Over the last few months both the Archbishop of Canterbury, episcopal head of the Church of England, and the Archbishop of Westminster, as well as Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the senior Roman Catholic cleric in Britain, have come out in strong opposition to gay marriage. Keith O’Brien, according to the Daily Mail, went so far as to suggest that “same sex unions were the ‘thin end of the wedge’ and would lead to the ‘further degeneration of society into immorality’.” (I cannot forbear remarking that this always seems to be the Roman Catholic reaction to moral change. Accordiing to its bishops and archbishops and its moral ”experts”, the seem to see every moral change as a decline into immorality and sheer chaos. They seem unable to see that many of the changes they deplore have improved life for many who were once excluded and unjustly victimised by what the religious guardians of morality think of as the moral law.) According to Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, in a letter to be read in every church in the archdiocese:
Changing the legal definition of marriage would be a profoundly radical step. Its consequences should be taken seriously now. The law helps to shape and form social and cultural values.
A change in the law would gradually and inevitably transform society’s understanding of the purpose of marriage. It would reduce it just to the commitment of the two people involved. There would be no recognition of the complementarity of male and female or that marriage is intended for the procreation and education of children.
This was reported in the Guardian. The Archbishop of Canterbury, on the other hand, holding, as he does, a post in the national church, said that the government had no mandate to change the definition of marriage, not having included this in its party manifesto. There were some members of the church, however, who felt it was high time for the church to desist in its opposition to gay marriage: a priest from Derbyshire sent a petition to the archbishops of York and Canterbury, signed by 4,000 church members, objecting to the church’s refusal to endorse same-sex marriage.
I begin with this very brief synopsis of the church’s opposition to gay marriage, because in today’s Guardian, Jonathan Chaplin, director of the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, Cambridge, has an article which claims, in its title, that “The churches’ stance on gay marriage is not homophobic” (though the address line simply includes the words ‘churches-gay marriage-homophobic’ — which comes closer to the truth). Perhaps he has Rowan Williams specifically in mind. However, when one church leader suggests that the legalisation of gay marriage would lead to “the further degeneration of society into immorality,” it is hard to justify such a stance.
Chaplin does so by trying to play the same game that is often played with women who are demanding equal recognition and rights. And so he says that
whatever the shortcomings of individual statements on the question, the churches’ opposition to gay marriage is now facing the undiscriminating charge that it is driven by “homophobia”. In fact, most of their public statements on the matter are only attempts to re-articulate what has long been the most fundamental and enduring principle of Christian (and Jewish) sexual ethics, which is that human beings have been created in such a way that sexual union is appropriately enjoyed in the context of permanent heterosexual commitment. This principle is as much a restraint on heterosexual behaviour as it is on homosexual behaviour (although the churches’ voice on the latter would have been a good deal more compelling had they demonstrated a more consistent track record on the former). [my italics]
But if, as Chaplin says, the letter to the Prime Minister from the organisation Anglican Mainstream misrepresented the church’s record in welcoming gay people into the church, so does this misrepresent the principle “that sexual union is appropriately enjoyed [only] in the context of permanent heterosexual commitment.” If he had included the word ‘only’, as I have done in square brackets, we would be getting a bit closer to the truth, and it is this missing word which makes it very clear that it is not, as Chaplin says, “as much a restraint on heterosexual behaviour as it is on homosexual behaviour.” Nor does the reiteration of this traditional claim about the appropriate uses of sexuality serve to show that the church’s response is not, in fact, homophobic, for that it is precisely what it is.
In response to this likely criticism, Chaplin goes on to say:
But a position that has shaped one of the most formative ethical practices of western culture cannot be presumptively dismissed as driven by mere prejudice. That is an evasion of reasoned debate.
This simply does not follow. Why can it not be dismissed as an expression of mere prejudice, if that is what it is? One of the most formative ethical practices of western culture was that women should remain at home and look after household and children. To suggest that movements towards the ordination of women were not — and are still not – driven largely by prejudice is not at all obvious. Yes, indeed, excuses, or a tenuous rationale, can be given for restricting the priesthood to men, such as that Jesus was a man, and so were all the apostles; but it is hard not to see that the underlying energy behind the opposition to women priests or bishops is principally misogyny plain and simple.
The rest of Chaplin’s article is, it seems to me, simply confused. He records the changes in the understanding of marriage that have occurred over time, including, for example, the acceptance of divorce and remarriage. And then he suggests that perhaps marriage itself should be removed from the purview of the state, which would then be concerned with civil partnerships, whilst the churches, presumably, would govern the practice of marriage. As he says:
A more radical option would be a universal regime of civil partnerships (open to both heterosexual and homosexual couples, and possibly other household relationships) in which “marriage” is withdrawn from the state’s purview, yet with the state remaining fully responsible for the protection of the interests of children or separating partners.
But if he cannot see that this suggestion is governed almost wholly by homophobia, leaving the church in sole possession of marriage, its definition, and limits, then he appears to be morally blind in a way that does not reflect at all well on his purposes in writing the article in the first place. Possibly, as this suggests, the whole complex of human relationships and their relationship to the law, needs to be re-examined, and that, while marriage has served society well until recently, it is now no longer tenable as a way of establishing the kinds of relationships necessary for the protection of children, their education and upbringing, as well as the fostering of flourishing relationships. But to suggest, as he does, that the churches should be left in sole possession of the paradigm of committed relationships, is governed, to a greater extent than Chaplin thinks, by the churches’ inability to recognise the roles that sexuality plays in people’s lives, roles, many of them, which were — and often still are — regarded as perverse and immoral, and are only now beginning to be understood more fully, so that ways of governing relationships, so that people’s lives will flourish, can be changed in ways that accommodate new information and knowledge, and new appreciations of what it is that people are seeking in committed relatioships.
