readings are different, both are true if we take them in light of the two greatest commandments; if we love God, we will love humans, and if we love humans, we will love God.

Now of course there are times where destroying the image of God becomes a tragic necessity. In the case of self-defense, the case of a just war (and they do exist), or other similar situations justifies killing. No one is saying it is morally good to kill in those situations, merely that it does become necessary. What is always wrong and never justified, however, is the intentional murder of innocent humans to save the life of others.

So what about Shane? Does the theanthropic life teach us anything about Shane’s actions?

First, did Shane kill an innocent man? After all, it was because of Otis that Carl was in that predicament. It was Otis’ carelessness that caused the entire situation to come about. At the same time, Otis did not intentionally shoot Carl. If it happened in a civilized society (you know, one that didn’t have zombies) then Otis would be held for an involuntary act. Even our legal system sees a difference between voluntary acts of aggression and involuntary acts. Thus, while Otis was responsible for the situation, morally he was innocent because he did not intentionally cause Carl’s pain. Furthermore, in the zombie apocalypse you simply don’t expect a child to be standing on the other side of a deer.  In killing Otis, Shane took the life of an innocent man.

Second, the motivation for killing Otis wasn’t entirely pure. The primary motivation for Shane’s action was to save Carl, of that there is no doubt. In fact, Shane even told Otis to continue on without him and offered himself up as a sacrifice. Otis, however, refused to leave Shane behind, which of course ran the risk of both Otis and Shane dying. At the same time, how was Shane showing love to his neighbor by sacrificing Otis?

At the end of the day, Shane put his life ahead of another’s life. Rather than forcing Otis to move ahead or by fighting on against his impending death. He wanted to make sure he was around to make advances on Carl’s mom (the wife of Rick, who’s still alive, but there’s some very awkward backstory there) and protect Carl as well. When he got back he acted as the hero, reminding everyone that he saved Carl’s life.

No mater how you look at it, from the theanthropic view it’s better to suffer an evil than to cause an evil. It’s better to be tortured and murdered rather than be the torturer and murderer. It’s better to be eaten by the zombie than to be the zombie (let’s face it, either way that’s just a bad situation). For Shane, it would be better to be attacked by zombies and lose his life than to escape the zombies but lose his soul.

Going back to virtue, if doing the right thing becomes a habit, then it’s true that choosing to do the wrong thing is also a habit (or habit forming). One doesn’t wake up one day and decide that it’s okay to kill innocent humans to save other people; that comes through years of choosing to do the wrong thing or to act immorally. This is even prevalent from the first season where Shane is shown making advances on Rick’s wife just a few weeks after Rick was thought to be dead (told you there was an awkward backstory). It simply goes to show that Shane has already formed a habit of making the wrong choices before killing Otis.

Under virtue, one would say that Shane should have chosen the good and formed the habit of choosing the good. Had he, perhaps he could have been creative enough to choose the good in the situation and still survive. At the very least, even if he lost his life, he would have gained his soul.

More importantly, however, is how Shane’s actions look in the theanthropic life. Shane’s actions were the antithesis of loving. Had he sacrificed himself then he would have proven to be loving (as love is a sacrifice). The theanthropic life, then, is one of constant sacrifice, or at a minimum it’s not sacrificing others to achieve your goal. It’s treating people as people (love your neighbor) rather than means to an end or zombie bait.

On a more serious note within this hypothetical, in many ways humans in their present state are far worse than they are as zombies. After all, no one chooses to be a zombie. Once a zombie, no one chooses to eat the living, that’s just a part of its nature. Humans, on the other hand, choose to be beastly to one another. A zombie eats a human and goes on, not knowing what it has done; a business owner uses slave labor in Africa to bring over cheaper chocolate, but does so willfully. Which one is the real monster? Which one should we truly fear, the one who commits evil acts by nature or the one who chooses evil though he doesn’t have to?

Along those same lines, it is into this morally reprehensible world that God spoke to bring light, to show people that they were called to be more than what they are. God sacrificially created the world and then sacrificially gave it a way to live as He lives (via the Incarnation). That is the foundation of theanthropic ethics.

