Archive 18

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ISSUE 18: CONTENTS CONTENTS An Introduction to the Moral Argument for God’s Existence Dennis Brown (The Manchester Grammar School) Can We Have Morality Without God and Religion Dr. Stephen Law (Heythrop College, University of London) Black Theology: A Study of Martin Luther King Jr and James Cone Michael Wilcockson (Eton College; Principal Examiner) The Biblical Basis for Liberation Theology Dr. Simon Valentine (University of Bradford) In the Image of Man: Freud, Psychoanalysis and Religion Brendan Callaghan SJ (Heythrop College, University of London) The Kingdom of God Julie Arliss (The Richard Huish College, Taunton) How Should We Treat Prisoners? Professor Timothy Gorringe (University of Exeter) Is Creationism Scientific? Dr. Stephen Law (Heythrop College, University of London) Self-fulfilment: Must it be Selfish? Professor Nigel Biggar (University of Leeds)

Transcript of Archive 18

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ISSUE 18: CONTENTS

CONTENTS An Introduction to the Moral Argument for God’s Existence Dennis Brown (The Manchester Grammar School) Can We Have Morality Without God and Religion Dr. Stephen Law (Heythrop College, University of London) Black Theology: A Study of Martin Luther King Jr and James Cone Michael Wilcockson (Eton College; Principal Examiner) The Biblical Basis for Liberation Theology Dr. Simon Valentine (University of Bradford) In the Image of Man: Freud, Psychoanalysis and Religion Brendan Callaghan SJ (Heythrop College, University of London) The Kingdom of God Julie Arliss (The Richard Huish College, Taunton) How Should We Treat Prisoners? Professor Timothy Gorringe (University of Exeter) Is Creationism Scientific? Dr. Stephen Law (Heythrop College, University of London) Self-fulfilment: Must it be Selfish? Professor Nigel Biggar (University of Leeds)

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AN INTRODUCTION TO THE MORAL ARGUMENT FOR GOD’S EXISTENCE

Dennis Brown

The Moral Argument for the existence of God has a very popular appeal. In its simplest form, it can be stated by the following analogy:

Just as our laws about paying taxes and parking come from a law-giver (the government), so the fact of having moral laws points to a ‘moral law-giver’, i.e. God.

So we can see at the very beginning that any argument for God’s existence based on morality will be an a posteriori argument. This is a kind of argument based on evidence gathered from the world around us and from our own personal experience. For example, the fact that we feel guilty when we recognise that we have done something wrong is evidence that we might use in this context. Because it is an argument that considers evidence, it is different from an a priori argument (like the Ontological Argument) which attempts to establish the existence of God by using logic and reasoning, and does not resort to evidence from the world around us. In this introductory article, we will look at three different ways in which the fact of morality is said to necessitate the existence of God - the views of Immanuel Kant, Cardinal Newman and C.S. Lewis. Before we look at these three views, however, we need - very briefly - to mention three answers to the general question: “Where does morality come from?”

Morality and Religion Where do moral rules come from? Traditionally, three answers have been given to this question. ⇒ First, moral rules may be the commands of God. If this is so, moral

rules must be absolute - i.e. they must apply to every person at all times. So, for example, ‘Murder is always wrong’. The difficulty with this view, however, is that it makes any attempt to prove the existence of God from the existence of morality circular. (‘God exists because morality comes from God’).

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⇒ Second, moral rules may arise from looking objectively at human nature and the structures of the world in which people live. If there are such rules, they may well be absolute, because they would apply to all people at all times. Rules which fall into this category may or may not require the support of belief in God.

⇒ The third possibility is that moral rules may be the product of human society and human choice. Society realises that people need to co-operate with each other if they are to live harmoniously together. Moral rules of this sort are unlikely to be absolute. Instead, they are devised to meet the needs of a particular situation in society. For example, cannibalism may be acceptable in one society, but not in another.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle agreed with the second of these views of morality. He held the view that we ought to do whatever would lead to our maximum self-fulfilment. Once we understand our own true nature, we will act accordingly. So morality, according to Aristotle, is rational and objective. It depends on our understanding of our own nature and goals, and does not depend on any rules imposed on us by a god. In Greek philosophy, there was a long-running debate about the relationship between virtue or moral rules and happiness. On the one side was the conviction that to do your duty was the way in which you could achieve happiness. On the other side was the idea that the pursuit of happiness was your duty. Both sides of the debate made a link between duty and happiness; the world is a rational place and therefore, in some way, the one ought to result in the other. This attempt to provide an objective basis for morality was approached in a rather different way by Immanuel Kant.

Kant and the Moral Argument

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Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the most important philosophers of the western world. He developed a comprehensive ‘system’ of philosophy, covering most of the major issues. He lived an uneventful life in Konigsberg, East Prussia (now called Kaliningrad, Russia). Kant believed that the human ability to reason was of prime importance - humans have the capacity to think objectively apart from their own desires, and this makes them different from other creatures. Kant saw his primary philosophical task as finding out whether it is possible to have true knowledge of the existence of God, of the immortality of the soul, and of free will. He writes about these issues in his most important book, The Critique of Pure Reason (1791). He concludes that it is not possible for humans to have metaphysical knowledge. Interestingly, this does not prevent Kant from developing an argument for God’s existence as a ‘postulate’ of morality.

Kant believed that no philosophical argument (e.g. Ontological, Design or Cosmological) could ever prove the existence of God. However, by dismissing these arguments, he could make way for an understanding of God based on faith, rather than reason. He did this by examining the idea of moral experience, in particular the ideas of virtue and happiness with which the Greek philosophers had been concerned. In the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), he says: ‘The only theology of reason which is possible is that which is based upon moral laws or seeks guidance from them’. He argued that, in an ideal world, virtue and happiness should follow one another, so that doing what is right (virtue) should ultimately lead to happiness. Kant called this the Summum Bonum (Highest Good). As we look around us, however, it is by no means certain that virtue will lead to happiness, because bad things happen to good people. So why should anyone be moral? Kant started from the fact that some people actually do have a sense of moral obligation: a feeling that something is right and must be done, no matter what the consequences might be. He called this the Categorical Imperative, (e.g. ‘Do This!’) to distinguish it from a hypothetical imperative (which says: “If you want to achieve this, then you must do that”). In The Critique of Practical Reason, Kant explored the presuppositions which lay behind this Categorical Imperative. He concluded that three things were presupposed:

• Freedom • Immortality • God.

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If you feel morally obliged to do something, this implied, for Kant, that you have the freedom to choose to do it, or not. It also implies that you will eventually experience happiness (the Summum Bonum) as a result of your virtue even if you do not experience it in this life (as, for instance, when someone sacrifices their life for the benefit of others). Therefore, for this to be possible, there must be some overall ordering principle which will reward virtue with happiness - and this might be called “God”. In other words, Kant is saying that you cannot prove the existence of God, but your sense of morality implies that the world is ordered in a moral way - and this, in turn, implies belief in God. Kant spoke of immortality and God as the Postulates of Practical Reason, by which he meant that, although their existence could not be proved, they had to be presupposed if morality was to make sense. The God which Kant postulates here is a God which endorses the rational mind. There is much in religion, however, which is not rational. Religion as it is practised may not fit the neat package into which philosophy might want to put it.

Cardinal Newman and the Moral Argument John Henry Newman was born in 1801 and brought up in an evangelical Anglican family. He studied at Oxford and became a Fellow of Oriel College. In 1827, he became the vicar of the University church. Newman was a leading figure in the Oxford Movement, which tried to restore ‘High Church’ principles into the Church of England. By 1839, Newman had many doubts about the claims of the Church of England and he became a Roman Catholic in 1845. Newman wrote many books, especially Apologia pro vita sua (1864), The Dream of Gerontius (1865) and A Grammar of Assent (1870). He was appointed Cardinal in 1879 and died in 1890 Newman begins from the idea that ‘Conscience’ has a legitimate place in the human personality, alongside things like memories, reasoning, imagination and a sense of beauty. He says that conscience allows people to have real knowledge of God. Newman distinguishes between two aspects of conscience.

♦ First, it is a moral sense which enables us to make moral judgements about particular cases. We can develop these individual cases into an ethical code.

♦ Second, it is a sense of duty which enforces our ethical code.

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For Newman, the second aspect is the more important one. Conscience, as a sense of duty, is ‘a sanction of right conduct’. This means that conscience points beyond itself to some greater reality. We have a deep-seated sense of obligation and responsibility to do what is right, and we feel guilty and ashamed when we do not do the right thing. This is true even when we know that there are no witnesses to our wrong action. For Newman, this implies that conscience must be related to a supernatural divine person. In other words, conscience is the voice of God within us. The existence of conscience as part of the human personality necessitates, for Newman, the existence of God. C. S. Lewis and the Moral Argument. C.S. Lewis (1898 - 1963) was born in Belfast, became an atheist, studied and taught at Oxford, then was appointed professor of English at Cambridge. He was a great apologist for Christianity. Well known for his children’s fiction (the Narnia Chronicles), his science fiction trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet), as well as for his scholarly work on Medieval English literature, Lewis tried to explain the fundamental ideas of Christianity in non-technical language for ‘ordinary’ people. In his book Mere Christianity, he discussed the Moral Argument. According to Lewis, our discussions of morality and our moral behaviour presuppose that there is an objective moral law. It is possible to use our reason to determine whether our actions are truly right or truly wrong. Lewis therefore rejects Moral Relativism.

Moral Relativism is the view that there is no universal standard of right and wrong, good and bad. What a person thinks is right, is right for that person.

For one thing, argued Lewis, unless there is an objective moral law, there is no standpoint from which we can judge the moral standpoint of anyone else. If what each person thinks is right is right for him, the only possible criticism we could make would be his failure to act on what he thought was right. So the beliefs of Adolf Hitler, the Khymer Rouge or the Taliban would be equivalent to those of Jesus or Mother Teresa. Secondly, Lewis argues, if moral relativism is correct, there could be no moral progress. In order to get people to progress in their moral beliefs, it must be possible for them to be mistaken about moral beliefs and also for one set of moral beliefs to be better than another. But this is impossible when whatever a person thinks is right, is right for him. Further, those who advocate moral relativism often do so on the grounds that moral

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relativism promotes tolerance, advances the good of the community or preserves the species. But this only reintroduces objective moral values, for, unless some values are better than others - tolerance better than intolerance, preservation of the species better than its demise - there is no ground for praising these virtues, other than that we approve of them. Finally, Lewis argues that those who argue from belief relativism (the view that different persons or societies have different moral beliefs) to moral relativism have failed to notice that there is a substantial agreement among various cultures about what is morally acceptable and what is not. The differences between cultures are less matters of value than of fact. For example, what constituted murder in Aztec society, which practised ritual killing, is different from what constitutes murder in Western society, which does not practise ritual killing. This objective moral law, if it is to be justified and not mere opinion, must be based on something. Lewis suggests two possible grounds: 1. the factual reality of human experience (which he calls ‘matter’) 2. mind. The objective moral law cannot be grounded in matter, i.e. the factual reality observed by science, because the laws of nature only tell us what things actually do. But the moral law deals with what we ought to do. Put another way, we can say that we cannot help but obey the laws of nature, but we have a choice about the obeying the moral law. Even though we are commanded to obey it, we can refuse. Therefore, the moral law must be grounded in mind, for only the mind can give instructions about doing what is right. This mind cannot be a human mind, for the moral law continues to exist despite the birth and death of individual human persons. Hence, there must be a power or mind behind the universe,

“urging me to do the right and making me feel responsible and uncomfortable when I do wrong. I think we have to assume it is more like a mind than it is like anything else we know - because after all the only thing we know is matter and you can hardly imagine a bit of matter giving instructions.” (C.S. Lewis: Mere Christianity London 1943 p34).

Lewis argues that a naturalistic account of ethics cannot be sustained. But is this correct? The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

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argued that we can ground moral judgements in the final causes of the universe. It is in seeing how things actually are that we can discern how we ought to act. In Aristotle’s view, the ought is not grounded in the is, but in what is necessarily the case, in the ideal structure that must be realised in order to maximise the self-fulfilment of the organism. But this is still to ground moral obligations in nature, and not in any absolute or transcendent Mind. Thus Aristotelian natural law theory is compatible with, but does not entail, God. Problems for the Moral Argument There is no doubt that many religious believers find the Moral Argument very powerful. It can strengthen the faith of people who already believe in God, functioning as a supplement to the cosmological and teleological arguments for God’s existence. Theists may argue that it provides another piece of the puzzle of God, for at the very least it makes possible the justification of their moral beliefs. How successful is it, however, in convincing non-believers that God exists? Most versions of the Moral Argument presuppose that there is some kind of necessary link between the existence of moral rules and a divine being. But this presupposition is impossible to prove. It could only be true if there were no other possible explanation for the existence of morality. Philosophers and psychologists, however, are able to explain morality in other terms. The theory of evolution states that everything we do relates to our will to survive. If this is true, it could be argued that certain forms of behaviour - like being considerate of other people, treating people fairly, co-operation (Darwin’s word), are desirable forms of conduct because, generally, they are less likely to bring about the destruction of the human race than are their opposites - malevolence, inequality and injustice. To put it another way, we behave morally because we would want other people to behave morally towards us, not because there is a God commanding us to obey moral rules. The philosopher James Rachels has put forward a moral argument against the existence of God. He says that belief in God means a total and unqualified commitment to obey the will of God. Religious believers thus have no choice but to obey God’s commands. But this, according to Rachels, is contradictory to being a moral agent, because

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“to be a moral agent is to be an autonomous or self-directed agent....The virtuous man is therefore identified with the man of integrity, i.e. the man who acts according to precepts which he can, on reflection, conscientiously approve in his own heart.”

(J. Rachels: “God and Human Attitudes”, Religious Studies 7 (1971) p334). He argues as follows:

a) If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship b) No being could possibly be a fitting object of worship, since

worship requires the abandonment of one’s role as an autonomous moral agent

c) Therefore there cannot be any being who is God. A further criticism of the Moral Argument is that, ever if we accept all the premises of the argument, it would still fail to prove the existence of God. Even if we accept that the existence of morality leads us towards a moral law-giver or a source of our conscience, we could only conclude that there is a moral law-giver of some sort. It could not possibly establish that the omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God of classical theism exists. The reason for this is that morality is only one aspect of God as traditionally conceived. The Moral Argument, therefore, only suggests a semi-divine (angelic?) figure who is interested in morality, or who may control conscience. This is a long way from the traditional concept of God. In the end, then, the Moral Argument fails to convince the non-believer of the existence of God. Its essential value may therefore lie in strengthening the faith of those who are already committed to belief in God. Study questions 1. Which of the theories concerning the origin of morality do you find

most convincing? Why? 2. What does Kant mean by the ‘Summum Bonum’ and why does it

require the existence of God to be ‘postulate’? 3. What are the strengths of C.S. Lewis’ version of the Moral Argument? 4. Explain the role of ‘Conscience’ in Newman’s statement of the Moral

Argument.

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5. Which is the most damaging criticism of the Moral Argument? Why? 6. What criticisms might you make of James Rachels’ Moral Argument

against the existence of God?

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Can We Have Morality Without God and Religion?

Stephen Law

It’s widely held that morality requires both God and religion. Without God to lay down moral rules, talk of “right and “wrong” can reflect nothing more than our own subjective preferences. Without religion to provide us with moral guidance, we are set adrift, morally rudderless, with moral chaos the inevitable result.

Daniel P. Moloney, writing in American Prospect, provides a nice example of this popular point of view:

Religious people are the first to admit that many religious people sin often and boldly, and that atheists often act justly. They explain these ethical atheists by noting that when atheists reject the religion in which they have been raised, they tend to keep the morality while discarding its theological foundation. Their ethical behavior is then derivative and parasitic, borrowing its conscience from a culture permeated by religion; it cannot survive if the surrounding religious culture is not sustained. In short, morality as we know it cannot be maintained without Judeo-Christian religion.i

But is the view that morality as we know it is ultimately dependent upon God and religion actually correct? This chapter introduces some of the key philosophical arguments.

An argument Mr and Mrs Schnapper are arguing about whether to send their son Tom to a religious school. Mrs Schnapper believes they should. Mr Schnapper, an atheist, disagrees. Mrs S: Tom should go to a religious school. All children should. Without a religion to provide us with a firm foundation, morality collapses. Mr S: Why? Mrs S: Well, if there’s no God to lay down what is right and what is wrong, that leaves the job to us. What is the problem with the suggestion that things are right or wrong only because we say so? Mrs Schnapper proceeds to explain. Mrs S: If things are right or wrong only because we say they are, then that makes morality both relative and arbitrary. Mr Schnapper scratches his head. Mr S: Why relative? Mrs S: If things are right or wrong only because we say so, then relative to those who say killing is wrong, it is, and relative to those who say it’s right, it is. Correct? Mr S: I guess so.