Whenever I think of these matters, my mind turns to people like Alan Turing, a brilliant man who was nothing short of one of the greatest heroes of the Second World War, and yet who, because of his homosexuality, was forced to choose between prison and chemical castration. He opted, instead, to die. He should have been given medals, and at least made a knight if not a lord. Can Chaplin not see that this was a senseless death, based on false premises about human sexuality — false premises that the churches still seem unable simply to revise in the light of new information? This is what homophobia looks like, and to suggest that the churches should simply be left to adjust to changing circumstances is not acceptable. Churches must recognise that they are not, and cannot be, the guardians of morality, and that their inability to get beyond the narrow confines of their theological prison houses is not only retrograde, but damaging to too many good people, who seek to live their lives in peace, and without the contempt that ancient taboos impose upon them.
I always forget that governments in other western countries are still debating same sex marriage since, in Canada, in 2005 “Bill C-38, the law giving same-sex couples the legal right to marry, receive[d] royal assent and [became] law.”
The opposition to passing this law was and remains intense. If I remember correctly, John Paul II, during a visit to Canada, spoke to Jean Chretien directly about passing the bill.
See http://www.michaeljournal.org/samesex.htm, which has information about the RCC’s stand on same-sex marriage and the way Catholic politicians should conduct themselves when “[f]aced with legislative proposals in favour of homosexual unions.”
Well put, but closed minds (i.e. Religious Experts happily wielding power) are unwilling to question any of their assumptions and acquired ‘Truths’. The research findings are certainly beginning to intimate strongly that morality is not externally derived at all, but that it is part of our biological makeup. Homosexual behaviour has long been documented in species other than humans, and now is also looking more and more like a ‘biological given’ rather than a deliberated choice of sexual expression. When one has power and is convinced one (i.e. Religious Expert) is right, whence the imperative to become educated? There is little hope in that direction. I do not think reasoned argument will affect these people at all, no matter how beautifully written and logically sound our discourse.
What I feel we must do is to educate our children to understand the process of critical thinking and give them the ability to question ‘Truths’ that are being thrown at them without solid evidence to back these claims up.
As I work in the computer field, Alan Turing has long been on my hero list. I distinctly remember the utter misery I felt when I first read about his trials as a gay man and his suicide. What horrible persecution of a good person (as well as a huge loss to computer science). This atrocity happened not 500 years ago, when the level of scientific ignorance was much higher, but in my own lifetime! It is not pleasant to know that similar witch-hunts, justified on religious grounds, are still happening in many countries.
Another solution (for the UK) would be to establish civil marriage as the only marriage recognised in law (for inheritance, tax matters, childcare/support, social benefits, etc.). Religions can have whatever religious ceremony they want but cannot be licensed (and get fees!) for legally recognised civil marriages.
I wonder how well that would go down?
And if the churches are not “guardians of morality,” who is? Let’s face it. On a secular basis there is not such thing as “morality” as an objective, universally binding code of behavior. Do we really want to leave moral decisions to the politicians?
Bob
Let’s face it. Posts and comments on this website have demonstrated numerous times how immoral and duplicitous church leaders are. If, as you maintain the churches are the guardians of morality, then why not other religions.
Re: “Do we really want to leave moral decisions to the politicians?”
You forget, most politicians are religious and many times they act the way their religion tells them to act.
@DiscoveredJ
As I understand it, the weird thing about the UK is that you can get a marriage done in a Church of England church, and it is legally binding. In America, you go to the courthouse and get a few forms, have the ceremony of your choice, and then return the filled out form to the court house.
I think part of the reason that the CoE opposes gay marriage is not just its stupid biblical reasoning, but because their homophobia will directly impact their position as the official Church of England. Suddenly the state will be allowing marriages that the CoE refuses to conduct for its own parishioners, and it makes sense that not only would they see gay marriage as something they hate because they hate gay people, but because their refusal compromises their general mission to provide religious services for all British citizens and makes them appear to be just one more shabby church amongst many. But honestly, that’s a great thing… its ridiculous that British students have to attend Anglican services as part of their school, that Bishops sit in the House of Lords (and really, that there is a House of Lords), and that the showhead monarch has to be tied to a state church. Its all nonsense that distracts from good governance, and it should all be swept under the rug. Sadly, I don’t think it will happen until everyone is so over the CoE its just a non issue.
Bob, It is the 2000CE, not 2000 BCE. We have learn many, many things absent from the “morality” of religion – like homosexuality is perfectly natural. Please try to keep up.
Bob, it’s the sheer presumption of your remark that astonishes me. On what basis could you reasonably claim the church — and which one? — to be the guardian of morality? You say there is no secular basis for “an objective, universally binding code of behavior.” But there’s no religious basis for such a thing either.
Besides, to be objective does not mean that it is absolute. We can have disputes about the rightness or wrongness of something without giving in to the notion that it must be, if objective, written into a universally binding code of behaviour. Indeed, universally binding codes of behaviour are without exception, occasions for inhumanity and cruelty.
But take any church you like, and then consider its involvement in various crimes and misdemeanours, and then ask whether or not such an institution can reasonably be thought to be the guardian of morality. It’s laughable, and it is presumptuous of churches to think that they somehow have a presumptive right to play this role. Religions, worldwide, are involved in so much immoral behaviour — the Roman Catholic Church, for instance, not only in the widespread coverup of the abuse and rape of children, but involved at various level with political criminals — as Franco in Italy, the Ustasha in Yugoslavia (Croatia), Mussolini in Italy, various dictatorial regimes in South America — besides its misogyny and homophobia, its absurd celibacy requirements (but seldom kept, I suspect) for priests and other leaders, makes it one of the least reasonable options as moral guide.
But we could go through other churches and religions and make a similar catalogue. The idea that churches should perform this function is absurd, even though this is what they continue to claim — with equal absurdity. We don’t need absolute grounds for morals. But that morality is a human creation does not diminish its objectivity. It is a little bit silly to require of morality a kind of absoluteness and universality which is inappropriate to the function that morality serves in human relationships.
If you believe — wrongly, as it turns out — that human beings have an essence, and that this essence is to have an end and purpose in relation to which we are to understand the good for human beings, then you may be able to come up with some plausible list of moral demands. So the Roman Catholic Church believes that one of the purposes for which we exist is so that more lives like ours can be born into the world, so the use of our sexuality for any other purpose is forbidden, and the use of artificial means of birth control is, accordingly, an abuse of human dignity. This, I think, is laughable, but it is the kind of knot you get yourself tied up into when you think you can define absolute moral rules. Not only are most people not going to observe this absurd restriction; it is doing positive harm to human societies and to the earth. It is as immoral as immoral gets to tell people that birth control is an offence against human dignity. And yet this is what popes since 1930 have claimed. They are evil men, in my view, and are precisely the kind of men we want not to be guardians of morals.
