In my last posting I supposed that it would be imperative for a God that is love to have created a beloved, understanding love as a need for the beloved. While some might consider this dependent behavior, certainly not consistent with the Aristotelian ideal of an unmoved mover, I would submit that it is consistent with the platonic ideal of the divine as absolute love that seeks to redeem all. Redemption makes no sense otherwise. If only a part is redeemed than the work of redemption is partial and there can be no ultimate perfection: absolute love cannot be content to allow part of the created order to remain outside of love's grasp. This sort of eschatology, called universalism, is problematic for the paradigm of ethics that presuppose retribution as the motivator for moral behavior. I wonder, is fear the best motivator? Is there no other motivator apart from self interest, enlightened or otherwise, that can create moral behavior in humans?
What is morality? That is the basic question. I would posit that morality is the ability to live in community by confirming for a commonly defined good that allows for both self and others to live; put simply, that which affirms life is good.
I tend away from definitions of morality that are apodictic, that is to say legalistic. The problem with absolute dicta is that they cannot conform to situations and circumstances. They stand as a lex talonis that militates against any deviant behavior from the imposed norm. A classic dilemma: Thou shalt not steal. Is it theft to take bread to feed my family when there are no other options and the person from which I steal hordes, indeed has a superabundance of bread? Does the hoarding of bread not constitute theft from the starving victims of that greed? The Bible thought so. The Holiness Code in Leviticus required landowners to leave part of their crop for the poor and non-resident aliens to glean.
What I find particularly vexing is when the microcosm becomes macrocosm: when my country uses nearly 80% of the world's resources, and we represent no more than 20% of the world's population, how can we justify our avarice, or better said the avarice of the 3% of our population that has hoarded 90% of the national wealth? While I find it difficult to say that property is theft, I am hard pressed to support a capitalist economy that has its core the premise that the acquisition of individual wealth is a good thing. I wonder what has happened to the obligation to the whole.
How is morality defined in a society that has embraced capitalism and elevated greed to the level of a virtue?
What is most troubling to me is that the Judeo-Christian ethic displays a marked preference for the poor that the Christian Right has elected to ignore in it s attempt to beatify and canonize wealth into a dogma of the church. The ramifications of Luther's doctrine of justification by grace through faith are wide: I am, as one of the baptized, free from all things, even the acquisition of wealth, to be for the other. This presents a fine ideal of faith but is deuce difficult in this penultimate order where we seek to horde and conserve against the fear of a dearth of the stuff of life. I suppose that would not be an issue if we had a culture of sharing and compassion, but we live in the world.
Thus is the world... or rather, thus have we made it.
But I am only a fool...
