*Update at bottom of post

Even though the vast majority of people who have an opinion on gay marriage may not realize it, their opinion is ultimately shaped by their view of metaphysics (even if they’ve never consciously developed such a view). In metaphysics, especially in the West, there are two predominant views: Realism and nominalism.

For most of our readers, those two terms have no meaning, so it’s best to explain them before going on. Realism is the belief that things have a perfect form whereas nominalism is the belief that we give the form to things. Since there is no easier way to understand outside of an analogy, it’s best to use an analogy.

Think of a tree. We know when we’re looking at a tree even if we don’t know the type of tree. Realism teaches us that we know this because there is an ideal form of tree; there is an ultimate version of tree and all other trees are copies (albeit imperfect copies) of that ideal form of a tree. Nominalism says that there is that tree and other objects that look like it. There is no ideal form of a tree; each “tree” exists independently and we only call these objects “trees” because it makes it easier for us to categorize things. Thus, there is no absolute form of a tree, only our constructed view.

When applied to ethics, the issue becomes a bit clearer. Realism says that there are right things and wrong things independent of the human experience. Thus, murder is wrong even if a society says that murder is right. Nominalism, on the other hand, states that ethics are only as true as a society says. There is no absolute right and wrong, only mental constructs of what is right and what is wrong. Thus, murder is wrong so long as the people agree to say that it is wrong; once the people stop saying it is wrong, there are no moral implications to taking an innocent person’s life.

Thus, the realists look at marriage and say, “There is an ideal form of marriage to which all other marriages must achieve or attempt to achieve.” The nominalists look at marriage and say, “Marriage is what we say it is, we can define it however we desire.” And this is where we see the whole issue of homosexual marriage. Once we strip back the pithy responses, the strawmen arguments, and even the moral judgments, it is here we see the most basic level of this debate: Does an ideal to marriage exist and if so what is it?

What society, and many Christians, fail to understand is that to be a Christian (at least in the proper Christian tradition) is to be a committed realist. Christians believe that God created humans in His own image and that Christ came to restore us back to His image, which destroys the idea of nominalism right there. The Bible is replete with passages telling Christians to conform to Christ’s image, that Christ is the New Adam, that Christ is the perfect man, and so on. That means that for Christians, Christ is the ideal form of what it is to be human and we are to strive to conform to that ideal. That is realism. Nominalists would say that we determine what it is to be human, which runs contrary to Scripture; this is why Christians are committed realists (or should be).

This also means that Christians believe there is an ideal view of marriage. They get this view from Genesis and dumb it down to “one man, one woman.” And when reading Scripture it’s very apparent that God’s ideal for marriage is for it to be between one man and one woman. At the same time, we see other passages where multiple wives are allowed. Does this mean that the realist is wrong in his view of marriage? Not at all, it simply means that the ideal is not always realized. If the ideal were always realized then there would be no need for Christ. It means that God is willing and able to allow the ideal to be sacrificed to a certain degree in a fallen world in order; thus, war is not God’s ideal, but He allows it and orders it to counteract a fallen world. Polygamy and divorce are not ideal, but allowed within a certain context in a fallen world.

This is also why nominalists have such a hard time interpreting Scripture, they don’t understand the metaphysical commitments that Christians have made. They look at Scripture and say, “But passages concerning homosexuality are all in the Old Testament, which no longer applies!” or “But God allows polygamy, so it’s not ‘one man and one woman’!” Some will point to Romans and say that this is based on pagan practices in homosexuality and not homosexuality itself (which requires one to perform hermeneutical gymnastics to come to this conclusion). The realists look at these passages and say, “But these do not conform to God’s ideal of marriage” or “eating shellfish and wearing clothing of a single fabric has nothing to do with God’s ideal for humanity (as made clear in the New Testament), but how we conduct ourselves in marriage and who we choose to marriage has everything to do with His ideal for humanity.” And thus we see our metaphysical commitments interact.

The shorter version of this is Christians are against homosexual actions not out of ignorance, but out of the view that such actions do not fit within the ideal of marriage. The reason is that Christians also view men and women to have defined roles, or a defined telos to which they are ascribing. This is another issue where nominalists and realists speak past each other, on the role of men and women in society. Nominalists say that gender roles are a societal construct. Realists say that they have everything to do with our construct as humans. Reading Scripture one sees that realism is found even in how gender roles are defined. Thus, if one follows the realism of Scripture, one comes to the conclusion that men have an ideal and women have an ideal, that the two genders are different, yet compliment each other. If this view of realism is correct, then it only follows that marriage should be between one man and one woman because it fits within their respective telos.

Now, none of this speaks to the legal battle except to say this: One’s view of marriage is inherently tied to one’s religious views, which is exactly why the government should be forbidden from issuing marriage licenses. The ideal Christian marriage is one where a man and women come before God and are united as one. This view, however, is not shared by the populace. The government has no right to interject its opinion into the marriage issue. Instead, since taxes and other legal concerns do exist, the government should only issue civil unions and stop there. Those civil unions should exist for anyone regardless of beliefs or gender.

However, what I am saying does speak to the moral issue of homosexuality and how one approaches Scripture. I think it helps if we remove the façade of the debate surrounding homosexuality and reduce it to its metaphysical issues. Thus, while I still oppose marriage amendments that limit the rights of homosexual couples, I still view homosexual actions as going against the telos of humans, or against the ideal for humans.

All that being said, Christians need to understand their own foundations for beliefs as well. The way Christians have approached the homosexual issue has been utterly cruel and uncalled for. The lack of pastors speaking out against bullying, or adding a caveat to it is not only unhelpful, it’s contrary to the teachings of Christ. Viewing homosexual actions as a sin is consistent with Scripture, but treating them as subhuman is not; their sin is no different than a man who looks at pornography (in fact, pornography is in many ways worse) or a heterosexual couple engaged in premarital sex. Ultimately, the human ideal is found in Christ and we must understand that none of us have become as He is.

In the end, both sides needs to understand where each is coming from. We still need to have a discussion over these issues; after all, Christians could be wrong in their interpretation of the Scriptures. Maybe God’s ideal for marriage has nothing to do with gender (though this would mean that God doesn’t have an ideal for the genders either, which would be harder to prove). But comparing those who view homosexuality as a sin to Nazis or calling us ignorant isn’t going to get us to see your side. Likewise, calling people sodomites or treating homosexuality as some atrocity to befall us while ignoring other, bigger issues, isn’t going to convince people of the truth of Scripture. Both sides need to stop acting like children and instead face this issue with mutual dignity and respect.

* If you’re struggling to understand what I mean by “realism” and “nominalism,” you can replace “realism” with “universals” and “nominalism” with “particulars” and then read this post. 