Bob Wheeler
At least we can, in principle, vote an unsatisfactory politician out of office if we don’t approve of his moral decisions. I know of no process for ordinary people to remove the Pope or the Arch Bishop of Canterbury (etc.)
Bob, I see you’re still confusing as synonyms ‘legal discrimination’ and ‘morality’. Until you realize that they are not the same thing, you will be struck on this 2000 year old merry-go-round where you argue that black is another kind of white and up, squinting just so, really means down. Your ongoing confusion is evidence that you should take seriously rather than dismiss out of hand under some feeble excuse that shifts the blame elsewhere and think yourself pious for doing so.
The Bible isn’t explicitly against homosexual marriage. You know what kind of marriage the Bible is explicitly against? Interracial/interfaith marriages. If these religious people were taking their religion seriously they should be petitioning to reintroduce miscegenation laws.
The thing about the CofE and issues of moral progress is that they unerringly pick the wrong side to fight on. When society makes a step forward in spite of their opposition, they then wait until the details of the battle have been forgotten before quietly swapping sides and then claiming that they were with the good guys from the start.
Bob: You can let your church leaders be the arbiter of YOUR morality. No gay marriage for you, Bob. No abortion, no contraception, no stem cell research, don’t masturbate, don’t even THINK about eating meat on Fridays during Lent, take your hat OFF in church.
Your church has ZERO RIGHT to tell me — a nonadherent, nonbeliever — what to do on any front. Not who to love, not how to love them, not what rights we may or may not be allowed to have, not what food I can or cannot eat, nor when or where I may or may not wear hats. None of it.
Mind your own fucking business. Is that clear, Bob? Your church has NO AUTHORITY over me. NONE.
I’m sorry for the shouting, but you appear to be too stupid to understand this simple concept. Your church DOES NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO.
Our morality does not come from “the church”. As others rightly point out, which church? After all, Muslims would have your wife wear a hajib, have you pray 5 times a day facing Mecca, eschew all alcohol and pork, and wear hats in the mosque.
Who are you to say that their moral code should be followed instead of yours? You can say “well, America is a Christian nation,” but no, that doesn’t work, because god is a pan-national concept, and moral codes handed down from religions do not respect national boundaries. So you have to prove (with EVIDENCE) your religion is the “correct” one — and you can’t do that. You can’t even prove that your god exists, nor that his half-god baby boy actually visited Earth corporeally.
So, I’m saying neither you nor the Muslims have a right to tell me what my moral code should be. And so does the US Constitution. Nor the Hindi, nor the Buddhists, nor the Sikhs, nor the Jains, nor the Bahai, nor the $cientologists (recognized as a religion by the US government), nor the Wiccans, nor the druids, nor the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. None of them. None.
It’s the US Constitution that says so, Bob. You claiming otherwise is tantamount to sedition.
You’re quite free to leave this country for one that is ruled as a theocracy if you disagree. I hear Vatican City is quite nice — though the rents are probably too high for you.
I, for one, won’t miss you one bit.
I sometimes think that church leaders take the pain that their policies impose on people as a measure of their righteousness. When I was young and teaching in a Catholic school, I had a friend who was at risk for Huntington Disease. She had decided that she would not have children, because she didn’t want to risk putting another child through the anxiety that she had experienced. (This is a common decision of people at risk.) At a workshop on Catholic marriage, I asked the priest presiding whether, having made her decision, my friend could be married in the Church. (Not that she wanted to be. Although raised Catholic, living with her father’s disease taught her all she needed to know about whether there is a loving God.) The priest did not hesitate to reply that, no, that would not be possible. A Catholic marriage must be open to children. I remember thinking: So you would take a woman’s commitment not to burden a future generation as reason to shun her.
Natural law is just that. It is what prevailed before we were civilized and realized that (Steven Pinker) Morality is rooted in the interchangeability of perspectives: the fact that an intelligent social agent, in dealing with other such agents, has no grounds for privileging his interests over theirs.
Well first of all I hope everyone understands that I am not a Catholic and I have no intention of defending papal infallibility or the idea of “implicit faith.” I am a Protestant and believe the the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice, and each individual may interpret it for himself.
No church is perfect. Any church is made up of human beings and are subject to human error. The usual problem is that we are too much a part of our local culture, and churches usually err on the side of not condemning systemic social injustice. State churches, in particular, tend to become instruments of state policy. But in any given society there is usually one religion that predominates, and the leaders of that religion have a responsibility to God and society to state clearly what they believe to be moral truth. If they do not speak out against injustice, it is unlikely that many others will. Remove the influence of religion from politics, and public policy decisions will be made on the basis of economics.
So, was William Wilberforce wrong to speak out against the slave trade? Shouldn’t he have kept his moral opinions to himself?
Fuck you, Bob. One statement by one guy against slavery does not qualify you or your religion to decide what moral code I should live by.
Eric: I sincerely apologize for the anger. But Bob is the worst of the worst. The most unthinking, egregiously self-absorbed of all the self-absorbed assholes who think their church’s religious morality qualifies for all of us.
Bob: It wasn’t about fucking LENT. And even then, you fail to see the problem. The Catholic Church says don’t eat meat on Friday during LENT, Bob. THEIR moral code, Bob. Why is THEIR moral code worse than yours, Bob? But no. You don’t see the disconnect, do you? You only see that “well, that’s not MY religious code”.
You fucking asshole. YOU DON’T GET IT. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO. EVER. NOT ONE THING.
