1. Chinese Poem of the Day:
毛澤東 (1893 - 1976)
人民解放軍佔領南京
鐘山風雨起蒼黃，百萬雄師過大江。
虎踞龍盤今勝昔，天翻地覆慨而慷。
宜將勝勇追窮寇，不可沽名學霸王。
天若有情天亦老，人間正道是滄桑。
2. The following are five groups of theses on ethics and morality that I live by.
I believe each of the theses is derived from and conform to the Bible.
Since fully explaining and defending these five groups of theses will take more space than an ordinary blog entry, I am content just to state the theses (leaving out many qualifications), elaborate on them somewhat, and illustrate them briefly from the Bible.
(a) Responsibility is logically based on prior obligation.
We are responsible to do what we are obligated to do.
But we are also obligated to do what we are responsible to do.
(b) We are responsible for what we ought to do.
We ought to obey all the laws of God.
Therefore, we are responsible to obey all the laws of God.
(c) We are responsible to obey all the laws of God.
Our responsibility to obey all the laws of God is not limit by our knowledge of all the laws of God.
Therefore, whether we know or do not know about all the laws of God we are responsible to obey all the laws of God.
(d) We are responsible to obey all the laws of God.
Our responsibility to obey all the laws of God is not limit by our ability to carry out all the laws of God.
Therefore, whether we are able or unable to carry out all the laws of God we are responsible to obey all the laws of God.
(e) We are responsible to obey all the laws of God.
Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God. (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 14)
God has promised in the Bible to forgive our sins if we repent and confess our sins to him.
Therefore, if we sinned, then we should repent and confess our sins to God.
3. Ethics and morality are normative and concern with such notions as what is obligatory, optional, impermissible, permissible and omissible.
A moral framework will divided or parse actions into these categories.
For the purpose of this blog entry, I assume the Traditional Threefold Classification of these categories is true.
The Traditional Threefold Classification of these notions looks like this (McNamara 2010):
Thus:
(a) One ought to act on what is obligatory to act.
(b) One is forbidden to act on what is impermissible to act.
(c) One is permitted to act on what is obligatory or optional to act.
(d) One can omit to act on what is optional or impermissible to act.
(e) Obligatory and omissible are contradictory concepts:
One could not omit to act on what is obligatory to act.
One could not be obligated to act on what is omissible to act.
An act must be either obligatory or omissible but could not be both.
(f) Permissible and impermissible are also contradictory concepts:
If an action is permissible, then it could not at the same time be impermissible.
If an action is impermissible, then it could not at the same time be permissible.
An act must be either permissible or impermissible but could not be both.
4. Some elaborations of the group 1 theses:
There are three theses in group 1:
(a) Responsibility is logically based on prior obligation.
(b) We are responsible to do what we are obligated to do.
(c) But we are also obligated to do what we are responsible to do.
Obligation and responsibility are related but different concepts.
Responsibility is definable in terms of accountability:
(a) One is responsible for an action when there is someone who can hold us accountable for that action.
(b) One is not responsible for an action when there is no one who can hold us accountable for that action.
Gordon H. Clark ([1932] 1992, 45): "Let us call a man responsible, then, when he may be justly rewarded or punished for his deeds. That is, the man must be answerable to someone, to God, for responsibility implies a superior authority who punishes or rewards."
Obligation is a "deeper" concept than responsibility.
Obligation is what we are bound to do.
An illustration of the difference between the two concepts:
(a) When one signed a contract to buy a house from a seller, one has bound oneself to the terms and conditions of the contract and in doing so created an obligation to carry out the contract.
(b) One is responsible to carry out the contract because the seller can hold us accountable to the terms and conditions of the contract by going to the courts.
5. Some elaborations of the group 2 theses:
The theses of group 2 are in the form of an argument:
(a) We are responsible for what we ought to do.
(b) We ought to obey all the laws of God.
(c) Therefore, we are responsible to obey all the laws of God.
Who or what can bind us to any moral obligations?
In the Bible, God as God and God as our Creator can bind us by his commandments.
The Ten Commandments began with "I am the LORD your God" (Exodus 20:2a ESV).
God as God and God as our Creator can bind us by his commandments by virtue of his being our God and Creator.