In the end, if we live in the ethics of love (theanthropic ethics) then we can never sacrifice an innocent to save another, or to save our own lives. We must always put the other before us. While it’s fun to contemplate how that looks in a zombie apocalypse, consider it in the real world as well. It’s wrong for the business owner to put himself before his employees. It’s wrong for the father to put his needs before those of his family. It’s wrong to elevate ourselves and to use other people as a means rather than as ends. Theanthropic ethics means we are self-sacrificial, even if it costs us our lives.

This is part of a larger paper that I am writing and working on. Law’s “Evil-God Challenge” is simply a section in the paper. In coming across Law’s “Evil-God” challenge, I’ve seen numerous Christian philosophers offer up an explanation to how we can know God is good (such as Edward Feser). While all make good points, I think they are overcomplicating the issue and that the answer is actually quite simple. Hence, I post part of my solution here: 

One must understand that God is wholly good and not imperfectly good, or good with a little bit of evil. God is a whole and must be perfect. To use the language of Robert Spitzer, since God is the unconditioned reality (nothing precedes Him), by logical necessity God must be simple (not composed) and perfect (lacking in nothing).[1] Since God is perfect, He must either be good or evil, and wholly so. He cannot be both (as this would violate the law of non-contradiction).

Therefore, if God were evil then He would be perfectly evil. Were one to treat evil as a substance (which is difficult to imagine), one would ask what is at the core of all evil acts. Through a simple use of deductions, one would easily arrive at the conclusion that pride is at the core of all evil acts.[2] Yet, pride can still be used in some good ways when it is used in moderation. In its extreme, however, pride is motivated by narcissism, or extreme love of the self. The more narcissistic a person is, the more apathetic he is to those around him. Narcissism requires the love of the self to the exclusion of all others. A narcissistic mother does not torture her baby; rather she neglects the baby if the baby interferes with the mother’s desires. Therefore, if God were evil He would be the ultimate narcissist.

If God were the ultimate narcissist, then nothing would exist; since something exists, it shows that God is not a narcissist and therefore God is not evil. If the root of evil is narcissism and narcissism is the focus on the self to the exclusion of others, and if God were wholly perfect in all things, then God would be too focused on Himself to have ever created anything to begin with. Yet, something exists. Therefore, God is not evil, which apophatically means God is good.

Turning to Stephen Law, one reads,

“Consider a different hypothesis. Suppose the universe has a creator. Suppose also that this being is omnipotent and omniscient. However, suppose he is not maximally good. Rather, imagine that he is maximally evil. His depravity is without limit. His cruelty knows no bounds. There is no other god or gods – just this supremely wicked being. Call this the evil-god hypothesis.”[3]

Thus, one could argue that even if God is supremely narcissistic, He created humans simply to gain pleasure from torturing them. Certainly, this would still be an act of narcissism. One could also theorize that being a narcissist God wanted other lesser beings to recognize how great He is and to serve Him fully, irrespective of how He treats them.

Law’s objection to God’s goodness holds no weight when one considers narcissism as the root of all evil. In fact, the implications of his argument actually defeat the argument. First, if God created humans in order to torture them so He could gain pleasure, this would indicate that God had a need for something. Of course, a perfect being can have need of nothing, thus if God had need of something then he would not be God.

The traditional Christian narrative concerning creation is that God created out of love, not out of need; He created as a sacrifice, not as a gain. He gained nothing out of creation, thus no perceived need was met. If God needed humans in order to be more loving, then He would not (1) be loving (as He would be creating humans for personal gain) and (2) God would not be God, as He would need something. Likewise, if God created humans to torture them, He would not be God, as He would have need of something.

Secondly, and more importantly, we can imagine a God who would create humans in order to torture them. Yet, we can think of a God even more evil that would not create humans because He would be so concentrated on Himself He would never think of humans. Therefore, the original syllogism – that because something exists, God must be good – stands true.

