Holiness?

I have, for the last several posts, attempted to be somewhat more conversational and less professorial, however, I want to talk about a subject today that is difficult to address in a purely conversational tone.  I want to address the issue of morality.  From a Christian perspective I think morality and holiness are somewhat interchangeable.  While we certainly teach our children to be moral and holy without using obscure arguments or purely logical argumentation, it is hard to express an overall scheme of morality without the use of logical argumentation.

In defense of the use of logic, I want to note that I don't think logic has to be boring.  In fact logic ought to be compelling and forceful.  Unfortunately many of us do not have extensive exercise in logic.  We have long since moved away from philosophical terms like syllogisms, ultimate causes, and things as means versus things as an end unto themselves.  Moving away from purely academic terms isn't an entirely bad thing, the scholarly and antiseptic logic of a classroom can cause us to miss the moral reality of certain situations.  An example is in the debate over abortion.  If we ask, "Is it morally acceptable to treat a fetus as an entity of secondary importance, utilizing its immediate separation from the primary entity as a means to an end, if the end is the overall increase in general happiness of those primary entities existing at the current time?" then we denude this proposal of its real moral force.  The real moral force of the question becomes evident when asked in this way: "Is it okay to forcibly extract a baby from its mothers womb, killing it and treating it as less than human, if in doing so we placate the desire of the mother?"

Logic, far from being boring, is in fact absolutely essential for a life of holiness, a life to which the Christian is called.  In fact, logic is necessary for any life at all.  You cannot long live if you completely ignore the normal rules of logic, unless you have a very devoted individual seeking to protect you from your own stupidity.  A man who walks out into every street without looking, and walks in the midst of traffic because the road is easier to walk on than a broken sidewalk is an idiot.  Such an individual ignores the basic use of logic: recklessly walking out in the middle of a road with fast moving vehicles without giving those vehicles any heed will likely get you killed.

So, because logic does not have to be boring, I invite you to join me for a quick examination on the use of logic in forming a Christian system of ethics.  I don't intend to lay out a complete system here, but to illustrate the method of logical progression that we can use for any situation in order to determine what would be the best course of action in that situation.  The goal is not so much to create a post where you can look and say, "okay, what did he say about this situation" as it is to show the method of thought that will lead to an answer, even when faced with a difficult problem.  Of course this is not a system that I have developed myself, rather it is the analogy of faith that has been taught and handed down through Christendom for hundreds of years.  It is also the method that pastors often use to examine a text and derive the principles from that text that apply to a congregation, so that every text teaches an applicable truth to which we ought to conform.

Okay, so I used the term, "analogy of faith" what on earth does that mean?  Basically it means that using a "this is like that" comparison for any issue we read about in Scripture, we can derive a principle from Scripture that teaches us how we should live faithfully today.  This can work in two different ways: I can read Scripture and find a situation, like David's adultery with Bathsheba, and attempt to determine what that situation would teach me about how I should live today, or, conversely, I could find myself in a situation today, such as being faced with the option of lying on my taxes, and want to know what Scripture teaches on that subject.  In either case we are faced with one situation and we want to know what the moral thing to do would be, based on that situation.  Which side we start on does not ultimately matter, though starting on the side of Scripture may be somewhat easier if we are unfamiliar with the bible.

So, I gave two examples, but I didn't explain how we might work those out, lets look at one.  In the case of David committing adultery with Bathsheba we have to read the whole story in order to determine what it teaches us about morality and how we should live today.  There is no real moral imperative given in the text, "Let the reader be aware!  This is how you should act..." does not appear in this story.  So what we have to do is look at the situation of David and what he did, and figure out how that situation might apply to us today.  Let's take the time to do that.

