What We Find Icky...

 

Hates it, Hates it!!!!

 

The "ick" factor: you know what it is.  It's when you encounter something that makes you say, "that's disgusting."  It's a visceral reaction, not one made after long and reasoned research and debate.  Even if you don't want to react with disgust at something (and you might even not let others know how you feel--you've successfully hidden your gag reflex), you still feel...unclean.  Violated.  Offended.

 

Maybe it's certain food presented to you, like avocados or tomatoes (full: disclosure--I love both).  Or maybe it's even just thinking about eating something that personally disgusts you, like cockroaches or sheep's brains.  Even though you've never tried it, you are revolted at the thought.

  

In discussion of ethics and morality, there is sometimes mention of "the Ick factor" (or the "yuck factor.")  I see it frequently referred to in discussions about sexual ethics, and it usually is dismissed as a poor way to build an ethical system, that one's personal prejudices shouldn't be used as a basis for a "rational" ethical system.  One's personal disgust is considered a terribly basis for morality, and you must be a Very Bad Person to let your visceral reaction dictate right or wrong.  I mean, it wouldn't be fair to ban tofu just because you find it icky, do you?

 

 

Friends had a whole episode about the ick factor.  Yes, it was icky according to my prejudice.  And it made fun of something illegal in most states, that most people find very icky.  Ha-ha, look at the pedophiliac--all in good fun, of course.

 

Why, exactly?  Maybe because it's considered unfair, not nice, and...well, icky.

 

Huh.  The fact is, all morality has an element of "ick" factor built in.  You may have built an impressive ethical system, but at the very foundation of it are a set of presuppositions that seek to promote the non-icky and seek to limit the icky.

 

Oh, you might have first principles that many find admirable...stuff like "It's good to be fair" or "It's not nice to be violent."  But in the end, why do you find it good to be fair?  Why do you not like violence?

 

You might try pushing it back a step, saying that in order to build a society that is workable, that will not self-destruct in a morass of chaos and terror, you should adopt certain principles like "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or "everybody wants to be closer to free."  Very utilitarian, of course.

 

But again, why should having a "workable society" be a goal?  I mean sure, most of us feel like we want a workable society.  But from a materialist perspective, there's nothing inherent in the universe that says "Intelligent Creatures Must Have Workable Societies and Continue to Thrive."  No, the universe doesn't think much of your idea that having intelligent creatures around is some teleological goal...again, from a materialist perspective.

Now, it may be true that unconsciously, most people think that it's a good thing to promote human flourishing.  Most normal people like the idea that people have healthy, happy lives.  Those that don't?  Well, they're icky.

But (again, from a materialist perspective) that doesn't make "survival of the species" some kind of noble goal that we should pat ourselves on the back for supporting.  It's fairly tautological: if most people didn't feel that way, the human race wouldn't survive long.  Two cheers for supporting the obvious.

But the idea of human flourishing tends to change over time, and we tend to find the ideas of human flourishing in the past to be, well, icky: we decry racism, sexism, patriarchy, etc.  We've "moved on."

Yet those ancient societies were relatively stable, at least over centuries, if not millennia.  The human race managed to survive (if that's your goal).  Sure, maybe millions perished in war and genocide, millions were enslaved, but hey, the race survived, so what is your problem with it?  Why do you find it "unfair" or "unjust"?  Why do yo find it, well, "icky"?  All those people would be dead now anyway, so what difference does it make now?

Liberal democracy (with reasonably free markets and a nice social safety net), as much as we might love it, is simply not the only way for humans to survive long-term.  And even if it were, so what?  There are a few species that would mourn the loss of humankind...others, not so much.

This little guy (Pediculus humanus capitis--aka, the head louse) might miss us, as he has no other host species.  I'm not sure if cows and pigs would shed too many tears, though.

 



One might build a nice ethical system--a logically consistent, beautifully constructed system--on a few first principles.  But those principles are, in the end, completely arbitrary (in a materialist worldview).

It's certainly fair to argue that one is inconsistent with one's stated first principles.  But often ethical judgements come down to this: your view is icky, mine is not--therefore, I am right.  Sometimes this is buttressed with the argument that "most people" agree with your ethical perspective.  Again, so what?  Though that might be a practical argument (that is, if you disagree with the majority's morality, you might find yourself in social--if not legal--hot water), it's hardly a self-evident "good" that "most people" support a certain value.  Societies can and do change, and even if you're comfortable with where a society is, and even the direction it appears to be going, that could turn on a dime.  Then...will you gladly trade your ethical system for the majorities?  (If everyone felt that way, why would ethical norms ever change?)