Picture courtesy of www.globalexchange.org

Whoever oppresses a poor man insults [lit. blasphemes, taunts, defies] his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors Him. – Proverbs 14:31 (ESV with my own clarification added)

What is extremely interesting about the above passage is that in the King James Bible, the order of the last part is reversed: “…but he that honoureth Him [God] hath mercy upon the poor.” The same thing happens if we turn to the Septuagint translation (verse 32 instead of 31); “He who oppresses the poor provokes his Maker, but he who honors Him [God] has mercy upon a poor man.”

What are we to make of the discrepancy between the ESV and the KJV? Do we prefer the idea that God is honored when we aid the poor, or that if we honor God we will naturally aid in the poor? The truth is, both translations are not only correct, but in harmony with each other. Later in the Bible we read that we are to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength” as the greatest commandment. But then Jesus says, “And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-38, emphasis added). In other words, if we honor and love God then we will honor and love our neighbors, and in honoring and loving our neighbors we will inevitably be honoring and loving God. We cannot act in isolation on the two commandments; to perform one is to perform the other.

Thus, if we truly love and honor God then we will aid the poor and in aiding the poor we will be loving God and honoring God. One could say that the KJV translation points to a disposition that we should have towards God, one that loves Him and honors Him as a condition of our soul (the greatest commandment). The ESV then would take this disposition and put it into action (the second greatest commandment). From this perspective if we are to help the poor we must love God, but in helping the poor our love for God will also grow.

Among Christians, then, we are without an excuse when it comes to corporate greed. If we follow Christ and make millions, while we are not called to give up everything, we are called to aid the poor and not to oppress them. This transcends the “Occupy Wall Street” protests, which are seemingly more and more occupied by disenchanted students who want bigger TVs and don’t care one bit about true social justice. For Christian business owners, they must make sure they are engaging in ethical business practices, from how they treat their own employees to how they are supplied.

Consider you’re a Christian and the owner (or a powerful executive) of a chocolate company. Would you make up excuses for your company purchasing chocolate from farms that use child slaves? Or would you find an ethical source of chocolate, even if it meant cutting into your own income to do so? Or would you take it a step further to shed light on the fact that numerous farms around the world that allow us to cheaply satisfy a sweet tooth comes at an ethical cost of using slave labor? Would you cut even more into your millions of dollars in bonuses to help end the plight of the poor? Or would you argue that, “This is simply how business must be conducted” and move about your day, convincing yourself that the ends (using your vast sums of wealth for your church) justify the means (child slaves in brutish conditions)?

How does a Christian CEO display his love of God if he knowingly uses slave labor (or mistreated workers) to gain his product cheaply? Greed, simply put, has no place in any business where a Christian makes high-level decisions. While salaries must sometimes be cut, workers laid off, and overhead reduced, there are ways to accomplish all of this without selling one’s soul. As a Christian, one is simply without an excuse when it comes to oppressing the poor.

But what about non-Christians? When I bring the above issues up to conservative Christians, I’m often met with, “Yes, but that’s a Christian mandate, not one to companies. We shouldn’t expect corporations to act like Christians because it’s a secular world.” Mind you, this argument often comes from those who would seek to see abortion ended, homosexual marriages forbidden, and the Ten Commandments on every single government building in existence. In short, it creates a contradictory and conflicted message. Why is it okay to speak out against abortion or homosexual marriage on religious grounds, but we must adopt a secular attitude towards aiding the poor (the opposite is true for progressive Christians). While I’m not asking for Christians to take up the hammer and sickle (because Communism, according to the late Francis Schaeffer, is simply a Christian heresy) nor am I asking for a theocracy, I am asking them to take up their cross and follow Christ, which includes helping the poor and oppressed.

This means that Christians ought to seek out legislation that helps the oppressed, such as those trapped in slavery. We should support legislation that punishes corporations that use or willfully ignore where their products come from (such as Hershey’s Chocolate or Godiva). We shouldn’t do this because we’re Democrats or Republicans, or because we’re Conservatives or Liberals, but because we’re Christians. If we wish to honor God then we will seek to end the oppression of the poor. That’s not politics, it’s Scripture.

