After taking some thoughtful criticism last week for defending Jesus’ view of morality, I figured a little self-reflection was in order. You know, a time to clear the baffles. Send up the communications buoy. Go thirty degrees down bubble. (Wait…what?) So, anyway, let’s reflect on errors that I’ve made in the 9 months I’ve been posting articles on this blog…and one error I’m confident I did not make.
Definite Error
The Logic of Being the Best. I was actually a little disappointed that no one pointed this out, but in one of my movie-rating posts, I called the Wrath of Khan the “best…movie…ever.” Problem: I had it rated number two on the list. One does not need a degree in logic from Harvard to see that a thing cannot be both the best movie ever, and second to another movie, at the same time.
Probable Error
The Missing Third Installment. In my series on Grading Arguments for God’s Existence, there is no “number 3.” There is I, II, and IV (and a forthcoming V), but “III” just mysteriously disappears like the perplexing number that it is! I’ll leave the reader to decide if I’m making a subtle statement about the glorious incomprehensibility of the Trinity…or if I simply can’t count.
Possible Error
Quoting “Shakespeare.” I think I was off my game on movie review day. Because I also said that Khan in The Wrath of Khan was “quoting Shakespeare.” I just re-watched the movie and it turns out he’s not quoting Shakespeare…he’s quoting Moby Dick, which was written by…Melville. I think. But who cares? The freakin’ Cliff Notes to Moby Dick put me to sleep. (It’s all Ishmael…ship description…sailing description…whale blubber description…more sailing description… aaaaaand I’m out.) And really, this isn’t much of an error because I heard that Shakespeare and Melville were actually the same person…living centuries apart…on different continents. So I was pretty close. I mean, really, when you say thee a lot, you might as well be Shakespeare, right?
Not an Error
Attacking lustful thoughts/looks. Last week I said on this blog, in reference to the menu metaphor that is used as a defense of the lust of the eyes, that it was “quite possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, psychologically speaking.” This was not an error. It’s true – word for word.
I know, I know…that’s not very sporting of me. But I don’t know what else to do. I really do feel that the menu metaphor is not psychologically sensible. So I remain obstinate in my very extreme attack on lust in all its forms.
There were a couple of thoughtful comments that took (some) issue with my bold attack on lust. [Editor's Note: When the Apologetic Professor uses the word “bold,” it really means “self-aggrandizing and hyperbolic.” After years of this absurd stuff, we finally got fed up and tried to fire him; but it caused some existential problems]. I’m not going to reiterate the comments here…I’d suggest you read them. But they prompted me to write a little more about common arguments used against Jesus’ view of lust. (These are not all directly related to the comments last week; I’m only using those as a springboard to get into these issues).
Credible web chemist would not only offer lucrative discount on each purchase, you can expect good discount on your wholesale generic cialis necessary pharmaceutical drugs. Sildenafil citrate regarding kamagra oral buy cialis jelly acts with this enzyme. Today, a large number of ED patients to avail a high quality buy cialis india medicine without any complexities. viagra cheap online Regular taking painkillers, fasting or “liver cleansing”, may bring further severe problems to the ill effect of these impotence medications.
Theme 1: Lust can be useful. There is this wrong-headed idea gaining ground in our culture that pornography can be good for you. Along these lines, it was expressed that pornography, in the right amount, can help intimate relationships because it provides a spark. That is simply a factual mis-statement. It’s wishful thinking. People may want that to be true; but it isn’t true. Looking at pornography almost certainly will increase the pleasure of intimate relationships – in the short term. So the spark part is indeed (half) true. But long-term, those people will not have a happy, stable relationship. The spark will truly lead to a metaphorical flame-out. Their relationship, on average, will fail. On average, it would have been far better for them to both avoid looking at pornography. No one is saying that lust is unpleasurable in the short term; only that it is ultimately destructive. And it is.
Theme 2: I’m really uncomfortable counting a thought as a behavior. Another common argument against Jesus’ view is that it seems awfully…extreme…to count a thought about evil as the same thing as doing the evil. And in one sense, I agree with this. I don’t think Jesus’ intention was to put the mere thought landing on someone’s head on the exact same plane of evil as the carrying out of the evil act.
