What’s Wrong with the World

The men signed of the cross of Christ go gaily in the dark.

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Apropos of Hiroshima...

"'In the third trial a man came to [Sir Bors] dressed as a priest, and told him that there was a lady in a castle nearby who was doomed to death unless Bors made love to her. This supposed priest pointed out that he had already sacrificed the life of his own brother [i.e., the speaker, Sir Lionel - it's a long story], and that if he did not sin with the new lady now, he would have a second life on his conscience...

"'Well, the lady appeared in the castle...and confirmed the story. She said that there was a magic which would make her die for love, unless my brother was good to her. Bors now realized that he must either commit mortal sin and save the lady, or refuse to commit it and let her die. He told me afterwards that he remembered some bits out of the penny catechism, and a sermon which was once given when there was a mission at Camelot. He decided that he was not responsible for the lady's actions, while he was responsible for his own. So he refused the lady.'

"Guenever giggled...

"'That was not the end of it. The lady was dazzlingly beautiful, and she climbed to the highest keep of her castle, with twelve lovely gentlewomen, and she said that if Bors would not stop being so pure, they would all jump off together. She said she would force them to do so. She said that he only had to have one night with her - and why need it not be fun? - for the gentlewomen to be saved. All twelve of them shouted out to Bors, and begged him for mercy, and wept for dole.

"'I can tell you my brother was in a quandary. The poor things were so frightened and so pretty, and he only had to stop being obstinate to save their lives.'

"'What did he do?'

"'He let them jump.'

"'Shame!' cried the Queen..."

"'I suppose the moral is,' said Arthur, 'that you must not commit mortal sin, even if twelve lives depend upon it. Dogmatically speaking, I believe that is sound.'

"'I don't know what the dogma is, but I know it nearly turned my brother's hair grey...'"

Comments (116)

I never knew that T.H. White wrote such a lively version of this. I read it in a plain scholarly translation of the Queste del Sant Graal. No doubt you know how it goes on. Something like this:

"Liefer he would that they would lose their lives than that he would lose his soul."

In other words, it's never right to do something that is intrinsically wrong on consequentialist grounds.

I'd be interested in hearing any tales from people about such situations they have been faced with, and whether or not they refused to sin. As for myself, I can't think of any.

I rather like that Bors fellow. It seems he'd rather profit by keeping his soul than by gaining the whole world. And it wasn't obedience to dogma that turned his hair grey; it was dealing with the demands of voracious women who live in castles. A very modern phenomenon.

Bill wins.

Bill's comment is really unbeatable. And funny.

Right, Bors is quite the guy, I say sarcastically.

Bors thinks it's far more important to keep a sinner's non-existent virtue intact than to save a dozen lives, which he will sacrifice to his delusions concerning personal virtue. I wonder if there's any number of human beings he wouldn't sacrifice to that idol? Given his twisted reasoning, I suspect not. For Bors, what goes by the name of sexual purity trumps all, even the lives of other human beings. After all, what are a dozen human lives compared to his Pharisaical fantasies of sexual purity? They might all end up dead, but at least Bors didn't have sex! Once he's sacrificed them to his non-existent sexual purity, he will be even more a wicked man than he was before. He won't know that about himself because he can't discern the difference between the importance of saving a human life (or even many of them) and the importance of maintaining non-existent sexual virtue, indeed alleged virtue of any sort, concerning which none of us has any. Bors included.


I've heard that Bors is pro-life, just like those that lionize him while denigrating Truman at Hiroshima, which is where I imagine the title to this thread comes from, but that's just a rumor. They're called pro-life, but they don't agree that Truman should have dropped the bomb even to save lives, or that Bors should have sex for the same reason. Nothing, simply nothing, not even life itself, is more important to them than keeping one's pants on.


Swissdoc will take "missing the entire point" for $500, Alex.

One word: Samson

Oh, okay, a few more: one may not do evil that good may come from it. Why is that so hard?

The Chicken

William, let it be said: LOL. And I NEVER type that. : )

One word: Samson

Oh, okay, a few more: one may not do evil that good may come from it. Why is that so hard?

The Chicken

As another example from literature and even one with a connection to Japan, have any of you read Shusaku Endo's novel Silence, about a Portuguese priest in 17th century Japan? And, if so, what do you think of the priest's actions in the book? For those of you who haven't read it, it is an interesting book and so I won't tell you what the priest does. But his actions do involve the issue of whether it can ever be right to do something that is intrinsically wrong on consequentialist grounds.

Lydia: the Penguin version of Malory (White's source, of course) puts it like this: "lever he had they all had lost their souls than he his, and with that they fell adown all at once unto the earth."

I wonder if "lost their lives" or "lost their souls" is more correct.

White makes a point of the fact that Sir Bors was a...ummm..."misogynist," which I suppose is why Guenever giggles, when she does. She's not quite buying Lionel's story.

Anyway, if *The Once & Future King* isn't the ultimate conservative children's book, than it must be *The Lord of the Rings*. And if it isn't *The Lord of the Rings*, then it must be *The Once & Future King*.

Why on earth would someone who believes that virtue is non-existent care about saving lives?

Before reading this post (and Lydia's and Chicken's comments) I thought that the hitherto existing lunacy on this website would be impossible to beat. I stand corrected.
Twelve or a million or a billion lifes or the "whole world" are not worth a little unchastity or (an intrisically bad) little lie??
I got angry, but then I found comfort in the idea that Sir Bors will met Lydia in hell, because this is the place where self-righteous people like them will inevitably find themselves. Says Satan:
I will let you go to your Heavenly Father, but only after you've made love to each other, otherwise you'll stay forever.

swissdoc (& Grobi): why so sweaty? It's only a story.

Do you think that lots of lives are being lost, these days, due to an excessive cultural emphasis on sexual purity?

Steve, good correction. I was quoting from memory, and I _think_ I read it not only in Malory but also in the (Penguin) translation of the "Quest of the Holy Grail" (Malory's source). It was many-a year ago. Now that you quote it, I think it probably is "souls" in both places.

I have loved the portions of "The Once and Future King" that I have read but never read it all the way through.

Twelve or a million or a billion lifes or the "whole world" are not worth a little unchastity or (an intrisically bad) little lie??

What parts of:

Mat 5: 28 - 30:

But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

don't you understand? That is NOT being self-righteous. That is obeying the Gospel. If you think that Christ would have had sex with those women, then you have no clue about Christianity. In fact, if you are willing to claim that Jesus would have had sex with those women or that he would have counseled anyone to have sex with those women, even to spare their lives, then you have just committed an implicit form of blasphemy. You may not twist Scripture to make evil into good. You may not claim that Jesus did not mean what he said.

You insult many good saints who have died rather than commit the sort of sin you find so easy to suggest. Shame on you.

The Chicken

Teresa: thanks for your comment. I have not read Shusaku Endo's *Silence*, nor even heard of it before. But it sounds fascinating.

Twelve or a million or a billion lifes or the "whole world" are not worth a little unchastity or (an intrisically bad) little lie??

Oh, also, Mat 8: 36 - 38:

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

The Chicken

Chicken, you'll find it a hard row to hoe to shame Grobi & co. One reason, but only one among others, is that they are not Christians.

I have not read Silence, but it is not a very profound book, in my opinion, if the climax is whether or not Fr. Rodriguez should step on the fumie (doll of Christ). History has put this question time and time again to the saints and they did not step on their fumies. We read this in the Bible (the three young men at the furnace), in the Church Fathers and in the ecclesiatical histories. In fact, the real Japanese martyrs who died during the same period as the book, would have been ashamed of Fr. Rodriguez, although they would have understood his human weakness.