JUST WAR AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: A CASE FOR CHRISTIAN INVOLVEMENT IN ARMED REBELLION

The Declaration of Independence is one of the most significant documents in the history of the world, yet it can pose a challenge to modern Christians. One must question the justification of the Founding Fathers in taking up arms against their own government. Furthermore, were the colonial Christians following in the way of Christ by loading muskets and firing upon the British in the name of freedom? This paper will argue that the Founders and Christian colonials engaged in a just war (via armed rebellion), but that the act – as all acts of war – did not fit within God’s ideal for man.[1]

Of course, the issue of Christians and violence goes much further than the Revolutionary War. If the Founders were not justified in rebelling against their government, then one must ask if anyone is ever justified in such rebellion. If Christians were wrong to engage in warfare against their government, one must ask if it is always wrong for Christians to do so. The Declaration of Independence and the subsequent war provide a good test case to see if it is ever okay for Christians to take up armed rebellion against their government.

To answer the thesis and achieve the purpose of the paper, one must (1) establish that a just war exists, (2) that an armed revolution can constitute a just war, and (3) that the American colonials met the requirements for this just war.

The Conditions for a Just Rebellion

The claim that one can engage in a just war, but still contradict God’s ideal for humanity, seems like a prima facie contradiction, but this seeming contradiction hinges on how one views the word “justified.” For an action to be justified it merely need have good reason behind it. Many actions are justified, but still viewed as less than ideal by Christians. Examples would include divorcing an unfaithful spouse, lying to save the life of another human, causing disunity in a local church body over important theological issues, and so on.[2] One should see that when “justice” is delivered in a court by sentencing a criminal to prison, such an act is not in accord with God’s ideal; the criminal should never have to face prison because in God’s ideal the criminal would have never become a criminal. “Justice” becomes a necessary thing in a fallen world, and therefore is not ideal. Thus, to be “justified” is simply to have a “right reason” for an action in a given situation, not necessarily to follow the ideal set for humanity.

Under the above understanding of “justified,” one must ask what constitutes a “just war” and if the Colonists met the criteria for a just war. The three criteria for a just war are jus ad bellum (right action before a war), jus in bellum (right action during a war), and jus post bellum (right action after a war).[3] For the purposes of this paper and defending the Founders in their initial rebellion, it is best to look to the criteria of jus ad bellum. The criteria for jus ad bellum are: (1) the war is called by a legitimate authority, (2) the cause must be just, (3) the ultimate goal must be peace, (4) the motive must not be hatred or vengeance, (5) war is the last resort, (6) success must be probable[4], (7) the means must be justified, that is, the ends cannot justify the means, (8) the means must do their best to preserve life, both of the opponent and innocent civilians, and (9) the means must meet international law.[5] Note that rebellions could fall within the just war premise under certain conditions (namely if the government is leading the people into multiple unjust wars[6] or if the government is attempting to rob the people of all liberty[7]). Suffice it to say that in a rebellion, as in all wars, war ought to be the last resort after all civil and nonviolent means be exhausted in order to be justified.[8]

A rebellion can easily fall under all the parameters for jus ad bellum even in light of the first criterion. A government derives its authority to govern from the will of the people.[9] This is not some deep philosophical thought or an outdated version of the Enlightenment, but merely a practical observation; a government is only effective so long as people choose to follow the government. If the people refuse to pay taxes and the soldiers/police will not listen to the government, then the government has no way of exercising its authority.

Since a government derives its power from the people, should the people decide the government has abdicated its role as a worthy government, they can choose to put a new government in its place. The assembly for the revolution cannot simply be an ad hoc gathering of disgruntled citizens, but officials the populace has placed their trust in (via elections). The elected body becomes the de facto government as the consent to be governed has been given to them, but not the ruling government.

A Just War is not Ideal

While war and revolution may be justified, one must understand that Christians ought to look upon war as less than God’s ideal. The Eastern Christian distinction between ακριβεια (akribeia ­­– God’s ideal) and οἰκονομία (oikonomia ­– what God will allow) help to explain how one can view war as justified (or necessary) while also viewing participation in that war as less than God’s ideal.[10] St. Athanasius states,

“…[I]t is not right to kill, yet in war it is lawful and praiseworthy to destroy the enemy; accordingly not only are they who have distinguished themselves in the field held worthy of great honours, but monuments are put up proclaiming their achievements. So that the same act is at one time and under some circumstances unlawful, while under others, and at the right time, it is lawful and permissible.”[11]

The quote demonstrates that even early Christians recognized that war was sometimes a necessity. Yet, one of the great Fathers of the Church, St. Basil the Great, writing hardly a generation after St. Athanasius advised priests to refuse communion for three years to soldiers who had killed in combat as a way for them to repair their relationship with God and their fellow men.[12] The two contrasted sentiments – one that honors the soldiers and the other that recognizes the reality of their conditions – demonstrates that the early Church believed that there was an ultimate ideal for God’s people, but that due to human frailty certain things were permissible and that ideal could not always be realized.

The idea of there being a duality to the war is not limited to the Eastern Christian tradition either, but is found in the Western theory of a just-war. According to the Christian theologian John Howard Yoder, “…[T]he just-war tradition considers war an evil but claims that under specific circumstances it is justifiable as less evil than the execution of some threat which it wards off or the continuation of some system which it changes.”[13] Yoder’s analysis of the just war position – of choosing the lesser evil – has quite a bit of Scriptural support. One can think of Rahab lying to the Canaanites about the Hebrew spies (Joshua 2:5) yet being considered righteous (James 2:25). One can even make the argument that the Mosaic Law was less than ideal and even advocated actions that God was against, but willing to tolerate given the circumstances.[14] War, then, may go against God’s absolute ideal (ακριβεια), but still be permissible due to human frailty (οἰκονμία).

Finally, while war might be justifiable and necessary in certain situations (οἰκονμία), it is less than ideal because it fails to fit within God’s plan for humanity (ακριβεια). Certainly God did not create the world with the desire for men to rage against one another. One of the biggest problems with warfare is that it opens the door for a multitude of sinful actions.[15]  While not every soldier in every war commits atrocious acts, it is true that even in the most just wars, soldiers can sometimes give into their more base tendencies and harm innocent people. Though the consequences do not render just wars unjust, it should be understood that with war, even just wars, the propencity to sin and commit heinous acts drammatically increases.[16] The reason for this is that war goes against human nature. While war might be necessary, forcing humans to go against their nature inherently causes additional problems for some engaged in the act of war.

Even in cases where soldiers perform amicably and in virtue, they still must face the horrible reality of war, which can destroy their souls.[17] The violence that is inherent in warfare contradicts the imago Dei; violence goes against man’s telos. In some ways, warfare could be called a sin against the soul, in that even when a soldier is just and blameless in his actions, his soul is still tarnished by what he sees and does.[18] Thus, just because one holds to the idea of a just war theory, one should never consider war as a good thing, but always as an evil that goes against God’s ultimate desire for man.

Were the Colonial Americans Justified?

With the criteria in mind, one can now look to the American Colonists, specifically the Chrstians, and see if they were justified in their armed rebellion against the British government. It should be noted that the British government cracked down on peacable and nonviolent demonstrations and implicitly allowed their soldiers to kill the colonists on a whim. One can think of the Boston Massacre and how the main British instigators of the action escaped without consequences.[19] Another example is of a British sympathizer firing indiscriminately into a crowd of protestors, killing an eleven-year-old boy and subsequently being pardoned by the king for this act.[20] Such actions merely exacerbated the tensions between the Crown and the Colonists, to the point that these mock-trials for the murders were listed as one of the grievences in the Declaration of Independence.