Bob, you puzzle me. You ask who else will be the “guardians” of morality? But taking a moral stand, as Wilberforce did, does not qualify the Church of England (of which he was an evangelical member) as the guardian of morality. It was simply one man and a few of his supporters who took up a cause, as anyone might or should who sees something that he considers to be morally wrong, as slavery undoubtedly was. But remember it was the church and Christians generally who defended and supported slavery for so long. And one might ask how much Wilberforce’s position was influenced by the Enlightenment and the growing push for individual freedoms. That doesn’t mean, however, that Christians or Jews or a person of any religion may not have moral insights. As human beings, of course they do, and as such, should take a lead where they can. But still the point needs to be made that the church and religion as such very often stands in the way of moral progress, and this is something that disqualifies them, or any other institution, as guardians of morality.
Having said that, I do think, Kevin, that it would be helpful to moderate your tone, even when you get very frustrated with what others are saying. I don’t think Bob understands what he is saying, to be quite frank. He speaks of the church as moral guardian, and then acknowledges that there is no such thing as “the” church, as I have already pointed out. My concern is that the church — and in the West it is the Roman Catholic Church that wields the most power — already tells us, to too great an extent, what we ought to do. That is one of the chief reasons that I write this blog, namely, that the church governs what happens when people are dying. It is almost exclusively the religious voices that are heeded in this area, and it is their voices, more than any others, that determines how people die. Their effect on moral change and progress is stultifying, and it makes me angry too. However, when you get very angry, as I know to my cost, you actually cede ground to your opponent, and I have no intention of ceding ground to Bob Wheeler, who, it seems to me, is confused over the nature of morality, as well as the role of various religious institutions in enforcing their moral priorities to the detriment of others. As Tildeb says, Bob is confusing morality and law, or, as he says, ‘legal discrimination.’ There is an important connexion between morality and law, and that’s one reason it is important to make it clear that churches and other religious bodies should have not prerogative when it comes to making law, for churches and other religions can speak only for their members, but law is coercive, and applies to all citizens equally (or should).
What I want Bob to explain to me is the difference between a ‘moral decision’ and a rational one. If moral decisions are always rational, then it seems to me we don’t need a ‘moral code’, no matter where it comes from; we just need logic and reason. But if moral decisions aren’t rational, then they’re not the right decisions to make, and we shouldn’t be making them anyway, so again we don’t need a moral code. Can a decision be morally right and logically wrong, or vice versa?
Well, Corio, I wouldn’t want to second-guess Bob on this, but I suppose there is nothing wrong with having both rational means of settling ethical disputes, as well as “codes” or systems of virtues, as a kind of underlying structure to define where “the ethical” begins and ends. Not that the codes or virtues would be absolute prescriptions or proscriptions, for they too would be open to revision and refutation. But moral systems tend to be cultural achievements, and therefore provide for both a rational dimension as well as a reasonably well established system of rules, roles and expectations. What Bob seems to be suggesting is that in order to have such a system, we would have to accord it an absoluteness and universality which in fact applies to nothing that human beings construct — including, of course, science, which, however sure its conclusions, will continue to undergo change and revision as we learn more.
I would basically agree with what Eric just said, except, of course, with the part about my alleged “confusion.” Ethics involves a rule of conduct — when faced with a decision what should I do? And the question is unavoidable because we all have to make ethical decisions. But it does raise two further questions. 1. How do we arrive at this rule of conduct? And 2) is there a universal rule of conduct, one that is applicable to all human beings (and governments)?
Looking at it from a theistic standpoint, God’s will is normative. But since God is infinite and holy, and we are not, our perception of God’s will will always be flawed and imperfect, the claims of the papacy notwithstanding. Every human institution, churches included, are prone to moral failure, and none can claim infallibility. But what we as a human society cannot afford to do is simply to walk away from the question and say that morality does not matter. We would be denying our own humanity if we did so. And so we must keep asking the questions and looking for the answers. And in most societies theologians are more likely to have thought through the issues than others, and active church members are more likely to support reform movements than those who are motivated by purely economic concerns.
A democratic society tends to operate on the principle of “vox populi, vox Dei,” and perhaps as a result of that its laws almost never reflect a perfect standard of morality. But we treasure the freedom of speech, every citizen has a right to have his voice be heard, and the final decision reflects the consensus of the majority, rightly or wrongly. But I cannot help but admire the achievement of a Wilberforce, who had the patience and the fortitude to work through the democratic process to accomplish a beneficial result, and I’m sure that his personal religious convictions at least gave him the motive to see it through to the end. (It took him 30 years, if I recall correctly).
I also appreciate Eric’s admonition to temper our remarks. I think that what makes blogging interesting and worthwhile is the interplay between opposing viewpoints, and I think that Eric’s blog is one of the more interesting ones out there. My policy is never to respond to personal attacks, but I try to keep the discussion on point. Nothing is gained by a shouting match. Thanks, Eric!
Bob, I still think you’re confused. You think morality must be a system of rules, and while, of course, rules might be useful mnemonics, there is no reason to think that rules are fundamental. Different moral principles may give rise to rules used as convenient guides of moral behaviour, but it would be wrong to think of the rules as somehow foundational. That’s why the question about the source of the rules is a bit misleading, especially if you make this mistake of thinking that there must be a “vocal” source of such rules, whether the voice of god or the voice of popular opinion. As to the voice of god, there is no reasonable basis upon which the declarations of such a voice can be distinguished from other voices. And admire Wilberforce as you might, I think the question that needs to be asked, even about Wilberforce and the Quakers who preceding him in opposition to slavery, is whether, without the Enlightenment, even a Wilberforce would have seen moral obscenity of slavery? Recall that the first emancipation of slaves — which sadly didn’t last very long — was declared by the revolutionary Convention in Paris in 1794, after the failure to bring the situation in St. Dominique under control, and there were many arguments against slavery in the 18th century before this. So, Wilberforce’s opposition to slavery, while it may have had a religious basis, also had a cultural context in which ancient institutions were being put to the test. The generality of Christians still seemed to support slavery, which is not surprising, noting that there is no opposition to slavery in either the Old or the New Testaments of the Christian Bible, and much that supports it. It is possible to say, after the fact, that the gospel of Jesus was one of liberation, but it is not easy to say that without the cultural changes which preceded Wilberforce’s actions, noble as these were.