Would Christ go to the Republican National Convention? Would He partake in the march against homosexual marriage? Would Jesus really Occupy Wall Street? Would He mock the Republican candidates, or call Obama a Nazi? If we easily see Christ doing any of these things, we must ask ourselves if we are worshiping a Christ of our own invention; if we cannot see Christ doing these things, we must ask why we choose to do so in His stead.

God is omnipotent and powerful, there is no denying that; but out of His love to us He is weak. It is in this weakness that He is ultimately, eternally, and infinitely strong. Love makes one weak because by its very nature it requires sacrifice and self-giving. In the mere act of creation we see God’s weakness displaying His strength. With the mere mention of creation, He brings it about, yet the act itself is one of sacrifice. Here we see His strength in creation, but His weakness in sacrifice.

On the cross we see the strength of God crushing sin of death, but this strength is only seen due to the weakness of His love, His willingness to die on our behalf that He might remove death from our nature.

I am not trying to say that God is not omnipotent – far from it – but instead drawing light to the fact that within the bounds of love the world could turn upside down; what is strong could be weak and what is weak could be strong. In a strong world, in the world of the Übermensch (Nietzsche’s “Superman”), the one who is able to enforce his will on others is the strong one. In a weak world, the one Christ displayed to us, the greater the servant, the more power he has. This is quite the paradox, that the weaker we act, the stronger we really are. Such is the mystery of God’s love.

Where does this leave us Christians in the 21^st century? Should we continue to make power plays for political offices? Should we continue to push “our guy” to take charge of the nation? Should we pray for the day that we control the schools, the government, and make this a “Christian nation” once again (or for the first time)? Is this really what the strengthening weakness of love looks like?

Perhaps we as Christians need to reconsider what it is to have strength. Perhaps we need to realize that strength is found in weakness. Hope is not found in acquiring a political goal, but in the self-emptying act of service towards those who cannot repay us.

The love of God is weak enough to cause God to stoop down to become a man. It is weak enough to grab that girl who suffers from life. It is weak enough to cause our all-powerful God to serve humans (for what is love if not service?). The love of God is weak enough to look at the young man intent on a life of self-destruction and long for the young man to turn around to his original purpose, which is Christ. The love of God is weak enough to wander through the hospital wards soothing the broken bodies, sacrificing for the sick, and giving grace to those who can no longer continue.

The love of God is weak enough to take the almighty Eternal and place Him within the womb of the Theotokos. The love of God is weak enough to cause the Eternal to walk where we walk, to experience the pain that numerous victims worldwide have experienced. The love of God is weak enough to cause Christ to give His life that we might have life. But the love of God is strong enough to ensure that all of this has an actual, eternal effect.

The love of God is strong enough to grab the girl who suffers from life and give her a new life. It is strong enough to draw humans to love God as well and serve Him (for what is love if not service?). The love of God is strong enough to look at the vapid young man and convict him of his ways; it is strong enough to turn the young man from death to life. The love of God is strong enough to wander through hospital wards proclaiming that He is the ultimate healer, that in His love all will be made whole someday.

The love of God is strong enough to shape and save our nature through His glorious Incarnation.  The love of God is strong enough to cause us to walk where the Eternal has walked and is walking. The love of God is strong enough to cause Christ to raise from the dead that we might have life.

If God’s love displays His eternal strength through weakness, then what should this say of us mere Christians? Shall we continue to pursue the power on display in the world? Certainly there is nothing wrong with standing up for justice in the public square, but should this be our primary vehicle for displaying God’s love?

Christ came down as a king, but never claimed the seat of Rome. He came down as a ruler, but to a kingdom without a border. Christ came down as the Lawgiver, yet made no declarations or decrees for the nations to follow. If we become a people who seek after kingships, after controlling borders, after laws then we have forgotten what Christ accomplished.

The millions of humans who are abducted into slavery every day don’t need another Christian song or another tract; they desperately need the love of God to rescue them from their plight and restore their humanity. The millions of homeless people don’t need another sermon on how they’re worthless or how trusting in God will make things better; they need food, they need shelter, they need help (even if they’re crazy, this doesn’t make them not human; all are fallen from God, so all are crazy in degrees, the man who mumbles to himself is only slightly crazier than you). Those who are hurting, lost, in despair, wondering about the next paycheck, suffering from abuse, don’t need another law, another rally, another city to occupy, another mega-church, another politician to save us all; they need only Christ, they need His love, they need His followers to cease seeking after the worldly idea of power and instead become weak that they might truly become strong.