And (Exodus 34:6-8 ESV): "The LORD passed before him [Moses] and proclaimed, 'The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.' And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped."
God as God and God as our Creator can hold us responsible for our motives and actions by accounting our motives and actions in conformity to his laws.
Gordon H. Clark ([1973b] 1992, 180): "Christianity, of course, bases responsibility on the imposition of the Creator's commands."
Therefore, I subscribe to a form of Divine Command Ethics.
In the Bible, what is our responsibility and what is our obligation converge because God gave us laws to obey and God will also hold us accountable to obeying his laws.
Nevertheless, responsibility is logically based on prior obligation.
There can be no responsibility without obligation.
Although extensionally, obligation and responsibility have the same scope in Christian ethics (God gave us laws and hold us accountable to those laws), responsibility is logically based on prior obligation.
Thus, from a theoretical point of view, the following argument although true by virtue of the same extensionality of obligation and responsibility, gets the logical priority of the two concepts wrong:
(a) We are obligated to do what we are responsible to do.
(b) We are responsible to obey all the laws of God.
(c) Therefore, we are obligated to obey all the laws of God.
6. Some elaborations of the group 3 theses:
The theses of group 3 are in the form of an argument:
(a) We are responsible to obey all the laws of God.
(b) Our responsibility to obey all the laws of God is not limit by our knowledge of all the laws of God.
(c) Therefore, whether we know or do not know about all the laws of God we are responsible to obey all the laws of God.
The legal principle that " 'ignorance of the law does not excuse' or 'ignorance of the law excuses no one' is a legal principle holding that a person who is unaware of a law may not escape liability for violating that law merely because he or she was unaware of its content." ("Ignorantia juris non excusat ", Wikipedia)
"The concept comes from Roman law, and is expressed in the brocard ignorantia legis non excusat." ("Ignorantia juris non excusat", Wikipedia)
Although Wikipedia attributed this principle to Roman law, the principle "ignorance of the law does not excuse" has deep roots in the Bible and Judeo-Christian traditions too.
(Leviticus 5:17 ESV): “If anyone sins, doing any of the things that by the LORD's commandments ought not to be done, though he did not know it, then realizes his guilt, he shall bear his iniquity."
Sin is "doing any of the things that by the LORD's commandments ought not to be done".
And one is guilty of sin even "though he did not know it".
And one shall "bear his iniquity" when he "realizes his guilt".
This principle and its applications are repeated many times in (Leviticus 4:1 - 6:7).
The claim that "whether we know or do not know about the laws of God we are responsible to obey all the laws of God" may seem harsh and excessive, but it is soften by the fact that the Bible says the laws of God are written in our hearts.
(Romans 2:14-16 ESV): "For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus."
Merriam-Webster defines "conscience" thus:
(a) The sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good.
(b) A faculty, power, or principle enjoining good acts.
Using an analogy from computer programming: God has created us with a hardware faculty called "conscience" and his moral laws are hard-wired into the functioning of this conscience faculty.
If we do not override our conscience but let it functions properly, then even those who have not read the Bible and knows the laws of God explicitly will "by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law."
And this shows that "the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them ".
7. Some elaborations of the group 4 theses:
The theses of group 4 are in the form of an argument:
(a) We are responsible to obey all the laws of God.
(b) Our responsibility to obey all the laws of God is not limit by our ability to carry out all the laws of God.
(c) Therefore, whether we are able or unable to carry out all the laws of God we are responsible to obey all the laws of God.
The principle that our responsibility to obey all the laws of God are not limit by our ability to carry out all the laws of God is one that is foreign to the modern mind.
Yet the Bible does not make sense if this principle is false.
Ever since the Enlightenment, western man has been influenced by Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804).
One of Kant's famous ethical principle is "ought implies can".
Wikipedia states the principle this way: "if an agent is morally obliged to perform a certain action he must logically be able to perform it." ("Ought implies can", Wikipedia)
The contrapositive of this principle is "cannot implies not ought".
Since contraposition is a truth-preserving inference, if ought implies can, then cannot implies not ought.
If the principle that cannot imply not ought is true, then the whole argument of the Letter of Paul to the Romans in the New Testament collapses.