Another point where you are terribly wrong is in this comment:
The truth is that moral theologians do not think about these issues through in the way that is done by philosophy, and there is a very vital tradition of moral philosophy extending all the way from the Greeks to the present. Here is where ethics and morality really get the kind of close reading that is necessary, and it is only here that we can expect to find any worthwhile well-grounded principles. The churches and other religions are the last place to look, because taking gods as moral experts is reallly transferring to people who claim (on no basis) to speak for gods the authority that they claim for their gods, a solution which only makes our morality more perilously unsubstantiated.
It is because you seem completely ignorant of these facts that I think you, Bob, are terribly confused about morals. You need to pay closer attention to serious moral philosophy and the study of rational grounds for our moral convictions.
One problem I see is the assumption (in Bob’s case the Bible) that a book is true before reading it and then after reading it not testing it against nature. A long time ago when literacy was very low and books very rare, books would seem magical and one might assume, given the time and effort needed to produce a book, only “true” ones would be produced or preserved. Unfortunately this is not the case. The Bible is good evidence against this; Bob dismisses the overwhelming evidence from the historical sciences contradicting the Bible. The Bible couldn’t be more wrong.
A useful analogy might be made with paleontology. The fossils uncovered are only a fraction of the species which have ever lived, and their preservation is often due to luck, not because they are “better” than other organisms. The same could be said for books; only a small number of ancient texts have survived and we have no reason to assume that each survived because it was the “best” or “truest” of the books available. Just because something is written and preserved (like religious texts) doesn’t mean they are true – they still need to be tested against the world.
Many people can be fooled by historical preservation. In an attempt to remove any evidence of religious hostility toward science, some historians have tried to claim that religious leaders did not oppose heliocentrism due to religion, but due to science. That the science at the time was really stacked against heliocentrism. We do know that heliocentrism was proposed in Greece, but we don’t know exactly why geocentrism won out – was it luck in which texts were preserved? was it that geocentrists were better funded or had more fanatical followers? or was it because it better fit the data? When geocentrism arrived in Christian universities was it accepted on science? – given that they weren’t practicing science then and accepted the medical nonsense of someone like Galen, it seems unlikely – or because it conformed to the Bible? – much more likely. What would have been their reception if the texts supported heliocentrism?
The moral – don’t believe anything is true without testing it or understanding how someone else tested it. And don’t ever believe anyone who claims a god revealed something to him or her.
@Bob Wheeler
“I am a Protestant and believe the the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice, and each individual may interpret it for himself.”
So how exactly have you come to the conclusion that slavery is immoral? The Bible does not contain a single unambiguous statement that opposes the practice. The Bible also contains numerous passages that unambiguously state that the practice of slavery is totally acceptable. Presumably, having used your own intelligence to reach the conclusion that slavery is wrong, you then “interpret” the Bible so that it agrees with this conclusion. Even when this “interpretation involves pretending that the Bible says the precise opposite of what it actually says.
“So, was William Wilberforce wrong to speak out against the slave trade? Shouldn’t he have kept his moral opinions to himself?”
Firstly it is important to point out that, at that time, Anglicans and only Anglicans were allowed to be Members of Parliament. Therefore it is a moot point that the person who succeeded in getting slavery abolished was a Christian. Since all non-Christians were excluded from the legislative process it would have to be.
Second, your assertion that the Church were the leaders on moral issues such as this one is simply false. Atheists, Quakers and Non Conformists were at the head of the campaign. The established Church owned plantations and slaves and were opposed to abolition. When the laws against slavery were passed despite their opposition, the Bishops demanded compensation for the value of the slaves that they were forced to set free, and got it.
As I pointed out in my earlier post, The CofE fought tooth and nail against slavery being abolished, but now, in the tweny-first century, when slavery is universally considered to be a collosal moral evil, they cite Wilberforce as the lone Christian who the CofE sided with all along.
I forgot to mention the book ‘Bury the Chains’ subtitle ‘The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery’ by Adam Hochschild. ISBN 0 333 90491 5. Those who would give the credit for abolition to Christianity would do well to read it.
Also worth mentioning, Christianity became pretty much all powerful after the conversion of Constantine in the fourth century. Why did we have to wait fourteen hundred years for slavery to be abolished? Is it possible that the enlightenement had slightly more influence?
Slavery was never abolished, as there was no slavery law in Britain to abolish. The abolition act was meant for the colonies, and the term slave was renamed to apprentice laborers, and the compensation went to the slave owners for doing so.
Slavery still exists today, only it’s called work, unless of course you’re lucky enough to be able not to work, or you own your own ‘workers’.
Bob is basically correct about rules. Morality must be rule-based, because morality is not completely meaningless. However, those rules are subconscious and made up by our individual histories of negotiating dynamic social interactions (usually based on power conflicts). Since they’re socially based, they can be understood in context of cultures or groups. The conscious rules that we come up with are post hoc rationalizations for our actions, but ultimately we go smoothly through life because we learned in childhood how to navigate the moral grammar.
The question raised by Stonyground is indeed a good one. If my premises are correct, that morality is a matter of the will of God, and that the Bible is the authoritative revelation from God, then the opposition to slavery must be deduced from Scripture, and Scripture must not be used as a post hoc rationalization.
It is perfectly true that Scripture does not condemn slavery per se. Probably the best answer I can give to the question is the one supplied by Charles Hodge, the 19th Century American Presbyterian theologian, in his commentary on Eph. 6:5,6 (“Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh . . .”; NASV). (Hodge’s commentary was written in 1856, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War, at a time when the Presbyterian Church, like other American denominations, was deeply divided over the issue.) Hodge noted that slavery was “neither enjoined nor forbidden; it is simply assumed to be lawful . . ” He then went on to say “The Bible method of dealing with this and similar institutions is to enforce on all concerned the great principles of moral obligation, — assured that those principles, if allowed free scope, will put an end to all evils both in the political and social relations of men.” In other words, Christianity exists in a world of civil institutions, and unlike Islam, the primary aim of Christianity is not to change those institutions. Rather, the Bible spells out our duties within those institutions. As the influence of Christianity becomes more pervasive, inhumane conditions within those institutions will be ameliorated.