The British government responded to nonviolent colonial protests with violence and even forced the Colonists into wars and to kill each other. As another grievance in the Declaration states, “He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.” It must be understood that most of the fighting done in the year prior to 1776 was instigated by the British. By doing this, King George III implied ownership over the Colonists’ liberty, which then opened the case for a just war against the Crown.

The reality of the pre-revolution Colonies is that the British Empire had simply abdicated itself as a legitimate authority over the Colonies. At one point the Crown simply refused to even read the petitions from the Colonies.[21] If the people give consent to the government to rule then by necessity the government must listen to the people, as they are essentially the “rulers of the authorities.” Rather, the Crown and Parliament continued to pass authoritarian laws without considering how such laws might negatively impact the Colonists.[22]

It should be noted as well that the Declaration of Independence did not arise out of some long-held desire by the masses to be free from Great Britain. Rather, many Colonists were content to remain under British sovereignty, so long as the Crown (and more importantly, Parliament) addressed their concerns; it was the deafening silence of the British government that left the Colonists feeling they had no choice but to separate.[23] In fact, as Mary Otis Warren wrote,

“Independence was a plant of a later growth. Though the soil might be congenial, and the boundaries of nature pointed out the event, yet every one chose to view it at a distance, rather than wished to witness the convulsions that such a dismemberment of the empire must necessarily occasion.”[24]

The evidence seems to indicate that while hostilities began between the Colonists and the British Empire in 1775, it took a full year before the Colonists finally decided to enable a new government. The will of the people rejected the British government and gave their consent to their elected officials; at that point the British government, by practicality, lost all right to govern the American Colonies. It was not disorganized chaos or a rogue group of individuals attempting to overthrow the government without having a governing body already in place to whom they had given consent to govern; rather, the Colonists sought peace and when peace could not be found, did the only logical thing they could, which was to absolve themselves from the Crown.

Considering that the Colonists faced violence and arbitrary decrees from their government, coupled with tyrannical declarations and the refusal of the Crown to listen to the Colonial protests, the Colonists were subsequently left with no other choice but to rebel. They did not, however, simply take to the streets in anarchy, but instead formed another government, giving consent to a primitive governing body and therefore removing their consent from the British Empire. The Colonists, including the Christians, were justified in engaging in armed rebellion against the British government.

Pacifism Considered

Christian pacifists can argue from both a consequentialist view and an idealistic view; they can point to the potential consequences of warfare to reject war or they can point that, in its very nature, war is an evil that Christians cannot partake in. Howard Zinn makes the consequentialist argument (albeit secular) that the inherent problem with warfare is that war is “…[T]he indiscriminate killing of huge numbers of people for ends that are uncertain.”[25] The Christian, by engaging in warfare, may be fighting for what is believed to be a worthy goal, but must kill humans to achieve it, thus negating war as a worthy means to achieve a desirable end.

Wilhelm Wille points more to the ideal of pacifism and how even the best forms of the just war theory result in horrible results. This is not due to poor execution, but instead to the fact that Christians are not to engage in warfare.[26] Extrapolating on his idea, one could argue that since God’s ideal is for men not to fight that Christians are therefore called to uphold God’s ideal. This would explain why a true “just war” has never occurred, that one is impossible because war is more than violating God’s ideal, but is actually a sin.

Armed rebellion is therefore out of the question and the Founders are left without justification for their actions. By violating the telos of humanity, the Founders subsequently sinned by engaging in war. Under the pacifist view, therefore, Christians (and humans in general) are left without cause for war because (1) war uses human lives as means to an end and (2) war is simply wrong in its own right as it violates man’s telos.

Pacifism Rejected

In response to the objections, it must first be noted that just because war is less than God’s ideal for humanity, it is non sequitur to assume that this means war is sinful. As already explained, within the Christian tradition there is a view of God’s ideal and what God will allow (ακριβεια and οἰκονομία). One can think of God commanding the Hebrews to engage in war against the Canaanites both as a way for the Hebrews to take the Promised Land and for the Canaanites to be punished for their sins. Even the deuterocanonical Book of Wisdom states that God desires the Canaanites to repent, yet allowed them to be killed because of their refusal to repent (Wisdom 12:1-22). In finding one selection where God displays His ideal, but then allows another action, one can see that God will allow actions that are less than ideal to occur, but these actions are not necessarily sinful.

On the issue pacifism as an ideal, the believer is left with the fact that sometimes nonintervention or pacifism allows evil to occur, which is the antithesis of “loving thy neighbor.”[27] It’s difficult to claim that a man loves his neighbor while allowing a brutal dictator to murder his neighbor. Even early Christian nations did not allow such atrocities.[28] The Christian Colonists saw that sometimes one must bloody a tyrant in order to love a neighbor.

The biggest problem for those who believe in pacifism as an ideal, however, is that God simply does not change. As noted, God allowed the Hebrews to war against the Canaanites (not only allowed, but ordered). It is not as though God would determine one day to change and forbid war. Rather, one should recognize that sometimes God allows war to occur because the war, while horrible in itself, will prevent a greater evil from occurring.[29]

The rejection of pacifism, however, is not a praise of war; God’s allowance of war (and sometimes ordering of war) does not mean that war fits within God’s ideal. In warfare, especially an armed revolution, the goal should be to bring a quick end to hostilities and achieve a stable society; this is best accomplished through nonviolent means.[30] However, as previously noted by LeMasters, nonviolent means are not always possible, thus even Christians must at times be prepared to take up arms in order to secure freedom and to display love towards one’s neighbor.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the Colonists (and Christians) were justified in rebelling against the British Crown. The government had shown that it was willing to rob the liberty of the colonists, which then opened the door for the colonials to wage war to preserve their lives. While the war (and all wars) was less than God’s ideal, it was a lesser evil than allowing tyranny to persist. Thus, while participation in the Revolution was unfortunate, it was necessary and justified.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

American Friends Service Committee. In Place of War: An Inquiry Into Nonviolent National Defense. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1967.

Athanasius. “Letter XLVIII: Letter to Amun,” in Athanasius: Select Works and Letters. Volume 4 Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Kindle edition.

Coates, A.J. The Ethics of War. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1997

Copan, Paul. Is God a Moral Monster: Making Sense of the Old Testament God. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011.

Glover, Jonathan. Causing Death and Saving Lives: The Moral Problems of Abortion, Infanticide, Suicide, Euthanasia, Capital Punishment, War, and Other Life-or-Death Choices. New York: Penguin Books, 1977.

Heft, James. “Religion, World Order, and Peace: Christianity, War, and Peacemaking.” Cross Currents 60 (September 2010): 328-331.

Holmes, Authurt F. Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions. Contours of Christian Philosophy. Series Edited by C. Stephen Evans. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1984.