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Mrs S: But morality isn’t relative, is it? Surely, killing is wrong anyway, no matter what we or anyone else might have to say about it. Someone who thinks that it’s morally acceptable to go round killing and stealing is simply mistaken. Don’t you agree? Mr Schnapper nods. Mr S: But I still don’t see why the view that things are right or wrong only because we say so makes morality arbitrary. Mrs S: If things are right or wrong only because we say so, then, before we say so, nothing is right or wrong. Right? Mr S: Yes. Mrs S: But then our decision about what to call “right” and what to call “wrong” must be, from a moral perspective, entirely arbitrary. Mr S: That’s true, I suppose. Mrs S: So you see, without God, morality becomes a matter of our own personal, subjective and arbitrary whim. An argument for the existence of God Mr Schnapper is happy to agree that morality isn’t simply a matter of our subjective and arbitrary preference. Mr S: I am happy to agree that killing really is wrong. It’s not wrong simply because we say it is. Mrs S: But then you must admit that the only reason killing really is wrong is that God says it’s wrong. Mr S: So you argue like this: Things aren’t right or wrong simply because we say so. They are right or wrong anyway. But that can only be because there exists a God to say what is right and what is wrong. So, as I agree that thing’s aren’t right or wrong simply because we say so, I am forced to accept that God exists. In effect, you’re giving me an argument for the existence of God. Mrs S: Exactly. Plato’s refutation of the popular argument Mrs Schnapper’s conclusion that morality is dependent on God is not new. Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) is supposed to have claimed that “If there is no God, then all things are permitted”. Even many atheists, including John Paul Satre (1905-1980), have been prepared to accept the same conclusion.

Mrs Schnapper’s argument is certainly popular. But is it cogent? Let’s agree, for the sake of argument, that Mr and Mrs Schnapper are correct

when they suppose that things aren’t right or wrong simply because we say so. Does it follow that morality must come from God?

No, it doesn’t follow. Mrs Schnapper believes that in the absence of God, morality becomes relative and arbitrary. But, as we’re about to discover, the view that morality is laid down not by us but by God actually makes it no less relative and arbitrary.

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The flaw in Mrs Schnapper’s argument was first pointed out by Plato (c.428-347 BC) in his dialogue the Euthyphro. The difficulty becomes apparent once we press the following question:

Are things wrong because God says so, or does God say that they are wrong because they are?

This question raises a dilemma for Mrs Schnapper, for she can give neither answer.

Let’s consider the second answer first: God says that things are wrong because they are. God, being infinitely knowledgeable and wise, recognises the wrongness of certain courses of action and tells us about it.

From Mrs Schnapper’s point of view, the difficulty with this answer is that it undermines her argument. If Mrs Schnapper concedes that God isn’t required to make things wrong – there is a standard of right or wrong that exists independently of God’s will – then her case against atheism collapses. For an atheist can then help him or herself to this same independent moral standard.

Now let’s turn to the first answer: things are wrong because God says so. That is to say, God actually makes certain courses of action wrong by decreeing them to be so. Had God decreed that killing is a good thing to go in for, then it would have been.

Unfortunately for Mrs Schnapper, this answer also undermines her argument. Mrs Schnapper argued that killing cannot be wrong merely because we say so: that would make right and wrong relative and arbitrary. But, as Mr Schnapper now points out, that the suggestion that things are wrong only because God says so makes morality no less relative and arbitrary.

Mr S: A minute ago you suggested that killing is wrong not because we say so, but because God says so. God made killing wrong by decreeing it to be wrong. Correct? Mrs S: Yes. Mr S: But then you’re claiming that, prior to God decreeing that killing is wrong, it wasn’t wrong. Mrs S: Yes. I suppose I am. Mr S: So in fact, from a moral perspective, God’s choice was also entirely arbitrary. He might just as well have flipped a coin. Mrs S: I suppose so. Mr S: Also, on your view, morality is relative to whatever God says, correct? Mrs S: Yes. Mr S: So if God had said killing is right, then it would have been. True? Mrs S: I guess that’s true. Mr S: But that’s not true, is it? Surely killing is wrong anyway, whatever God might have to say about it. Mrs S: Hmm. Perhaps you’re right. Mr S: So you see, the problem you had with the view that things are right or wrong only because we say so – that it makes morality relative and arbitrary – simply rearises on your own theory that things are right or wrong only because God says so. Surely Mr Schnapper is right: if Mrs Schnapper’s objection to the view that morality is ultimately laid down by us is a good objection, then it’s just as effective against her own view that morality is laid down by God.

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Mr S: So, by your own reasoning, we should agree that morality is ultimately independent both our own will and God’s too. The view that things are right or wrong relative not to what we might happen to decree, but to whatever God decrees – is called the Divine Command Theory. Those who believe in God are certainly not obliged to accept the Divine Command Theory. Many important theists, including St Thomas Aquinas (1224/5-74) and Leibniz (1646-1716) have rejected the Divine Command Theory precisely because they have recognized that it falls foul of Plato’s dilemma. The “But God is good” reply In defence of the Divine Command Theory, Mrs Schnapper might claim that while killing is wrong only because God says so, God never would have said otherwise. This is because God is good. A good God would never instruct us to go round murdering each other.

One difficulty with this reply is that by describing God as “good”, we presumably mean morally good. But on the Divine Command Theory, to say that God is morally good is to say no more than that He says He is. But that’s something that even a God who says that murder is good thing to go in for can say. Even a God who commanded us to kill each other would be entirely free to decree that He himself is “good”. The commands-need-a-commander argument

Mrs Schnapper’s first argument for morality being dependent on God fails. But she’s not disheartened. She has another argument up her sleeve. Mrs S: Look, moral principles take the form of commands, don’t they? They say “Do not kill”, “Do not steal”, and so on. Mr S: Yes, they do. Mrs S: Now these commands are not simply our commands, are they? Mr S: I have already agreed that things aren’t wrong simply because we say so. Mrs S: Well then, where there is a command, there must be someone who has issued that command. And if the command-issuer is not us, then who is it? Mr S: God, you will no doubt say. Mrs S: Precisely. So the existence of moral commands requires the existence of God. Again, this is a well-worn line of argument. Unfortunately for Mrs Schnapper, it’s also flawed. Refutation of the commands-need-a-commander argument One of the flaws in Mrs Schnapper’s second argument becomes apparent once we ask why we ought to obey God’s commands.

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Mr S: But why ought I to obey God? The mere fact that someone issues commands does not entail that anyone ought to obey them. If I command you to do the washing up, that does not put you under any moral obligation to do the washing up, does it? Mrs S: Definitely not. Mr S: So why ought we to obey God’s commands? You want to ground all moral obligations in God’s commands. But commands, by themselves, do not generate moral obligations. Mrs S: Your commands do not create moral obligations. But God’s commands do. Mr S: Why? This is a question that those who wish to ground morality in God’s commands need to answer. Mrs Schnapper makes the following suggestion. Mrs S: Because we are already under a general moral obligation to obey God, that’s why. Mr S: But why, in turn, does this general obligation exist? Mrs S: Hmm. Good question. Mr S: The problem you face is this. You want to ground all moral obligations in God’s commands. But that raises the question why are we are morally obliged to obey God’s commands. So there is still an obligation that you have yet to account for. Mrs S: Perhaps this general obligation exists because God commands us to obey all his commands. Mr S: I’m afraid that won’t do. After all, I can command you to obey all my commands, can’t I? That still doesn’t put you under any moral obligation to do the washing up, does it? Mrs S: No. I guess not. The attempt to ground moral obligation in God’s commands is doomed to fail. For commands can generate moral obligations only where there already exists a moral obligation to obey them. So the Divine Command Theory of moral obligation actually ends up presupposing what it is supposed to account for: the existence of moral obligations.

We have just looked at two arguments for the conclusion that only a theist can allow for genuine moral values. We have also seen that neither argument is cogent. Will we be good without God? Let’s turn to a slightly different sort of argument. Mrs Schnapper now suggests, not that there cannot be good without God, but that we will not be good without God. Mrs S: Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps atheists need be no more or less committed to morality being relative and arbitrary than theists. Still, without God, we no longer have any real motivation to behave morally, have we? We’re unlikely to bother with being good unless we believe that God exists. Mr S: Why not?

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Mrs S: Because it’s our fear of divine disapproval and punishment that keeps us in line. Unless we believe that there is a God, any reason we might have for behaving well evaporates. That’s why we should send Tom to a religious school. Many agree with Mrs Schnapper that unless people believe in God they are unlikely to act morally. Voltaire (1694-1778), for example, refused to allow his friends to discuss atheism in front of his servants, saying, “I want my lawyer, tailor, valets, even my wife to believe in God. I think that if they do I shall be robbed less and cheated less.”

But is it true that unless we believe in God we are unlikely to behave morally? Many now happily admit to being atheists. Yet these atheists do, for the most part, behave pretty morally.

Indeed, as Mr Schnapper now argues, it’s difficult to defend even the view that theists are more likely to be moral than atheists.ii Mr S: While there have been many selfless and noble believers, there have also been a great many self-serving and ignoble ones. There are innumerable examples of disgustingly brutal and immoral things being done in God’s name, from the Crusades to the Spanish Inquisition to the destruction of the World Trade Centre. In fact it seems to me that religious belief is just as likely to promote immorality as it is morality. Mrs S: Perhaps. As Mr Schnapper also points out, those who do the right thing primarily out of fear are not generally considered particularly morally worthy. Mr S: Someone who does the right thing, not out of fear of punishment, but out of respect and concern for other human beings, is surely far more moral than is someone who acts solely out of fear of punishment. So it seems to me that if, as you suggest, the religious do the right thing mainly out of fear, then they are actually less moral then are atheists who do it out of respect and concern for others. Mrs Schnapper is prepared to admit that someone who acts simply out of fear is not particularly moral. Mrs S: You may be right. But not all religious people do the right thing out of fear, do they? It’s only those that do that fall foul of your criticism. Mr S: That’s true. Mrs S: And suppose I concede that most atheists do seem to behave morally, perhaps even morally as those who believe in God. Still, that may only be because they have been brought up within a culture that has, or until recently, had a strong religious tradition. The atheist’s good behaviour is a carry-over from this tradition. But it seems to me that if religion continues to wane, moral chaos must be the inevitable result. First generation atheists may not be particularly immoral. Second or third generation atheists will be. Mr S: An intriguing suggestion. But you haven’t given me the slightest reason to suppose it’s true, have you? Mrs S: Well, not yet. No.

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Mr S: In fact, not only have you not given me any reason to suppose it’s true, it’s very obviously not true. Mrs S: How do you know? Mr S: Because there have been cultures that have had a highly developed morality, but that have either not had religion, or else have not had a religion that’s much concerned with laying down morality. Mrs S: For example? Mr S: The Ancient Greeks. They weren’t perfect, of course. They had slavery. But then so did the highly-religious southern states of America. The Ancient Greeks were morally sophisticated. Their moral code was very similar to our own. Ancient Greece was a civilized place to live. Yet their religion was not at all concerned with laying down right and wrong in the way ours is. You don’t find Zeus and the other Greek gods handing down moral commandments. Mrs S: Interesting. Mr S: In Ancient Greece, religion and morality were essentially separate domains. So there have been entire civilizations, morally highly developed civilizations, that have done very well indeed without a religiously-based morality. Mrs S: Perhaps that’s true. Mr S: So then why send Tom to a religious school? Your claim that, without a religiously-based morality, civilization must inevitably collapse just doesn’t hold water. Is moral knowledge dependent on religion? Many believe that, without religion, moral knowledge is impossible. Only a religious text and tradition can provide us with the kind of objective yardstick we need if we are to be able distinguish what is right from what merely seems right to us. Or so Mrs Schnapper now argues. Mrs S: There’s still a huge problem facing atheists like yourself, a problem we believers do not face. The problem is to explain how we come by moral knowledge. Mr S: What’s the problem? Mrs S: Morality is rooted in religious texts such as The Bible. There’s the authority of a text and a tradition to which believers can appeal. If I want to know whether something is wrong, I look to The Bible. There is something firm and immovable to which I can turn for guidance. Mr S: Like a lighthouse in a storm? Mrs S: Exactly. But atheists are cast adrift without any means of distinguishing right from wrong except how they feel. Atheists lack the lighthouse of an external authority to which they can turn for help. Morally speaking, there’s no way for atheists to distinguish how things seem to them from how things really are. Mr S: Hmm. Mrs S: But if you cannot distinguish appearance from reality, then you cannot be said to know, can you? Mr S: I suppose not. Mrs S: But then atheists can’t really to be said to know right from wrong, can they? So you see, for moral knowledge, you need religion.

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Again, this is a prevalent line of argument. But Mr Schnapper is not persuaded. Mr S: I don’t see that the religious have any less of a problem with moral knowledge. Mrs S: Why not? Mr S: Well, as I have already pointed out, it’s not true that morality is inseparable from and rooted in religion. The Ancient Greeks were morally pretty sophisticated and aware. Yet their religion was not at all concerned with morality. Mrs S: True. Mr S: So it seems humans have an in-built sense of right and wrong that operates anyway, independently of their exposure to religion. Indeed, even those who believe in God need to rely on this prior moral sense in deciding whether or not to continue to accept the religion with which they were brought up. They also need to rely on it when deciding how to interpret that religion’s commandments. Mrs S: How do you mean? Mr S: Well, Leviticus says that it is sinful to lend money for interest, to eat shellfish and to wear jackets made from a linen/wool mix. The New Testament also suggests that the rich should give away their money. Yet you, a Christian, ignore all these Biblical instructions. Mrs S: Yes, I suppose I do. Mr S: The Bible also says that it is wrong to kill. Yet plenty of Christians favour the death penalty. So these Christians have a particular interpretation of that commandment don’t they? Mrs S: Yes. They interpret it to mean something like, “Don’t kill the innocent”. Mr S: Right. So Christians pick and choose from what it says in The Bible, and then go on to interpret those passages they are prepared to accept in sometimes highly idiosyncratic ways. Now how do they do this without relying on some prior moral sense? Mrs S: I’m not sure. Mr S: You see? How to tell right from wrong is no less a problem for the religious than it is for the atheist. I admit there is a difficulty about explaining how we come by moral knowledge. But religion doesn’t solve that problem. As most societies that we would call civilized also have (or until recently, had) a moralizing religion, many (such as Daniel P. Moloney, quoted at the beginning of this chapter) infer that a moralizing religion must be a necessary condition of both morality and civilization. Take the moralizing religion away and both morality and civilization must inevitably collapse.

But why infer that? It certainly doesn’t follow. Indeed, what evidence there is seems to suggest, not that morality and civilization cannot flourish without a moralizing religion, but that moralizing religions tend merely to reflect a morality that is inclined to flourish in any case.

The Ancient Greeks, for example, had a great civilization and a morality not significantly different from our own. Yet they had no moralizing religion. So the Ancient Greeks provide some grounds (though hardly conclusive grounds, of course) for supposing that there is a more or less universal moral code – a code that includes prohibitions on killing and stealing, for example – to which human beings are drawn

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anyway, whether or not they happen to be exposed to a moralizing religion. What evidence there is seems to suggest that, where there is a moralizing religion, it tends not to challenge this basic code but merely to formalize it and add a few refinements of its own (such as prohibitions on eating certain foodstuffs).

Certainly, we are usually prepared to accept a religion only to the extent that its moral code coheres with our existing moral point of view. Those parts that clash with the dominant moral perspective tend either to be ignored (like the Old Testament prohibition on eating shell-fish or the New Testament’s insistence that a rich man is no more likely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than a camel is likely to pass through the eye of a needle) or reinterpreted. Conclusion My conclusion is not that we shouldn’t attempt morally to educate our children. In fact I can’t think of anything more important. Nor am I suggesting that this should never be done in religious schools. My aim has simply been to question the increasingly popular assumptions that morality is dependent upon God and religion, that there cannot be moral value without God, and that we will not be good unless religion is there to show us the way. Further reading • James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy (Singapore: McGraw-Hill,

1999), chpt. 4.

i Quoted at http://www.prospect.org/controversy/lieberman/moloney-d-1.html ii Incidentally, as some atheists have pointed out, the statistics indicate that, among US citizens, those who believe in God are over forty times more likely to end up in prison than are atheists. See, for example, http://freethought.freeservers.com/reason/crimestats.html. Of course, these statistics do not establish that religion is actually a cause of unlawful behaviour. Belief in God is more prevalent among the less well-off, who are also much more likely to end up in prison.

