If the American system is roughly universal egoist and roughly based on the social contract model, how is a Christian to interact with it, given what we've said thus far?
I see two "zones" of interaction:
1. Where the egoist system and Christian values overlap, we should work with the system for the good of all. I would like to call this domain the "zone of concrete consequence." Murder has visible and concrete consequence. The universal egoist bans it so that no one kills him or her. The Christian supports such laws so that no one kills anyone else.
The egoist forbids stealing so that no one will steal his or her stuff. The Christian supports such laws so that no one steals anyone else's stuff.
What about the poor? The universal egoist should reasonably think about the poor for two reasons. The first is that it is always possible that he or she will become poor unexpectedly. In such case the egoist would want some system in place for them to recover.
A second reason is that the discontented have a way of revolting. In previous centuries, these were bloody indeed. "Let them eat cake" is a recipe for disaster. In our world poverty engenders crime and drug traffic.
In short, the empowerment and improvement of the disenfrancised is in everyone's ultimate best interest.
Of course as Christians this issue is a no brainer. In Luke especially Jesus especially targets the poor. When John the Baptist asks Jesus if he is the Messiah, Jesus recounts the "social" ministry he has been engaged in as proof.
Christians should support every aspect of state that empowers those either born or brought into powerlessness. We will even try to stretch the bounds of what the egoist state is willing to do.
Where the egoist system allows individuals to do what they want, as Christians we will try to walk a fine line between the freedom that is the goal of egoism and protecting others from themselves. Seat belt laws stand on a nebulous border here. There is a cultural line that will change over time.
But when there are potentially concrete negative consequences, we will work with the system to avoid them. When there are potentially concrete positive consequences, we will work with the system to reinforce them.
2. I'll call the second zone the "zone of theological consequence."
What do we do when Christian theology tells us that something is wrong, but we cannot clearly see any concrete consequence? For example, what about suicide?
On the one hand, we can plausibly set up a network of protection for those whose desire to commit suicide is chemically caused. On medication, these individuals would want us to stop them from commiting suicide--this is an area of clear consequence.
But what if a person in their "right mind" wants to commit suicide? I don't see how the egoist system could forbid him or her. But most Christians would think theologically that this is a perilous course of action. We would want to stop them. What do we do? The system really has no room for a law against such suicides (I suspect the existing laws will eventually be deemed unconstitutional), but we want to stop these individuals.
And what about homosexual sex or homosexual lust? Clearly the majority of homosexuals don't get AIDS. And in an egoist system, it is questionable that bodily damage to yourself counts if the pleasure you get offsets it. Lesbians in particular do not clearly have any concretely negative consequence for their actions.
But Christians believe that homosexual sex is inappropriate, even when it does not inflict bodily damage. Although laws against it exist, the current Supreme Court has already moved in the direction of considering such laws unconstitutional. What is a Christian to do? We believe that the practice brings eternal harm and want to influence such individuals to change. But at the same time we might have difficulty finding clearly negative concrete consequences in most cases.
We could mention many other issues where most Christians believe something is wrong that does not have demonstrably concrete consequences--or at least bad consequences that we will convince the egoist of.
For example, what of the day after pill or stem cell research? An embryo with 100 cells does not have a nerve tube and cannot feel pain. How will we convince the egoist that this embryo has an egoist claim?
What of sex between consenting adults, say between two 60 year olds whose spouses have both died? How will we convince the egoist that there are concrete consequences that mean we should outlaw this?
In this zone of theological consequence I discern two basic approaches among Christians.
Approach 1: I'll call this the Calvinist approach. Because the true Calvinist does not believe in free will, because the true Calvinist believes that God has chosen who will be saved, the sovereign model of God to the exclusion of free will applies the same model to church-state relations. The Calvinist insists on making the state conform to God's will as he or she understands it.
In our system, the Calvinist approach often tries to co-opt the system (Christ over culture). It takes it over. It tries to use the legal process to make the law conform to its theology.
If the system resists, it may take an opposing stance, Christ vs. culture. It may bomb abortion clinics or engage in civil disobedience of a more Christ-like nature.
The greatest danger with this approach is the fact that it may try to impose a will that in the end is its own rather than God's. The other danger is that this is the wrong model for understanding God. To me it is interestingly close to the fundamentalist Muslim picture of God.
Approach 2: I'll call this the free will approach. This approach does not believe that God would allow anyone to go to hell without a real chance to choose Him. He enables us at some point to make a choice for or against Him. Some choose Him; others do not. God gives humanity the freedom to choose Him for our betterment and the freedom to choose against Him to our detriment.
This approach takes a model of influence rather than force. On matters where Christian values coincide with concrete consequence it works with the system for good. On matters of theological consequence it adopts a model of influence but clear separation. God will judge the world in the end.