Fr. Rodriguez is experiencing a psychological disorder of projection, nothing more, when he seems to hear Christ speaking to him. This can happen under severe stress. This is hardly a profound or edifying book. I am afraid that this is typical of certain types of modern religious fiction that take relatively black-and-white questions and make them angst-ridden.

I may sound insensitive, but I have read the real letters of the Jesuit missionaries to the New World, called, Relations, and they put Endo's book to shame.

The Curmudgeonly Chicken

btw, only very slightly o.t.:

One simply *cannot* plausibly reject consequentialism on the grounds that it leads to bad consequences. By definition, consequentialists endorse whatever actions, whatever rules, whatever beliefs, whatever laws, &c, lead to the best (or least bad) consequences.

Does consequentialism lead to the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima?

Only if all possible alternatives were even more horrific.

If you're going to reject consequentialism, you need to bite the bullet: you need to accept that your position leads to even more unhappiness, misery, suffering, death, &c, than the consequentialist position - *but it's still right anyway.*

Chicken writes: "I may sound insensitive..."

Well, indeed. But "insensitive" is not the first word that I would have chosen.

Steve: Sorry for the threadjack.

Curmudgeonly Chicken: Your analysis is based on the Wikipedia summary, I presume, which doesn't really tell the whole story. I hate to give the whole plot of the book away, but your analogy to the men at the furnace does not fit, as those men from the Bible were threatened with their own deaths.

Steve, the most common argument in defense of the bomb is that the number of lives saved far outweighed the number lost by dropping it. So yes, we're aware of the "least bad consequences" theory.

If you're going to reject consequentialism, you need to bite the bullet: you need to accept that your position leads to even more unhappiness, misery, suffering, death, &c, than the consequentialist position - *but it's still right anyway.*

I don't mean to imply that you haven't paid real close attention to what Lydia, Ed, Zippy, et al, have been saying, but why would you be under the impression that they haven't bitten this bullet?

Btw, you should revise your phrasing to say "that your position sometimes leads to even more...etc."

Btbtw, I hope your courses are going well.

First, if I understand him/her correctly, then I agree with Swissdoc.

Second, I think Steve has laid out the motives, the alternatives, the implications, and their attendant consequences nicely and succinctly. The righteousness crowd, the Borsites, would choose death for others before endangering their own quasi-virtue, such as it is. For them, the horrid and unspeakable consequences for others and their families seem not to matter. Apparently nothing outweighs avoiding sex outside of marriage, not even death, not even many deaths.

But at least the Borsites weren't consequentialists. Being a consequentialist in this case would involve assessing consequences and making difficult evaluations, like trying to discern the comparative worth of things that lay moral claim upon us, things like sexual purity, on the one hand, and saving many lives, on the other. Something must go, but which one? Moral requirements sometimes conflict. When you can't do both, you must choose one. Borsites choose the wrong one. Ranking human lives below sexual purity when both cannot be preserved is a perverse calculus. For Borsites, dead maids is preferable to dead virtue -- as if their virtue were alive to begin with, as if they weren't already dead in sin.

Letting all the women die, that's evil. Bors is a bad man who did a very bad thing. He didn't save human beings when he could have; he sacrificed them to his own personal ends, and then thought himself moral after doing it.

WL - my courses are, indeed, going well. Thanks for asking.

I have all the respect in the world for Ed Feser, whose super-terrific Beginner's Guide to Aquinas is next up on my syllabus, after Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito & Phaedo.

But I do think that he runs off the rails, a bit, when he writes, for example, that "the bombings give a pretty good idea of what a world consistently run on consequentialist principles might look like."

One mortal sin is worse than the death of the entire human race. It doesn't matter if it is done to save a million lives, all of those people will die anyway, there is no escaping death. One mortal sin is worse than the death of the entire human race.

"One mortal sin is worse than the death of the entire human race."

Matthew,
Perhaps devaluing the entire human race the way you do is a mortal sin.

You'll recall that for us and our redemption Jesus actually became sin (2Cor 5: 21). The righteousness that He gave up for us was real, as was the sin He became. The virtue you are unwilling to give up is non-existent, a fiction. To that imaginary goodness you would sacrifice the whole world.

Mortal sin indeed.

"the bombings give a pretty good idea of what a world consistently run on consequentialist principles might look like."

Exactly -- it would look like a world free from the horrors of the Japanese empire. It would look like a world in which Japan becomes an economic, industrial and creative powerhouse -- and no longer a terror to any nation unfortunate enough to live nearby.

Thanks for that, Harry.

Mr. Bauman, maybe you should just cut to the chase and drag out old Ivan Karamazov's Grand Inquisitor to explain how we can improve Christ's broken moral code.

Bors is the bad guy in this story because he allows OTHER people to suffer to preserve his own virtue. Jesus, I propose, would have found a way to preserve his own sexual purity and without injuring the ladies in the bargain. Bors was faced with the choice of doing something dishonorable to himself but that would save the lives of 13 other people, and he chose his own honor over the innocent ladies' lives. Not a good thing.

Sir Bors, of course, believed in the Last Things: The resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, for example. Even if the whole world is going to be blown up if I don't torture the small child to death (or whatever the scenario-demand might be that is being put before the deontologist), I have an immortal soul as, for that matter, does the young child. I'd rather spend our last few minutes before the bad guys blow us all up praying for his and for mine. The Beatific Vision (not just for me, but for all those who are the called according to God's purpose) has a way of outweighing all of the rest of it.

Consequentialist dilemmas are always so abstract. "Would you molest a small child to save the entire human race from an asteroid?" Here's a little more scaled down one. For some reason, a criminal is holding your two children hostage, and he says that unless you kill your wife, he will kill them. Waiting for a sniper to take him out or some other intervention isn't an option. Also assume your wife doesn't know what's going on and can't sacrifice herself.

Do you shoot her? Two for one is pretty good odds. If you wouldn't, imagine there are four of your children in there instead. Still the same answer? What if it were a stranger instead of your wife? Same answer?

Yes, same answer.

I read some of these comments and all I can do is thank God for women like Lydia.

I did a little digging about Silence beyond the Wikipedia article. I realize Rodriguez had other motives. At my current level of knowledge of the book and the history of others faqced with similar decisions (including Japan), my analysis stands. Perhaps with more knowledge my opinion will become more nuanced and based on more facts of the novel. If I am rashly judging the book, I apologize.

The Chicken

Michael Bauman, it is you who are devaluing the human soul. My statement is simple mathematics for any Christian. Every human being dies. Loss is 7 billion times fifty years=35 Billion years of life on earth lost, effect on eternity, none. One mortal sin, one soul is lost forever, cost is an eternity in Hell. What is the loss of of 35 billion years of life in this vale of tears worth compared to the loss of one soul for eternity in hell? Not a sous. Simple mathematics. Even if you believed that the probability of Christianity being true was 1 in 3 billion, because of the great positive value of an eternity in Heaven in addition to the great negative value of an eternity in Hell the answer would be the same. I am not putting the wrong value on the human body, you are putting the wrong value on the human soul.

Can you improve on my mathematics equation and show me how any temporal loss could ever be be as bad as any eternal loss? Indeed, I did not think so. Of course, this equation does not even bring into play the cost of greatly offending God. As for accusing me of mortal sin for stating the plain truth, I forgive you.

In my simple matheratics there is a typo. I guess it wasn't so simple. 35 Billion should be 350 Billion, but the answer is the same.