In short, the world doesn’t need more Christians attempting to live up to the standards of their culture; it needs more Christians attempting to live up to the standards of Christ. The world needs people who display their strength in their weakness, and this is only possible through Divine love.

Taken from digitalburg.com

The “Occupy Wall Street” protest is quite interesting to me. On one hand, I understand and agree that something is wrong with any nation where greed goes unchecked. At the same time, some of the solutions I’ve heard only take one tyrant (an oligarchic Wall Street) and replace it with another (an authoritarian Washington). If the movement is to achieve anything worthwhile and noteworthy of change, it should be towards creating a more stable economy while also furthering freedom, not in taking one dictator and replacing him with another dictator.

With the above in mind, rather than sitting and complaining about the greed in Wall Street (or Washington for that matter), I’d like to offer a few practical solutions for CEOs to follow as well as a few idealistic solutions. First, with the practical solutions:

1. For employees with a minimum of 6 months employment, offer them a profit share in the company – this is best accomplished via buying or giving employees stock. While I’m not sure on the laws, giving employees stock in the company for achieving certain goals makes them part owners and spreads the wealth of the company to those working for the company. For instance, if you have a store that is performing at 40% guest satisfaction, you could promise every employee x amount of stock if they increase that to 50% guest satisfaction. This would allow employees to take ownership of the company and give them something more than an hourly wage or the promise of a raise. While this cuts into the take-home profits for CEOs (temporarily), it creates a happier workforce, which in turn could actually increase profits; after all, no one works harder than a business owner, so if you can turn your entire workforce into co-owners of your company, then why not?Let us also not forget that not every employee will be enticed by the above offer. Yet, this shows the strength of the suggestion – if an employee is still lethargic after being offered a co-ownership of the company, then he’s probably not fit to work at your company. Thus, the above program offers a way to weed out employees who could potentially bring down your business. You end up receiving a workforce who wants to be there, who is motivated to be there, who is qualified to be there, and who shares in the successes of the company.
2. Celebrate a “jubilee-type” income (give away your income every 7 years). Many executives make upwards to a million dollars after benefits; many others make far more than that. Thus, it isn’t too much to ask them to show some frugality in saving up their income for 6 years and on the 7th year donate every penny of income that year to charity, to employees who need help, or back to the company. For those who make quite a bit of income this charitable spending goes a long way towards helping those who are less fortunate. At the same time, on the practical level, it elevates one to near sainthood in the media and among the masses; who can complain about corporate greed if you’re giving away your income every 7 years, especially if you’re giving that back to your employees as a bonus?
3. Always give away more than 50% of your income after tax (this is for those bringing home a substantial income). While you could give away your income every 7 years, another thing to help dispel the belief in corporate greed is to give away 50% or more of your net income. Again, not all CEOs of all corporations will be able to do this (some corporations are small, thus some CEOs really do not make that much). But for those who are bringing home well above half a million dollars, living off half the net income isn’t asking that much; it’s still much more than what the average American has to deal with. Again, by giving away your personal income, who can protest you or call you greedy?
4. Give back to the company, especially to help the most underprivileged of your employees. When giving back your personal income, one thing to look at is possibly setting up a charitable program within your own company to help your employees. One company – Darden – has set up a program called “Darden Dimes” where employees can donate as little as 10 cents of each paycheck towards the program. If an employee within the Darden company needs help, they can receive a prepaid gift card to help them through a troubled time. If all companies did this, with CEOs pumping hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars into it every year, this would increase employee satisfaction and faith in the company. This, in turn, would increase guest satisfaction (because guests would walk into a happier environment), which in turn would increase overall profit.
5. Give back to the community, especially in education ventures. Imagine if the richest of Americans offered to help people with medical bills, or finding jobs, or building up lower income housing to help those in the area. We complain about welfare, government spending, and the like, but what if the richest of Americans took their money and invested it into private ventures that addressed issues related to the poor. It would render the government to a secondary role for those in extreme poverty; in other words, the government wouldn’t have to spend as much, meaning they wouldn’t have to tax people as much, meaning the whole debate about cutting spending or raising taxes could cool down a bit. While there isn’t enough money in the world to fix these problems (there will always be those in poverty), if every American who makes over half a million dollars a year donated to these private organizations in a substantial fashion, perhaps it could help alleviate and reduce the problem.If one were to choose where the money would go, I would argue that it should go into reshaping and reforming our educational system. Put money into programs that actually teach students rather than prepare them to take a government-issued test. Put the money into programs that help us reform education so we’re producing thinkers and not test-takers. Remember, all of these students aren’t just future consumers, but future employees; if they don’t know how to think now, they’ll make for bad employees in the future, which will ruin profits in the future. Thus, it makes sense to invest in them now so you can make more later.