Lefkowitz, David. “Debate: Legitimate Authority, Following Orders, and Wars of Questionable Justice.” The Journal of Political Philosophy 18 (2010): 218-227.

Leithart, Peter J. Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2010.

LeMasters, Philip. “Orthodox Perspectives on Peace, War and Violence,” Ecumenical Review 63 (March 2011): 54-61.

Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. Edited C.B. Macpherson. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1980.

O’Callaghan, Father Paul. “Peace and War in the Eastern Orthodox Church,” Messenger 14 November 2003.

Schaeffer, Francis. A Christian Manifesto. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1982.

Seely, Robert A. Choosing Peace: A Handbook on War, Peace, and Your Conscience. Philadelphia and San Francisco: Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, 1994.

Warren, Mercy Otis. The Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution. Volume 1. Edited Lester Cohen. Indianapolis: Liberty Funds, 1994.

Wille, Wilhelm. “Ambivalence in the Christian Attitude to War and Peace.” International Review of Psychiatry 19 (June 2007): 235-242.

Yoder, John Howard. When War is Unjust: Being Honest in Just-War Thinking. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1984.

Zinn, Howard. “The Untold Truths About the American Revolution.” The Progressive (July 2009). http://www.progressive.org/zinn070309.html (accessed March 28, 2012).

Icon of the Resurrection

(Apologies on the long post, but the Resurrection warrants it. Feel free to bookmark this post and come back to it if time is needed to read it. This is also partially an excerpt from a yet-to-be-published manuscript I’ve written [if anyone is interested, let me know], so I hope you enjoy)

It may seem an odd time to write about Easter, considering it’s nearly midnight (EST United States) and that Easter was a week ago. However, for those who don’t follow the Western calendar, Easter, or better known as Pascha in the East, will begin tonight at midnight. The Pascha service is always celebrated a week after Passover for the very simple reason that this is how it occurred in the Bible.

That being said, as some may note I recently wrote about the failure of Greater Good Theodicies. As for a workable solution for the problem of evil, tonight’s celebration serves as both the explanation and the solution for the problem of evil. While philosophers have debated as to how an all-powerful, all-benevolent God could allow evil to exist for centuries, that all-powerful, all-benevolent God answered these philosophical inquiries by dying on a cross and raising from the dead.

How is it that evil exists within this world? Sadly, it exists because we allow it to exist. When we talk of “good” and “evil,” we must remember that we are talking about substance vs. non-substance, that is to say that “good” actually exists whereas evil is simply the privation of that good. What is good? Goodness is an attribute of God, thus God is good; God is present and active in all the acts of goodness that we see. Thus, when we choose evil, we are choosing to work against God. Since we were endowed with free will (which deserves another post on why free will creatures who can sin are better than determined beings who cannot sin), we can actively choose to limit God’s interactions with this world. While this doesn’t limit His presence and while His sovereignty is not infringed (as He can act against our actions, though not in an overbearing way as to negate free will), it does mean that God allows us autonomy. In fact, that is the root of all sin, that we desire autonomy from God. God grants us this autonomy, and the consequences of our desires is what we call evil. We are the cause of evil.

But what of natural evil? What of tsunamis and tornadoes? What of animal suffering? The answer to this goes back to creation; as we were created in the image of God to hold dominion over the earth, our actions were tied to the outcome of creation. In our sin, we negatively impacted creation and subjected it to sin. While we in the West love individualism, we must understand that individualism is not an accurate picture of life. We are tied to each other and creation. While we are each individuals, we are not autonomous individuals. Tomorrow when I eat carrots and green beans, my choice in that impacts those who canned the food, picked the food, grew the food, and even impacts the land itself. Thus, in our choice to sin and choose autonomy from God, it only follows that nature would also be impacted. (All of this deserves an academic approach, and one is coming within the next months; suffice it to say, however, that this post is not meant to be academic).

The new atheists have taken this argument of evil up as their rallying cry. “God is not great,” they explain. “He’s evil because He allows evil, therefore He doesn’t exist.” All of this, however, only shows unwillingness on the part of the atheists (and other critics) to explore the Biblical reason for evil. The Bible is clear that God is very aware of the evil in the world, but He uses it to display His love. Sometimes He takes what was meant for evil and turns it into good (Romans 8:28). While this doesn’t deny gratuitous evil, nor am I saying that every instance of evil is allowed because it will cause a greater good, I am saying that the ultimate reason for allowing evil is because He created us with free wills, wills that are free to choose Him or deny Him.

In His perfect knowledge, God allowed evil to occur so that we might experience His love in a fuller way.[1] While the Fall wasn’t necessary for us to feel God’s love perfectly, it does allow us to see that God loves us via sacrifice. The Fall opened the doors for God to sacrifice by sending His only begotten Son to live, suffer, and die on our behalf. While the Fall was not necessary, our sinful action(s) necessitated a loving response from God.

Thus, God allowed evil so He could experience evil and in so doing we could experience His love. We all endure evil, but how quickly we forget that God has experienced evil greater than any of us could fathom. He has been the victim of His creation. Furthermore, when He took on human flesh He participated in our sufferings. The same flesh that is destroyed in genocide is the flesh that Christ took on. It is not as though God allowed evil and then removed Himself from the experience; rather, He allowed evil and then put Himself at the center of its suffering.

We look into the Garden of Eden and see God allowing humanity to fall and ask “Why?” God points to the Garden of Gethsemane and says, “This is why.” The Son took on all the sins of the world and was separated from the Father. What greater evil is there than for an innocent to suffer for the sake of the guilty? Yet Christ did this out of His love and His own willingness. Though we experience evil, evil that we think others could never fathom, God has suffered much more. This is not so He can brag or say, “Tough it out, I’ve had it worse,” but instead so we know that He can truly sympathize with us and that we can trust Him to get us through an experience of evil.

It wasn’t just the physicality of the cross that was the greatest evil – because others have suffered more – but the spiritual nature of the cross and what was occurring on the cross that none of us have ever experienced that makes it the greatest evil to have ever happened on this earth.

Imagine a child walking with her father while eating her ice cream. She trips a little and the ice cream falls off her cone. To her this is a great evil, but the father, being older, has experienced much worse. She can sit there and wonder, “Why would my father allow me to trip and lose my ice cream?” or she can trust him. She can turn to her father, she can cry to him, she can reach out to him and beg for him to hold her since he too has experienced evil. And being a loving father who has experienced far greater evil, he can sympathize with her and help her through it.

Or we can think of when we lose our parents to a disease. For many, the loss of a parent comes after we’ve become adults and experienced some life with them. But the evil that befalls us pales in comparison to those who lose their parents at a young age or to those who have their parents abandon them. We all experience personal evils on a different level. We all react to those evils differently, so it’s hard to say that one evil is worse than another. But we can look to the cross and say that, without a doubt, the greatest evil to ever occur on earth occurred on the cross when the creation murdered the Creator, the guilty crucified the innocent, the perpetrators of evil destroyed the Good.