While in principle, I disagree with Prof Bauman, et al, doesn't the coercion of his will mitigate Bors' culpability if he HAD committed the acts? It would be hard to argue Bors had deliberately consented given the level of duress. Mortal sin? Yes. Culpable? Possibly not. Would he have gone immediately to confession regardless? Yes.

Bor illustrates the virtue of fortitude.

The Chicken

Bill, that's humbling.

I certainly have no sympathy for the ladies in the tower. I wonder why anyone does. Manipulative? Not to be believed. I suppose it's because people realize that the scenario is a stand-in for other types of cases. But as for the Sir Bors case, it isn't even hard. They aren't even innocent.

These consequentialist hyptheticals are, very commonly, ridiculous in the extreme. A diabolical criminal has taken my children hostage and demands that I murder my wife in order to get them back? Say what? Yeah, I'll just put a bullet in her head on the word of this monster. Easy answer.

In truth the only answer a Christian can give to such a monster is to shout to his children that Jesus is Lord and we shall all submit to His good and perfect will.

The problem with consequentialism is that is throws insidious doubt on that good and perfect will.

Here's one problem: if Bors slept with her, the twelve still might have been forced to jump. The Devil does not have to keep his promises. He would have sinned and they would still have died. That's part of the problem with judging moral conditionals by the consequent instead of the anteceedent. I have much more to say on this, later (posting on a Kindle).

Also, the two bombs did not end World War II - the facts that Hirahito was a reasonable man did. If a more bloodthirsty or insane emporer had been in power, he might not have been pursuaded even by the atom bombs and the U. S. would then still have had to fight a ground war. In simple terms, we got lucky.

The Chicken

Matthew,
You do not value souls. You have made an idol of your own soul and, by your own shameless public admission, would send the whole world to its grave -- and with it most souls into a Christ-less eternity -- in order to save your pathetic purity. Have you not read that even our highest actions are the moral equivalent of filthy rags (Isa. 64:6), by which is meant, literally, soiled toilet paper (in those days, shit on wool)? That is the divine description of our best deeds. Yet you would kill a whole world in order to preserve the moral equivalent of shit on wool. You do not know your own soul, Matthew, or its colossal vileness, or its only path to redemption and purity. You would sacrifice every human life in the world to preserve the purity of the impure. Indeed, you think that if you did not send the world to its grave in order to preserve the purity of the impure that you would be committing a mortal sin.

I remind you that Christ became sin for us so that we might become (not merely have) the righteousness of God. The first transformation, Christ becoming sin, makes the second transformation, our becoming God's righteousness, possible. He who had no sin became sin for us. But you, who have no righteousness; you, who already are sin, will sacrifice the whole world in order to preserve your fictional purity. The world need not die in order to make or keep your soul pure. Christ became sin for your soul and died for it already. There is no other way to make your soul pure or to keep it that way. Your world-destroying arrogance you call valuing souls. If you are not willing to bear condemnation for the all the human beings in the world, then you do not have the mind of Christ, and you do not value souls. You have made an idol of your own twisted version of your own wicked soul's well-being and would sacrifice all other human beings for it. It's not all about you. That attitude is Satan's dream come true.

I can imagine the exchange going on between God, the Father, and the Devil when Jesus hung on the Cross:

Devil: If you do just this one thing for me, I'll let your Son live

God: [Silence]

Devil: Do you want to see your only-begotten Son suffer? Surely, doing this one little thing for me isn't so bad. Think of all of the lives he could touch if he lived. Think of how much he would impress the people. I can see the headline, now:

Man Comes Down off of Cross....the People Taunted, He Proved Them Wrong.

Don't you see the hope this would give millions of others hanging on their crosses. Maybe they might be another lucky one. How can you be so cruel?

God: [Silence]

Devil: I see you're a hard one to please. Look, I'll even spare his twelve apostles. You know they will all die horrible deaths, otherwise.

God: [Silence]

Devil: Okay, have it your way, but I'm not the one letting your Son die, you are.

God: [Silence and a smile]

*************************************************

If God had done anything to rescue his Son from the Cross, the Devil would have, forever, had something to hold over his head. He could have said, "Hmmm...I need this, I think I'll go threaten God's Son, again."

When is it ever enough?

Moral conditionals of the form:

If you do A, then B will (or will not) happen

are problematic. First of all, the conditional rests on the good-will of the person making the bargain. That is never guaranteed, except for God. Secondly, such conditionals are rarely stated as a biconditional:

IF and only if you do A will B happen.

They are, more often, stated as conjunctive antecedents with part of the antecedents hidden:

If you do A (and X, Y, Z, later) then B will happen

or

If you do A then B and If you do C then D...

The point is that a moral conditional is ungrounded if it is based on the goodness of the consequent. It is like anchoring a bridge on air. The terrorist can always recreate B and force you to do more things or choose an even greater consequent D and force you to escalate to C or even more acts of sin.

Example: a man steals your dog and offers to give it back if you kill the neighbor's cat. You love your dog very much and the cat is old, so you do it. Then, the man steals your wife and offers to not kill her if you kill the neighbor.

Example: a man steals your wife and offers not to kill her if you steal state secrets. You comply, but he still has your wife and promises to give her back if you incriminate an innocent man in the act of the stealing of the state secrets. You comply, but he still has your wife and promises to give her back if you ...

If one acts according to consequences, then one is nothing more than a puppet for whatever antecedents happen. This is how addictions, among other things, start. "Hey, baby, need money for rent, just sleep with me, once." It doesn't take long until the woman becomes a full-blown prostitute. "Just one more pill for this pain." It doesn't take long until the person is addicted.

Have you ever known someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder. They are pretty much the end result of consequentialist thinking. Their lives, in the severe cases, are reduced to nothing but one act after another to avoid undesirable consequences. They have no freedom. They are never at peace. Even after they have gotten everything just right, they have to always worry about the next thing...and there will always be a next thing. It took then five minutes to get to bed last year. This year, it takes them two hours. So many consequences to prevent. Their actions are heroic within the hell they are trapped, but they secretly long for the day when someone will tell them that the consequences are no longer in control.

There is no such thing as a morally inculpable act performed under duress. The duress may mitigate the culpability, but it never entirely excuses it. Sins add up, even those performed under duress. Eventually, the person, even in performing consequential acts of goodness, can become a hardened sinner.

Antecedents are the gate-keepers for morality. They are the check point for prudence. One can build a proper deontic logic based on conditionals where the necessity is applied to the antecedent, but not on the consequent, because necessity only flows in one direction. It may be necessary for you to rob a bank to save your wife, but it is not necessary for the bank robber to give your wife back if you do.

This is one reason why the temptations of Christ in the desert are stated in the form of conditional, "If you worship me, I will give you all of the kingdoms of the earth," in order to show this. God was silent when his Son died because he had ordained that This was the price of man's salvation and he would not deny himself.

An immoral act is immoral in itself, regardless of the consequences. When Jesus said, "What profit a man to win the whole world, but lose his soul," he meant to forever exclude consequentialist thinking. What profits Bors to win the twelve virgins, but lose his own soul?

Living one's life by consequences, alone, is a subtle way of abandoning both reason and prudence. One becomes a gad-about, tossed about by every wind that blows a little good. St. James says that to such a man wisdom will not be given. One becomes a slave to every little need.

There are two paths in dealing with moral conditionals: the consequential path of slavery to others or the antecedent path of prudence and sobriety. The first path may give pleasure for a time as one sees one's dreams fulfilled, but at some point, one will have to pay the piper (yes, the Pied Piper is a story about consequentialism). The second path may lead to pain, but in the end, it will lead to peace as one has a good conscience.