But again, I've been talking from a materialist point of view.  If there is an Inescapable God, the Creator of all that was, is, and ever will be, His views on these things should matter to us.  People can have changeable ethical values; societies can change, in ways that we feel are either progressive or regressive; but the Eternal One can offer a stability to ethics that a materialist point of view cannot.

Sure, a materialist can--and often is--a very moral person, judged by whatever standard you want to use.  And a theist can--and often is--a very immoral person, even judged by his or her own standards.  But the materialist offers no moral facts, nothing outside of personal (or social) prejudice, based on arbitrary first principles.

Don't get me wrong--I am not saying that we should all obey God simply because He'll punish us if we don't.  Whether or not that's true it's not the point.  The point is, a God who designed the cosmos has a depth of understanding and intimate familiarity with His creation that we can never approach.  Just like the engineer who designed a complex mechanism would understand its purpose and proper functioning far better than the untrained layman, the Former of the worlds understands far better than anyone else what can truly bring human flourishing.

You might find that restrictive and controlling.  That's your prerogative.  I suppose it's also the prerogative of an eagle to think it's a chicken and refuse to fly.  And in the end, maybe the eagle will sing "My Way" and be proud that it never allowed itself to be forced into soaring over the mountains. Yay for "free will."

We might have sharp disagreements about what God deems "good" and "evil"; but in the end, seeking this God offers a far firmer foundation for an ethical system than any arbitrary principle.  And of course, I haven't addressed the possibility of an "evil God" scenario.  God willing, I'll leave that for another post.



Marcion is Alive and Well

Marcion's views: alive and well in the XXI century.

Another break from the series on the atonement.

If you are not familiar with early church history, you might not be familiar with Marcion of Sinope.  If Judaizing was the most virulent heresy that the church faced in its earliest years, the opposite extreme--the complete rejection of the Old Testament--was one of the many challenges that the church faced in the second century.

Essentially, Marcion's view was that the God of the Old Testament was not the Father of Jesus in the New Testament.  Rather, the Old Testament God was a different being who was not wholly good, but morally and spiritually inferior.  He thus rejected the Old Testament Scripture, and made his own New Testament canon (a selection of Paul's epistles and an edited version of Luke's gospel) that supported his position.  (In this, Marcion actually helped spur the early church on to more exactly define her own canon, to recognize what he rejected and to recognize the measure of orthodox belief.)

Marcion was rejected by the early church, but fast-forward to today and we see his belief system actually quite easily accepted among many, both in the church and without her.  To be sure, unlike Marcion of Sinope, modern Marcionites do not necessarily believe that there was a literal "evil god" behind the Old Testament stories.  However, they do draw a sharp distinction between Jesus and the Old Testament.  Jesus becomes the True Image of God; the Old Testament becomes not just incomplete, but out-and-out wrong about God.

In today's psedu-Marcionism, Old Testament law is no longer the inspired Word of God (given for a certain time and place for a particular reason); rather, it becomes the musings of a wandering tribe of ex-slaves, and reflective more of their human point of view, and less of their relationship with God.  The brutality of someone like Samuel in contrast to Jesus is summed up with a conclusion (not always stated in as many words, but sometimes this stark): Samuel was wrong, and Jesus was right.

Yet there are several problems with this point of view.  I'll look at just two today.

(1) Jesus Himself did not seem to subscribe to it.  Remember what He said:

"...Scripture cannot be broken..." (John 10:35) (Scripture, of course, was not at this time the 66 books that we call the Bible today--the entire New Testament hadn't been written yet).

He condemned the Scribes and the Pharisees for ignoring "the Word of God" (His words; not the "word of man" or "word of confused desert goat-herders") and substituting their own traditions (Mark 7:13)

 He declared the Law of Moses to be authoritative, even in the smallest letter or least stroke of pen ("jot and tittle...") (Matt 5:17) 

There are many, many other passages that reveal Jesus' view of the Bible and His support for its contents.  Jesus constantly quoted from the Bible of His time (what we call the "Old Testament") and never indicated that it had a wrong picture of God.  Rather, He indicated that the twisting of Scripture (either by Satan or Jesus' critics) was the enemy--not Scripture itself.