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Black Theology: A Study of Martin Luther King Jr and James Cone

Michael Wilcockson

Black theology may not appear, superficially, to be the most obvious place to begin theology or philosophy. Indeed in academic circles there are many who question whether black theology has any intellectual substance at all. This is an entirely reasonable criticism and one which strikes at the heart of all those who consider themselves black theologians. For on the one hand black theology is just the articulation of black Americans who for almost three hundred years have suffered as slaves on the plantations and then as racially inferior citizens who had developed their own distinctive religious beliefs. On the other hand black theology is another self-conscious attack on white philosophy and theology by academics who feel that Western European culture has perpetuated a notion of society and justice which is deeply racist. It is the second view which I think is the most significant. We tend to think of philosophy as an unbiased quest for the truth, but any history of philosophy, as contextualists constantly point out, is a product of its time. For example existentialism appears at first glance to be a philosophy in which each person invents their own path by with the freedom to act in good faith. Now whilst this proposition by Jean-Paul Sartre appears to be a universal claim, Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre’s partner and fellow philosopher, argued that his notion of existentialism was an especially male or androcentric idea of freedom. Her book The Second Sex (1949) is a feminist reinterpretation of existentialism. Of course we may want to argue that there is no essential female perspective, but at least we have become aware that men and women are involved in a common debate. The same is true for gay philosophy and theology. In this context black theology has a particular contribution to make. There are many parallels between the development of black theology and feminism, and like feminism there is no one definitive version although there have been some, such as James Cone, whose writings have been particularly influential. a. Blackness What does it mean to be black? Can I, as a white, middle class, European male answer this, any more than I can really say what it is like to be a woman? An initial problem with black theology is that it appears to be bullet proof from its white critics: only a black person can really know what it means to be black. To understand this properly we should realise that being black is not just to do with skin colour but the history which having that colour skin has meant to that person’s sense of identity. ‘Black’, in other words, represents an existential ontological category of human existence. i. Identity Although there have always been nationalistic antagonisms, the science of racial difference was no-where more discussed than in the 19th Century. The issue of the slave trade, the expansion of European empires, Christian mission and the flourishing of biological sciences all contributed to the quest to settle empirically whether some races could be considered superior to others. Even the most tolerant and humane of philosophers such as David Hume (1711-1776) argued that, based on his observations through travel abroad, the black person was intellectually inferior to the white (Of

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National Characters 1753 edition). The 19th Century obsession with scientific categorisation, like the arrangement of butterflies in a natural history museum showcase, meant that some account had to be given for the racial superiority of whites over blacks which was so self-evidently to be seen in the cultural advancement of European life-style. So, in the first instance, blackness, is not a self-designated identity but one imposed negatively by white intelligentsia. ii. Common experience Because black theology is the product of North America it relates directly to the history of America from the time of Elizabeth 1 with the introduction of slavery from Africa to independence in 1786, the experience of black codes then the brief period of emancipation from 1865 (14th and 15th Amendments and Civil Rights Act of 1875), but the introduction of ‘Jim Crow’ laws in 1877 in the Southern states established a period of segregation only dismantled in the 1960s as a result of the rights movements led by Martin Luther King Junior (1929-1968) and Malcolm X (1925-1965). During this time it is estimated that some 14 million black slaves were transported from Africa and 60 million were killed on the journey (see Bascio Failure of White Theology p43-44). Just as the holocaust has served to alter present day Jewish consciousness, so the experience of ancestral roots in Africa, of slavery, of working in the plantations, of segregation, of deprivation and poverty have had the effect of defining ‘blackness’ historically in terms of human suffering, oppression and solidarity. iii. Culture and religion A far more controversial but highly significant factor in defining blackness has been the extent to which the slaves from Africa preserved their cultural identities. Cone and others argue that the spirit of African religion was preserved and adapted in the spirituals, and particularly in worship with its emphasis on dance and music and the ‘responsive’ participation between congregation and preacher. So, even though the slaves were forced to adopt Christianity from their masters, it was not a straight swap for America with Africa. This syncretism of African religious culture with protestant American Christianity, argue many black theologians, is the key element which makes black theology a vital and distinctive force in American religious and political life. ‘Blackness’ as a cultural experience breaks down the white obsession with scientific dualistic categories of mind and matter, reason and emotion, the secular and the religious, black and white. iv Protest The final element which characterises what it means to be black in the North American context is protest. As Cone and others have argued, the black slaves as never lost his sense of outrage and injustice. Whilst slave masters thought that their slaves were singing innocent songs on the plantations using biblical stories as their basis, the songs maintained the political desire to be free from white oppression. So for instance, the spiritual ‘Swing low sweet chariot coming to carry me home’ on one level hopes that just as Elijah’s chariot in the Old Testament (2 Kings 2:12) swept him into heaven, so God will also bring salvation to the black slaves. At another level, the chariot also refers to the underground rail movement which helped to transport blacks from the South to the freedom of the Northern States. Instrumental in maintaining this sense of protest were the black preachers who, like their African holy men forebears (see Bascio pp55-62), became the leaders of the black communities sustaining and vocalising the spirit of its members. ‘Blackness’ in this sense expresses a deep-seated desire for justice and community. b. Black theology

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Black theology has its origins in the late 19th (WEB Dubois) and early 20th (Marcus Garvey) Centuries but its birth and impact is from the 1950s onwards in two stages. The first was primarily concerned with protest, rights and equality; the second and contemporary phase has moved on to give a critique of white culture and capitalism. The first phase is represented by Martin Luther King Jr, the second by James Cone (along with DeOtis Roberts, Joseph Washington and Gayraud Wilmore). Although King generally avoided the popular use of ‘black power’ Cone argues that King’s own background in black Christianity and his vision for America as a ‘beloved community’ was driven by centuries of black longing for change. But the King-Cone difference also high-lights an essential difference between those inclusivists like King who believed that whites and blacks would be able to reconcile their differences through love by realising that humans share a common rationality and exclusivists, such as Cone, who consider that this is impossible given the corrupt nature of the present white mentality - until, that it is, whites admit that they are racists. c. Martin Luther King Jr King’s academic background was in liberal Christianity and a view he shared with many enlightenment thinkers was that human beings are essentially good. King’s constant appeal to the American Constitution and to common human rationality appealed to both blacks and white liberals. Trained as a black Baptist minister he combined his black heritage with liberal philosophy and theology. He was affected by the American philosophical tradition of personalism which argues that people cannot be reduced to physical processes and furthermore because each person is more than the sum of their parts, God’s existence can be known through human personality. In Christian doctrinal terms this is expressed by the principle of imago dei, that all humans are created in the likeness of the Creator.

This personal idealism remains today my basic philosophical position. Personalism’s insistence that only personality - finite and infinite - is ultimately real strengthened me in two convictions: it gave me metaphysical and philosophical grounding for the idea of a personal God, and it gave me a metaphysical basis for the dignity of all human personality.

ed Carson The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr pp.31-32

But he was not uncritical of liberalism and as his involvement with the rights movement developed he came to realise that human nature is deeply flawed. The second important source for his theology was Paul Tillich (1886-1965). He had studied Tillich’s existential ontological theology for his PhD thesis and absorbed Tillich’s notion of correlation - a theology which considers that God acts through human agency just so far as humans are only really free when they act according to God’s will. King often used Tillich’s way of expressing sin in terms of human psychological alienation and estrangement from both self and God. The third influence on his theology was his life as a black man and black pastor. King may not have considered himself as a black theologian but his writings make constant use of black history from slavery to contemporary social and economic exploitation. He makes constant reference to the black hope that the slave would eventually defeat the white man and gain his freedom and enter the ‘promised land’. He regarded his role not so much as a systematic theologian but more as an Old Testament 8th century BC prophet working tirelessly to strike at the political heart of American life to create what he famously called the beloved community. i. Human nature The paradox of human nature is crucial to his vision. King’s ‘black theology’ expresses the contradiction of American life: a nation built on the enlightenment principles of freedom and rights

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for all and yet a nation which is curiously blind to its racism. In his famous sermon The Drum Major Instinct (1968) King illustrates the duality of human nature by using the metaphor of the drum major. On one level the drum major demonstrates what the psychologist Adler considered to be even more basic than the sex drive in human beings and that is the peculiar human need of self-seeking, exclusive egoism. What we do for others we do for ourselves and we want praise; we thrive on admiration from others. But the same drive when rightly harnessed by the Christian idea of justice can perform incredible acts of selfless good, even though, being human, we still want the praise of others. But this is what it means to work within human nature:

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all the other shallow things will not matter.

ed. Carson The Great Sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr. p185

In another sermon, Unfulfilled Dreams (1968) he compares the internal tension of human nature where good intentions are so often destroyed by some negative aspect of our psyche, to the present state of social civil war in America. As St Paul summarises it, ‘the good that I would I do not do’ (Romans 7:18). But despite this King believes in the power of God’s transforming love, so whenever humans intend good, however incomplete, God’s grace makes it a possibility. Only in this way will the dream of justice and freedom ever have any chance of succeeding. Like many other later black theologians, King suggested that the only reason for black suffering was to allow others to go free, the inspiration for this comes from the suffering servant (Isaiah 53) and Jesus’ vicarious death. ii. Zeitgeist and history Like so many of the black spirituals the theme of the exodus features as a constant metaphor in his speeches and sermons. But for King the exodus is a continuous event in history not confined to the past. King inherited the black sense that even though the community might be slaves God had not abandoned them. Nowhere did he feel this more than whilst imprisoned in Birmingham jail. His letter written on April 16, 1963 summarises a great deal of his theology. King responds to the criticism made to him by black and white clergy that his actions are untimely and will do more harm than good. King’s answer is that there is no such thing as a good or bad time when it comes to implementing justice. The ‘zeitgeist’, the spirit of the age, suggests that all over the world there is a growing sense that racial injustice must be met with action and that ‘unjust laws are no laws at all’. King may have been over optimistic about the changes in the world, but his vision of a global community is not one that has been abandoned.

Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice.

ed. Carson Autobiography p197 iii. Eschatology King’s prophetic ‘dream’ as he frequently called it, is a direct product of his black religious background. The spirituals often speak of freedom and a life free from pain and misery. But King doesn’t take the Christian notion of the Kingdom of God simply to refer to heaven, he is far closer to the way in which the gospels themselves consider Jesus to be referring to a decisive moment in history itself. King uses the same kind of biblical imagery himself to express the ‘now but not yet’ eschatology of the New Age. But the ‘now’ is the imperative which transforms faith into praxis. It is what theologians call the ‘kairos’ (see Mark 1:15) the time, the season, the right moment in history to act. King’s theological insistence that human action for good would be enabled by God’s

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action, creates his optimistic view that history will shortly change. In his final speech, April 3, 1968 the ‘mountain top’ speech, the day before he was assassinated, he said:

Well I don’t know what will happen now; we’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because of I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life - longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I have seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as people, will get to the promised land.

ed. Carson Autobiography p365 iv. Praxis and Black Power The uniqueness of King was that he transformed theology from the private affairs of the church to the public arena. His theology of praxis therefore marks an important departure from Tillich’s theology. Whereas Tillich derives universal ontological ‘answers’ from the general human condition, King derives universals appropriate to the particular moment. Tillich’s theology was too cool, too dispassionate, typical of a white philosophical approach which considered that emotion would cloud reason. But for King, if God’s being can only be actualised through human action, then there can be no doubt that religion must be politically involved however biased this may appear to make it. Praxis is the transformation of idea into action and King had developed this concept well before it became the mainstay of Latin American liberation theology.

If black power means the amassing of political and economic power in order to gain our just and legitimate goals, then we all believe in that. And I think that all white people of goodwill believe that.

ed. Carson Autobiography p320

King did in the end come to accept that ‘black power’ was here to stay. Despite some misgivings he acknowledged it as a ‘cry of disappointment’ (Autobiography p323) - it is a reaction to the failure of white power. Often when white and blacks have died together for the cause, it is the whites who get more press attention. Secondly it is a call to amass political and economic means for legitimate ends. It is a means of getting out of the strangle-hold of the ghetto and plantation. It is power to change. But in King’s terms the only legitimate form of power is that which is born of love or else it becomes reckless. This also leads to the fair distribution of power. Black power therefore has helped to place blacks in position of power within the political system to work for freedom and human dignity. Thirdly black power is the ‘psychological call to manhood’ (Autobiography p326). Slavery turned the black person into a thing. Black is a negative word. Black power means raising awareness that black people are part of American history and culture. v Reconciliation Whereas liberation is the primary focus of Cone’s black theology, for King it was reconciliation. In theological terms he considered it to be the restoration of the human imago dei and the original God-human covenant. In political terms it determined the foundation of all his rights campaigns.

As we go back to the buses let us be loving enough to turn an enemy into a friend. We must move from protest to reconciliation. It is my firm conviction that God is working in Montgomery.

King Stride Toward Freedom p172 Even before he became a rights leader, King had developed his idea that the heart of the Christian covenant is to be understood as love. Love cannot condone any use of violence; violence makes reconciliation impossible, as he said, “The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of non-violence is reconciliation and the creation of the beloved community” (The Power of Non-Violence). As we have seen in eschatological terms, reconciliation means the inclusive reconciling of blacks and whites not as master-slave or the I-It relationship (as Martin

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Buber termed it), which has been the history of racism and black oppression, but in the I-Thou relationship covenant, where true freedom enables each person to express themself as an individual. King’s language is reminiscent of Tillich when he says, ‘The essence of man is found in freedom’. d. James Cone Cone’s academic background on the other hand was influenced by the neo-orthodoxy of Karl Barth (1886-1968) and those who believe in the exclusivism of Christian revelation. Now although Cone has more recently regretted his over-use of Barth (because as a white theologian he was obsessed with fitting everything into a grand system) in his early writings, Cone’s own fiery writing is driven by the same passionate belief that when it comes to justice theological compromise is not a possibility. Blacks have for far too long lived a double life living outwardly in the white world but having to repress their black identity. i. Blackness as dialectic Just as Barth famously rejected the liberal theologians of his time with his famous ‘No!’ to his colleague Emil Brunner, so Cone cries no to those theologians who fail to see that theology deals with paradoxes which cannot be resolved by reason alone. Theology is dialectical that is it is the human attempt to articulate God who is beyond human knowledge and yet who is known through human experience. It is the tension to be found in human history in general and the particular demands of the gospel. The Bible illustrates what black history and racism has made real in the present context which is God’s involvement with the oppressed. The rest of theology is a series of footnotes to this essential premise. The premise does not require rational proof; the proof comes through the existential experience of estrangement, slavery, exploitation and reconciliation. Like King, Cone finds in the writings of Paul Tillich an articulation of the human existential condition which places human existence before essence or his blackness (oppression) before freedom. Cone, more than King, stresses the contextual nature of theology.

Theology is not universal language about God. Rather, it is human speech informed by historical and theological traditions, and written for particular times and places. Theology is contextual language - that is, defined by the human situation that gives birth to it.

Cone A Black Theology of Liberation Preface pxi ii. Revelation and black consciousness Cone’s view of God’s revelation is radical. Because he rejects the white distinction of the sacred and the secular, God’s revelation is not limited to the Bible or Church or to the great Creeds or necessarily to Christianity (a view borrowed from Barth). Revelation is cultural because God is a god who exists by acting in and through human history. Black consciousness, whether it is Christian or not, is a primary source of God’s revelation because it has developed out of suffering.

There is no revelation of God without a condition of oppression which develops into a situation of liberation… God not only reveals to the oppressed the divine right to break their chains by any means necessary, but also assures them that their work in their own liberation is God’s own work.

Cone A Black Theology of Liberation Preface pp 45-46

Furthermore, Cone effectively breaks down the traditional distinction between general and special revelation. God is generally existentially available through human suffering, thus any special moment in history of suffering and liberation - whether it is the Exodus or Jesus’ life and

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resurrection, are special illustrations of general revelation. Human struggle for existence is a dialectical response to God; divine intervention in the traditional sense would destroy any idea of praxis or human responsibility to effect political change. Using a phrase from Tillich’s existential theology being black requires ‘the courage to be’ fully human against a hostile white world. iii. God is Black Another challenge to white theology is its notion of God. Discussions about the nature of God’s existence or his non-existence, argues Cone, is only possible in an affluent bourgeois society where idleness gives people time to ponder on such things. The challenge is to say that ‘God is Black’. The reaction of white theologians inevitably is to reject such a claim; all language about God is equivocal and to say that God is anything is not to say what God actually is. But that is Cone’s point. ‘Blackness’ as we have seen is a summary of a God who is active in human oppression, who is both a God of judgement of the Old Testament and a God of love of the New Testament. A theology which claims that God is only to be understood as love, fails to add that God also demands justice. God does choose sides; he is not impartial; those who are racist are not equally loved by God and should never be given to believe that what they do is condoned. That is why Cone can add a new Christological title to the range given in the New Testament. Not only is Jesus the Son of God or Son of David, he is also the Black Messiah. Historically Jesus is ‘black’ because he sides with the oppressed (by being baptised he acknowledges his place with sinners) but as the Black Christ, the Church preaches and recognises that his resurrection marks a triumph of justice over oppression. Black theology argues the necessity of combining the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. Cone’s theology more so than the Latin American liberation theologians deals with the mind of the oppressor. If black theology does not cause indignation from some then it has failed.