When God gave the moral law, he envisioned that some would try to abuse it by trading on the fears or expediencies of others. That is why conscience is always formed by antecedents to actions, not consequences, because God is always first on the scene of any moral act and he is kind enough to make the judgments you have to make difficult, early one, so that they do not later lead to death. God's pleading is always at the time of the antecedent. Antecedents are only meant for this life. When you die, there will be no more antecedents, only an eternal consequent. If you want that consequent, you must build a bridge to it anchored to what you have to work with in this life - the antecedents. Consequences are never guaranteed in this life, only antecedents.

Example: The terrorist promised that I would get my wife back if I did his dirty work. As he went to hand her over, his gun discharged, killing her.

No one can guarantee that a consequence will be perfectly realized in this life. God, on the other hand, has already established the guarantees (indeed, he is the guarantor) for following the moral antecedents.

So, choose if you must, which side of the moral conditional you will follow, but, first of all, be sure you know where wisdom lies.

The Chicken

But you, who have no righteousness; you, who already are sin, will sacrifice the whole world in order to preserve your fictional purity.

Ummm...if Christ already died for sin, then how is he still in sin?

I remind you that Christ became sin for us so that we might become (not merely have) the righteousness of God.

That certainly is not guaranteed for everyone.

The world need not die in order to make or keep your soul pure.

...but you will not keep your soul pure if you let the world die.

Christ became sin for your soul and died for it already. There is no other way to make your soul pure or to keep it that way.

Granted, there is no other way to make one's soul pure, and there is no other way to keep it pure, but that still does not guarantee that it will stay pure of itself. The very fact that Christ demands that we forgive others implies that we will commit sin, otherwise, there would be no need to forgive. The fact that Christ died for you does not give you a moral license to do anything you please or anything someone else demands of you.

All of this, however, is getting off of the topic.

The Chicken

Michael, I have nothing against you personally, and I actually have always had a lot of respect and affection for you. So please take this with that as background.

I consider that your likening Jesus' "becoming sin for us" to a man's sleeping with a woman who is not his wife to save the whole world, or to the commission of any other intrinsically immoral act, to be nothing less than blasphemy. Jesus was able to save us from our sins precisely because He was sinless, because He _did no sin_. Jesus dying on the cross is like the Americans dropping the bomb on Hiroshima? Jesus dying on the cross is like Bors sleeping with the lady? Jesus dying on the cross is like a man's deliberately shooting a child in the head to prevent the destruction of thousands more? That's just wrong. Theologically, that's terribly, terribly wrong and even blasphemous, and worse coming from a Christian than from a non-Christian. No Christian should ever liken Jesus' death to the commission of an immoral act. Were you a non-Christian I would merely explain to you the theology you would presumably not understand. But as a fellow Christian, I rebuke you for that.

Michael Bauman. My whole point was that a soul, any soul, not just mine, is worth more than all of the bodies in the world. Do you agree?

I would never kill the whole world. But if the devil told me he would kill the whole world unless I committed a mortal sin, I would try to refuse. If the devil told you that he would kill me unless you committed a mortal sin, I would have to advise you to let the devil kill me. You are putting the sin of the blackmailer on the person who refused to be blackmailed.

Nothing offends God more than sin. Nothing. The death of a man is a morally neutral act, it is the life he has led that makes the death good or bad, not the death itself. The bodies of all the people in the world are not important, their souls is what matters. The death of one soul is worse than the death of every body.

You said: "I remind you that Christ became sin for us so that we might become (not merely have) the righteousness of God."

This is the greatest blasphemy I have ever heard.

Correction. Maybe not the greatest blasphemy I have ever heard, but it's pretty bad.

If Michael Bauman is a Christian, I'm a Romulan.

Matthew: My problem with your math is that you seem to be comparing apples and oranges. You say that your soul is more valuable than other people's lives, but you fail to take into account that those other people have souls as well. I am reminded of Paul's statement in Romans 9:1-3, "I am speaking the truth in Christ - I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit- I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh." From this, it seems to me that Paul is one who did not value his own soul above that of others.

I do not say that only my soul is more valuable than other people's lives, I say that EVERY soul is worth more than all of the bodies, not just mine or yours. The time to grieve is not when the soul leaves the body at the end of life, but when the soul dies because of sin.

I'm impressed with Matthew's ability to give consequentialist justifications for his initially implausible sounding moral claims. A real knack for missing the bullet. (Or, maybe he thinks moral explanations are sometimes more complicated than simple exercises in weighting and then weighing the competing values.)

You are correct in that I was using a consequentialist justification. I am guilty as charged. Good call, G.E, Moore.

Another fact I don't think I've yet seen in this thread is that the refusal to sin can be a great encouragement to other believers, helping them to stand firm against the world and the devil; and a wonder to unbelievers, either leading them to question themselves and seek to know why one would refuse to do evil, perhaps eventually leading them to the Lord themselves, or, on the other hand, becoming another nail in their own spiritual coffin as they are shown the truth in action and refuse to believe.

Actually, I am not guilty of consequentialism, on second thought, because I do not think it is permissible to do evil that greater good may come of it. I was making a similar argument that avoiding sin actually has better consequences than sinning, once you consider the eternal consequences. Similar, but not the same thing.

Mr. Bauman, I want to quietly remind you of the First Rule of Holes:

Stopping digging.

You right now spitting on the memories on some of the oldest heroes of the Church, East and West, Roman, Greek and Protestant. I mean the martyrs who willingly face terrible death rather than bow to Emperor's demands. "Just kiss the imperial ring and all these bodies can be saved . . ." Or again, poor St. Thomas More is reduced to a fool or a depraved crank by your rubric. When A Man for All Seasons comes on the classic movie stations, may we presume that Mr. Bauman is shouting at the TV, "Just accept the legitimacy of the divorce you self-righteous old fool!"?

Matthew,
Perhaps you didn't recognize it, but I was simply quoting 2 Cor 5:21 --

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

I'll take your word for it that Paul's explanation of the gospel is "the greatest blasphemy" you've ever heard, or even "pretty bad" blasphemy. That's your call. Further, Teresa's quotation of Romans 9 let's you see the enormous gap between your spirituality and Paul's. Perhaps now you'll see why there was a Reformation.


George,
Now that we know you're a Romulan, we can see why Pauline theology is so "alien" to you. But there's hope. Maybe Christ died for sins of Romulans as well (wink).

Lydia,
Right, Christ committed no sin. He went beyond that. He became sin. As a result, not only will we simply stop sinning, we actually will become God's righteousness. The redemption goes beyond what you do to what you are, both for Christ and for us.

Teresa,
You are exactly correct: Willingness to be lost for others' sake, rather than sacrificing them for your own, is the spirit not only of Christ but also of Paul. Sadly, it is not the spirit of all Christians, some of whom think that that attitude is unchristian blasphemy. Your quotation of Romans 9 indicates quite clearly Paul's attitude and morality. This thread demonstrates its widespread rejection among some Christians.

Paul,
If one must choose to emulate either the piety and actions of the martyrs, on the one hand, or those of Christ and Paul (who also died), on the other, then one must go with Christ and with Paul. To do so is not spitting on the martyrs' memory, unless, of course, you are spitting on Paul's and Christ's.

If you're not spitting, then neither am I.

Mr. Bauman, you're problem is not in repeating the theology of Christ's sacrifice, but in equating it with the hypothesized "sacrifice" of one of us sinners, if only we are willing to commit evil that good might come.

Christ became sin, therefore I can (perhaps I must) commit fornication? Christ became sin, therefore I must commit mass murder?