Along with the practical solutions (ones that are driven by profit motive), there are some idealistic solutions I would offer. These, of course, are harder to obtain, but would naturally cause greed to disappear.

1. Recognize that you will be held accountable for your actions, in this life or the next. Though a belief in God exists for the vast majority of Americans, acting as though God exists seems to be passé. However, God does exist and He will hold you accountable for how you’ve spent your money. One can look to the Scriptures and see that there are over 1,000 verses concerning poverty; half of those condemn those who do nothing to help it or make money off the impoverished. For the richest Americans, especially those who attend church on a regular to semi-regular basis, do understand that how you treat the poor will weigh heavily in the coming judgment.
2. Recognize that the happy life is one of virtue, not one of vice. All humans pursue happiness, of this there is no doubt. What we define as “happy,” however, differs amongst humans. In our modern world, we tend to think of material things as being happy, and it’s true they can bring temporary happiness, but they do not resemble true happiness. Think of it this way – when you were younger you wanted that cassette player so you could be happy. If you got that same cassette player now, would you be just as happy? Of course not, because it’s out of date. Thus, happiness based on material items is constantly in flux, never satisfied, and always seeking; one is never truly happy because one is always seeking after the next change. Rather, true happiness is found in the pursuit of virtue and the obtaining of virtue. True happiness is found in the things that do not change, not in material wealth, which is always in flux.
3. Recognize that material wealth will bring you nothing. The world has lost many millionaires to death; in fact, to date, every single millionaire or billionaire that has lived has also died. We can think of the recent tragic death of Steve Jobs, who in spite of his millions, still passed away (as a side note, Jobs serves as an example of a CEO who had a giver’s heart). Your wealth will not follow you, nor will it follow your children, nor will it follow your children’s children. At some point, your wealth will run out; and no matter what, it cannot save you. It may prolonge your life, but it will never prevent its inevitable end. So why pursue that which is temporary? Why not use that which is temporary for eternal gains? Why not build a legacy of giving, or helping people, of helping a community, of helping a society, and in so doing establish an eternal legacy that will never end?
4. Recognize that living a good life is far more important than living a material life. The best things in life are so expensive that they can’t be bought. Having a big screen TV or the best car is nice and makes life easier, but it’s not nearly as good as having a family to come home to. Living in a multi-million dollar mansion is wonderful, but it’s minuscule compared to helping out someone who is desperate for help. The good life is the one lived in pursuit of true happiness, of a happiness that is good in and of itself; the good life is the one lived in service to others.

It is my hope that someday we’ll live in a society where these principles are put into practice. It is my hope that the problem will fix itself. But from what I’ve studied in history, it seems rather sad that in order to fix the problem of our current oligarch, will turn to a different type of tyranny and suffer all the more for it. 

Consider the corruption within the government. During any sex scandal for a politician, someone generally raises the point that what a politician does behind closed doors doesn’t matter. So long as a politician does a good job in office, who cares what he does in the bedroom? But such a sentiment ignores several things.