Black theology cannot accept a view of God which does not represent God as being for oppressed blacks and thus against white oppressors. Living in a world of white oppressors, blacks have no time for a neutral God.

Cone A Black Theology of Liberation p70 iv Justice Although Cone and the other black theologians were initially developing their theology independently of the South American liberation theologians, black theology shares the same principle that theology should be, as Guttierez called it, ‘second act’. Second act theology is the process of reflection, study and conscientisation. Here Cone’s contribution to black theology is far more significant than King’s. King’s theology was developed through his sermons and speeches but it lacks intellectual rigour. Cone on the other hand acknowledges that King and Malcolm X were ‘first act’ practitioners. In the much referred to passage from Matthew 25:31ff Jesus’ parable about last judgement, the primary criterion for entry into the Kingdom is whether a person has fed the poor and housed the homeless. But Cone does not have the same sense of dialectic between first and second act praxis as the liberation theologians do. He is primarily an academic, whereas the liberation theologians are priest-theologians dividing their time between poor communities and university. So there is a danger that Cone’s black theology might well be considered to have succumbed to his own white trap and become just another academic intellectual exercise. Nevertheless, Cone is adamant that the existential ‘passion’ aroused from centuries of black oppression will ensure that the gospel will never become merely an interesting text to analyse, but a text which continues to illustrate liberation from oppression.

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The sin of American theology is that it has spoken without passion. It has failed miserably in relating its work to the oppressed in society by refusing to confront the structures of this nation with the evil of racism. When it has tried to speak for the poor, it has been so cool and calm in its analysis of human evil that it implicitly disclosed whose side it was on.

Cone A Black Theology of Liberation p18

v. Reconciliation So, does Cone leave any means by which whites and blacks can be reconciled? The existential passion which fuels so much of his theology often appears to set up an ‘inverted racism’, whereby all that is white is automatically wrong or sinful.

Black theology does not deny that all persons are sinners. What it denies is white reflections on the sin of blacks. Only blacks can speak about sin in a black perspective and apply it to black and white persons. The white version of reality is too distorted and renders whites incapable of talking to the oppressed about their shortcomings.

Cone A Black Theology of Liberation p51 Like Malcolm X he is critical of the liberal white who attempts to act on behalf of the black person because this perpetuates the slave-master relationship:

It is true that some liberals ‘helped’ blacks by persuading whites to be nice to them, and this probably prevented some lynchings. But blacks know that a person can be lynched in other ways than by hanging from a tree.

Cone A Black Theology of Liberation p83 The reconciliation between blacks and whites is one of the least satisfactory aspects of Cone’s theology, in part because he is unclear about what he means by history and the future. In the final chapter of A Black Theology of Liberation Cone deals with the Christian notion of eschatology, that is discussion of the final things or the consummation of history. On the one hand, influenced by the existentialism of Bultmann and Heidegger he interprets ‘heaven’ as a metaphor for this world transformed through human struggle for freedom. But it is a black struggle and it is unclear how whites will undergo the spiritual and moral change or ‘metanoia’ to be included in this new ‘black society’. On the other hand, Cone appears to argue that history has no foreseeable end and so the after-life is still an ontological reality and reward for those blacks who have fought for justice and died in the process and yet previously he argued that ‘heaven’ of the spirituals was a white man’s ‘lie’ to explain away black suffering now. In the final pages of Black Theology and Black Power Cone argues that the Christian notion of reconciliation means firstly that blacks had come to recognise with pride their own blackness and to demand ‘respect’ from whites and secondly that whites must reconcile themselves to accept blacks as blacks and ultimately to be ‘black’ themselves. Cone’s eschatology appears on the one hand to preserve white/black difference and yet he condemns white attitudes as inherently racist. It is an uneasy tension which King’s inclusivist theology resolves more easily. Conclusion This paper has done no more than sketch out the two distinct but important contributions of Martin Luther King and James Cone to black theology. I haven’t offered much criticism of either men, but it is significant that I have chosen two men because black theology has been attacked by black women theologians who feel that it has failed significantly to incorporate the double enslavement of black women to white women and black men. But womanism raises a fundamental problem of black theology as a whole. If womanist theologians argue that there is a distinct black woman’s experience, then has theology become so contextualised and so particularised to any given moment in history or element within society that there are no great general themes which gives Christian

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theology any coherency at all? Black theology does indeed pose some serious questions about what Western philosophy and theology is trying to do at present. Key ideas: Beloved community: King’s vision of the Kingdom of God realised in a transformed American society where people of all nations will live in love. Black: The negative experience of oppression due to racism, exploitation and injustice. Positively black is ‘beautiful’ and symbolises community, solidarity and openness to God. Contextual theology: Theology is a constant reinterpretation of human experience of God according to the cultural, historical and economic situation. Dialectic: The process by which opposites can constantly create new states of being. In Black Theology this is the relationship between God and history when realised through the oppressed. Eschatology: Discussion of the New Age, heaven and the final moment of salvation. Exodus: An important theme from the Old Testament whereby Moses leads the Hebrew slaves in Egypt to the Promised Land. A much used symbol in Black Theology. First/second act praxis: A distinction developed by Liberation Theologians to refer to the way in which theology is done - first by siding and helping the oppressed, second through teaching and reflection. Imago Dei: In Genesis 1:27 all humans are described as being made in the image of God. Kairos: Means ‘the time’ (in Greek) and is used often by King to express his idea that America has reached a significant moment in her history which God has made possible. Metanoia: Means ‘repentance’ (in Greek) and refers to the radical change needed to bring justice out of injustice. Praxis: Faith in action. God’s action in the world is through human agency. Womanism: Black women’s critique of white feminism and black (male) theology. Reading: Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (Fortress Press, 1981) Noel Leo Erskine, King Among the Theologians (Pilgrim Press, 1994) Luther D. Ivory Toward a Theology of Radical Involvement : The Theological Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. (Abingdon Press, 1997) Clayborne Carson and Peter Holloran (editors) A Knock at Midnight: The Great Sermons of Martin Luther King Jr. (Abacus, 2000) Clayborne Carson (editor) The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Abacus, 2000) Patrick Bascio The Failure of White Theology: A Black Theological Perspective (Peter Lang Publishing, 1994) James H. Cone, Gayraud S. Wilmore (editors) Black Theology: A Documentary History 1980-1992 (Orbis Books, 1993) James H. Cone Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or a Nightmare? (Orbis Books, 1991) James H. Cone A Black Theology of Liberation (Orbis Books, 1970/1990) James H. Cone Black Theology and Black Power (Orbis Books, 1969/1997) James H. Cone God of the Oppressed (Orbis Books, revised edition 1979) Christopher Rowland (editor) The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology (CUP, 1999) Chapter 3

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The Biblical Basis for Liberation Theology

Simon Valentine

During the 1960s and ‘70s, a theological movement expressing a political interpretation of Scripture, appeared throughout the Christian world. Liberation theology, as this movement was called, arose originally within the context of the Third World, where in many countries a minority lives in luxury and wealth in contrast to the vast majority of people who exist in abject poverty. Liberation theologians have attempted to make the gospel more relevant to the social, economic and political needs of such people. What is Liberation Theology? The term ‘a theology of liberation’ was first used in 1968 by Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian priest and academic, and endorsed by the Conference of Latin American bishops, meeting at Medellin, Columbia, later that year. In his book A Theology of Liberation, (1971) Gutierrez argued that true ‘liberation’ has three main dimensions. 1 It involves political and social liberation, the elimination of the immediate

causes of poverty and injustice. 2 Liberation involves the emancipation of the poor, the marginalised, the

downtrodden and the oppressed from all ‘those things that limit their capacity to develop themselves freely and in dignity’.

3 Liberation theology involves liberation from selfishness and sin, a re-establishment of a relationship with God and with other people.

These three dimensions, argues Gutierrez, give rise to the ‘preferential option for the poor’. It is suggested that traditionally the Church has presented the image of a middle-class, patriarchal, (and usually white) God, a God who favours the strong and well-to-do but shuns the oppressed. It is claimed that the Church (unwittingly or not) has been identified with, and supported, the ruling classes. The Church is therefore called to reassess its beliefs and re-examine its purpose and to identify itself with the exploited. The aim of Liberation theology is not abstract theological discussion but reflection, and action, arising from the everyday experience of those who suffer. Therefore there is a need for ‘consciousness-raising’, making people aware of the things that oppress them and providing means of removing such oppression. That is, the role of the Church should be seen in terms of ‘commitment to the poor’. Liberation theology, teaching that poverty is contrary to the will of God, becomes a tool for social reform. Salvation, rather than seen in the traditional sense of a personal relationship with God, is understood in terms of political, economic and social liberation. Similarly, instead of viewing ‘sin’ in the traditional sense of private morality, liberation theology defines it in a wider collective sense to include the structures of an unjust society, the oppression of one group on another and society’s failure to act when faced with unjust laws. Accordingly, as Gutierrez declared, the aim of Liberation theology is ‘to proclaim God as father in a world that is inhumane’. It calls the Church to

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adopt ortho-praxis, that is ‘reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it’. Theology is seen in terms of ‘action’ based upon reflection, and not simply ‘words’. One of the most controversial aspects of liberation theology is its claim that the Church must work actively, even by violent revolutionary means, to oppose and remove injustice. The struggle of the poor is seen by many theologians of liberation to be ‘God’s own struggle against the principalities and powers that keep them poor’. Liberation theology has become a vast umbrella term covering numerous different theologies of liberation. For example there is a Black Theology, Feminist Theology, Ecological theology and the Minjung movement in Korea and its struggle for basic human rights. A new method of understanding the Bible Liberation theologians, instead of reading the Scriptures in a devotional way, primarily concentrate on the relevance of the text to contemporary political and social issues. Adopting a ‘Contextual theology’ liberation theologians therefore emphasise that Scripture must be viewed from the context of the poor and the oppressed. On this basis peasants in various Third World countries read the Bible in terms of their own experience and use biblical symbols, ideas and characters to understand their own situation in life. Many theologians of liberation, in reading the Bible, use what Segundo has called the Hermeneutic Circle. Put simply this means that when we read the Scriptures we must apply two principles. First, there is a need for ‘social analysis’, the need to question our real life situation and therefore change our preconceptions about the world in general. Second, as theology is an ongoing process, we must constantly reinterpret the Bible in the light of the present life situation. These two principles lead to four decisive factors. According to Segundo 1. the way we experience reality gives rise to an ideological

suspicion, a critical awareness that our ideas and beliefs have been shaped and influenced by the prevailing ideology of society.

2. this ideological suspicion should be applied to theology. 3. this new way of looking at theology leads to an exegetical suspicion

which assumes that the usual way we understand the Bible has been culturally conditioned.

4. a new way of interpreting Scripture should be used that takes into account factors previously ignored such as the rights of the down-trodden and oppressed.

Theologians of liberation have often used what Clodovis Boff calls the ‘correspondence of terms’, where images are taken from the Old and the New Testaments and used as models for present day figures and movements. Peasants throughout the World, with understandable justification, make correspondence between their own situation and that of the Jews in the Exodus, the Babylonian captivity, the situation of the poor at the time of Jesus and other situations of hardship in the biblical narrative.

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The Old Testament background The prophets of the OT are seen as those who call, not primarily for a spiritual awakening, but for social action and responsibility. This, it is argued, is seen in the Divine claim made by Hosea: ‘For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than sacrifices’ (Hosea 6:6). Isaiah declares that true fasting is ‘to loosen the chains of injustice . . . to set the oppressed free . . . to share your food with the hungry, and to provide the poor with shelter, when you see the naked, to clothe him’ (58:6,7). Applying the ‘correspondence of terms’ to the message of Jeremiah liberationists suggest that the prophet encourages the oppressed by reminding them that they ‘will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger’ (2:3). Similarly, in the denunciation by Amos of ‘those who sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals’ (Amos 2:6,7) and in the condemnation of Isaiah of those ‘who make unjust laws … and issue oppressive decrees’ (10:1,2) the poor of today find a condemnation of those who oppress in the contemorary world. As Miranda argues ‘to know Yahweh’ is not to be understood in terms of worship and prayer, but ‘to do justice and compassion and right to the needy’. The poor of the underdeveloped world empathise with the figure of Job (particularly when viewed as the innocent sufferer) for they also suffer unjustly and cry out to God for help. In a similar way consolation is found in the Song of Hannah where God is praised, not only for his holiness, but for the fact that he is a God of ‘deliverance’ who feeds the hungry, ‘raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap’ (1 Samuel 2:1-10). The book of Genesis provides a powerful set of symbols, not only for human dignity, but also for the idea of human responsibility in, and for, the world. In the statement, ‘let us make man in our image’ (Genesis 1:26) the writer of Genesis proclaims the uniqueness of each individual person. As such in the Domination texts of Genesis (where God tells humankind to ‘dominate the earth’) we see the themes of stewardship and the idea of caring for natural resources, central motifs of ecological liberation. As Gutierrez states, in the ‘mandate of genesis’ we are reminded that human beings are active participants in the ‘covenant of creation’ and that we share the common task of preserving and maintaining the world. In the Genesis narrative we see other models for liberationist thinking. The person of Abraham represents the man who refuses to live according to the conventional urban models of his day (see 12:1-4). Similarly the conflict between Cain and Abel represents the struggle that goes on in society between the landed and the landless, while the cause of Abel’s death is the division of labour which creates social classes and the ensuing struggle for the land. The Exodus story as a model of liberation Miranda expresses the views of many liberationists when he argues that Yahweh, unlike other Gods, is characterised by ‘an unlimited sense of justice which makes him intervene in human history to eliminate oppression’. This idea is clearly seen in the Exodus story which is interpreted as a divine act of 3

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political liberation. Peasant workers throughout the world can readily identify with the Jews and their hardship in Egypt, their oppression under Pharaoh, their humiliation, and their release under Moses the liberator. In contrast to the traditional idea which sees the escape of the Jews from bondage in Egypt to Canaan as a pilgrimage of the people of God from the natural world to the spiritual, the poor of Latin America and elsewhere, perceive in the Exodus (as in other biblical stories) their own story of enslavement, suffering and their hopes for freedom and justice. In fact the Exodus story has, for some theologians of liberation, become a revolutionary paradigm. Liberators and delivers As well as Moses and the Exodus story, other OT figures and narratives provide models for Liberation theology. The book of judges provides several examples of leaders who led their people to freedom. The story of Ehud, the left handed killer, who freed his countrymen from oppression by killing Eglon the tyrant has been taken as a paradigm of liberation (Judges 3:12-30). Jael, who hammered a tent peg through the temple of Sisera, the commander of King Jabin’s army (the Canaanite oppressor of Israel) has been used to support the use of violence against oppressive regimes (4:18-24). In chapter seven of the book of Judges, Gideon, with 300 chosen men, freed the Jews from the oppression of the Midianites. Although few theologians of liberation are radical revolutionaries advocating the use of force to overthrow oppressive regimes it is common amongst such writers to present the God of the OT as a warrior fighting injustice. Much is made of the presentation of Yahweh as ‘the Lord of Hosts’, the ‘Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle’ (Psalm 24:8). After being delivered from the bondage of Egypt Moses and the Israelites sing praises to God declaring: ‘the Lord is a warrior, the Lord is his name’ (Exodus 15:3). To identify with the poor is to know Christ Liberation theology emphasises the link between the Old and the New Testaments and how the themes of love for neighbour, justice and the God who identifies himself with the poor, are seen throughout the Bible. Just as the OT prophets taught that Yahweh is known only in doing justice, Sobrino expresses the view of many theologians of liberation when he states that the NT teaches how, only in ‘Christian praxis is it possible for us to draw close to Jesus’. Conversion is seen as ‘changed relationships at every level of personal and social reality’ while faith is understood as ‘love for God demonstrated in love for human beings’. Therefore, believing that one-day justice will reign on the earth, believers are called to the task of building a just community. Liberation theology asserts, not only that the NT teaches that to do justice is to know God, but also declares that we are judged solely on the basis of our response to the poor. In support of this claim, Miranda, representative of most liberationists, makes reference to the parable of the eschatological judge of Matthew 25 where the Son of Man beckons the ‘righteous’ to ‘come and inherit the kingdom’ because it is they who, as Jesus states: ‘I was hungry you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you 4

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welcomed me ...’ In response to the question: ‘but when did we see you sick, or naked, when did we welcome you or visit you?’, the Son of Man replies: ‘as you did it to one of the least of these you did it to me’. Jesus, in the parable outlined above, and also in the parable of the Good Samaritan, in his discourse at the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4) and in his direct confirmation of the Levitical mandate: ‘love your neighbour as yourself’, is seen as revealing a divine prejudice in favour of the poor. Similarly, as Rowland states, the parable of Lazarus and Dives is seen as high-lighting the exclusion of the poor, ‘the social invisibility of the man with sores who lies unnoticed at the gate while the rich guests go by’. In the fact that Jesus was born in a stable, that there was no room for him in the inn, that he was a refugee fleeing to Egypt and how his life’s purpose was a plan of self humiliation ending with a death on a Cross, liberationists regard Jesus as identifying with the oppressed peoples of the world. Jesus the political redeemer The Chinese liberation theologian, Y. T. Wu, typical of many liberationists, presents Jesus as ‘a revolutionary, the upholder of Justice and the challenger of the rights of the oppressed’. Jesus’ entire life is regarded as one of political subversion as seen in the way • he spoke out against King Herod, calling him a fox, for putting John the

Baptist to death (Luke 13:32). • he denounced the legalism and hypocrisy of the Pharisees (Matthew 23:1-

39). • he was accused of taking the side of the outcast, and the oppressed, against

the religious and poltical authorities. • he criticized the legal experts because of the intolerable burdens that they

placed on the poor (Matthew 23:24). • In the statement: ‘it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a

needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God’ (Matthew 19:16-24), Jesus is seen as rejecting the idea of wealth and private property.