Interestingly, one of the leading southern Presbyterian theologians of the time, James Henley Thornwell, had long insisted that the church, as the church, had no right to speak out on political issues. He was finally led to do so when the governor of South Carolina proclaimed a day of fasting and prayer to be held on Nov. 21, 1860, on the eve of the Civil War. Thornwell delivered a “Sermon on National Sins” in which he reiterated his opposition to churches’ involvement in politics, defended the institution of slavery, per se, but then asked this question:”Have we, as a people and a State, discharged our duty to our slaves?” He then affirmed the common descent of all of humanity from Adam, and then asked “whether we have rendered to our servants that which is just and equal.. . . Are our laws such that we can heartily approve them in the presence of God?” He then mentioned several specific issues: physical protection, the right to a fair trial, the sanctity of marriage, and access to religious instruction. He went on to say “. . . it becomes us this day to review our history, and the history of our legislation, in the light of God’s truth, and to abandon, with ingenuous sincerity, whatever our consciences cannot sanction.” (Thornwell agreed with Egbert — he argued that the system of free labor in the North was not necessarily more humane than slavery, not because it forced people to work, but because it didn’t care whether or not they starved when they were out of work).
If Eric’s argument is correct, Thornwell had no right to say anything at all on the subject.
What Wilberforce had specifically attacked was the slave trade, in which Britain was heavily involved. If he had waited for the philosophers to reach a consensus on the issue, he would probably would still be waiting today. And if he had read Hume, he probably would have buried his head in his hands and despaired of finding an answer at all!
I guess when I say that the “Church” is the guardian of morality I forget that many of the commentators of this blog are from British Commonwealth countries, and understand the word “Church” in a sense different from what we do in the US. In British terms I would be considered a Non-Conformist (a Baptist, specifically). Unlike Anglicans, we think of the “church” as something that embraces more than the legally recognized institution in England.
Bob, you’ve really lost me now. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Take this, for instance:
This is simply an article of faith, and it needs empirical support — support which, I think, you cannot find. The status of women did not improve under the influence of Christianity. Indeed, there is evidence that it was degraded by Christianity. The condition of slaves did not improve under Christianity. What evidence do you have that it did?
As for your claim that, on my argument, Thornwell had no right to say anything on the subject. My point has simply been that the religious basis for moral norms has no place in liberal democracy. So the fact that “God” is held to have said something is simply intrusive in discourse which should be carried out in terms that do not presuppose the specific metaphysical assumptions of the dicussants. Thornwell has every right to say to others of the his fellow believers what is or is not in accord with Christian conscience, but whether or not something is in accord with Christian conscience is not a basis upon which laws may be founded.
The point of this is simple. Laws are coercive, and they cannot be premised on presuppositions which cannot be shared. So the idea that life is from God, and only God can take it away, is inapplicable to questions of whether or not assisted dying can or should be legalised. My point about your confusion is that you seem not to see that morality can be based on other than religious premises. If that were correct, then we are indeed in a pickle, because there are so many conflicting religious imperatives, and there is no basis for claiming that some of them are truly god-given whilst others are not. It is a hopeless task. The only way forward that stands any chance of success at reaching moral truth is one that eschews religious presuppositions entirely. Many Muslim countries are now voting into office parties that promise that Sharia (religious) law will be the basis of civil law. This means that all other people living within the boundaries of those states will be forced to live under religious law, laws believed only by Muslims to be god-given. Yet many of us, I believe, hold those laws, at least in many of their parts, to be barbaric, just as I believe that Roman Catholic morality is. I think they are rightly so held. And yet you are saying that there is no other basis for law. This, it seems to me, is sheer confusion, and ignores the fact that the supposed basis of religious law is an ignis fatuus, and that we must find a sounder basis for morality as well as for law.
You say:
In fact, you are wrong. The religious mind is just as divided as philosophy, and has always been. The difference is that philosophers must argue rationally for their conclusions, and cannot base their conclusions on supposed revelations from putative gods. If Wilberforce had waited for consensus amonst Christians about slavery, we would probably still be waiting today — to reflect your own thought back to you. What tipped the balance in the case of Wilberforce was the far greater reach of secular, philosophical thinking about these matters in the 18th and 19th centuries. He did not need to rely on religious arguments, but on considerations that could be seen to be true based simply upon secular reasoning. That is why I suggest — and it astonishes me that this is not more widely recognised — that, without the Enlightenment, the abolition of slavery would not have come so soon as it did. Indeed, in the United States, it lasted somewhat longer, precisely, I think, because of the greater religiosity of Americans — something that is as true today over questions like evolution.
One of the most interesting things about the abolition of slavery movement is that amongst Christians it was, to a greater extent than is realised, based on the fear of racial miscegenation and concerns about sexual purity, more than upon the idea of equal rights. The free availability of slave women to white owners was a matter of grave moral concern, and it was this that repulsed the Christian imagination as much as the evils of slavery, and the treatment of human beings as property. It is also interesting that it took nearly another hundred years before women were included in the franchise of democratic electorates, notwithstanding Christianity.
Lastly, I do not think there is any confusion in this discussion about ideas of “church” and “chapel”. The problem is that religion is a wildly diverse phenomenon. The “church” — conceived of simply as the compound of all the various denominations and sects — is unable to be the guardian of morality precisely because of this plural character, and because the discussion of morality amongst Christians is as divisive there as in the wider society. The difference is that the basis for moral disagreements amongst Christians has no clear rational ground, and is based on a diversity of interpretations of sacred texts. The Roman Catholic Church has the most “rational” morality, since it has accepted almost as a whole the supposedly rational morality developed on the basis of Aristotle by Thomas Aquinas.
Egbert, I think you hopelessly confuse matters by insisting that slavery was not abolished but turned into work. In some cases indentured servitude was substituted for slavery — in the West Indies, for example — but not even indentured servants were slaves, and their children and children’s children are now free, which explains the large number of East Indians in Trinidad and Jamaica. That the labouring classes were unjustly treated, and still often are, does not turn them into slaves, even though they have not shared justly in the fruits of their labour.