Yet, while the cross is the greatest act of evil, it is also the cure to the problem of evil. On the cross we see evil try to reign triumphal, but it had been defeated without knowing it. The empty grave of Christ stands as a testament to the defeat of evil.[2]

While we experience actual evil and suffering from it, we must remember that the love of God can overcome any evil. When we come before the Lord on our knees and cry out, “Dear Lord, why has this befallen upon me,” He doesn’t chastise us, He doesn’t turn His back to us, He responds, “My child, I love you and I have endured it as well; come and lay your weary head upon my chest.” Rather than questioning God’s very existence because of evil, we should humbly and lovingly turn to Him for comfort, for He has already endured our pain and so much more.

Christ wasn’t bashful concerning the problem of evil, rather than attempting to explain it away by some complex theodicy He offered Himself as a theodicy. In Matthew 11:28-30, He says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Thus, God does not shy away from the problem of evil, but instead He answers it by telling us to come to Him. Only within the Christian faith does the problem of evil have a real solution; in some other faiths (or lack of faiths) the solution is to explain that evil doesn’t really exist, or that we must appease some totalitarian god. In Christ we learn that we are the cause of evil, but that He is the solution, not through appeasement, but through rest.

The answer to the problem of evil isn’t found in a clever syllogism or in a preacher’s aphorism, rather the answer is a Man; the ultimate answer to the question of evil, the best theodicy one can give, is a bloody cross and an empty tomb.

He is a God who can be trusted. We know why He allows evil to exist on a grand scale, but why specific evils? Why does He allow pain and misery to come upon our individual lives? Job asked this same question and only God could provide an answer. His answer was, “Trust Me.” After all, who are we to find fault in God (Job 40:2)? He is perfect and we are imperfect. His ways are not our ways and His knowledge is infinitely more than our own (Isaiah 55:8-9). God is good because God is love, so in times of evil He is all we have to rely on.[3]

The critics of God would have a point about evil if God allowed evil and left us there. If God allowed evil to enter the world and offered no way out of this world, then truly He would be cruel. He would be no better than a child burning the antennas off ants. But that is not the God we worship. God has offered a way out of this evil world; He has offered a way that defeats evil. The ultimate answer to the problem of evil is Jesus Christ; He faced evil on the cross and defeated it when He rose from the grave. Evil has already been defeated, we are merely waiting for the fulfillment of this defeat (Revelation 20:10, 14).

God is Love

The explanation to the problem of evil – God’s love – might seem a bit weird, but we cannot forget that love is behind everything God does. While He does do everything for His glory, it is equally true to say that He does everything out of His love. We cannot separate the attributes of God, thus everything He does displays both His glory and His love.

God created everything out of love. He created because He loved the Son and wished to honor the Son, but the Son wasn’t sitting on the sidelines. The Father spoke everything into existence through His Word (Jesus Christ) in the power of the Holy Spirit. God accomplished this out of love for Himself, with the Persons of the Trinity working in perfect harmony. But He also created simply for the love of creation. He is an artist. We look at certain things in nature and wonder, “Why would God do this?” But when we look at a painting, very rarely do we go, “I wonder why the artist did this.” We simply sit back and enjoy the art. It is the same with creation. We don’t have to ascribe a pragmatic purpose to everything; we can simply sit back and enjoy the artistic display of our Lord. Creation is art painted by the love of God.

God then created humans out of love. He didn’t have to create intelligent beings who were capable of having a relationship with Him, but He chose to. He did this out of love for us. He created us as a display of His perfect love; we are to love His creation, love each other, love ourselves, and love Him.

In all of this, He allowed us to fall. It is His love that allowed us to fall, for how loving would God be if He forced us to follow Him? Contrary to recent claims, God is no tyrant. When Adam and Eve rebelled, He didn’t kill them and start over. God didn’t create little robots that would follow His every command. Some people post the question, “Couldn’t God have created free beings who just didn’t have the capacity to rebel?” Common sense would dictate that if we never had the capacity to rebel then we wouldn’t truly be free, at least not if that was our starting point.[4] No, God gave us the freedom to rebel because He would rather have a willful servant than a mindless slave (Isaiah 1:18).

He allowed us to rebel because He knew it would allow Him to display His love. He knew that in our rebellion He could display the ultimate sacrifice – the giving of His only begotten Son. He wanted to display His love for us that even while we rebelled against Him, He would die for us (Romans 5:8). Even while we spat in His face, even while we hurled insults, even while we mocked Him, even while we questioned who He was, He loved us so much that He would sooner remain on the cross than come down and destroy us.

He took on the form of a man out of love. The Son emptied Himself of His divine attributes so that He might experience life with us. He is not some transcendent God without immanence, some unloving God who refuses to experience life as we do. Rather, God “got His hands dirty” by taking on flesh, but He did this out of love. He experienced our pain. He blistered under the heat. All that it is to be human, He did so, but without sin.

He became human so that He could ultimately die for us. Once again, love is the motivating factor. Out of love, Christ stood before Pilate falsely accused. Out of love, Christ bore a crown of thorns and was whipped. Out of love He marched up to Golgotha to hang on a cross. Out of love He let the soldiers put nails through His hands. Out of love He bore our transgressions. Out of love He was forsaken on our behalf. Out of love God came down to this earth and died for His rebellious creation. Out of love He rose from the grave. And out of love He bestows the effects of His actions onto us.

The Father’s love for the Son is what moved the stone away from the tomb. It was their love for each other that Christ raised physically from the dead to sit at the right hand of the Father. It is out of love that Christ’s resurrection is our way to salvation, the way to perfect reconciliation with the Father. God didn’t have to offer this to us, but He chose to because He loves us.

Because God loves us, we too are supposed to love others. He calls us to be representatives of His love this side of eternity. We are to love everyone. It is easy to love the lovable, but we are called to love the unlovable. We are a parent to the orphans. We are a liberator to the oppressed. We are a friend to the lonely. We are a comforter to the criminal. But we are also to love the corrupt CEO who fires employees so he can make a profit. We are to display love to our oppressors. While we must fight against the corruption of this world, we must never forget that we are still called to love our enemies. We are a lover to all, from the highest of society to the lowest, from the most virtuous among us to the darkest criminals in the deepest cells. To all, we are an example of God’s love on this earth.

It is love that compels God to bring us into eternal fellowship with Him, into the Divine community of the Trinity. How kind it would be of Him to merely destroy our souls once this life is over. How justified He would be in such an action. But he invites us into a perfect eternal fellowship with Him where we will forever love Him. Love is the focal point of every action of God. Everything He does, from His justice to His creation, from His revelation to His transcendent nature; every action of God is tied up to His love. If love is the focal point of God’s actions, then it should be the focal point for our actions as well. Though we will fail at this – because who can love like God? – we are to strive toward loving others as Christ has loved us.

An Eternal Love

God is the purpose of life. When we wander around, wondering what our purpose on this earth is, we can realize that He is everything. He is our end and everything else is a means. He fulfills us, He gives us rest from this weary life. Christ calls out to us, to us sinners, and says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” It is a comforting thought that God would care for us so much that He would make such an invitation. It is easy to feel overwhelmed in this world. All of us have our hearts clouded by sin and by pain; to this Christ makes the invitation to come and rest in Him.