• he condemned the religious leaders with the words: ‘You put aside the commandment of God to maintain the traditions of men’ (Matthew 7:8).

• his acts of healing are seen as acts of liberation, wresting the assumption of divine sanction from the ruling elite to the marginalized and poor.

Justice, Koinonia and the Early Church Similar themes of love-justice and concern for the poor are seen throughout the rest of the NT literature. As Miranda argues, the apostle John in writing ‘Let us love one another . . .' (1 John 4:7-8) teaches ‘love-justice’ and makes it clear that ‘to do love or justice’ is to know God. In the book of Acts, in chapters 2 and 4, the early disciples displayed a model of love and koinonia (fellowship) by selling all they have, and distributing the proceeds according to needs. James in his letter criticises wealthy believers for despising their brothers and sisters of lower social standing and implores them to love the poor (James 2:5-9; 4:13-17; 5:16). Feminist theologians find encouragement

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in the fact that women played an active role in the early Christian community as apostles, missionaries, prophets and leaders. Many living in poverty under harsh regimes in the Third World find consolation in reading the book of Revelation, a book written by a man who was himself imprisoned unjustly on the island of Patmos. Much hope is found in the description of the New Jerusalem where, as the apostle states, God ‘shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, crying out or pain, for the former world has passed away’ (Revelation 21:4). In the images of the beast and the harlot, and other apocalyptic symbols, Liberation theologians see the defeat and destruction of the present institutions of oppression and exploitation. Problems presented by this method of biblical interpretation Liberation theology has had a significant influence on contemporary theology, especially in the way it has reminded Christians that people have physical as well as spiritual needs. However, not surprisingly, the theology of liberation has not escaped criticism. • In using the Hermeneutic Circle it has been argued that liberationists are

guilty of eisegesis rather than exegesis of Scripture. That is they are in danger of presenting a subjectivist interpretation of the Bible, which involves getting the Bible to say what you want it to say rather than what it actually does say.

• Liberation theology has been accused of reductionism. It is argued that it tends to reduce the Christian tradition into a political message and the ‘spiritual’ dimension is evacuated in favour of a materialist view of the world.

• Many would argue that the radical revolutionary Jesus as presented by Liberation theology has little resemblance to the Christ portrayed in the gospels.

• It has been suggested that Liberation theology idealises, if not canonises, the poor thus making ‘poverty’ a virtue.

• One of the main criticisms raised against Liberation theology is that it has been influenced too much by Marxist ideology and has accordingly adopted a mainly rationalistic and economic method of biblical interpretation.

Further reading: Anyone interested in this area must read Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation, (SCM, 2nd edition, 1988). Other essential reading includes C. & L. Boff, Introducing Liberation Theology, (Burns & Oates, 1987); J. L. Segundo, The Liberation of Theology, (Maryknoll, Orbis, 1975); J. Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads: A Latin American Approach, (SCM, 1987) and J. P. Miranda, Marx and the Bible, (SCM Press, 1971). More recent books include C. Rowland & M. Corner, Liberative Exegesis:

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The Challenge of Liberation Theology to Biblical Studies (SPCK, 1990); G. West, Biblical Hermeneutics of Liberation: Modes of Reading the Bible in the South African Context, (Orbis, 1995); C. Rowland, (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology, (CUP, 1999) and W. Herzog, Parables as Subversive Speech (Westminster Press, 200). For examples of how Latin American peasants express their religious beliefs in poems and prose writing see M. Bonino, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation, and E. Cardenal, Love in Practice: The Gospel in Solentiname, vol. 1 (Orbis: Maryknoll, 1976).

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In the image of man - Freud, Psychoanalysis and Religion

Brendan Callaghan SJ

Some years ago, one of the many psychoanalytic groups in the UK organised a conference on

psychoanalysis and religion. At one point the discussions focussed on a particular belief shared by

many psychoanalytic clients, namely that psychoanalysts regard religious faith as essentially neurotic

and something from which their clients should be helped to recover. The various experienced analysts

and therapists spent some time exploring how this belief could be prevented from interfering with the

therapeutic process. A guest then asked "But why do people think that psychoanalysts see religion as

neurotic?" The keynote speaker came back instantly: "Because we do - it is!"

It seems to me that this little story captures the ambiguity of the psychoanalytic approach to religion:

on the one hand, attempting (increasingly so with time) to be respectful of the client's own life-

framework; on the other, reflecting Freud's own belief that religion was based on neurotic defence

mechanisms and illusion. In what follows I would like to present an introduction to Freud's thinking

about religion, to look at some of the main critiques of his thought, and then to note one of the ways in

which psychoanalytic thought on religion has moved on from Freud's day.

The origins of Freud's theories about religion are complex. Certainly his own life-story, that of a Jew

growing up mainly in Imperial and Catholic Vienna, plays a part in his atheistic stance in adult life, ("a

godless Jew" was how he described himself)1. One of the more fascinating aspects of the life of this

undoubted genius is the apparent blind-spot he had regarding his own relationship with religion2 - a

neurotic defence which showed itself, for example, in his losing any memory of his ability read

Hebrew, as well as in his continuing attention to what he ostensibly regarded as the psychological

equivalent of the human appendix - possibly serving a function in the past, but of no use nowadays,

and capable of giving rise to pathological symptoms.

Freud's account of the origins of religion is a twofold one. Sharing the belief of many of his

contemporaries that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", he saw the development of the individual as

repeating in some way the development of the species - in the area of religion as in other aspect of life.

He presents, then, two versions, complementary rather than competing, one resting on his selective

reading mainly in anthropology to develop a story of the human race, the other on his inductions of

what must have been the developmental processes lying behind the individual stories of his

1 Gay, P., A Godless Jew. Freud, Atheism and the Making of Psychoanalysis, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1987 2 Brandt, L.W., The Pius Riffel Lecture 1989: Freud Analysed Through Moses: Reflections on Freud’s ‘Moses and Monotheism’, Regis College, Toronto,1989

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psychoanalytic patients. The two main texts are Totem and Taboo and Moses and Monotheism -

spanning between them a considerable span of Freud's working life, from 1913 to 19393.

It is not clear whether Freud saw his account of the "primal horde" as a "just so" story, or as a tentative

reconstruction of what must in fact have happened in history. According to this account, early humans

lived in a group dominated by a single male, who alone had sexual access to the females. The younger

males eventually band together, kill this dominating father, and in order to take on his characteristics,

eat him. The guilt of this primal parricide, says Freud, is reflected in two great aspects of civilisation:

the ban on sexual relationships with close blood relations, and the emergence of religion. The former

institutionalises the renunciation of what had been sought by the band of younger males, who

undertake to seek mates only outside the original group. The latter can be traced, says Freud, from its

origins in totemic practice through to the development of monotheistic religion.

The father is substituted by an animal which may not be harmed: it becomes the totem for the group.

Once a year it is ritually killed and eaten in a re-enactment of what may not be recalled directly,

namely the killing of the father. From this original form develops the paternal monotheism which

Freud saw as perpetuated in Judaism and Christianity. In the latter the Eucharist was to be understood

as a further ritualised version of the totemic meal, while in all monotheistic religion, the qualities of

the loved and hated father were attributed to the god who had been constructed out of the neediness of

human beings who had discovered that they could not manage without such a wise and strong

protector.

The equivalent process in the individual is for Freud one of the outcomes of the resolution of the

Oedipus conflict. Why should the play "Oedipus The King" by Sophocles have such an impact?

Because, says Freud, it is an externalisation of a conflict within each young boy: the desire to have

Mother all to himself and to do away with Father. Oedipus, killing his father and marrying his mother,

is simply acting out on a dramatic scale what we would all wish to do. (At this point we need to

acknowledge that there are inevitable difficulties involved when we are using a sophisticated

vocabulary to discuss processes which are largely pre-verbal or non-verbal: "knowing" in what

follows does not imply reflective knowledge, i.e. that I know that I know). The small boy knows that

he cannot remove Father, who is much stronger and bigger: the next best thing then is to "become"

Father by taking on Father's characteristics. So the small boy introjects Father's qualities ("if you can't

beat 'em, join 'em" works at the less-than-conscious level), identifies himself with and as a man, and

moves on, having at the same time renounced primitive satisfactions in order to fit into and gain

3Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement Between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics, and Moses and Monotheism, both in Penguin Freud Library 13 (Strachey, J., gen. ed.), Harmondsworth, 1990

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acceptance from "society". But he discovers that he still needs someone who embodies those qualities

of care and knowledge and power, and so projects those introjected qualities outwards again, and

creates for himself a super-Father - God.

The parallels between the two processes are manifest: the individual process for Freud is a reworking

in each boy's life of the repressed but inherited memories of the original parricide. The mechanisms

which give rise to religion are caught up in the development of civilisation, and one of the functions of

religion is to compensate for the inevitable frustrations of living in a civilised rather than an

unrestrained manner.

But religious belief is based on wish-fulfilment: we believe as we do because we want things to be as

we believe they are. Rather than base our lives on beliefs which can be demonstrated as true by the

production of evidence, we indulge in illusory thinking - that is, belief resting on wish-fulfilment. For

Freud, illusory beliefs are not necessarily false - sometimes events bear out what we had no real

grounds to hope for: Snow White's Prince did come. But at best illusionistic thinking and belief is

infantile, and at worst it can lead us to believe what are also delusions - namely counterfactual beliefs.

For Freud, religious belief is both illusion and delusion: believed because we want it to be so, but

contrary to the real order of things. We should note that Freud himself foresees that his psychoanalytic

system could be used to defend religious belief, but he himself is clear that such belief is infantile, and

that people will be better off once they have outgrown it, and moved on to a scientific way of thinking

and believing that relies on hard and replicable evidence.

Before looking at some of the main critiques of Freud's thinking, a brief but important aside is called

for. Freud wrote in German - in very beautiful German - but much of the ongoing discussion of

Freud's writing relies on the English translations. It is Bruno Bettelheim, in Freud and Man's Soul,

who points out a critical change that occurs between the original and the translation, and through the

influence of the translation, that has shaped the developing discussion4. Freud, when referring to the

totality of psychological functioning, used a term that was translated as "psyche", the translators

choosing to incorporate a Greek word into general English usage. Thus we talk about "the mechanisms

of the psyche" or "the functioning of the psyche", and have an image of some overall and distinct

system. But the word which was thus translated is not out of the ordinary in German, and has a

standard translation in English: Seele translates directly as soul. It is interesting to speculate on how

differently psychology might have developed if Freud's writings had spoken consistently of soul rather

than psyche.

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Freud's accounts of the origins of religion are open to a variety of critiques, and Michael Palmer's

excellent book Freud and Jung on Religion is in my view the best treatment of these5. We can note

that the anthropology of the primal horde account is, to say the least, shaky. Totemism turns out not to

be quite the primitive form of religion that Freud's account requires it to be, and the suggested place of

ritual cannibalism is also counter to contemporary understandings of early human groupings. The way

in which the memory of this pre-historical event is passed down, apparently by genetic inheritance,

was never specified by Freud, possibly because any coherent attempt to do so would require him to

espouse Lamarck's version of evolution rather than Darwin's. Freud himself notes that his group

theories do not account for religions with a maternal deity, and critics have been forceful in pointing

out that his account of the origin of religion in the individual is also one which focuses on the male,

and which sees female religion as essentially derivative.

Brian Farrell, in The Standing of Psychoanalysis6 has described Freud's theories as "a premature

synthesis in advance of the evidence", and we need to be aware that because there are deficiencies in

one aspect of his monumental system, it is in fact not such a coherent system that the total edifice

collapses. Freud's work points towards the existence of projective and infantile elements in the religion

of individuals and groups, and we need to be ready to take account of these if we are to understand

better the various manifestations of religion in our world. Freud's account of religion provides

necessary elements to our understanding: it does not provide what Freud was convinced that it could

provide, namely a sufficient account of religion, explaining it in terms which reduce it to an essentially

neurotic and infantile mechanism.

We should be aware of a hidden assumption in Freud's work, one that is less easy to share in today's

world: the belief that a positivist scientific method is the only means to discover truth. Freud was in

that sense a classical scientist. There is an irony in his unquestioning acceptance of a belief system that

came to occupy for him precisely that place held for so many by religion, but we need to temper any

delight in that irony by recognising both that he was very much in tune with the beliefs of his times,

and that the unquestioning adherents of a reductionist scientific method as the only means to truth are

still alive and well and influencing our thinking today.

As an empirically trained psychologist I have no wish to throw out scientific method in psychology: it

has a vital contribution to make. But to rely on it as providing all the knowledge I need and can rely on

in my understanding of human behaviour and experience is to misunderstand the nature of the

4 Bettelheim, B, Freud and Man's Soul, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1989 5 Palmer, M. Freud and Jung on Religion, Routledge, London and New York, 1997 6 Farrell, B, The Standing of Psychoanalysis, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1981

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scientific enterprise and the axioms on which it rests in all its different spheres of investigation7.

Scientific method tells us essential things about our world and about ourselves, but there are great

swathes of our experience of ourselves and our world that are not and cannot be illuminated by a

reductionist approach. To play a Bach fugue I cannot do without the black notes on the keyboard, but

to tell me that to play real music I may only play on the black notes is to cut me off from a vast range

of expression.

Freud's psychology is essentially a biological one: the complex mechanisms that evolve in individuals,

and on which he threw so much light, are in the service of the satisfaction of biological drives, and

Freud is in that sense as much a determinist as the most rigid reward-and-response behaviourist.

Within his lifetime this drive-based psychology was being questioned, by Melanie Klein and others,

and a more relational psychology was already being developed within the overall framework of a

psychoanalytic approach. One particular line of development that has given rise to interesting and

useful insights is known, a little confusingly to the layman, as object-relations theory.

Ronald Fairbairn, working in Scotland in the early and middle decades of the 20th Century, was one of

the analysts who moved away from classical Freudian drive theory, and suggested that the energy of

the psyche is not seeking the discharge of biological tensions but the building and maintenance of

relationships with good objects, both internal and external. Object here refers to anything or anyone

who is not myself, with whom I can be in relationship. Fairbairn points to what might seem an obvious

aspect of human experience, namely the importance of relationship, and incorporates this into the

Freudian system. This is a necessary step in coming to a psychoanalytic approach which can take

positive account of religion in a way that a classical drive theory cannot.

One of the most important theorists in this school is Donald Winnicott (1896-1971). His insights on

religion are scattered through his writing, which was mainly clinically-based, but his main

contribution lies in his concept of transitional space, and a reframing of the notion of illusion.