1) David did not go out to war with his men.  2) David saw Bathsheba bathing on a rooftop and desired her.  3) David called Bathsheba to himself.  4) David slept with Bathsheba.  5) When Bathsheba reported she was pregnant David sent for her husband.  6) David tried to get Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba, so he could make Uriah think he got Bathsheba pregnant, but failed.  7) David arranged for Uriah to be killed in battle so he could take Bathsheba to himself to hide the fact he got her pregnant.  8) David was confronted by Nathan and chastised, and told that because of his sin his son would die.  9) David repented and begged for God's forgiveness.  10) God forgave David, but his son still died as a result of his sinful behavior.  11) God loved Solomon, born to Bathsheba, and placed him next in the Davidic line.

Okay, so a lot happened.  The basic issue though is what we can learn from the story as far as how we ought to behave currently.  Potentially the following could be moral issues, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9.  I'm excluding 5 because it is simply the report of a fact, we don't normally say reporting something is moral or immoral, it is simply someone telling someone else the truth.  8 is not a directly moral issue, though there is perhaps a secondary moral issue, and we can address that issue later. 10 and 11 are God's determinative actions for David and Solomon; while there may be something going on here, again the moral question would be secondary, at best.

So then, the primary moral flow of the story could go like this: David didn't go to war and lead his men like kings were supposed to in that time, this lead to him seeing Bathsheba bathing and lusting after her, after which he committed adultery with her and attempted to cover it up, leading the murder of Uriah and God punishing David.  If we read on in 2 Samuel 12:26-28 it seems that David should have been at Rabbah with his men, particularly based on what Joab says to him.  So David's first error was in not leading his army.  We would have difficulty making a direct application of that concept to ourselves as few of us are supposed to lead an army.  The whole situation derived from this one error though, so let us look at David's error and see if there is any principle we can derive from it to apply to ourselves.

Let's look at the number of steps we might proceed with to get a full understanding of the moral implications of this story: Direct application- we should not stay home if our job is the lead the army out to war, or we might accidentally see a woman bathing and commit adultery with her, leading to a host of other immoral actions.  Derived application, step one- We should not avoid our responsibilities lest we are lead into temptation and eventually great sin.  Derived application, step two- We should seek to be busy fulfilling our responsibilities, so we do not come into temptation or great sin.  Derived application, step three- We should seek to be busy doing whatever good things we can so that give temptation as little opportunity to occur in our lives as possible, so that we are protected from sin.

Notice that the derived applications seek to determine the principle that is at work in the direct application.  Also notice that the second derived application takes the negative principle at play in the first derived application and turns it into a positive command.  Finally, note that the third derived application take the command of the second derived application and then broadens it, so that it becomes even more applicable to our every day lives.  The derived applications are logical applications of the story to our own lives, but they are not directly stated in the story.

Now a quick comment on the derived applications: you do not have to go through all these steps in each situation.  Sometimes you will already have a positive example, so there is no need to derive a positive command from a negative.  Sometimes the negative will be more applicable to your specific situation.  The goal is to find a principle that can apply to us where we are, so that we can see what Scripture would command us to do, and what it would command us not to do.  In some situations it may be difficult to determine the principle at play in a given section of Scripture (such as the laws of Leviticus or the genealogical records of Nehemiah or Numbers).  In those situations we can either seek out commentaries to help us understand the text, or we ask someone else to help us understand how that section of Scripture should inform us.

According to 2 Timothy 3:16-17 all of Scripture is useful to us.  Sometimes we may have difficulty determining the specific principle for application in a given text, but that does not mean that Scripture does not have application.  We must be familiar with as much of Scripture as we can, living by those areas that are most clear to us and seeking through additional reading and study that other sections would become clear to us over time.  Peter said that some of Paul's writings were hard to understand, and he was an apostle who knew Paul personally!  But, let us not think Scripture is too difficult for us to understand, the fact is that most of it is as simple as the example of David and Bathsheba above, and it contains all the principles we need to be thoroughly trained in righteousness.

This post is already quite long, so I will not go into the second example today, but I will go over that tomorrow.