And Jesus' favorite Old Testament books?  Psalms, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Exodus, in that order.  And each one of these books has some "troubling" passages...yet Jesus never said "uh, this here, it's  a little harsh, so please skip this part."

(Yes, yes...some will point out Jesus saying "You have heard it said...but I say to you" as an indication that He was saying that Moses and others got it wrong.  But keep in mind He said this immediately following His statement that He came not to abolish the Law.  And indeed, rather than relaxing the requirements of the Law, He actually made it more difficult.  For example, "You think you're ok by not committing adultery?  Fine...but if you're lusting, you're still guilty.")

So Jesus--at least the Jesus of the gospels--cannot be used to say the Old Testament was wrong.  I suppose one can say "Well, Jesus never really said those things about the Old Testament...they were later added by others!"  Interesting theory (with zero textual evidence); and it's quite arbitrary.  If the gospels are unreliable, why believe that Jesus didn't say the "nice" things, and the "disagreeable" things are His actual words?  Like it or not, we only have the evidence we have, and to move beyond it is pure speculation.  We arbitrarily edit the gospels, like Marcion, to support our preconceived ideas about Jesus...rather than reading what we have, and consider what was said.

(2)  In the end, pseudo-Marcionism doesn't deliver what it promises.  Look, I understand the sincere desire to present God as wholly good (as we define it) and a champion of our ethical system (at least the current one in early 21st century western society).  But even if one succeeds in "rescuing" the Bible from a belief that God sometimes does troubling things in it, it does absolutely nothing to "rescue" God from the reality we see around us every day.

We see children getting sick, and dying.  We see evil men prospering, and no divine judgment striking them down before they do evil.  We see the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, floods and hurricanes killing thousands, tsunamis, horrible diseases, wars, famines, et cetera, et cetera ad nasuem.  These things are inarguable facts.  And though you might think you relieve God from the burden of, say, the Biblical flood or the destruction of the Amalekites, you're still faced with tomorrow's newspaper that will no doubt have stories of the innocent dying and the guilty flourishing.

No; the reality is that we live in a world where the inescapable God, the God who is powerful enough to create extravagant wonders that we discover year after year--but who choses to act in a way that often confuses us, upsets us, even enrages us.  Job was faced with this; so was Habakkuk.  Indeed, we all are faced with this.  The false relief of pseudo-Marcionism is not going to make this reality retreat from our view.

So, with apologies to Lewis:

(1) You can reject the God of Jesus as non-existent, that we live in an absurd universe.

(2) You can say Jesus may have existed (and God might exist), but we cannot know what He was really like (and pretty much end up with the first proposition.)

(3) You can reject this God as evil, and shake your fist in rage against Him.

(4) You can say Jesus was a fuzzy-minded idealist who made incoherent statements (some nice ones, some weird ones, even some evil ones).

...or, finally, (5) You can accept Him as Lord, and bow down and worship Him.

Marcion would not necessarily accept the metaphysical system of modern pseudo-Marcionites--twenty centuries of changing worldview would make that difficult.  However, his basic premise is reflected today in many ways.  Sometimes people aren't really aware of the implications of what they say about God or the Bible.  I pray that we become more thoughtful in this regard.

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King Me

It's good to be king.

A little break from the Atonement today.

I'm beginning to think that the best description for today's western culture is this: The least self-reflective generation.

One way to assess a culture's deepest beliefs is to consider its unexamined assumptions and cultural taboos.  These are the assumptions and taboos that members of a culture have fully internalized, but the outsider must be aware of before he or she makes a social faux pas or even legal trouble.

Every culture has these, and we often smile at how silly these taboos are (for cultures outside of our own, of course.)  But to those who are in a culture, well--it's just the Way Things Are (or at least The Way Things Should Be.)

Such are our assumptions about morality and ethics.  We believe that we have discovered--better than any previous generation--the best ethical system ever known.  We may either smile at the naivety of prior generations and their silly hang-ups; or we might, in righteous indignation, decry what we find deficient in historically different forms of ethics (and we often completely write off the achievements of prior generations because, well, they were bad people.)