To illustrate what I mean, consider that in one of Jesus’ best parables, He compares a son who refuses to do His father’s will to his face – but eventually changes his mind and does the right thing – with one who promises obedience but fails to deliver. The son who refuses to do his father’s desire obviously had at least one bad thought – I mean, he expressed a bad thought directly to the father. And Jesus’ whole point is that the son who thought evil but did rightly was the one who was justified. The parable isn’t directly about comparing thought versus action: But the implication for our purposes is clear. There is a difference between simply thinking about disobedience and engaging in disobedience. And it is far worse to do wrongly than to think wrongly.
Further, we cannot always control whether a thought comes into our head (though we have more control than most would like to admit about what we do with said thought). A Christian expression goes something like this: Sinful thoughts are like birds. You can’t control whether they land on your head; but you can control whether or not they make a nest. And, while not a super metaphor, I think that captures the spirit of it.
So there is a sense in which I agree with drawing a moral dividing line between thoughts and behaviors. I don’t think Jesus was trying to say that an evil thought is just as bad as an evil action. I think his point was rather different: It was to note that if you continually and self-indulgently think bad thoughts, you will become a self-indulgent person. And, to borrow a phrase from a Casting Crowns song, the journey from your heart to your hands is shorter than you’re thinking. So be vigilant!
Acknowledging that an evil action is more evil in some way than an evil thought does not undermine the necessary extremity of fighting the moral battle where it ought to be fought in the mind. It does not undermine the fact – and it is virtually a psychological fact – that if you indulge bad thoughts on some domain long enough, you will eventually do something bad on that domain. You will become what you think about – unless you stop thinking about it. So why not show you are serious and stop thinking about it right now?
To become what we were meant to be, we are going to have to stop hoping we can play around with evil in our minds and still come out all right. Given that this is true – that evil thoughts unchecked leads to evil actions – the only logical course of action is to get rid of the evil thoughts as soon as possible, by any means necessary.
Theme 3: Chastity is simply a cultural construction. Sometimes I get the sense that people think such an extreme view opposing lust is something invented by Christianity and/or its religious forerunners. This is a fair argument. I’m tempted to engage the argument on its own terms, pointing out how many fairly universal things are staunchly opposed to lust; how lots of cultures appreciate the sexual innocence of children; how even the most sensuously pagan cultures often worship virginity; how pretty much everyone, everywhere, across all times and places, desires exclusive intimate relationships; how even the most sensuous of lovers in the most un-Christian of ages make vows of eternal love only to the other person; and then argue that Christianity is only asking people to stop being hypocritical about it.
But the truth is: The historical argument is complicated…and it is mostly irrelevant to me. I don’t actually care very much where the norms against lust came from. I’m not interested in the historical origins of chastity. Quite the contrary: The hollow, relativistic philosophy increasingly indicative of our culture seems hypocritical to me, on its own terms, because of my own life experiences. Right here in modern-day America, I’ve watched this philosophy destroy all the people that it has touched. Only Jesus’ philosophy brought them back to life – if they ever did come back.
So all this talk about historical norms and cultural relativity and such, while partially reasonable, really doesn’t matter to me. I am trying to explain why I personally find Jesus’ teachings far better than the shallow compromises offered up to me by almost everyone else. Asking me to believe that lust is good in moderation is like asking me to believe that chopping off healthy limbs is good for your body in moderation. If only we cut off just one little arm…in a moderate fashion. The metaphor is hyperbolic on purpose. [Editor's note: We...he...oh, never mind. We give up!]. I’ve never seen an arm get axed, but I have seen the consequences of this moderate, relativistic philosophy. And it’s bad. Jesus told me it would be; and He was right.
I cannot believe that your many thoughtful and attentive readers, myself among them, overlooked what appear to have been some egregious errors on your part. One might almost suspect you planted those items deliberately just to see if we’re paying sufficient attention–sadly, we obviously weren’t. Any blogger depends on alert readers to keep him or her honest; I hope that, in the unlikely event I ever make a mistake on my blog, someone will point it out to me. Sorry we let you down.