For the argument of the Letter of Paul to the Romans crucially depends on the premise that our responsibility to obey all the laws of God is not limit by our ability to carry out all the laws of God.
(Romans 2: 12-13 ESV): "For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified."
(Romans 3:21-26 ESV): "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."
(Romans 5:12 ESV): "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned".
One argument in the Letter of Paul to the Romans is that:
(a) All persons are obligated to obey all the laws of God.
(b) A person who is able to obey all the laws of God is righteous before God.
(c) A person who violates one law of God is a sinner before God.
(d) The wages of sin is death.
(e) No one is able to obey all the laws of God (with the exception of Jesus Christ).
(f) That no one is able to obey all the laws of God is demonstrated by the fact that all persons died.
Thus, it is false that in the Bible ought implies can.
If cannot implies not ought, then does it not follow that since no one (except Jesus Christ) is able to obey all the laws of God, therefore no one is obligated to obey all the laws of God?
One can even be more particular and claims that any laws of God we are not able to obey we are not obligated to obey.
Yet according to the Bible, we are obligated to obey all the laws of God irrespective of our abilities.
Christians are righteous before God not because we are able to obey all the laws of God, but that we receive forgiveness for our sins when the righteousness of Jesus Christ has been imputed to us when we believe in his name.
Gordon H. Clark has provided a correction to Kant (Clark [1932] 2002, 43): "But is there nothing in Kant's dictum, If I ought, I can? As stated by Kant and the Catholics it leads immediately to salvation by works. The motive which prompted this incorrect principle can, however, be better stated and so save what of truth it contains. If all ought, at least one can. If all ought to be honest, then some can and are. If all ought perfectly to satisfy divine justice, at least One has done so."
8. Some elaborations of the group 5 theses:
The theses of group 5 are in the form of an argument:
(a) We are responsible to obey all the laws of God.
(b) Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God. (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 14)
(c) God has promised in the Bible to forgive our sins if we repent and confess our sins to him.
(d) Therefore, if we sinned, then we should repent and confess our sins to God.
(1 John 1:5-10 ESV): "This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."
Since the New Testament says Christians sin and sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God, therefore Christians in the New Testament are bound by and must obey some laws.
But what Biblical laws must the Christians obey?
Must Christians obey all the laws of the Old Testament?
Some theologians have divided the Old Testament laws into three categories: moral law, civil law, and ceremonial law.
One theory says that:
(a) Christians are still bound by the moral law of the Old Testament, preeminent of which are the Ten Commandments.
(b) The civil law of the Old Testament still applies in New Testament times through the legal concept of "equity".
(c) Christians in New Testament times are not bound by the ceremonial law of the Old Testament.
I have no settled opinion on this subject but the above theory is my tentative position.
But one thing is certain, while as Christians we are still bound by some Old Testament laws, we do not obey the laws in order to merit our salvation.
Legalism or salvation by works is "the theory that man could completely or partially merit salvation by obeying the law; faith was then not the sole means of justification." (Clark [1973a] 1992, 6)
The New Testament denies legalism or salvation by works.
References:
Clark, Gordon H. [1932] 1992. Determinism and Responsibility. Reprinted in Essays on Ethics and Politics, ed. John W. Robbins, 37-48. Jefferson, Maryland: The Trinity Foundation.
Clark, Gordon H. [1973a] 1992. Calvinistic Ethics. Reprinted in Essays on Ethics and Politics, ed. John W. Robbins, 3-6. Jefferson, Maryland: The Trinity Foundation.
Clark, Gordon H. [1973b] 1992. Responsibility. Reprinted in Essays on Ethics and Politics, ed. John W. Robbins, 180-81. Jefferson, Maryland: The Trinity Foundation.
McNamara, Paul. 2010. Deontic Logic. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-deontic/
(accessed 2012-12-19).
"Conscience", Merriam-Webster,
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conscience
(accessed 2012-12-19).
"Ignorantia juris non excusat", Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignorantia_juris_non_excusat
(accessed 2012-12-19).
"Ought implies can", Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ought_implies_can
(accessed 2012- 12-19).
"毛泽东", Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia,
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AF%9B%E6%BE%A4%E6%9D%B1
(accessed 2012-12-19).
End.