But we are shocked, truly shocked, when our ethical norms are challenged.  We think our ethical norms are self-evident truths, and consider someone either a fool or evil if they ask the simple question:  Why?

Our culture is not completely godless--indeed, we tend to invoke a god in many spheres, public and private.  We will appeal to our "faith" (or "tradition") or our "spirituality" (often contrasted with "religion" which is often used as a slur against any kind of traditional western belief that existed until about yesterday.)  But--and this is key: we get to re-define god in our own image.

Our natural--and completely un-self-reflective--reaction to opposing ethical systems is one of shock and outrage.  Adherents of the ascendant cultural norms will read the Bible--say, Deut 13:6-18--and say "Wow!  That's barbaric!  Surely that can't be God's word!"  But when pressed as to why that is barbaric, there is often a stunning lack of self-reflection.  Why, exactly, is this barbaric?  Why is it evil?  By whose authority, or what evidence can you cite, that says "People ought not to behave this way!"

The atheist--many of whom would be considered quite moral by "traditional standards"--may rage in righteous indignation against what he or she perceives as the crimes of the God of the Bible; but one must ask: Why is the atheist's system of morality superior?  Other than one's personal "yuck factor", why should I accept an atheist's ethical standards?  Are there "moral facts" to which we can all agree?

Among lions, when a male defeats a rival male and takes over a pride, he often kills off the cubs (who are offspring of his defeated rival.)  Why must humans reject what the animal world finds so natural?  Why would we find it immoral for a human to do the same?  What causes a nearly universal, visceral reaction against such behavior in humans (well..."universal" in our culture)?

Please understand: I am not saying that we need to call lions "evil", and I'm certainly not saying that humans should try to emulate lion behavior.  But I am saying that observing nature is not likely to give you a set of "moral facts" that are discoverable and inarguable and guides to ethical human behavior as self-evident truths.

But I do question the assumed authority that a person's opinion has on questions of ethics...or even the assumed authority of a large group of people, perhaps even a majority.  One might say "Well, everyone today rejects slavery as barbaric and evil...therefore, it is a self-evident truth."

So does that mean that if the majority of people tomorrow said "Slavery ain't so bad" it would then become good?  And do we look down on past generations because popular opinion then supported (or at least tolerated) slavery?

Someone might argue that.  At least it's consistent, that morals and ethics change with time and circumstances.  But what I don't get is when one argues with such deep passion how utterly evil a person (or a culture) was/is because they didn't or don't agree with today's majority opinion.  Being outvoted by today's cultural views doesn't merely make you wrong or in the minority; it makes you evil.

Why this reaction?  Why this feeling of disgust and outrage over those who break this culture's taboos?  Is it perhaps we view that our culture's viewpoints (or at least some of them) are not just the particulars of our views, but something more?  Something universal, something...objectively true?

Yet the incoherent mess of our language about ethics makes this argument difficult.  On the one hand, we might sit in the parlor with brandy and cigars and pontificate about right and wrong being merely a social construct...but then when faced with, say, child sexual slavery, we become indignant, outranged, and demand action.  Yet we can offer no reason for this demand, other than we are offended.  We believe there truly is an ought.  But we've undercut any basis to believe that a sense of "ought" is anything more than opinion.  As Lewis wrote, "We laugh at honor, and are shocked by traitors in our midst."

Some might appeal to God or a god as the arbiter of morals and ethics.  But yet, we judge historic views of God as inferior...we say that our current ethical system better reflects who God truly is, than the past understandings of him.  Our knowledge of God and his will exceeds that of the ancients.  (And indeed, the idea of progressive revelation can be used to support this idea...but in contrast to God revealing Himself, we, through our cleverness, are discovering who he is.)

And in the end, when we do this, we find we are not seeking to put the God Who is There on the throne of our life; rather, we seek to place The god Who Agrees with Me on that throne.  Our desire for God to be a certain way becomes more important than finding out who He truly is.

We become King Me.  Our God is not the God who speaks galaxies and quasars into existence, the one who forms vast stars and planets.  Our god is a small, little friend, a yes man, a pal who supports our  prejudices and opinions...until they change, of course, then he changes, too.

The ancients may be wrong about God, may be terribly wrong.  But seeking to create a god in your image is most certainly wrong.  This belief has a name: idolatry.

For the rest of this comic, click here.