For one, if a politician is willing to break a vow with his spouse, a covenant with the one that he loves, how more likely is he to break his vow to his constituents? After all, his spouse is the one he’s come to love, the one he’s been intimate with (in more than a physical way), the one he’s spent quite a bit of his life with, and so on. If he is willing to cast her aside for something a bit better, then why would he remain faithful to his constituency, who are nothing more to him than a voting base? In other words, not only should we pay attention to what a public leader does in the bedroom, we should care quite a bit that he’s upholding vows in his private life so we have some assurance he will uphold the vows in his public life.

Or we can consider a multi-million dollar CEO and how he only gives a tiny fraction of his income to the poor. He is simply doing what feels right, or following his own ethic. If we each decide what is true for us, then he has decided what is true for him and there is nothing anyone can do about it, at least not without upholding some absolute moral standard. Yet, we’ve been told for so long that absolute morality is passé, out of date, oppressive, tyrannical, and so on. Yet, when it comes to the rich exploiting the poor, we quickly want to create an absolute standard!

If we truly want to save our government from corruption and save our economy from the elite (whether that elite be in our government via socialism or in the private sector via an oligarchic capitalism), then we must begin to promote an ethical way of life for all, and then shame public officials who consistently refuse to live up to that ethical standard.

Whether we like it or not, the only solution to our woes is to embrace an absolute ethic, something that all humans at all times in all places can follow. The solution isn’t smaller government, more regulation, bigger government, a freer market, or so on; in all of these instances, if we have men who love vice setting the rules, then the rules will ultimately be subverted. If we have men who love virtue setting the rules, however, then at some point there is no need for rules, because they wouldn’t dare shame themselves by showing themselves to love vice.

When people aren’t interested in doing the right thing, or are only interested in what’s good for them, then a society cannot last. When elected officials put regulations on businesses in order to secure a vote, then they don’t really intent to stick by those regulations, especially if it’ll cost them campaign donations. Rather, the regulations become lip-service. Or, worse, what if the government officials do exert their power and regulate a business, but they exert the power in order to demonstrate their authority? Then we have traded in one form of tyranny (an oligarchy) for another (an authoritarian government). In both, powerful and rich individuals do what makes them feel right and do what is in their own interests.

We must move back to some form of moral absolutism, to some moral standard where the rich and powerful realize they have an obligation to others. We must move to a place where men are valued not by what they own or by their vocations, but by what they do in virtue. If we cannot reform our ethics, then we will never reform our economics.

Recently President Obama has floated around the idea of increasing taxes on the top income earners in America, of those who have a seven-figure income. All of this would be done in order to somehow save some government programs. The Republicans, as per usual, are against the tax hike because they arguing that by raising taxes on the wealthiest of Americans – the job creators – we would see a stagnation in our economy because the rich would simply refuse to create more jobs.

The thinking is quite simple:

Ed (or Edward Mortimer IV in our example) owns a multi-million dollar corporation and brings in a seven-figure income. He currently pays around 35%, but because of his income he has found a great accountant and can get away with only paying around 20% of his income. If we close the tax loopholes then he’s stuck to paying 35%. Then we raise the tax up to 38%. Let us assume that before taxes he brings home exactly one million dollars. Before the tax increase (without loopholes) he would bring home $650,000, which isn’t bad at all considering the median income for Americans. After the tax-hike, he would bring home $620,000, losing $30,000 in a year (which is more than 1 in 4 Americans make in a year).  We’re told that Ed would cut jobs or stop hiring people over a loss of $30,000 a year.

In other words, the Republicans are saying that our richest elite are actually holding us hostage. They’re saying, “You’ll let me bring home x amount of dollars or else I’ll cut jobs or produce my goods overseas!” All over $30,000, which is less than a luxury vehicle.

Now, certainly there comes a point where a tax percentage is oppressive – I would argue that regardless of circumstances, taking half of what a person has legitimately earned just seems wrong; that the person works for a living and doesn’t get to bring home even half of his income just doesn’t seem right. At the same time, however, increasing the tax rate a little bit shouldn’t discourage business growth, it should encourage it; if a smart businessman loses $30,000 in income due to taxation, he will work hard enough to increase his business in order to make up for that loss. In other words, smart businessmen and women will create jobs during a personal income tax hike rather than cut jobs, all so they can make up the lost revenue.

