Surprising Conclusion

So the last post was about reading "Christian Ethics" and I was just getting into the section on war. The conclusion was that Christians should only participate in "just" wars, which would be wars that their own country did not start and were for primarily defensive purposes only. I can agree with that. But what was surprising to me was the next chapter, on Revolution / Civil Disobedience.

The essence of the chapter is that since governments are God-ordained, we are to submit to them, as long as they are not requiring us to do something that is sinful or against an overriding command of God himself. That is, we are to follow the path of "Refusal", rather than "Revolt", when it comes to disobeying government. These two methods are compared as follows:

Revolt: Revolt against it violently, Fight it, Reject its punishments.
Refusal: Refuse to obey it nonviolently, Flee it, Accept its punishments.

OK, I can accept this much - that nonviolent, nonagressive refusal to commit acts against God's law is better than violent, aggressive pursuit of overturning authorities that have been placed over us. But what really surprised me was the logical conclusion that Geisler then put forth: that the American Revolution was unjust and, as such, should never have been supported by Christians. Instead, they should have submitted to the king and his commands, working within the system to change the laws, rather than revolting against it and overthrowing the king in favor of their own authorities.

Mr. Geisler concludes this section:
"It is understandable that everyone would like to believe that the revolution in his country was just, even if those in other countries are not. But in all honesty, given the biblical criteria listed here, it is not possible to justify the American Revolution either. What then should American Christians do on the Fourth of July? Can they really celebrate American independence from Britain? In response, a distinction should be made. There is a difference between what is born and how it is born. We are certainly glad for every human being born of fornication or even rape, although we certainly do not approve of the way they got here. Likewise, and American Christian can celebrate what was born of the American Revolution (a great free country) without thereby approving of the way it arrived."

My interpretation is this: we can't judge the action (the Revolution) by the result - nor can we judge the result (a fine, free country) by the action. The Revolution may have been unjust, but the resultant place to live, worship, and work is a wonderful thing. Would that it had been born out of magnanimous free gift of the king, but it was not. Therefore we can argue against Revolution, we can (and should) choose not to participate in the next one if it comes along, and we can celebrate all that has been done in the past 225 years, and we can do it all with a smile. We just can't argue that the Revolution itself was justified, no matter how much we would like to.

A review of "Christian Ethics"

I have been reading "Christian Ethics", by Norman Geisler, to try and understand the varied Christian viewpoints to various ethical topics. The first point is essentially an outline of various ethical systems. For example, some systems say there are no rules, except the rule that there are no rules. Another system, a Christian system, says that there is one absolute rule that we must follow always, that of "love". This then translates into a Christian ethic that says never to do something which would harm another, because that certainly is not loving. I'm not going to go into the whole detail here, because that's not the point of this post. If you want to read the book, I'll let you borrow it.



The point here is to list at least one way I think this could be improved. Let me first off say that I appreciate this book. It provides various viewpoints, Christian and non-Christian, on essential ethical topics. Those include abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, war, etc. The explanations of the various arguments for each position are clear and concise, well-referenced, and generally making a fair representation of the point. My critique of Geisler's arguments is that though in the first part of the book he has laid out a clear explanation of graded absolutism, that there are hierarchies of God's commands that we should follow and that not following a lower command does not incur wrath, he then essentially drops this kind of logic when discussing the various issues.


What I had hoped to see was an explanation of the graded absolutism, actually applied to the subject in question. For example, in reading about war, there are essentially 3 different views - 2 extreme views and 1 middle view. One extreme would be that we obey the government always - even into wars that are unjust - thus obeying God's commands to obey the governments that are in authority over us. The other extreme would be that we do not participate in wars, because wars involve the killing, and God has commanded not to kill. So which one wins? I would expect something like the following:

"Graded absolutism would say that there are hierarchies of obeying God's laws. Obeying the higher law is what is required. Obeying the lower law is not ignored, simply not punished. However, not following the higher law would be punished, for God has set that hierarchy in place."

Unfortunately, this clear distinction has not been made. I think he may get to a similar answer, but the clarity of explaining it within the position of graded absolutism doesn't appear. I will still finish this book, and use the arguments within it, but may have to make some additional notes for myself so that when I discuss these things with others I can pull out a little notebook or stack of 3x5 cards and have my information at the ready.

Things I Can't Get Enough Of

Slowly following on the heels of the last post where I complained about things I'm tired of, tonight I'll let you in on a few secrets - some things I'm looking forward to.

1. Riding my bicycle more. In fact, I'm going to try riding to work next week on Friday - Bike to Work Day!

2. Reading more.

3. Writing more. Blogging, short stories, journaling, etc.

4. Playing games in the backyard with the kiddos.

5. Finalizing our adoption and meeting our new daughter.

6. Getting an e-book reader. Not now, not soon, but sometime.

7. Learning more about Christian apologetics and ethics.

8. Becoming more involved in government - helping people get on ballots in Indiana so that we aren't always just stuck with "2" options.

9. Triathlons. My goal for this summer is to set 2 PRs.