The invitation of Christ isn’t an invitation into a bunch of “do’s” and “do not’s,” but rather an invitation into a relationship. We enter into a relationship with Him and with His body, the Church. In so doing, we begin to live as though the Kingdom has come. This relationship is more than the following a moral code or saying a prayer for the forgiveness of our sins and then hoping for Heaven; certainly these are a part of the relationship, but they do not summarize the entire relationship. A honeymoon is only part of the married life; it is an important part, but not the entire thing. Likewise, asking Christ to forgive us our sins and walking the “straight and narrow” is a part of being a Christian, but not the entire thing. We obey Christ out of love, not out of obligation.

God’s love for us transcends time. He loved us before He created us (1 Peter 1:18-20). What sinner would dare dream of a God who would love us before we even existed? God is what sinners dare not dream. Everything in Scripture points to God’s working toward the fulfillment of His love in Christ on the cross. His plan is what we could never fathom. His love is eternal and we can never be separated from it. What better way to conclude with a passage from Paul (Romans 8:18-39):

 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.  Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?… No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

May it be so as we pursue the Eternal and seek to be with Him unto ages of ages. Amen.

Rather than offering up my own theodicy (which is a theory I’m working on, something that will take a while to develop), I wanted to point out what I see as a problem in the traditionally “Greater Good” theodicies.

For the unfamiliar, a Greater Good Theodicy (GGT) teaches that God will allow an evil if and only if He can use it to bring about a greater good. The problem is many GGT theodicies end up saying that all evil is allowed because God wants to bring about a greater good.

Were I an atheist, I’d simply point out that, logically following, the greater the evil the greater the good; therefore, why isn’t this world full of more evil? If all evil begets a greater good, then perhaps God could allow 1 in 3 children to die of cancer, which would cause people to become scientists to discover a cure for cancer, which would help all humans. Were I an atheist, I could pick apart the logical problems with GGT.

However, as a Christian I can point to some bigger problems with GGT and show how it’s highly inconsistent with what we believe about God. For instance, let’s assume that God allows an evil to occur because it brings about a bigger good; this would mean that God is a consequentialist, possibly a Utilitarian, meaning He doesn’t really care about you.

If God knows that the death of a child will somehow lead to a cure for a deadly disease and He allows it, that means that He allowed the death of one person for the “greater good.” He allowed a child to suffer and die a horrendous death simply because He wanted us to discover the cure. Of course, this is the same God who spoke audibly to the ancient prophets and this is the same God who is infinite in knowledge; surely He could find some way to allow the child to live, have us develop the cure, and not rob us of our free will. Yet, according to GGT there is not another way, which just seems cruel.

In such a situation, it means that God used the child as a means to an end. Such a view inherently contradicts the view that God is love. If God is love and He is infinite in His love, and if God is personal, then it’s a contradiction to say that God will use us as means to an end, showing little concern as to what happens to us. While God will use us to accomplish a goal, He doesn’t use us as means; rather, we become co-workers with God or adversaries against God. Either way, we’re active participants where our involvement matters to God, not simply pawns that He moves across a chessboard in order to win a game.

And this is why, as a Christian, I must reject the GGT. I must say that, in fact, gratuitous evil does exist. I must say that, it’s true, some evil happens without a greater good to counteract it. Some might point to Romans 8:28, but I would point out that (1) it says this only happens for those who love God and (2) it only says that God turns evil into good for those that love Him; Paul doesn’t say that God turns this into a good that is greater than evil.

In the end, then, we must rethink our theodicy when it comes to the evidential argument for evil. We cannot rely on the GGT because, while logically coherent in itself, it becomes illogical when applied to Christian beliefs as it contradicts our view of God.

I would advocate everyone to look at Bruce Little’s Creation-Order Theodicy as a possible solution, though I believe (as he states in his book) that there is a lot of work required to shape up his theory. For those curious, that is where my studying is heading.

To me, however, the issue boils down to “What is the role of the government?” Let us simply accept that most laws are enacting some form of morality, especially major laws concerning marriage. Thus, the whole, “The government can’t legislate morality” argument doesn’t hold up; while they can’t make people act a certain way, they can declare that moral x and moral y will be codified, thus to act out against x and y comes with consequences. That being said, what is the role of the government in this morality?

I would contend that the role of the government is to prevent our freedoms from coming into conflict with each other, that is, to prevent us from harming each other. Thus, we have laws against murder because such an act harms an individual (or individuals). We have laws against rape for the same reason, against pedophilia, and monopolies, and the list goes on. Laws created that have nothing to do with protecting us from one another – such as seatbelt laws – tend to be viewed as arbitrary and almost tyrannical. Even some laws that prevent us from harming one another can sometimes be tyrannical if taken too far (simply look at TSA procedures).

The purpose of the government, then, isn’t to enact a theocratic form of government where the government follows God’s laws. Rather, the purpose of the government is to keep us from harming each other and to prevent outside forces from harming us. It eradicates exploitation (e.g. slavery, insurance companies taking advantage of the poor, etc), but doesn’t become a tyranny.

If I am correct on the purpose of the government, then there are a few questions concerning homosexual marriage:

1. Why is the government involved in marriage in the first place? While I can understand civil unions for tax purposes and other legal rights, if we are trying to protect the “sanctity of marriage” then it seems absurd to bring the government into the mix. Few Christians would argue that the government is sanctified or holy, so how can the government protect what is ultimately a holy institution?
2. We should respect religious liberty, meaning that if a state does allow for homosexual marriage a priest/pastor should not be forced to perform the ceremony. Likewise, religious institutions should be allowed to not hire people due to sexual preference (this even includes people who are living together in a heterosexual relationship). At the same time, if we respect religious liberty, what if a church wants to wed two men or two women? While some would argue that such a church has abandoned their Christian principles, it’s not up to the government to decide when that has occurred. By banning homosexual marriage, aren’t we also banning the right of some churches to practice what they believe? Again, this is why the government should probably move towards purely civil unions rather than marriage licenses.
3. Is homosexuality inherently abusive or bad, that is, is it any worse than people engaged in open relationships or Hollywood marriages? While people try to bring up statistics showing the homosexual lifestyle is destructive, such statistics typically aren’t good arguments against homosexual marriage, even if one is arguing the morality of the issue. For instance, even if 95% of homosexual males had 50 partners or more (I’m making up a statistic to show a point), this wouldn’t show that homosexual actions are inherently destructive; it could simply be explained that by an action being taboo, the risk involvement increases. Besides, their heterosexual counterparts are catching up quite quickly. Furthermore, while it was true in the 80s and even 90s that homosexual activity tended to come with a higher risk, anymore when it has been normalized it’s almost no different than heterosexual couples. Many homosexuals are able to find stable relationships. Now, I must stress that this has nothing to do with the morality of the issue, but everything to do with the legality of the issue. Unless it can be shown that homosexual behavior is inherently destructive (and this can be disproven by finding multiple stable homosexual relationships, which has been done already…), one is left without an easy argument against banning homosexual unions.
4. Even if we did show that homosexual behavior is inherently destructive, this still would provide great difficulty in “outlawing” it. The main reason is because of something I alluded to above; what do we do with open heterosexual relationships? In an open relationship, there is a tendency for one partner to get hurt. In addition, do we outlaw adultery? Do we outlaw divorce? What punishments do we place on those caught in such abusive situations? Do we really want to live in a nation where the government is in charge of instilling values into our families? Perhaps we should ban all marriages in Hollywood, or among celebrities. Since the divorce rate is higher for celebrity couples, why haven’t we passed a constitutional ban on Hollywood marriages, which are seemingly inherently destructive? There is just a lot of inconsistency here.
5. Shall we ban fornication (sex before marriage) as well? If we’re following Biblical morality and want to protect the “sanctity of marriage” via legislation, then shouldn’t we also ban fornication? This situation is far more analogous to homosexual marriage than even adultery or divorce (where someone is harmed). The statistics behind sex before marriage are also staggering, showing that when both partners have engaged in premarital sex, especially with other people, the chances for divorce or adultery increase dramatically. In other words, the argument that by allowing homosexual marriage we will somehow destroy the fabric of our society may be true, but it’s no more true than the argument that fornication among heterosexual couples does the exact same thing. Thus, if we outlaw one, why aren’t we outlawing the others?
6.  Perhaps one could argue that while homosexual activity isn’t harmful to others, it is harmful to the participants and therefore the government must stop it, but even this argument is full of inconsistencies and problems. For one, why not ban all homosexual activity, not just marriage if this is the case? But more importantly, how is this any more dangerous than couples who engage in open relationships, any more dangerous than adultery, any more dangerous than heterosexual promiscuity? I ask again, shall we enact laws against all of those actions as well? Should we pass a law saying that you can only get married once (as multiple marriages can ruin the institution of marriage)?

Ultimately, I’ve yet to discover a good argument from Natural Law on why homosexual marriage should be forbidden, other than “It’s not the job of the government to issue marriage licenses.” On this point I agree and think the government should only be involved in civil unions. But even if we reduce the government to civil unions, I’ve yet to see a reason to prevent homosexuals from engaging in those unions that isn’t simply arbitrary or inconsistent.

I understand that Christians want to protect the sanctity of marriage. But it’s not up to the government to protect what is holy; in fact, using the government to protect what is holy ultimately makes something unholy (as history has shown us). It makes sense to use the government to stop abortion as abortion creates a victim. It makes sense for the government to prevent certain types of drug use as the drug use is so harmful to the individual and the community that it simply can’t be regulated for positive use. But it doesn’t make sense for the government to try to protect the institution of marriage.

I would argue that traditional marriage is the foundation of a society and that as a society loses that traditional marriage, the society begins to collapse. At the same time, this stands far more true for divorce rates, abuse within marriages, and adultery than it does for homosexual unions. What is more important, however, is that since the traditional family stands as the foundation for a society, the government, by its very nature, can’t protect it; the walls can’t protect the foundation of a building. Only individuals through grassroots movement can protect the family.

Now, I must stress that I’ve made absolutely no comment on the morality of the issue. I would argue that while all legislation is the act of legislating morality, the two must still function on different codes. What is moral is dependent upon what aligns with our telos, or our function with God. God created us for a certain end and to go against that end is to be immoral. The law, however, must function on the code of preventing us from harming each other. The old maxim, “So long as it doesn’t harm you, what do you care” doesn’t work for determining what is moral, but it does work when attempting to legislate morality. For instance, it is immoral to blaspheme God because He has created us to love Him; but very few Christians would want to outlaw blasphemy against God. Likewise, even if homosexual actions are immoral, it makes little sense to outlaw them (or marriage).

In fact, since I’ve basically alienated myself from my conservative Christian friends, let me further my alienation from my liberal Christian friends by stating that I do believe homosexual actions to be a sin. God created humans for a certain economy (or telos) and when we violate this telos, we are committing a sin. Homosexual activity simply doesn’t fit within God’s design for humanity. The whole argument of, “Well I’m born this way” doesn’t fly in a world full of sin; while I accept and argue that homosexual attraction is, for many, an at-birth disposition, I don’t think this justified homosexual activity anymore than an at-birth disposition towards alcoholism justifies drinking.

However, I don’t view the sin of homosexuality (the actions, not the attraction; being attracted to the same-sex is no more a sin than a married man finding a woman other than his wife attractive) as any worse than other “sexual sins.” All sexual sins – with exclusion to ones where a victim is created, such as in rape or pedophilia – fall in the same category as going against humanity’s telos, specifically for sex. Thus, if we are willing to accept that one engaged in premarital sex can be a Christian, we should be able to accept homosexuals as Christians. That is to say, how we react towards those in sexual sin (such as pornography) should paint how we act towards homosexuals; we shouldn’t alienate homosexuals, but instead should love those in that sin as Christ loves us in our sins. If we can befriend someone engaged in some type of sexual sin, then certainly we can befriend homosexuals. If we can say a guy who is addicted to pornography is a Christian and will go to Heaven, certainly we can say the same thing of those engaged in homosexual activity.

All of the above considered, it should be understood that I’m simply asking questions and pointing out problems with the arguments I’ve seen against homosexual marriage. I would say that one negative repercussion I see coming with homosexual marriage is that it could inhibit religious liberty. Just as I argued for religious liberty in questioning the outlawing of homosexual marriage, I too will argue for religious liberty should homosexual marriage be allowed. This means that private charities, adoption centers, churches, or religious organizations should be allowed to practice their beliefs regardless of whether a government recognizes a marriage or not. If a Christian adoption agency doesn’t want to adopt out to homosexual couples (or even non-Catholic, or non-Christian, or non-Religious couples) then it should be their right not to do that.

In other words, the issue of homosexual marriage is far more complicated than, “God said it’s wrong.” There are a myriad of issues that must be tackled, specifically concerning the sanctity of marriage. It just seems to me that if we’re going to protect the sanctity of marriage via legislation, we must first (1) eradicate the First Amendment and (2) outlaw all other instances that challenge the sanctity of marriage (should we allow atheists to marry since nothing is sanctified to them?). To say that homosexual activity is “just different” from adultery, fornication, pornography, or the like just seems arbitrary.

In the end, perhaps there is an argument against homosexual marriage that isn’t tied into heterosexual activity. Perhaps there is an answer to my questions/issues. But thus far, the arguments I’ve seen against homosexual marriage have simply been problematic. Thus, for those that oppose homosexual marriage, one must find better arguments or realize that even if such an activity is impalpable to you, there isn’t a reason to outlaw it.

Of course, with modern arguments for infanticide, it’s no stretch to believe that toddlers who are discovered to have autism or some other handicap could easily be murdered. What if a child is born healthy, but due to an accident or disease, is left crippled? Well, then the child becomes a burden on the parents, so we should kill him. The child can’t walk? Kill him. Your 17 year old son is in a car accident and placed in a coma? You should kill him, because there’s no promise that he’ll come out of it functioning normally. After all, why should you suffer through the burden of helping someone else?