As for Jesus’ condemnation of evil/lustful thoughts: I think you’ve got it exactly right. While it’s ultimately actions that count, the thought is often father to the deed, and anyone who believes he can indulge in negative or immoral thoughts without consequences of some kind (if only to his mental and emotional health) is kidding himself. I like the maxim about not letting the bird build a nest on (much less in) your head–though as an image, it’s a little bit funny; plus, there are worse, or at least messier, things birds can do to the top of your head. Still, the point is well made. I’m pretty sure, for instance, that if a mother wanted to hire someone to watch her child, she’d be unlikely to choose an applicant who said, “I fantasize all the time about doing horrible things to children–but believe me, I’ll never act on those fantasies.”
One of the problems I think we have when discussing lust, chastity, or sexual matters in general is that we tend to ignore that there is usually at least one other person involved in, and affected by, our own “private” sexual behaviors; therefore, no discussion of the issue is complete without reference to relationships (fleeting, shallow, selfish or exploitative as they may be) and to relational virtues like fidelity, honesty, respect, mutuality, etc. The problem with talking about “sex” as an isolated act is that we mostly don’t engage in “sex” as an isolated act, other than in our fantasies (which pornography, of course, happily and profitably feeds). All of which is to say that, child of the Sixties though I am, I don’t believe there is any such thing as “free love” (or “free lust”), any more than there is such a thing as a “free lunch” (though the Top Hat here in Missoula regularly offers “free beer tomorrow”).
Finally: it seems to me that people who dismiss various morals and mores, sexual or otherwise, as “simply a cultural construction” do nothing to advance the actual argument, which is: are such morals and mores valid/valuable constructions or are they wrong-headed, outmoded, harmful? Believing (as I, for one, do) that sexual ethics are human constructs and not divine edicts, doesn’t make those ethics automatically dispensable, useless, or irrelevant; it just means that the discussion about their utility proceeds (amongst such folks) without reference to God.
Sorry to keep sticking on the sticky matter of lust, but it makes for a great example of something I and other cultures throughout history would have disagreed with.
First, to defend the history reliance to our ethics and mores, the greatest value of history comes from the fact that it has already occurred – all mistakes, successes, and timespans – and that we can know about them and thus avoid the pitfalls, attain the successes, and better know how to guide our timeline now. So I would argue VERY strongly that it ought to matter to you where many of these concepts come from, as very few of them existed ‘set in stone’ for eternity in natural law as many people seem to believe.
It is more common in human history and culture, in the past and even now in the world, that human beings do not engage in ‘soulmate’ monogamy. Even in ‘monogamous’ cultures like our own, most people engage in ‘Serial Monogamy’ – that is, they date people, consider them, then move along between partners one at a time until they find ‘the best one’. This isn’t monogamy pure and simple – and aside from that polygamy and polyamorous and open relationships and so forth all exist somewhere in stable human societies. Stable being key – because they are stable, it can be well guessed that age-old practices such as these non-monogamous mate pairing can at the very least not annihilate a society – as you have claimed. Many societies practiced sacred prostitution, just a divine as any baptism or sacrament in Christianity, for hundreds and thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians, according to Greek scholars, didn’t even have a concept of a ‘virgin’, yet created a very grand society (again, as a side note, upon the backs of slaves – showing that while our moral system may say it is an abhorrent practice, it has been practiced to great effect and stable societies in the past. And if morals are in part based on stability of society, it shows that it is not absolute in a universal sense). My point is, Christianity alongside a few other religions have taken a Chastity view due to various reasons, a psychological one being chaste people have to channel their unspent energies elsewhere, and that may be useful. But you mustn’t hyperbole and make statements like all relationships that involve porn will destroy everyone involved. Obviously it doesn’t, else there would be virtually no marriage in any country with computer access, and statistics would easily show couples that viewed such things together fared near-100% worse than couples that never looked at it at all.
