Currently I am listening to a series of discourses by R.C. Sprouls on Contemporary Theology. In short, he is talking about Christianity's history; what it's been through, the struggles it's had, the philosophical systems it's gone through, the fragmentations, and so on.
In the first couple of CD's he is laying the backround. He's talking about the areas of confusion people have today and around in our church's. He sites three major areas of confusion being Worship, Ethics, and Church Unity. Specifically, the areas of confusion are being defined in terms of the Doctrine of God. How can the Doctrine of God - who God is, what his character is - add to the confusion in terms of Worship, Ethics, and Church Unity? The area I find most interesting is in the area of Ethics.
Who God is and what God wants is dramatically imporant if we are to understand ethics, both individually and socially. "Christian ethics," as R.C. Sprouls says, "is understood personally and socially, as being a normative discipline. It looks for standards, norms, laws that govern our behavior as well as social behavior." If ethics is merely relative, there is no standard by which to behave "good." Words like justice, oughtness, and righteousness cannot exist, atleast rationally.
However, if there is a just and righteous norm, such as God, then it is plausible to have a universal standard to govern. God becomes the norm by which we base our ethics on. We see this universal standard everyday in how people behave. We "learn," or somehow know, that cutting in line is bad, name calling is rude, and stealing is unethical. If you don't agree, remember this blog the next time you are cut off on your way to work or school. C.S. Lewis talks more about the "oughtness" that governs the universe in his book Mere Christianity.
I find R.C. Sprouls' lectures very intriguing and thought provoking.
Blessings,
Joe
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Maybe I could elaborate a little more on this idea and toss some of my own thoughts in here too. When we hear words like justice, oughtness, and righteousness, we are usually talking about these in an abstract way, but there’s no way for us to logically make any coherence out of them if we first don’t have a standard or reference for what they are. Sproul’s argument, and what I agree with, is unless you have a standard, or a norm, such as God for that foundation, these ideas are merely words. There’s no sense in talking about justice if justice for you means something totally different from me. What’s the standard – a societies’ idea? Any person’s? When I say the word ‘chair,’ you have a foundation for what I’m talking about. You may not be thinking of a rocking chair like I am, but you have a foundation to logically understand that when I say ‘chair,’ I mean something you can sit on.
“I feel that often times Christians (including CS Lewis whom I love) over use rationality and hold it up as a sacred aspect of humanity. This is based on the idea that God is rational. But, I don't believe that the Bible ever really talks about rationality or reasoning as a characteristic of God or otherwise.”
I understand what you’re saying here, but to say that God is not rational is to say He’s irrational. And I don’t think you really think that (correct me if I’m wrong). We have to believe, or at least assume God is rational, even if it’s not spelled out specifically for us in the Bible. I think it is. Check out Ephesians chapter 1, verse 4. Paul writes and shows God had a plan from the beginning. God doesn’t just create to create, He thinks about what He’s creating. The practical implications of this speak clearly, but even more so, if 99% of what we do here on Earth is based on rationality or logic, and we are created in God’s image, then we have to assume God is rational as well.
Let me try to make my argument clearer by using a syllogism:
Human beings are rational.
God created Human beings in His own image.
Therefore, God is rational.
Now, something I’ve thought about recently is the idea of love. I was reading a passage from Ephesians (Chapter 3:17-19). I believe love is VERY irrational at times. And let me know what you think about this. We say that God is love, and I think for the most part, we understand what that means. But do we really grasp it? Do we really grasp His unconditional love? Do we humans ever truly unconditionally love something? I submit, that if God is love (unconditional love), then what He does is sometimes going to appear as irrational to us, when it’s totally in His nature to do so. We have to assume in your example of the Israelites, that a righteous and just God would have a ‘master plan’ in place to explain His decisions, commands, etc, in the name of love. And this ties in with what you said about the ‘mystery of faith’ as you called it.
Now, I am not pretending to understand the mystery of God, nor would I ever. And I do agree with you that God’s knowledge and infiniteness are a mystery. However,
“Therefore while ethics can't be relative they certainly must be subjective.”
I’m not sure I understand you clearly here. Do you mean subjective in the sense of how each individual “feels” morality or something else? (Dr. Piippo, if you could elaborate more, that would be great). I think if we start calling ethics and morality subjective to the “eye of the beholder,” we give birth to pluralism. R. C. Sproul’s comments on this too. He quotes the Russian novelists Fyodor Dostoevsky: “If there is no God, all things are permissible.”
-Just some more thoughts for us, Scott. Excellent post.
Blessings,
Joe
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