Working as an analyst with children, he described how, very early on, the child has to make an

enormous transition in its view of the world, from one in which there is no boundary between myself

and everything (and everyone) else, and thus one in which I am in some ways omnipotent, in that for

example, I think "I am hungry" and my hunger is met by feeding, to one in which I am a distinct

individual, separate from and dependant on others to keep me alive and nurture me. I have to give up

the illusion (in this, different sense) that I am all-that-there-is, and omnipotent, but while it lasts this

illusion enables me to grow, and to reach out towards the real world. What has changed is not the

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"reality" of the real world, because Mother was feeding me even before I knew there was an "I" and a

"Mother": what has changed is my understanding (still at a preverbal level). It is a frightening

transition (because Mother is not and will not always be there when I do feel hungry or cold or wet or

whatever) and I typically help myself to make this transition with the help of some object which stands

in for mother - what Winnicott calls, therefore, a "transitional object".7

The classic such object is the teddy bear, ('Peanuts' readers will be thinking of Linus and his security

blanket), but what is crucial is that whatever this object is, this is the first time I move into the world

of symbol, where one object in my world can be not just a sign pointing towards another object, but

can be a symbol, i.e. can carry the emotional significance of that object for me. Snuggling with my

teddy-bear I feel comforted when Mother is not there: the chasm between my interior world and the

exterior world is bridged, and crucially I have discovered that it can be bridged. I can operate not only

within my own head, and not only in the external world, but in a space between them where dreams

and desires and what is most essentially true in my inner life can be expressed using objects in the

external world, and where others can truly communicate with me. It is in this transitional space, that

develops and diffuses itself as I mature, that much of what is distinctively human about our experience

takes place. It is an interesting exercise to think how much of what makes us distinctively human

relies on our ability to use and relate to symbols, from cuddling with teddy-bears to the consolations of

philosophy.

Religion, for Winnicott and those who have developed his lead, certainly functions in this transitional

space, and Paul Pruyser8 has explored how many of the distortions of religion arise from our losing

sight of its "illusionistic" quality and treating it either as belonging strictly to the external "verifiable"

world or strictly to the internal "autistic" world rather than to the "between" world where it belongs.

Ana-Maria Rizzuto9 provides an instructive model of how we form our images of God, suggesting that

anyone who has grown up in Western culture has such an image, whether or not they believe in God.

She also notes that our concepts relating to God may be out of synch with our images of God: what we

think we know about God, and the God we believe in, may be very different, and it is the images of

God which we carry that can influence us most profoundly.

All of this is a long way from the psychoanalytic dismissal of religion as essentially neurotic which we

noted at the start. What is intriguing is that as psychoanalysis has enlarged its scope to take more

7 Winnicott, D.W., Transitional Object and Transitional Phenomena, in Playing and Reality, Tavistock Publications, London, 1971. 8 Religion in psychodynamic perspective : the contributions of Paul W. Pruyser ; edited by H. Newton Maloney, Bernard Spilka New York : Oxford University Press, 1991 9 Ana-Maria Rizzuto, The birth of the living God : a psychoanalytic study, U of Chicago Press 1979

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adequate account of the actual experience of analysts and clients, so it has become more willing and

more able to recognise that religion can be a force for good in individual lives.

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The Kingdom of God Julie Arliss

Old Testament Background The Old Testament presentation of the Kingdom of God is complex. During the Old Testament period the focus of what the ‘Kingdom of God’ meant changed. We are not therefore dealing with the Old Testament idea of the Kingdom of God but a whole complex of ideas, which Jesus and the writers of the New Testament were able to draw upon. However, it would be fair to say that there is a constant within this complex of ideas. The kingdom of God is a time/place where God is King. The kingdom of God, throughout the OT, is about the kingship of God; when God reveals himself as king. What this means, what it will be like when God is King, and when it will happen is far more open to debate. The Kingdom of God; a Time of Judgement As early as the eighth century BCE there were prophecies which anticipated the ‘day of Yahweh’ as a day of judgement. The day of judgement prophesied by prophets such as Amos and Hosea was to be the time when the judgement of God would fall on Israel for her crimes against the poor (Amos2:4-5,Hosea 5:8-14). The laws of God required loving kindness to the poor and the destitute and obedience to the Sabbath. If Israel ignored these commands, they would be punished by God himself who would act in history, through Israel’s political enemies, to remove the Israelites from the land which he had given them. God would reveal his kingship in history by acting to punish the wicked. This seems to have been the beginning of Jewish eschatological hopes for a future event when God would reveal himself as king of righteousness by acting to punish his own people. Hosea went further than this time of judgement to a future time of forgiveness when Israel and her God would live in harmony again. He used the image of God wooing his people back to him as a faithful husband might forgive and accept back an unfaithful wife. (Hosea 2:14-15) As the centuries passed and the land was gradually taken away from Israel by her enemies hopes for survival became centred on Jerusalem. First Isaiah said that Jerusalem herself was God’s holy city where he had caused his name to dwell. This was where the Temple was and where God was believed to be especially present. Isaiah believed that the city would be protected by God against all enemies. (Isaiah 2:1-3) Although the prophet Jeremiah warned against the idea of the Temple as an insurance against all risks (Jeremiah 7) this view was unpopular and largely ignored. When finally the city fell to Babylon in 597BCE the people felt totally abandoned by God, but more importantly judged. They searched for the reasons why they were being punished. They concluded that it was because they had not followed the law well enough, and so began fine-tuning their understanding of the law. They also began to look forward to a time when their relationship with God would be restored. Second Isaiah prophesied that when the exile was over they would be taken back to Jerusalem, with God leading the way, and that as they arrived at Mount Zion God would manifest his glory for the whole world to see, and all would come to worship the God of Israel on Mount Zion. (Isaiah 40:5,9-11) Sadly when the exile was over and the people were allowed to return to Jerusalem this did not happen. However the Jews did not feel that the prophecy was wrong, but that it must be a

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prophecy yet to be fulfilled, in the future, when as a people they were worthy enough to be called the people of God. Such hopes for the future are called eschatological hopes. The day of the Lord, prophesied by Amos was thus transformed from a time of straight-forward judgement to a time when Israel would be vindicated. Jeremiah saw the salvation work of God at this future time in terms of a new covenant. (Jeremiah 31:31-33) Jeremiah reflected on Israel’s failure to keep the Laws of Moses, that is Israel’s failure to keep her side of the covenant made through Moses on Mount Sinai. This covenant was a two sided covenant, like a marriage, in which Israel agreed to be faithful to God and obey his laws. In return God had promised to sustain a special relationship with her and to make Israel a nation of priests, a Holy nation. (Exodus 19:5-6) Jeremiah saw that Israel’s failure to keep her side of the covenant would always happen, no one could keep the laws of God because the human heart was too weak. For a covenant relationship to work God would have to renew the covenant and give his people the will to obey it. He looked forward to a time when a new covenant would be made and the laws of God would be written on the human heart so that people would be ABLE to keep God’s laws. Ezekiel went a step further and prophesied that when the time of the new covenant came there would be a new age (Ezekiel 34:25-31).There would be peace over all the Earth and ‘paradise’ would be regained on Earth. God would rule over all the Earth in a period of justice and universal peace. This hope for a new covenant forms an important backdrop to thoughts in the New Testament about the Kingdom of God. The prophecy of judgement did not disappear but became incorporated into eschatological hopes. During the Seleucid period there was a further important development in Jewish thinking about judgement. Antiochus Epiphanes attacked Jewish identity with the aim of undermining the Jewish faith entirely. In c.169 BCE he defiled the Temple and introduced measures which made key Jewish practices illegal. Many faced martyrdom rather than deny their faith. (2 Macc.7) This produced a problem concerning God’s commitment to the covenant: how could the fact that innocent people died for their faith be reconciled with a covenant relationship in which it was understood that obedience ought to be rewarded? Out of this came the resurrection hope for post-mortem vindication. With the idea of life after death came the picture of judgement after death, and heaven and hell as places of physical delight and torment respectively (2 Macc 12:44, 14:46). Judgement, it was believed, would be based on how closely a person had followed the letter of the law. Belief in a time after death, when the innocent would be vindicated and the guilty punished, became very important to some groups of Jews. In addition apocalyptic visions of the end times emerged; these saw the future culmination of the existing order of the world and the establishment of a new era in history; the kingdom of God (Daniel 7). According to Jewish tradition when this happened there would be a general resurrection of the dead, and all would rise from the grave to go forward to be judged. (In the time of Jesus only the Pharisaic party believed in life after death. The Sadducees, the aristocratic priestly families who ruled over the Temple did not.) By the end of the Old Testament period ideas about the Kingdom of God were tied up with ideas about God acting in history to save his people; ideas of a new world order in which Gentiles would share in the salvation of Israel; judgement; salvation; new covenant and the general resurrection of the dead.

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Beliefs About the Kingdom of God in the Time of Jesus In the time of Jesus Israel was under Roman occupation. This effected the populist belief about the kingdom. The most commonly held view was that God would act in history to prove himself King and to vindicate his people by liberating Israel from Roman rule. The Kingdom of God, it was believed, would be established when Israel had political independence. The focus of hope was for sovereignty over the land of promise, as in the time of David, and the establishment of Israel as a political and spiritual people of God. Ideas about the Kingdom as a time of judgement had largely gone out of focus. It was John the Baptist who stood at the river Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins that reminded the people about this, and it was to him that Jesus went at the beginning of his ministry. Following this meeting with John the Baptist Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming, ‘the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel.’(Mark 1) Further explanation was clearly required about what he meant: this teaching Jesus gave in the form of parables and miracles. The Kingdom of God and The Coming of the Messiah A further complication to add to these Old Testament pictures of the Kingdom of God is the idea of the Messiah. By the time of the New Testament it was believed that the Messiah would bring the Kingdom, and indeed the two ideas are often linked throughout the Bible. Talk of the ‘Kingdom of God’ often included ideas of a human king, ruling on God’s behalf and with His authority.1

• The Kingdom of God and the coming of the King-Messiah In the Old Testament the king was the Lord’s ‘Anointed One’; he was anointed when he became king and was believed to rule in God’s stead. When David was anointed King by Samuel ‘the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him’ as a sign that his authority was the authority of God. The king had a sacred function in Israel representing the presence of God with his people. The monarchy was regarded as a gift from God to his people, the gift of his abiding presence. The words ‘the anointed one’ also mean ‘saviour’ (in Hebrew, Messiah and in Greek, Christos.) David was a saviour of the people because he established them in the land at a time when the Philistine threat was at its height. The territory of the Israelite kingdom grew in the time of David, and there was peace between Israel and her neighbours. This period was looked back on as the ‘Golden Age’ in Israel’s history. In 2 Samuel 7 a one-sided covenant was made by God with David in which He promised to establish the house of David for ever. When the monarchy came to an end, at the fall of Jerusalem in 597 BCE, this was seen as God withdrawing his favour from his people. In

1 1Lord, you are our king for evermore, for in you, O God, does our soul take pride … 3But we hope in God our saviour, for the strength of our God is for ever with mercy, and the kingdom of our God is for ever over the nations in judgement. 4Lord, you chose David to be king over Israel, and swore to him about his descendants for ever, that his kingdom should not fail before you. 5But because of our sins, sinners rose up against us, they set upon us and drove us out. 21See, Lord, and raise up for them their king, the son of David, to rule over your servant Israel in the time known to you, O God. 22Undergird him with the strength to destroy the unrighteous rulers ... 26He will gather a holy people whom he will lead in righteousness; and he will judge the tribes of the people that have been made holy by the Lord their God. … 28And he will distribute them upon the land according to their tribes. … 32And he will be a righteous king over them, taught by God. There will be no unrighteousness among them in his days, for all shall be holy, and their king shall be the Lord’s messiah. (Psalms of Solomon 17)

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origin therefore the Messiah was the King, and hopes for a Messiah were linked with hopes for a renewal of the house of David, peace and political independence. An independent strand of eschatological hope is found in the book of the prophet Joel. Here there is a prophecy of judgement, pictured in a series of cataclysmic images of destruction (Joel 1-2:11). This, it is prophesied, will be followed by a period of repentance (Joel 2:12-17) and renewal. Interestingly the period of renewal is characterised by a general outpouring of the Holy Spirit, ’And it shall come to pass afterwards, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophecy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even upon the menservants and maidservants in those days, I will pour out my spirit.’ (Joel 2:28-29) Traditionally the gift of the spirit was regarded at a special gift given to the King and to prophets, and it stayed with them only for the duration of their ministry. This prophecy sees the time of the kingdom in terms of the gift of the Holy Spirit being given to all. In other words all will be able to have the special relationship with God that in the past was seen as reserved exclusively for Kings and prophets. This prophecy does not connect the figure of the king-Messiah with the new age; instead it looks to a time when all might have access to the gift of the spirit.

• The Coming of the Kingdom and the development towards belief in a Transcendent-Messiah

Many of the kings were a great disappointment to the people. Prophets, such as Isaiah were responsible for delivering the true ‘Word’ of the Lord to the king. When king Ahaz largely ignored Isaiah’s advice Isaiah began to look forward to a time when God would send a good king who would be filled with the spirit of God, in the way that David had been, (Isaiah 11:1-3). He would be a ‘Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’ ( Isaiah 9:6). This king would be so inspired with the spirit of God that he was to be called ‘Mighty God.’ This is the beginning of transcendental ideas about the King/Messiah. This idea may be linked to, and seen as fully developed in Daniel 7:13-14. Here the hope is for ‘one like a son of man’ who will come on ‘the clouds of heaven’ and have ‘dominion and glory and kingdom that all nations should serve him.’ This figure would have a kingdom ‘that shall not be destroyed.’ The expectation of God’s rescue/vindication of his people, and their authority over everyone else is a common thread.

• The Coming of the Kingdom and the Suffering-Messiah Second Isaiah was a prophet of the exile. This was a time when all that had traditionally identified Israel as the people of God had been lost. The people had been exiled from the homeland, the king had been removed from office and the Temple had been destroyed. This was seen as a punishment from God for their failure to keep the demands of the covenant relationship. Second Isaiah is a prophet who speaks in this period of national guilt. He offers a unique picture of a servant of God who will suffer innocently, uncomplainingly and silently to pay for the sins of the people. He is one who will come to serve, but who will be rejected and despised by the people. Upon him will God lay the sins

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of the people (Isaiah 53.) Through him the relationship of all people with God would be healed. The reward for the servant who accepts this role is seen in terms of resurrection and regeneration. What did Jesus teach about the Coming of the Kingdom? 2According to Mark, our earliest Gospel writer, Jesus’ first proclamation was about the Kingdom of God. It is agreed by scholars that his teachings focused on this throughout his ministry. There is far less agreement about what precisely he meant. The difficulty of establishing this with historical accuracy is well documented; the work of Form Critics and Redaction Critics has further confirmed this as a genuine problem. After the death of Jesus those left behind were still puzzling over what his life had meant. In the New Testament itself we see ideas developing. To those first Christians some things were clear:

• Jesus had not been a king like King David: the Romans still occupied their country. • Jesus’ kingdom was not an earthly kingdom involving political independence for

Israel. • A new world order had not come: there was no peace over all the Earth. • There had been no general resurrection of the dead. • Jesus had aligned himself with John the Baptist who had preached a message of

repentance, although Jesus’ message had been one of Good News. • At the last supper Jesus had spoken about his death in terms of a New Covenant. • After Jesus’ death they still felt his presence, many claimed to have seen him. • Some of them could prophesy, heal people or speak in tongues. • They felt that His life and death had been of universal significance. They

experienced the ‘king-ship’ or rule of God in their lives in a way now that they had never experienced before.

Many of the traditional hopes attached to ideas about the kingdom of God had not been fulfilled in the life and work of Jesus. This was a problem for a church that claimed that Jesus was, nonetheless, the Messiah. The New Testament writers can be seen struggling with this problem in the way they present the life and work of Jesus. Had the kingdom come? Was it yet to come in a final apocalyptic moment? Or had the life of Jesus inaugurated the kingdom? Was the kingdom going to mean a new world order at the culmination of the age? Or was the kingdom something alive in the individual and not a place at all? The earliest response to this seems to have been the belief in the Parousia, the second coming of Jesus, when all those hopes about the kingdom not yet fulfilled would be accomplished. The earliest New Testament record of this is in Paul’s letters.

• The Parousia and the Kingdom in Paul.