This is deeply pernicious talk. If someone were teaching this sort of stuff to my children in Sunday School, I fear that I would be obliged to (a) get my children out of there in a hurry, and (b) bring in a teaching elder to discuss the matter with greater care.

The Apostle Paul's "I could wish that I were accursed" is a) an hyperbole and not to be taken as a literal endorsement of such an offer and b) related solely to the spiritual salvation of the Jews, not to their physical salvation from harm. Moreover, Paul would be spitting nails if he were to read the use being made of his theology of Christ's atonement. For Jesus to take on the sins of the world, to "become sin for us," is not in any way, shape, or form like our _sinning_. The atonement is not "going beyond" consequentialist sinning to save the world. It is not of the same type whatsoever. All of the New Testament makes it clear that it is in _not_ sinning that we follow the example of our Savior Jesus Christ, not in sinning. If someone told Paul that he could save all his fellow Jews by committing, say, one of those sins of which he says that it is a shame even to speak and that in this way he could get his "wish" of being accursed from Christ for the sake of his brethren, you would hear in a big hurry, loud and clear, just how you were _not_ supposed to take the passage in Romans 9!

If one must choose to emulate either the piety and actions of the martyrs, on the one hand, or those of Christ and Paul (who also died), on the other, then one must go with Christ and with Paul.

Michael, the entire Christian tradition presumes that the piety and action of the martyrs was tied to that of Christ and Paul, as being in the exact same vein. I guess you are willing to reject the entirety of Christian tradition. Why, then, do you bother holding to the Gospels, and Epistles of Paul, which come to us solely through that tradition? If the early Christian witnesses to God's grace were wrong, so is the record that they passed on to us.

Jesus told us "Be you perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect." If the virtue (including sexual virtue, one among many) you so willingly deride is simply non-existent in us sinners, and cannot be achieved by men, then Jesus was blathering altogether nonsense. So was Paul, who told us to avoid sexual sins along with hatred and other sorts of sins. This is the same Christ who, after setting a very, very high bar ("everyone who looks on a woman with lust commits adultery"), and after his Apostles complain "who then can be saved" says to those Apostles: "for man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible." It is incredible to suggest that this same Christ would say that virtue is impossible, forget it, go ahead and sin because nobody can be perfect anyway. Bullderdash.

The old Bors problem ("sleep with the woman or I'll kill these people over here") is a fictional problem anyway. I don't mean that the story is a story in fiction, I mean the problem is a fiction. The Devil is a liar and a murderer from the beginning. After a non-Bors type guy decides to "save" the people by immorally sleeping with the woman, the Devil (if he has his way, that is) will murder all those other people ANYWAY. So all the fornication achieves is just that - fornication. It doesn't actually save anyone. The Devil doesn't believe in binding contracts. Nor do his human agents.

Of course, God may not allow the Devil to do the murder that is in his heart. But gee, God may not allow the Devil to do the murder if our Bors stand-in defies the devil and holds on to his purity. That, after all, is up to God. But if it is up to God, then of course the deaths of all those people is not Bors' doing at all, but the Devil's, with God's permission. So no matter what Bors does or doesn't do, he cannot 'save' them by being immoral.

I am missing the point several of you are trying to make regarding various Christian martyrs. Granted, I haven't seen A Man for All Seasons in some years, but my recollection is that Thomas More sacrificed his own life for his beliefs, not the lives of others.

Tony: fictional problems in ethics are like frictionless planes in physics. They are essential explanatory tools.

Steve, I suppose there is good fiction and bad fiction. Bad fiction is, for example, Ptolemy's assumption that base planetary motions are circular: the tool isn't explanatory, but only because it happens to be wrong.

With Bors, though, it isn't bad fiction in that sense, it is bad fiction in another sense altogether: for instance, the assumption that the one threatening is telling "the truth". There is nothing about his claim "I will kill everyone" that is explanatory about the situation, because there is nothing about the claim that demands our belief or non-belief - it is a pure whim. Another bad element of the fiction is the assumption that Bors must chose exactly one of the two options put before him: sin, or "be responsible" for killing others. What about killing the threatener? Or better yet, converting the threatener to the good? Or praying to God for a miracle? And maybe there are 3 or 4 other options as well, yes? If Bors is killed while trying to kill the threatener, then he neither commits the sin of fornication, nor is responsible for the deaths of the innocents.

Teresa: unfortunately, it seems that Sir Thomas More was all too ready to sacrifice the lives of others for his beliefs. Sometimes by burning them to death.

I am missing the point several of you are trying to make regarding various Christian martyrs. Granted, I haven't seen A Man for All Seasons in some years, but my recollection is that Thomas More sacrificed his own life for his beliefs, not the lives of others.
May St. Symphorosa and her murdered children intercede on your behalf, that you may come to know the truth.

I still don't understand what point Paul and Tony were trying to make about the martyrs.

Steve: Okay, my last post was poorly worded. What I meant to convey was that, when Thomas More was on trial, it was his life at stake.

Anon: From your link, it appears that each of these 8 people chose their own martyrdom. How is that different from Thomas More?

The point in bringing up Sir Thomas More is that the variety of forces of coercion which may be brought to bear against a man to force him to sin is considerable. Certainly the wrath of Henry VIII was not strictly constrained to only the heads of Catholic households. The man was a bloodthirsty tyrant. Wives and children perished in flames as well.

I cannot see why a wicked man promising to inflict terrible tortures on the innocent is a more persuasive reason to commit sin than any other sophistry.

If Michael Bauman is right in calling down scorn on the heads of all of those who keep their purity (which he says is worthless on the grounds that "all our righteousness is filthy rags") rather than giving it up to save multiple lives, then it is hard to see why this scorn should be reserved only for those who refuse to save _others'_ lives. After all, as Mr. Bauman has pointed out, our physical lives are valuable, too. Why should More and others not also be scorned for refusing to save their _own_ lives (with which they might have done much good in future years) by preserving their purity and their principles? Scorn has a way of not staying where you put it, especially when poured out so lavishly and bolstered by such sweeping and bizarre theological "arguments."

Scorn has a way of not staying where you put it

One for the ages.

Lydia,
They are not keeping their purity. They have no purity to keep. Purity cannot be gotten or kept that way. Purity of soul is gotten only by the grace of God, not by sacrificing every human life in the world for one's own selfish sake. The Borsites are trying to keep purity with an impure act. All our acts are impure acts, both the acts that save all lives and those that end all lives. (All acts are impure because they spring from impure souls. The well of ours souls, so to speak, is poisoned, and what's down in the well comes up in the bucket.) But while all our acts are impure, they are not all equal. We must weigh the actions available to us and choose the best. Letting the world die for one's own sake is not best, and is not in line with either Christ's example or Paul's attitude.

Tony,
We disagree about about the meaning of the word "perfect" in that context. We might also disagree about its intended audience, its purpose, and its application. (For example, some exegetes, not me, say that it's meant to articulate the eschatological ethic, the lifestyle of the eschaton, and therefore that it is not meant for today.) But, no, Jesus wasn't blathering. He simply isn't saying what you think he is. The possibilities do not reduce to two: either he says what you assert or else He is blathering.

Paul,
Though I think I have made it clear, you have missed the point utterly. Then, based upon your miscue, you have attributed to me the folly you deride. Fine. I'll try it again:

As for the martyrs, did any martyr sacrifice the lives of others for his or her own alleged purity? If so, they ought not be honored. If not, they aren't Borsites and do not further your case in the least because they are irrelevant. Further, did the motives and example of this or that particular martyr accord with the example of Christ and the attitude of Paul? If yes, then give honor. If not, do not emulate them. And yes, you can teach that to the Sunday school class.