The other place where I must take issue with you has to do with the place of rules in morality. Morality is not rule-based, but it may have rules. Rules, however, must be justified by some principle (or principles) or other, whether equality, utility, justice, fairness, or what have you. Even virtues, which are in a sense the behavioural instantiations of rules, must be based on more basic principles. For instance, in Kitcher’s The Ethical Project, morality and normative thinking originated in the need to regulate behaviour to minimize failures of altruism. In this respect, he distinguishes between biological altruism, behavioural altruism and psychological altruism. Biological altruism comes first,and is observable in several species of animals. It does not require cognitive abilities. Behavioural altruism requires the abililty to act in accordance with rules (or in response to orders). Psychological altruism is a logical step up from behavioural altruism — Kitcher defines it very precisely — and includes not just conformity to rules, or obedience to orders, but includes the intentions of the agent with respect to the interests of others. This is far more complex than I can outline here, and more complex than I yet understand with any completeness, but it does distinguish, importantly, between rule governed behaviour and normative guidance, between merely behavioural and truly psychological altruism. This is not the place to enlarge upon this, but it does help us to see the role that rules may play in a moral guidance system, and the fact that this role is less determinative of the nature of morality than other considerations.
If people follow rules out of survival, then I think it’s fair to say that there does not need to be any principle behind them.
Egbert, you misunderstand. Kitcher is — and, by association, I am — speaking about the genealogy of morals, the process by which humans made the transition from biological and behavioural altruism to psychological altruism and the capacity for normative guidance. It is not simply a matter of survival — which could be a simple truth functional, either/or choice between alternative courses of action (as in the presence of a predator). At some point on the trajectory from the primitive past to the more complex cultural present, normative principles entered the moral picture, so that it became a matter of applying principles — and increasingly higher order principles — to actions, and not simply a matter of rule guided behaviour intended to ensure survival. We have other interests besides survival, because there are very specific respects in which our lives can go well or badly, and with respect to these rules are simply not sensitive enough to respond to situations which may be interpreted in many different ways. There we need principles, and quite sensitively targetted principles, to guide our application of rules or the development of virtues.
One of the problems, as I see it, with religious morality, is that it tends to be a matter of rule governed behaviour, which is a hangover from more primitive ways of ordering human behaviour. Hence lists of rules like the Ten Commandments. These are blunt tools, however, to be used in many moral situations, as is evidenced by the fact that, in the application of its rules, the Roman Catholic and many other churches, fail to see the distinction between helping someone to die and murder. This is the problem with rules. They are like stone axes where only scalpels will do. I take especially the RC Church to task in this respect, for its natural law theory of morality works with a rule-governed ordering to specific ends type of moral calculus which tends to rule out careful distinctions — such as that between rape and making love, or helping to die vs. murder — and of course even more sensitive distinctions than these where it seems called for.
Eric, for example, suppose a toddler were about to put her hand in a flame, because she’s unaware of what a flame is, then she may learn through pain not to put her hand there. Or, if her mother was present, and her mother cared, then her mother may respond forcefully or loudly not to put hands in flames. The child obeys her mother because she fears her mother or respects her mother’s wisdom, or the child disobeys but learns the consequences of such disobedience. A rule is generated in her memory not to put the hand in the flame.
Egbert, no question, of course, stimulus-response learning can be as effective with human beings as it is with dogs; but supposing that morality is simply a matter of stimulus-response survivability training is to misunderstand morality. That doesn’t diminish the importance of either rules or virtues, but they need to be supplemented by principles which make them more sensitive instruments for assessing what is right and wrong in the context of very complex human relationships, both personal and political. When I functioned as a priest I was often faced with people who extolled the ten commandments, as though they were, in themselves, sufficient to guide our moral lives. But of course they are not, because they do not make the careful distinctions which principled action requires. Morality cannot, in the end, be a matter of rules, for human relationships are much too complex. Indeed, I suspect that one reason why there is so much moral uncertainty is simply because people think that morality should be rule governed, but when faced with real life and its complexities the rules do not have obvious application, and action based on them is either too certain, and often rough and cruel, or too uncertain, and caught, like Buridan’s ass, between two or more equally compelling options. The “I was only following orders” (“obeying the rules”) defence is not particularly convincing, but, of course, if that is what people are taught, then it is not surprising to find it used.
Eric, the comment section is not the best way to try and explain one’s position, and of course I don’t simply believe that morality is based only on simple stimulus responses, what I’ve tried to do is give a simple example of where I believe morals originate.
As I’ve tried to say elsewhere, people don’t follow consciously made rules, they follow subconscious rules learned by experience and through interactions with others. Sometimes those unconscious rules change dynamically. Conscious rules or principles or virtues are rationalizations made after the fact.
Religious people are no different to you or I when it comes to morality, they follow they same cultural conditioning as we do. But they use their scriptures to rationalize their attitudes and actions, whether selfish or altruistic, both are ‘christian virtues’ depending on context.
What makes religion ‘evil’ is when it gains power over us, and then uses force against us, just like any tyranny, not for our well-being, but against our well-being.
Postulating a set of ‘rules’ simply moves the same question up a level, though, doesn’t it? “Here are your moral rules. Now, why should I follow them?” If the answer is ‘because it will provide a better life for you than the alternative,” then that makes the decision to follow them a rational one, like “always drive on the left in Australia”. But all other answers seem to boil down to “Because I (or God, or some other authority) say(s) so.” OK, let’s move the question up one level: Why should I do what you say?
It seems to me that the only way to justify a choice is to demonstrate that it’s rational. But if you can demonstrate that it’s rational then you don’t need to demonstrate that it’s moral.
“Now, why should I follow them?”
Obey and receive a reward or obey and get a punishment are good enough reasons.
That should be ‘disobey and get a punishment’ of course. My mistake.
Eric, you pointed out that laws cannot be based on premises which cannot be shared, and as a practical consideration you are certainly right, at least in a democracy. But what if there is a broad consensus within a given society that God exists, and that the Ten Commandments are normative? Would it not be appropriate for legislative bodies to take that into consideration? On the other hand, what if there is not a consensus about such matters, which certainly appears to be the situation right now in the US – what then? It is precisely this lack of consensus about basic moral principles that makes issues like abortion or same sex marriage so contentious. In the end it comes down to the tyranny of the majority. Something is right or wrong simply because the majority says so. But by that reasoning Wilberforce was just plain wrong to do what he did. There was a clear consensus in British society that the slave trade was profitable and good for Britain. Wilberforce would have had no basis to say otherwise.