As for your defense of the Christian view of thought versus action, I would wholly agree with your statement that they are surely not on the same level of ‘wrongness’. Of course, because I made that argument before which you referenced. However, I find difficulty believing this is in fact Jesus’s teaching given that he is supposed to have said things like anyone who looks at another in lust has already committed adultery in their heart. That is not a statement like ‘Looking at another person lustfully is bad, but it will lead to real adultery and that is MUCH worse’. It is an equivalence statement. Thought = Act in terms of Sinfulness in that view. The reasonable method to resolve that is just as you have, saying that one ought to purge sinful thoughts (what constitutes sinful between you and I will obviously differ however) so that they don’t take root and promote the bad behavior. But that is to prevent the bad behavior – yet you are still guilty of having the thought, and thus guilty of sin regardless of if you took action or not. This is Thought Crime, and as books like 1984 have shown it is a rather creepy thing to think about (which might be a crime in itself in certain contexts…). It is also absurd. The trouble with Jesus’s teaching in this detail is that if many thoughts arise spontaneously, though we may immediately bat them away and forget about them, we are STILL guilty of the crime of adultery in the case of lust, or murder if you were in a rage, and so on. This add to one’s guilt in a way that can never be fixed until you stop thinking entirely. Thus, it becomes a guilt-generator with no purpose other than an extreme prohibition against enacting such sinful behaviors. And it is somewhat effective in that – though other philosophies will promote the same without the crushing guilt.
As for relativistic philosophy, of course a flimsy ethic will result in disaster. I believe you are confusing a flimsy ethic with a relativistic understanding of ethics. A flimsy ethic says, “It is unethical to lie. I like pie, and others have lied for the pie. Therefore, because the pie justifies the lie, I shall lie for the pie.” A self-negating ethic is internally inconsistent, and anyone can see that. Many people have such an ethic, and it is right to say that is a pretty bad system to operate under. However, understanding that morality is relative across times and cultures is definitely not the same thing. Slavery used to be totally moral in America – it was even backed up with the Bible’s passages on proper treatment of slaves and slave-owning. Today it is totally immoral in our culture – it is even backed up by the Bible’s passages on the sanctity of all souls. The relativistic outlook on morality removes the blinders of ‘absolutism’ from us and allows us to examine – not necessarily adopt – the morals and ethics of other cultures and determine whether or not we should alter our own. But within your culture itself you can consider your ethical system to be basically absolute – it is unethical to steal, murder, rape, and eat too much pie. Certainly there are cultures out there where some of these are in fact neutral or even promoted (however rare such a pie-loving society may be), but within the bubble of our culture, aside from the gradual shifts and bends and adoptions and exclusions of morality that occur on the large scale of our culture, it can be considered absolute rules of conduct. They don’t come from a divine source, and if they did it is easily observable that such a source hasn’t been consistent over the centuries of human affairs. This doesn’t negate the power of a moral statement like “Lusting is unethical”, but it allows me to say, “Perhaps you are right – however there are cultures that beg to differ. Who is right, and what is right for us and perhaps our culture?” Not as easy as absolute decrees, but such burdens have to be borne by those without divine authority or absolute knowledge.
Thanks, Jack, appreciate the insightful comment! And I’m sure there will be PLENTY of future opportunities to correct horrible errors on my part…
Uh-oh,
Thanks for the thoughtful comment as always. A few replies:
(1) Your comment kind of highlighted the very reason why I don’t care very much about the historical argument in this case. I don’t mean that it is intellectually irrelevant — I mean that is too murky and complicated to matter very much to me personally. As you know if you read my series on How We Know Things, I put more stock in my own eyes than I do in what other people say. In some cases, I don’t have a lot of information personally, and so it is necessary to deal with the Great Chain of Bias that is sometimes called learning from other people; but in this case, such a murky venture is not necessary…for me.
Of course what other people say matters a lot; and my faith would not be very meaningful if I did not believe in what other people say at some level (e.g., I trust the Bible — something other people wrote). But I choose my sources carefully. The Bible, for example, has been a far better tool for understanding my own life than the kind of philosophy you pitch. I see that, myself, personally, right here, today, with my own eyes.