Hopefully, my last question is moot now anyway. But, just in case, no more tales of real martyrs please.

"All acts are impure because they spring from impure souls."

Nonsense. If a Christian cannot perform a pure act, then that means that the righteousness of Christ which he has received is worth nothing as far as his actions go. The righteousness of Christ is not simply "snow on a dungheap." We are to grow into the image of Christ, and this growth occurs partly by obedience, i.e., actions.

Honestly, Michael, you've got one of the strangest readings of the Atonement I've yet run across (and I've done a lot of reading on the subject.)

Rob, I think Michael's reading of the Atonement is just an extreme form of the Calvinist treatment of same. Maybe more extreme than most Calvinists of today, but still in the same tradition. And wrong, of course.

Michael, I agree that we disagree about the meaning Christ's statement there. As we seem to disagree about the entire meaning of Scripture, and about the Church, and most other things Christian. Since we probably will never agree on the starting points of how to go about understanding Scripture, we never will agree on what given passages mean. But just claiming that "there is another way to read the passage" doesn't show that it is a more reasonable way to read the passage. Until you show that the alternative is actually more reasonable, all you have done is say, effectively "well, I feel differently from you." Which makes the discussion one of feelings rather than an attempt to sift for truth.

Nonsense. If a Christian cannot perform a pure act, then that means that the righteousness of Christ which he has received is worth nothing as far as his actions go.

Michael, Rob is quite right about this. And it matters not whether you say that the perfection that Christ is talking about is that lived in the eschaton: in order to live that life there and then, Christ would have to heal our souls of the ills that infect it. Such healing is impossible for man, but with God it is certainly possible. If He can do that so that we can do a pure good act in the eschaton, then He can also do it to our souls here and now. There is no impediment that makes it impossible for God to do it here and now. And this is just exactly what He has done, in the waters of baptism, by which we put on the righteousness of Christ. The purity of the saints that Paul speaks of is not their own purity, in the sense of being caused by themselves - it is Christ's purity acting in them to will and to do. But by acting in Christ's righteousness, they do a pure good act.

This might be a dumb question, so forgive me if I'm throwing out a red herring.

Is this situation in any way analogous to a woman being raped at knife point? I'd tend to think that the woman being raped doesn't have a substantial choice in the matter. She could choose to resist and have her throat cut, and thereby prevent extramarital intercourse, but I would not feel comfortable in saying that she is sinning if she doesn't do this. Or let's instead have a woman at home with her children, and a rapist breaks in and threatens the lives of the children. I'd see this more as rape, a crime against the woman, rather than a crime by the woman against God.

Bors' situation might be a little different in that he seems to have a moment to think about the issue, but the analogy doesn't seem totally removed to me.

I am perfectly willing to admit that I might be wrong, and for some reason I'm more likely to say that the analogy doesn't work because Bors is a man. It's just a troubling scenario in my mind, I guess.

"I think Michael's reading of the Atonement is just an extreme form of the Calvinist treatment of same. Maybe more extreme than most Calvinists of today, but still in the same tradition."

True enough, but I believe that in the past Michael has said he's not a Calvinist.

Josh, the difference, I think, lies in whether the threatened person does an act or merely submits to an act. Submitting to being a victim is not an action of your own, it implies an action of someone else, and therefore is not sin for the victim: To sin, one must will the sinful act (whether it be an internal or external act), and merely submitting to someone else's act is not willing the act. For Bors, however, he is not merely submitting, it is really his own will that he must turn toward intercourse in order for the intercourse to happen, and so it really is his own act and thus his own sin. For a woman being raped, the intercourse is in no way in her will, so it is not her act.

Bors shows himself to be morally wrong in the second half of the story. The first half, he is perfectly correct in rejecting the advance based on some vague claim of magic being involved. The second half of the story is where it gets problematic.

Let's lay out that the 12 maidens were going to be forced to jump against their will. Per the story, She said she would force them to do so. and All twelve of them shouted out to Bors, and begged him for mercy, and wept for dole. So, this isn't a situation where the 12 maidens are acting of their own will. What does Bors do? He just says tough and lets them get killed. That's not virtue, it's callous disregard for the life of others. Could he have lied, said "Yes" to the lady's demands and then found a way to save the 12 maidens without submitting to her threat? Who knows because he just walks away.

Consequentialist arguments-by-dilemma are plagued by the same sort of problem plaguing consequentialism in general: they pretend to assess facts and alternatives from a global, impersonal point of view that just isn't available to us. Only God has all the information necessary for making consequentialist calculations reliably.

But note the irony: the most common argument from evil against the existence of the God of classical theism is that God is immoral because "nothing could justify" an omnipotent being's allowing some of the innocent to suffer greatly beyond their deserts. It's thereby assumed that God is a consequentialist when he should be a deontologist.


Tony,
"Teleios" here means "complete" or "mature," and not "without defect," and not "indefectable," which our English word "perfect" normally denotes. Furthermore, this is another of the many, many times when Jesus speaks non-literally, when He makes use of conscious exaggeration in order to drive home a point, as was often done by ancient Jewish rabbis, and by Jesus himself a little earlier in the very same chapter (vv. 29,30). We are not going to be truly mature or complete in this life. We will always be dealing with our own sin. John says, "If we say we have no sin, we lie and the truth is not in us" (I John 1: 8). In other words, we must say, we must admit, that sin is always with us, and that we are never truly pure, never truly mature, never truly complete -- much less perfect in the normal sense we use that word. In this life we are always struggling with our own evil. Evil isn't just something we do, its something we are (and will remain) until the end. From our soul-deep evil there is no escape in this life. Forgiveness is available, but not purity and not perfection -- not now, not here, not yet. But it's coming. We have the promise.


Rob,
The righteousness we have is forensic, not inherent. That is, it is Christ's, not our own, and it is attributed forensically to us. It is different from, and prior to, our sanctification. Indeed, none of us will be inherently righteous, truly sanctified, this side of the eschaton. After that (that is, at the end), the transformation occurs in the "twinkling of an eye"(1 Cor 15:52), meaning it is God doing something to us, it is not something done by us, and certainly not done by us before the promised transformation. We will all be changed, Paul says in the passage just cited. We will become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21). It's in the future, not the present or the past. Until then, until we are changed, there is nothing good in us (Rom 7:18). But that's not Calvin, that's Paul.

Let's pretend that, instead of being forced off the castle wall by a bad woman, the 12 seemingly innocent women are about to be knocked off the castle wall by a huge boulder rolling down the wall. Would everyone agree that it might be noble for Bors to throw himself in front of the boulder in an attempt to push the women out of its path, even though suicide is wrong?

(No scorn please if this analogy doesn't fit at all. I am new to this.)

All twelve of them shouted out to Bors, and begged him for mercy, and wept for dole.

They were shouting at the wrong person, for it was not he who would force them to jump.

"One mortal sin is worse than the death of the entire human race."

A robber once confronted Jack Benny, "your money or your life,"

Benny hesitated and the robber repeated, "I said your money or your life!"

Benny replied, "I'm thinking!"

Well, Teresa, stipulating that throwing himself in front of the boulder is an act of suicide sort of loads the dice.

Al, what's your point? That people are capable of really stupid thinking?

What if the robber said "Your money or I am going to start burning you with fire right now and the fire will continue into eternity"? Would any rational person sit there thinking about it?

Michael, I am aware of Calvinist theories of salvation. Your holding such theories, while I (and most Christians, in effect, at least) reject such theories means that we cannot agree on the meaning of the New Testament. Pity.