2 Some synoptic kingdom traditions with a high claim to authenticity, include the trio of (Lucan) beatitudes with their prophetic announcement of a divine reversal in time to come; the anticipation of the age to come through the exercise of the Spirit’s power (Matt 12.28 diff Luke 11.20), the reversal of conventional values in e.g. the children sayings (Mark 10.15, 16), the Lord’s Prayer, and teaching about judgement Matt 8.11-12/Luke 13.28-29.

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Paul’s letters are the earliest texts of the New Testament. He devoted his life to the Gospel, converted numerous people and established many churches. After he had built up a church he would keep in touch by writing encouraging letters. In them he often responded to questions that the church had sent him, or to problems he had heard they were encountering. In his first letter to the Thessalonians Paul addressed a problem which had arisen concerning the parousia. The Thessalonians had clearly expected the parousia to come soon, certainly before any of them died. When one of their community died they wondered why the person was not raised from the dead, as Jesus had been. ‘Brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep. Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord.’ (I Thessalonians 4:13-18) In this text Paul promotes a belief that Jesus will return and it is clear that he expects it to be within his lifetime. He pictures the Parousia in imagery typical of Jewish apocalyptic; including the general resurrection of the dead and the establishment of a new world order. His understanding of the time of Jesus on Earth was that it inaugurated the kingdom, and that the kingdom was yet to come to its completion. He believed himself to live, as it were, in the centre of time, between the life of Jesus and his return, when a new world order would be established. This explains why Paul, in 1 Corinthians, advised people not to marry, unless this would lead to temptation, because they should focus on the current time, which was short, before the coming of the Lord.

• The Synoptic Gospels and the Kingdom

The Gospel writers, who wrote some time later than Paul, also display this early belief in the parousia. It is particularly evident in some of the parables recorded in Matthew’s gospel. In the parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46) Matthew records his picture of what will happen when Jesus returns: "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.’ Here Matthew pictures Jesus as a transcendental Messiah figure, as found in the book of Daniel, and ties in the picture of the kingdom with a time of future judgement. That which Jesus wasn’t, in terms of traditional Jewish expectations of the Messiah, he will become in the parousia. That which didn’t happen, which according to Jewish hopes should have happened with the coming of the Messiah and the arrival of the kingdom, is said to have been deferred to a future event. The Parousia will be the time when God will establish himself as king of all the Earth.

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It is not at all clear whether the parable above is one told by Jesus or one which has been very much embellished by Matthew. It is possible that Matthew is using this parable to answer the problems posed by the failure of Jesus to meet all the Old Testament criteria of ‘Messiahship.’ However there are other places in the gospels where Jesus is reported as having spoken in apocalyptic language of the end times. In Mark 13 there is an apocalyptic discourse given by Jesus on the Mount of Olives in the middle of Holy week. Because of the multiple witness to this type of saying it could reasonably be argued that some of these thoughts must go back to the historical Jesus. This is the logic behind the work of A. Schweitzer, who argued that Jesus’ view of the kingdom was futurist, and that he was basically misguided: history has proved him wrong because the end of the world did not come. Other parables are not so clear-cut about the nature of the kingdom. Some focus not on the kingdom as reaching its fulfilment not in a future event but as a state of the human heart. This view of the kingdom is particularly evident in the later gospel of Luke. In this gospel the phrase ‘kingdom of God’ or ‘kingdom of Heaven’ is often replaced with, ‘eternal life’. In Luke the lawyer who asks how to inherit ‘eternal life’ is told through the parable of the Good Samaritan that he must love God and his neighbour as himself: the Rich Young Man is told to sell all he has. The Kingdom is found in an attitude to life; when a person makes God king in their life they have found the Kingdom of God. In this sense the kingdom of God is a fully realised present reality for those who can accept it into their hearts. This is the view of many scholars, such as C.H. Dodd, who believe that Jesus’ view of the kingdom reached complete fulfilment in his life and death. Yet, other parables focus on the picture of the growth of the kingdom. It is planted as a seed with the inevitability of growth beyond all expectation (The Parable of the Sower, Mark 4:1-20) or will begin as a small lump of yeast which will expand the dough beyond all expectation. These pictures suggest that the kingdom is here, and is a present reality, but that there is more to come as it unfolds in the future. Scholars such as J. Jeremias have spoken of Jesus’ teachings as ‘eschatology in the process of realisation’ which is the only way of accommodating all the pictures of the kingdom found in the gospels as historical records of the teachings of Jesus.

• The Kingdom of God in John’s Gospel

John’s gospel is the latest of the gospels and was written after many years of reflection on the meaning of the life and work of Jesus. There are no parables in John and no teaching material such as that which is found in the synoptic gospels. Instead John focuses on the revelation of God in the person and work of Jesus, and his continuing work in the lives of individuals through the person of the Holy Spirit. This is a mature work and reflects a period when the hope for the parousia had become something of an embarrassment to the church (see John 21:20-24). In John there is no need to sustain a theology of the parousia because John claims that Jesus never truly left his followers. He is fully present in them and continues his work through them because his spirit abides. Perhaps this can be seen in terms of the fulfilment of the prophecies of Jeremiah and Joel. The New Covenant, prophesied by Jeremiah, is written on the heart of the individual and with the indwelling of the spirit, prophesied by Joel, doing the will of God is now possible. God is king in the lives of individuals because He is an abiding presence. In John

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the outpouring of the Holy Spirit means that all share in the relationship of Jesus with the Father, which is eternal life; life lived with the eternal. The whole concept of the Kingdom of God is thus transformed. It is not a physical place, or a future hope, or something which Jesus inaugurated but a spiritual state which the individual may enter through belief in Jesus now. 3 In the synoptic gospels ‘eternal life’ was a future event (Mark 10:30) but in John eternal life is already available to those who believe in Jesus. Eternal life is the opposite of walking in darkness, coming to judgement, experiencing God’s wrath, perishing and death (3:16-21). One may have eternal life now ‘by hearing his word and believing him who sent him’ (John 3:15). This is only possible for the believer because of the death of Jesus, which John describes in terms of a willing sacrifice reminiscent of the suffering servant in Second Isaiah. At death only the physical shell of the person is lost: the relationship with God continues which means that death is not to be feared. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life and has prepared a place for those who hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. He was and continues to be the Way the Truth and the Life for the believer.

Many question the historical veracity of the Gospel of John. It is thought unlikely that the historical Jesus is accurately represented and it seems clear to many that it is the result of years of reflection. However, to those who believe that Jesus rose from the dead and lives this is largely irrelevant. John’s gospel is seen as part of the continuing revelation of Jesus, through the work of the Holy Spirit. The struggle, evident in the earlier works of the New Testament, to understand the life and work of Jesus in terms of Jewish eschatological expectations is largely accomplished, and to those who believe the fruits of the kingdom are a daily reality.

3 This transformation in thinking about the Kingdom of God can be seen in the discourse in John’s gospel between Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a Pharisee who comes to Jesus because he recognises that he is from God, because of the ‘signs’ he does. Jesus replies that ‘unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ and ‘unless one is born of water and the spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’(John 3:3&6). This is the only occasion when the phrase ‘kingdom of God’ is used in John, it is substituted from this point on with the phrase ‘eternal life’. In 3:15 the substitution has already been made as Jesus explains to Nicodemus that, ‘whoever believes in him may have eternal life.’ In this discourse Nicodemus learned that he must abandon Jewish thinking about the kingdom of God.

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How should we treat prisoners?

Timothy Gorringe

The Home Secretary has just announced ‘the most radical shake up in the treatment of

offenders since the Victorian era’. If he is serious, he must mean since Winston

Churchill was a Liberal Party Home Secretary, which means he has his dates wrong

by a decade, but that is a small fault. Over the past thirty years the treatment of

prisoners has been increasingly retributive, assuming that the only way to deal with

them is to punish them hard. I wish to consider the reasons for thinking like this, and

what the alternatives might be. I begin with the work on scapegoat theory by the

French cultural anthropologist René Girard.

I Scapegoat Theory

Girard’s thesis is simple. i He appeals to Aristotle for the insight that all learning

happens through mimesis. To learn as a human being is to imitate others. The problem

with imitation is that we all want the same thing, and this generates violence.

The story of Cain and Abel is a classic story of two brothers in competition for the

same goods (a ‘blessing’, i.e. success in their enterprise), where the failure of one

leads to murder. But mimesis does not just belong to ancient myths or to childhood.

The nuclear arms race was a classic instance of mimetic violence whilst mimesis is

one of the major motors of capitalism. As Tony Reilly, Chief Executive of Heinz,

once said: ‘Once something is on TV it turns out that everyone wants more or less the

same thing’. Blue jeans, Nike shoes, burgers, baked beans... But as we also know,

capitalism presupposes competition, and even, as we often say, ‘cut throat

competition’, violence.

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Before the advent of law, and social conventions, Girard believes we have the war of

all against all, as everyone competes for the goods everyone desires. In order to

survive, societies have to find a way of limiting violence. This is the scapegoat

mechanism. Society channels all its pent up frustration, anger, rage and aggression on

to one single victim - the scapegoat. In the scapegoat ritual outlined in Leviticus 16

the priest lays his hands on the head of a live goat and confesses over it all the

people’s sins and transgressions ‘putting them on the head of the goat’. The goat is

then driven into the wilderness, bearing the people’s iniquities away (Lev 16.23). It is

a symbolic story of immense power.

Nothing is said in Leviticus about the role of the whole community in driving away

the goat by throwing stones, though this is what happens when people are executed by

stoning. Also, the goat is not killed, but simply driven into the wilderness. Girard,

however, works on the assumption that the scapegoat is normally killed, and he is able

to give copious examples from both Scripture and other world literature to support his

case. He also illustrates, only too plausibly, how the scapegoat mechanism has

functioned in world history. In European history, for example, the Jews were

scapegoated, as were old women (so called ‘witches’) and as now are ethnic

minorities. We also know that scapegoating frequently happens within families, or

other smaller communities. The scapegoat mechanism, in fact, as is already clear in

Leviticus, is a way of dealing with guilt. When we feel guilty, doubt and anger is

directed at ourselves: if we cannot deal with that the obvious thing is to displace it on

to another. On this other is dumped all of our rage and aggression. That one is the

guilty one, guilty of everything. The rhetoric of Isaiah 53 picks this up: ‘On him

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YHWH has laid the iniquity of us all’(Is 53.6). In this way the scapegoat - a person, or

a community, or perhaps a symbolic animal - actually saves us or delivers us from our

own inner conflict, at least for a time. Girard envisages a situation in primitive

society where it was repeated yearly, as, of course, Leviticus envisages. Once the

murder has taken place the scapegoat can even become a divine figure since it

delivers the person or community from its own anger.

But whilst the scapegoat mechanism delivers from violence at the same time it

institutionalises it as a way of dealing with conflict. This aggression is not absent

from law. To be sure, law comes in to control the blood feud and the lynch mob, but

the sentiments of retributive justice - make the punishment fit the crime - cast a cool

and rational veil over the scapegoat mechanism. No one realised this more clearly, or

stated his opposition to it more forcibly, than George Bernard Shaw. The prison

authorities profess three objects, he wrote:

(a) Retribution (a euphemism for vengeance), (b) Deterrence (a euphemism for

Terrorism) and (c) Reform... They achieve the first atrociously. They fail in the

second...the third is irreconcilable with the first.

He then went on:

A punishment system means a pardon system: the two go together inseparably. Once

admit that if I do something wicked to you we are quits when you do something

equally wicked to me, and you are bound to admit that the two blacks make a white.

Our criminal justice system is an organized attempt to produce white by two blacks.

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The mechanism of scapegoating is a way of dealing with aggression by aggression.

But this is true of retributive justice also. I do not say they are identical. I do,

however, believe that retributive justice may be a way of scapegoating others and that,

as Shaw argued, it inevitably involves violence.

II The Prisoner as Scapegoat

i. In turning to the state of imprisonment let me begin with a question: in the West,

why is it that the vast majority of prisoners are from social classes four and five? Why

so few from the wealthy and educated? This question has troubled people from the

time of the Hebrew prophets on. We know part of the answer: there is a high

correlation between poor environments and crime. More significantly, there is the

question of what we count as crime. ‘Crime’ for the newswriters means street crime,

burglary, muggings, rapes, robberies, murders, drugs. But anyone who has spent time

in our jails knows that the great majority of inmates are not in for sensational

offences. Most are in for property offences, in themselves quite minor. And prisoners

are entirely up front about their motivation in taking what they regard as their fair

share of the world’s goods.

Mimesis...we all want the same. When the goods of this world are denied to many,

some will take them for themselves.

ii. So Girard’s theory has something to contribute to understanding the motivation of

many crimes. However, if we go on to try and understand all violence through

mimetic theory, as he does, I think we go too far. If I think of the many prisoners I

have known doing time for GBH (Grievous Bodily Harm), and some of those who are

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serving time for murder, I find it artificial to trace everything to mimetic rivalry. I

want a portfolio of explanations, and at the end of the day I will expect an

inexplicable residue. I will look to what Alice Miller says about parenting, to what

Fromm says about authoritarian personalities, and above all I will look to what my

own experience has taught me: that violent people are often emotionally inadequate

people. This is not to patronise them. It is to say that where some of us can vent our

rage and frustration in verbal or rhetorical violence, in swearing at God, like Job, or in

paint, like Francis Bacon, there are many who can only vent it through violence. And

the inexplicable residue? We never, with our theories, tie up, wrap up, exhaust the

mystery of any other personality. All we can provide are rough approximations

towards answers.

iii. Girard has illustrated how the Jews were scapegoated in medieval Europe. In the

early modern period attention switched to vagabonds, vagrants, masterless men, the

poor. Between 1690 and 1850 these were hanged, transported, flogged and

imprisoned in quite astonishing numbers. Society was changing with breathless speed.

People were desperately uneasy about the consequences: they sought and found a

scapegoat. This process, I would argue, still continues. To return to my question: Why

are the prisons full of social classes four and five? It is not that the middle and upper

classes are more moral and law abiding than the poor: rather, their filching is smarter,

or even legal. Morally, for instance, which is a more serious abuse of the community:

breaking and entering or using overseas tax havens? For one you may end up in nick

(and if you are unfortunate enough to live in California - three stripes and you’re out -

you may get life); for the other you’re applauded. But wrongdoing must be punished;

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it must be made an example of. Someone must show that crime doesn’t pay, and we

know who: social classes four and five.

iv. The architecture of most British Jails is the architecture of the scapegoat. What did

Leviticus say? ‘Drive him out into the wilderness’... And so these huge structures are

erected with their vast walls, a wilderness of bars and keys. Of course prisons are also

about surveillance, as Foucault argues; they are also about preventing escape.

Prisons, as every prison chaplain will tell you, are part of the community. But just

look at your nearest prison and see the degree to which that is recognised. In fact,

prison architecture exists to deny that: in the rhetoric of concrete, razor wire and stone

it says: Those within have forfeited their right to be considered part of community.

Keep out! Small wonder that anywhere there is a prison only a handful of citizens

know, or want to know it; only a handful of dedicated souls enter its gates to visit.

Those within are those driven out, like the goat for Azazel. They are there to pay the

price for all.

I am not sentimental about prisoners. I know they include the vicious and the crafty,

and the downright wicked. But then, so do theology faculties, and churches, and

businesses, and senates and Houses of Parliament. If I will not be sentimental about

prisoners, neither will I be about all those ‘good’ people outside either.

III Measure for Measure

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England only ever produced two truly great theologians, William Shakespeare and

William Blake. That Shakespeare may speak to prisoners has been shown with

tremendous power by Murray Cox and Alice Theilgard in Shakespeare as Prompter,

which records how they have used his plays with category A prisoners in Broadmoor.

Here I want to offer my own brief commentary on the play in which Shakespeare

reflects most insistently on retributive justice, Measure for Measure. The play is a sort

of extended meditation on Romans 11.32: ‘God has shut up all to disobedience that

God might have mercy on all’. It is a passionate expose of scapegoating logic.

In the play we have a kingdom ruled by a Duke (like Prospero, one of Shakespeare’s

‘God’ figures) who is about to leave for a time. Part of his reason for doing so is that

he feels he has administered the laws too laxly, and he wants to see how his virtuous

deputy, Angelo, will cope. In fact he does not disappear but only takes disguise as a

friar. In New Testament terms, he does not consider his greatness something to be

hung on to (Phil 2.5) but is henceforth is to be found quite literally in the underworld,

visiting`the spirits in prison’ (1Pet 3.19)

No sooner has the Duke left than the laws against promiscuity are set in force with

full vigour. A young man, Claudio, is condemned to death for getting his intended

with child. Claudio has a virtuous sister, Isabella, about to take the veil: she is urged

by the ‘low life’ Lucio to plead with Angelo. Eventually Angelo extorts from her a

promise that he will spare her brother if she sleeps with him. The Duke knows that

Angelo once broke a marriage contract because the dowry promised him was

inadequate: in pitch darkness this jilted lady goes to bed with Angelo in place of

Isabella. But no sooner has Angelo had his pleasure than he sends a peremptory note

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for the execution of Claudio. Down in the condemned cells the Duke at first suggests

a notorious criminal, Barnadine, be executed in Claudio’s stead, but he is too drunk,

‘unfit to live or die’. The convenient death from fever of another prisoner solves this

dilemma. But soon comes the denouement: the Duke gives up his disguise, and all is

made plain. The spirits in prison are delivered, including even Barnadine. All are

judged, and all receive mercy.