Now, to illustrate why I don’t put a lot of value in the historical argument about lust, I’m going to irritatingly engage the argument on its own terms for a minute. I said it was complicated, but actually I do not really agree with your view of history, at least not entirely. It is true that different norms have operated in many different cultures. I of course don’t dispute that. Now, I’ll say up front that I’m no expert on history — and so you may be right — but I do think your discussion of polygamy and so forth skews the scales in one direction and perhaps misses the fact that people desire fairly exclusive relationships — everywhere. You mention ancient Egypt. Here is Wikipedia’s entry on Egypt and Monogamy:
“Monogamy is believed to be basic family model also in ancient Egypt.[60] Although an Egyptian man was free to marry several women at a time, and some wealthy men from Old and Middle Kingdoms did have more than one wife, but monogamy was the norm. There may have been some exceptions e.g. a Nineteenth Dynasty official stated as proof of his love to his deceased wife that he had stayed married to her since their youth, even after he had become very successful (P. Leiden I 371). This may suggest that some men abandoned first wives of a low social status and married women of higher status in order to further their careers. But even then they lived with only one wife. Egyptian women were allowed by law not to tolerate her husband taking a second wife, as they had right to ask for a divorce. Many tomb reliefs testify to monogamous character of Egyptian marriages, officials are usually accompanied by a supportive wife. “His wife X, his beloved”‘ is the standard phrase identifying wives in tomb inscriptions. The instruction texts belonging to wisdom literature, e.g. Instruction of Ptahhotep or Instruction of Any, support fidelity to monogamous marriage life, calling wife a Lady of the house. Instruction of Ankhsheshonq suggests that it is wrong to abandon wife because of her barrenness.”
So, too, with Babylon and Assyria — the idea of monogamy existed there, even in these cultures often stereotypically associated with the opposite ideals. It seems to me that many less monogomous cultures existed mostly out of practical necessity (e.g., in highly warring nations where the men mostly did the fighting, there are simply not very many men for the number of women = the necessity of polygamy). Finally, of course no culture is totally monogamous. Even in monogamous cultures like our own, violations are ubiquitous. I understand that. But that doesn’t mean the IDEA of monogamy isn’t present; or that the deep-seated need for inimate relationships that are exlusive (or for the accompanying stable family units) has somehow gone away. That’s built into us.
In other words, I really don’t completely buy your view of history, even though I am aware of many of the historical complications (and certainly was already aware of the ones you mentioned before I wrote my article, which is why I said it was complicated). But we could simply argue in circles about it all day. That’s why I say: Who cares? The argument is unnecessary. In every single person I know who has followed a kind of “open” approach to this topic, they have been destroyed by it eventually. The only people I know who haven’t been destroyed are those who at least try to follow Jesus’ philosophy. I trust that far more than I trust debates about the history of monogamy.
(2) Your comment about my interpretation of Jesus’ teachings has some merit. I do think we should be careful in over-interpreting. I don’t claim that I’m speaking directly for the Person I believe is the King of the universe, and I see your point. However, I also think that it’s reasonable, to understand someone’s larger idea on a topic, to look at everything they say. Jesus wasn’t attempting in this passage to clearly discuss whether a thought or an action had the same “status” as a sin in the eyes of God. Here is what He actually said in the Biblical passage we are discussing:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Note the language here doesn’t say “looking at a woman lustfully is the exact same, in terms of status, as committing the shameful deed itself.” Rather He says “…has already commmitted…in his heart.” Two things about this: The statement “in his heart” doesn’t even attempt to equate the heart sin with the actual deed in terms of direct status. It is simply a factual statement of what is going on…in the heart. Secondly, the language is kind of a forward-looking statement that sounds a lot like “if you look at a woman lustfully, you’re already committing yourself to the future act.”
But perhaps we’re splitting hairs. I’m actually not a fan of breaking passages down in such detail generally, and I distrust even my own breakdown here. My point is mostly that while it is obvious from the context of all of these passages that Jesus is attempting to make people take evil thoughts as sin (which I think they are), I don’t think that necessarily means he is making a philosophical statement about their actual “status” as compared to actions. And since, in many of his other discussions of sin, it seems clear that he doesn’t think all sinful acts are of equal value (for example), and He thinks it is worse to do something wrong than to say something wrong (for example), I don’t really think it makes sense to equate directly thought and action in this passage.
On the other hand: I personally don’t think it’s an important question. I mean, if I continually think bad thoughts I will eventually sin. I think it kinda misses the point entirely to say “yeah, but by golly, WHILE I was thinking those thoughts, I wasn’t sinning!” The point is that I eventually sinned; it hardly matters how we “define” the prior thoughts. And if I had to pick between the “equal status” and “no sin” false dichotomy (which is an unnecessarily black/white picture of the whole thing in my opinion), I’d pick equal status. But as I don’t think I do, I pick the thing I imagine Jesus is trying to say here and elsewhere.