Its danger is that it might allow sinners to harm themselves when they might be redeemed by more active "steering." If you favor the Calvinist approach, this is also the wrong model for understanding God.
Which approach do you favor? Since I believe in the second model of God, I lean heavily toward the second model.
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4 comments:
Comment on Zone 2:
I'm not sure what kind of position I would take, but I strongly disagree with the suggestion that those with a Calvinist view of God would want to force the state to "conform to God's will as they understand it."
I do believe very strongly in God's ultimate sovereignty, so I lean Calvinist in that direction. (I also believe free will is a mysterious part of that sovereignty, but that's another story.) However, a true and thoughtful Calvinist, I think, is more likely to say that regardless of the way we impose our beliefs on the state, God will ultimately decide how the state acts, and He will decide how individuals react to state policy. It's not necessary for us to impose our belief system on the state because the state has no true power to enforce it anyway.
This doesn't mean we would shy away from influencing the state or even taking drastic action especially if the matter involved a direct charge from Scripture: "protect the innocent" etc. --and it seems like abortion is an issue set apart from the rest anyway, more difficult to categorize than, say, homosexuality.
For example, on that topic--homosexual behavior--my Calvinist-with-free-will perspective says this: Sinners will sin. This is almost exactly how you explained the Free Will approach--"God will judge the world in the end." Homosexual sex is the same as promiscuity, is the same as adultery, etc.; and although sexual sins are categorized differently in the Bible than other sins (sin against one's own body) they don't count "against" someone any more than lying, cheating, etc. Scripture is silent on how we are to treat unsaved sinners EXCEPT to spread the gospel to them, love our enemies, etc.--and the command to preach the gospel is one even the most staunch of Calvinists can't deny. Our goal then would be to proactively seek ways to bring those people to Christ--and if that requires an organization like Coming Out Straight, that helps anyone, believers or unbelievers alike, so be it--as long as "Christ is preached." Any harm a person can inflict upon himself is infinitely less bad than the harm of eternal damnation, and that's the problem to be addressed first.
Of course, we can't share the Gospel with someone who commits suicide or dies prematurely of AIDS, so part of the Gospel goal is to give people more time.
I'm not sure how all of this plays out, but I do know that the Calvinist perspective would be at least somewhat different than the way you represented it. The people I work with, who are clearly not staunch theological Calvinists and more likely lean the other way, conform more to the approach you suggested as Calvinist. I don't think there's a good line to draw between two groups of people on this issue, except perhaps that one group tends to go with the stereotypical Conservative or Evangelical norm (prayer in schools is good, homosexual marriage should be illegal, etc.) and another group tends to look at each issue individually and chooses the position that seems most Biblical.
When it comes to Zone 2, that's the position I would choose--to examine each issue and decide what kind of influence or action is required. On protecting the unborn, "influence" may not be enough (which is NOT to say we should bomb clinics). On homosexual marriage, perhaps even influencing the state is energy expended wastefully, when we should be addressing homosexuals' (and all other sinners'!) need for salvation. Perhaps, I don't know. It depends on how Scripture addresses these things. Even in a "roughly universal egoist" system, there may be some occasion for civil disobedience, if Scripture commands we do something illegal. Take the example of Canada, with a system similar to ours, where it's now a hate-crime to preach that homosexual behavior is sinful.
Wow, that was long... there goes my lunch break. :) I'm sorry if this is confusing or if some is unrelated to your post--I don't have time to read back through the whole history of this subject but I have been skimming and I read this one pretty thoroughly.
It's SO interesting to read posts like these coming from someone with Wesleyan theology. It's giving me a much better understanding of the way that theology plays out, and how an Armenian-leaning person thinks about a given topic. I do appreciate the opportunity to consider things differently, regardless of how strongly I disagree sometimes.
Emily
Thanks Emily. I'll need to reread your post again to take it all in, but I want to make it clear that I was talking about a five point Calvinist, who would not believe in free will. In particular, most Baptists are not five point Calvinists.
I need to reread your thoughts to think about what a "middle" Calvinist position might look like. Frankly, most Wesleyans would not like where I have, in my gross oversimplification, placed them!
That's true, most Baptists aren't five-point Calvinists. But I'm not exactly a middle Calvinist either. I believe in the utter and absolute and "unresistable" sovereign control of God, but I believe that free will is a part of his sovereign control of the world in a way that we can't possibly understand. I choose this because of the clear teaching of Scripture on predestination and the fairly clear implications of certain passages for free will--evidence for both sides of the argument. But if I were to err in any way, I would choose to err on the side of God's choice rather than our freedom. I may come to believe differently as I study more, though, and it's good for me to keep reading blogs like yours. So thanks for all the ideas to ponder!
Emily
Not bad.
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