Sadly, Hitler was far nobler than these people. Hitler’s argument wasn’t about the individual, but rather for society; in order to better society, Hitler argued that those who were disabled and undesirable simply had to be killed. As sick as Hitler was in what he did, at least his goal was better than what we are arguing for now! And that’s not to defend Hitler; what he did was disgusting and we rightfully revile him for it. Rather, I’m saying the people who argue for killing the disabled simply because the disabled are an “inconvenience” are worse than Hitler, they’re more evil than him, they are more twisted than he is.

That’s not an emotional outburst either, it’s objectively true. Hitler killed the disabled and sterilized them, things that we rightfully condemn today. Yet, here we have people making the exact same case, only for a much darker purpose; rather than trying to help society, they just care about themselves and say you should too.

The Western-World is becoming more and more “post-Christian,” which is really nothing more than the world was when it was “pre-Christian;” a place where tyranny reigned freely and the oppressed had no hope beyond death. The ancient Spartans had no qualms about killing infants they deemed unworthy. The Romans thought nothing of leaving children in the wilderness to die if the child was viewed as potentially weak. They also had no problem killing slaves or those deemed as inhuman.

While many in the Western-World continue to dance on God’s grave, the one that Nietzsche made, they blissfully ignorant of Nietzsche’s proclamation. “God is dead” they say with glee, yet they forget what comes with that. Nietzsche writes in the parable of the madman (found in The Gay Science):

“Whither is God” he [the madman] cried. “I shall tell you. We have killed him – you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now?Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as though an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on all the while? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God’s decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves? What was holiest and most powerful of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must not we ourselves become gods simply to seem worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever will be born after us – for the sake of this deed he will be part of a higher history than all history hitherto.” (from Walter Kaufmann’s translation)

Nietzsche points out that if we are truly going to kill God, we must live with the fact that we cannot act as though He is alive. Thus, the idea of humans having rights, having innate value, of not killing someone just because they annoy us, and the like have absolutely no meaning in light of God’s death. Nietzsche saw this and any atheist who is honest with himself recognizes this as well. It’s not that atheism lacks an ethos (it can develop one quite well enough), but simply that it cannot piggy-back on Christian morality.

So we approach this issue of murdering children because they become a burden to us. We look at the original article and the reasoning given is, “Autistic children are difficult to deal with, so why let them live?” The same question could be asked of any two-year-old. A child draws on the wall and keeps doing so, after not being told. To the gas chamber with her! But we find this deplorable, but why? If God’s funeral is over and spoken of how natural He looked in repose, we must fling ourselves away from this Christian morality. In doing so, we end up with the arguments from egoism, stating that I should look out for myself first. We end up with arbitrary lines on what is and isn’t human.

Within Christianity, however, all humans are equal for all humans are made in the image of God. The more I must sacrifice for a child, the more I must show I love him. Why do I sacrifice? Because in Christianity, to show love one must sacrifice. The less likely someone is to pay me back for my kind deed, the more sacrifice I have made; the less likely I am to be repaid, the more I have loved.

Thus, in comparison we have the world sans God and the world with God. Post-God’s dead, we have no way to really give value to humans beyond, “We give value to humans.” Humans become nothing more than currency; a piece of cloth with a dead president on it only means something because we say it means something. If we drop $1 million in $100 bills to a culture who knows nothing about the US, the paper will be kindle for a fire. It has no value. In a world without God, man becomes the currency. We only have value because we say we have value and should a majority of us determine that this type of man has no value, then we can rob him of value. In the world with God, however, man has value because he is made in the image of God. To kill him is to commit a crime against God.

Thus, one must realize that to say “God is dead” (that is, God doesn’t exist) is to reject the Judeo-Christian ethic. One simply can’t embrace it because one has rejected its foundation. How absurd to request a mushroom sauce, but demand the cook remove the mushrooms because you find them so distasteful. How absurd to request a Christian ethic, but demand the ethicist remove God because you find Him so distasteful. Therefore, if you be bold enough, abandon Judeo-Christian morality if you’re going to abandon God. However, if you find that you cannot live in such a world, then from an existential perspective, perhaps you should begin to realize that God is very much alive, regardless of your objections.

The irony is that everything in existence with some sense of rationality, even at a bare minimum, views losing one’s life as a loss. This is why gazelle run away from lions, why spiders run away from a falling shoe, and why babies cry when they get hungry; no creature in life accepts death, all creatures struggle against it. Thus, by this standard we should conclude that (1) no one meets this standard, thus we can kill whoever we want or (2) everything meets this standard, so we shouldn’t kill anything (including any plants that have natural defense mechanisms built in).

Of course, such an absurdly stupid standard can be turned on the philosophers who wrote this tripe. For instance, they were quite upset at the death threats they received over the publication of their article. Aside from the fact that being pro-life, yet threatening the life of another is a tad bit hypocritical, these two individuals are in no better position as they are being hypocritical. The fact is, I cannot know anyone’s mind, thus I cannot know if these two individuals have attributed some basic value to being deprived of their existence. They may say so and act so, but infants do this as well, as do all other animals (all animals act as though losing their life would constitute the loss of something of value). So I can’t trust their actions or what they say. Now, the key word is “capable,” but even this doesn’t mean much – again, all animals fight to survive, indicating that all animals are capable of attributing value to their lives.

With the above in mind, using the standard of these philosophers, what’s wrong with killing them? By their standard, when applied properly, how would anyone be wrong for terminating their lives? Not in a legal sense, but in a moral sense, they are now left attempting to defend why it would be wrong to kill them. Perhaps these ethicists should thank us pro-life philosophers and thank the Judeo-Christian tradition of the West, lest the mentality of “kill everyone who disagrees” were to take hold.

Yet, in all the arguments for the pro-choice position, every single one of them attempts to (1) create an arbitrary standard for what it means to be a “person” and (2) accepts Cartesian dualism without batting an eye, not realizing that there’s good reason that personhood is tied into our very nature; that is, personhood is not something we acquire or develop, rather it is something that we hone. With such standards, is it any surprise that we can apply them to any situation in life? Those people living in extreme poverty are not really “persons” because they’ve lacked the proper education to really develop personhood; so it’d just be better if we killed them. While some might argue, “Yes, but they can learn!” I would quickly point out that so can an infant, given time. “But an infant has to grow up and develop the capacity for learning!” And how does an infant do this but by learning? Thus, the capacity for learning already exists, just in a smaller degree to the person living in extreme poverty. Therefore, if it’s right to kill the infant, it’s right to kill the person in poverty, but if it’s wrong to kill the person in poverty, then it’s wrong to kill the infant.

The full post that I want to make to this will take a bit longer as I want to put more effort into it and write an actual reply to the article. This one is simply my initial thoughts; suffice it to say, I’m a bit dismayed at the article because (1) it’s morally abhorrent and (2) if this is the level of what it takes to get into Oxford or Cambridge, then it would seem that education is suffering everywhere, not just in America.

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.

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.