(3) I think this whole discussion of “relativistic” moral philosophy is reasonable, and I don’t entirely disagree with you about the need to get beyond cultural constructions. (In fact, to me, it’s one of the reasons I am a Christian, because I think Christianity captures fairly universal moral truths). And I appreciate your distinction between a “flimsy” ethic and a “relativistic” one — a fair critique. I actually think I used the term “relativistic” in a fairly sloppy way in my post.
On the other hand, you discuss a process whereby we evaluate other cultural norms to decide if we should adopt them. I have no problem with that evaulation process. My problem is simply this: That whole idea implies that we can make moral progress by evaluating other cultures. I think maybe we can; but if so, what does it mean to make moral progress? Progress implies a standard — it implies we are getting morally better. Fair enough; but where does the standard to judge between cultures come from? What is “it”? I would say that we’ve gotten morally better about slavery, that the people who quoted Bible passages as if it promoted it were wrong, and the people quoting Bible passages about the equality of all souls were right. But I don’t think what happened is that morality itself actually changed — that wouldn’t even make sense. That would not be progress. You cannot really progress towards a randomly moving line. No: If we progress at all, we progress towards a standard, and that standard must exist in some way beyond the cultures (otherwise, how do we judge whether we’ve made “progress”)? When I say we’ve made moral progress, I mean that slavery was just as wrong back then, only people said it wasn’t. Now they say it is; and now they are right.
Also consider that some things really are fairly universal. It’s worth considering what happens when you DO actually take the multi-cultural view as you suggest? I mean, you kind of imply that pie-eating norms are on the same plane as stealing norms (I don’t think you would argue for that, but work with me for a minute). But actually, pretty much every culture that we have ever studied has strong norms against stealing. Sure, there are local small pockets where stealing is considered ok, but even among those pockets, few people would agree with the statement “I’m ok with someone taking stuff that I own without my consent.” But pie-eating norms differ very wildly.
I think even atheist psychologists who hate Christianity have argued that some moral norms are universal to pretty much every culture. They are kind of built in to us — it would seem. So then we are not left with a question of looking at every culture; we have already done that. We are left with the question of what to do with moral norms that are pretty much accepted everywhere.
Now, to the point with respect to lust, you could argue that lust is in the pie-eating category and not the stealing category. That would be a reasonable debate, and you’ve already made some fair points along those lines. As for me, I’m actually not sure — it would be ridiculous to put “lust of the eyes” norms in that category since I myself said, right here on this cite, that most people don’t seem to hold Jesus’ views. But I do think there is something fairly universal about the positive nature of wanting intimate relationships, and I do think it is universal that those relationships are damaged by lust. So I’d maybe put it in a category in-between the universality of not stealing and the culture-boundness of pie eating. And some things are like that (Although I think a lot of the in-between things are because of a selfish lack of empathy. For example, while cultures have differed wildly on the issue of slavery historically speaking, my guess is that if you asked the slave owners “would you be ok if someone took YOU into slavery?” They would say no. That’s why Jesus’ golden rule of “do unto others” really brings morality into focus).
Now, to anticipate your rebuttal, of course cultures make allowance for stealing — I understand that already. Christianity does too. But that just misses the point, which is that under normal circumstances, it is not considered appropriate for someone to steal from another person. The fact that sometimes we think stealing is more justifiable than others only means that there are other factors in the universe to consider besides this one moral principle. Christianity has pretty much always argued for a nuanced view like this, so you can’t really attack Christianity for that (when in fact Christianity has often tried to stop cultures from bloating one moral principle all out of proportion).
That isn’t to say your point is invalid. Actually, there is much to like in your point of view, and it is much better than lot of the wishy-washy philosophy I was actually attacking. And you do raise a valid about about the difficulty of accepting a Divine command for morality making it difficult to learn from the good points of other cultures. I think I have a reply to that, but it’s long and complicated and I’ll have to think hard about it.
Anyway, thanks Uh-oh, for the continued dialogue. I find it most useful to be reasonably challenged to defend what I said!