That still doesn't change whether Bors choosing to engage in fornication is right or wrong. Nothing in the Gospel allows us to conclude that God puts us in situations where all possible courses of action mean we are doing precisely the thing that is contrary to His will.

Tony,
Fine, call Paul (and me) a Calvinist. All you've done is classify, not refute. Show me that Paul means something different in the texts cited. Was Jesus a Calvinist too? Is translating "teleios" in Matt 5 an inaccurate translation? Why or why not? Provide an argument, not a false classification. You'd hardly find it convincing if I said, "Oh, that just Anselmian," as if Anselm's agreement or disagreement with an idea were evidence of its truth. Something can be Anselmian or Calvinist and be Biblcial. It can also be Anselmian or Calvinist and be false.

Michael L.
God is a deontologist. That's rich.

"Honor your father and mother. . ." (the command)
". . . so that your your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you" (the consequence). Exodus 20:12


"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen [the rule]. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you [the consequence] Matt 6:5,6

Apparently God sometimes gives commands, and teaches us to obey those commands, based upon consequences. Does that make God a consequentialist? No. In places where He declines to articulate consequences as reasons for an action, is He a deontologist? No. These categories are alien to the Bible and do not properly unpack the righteousness of God.

The sooner you guys stop trying to cram everything, even God Himself, into alien categories, the sooner you'll have a shot at actually doing Biblical theology. It's not all about deontlogy, consequentialism, nominalism, realism, Calvinism, Thomism, or or any of 10,000 other isms. It's not even about ethics. It's about righteousness, and Biblical righteousness bursts your silly categories. God in history, God in Christ, does not reduce to your alien isms.

This is not an example of suicide. Bors does not intent to kill himself, that just happens by accident in saving the women. Classic example of Double Effect.

The Chicken

BTW, Tony, I noticed that, for whatever reason, you did not classify my view of human depravity as Augustinian, even though it is closer to Augustine's view vs the Pelagians than it is to Calvin's. Even if you were to stick with Reformation categories, I'm closer on this issue to Luther, an Augustinian monk, than to Calvin.

"The righteousness we have is forensic, not inherent."

No, it's both. We are both made righteous and declared righteous. The righteousness we are given is, of course, Christ's, but when given to us it becomes really ours, just like any other gift. The fact that it's divine in origin doesn't change that. The idea that Christ's righteousness is "foreign" to us and remains foreign even after we receive it has its root in nominalism, not in Scripture or the Fathers.

"But that's not Calvin, that's Paul."

No, that's not Paul, that's Bauman's reading of Paul. Which, btw, does not jibe with anyone else's reading of Paul up to the 16th century. Apologies to Luther, but it's sheer silliness to believe that no one got Paul right for 1,500 years.

Okay, Bill, don't call it suicide if that helps. But surely you will agree that throwing yourself in front of oncoming boulders, cars, trains, etc. is wrong, generally speaking. And maybe you can imagine a situation, like trying to save 12 women, in which it might be not quite as wrong.

The sooner you guys stop trying to cram everything, even God Himself, into alien categories, the sooner you'll have a shot at actually doing Biblical theology. It's not all about deontlogy, consequentialism, nominalism, realism, Calvinism, Thomism, or or any of 10,000 other isms. It's not even about ethics. It's about righteousness, and Biblical righteousness bursts your silly categories. God in history, God in Christ, does not reduce to your alien isms.

How all this relates to the argument that we are sometimes obliged to do evil, that to fail to commit a specific wicked act is itself wicked, has never been made clear. This is sola scriptura haughtiness at its very worst. A truly extraordinary asseveration -- that in the providence of God we shall surely find ourselves in situations where the righteous action is to deliberately contravene God's law -- is conveniently hitched to a theological structure that can be presented as unanswerable. Even if one accepts the theological structure, the moral asseveration stands or falls on its own merits, of which there are previous few. The whole thing is a transparent sophistry.

Mr Bauman:

God is a deontologist. That's rich.

Indeed it is. I would never assert such a thing myself, because I believe that moral categories do not apply to God, who is absolutely perfect by nature, in the way they apply to us. That God should be a deontologist is part of an atheological assumption that I reject. I was citing it, not asserting it.

Paul Cella is right: even if one accepts your particular brand of Protestant Christianity—which, for good reason, hardly any of us around here do—your "moral asseveration stands or falls on its own merits, of which there are previous few. The whole thing is a transparent sophistry."


Teresa, sexual intimacy outside of marriage is sin; inside marriage it is not. Throwing yourself in front of a bus for the purpose of suicide is sin; doing so to push a mother and child out of its path is not, even if you die doing so. Many actions are not in and of themselves sin; it is their place or purpose that determines whether they are. Does that help?

What has me so riled up about Bors is his smug attitude. Not only does he refuse one lady's specific demands, but he does not bother to try in any way to rescue any of the ladies. Surely some extreme measures were in order when 13 lives were on the line. Instead, he just concludes, "Sure, let 'em die. Not my problem." And it makes me sad that some of you whom I have admired seem to have no problem with that.

he does not bother to try in any way to rescue any of the ladies.

That's kind of a different question than whether he should sin to save them. That's just the way the story's stacked by the guy who's telling it. If I told it, he would draw his bow and shoot an arrow through the bewitched, lust-crazed, would-be murderess.

Sorry, but I just can't help thinking about the castle/virgins scene from M.P. & the Holy Grail:

"Let me stay and face the peril!"

"No!"

"Why?"

"It's too perilous!"

Micheal Bauman, your writings are exhibit #1 in the case for the Roman Catholic understanding of scripture interpretation. Your bizarre, barely coherent, sometimes blasphemous and always idiosyncratic "interpretations" of the Bible are a complete and utter joke. Thank you for confirming me in my decision to leave protestant Christianity behind.

For what it's worth, here's a scene from the trial of St. Perpetua, who faced a dilemma different in detail, but similar in kind, to that of Sir. Bors:

Another day as we were at meal we were suddenly snatched away to be tried; and we came to the forum. Therewith a report spread abroad through the parts near to the forum, and a very great multitude gathered together. We went up to the tribunal. The others being asked, confessed. So they came to me. And my father appeared there also, with my son, and would draw me from the step, saying: Perform the Sacrifice; have mercy on the child. And Hilarian the procurator - he that after the death of Minucius Timinian the proconsul had received in his room the right and power of the sword - said: Spare your father's grey hairs; spare the infancy of the boy. Make sacrifice for the Emperors' prosperity. And I answered: I am a Christian. And when my father stood by me yet to cast down my faith, he was bidden by Hilarian to be cast down and was smitten with a rod. And I sorrowed for my father's harm as though I had been smitten myself; so sorrowed I for his unhappy old age. Then Hilarian passed sentence upon us all and condemned us to the beasts; and cheerfully we went down to the dungeon.

Does any Christian really believe that she should have performed the sacrifice to the emperor, in order to save her father from the beating?

They were shouting at the wrong person, for it was not he who would force them to jump.

That's a dodge to my question since I was using the quote to point out that they were acting under duress.

That's kind of a different question than whether he should sin to save them. That's just the way the story's stacked by the guy who's telling it. If I told it, he would draw his bow and shoot an arrow through the bewitched, lust-crazed, would-be murderess.

No, its part of the question.

Actually Bill you wouldn't shoot an arrow through her because based on previous discussions all she would have to do is place the maidens to where you couldn't shoot at her without killing one of them. Since you can't kill an innocent person, they're all going to die as you stand idly by. You'll basically be like Bors, smug in his righteousness.