As for rules, I think that the point that Jesus was making in the Sermon on the Mount is that God judges us on the basis of our motives, and not just our external actions. The Mishnah tried to expand the Torah into an elaborate set of rules, based on the model of a civil law code. Jesus, however, focused on the intent of the action. Thus Christian morality is based on the application of certain basic principles to individual situations. Paul says that we are to discern (dokimazein) what the will of God is, and then defines that as “the good, the well-pleasing, and the perfect (teleion) (Rom. 12:2). The basic principles, however, can be articulated in propositions – I Corinthians 13, for example, where Paul can say that certain things are absolutely incompatible with the ideal of Christian love.
The anti-slavery movement began well before Wilberforce, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1688_Germantown_Quaker_Petition_Against_Slavery
Of course, some rich person in a position of privilege then gets all the credit, no surprise.
Egbert, quite true. According to Philip Kitcher, the pioneering abolitionist was John Woolman. He first wrote about how he arrived at this position in his Journal (which is available on amazon.com), and then in his Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, which was published in 1754, which anticipates the Germantown petition by nearly three decades. See Kitcher, The Ethical Project, 158.
Even if we generously concede for the sake of argument that a magic law giver exists, there’s still a big problem with your moral system, since you do not have any reliable means of determining god’s will. Holy texts? All religions have them. Even looking at it from a theistic standpoint, how can you determine which religion most accurately reflects god’s will? A honest person would admit that one can’t. Not a very firm foundation for morality.
Obviously each individual has to weigh the claims of a given religion for himself, and that takes us into the whole realm of apologetics. It should be noted that as a general rule the world’s great monotheistic religions tended to win out over polytheism, and you can decide for yourself how the Koran stacks up next to the New Testament.
Bob, now you really are clutching at straws! You’ve now given up all pretence of rationality, and have simply appealed to individual judgement instead. The realm of apologetics, by the way, is simply sophistry and illusion. It tries to find any argument that will do to carry the day, whether in the end reasonable or not. As for the monotheisms winning out over the polytheisms, the reason is almost always that the monotheisms are exclusive belief systems, and have usually been accompanied by totalising political systems as well. It is interesting, however, that, for all its power, Islam never did subvert the native polytheism of what has come (somewhat artificially, based on Western paradigms) to be known as Hinduism. What exactly did you think that winning proves?
I don’t know that “winning” exactly “proves” anything, especially when truth is often on the side of the minority. But I think it does indicate that polytheism was unworkable as a worldview, although, as you point out, it is apparently alive and strong in India. As you also point out there is a correlation between monotheism and the level of social organization, although it is a little hard to tell which is the cause and which is the effect. Is a higher level of social organization possible because of believe in a divinely ordained universal law? Or did monotheism arise to meet a need, created by the expansion of the Roman Empire, to rationalize a universal legal system? The problem with the latter hypothesis is that the Romans found it convenient simply to incorporate local deities into their already existing pantheon, and it was the monotheism of the Jews that proved problematical for them. But it may be that Constantine eventually realized that monotheism was the only real answer to the governance of a multiethnic empire.
Bob, your reading of history is quite extraordinary. The supposition that monotheism was necessary for governance of a multiethnic empire simply doesn’t hold water. What happened before intolerant monotheism came on the scene was a melding of pantheons. So the Greek and Roman pantheons had correlative deities: Zeus = Jupiter, Aphrodite – Venus, etc. And this meant that governance (insofar as religion was concerned) was a relatively peaceful project on aligning one’s gods and goddesses with those of others. Easy-peasy. What happened when Christianity came on the scene was a universalising, intolerant religion, which would not brook rivals. What made the empire difficult to govern by the time of Constantine seems to have been the success of Christianity in denominating all other religions as false and even as the worship of demons. Bands of marauding monks destablised much of the Eastern Empire, and there was a need to settle on an orthodoxy that would diminish the strife amongst differing interpretations of Christianity, and this was, in turn, imposed upon squabbling sectarians. To suppose that this imperial orthodoxy arrived at the truth is one of the oddest aspects of Christianity, which ever since Nicaea (and later Chalcedon in 451), seemed to hold that truth could be arrived at simply by imperial fiat. With Theodosius, however, in the 380s, the Christian gloves really came off, and other religions were simply outlawed. Christianity became persecuting just as it had once been persecuted. But for different reasons. Christians persecuted because they believed themselves to be in possession of the final truth. The pagans persecuted Christians, because Christians refused to acnowledge any other truth than theirs. The violence of God traditions of the great monotheisms has dealt with opposing religion simply by violence, since, in their sacred texts, this is the way God both acts and commands his followers to act. Charles Freeman’s The Closing of the Western Mind makes it clear how the victory of Christianity, and the consequent criminalisation of doubt and dissent (heresy), brought a halt to philosophical and scientific progress in the Western half of the Empire for a thousand years, and his new book Holy Bones, Holy Dust is an account of the superstition and veneration of holy relics that replaced it.
Well, it isn’t exactly true that truth was arrived at through imperial fiat, as Athanasius soon discovered, as he fled into the desert from the pursuing imperial troops.
I would also want to argue that a state imposed Christianity is a gross caricature of the religion preached by Jesus.
What I had in mind about the social and political implications of monotheism is that as a general rule animist cultures usually don’t seem to progress beyond a tribal social structure. On the other hand what I had in mind as far as the Roman Empire was concerned was the development of the natural law concept, but admittedly this is not an area with which I am terribly familiar. I did not have the benefit of an Anglican theological education!
As you well know (according to the author of the Fourth Gospel, at least) when Jesus was confronted by Pontius Pilate as to whether or not He was the king of the Jews, Jesus responded by saying “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that i should not be delivered to the Jews . . .” Unfortunately many well-meaning but misguided Christians have failed to grasp the import of this comment.