Of course, others will unwisely cut jobs (which in the end hurts the economy because it ruins the spending power of individual Americans; the goal in business should be to pay your employees as much as you possibly can while still making a profit, all so the spending power of your employees increases, which in turn will increase your business). Thus, we bow down to those who say they would cut jobs and refuse to increase their taxes, yet our government continues to go into debt.

But of course, on the Democratic side of the equation we have an absolute refusal to cut spending on certain projects. While the projects might be nice, even with a tax hike we can’t afford all of these projects. Thus, we have to cut spending, lest we create a scenario where more and more people have to go on government assistance. The goal of the government shouldn’t be to increase food stamps, welfare, and so on; it should be to cut the spending in these areas because they aren’t needed. In other words, it’s okay to cut the programs in one area so long as there is an alternative set up to help people become self-sustaining without those programs.

Yet, because of greed, no change is found. Because of the greed of the Democrats and their lust for power, they simply want to increase welfare programs without drastically reforming welfare, all because it could potentially cost them votes; the Democrats just want to spend, spend, and spend some more. Because of the greed of the Republicans and their lust for power, they simply want to cut much needed government programs without finding a way to reform them so the poor don’t suffer, all the while cutting the taxes for the rich. All the while, the poor and middle class suffer.

In the end, what we have is a government that is run by professional politicians who seek to stay in power; the government is not run by those who are interested in the public good. We can play the partisan role by blaming primarily the Republicans or primarily the Democrats, but the reality is that both parties are horrible and both parties share an equal part of the blame. Both parties have career (or those who desire to be career) politicians. Both parties have lost an interest in doing what is right and just and instead are only interested in what’s good for the Party and what’s good for themselves. We have a government that’s merely interested in what’s good for the individual or collection of individuals, but couldn’t care less about the Good.

In fact, the great philosopher – the last Roman philosopher – Boethius once wrote, ‎

“By his [Plato's] mouth likewise thou [Philosophy] didst point out this imperative reason why philosophers should enter public life, to wit, lest, if the reins of government be left to unprincipled and profligate citizens, trouble and destruction should come upon the good.” (Consolation of Philosophy Book IV)

While Plato may have been too much of an elitist for today’s sensibilities, Boethius does well to bring up Plato’s point about the importance of having thinkers run the government. A true thinker isn’t one who finds cheap ways to win an election and stay in power, rather it is someone who is so overly concerned with what is good and right that he will pursue the good even if it costs him a position of authority. The ideal “politician” would be one who runs on certain principles, even if those principles are unpopular; one who sticks to those principles, even if his own party turns against him; one who enacts those principles, even if he costs him his position. Of course, all of this is only true if his principles align with what is good, and not just good for the Party or for him, but what is Good.

Such a person would look at the modern political landscape and our debate over the economy. He would ask why we can’t reform government programs to encourage people to become self-sustaining, thus helping the poor while also cutting spending. He would ask why we can’t raise the taxes slightly on the richest of our population and punish them if they threaten to hold us hostage (by issuing a tax penalty or some way to compensate employees who are laid off due to one person’s greed). Ultimately, he would ask why we value and survive off a vice – greed – rather than pursuing what is virtuous, such as prudence. He would ask why we continue to elect people who are greedy and lustful for power, rather than electing those who are only interested in the public good and not what they can personally gain.

Sadly, such a politician would never get elected in our nation. Thus, I am convinced that we will continue to bicker and fight over minor issues while the major issues go unsolved. The gap between rich and poor will continue to grow. The divide between Republicans and Democrats will widen. The solutions will be there, but no one will have the courage to enact those solutions.

Yet, in many ways we’ve placed ourselves in this situation. While we can complain about how our government acts and how there are no people of courage in the government, we created an environment that allowed for such a government and continue to perpetuate such an environment. In fact, the more we fester this unhealthy (im)moral environment, the worse our government will become. That is what we will explore in Part 2 of this post.