Chris, and Michael, and Teresa, whatever practical "problems" there might be with various attempts by Bors to escape the dilemma by attacking, such problems are problems with the literary construct. But even so, you cannot rule out another possible response: Bors could have knelt down and prayed for a miracle of deliverance for the maidens. As with Abrahamn, it would be literally impossible for Bors to know for certain that God would not answer (with a miracle) until the women were killed. But there is nothing immoral about Bors praying for such a miracle.

Again, the dilemma is a literary construct that intentionally leaves out of the picture options that the author prefers not to place before the character, nor before us the readers. As such, the story inherently deficient.

All you've done is classify, not refute. Show me that Paul means something different in the texts cited. Was Jesus a Calvinist too?

Michael, that's why I switched the argument: even accepting your take on Paul, there is nothing in the Bible that permits an understanding that God allows us to fall into a situation where every course of action open to us consists of actions that must violate His will. It doesn't happen. It cannot happen. Worst case scenario, it isn't a sin to avoid every outward action and pray for deliverance, if every possible outward action is intrinsically sinful. But besides that, it never happens that every possible outward action is intrinsically sinful.

Even if your reading of Paul were right, and every act we do is sinful, it is not the case that every aspect of each act we do is sinful: If a person sins when he obediently follows his father's commands and goes to church, it is neither the obedience, nor the going to church that offend God, it is the interior disposition with which these are carried out. Likewise, if Bors can be said to sin whether he fornicates or whether he abstains from doing so, it is not the case that he sins precisely by abstaining from fornication, but by his sinful interior act that accompanies this obedience to God's law. Which is different from "the other alternative" act of going ahead and fornicating: it is precisely in fornicating that he offends God. And so, even if in both courses of action Bors would sin, he is not blameworthy for the abstaining from fornication, as he is blameworthy for fornicating.

Does any Christian really believe that she should have performed the sacrifice to the emperor, in order to save her father from the beating?

Yes, Mr. Mechmann, you can find a few of them right here in this thread. The have a genuine passion for sinning to a good end.

Bill, I think you go a bit far in labeling anyone who may not see eye-to-eye with you as having a "passion for sinning." Doesn't stipulating that something is sinning, as you have said, "sort of load the dice?" From your bow and arrow example, I take it that you recognize a defense of others exception that makes a killing okay which would otherwise be murder. So why is it absolutely impossible that there might be a defense of others exception for fornication? Is it that fornication is a more grievous wrong than murder?

To Michael Bauman: Is there any "lesser evil" you would not personally commit in order to bring about a "greater good"? Fornication is obviously no problem for you. Adultery? Rape? Highway robbery? Embezzlement? Child molestation? Mass murder? Idol-making? Treason? And if you draw the line somewhere, please tell us why.

a "passion for sinning."

You left off "to a good end." The fervor for it and the obstinacy of its defense is evident in the comments above.

So why is it absolutely impossible that there might be a defense of others exception for fornication? Is it that fornication is a more grievous wrong than murder?

Because killing in self-defense or the defense of innocent others is not murder, while fornication is always just that - fornication. There are no exceptions for intentionally evil acts.

I have been interested in this kind of dilemma as it was faced by the Confessing Church in Germany under Hitler. Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer eventually came to the conclusion that participating in a plot to assasinate Hilter was right. Does anyone here know his reasoning?

I don't, but it is easy to see possible reasoning: The government of Germany had become so evil that revolt against it was at that point morally upright. But to revolt successfully, one huge requirement would be to take out Hitler. There is nothing wrong with targeting the top military commanders in a war, so a war of revolution where you target Hitler and Goering is perfectly justifiable.

There are other possible avenues of justification: it is moral to use violence to protect the innocent from unjust aggressors. Hitler was an unjust aggressor against some tens of millions (12 million killed in prison camps, millions more killed in battle, not to mention those forced into slave labor on his behalf). If it would be moral to shoot a Gestapo soldier taking away Aunt Betty to a camp, all the more it would be moral to shoot the man who ordered all this evil, unjust aggression, if doing so might stop the injustices.

There are no exceptions for intentionally evil acts.

Do you mean intrinsically evil acts? Otherwise, any act that I intend to have a good outcome could conceivably be a case of PDE.

I think to answer Teresa's question better, we might explain why it is that killing is something that is not intrinsically evil (although murder is), but fornication is intrinsically evil. It's not immediately obvious why something as terrible as killing another person is not intrinsically evil; it seems like it should be, Ten Commandments and all that. Why killing gets a pass with double effect but fornication does not is a little counterintuitive.

J. Christian, it is abundantly clear from Exodus that the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is a qualified commandment. The same author tells us to put to death murderers and assorted other evil-doers. It is, therefore, impossible to understand by "Thou shalt not kill" a sense of killing that forbids all killing. It must be taken to mean a qualified category. Other passages explain the required qualifications to us: Genesis 9:6 tells us "If a man sheds the blood of man, then by man shall his blood be shed, for man is made in the image of God." There are other passages as well. It is clear that the commandment does not forbid killing those who commit grave evils; rather, killing those who commit grave evils can be a duty. Therefore, killing those who commit grave evils is not intrinsically evil.

There is no passage anywhere in Scripture which comparably upholds committing fornication as good in certain circumstances.

That's the biblical argument. This argument is supported by one from philosophy (as educated by theology): A fully specified human act whose intrinsic nature is contrary to Divine law is intrinsically evil as a human act. One such act is the chosen human act of fornication, because fornication is contrary to God's design of human sexual and social nature. Killing is not a full specification of a human act - it lacks sufficient specification to determine the act wholly. Therefore, it is not possible to say that killing, simply, is inherently evil.

The only way to nail the argument ALL the way home (to those who don't like the result) is to delve into the requirements to specify the human act as such. This can be done, but is so fraught with technical difficulty that it rarely convinces anyone who was not ready to be convinced. At least that's my experience. Ed Feser I am sure can do it much better than I.

Do you mean intrinsically evil acts? Otherwise, any act that I intend to have a good outcome could conceivably be a case of PDE.

Well, either/or. Any act you intend that might fall under PDE (such as killing in self-defense) cannot in itself be evil (such as fornication).

Good answer, Tony.

Perhaps someone with more Biblical scholarship under their belt can speak to this, but I've read varying translations of "thou shalt not kill" as "thou shalt not murder" or "..commit murder". Is this an issue with the Hebrew or Greek translation, and was the original language intended to speak to wrongful killing only?

Have you not read that even our highest actions are the moral equivalent of filthy rags (Isa. 64:6), by which is meant, literally, soiled toilet paper (in those days, shit on wool)? That is the divine description of our best deeds. Yet you would kill a whole world in order to preserve the moral equivalent of shit on wool
.

So, having sex with that woman (or women) to save their lives would be no great heroic feat either. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, by your interpretation.

c matt,
You'll notice that I said that while no action was truly good, not all actions were equally evil.

Even though it has already been said, the idea that "be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect" can be reconciled with choosing specific actions BECAUSE of their varying levels of evil is just wild; beyond comprehension, and it violates all kinds of reason, not to mention scripture.

We are called to choose goods, because they are good, because choosing good is seeking God. Deliberately choosing evil is never a licit action, and always sinful, and it's defense is nearly equal to calling devil worship "good."

Chastity is a good. Just because our ability to discern and choose goods is not perfect, even inherently flawed, doesn't mean we are completely incapable of doing good. We are to do the little good we can, and through submission and willful acceptance of God's will grow in faith to with God's grace become ever more perfected so our choices can become ever closer to the perfect choice we make in heaven, willful unyielding worship of God.

You can not get there by choosing evil. Choosing evil actions is rejecting God's grace.

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