Puritan societies are notoriously punitive societies. In Puritan England Shakespeare

gives his own assessment of criminal justice, of the relation between the underworld -

pimps, bawds, welfare scroungers - and the overworld - government and even the

virtuous Isabella. For the most chilling line in the play is her, ‘more than my brother

is my chastity’. At the end of the play the Duke acknowledges his need, in asking for

her hand in marriage, and she gives up her deadly principle. Angelo has proposed a

logic of violence, making an example of the young and incautious and the loose

living. Claudio was to be made a scapegoat. Why? Clearly because he embodied all

those repressed instincts Angelo could not face up to. Shakespeare shows the

hypocrisy of this strategy: unmasking it is a prelude to the establishment of a society

built upon a different logic, that of forgiveness - one of his favourite themes.

IV Going beyond Scapegoating

To scapegoat is to load with sin and drive into the wilderness. It is to exclude. The

opposite of scapegoating, therefore, is inclusion. I am tempted to say that it is the

formation of community except that I am more and more convinced that community

remains an unfinished project for human beings. As Iris Marion Young has insisted,

those cosy tight communities of our old villages and towns were often also deeply

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punitive - and scapegoating - of those who were different. When the industrial

revolution dissolved those communities it brought not only alienation, but also

freedom for many. And yet - we cannot do without community, and there is no way

of ‘rehabilitating’ prisoners without it (the commas are there because, as Shakespeare

shows in his commentary on the New Testament, we all need rehabilitating). The first

step in such a process is in the practical recognition that prisons and prisoners are part

of the community, by which I mean, part of the whole fabric of society.

This is where ‘church’ comes in. The great Swiss theologian Karl Barth refused to

use the word ‘church’ as he got older because, he said, it was so overburdened. He

preferred the word ‘gemeinde’, community. Following the hints of his work I would

suggest that what we have in the New Testament is not a blueprint for a religious

society (with bishops, priests and deacons for example). Rather, the New Testament

points to the unfinished task of the fashioning of community, and envisions a

community not based on the scapegoat principle. Now this is not to say that some

people should not be locked up. On the contrary, there are certainly people from

whom society needs protecting (advertising moguls and military hardliners come to

mind).What it is to say is that if people are locked up they are nevertheless recognised

and treated as those who continue to belong to society, as those produced by society,

and therefore as those to whom society also continues to recognise a debt. This

necessarily entails ruling out the death penalty, which is the ultimate form of

scapegoat penalty, the ultimate form of exclusion, and which breeds a violent and

exclusionary culture within any society which practices it.

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Penal policy in Britain for more than twenty years has been committed to exclusion:

to ‘banging up’ more and more prisoners, so that we have had to return to the prison

ships of the early nineteenth century, and also to the private jails which the early penal

reformer, John Howard, warned were always a disaster in dealing with prisoners.

Those responsible for ‘justice’(i.e., scapegoating the poor), in Britain, Home

Secretaries, to a man play to the gallery of the tabloid press, exploiting moral panics

and depicting certain individuals or groups (for example the child murderer Myra

Hindley, and paedophiles) as uniquely vicious. Of course I have no brief for child

murder or paedophilia. I do, however, want to escape the stench of scapegoating about

these political pronouncements, and to see some recognition of the fact that we are all

responsible for the community we live in, which includes, unfortunately, child

murderers and paedophiles, just as it includes dictators immune from prosecution who

are responsible for the torture of thousands, or World Bank officials who urge

dumping toxic waste in the Third World. We are all members one of another: that is

the bottom line of penal policy, and it precludes scapegoating. Prisoners, in my

experience, share the view that ‘nothing works’: they are as sceptical of rehabilitation

as anyone. I beg to differ. As I think Helen Prejean illustrates so movingly in her book

Dead ManWalking , respect and acceptance ‘work’. In the concrete, and over the long

haul ‘love’ `works. And so - prisons? Unfortunately yes, though I would change their

clientele considerably. But only in vigorous interaction with their surrounding

communities - in an interaction of respect in minute particulars, as Blake urged. If we

really understood that need we might begin to do something about that particular

tranche of human evil we call ‘crime’.

i Among his many books on the theme are Violence and the Sacred (John Hopkins ,Baltimore, 1977), and Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (Athlone, London 1987)

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IS CREATIONISM SCIENTIFIC?

Stephen Law

A state-funded UK school in Gateshead is teaching children that creationism is scientifically respectable. Other schools plan to follow suit.

Some think that there is no educational harm in this. But are they correct? No. To teach children that creationism is scientifically respectable is to teach

children to think in ways that are, quite literally, close to lunacy. To understand why the teaching of creationism in schools may do real

educational harm, we need first to be clear about exactly what creationism is. What is creationism?

Creationism is not simply the view that God created the universe. Many reputable scientists are prepared to accept that.

Creationism is the view that the account of creation in Genesis is literally true. The universe was produced over a six-day period. All living creatures were created and walked the Earth at that time.

Creationism entails that:

(i) The universe is just a few thousand years old (in fact creationists typically say less than 10,000 years old – their calculation is based on the number of generations since Adam listed in the Bible).

(ii) Modern scientific cosmologies on which the universe is many billions of years old and began with a Big Bang are thus fundamentally wrong

(iii) No new species has ever evolved. They were all created in the same week just a few thousand years ago. So all creatures, including the dinosaurs (creationists don’t deny they existed), walked the Earth along with man at that time.

Teaching creationism involves teaching children that all these things are true.

Almost all creationists also believe that creationism is at least as well supported by the available empirical evidence is the Big Bang/evolution alternative. Evidence of a very old universe

Yet there appears to be overwhelming evidence that we inhabit a very old universe with life having evolved only comparatively recently (though still many millions of years ago).

Here are five examples of such evidence:

(i) Astronomers have observed objects from which it would take light many billions of years to reach us.

(ii) Look at the moon and you will see thousands of craters. Yet these craters are produced by impacts that occur very infrequently. In order for the moon to have that many craters, it would have to be very old indeed.

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(iii) The surface of the Earth is made up of continental plates that drift. For example, Africa and South America were once physically connected. The very slow rate at which the plates drift means that many millions of years must have elapsed since Africa and America were linked.

(iv) The surface of the Earth is made up of rock strata. Given the rate at which strata are laid down, it would take many millions of years for that depth of strata to form.

(v) The rock strata contain fossils. These fossils are ordered in a way that shows evolutionary progression. For example, they show that man evolved from earlier primates. But if creationism were true, and if the rock strata were produced in only the last few thousand years or so, one would still expect to find creatures fossilized in a fairly random way throughout the strata. For example, one would expect to find fossils of mammals distributed fairly evenly throughout the layers. Yet even today, after many millions of fossils have been discovered not one single well documented example of an out of place fossil has been found (e.g. not one single mammal fossil has been found in the dinosaur layers).

Countless other examples of counter-evidence to creationism can be drawn from almost every branch of science. The popularity of creationism

Yet creationists have succeeded in persuading many that their theory is at least as scientifically respectable as the Big Bang/evolution alternative.

In fact recent Gallup polls indicate that 45% of US citizens believe God created human beings "pretty much in (their) present form at one time or another within the last 10,000 years." Even college graduates are drawn to creationism. A Tennessee academic who

recently surveyed his own students writes that scientists are having to fight the battles of the Enlightenment all over again. Medieval ideas that were killed stone dead by the rise of science three to four hundred years ago are not merely twitching; they are alive and well in our schools, colleges and universities.

Doesn’t the fact that so many intelligent people been persuaded of the truth of creationism show there must be something to it?

No. What is true is that what creationists practice strongly resembles good science in certain respects. That is why so many have been duped.

The core creationist strategy

The central creationist argumentative strategy is to try to deal with the evidence by showing that it is consistent with creationism after all.

Take the fossil record, for example. Creationists maintain that the layering in the fossil record can be explained by reference to the Biblical Flood. The rains that

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caused the Flood were responsible for producing huge mud deposits that then metamorphosed into the rock strata we find beneath our feet.

Creationists insist that the ordering of the life-forms within these layers can also be accounted for on their theory. For example, some suggest the reason one finds dinosaurs below mammals is that dinosaurs are slow, cumbersome and relatively unintelligent creatures that are likely to have been buried as the faster, more intelligent mammals ran to higher ground.

A similar strategy is used to deal with other evidence. Take the craters on the

Moon. Given the craters are produced so infrequently, why does the Moon have so many?

A creationist could suggest that, at the time the Moon was formed, there was far more debris in space. This debris was quickly drawn to bodies like the moon, producing many craters over a short period of time. Now most of the debris has gone, which is why impacts are currently rare. Why creationism looks “scientific”

We have seen that creationists defend their core theory by developing and adding to it in various ways so that it continues to fit the available evidence. Each time another piece of apparently solid counter-evidence to creationism is produced, the creationist adds a bit more to their core theory to protect it. In short:

In response to the evidence, a theory of increasing complexity and ingenuity has been developed that fits the empirical data.

But isn’t this exactly how good scientific theories are developed?

Well, it looks like a little like science. That’s one reason why so many are convinced that creationism is properly “scientific”.

But, despite looking rather like genuine science, the central creationist strategy is actually thoroughly unscientific. The easiest way to see why is by means of an analogy. Are cats Martian secret agents?

Suppose I claim that cats are Martian secret agents. You might think my theory easily disproved. After all, cats are pretty stupid creatures, obviously incapable of such treachery. We don’t find transmitters secreted about our houses by which they might transmit their dastardly reports. And Mars is uninhabited. Everything points to my theory being false, surely.

But what if, in reply, I suggest that cat brains are particularly efficient, and that cats merely hide their intelligence from us. And their transmitters are embedded in their brains, which is why we don’t discover them. And Mars is inhabited, but the Martians live in underground secret bunkers.

Now my theory fits the data again. In reply, you might point out that an X-rays of a cat’s head reveals no

transmitter, and that we can detect no transmissions coming from it.

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To which I might reply that the transmitters are organic and made to look like brain tissue. That’s why we haven’t discovered them. And cats transmit by means of a medium we Earthlings do not yet understand and cannot yet detect.

Again, I have made my theory fit the evidence. You can see how this game might continue forever. Any theory, no matter

how utterly absurd, can be protected from falsification and made to fit the available data if one is prepared to keep on modifying and adding to it in this way.

This is the main reason why creationists practice is essentially unscientific. While reputable scientists do sometimes defend their theories by making such “ad hoc” moves, one shouldn’t make a habit of it. Once almost all ones energies are expended on protecting ones core theory from being falsified, it is no longer being approached as a scientific theory but as an item of faith - to be defended come what may.

Notice that creationist “scientists” expend almost all their energies on devising exactly such moves.

We would rightly consider someone who defended the cat’s are Martian secret agents theory in this way to be suffering from sort of mental illness. In fact, this sort of twisted reasoning is fairly common in schizophrenics. It is, quite literally, close to lunacy.

Yet this sort of reasoning constitutes the creationist’s core intellectual strategy. The method might look a little like science. But it’s essentially unscientific. Dealing with creationist claims

It’s tempting, when faced with creationist claims, simply to wheel out contrary

evidence: the fossil record, for example. The problem with this strategy is that creationists soon tie their opponents up in knots. Just like a defender of my cats-are-Martian-secret-agents theory, they confound and infuriate their critics by constantly amending or adding to their core theory in order to protect it from being falsified.

In order to deal more effectively with creationist claims and arguments one needs to take a step back and look at their method. Isn’t the Big Bang/evolution hypothesis equally a “faith position”?

In their defence, creationists often point out that, if any theory can be protected from falsification come what may, then no theory can be conclusively falsified. But then it follows that the Big Bang/evolution theory cannot be conclusively falsified either. In addition, a creationist can point out, nor is any scientific theory ever conclusively proved. Any theory necessarily goes beyond what we have observed. As such, it must involve an element of speculation.

So, concludes the creationist, creationism and the Big Bang/evolution theory are both “faith positions”. So they are intellectually on par.

This is muddled thinking. Just because no theory can be conclusively falsified or proved doesn’t mean that all theories are equally good.

Notice that theories aren’t just falsified, they are also confirmed. The fact is that, while any theory is open to some degree of doubt, some are confirmed to the

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extent that they are beyond any reasonable doubt. For example, it is now beyond any reasonable doubt that the Earth moves and that there are no such things as fairies.

Now the fact is that the Big Bang/evolution theory is overwhelmingly confirmed by the empirical evidence. Scientists may argue over the details, such as over exactly how evolution took place. But the basic framework theory – that the universe is very old and that species evolution has taken place – is beyond any reasonable doubt.

That’s not true of creationism.

Notice that if the “they’re both faith positions” move is allowed, then we will also have to allow that the “theories” that fairies exist, that the Sun goes round the Earth and that the universe was created by a huge yellow banana called “Ted” are all just as scientifically respectable as our current scientific theories about the universe. The perils of teaching creationism Creationism is not, as some have suggested, an optional, harmless "extra" that faith schools should be free to teach in addition to the national curriculum.

The real problem is not that we are letting those in positions of power and authority over young minds teach them ludicrous falsehoods, though that is bad enough.

The problem is that the only way children can be taught that creationism is true and supported by the available evidence is by instilling in them such twisted conceptions of logic and evidential support that they are likely to remain gullible idiots for the rest of their lives.

Teaching that creationism is respectable science means teaching children to think in ways that are, quite literally, close to lunacy.

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SELF-FULFILMENT … MUST IT BE SELFISH?

Nigel Biggar

Perhaps there have been times and places where the ideal of self-denial or self-sacrifice for the sake of service - whether of God or the neighbour or society or the nation - has been in the ascendant. Perhaps there are cultures where duty is highly regarded, and the emphasis falls heavily on what the individual owes other people. Perhaps this was once true of our own culture,not so long

ago.

l sickness.

ed

the following aphorisms:

d.1

sehold.

But self-denial, self-sacrifice and duty are obviously not the dominant norms of our culture today. They speak of an earlier age, which existed certainly before the First World War, and not long after the Second. The norms of our age are different: self-affirmation, self-fulfilment and individual rights. We are suspicious of asceticism: far from being a mark of moral perfection, it seems to us more likely a sign of psychologica Some people are inclined to regard all this as symptomatic of our moral decline. It seems to them simply degenerate, expressive of unrestrained self-indulgence, selfish and narcissistic. But such a view is mistaken. And it is mistaken for at least three reasons. One is that the current emphasis on self-affirmation and self-fulfilment is partly a reaction against a culture whose own emphases were often too negative. It should be understood as a corrective counter-emphasis. Friedrich Nietzsche, the mid-nineteenth century German philosopher, is frequently hailed as the prophet of the modern age; and with regard to his celebration of power and beauty and self-realization, this is certainly so. But if Nietzsche represents modernity, then Christianity – or at least a certain version of it - represents the age thatours has supplanted. For Nietzsche’s fierce affirmation of life was largely a repudiation of the repressiveness of the pietistic Lutheran Christianity in which he had been brought up. He hatwhat seemed to him to be Christianity’s philistinism, its debilitating moralism and its meanness of spirit. The temper of his point of view is well expressed in

The Christian resolve to find the world ugly andl bad has made the world ugly and ba Had he [Jesus] remained in the desert far from the good and the just! Perhaps he would have learned to live and learned to love the earth - and laughter as well!2

I should only believe in a God who knows how to dance.3

For a dramatic presentation of what the modern affirmation of self-fulfilment is reacting against, watch Ingmar Bergman’s semi-autobiographical film, Fanny and Alexander.4 Here, the vibrant colour, the easy vitality, and the sheer fun of the pagan world of the theatre stands in stark contrast to the austere, frigid, resentful, and, in the end, downright cruel world of the Lutheran bishop’s hou

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One reason, then, why it is a mistake to dismiss as sheer self-indulgence our current devotion to the value of self-fulfilment is that, to some extent, it represents a healthy corrective to the molife-denying culture of our recent past. And it is a corrective that Christians who really believe in the goodness of God and of all that he has made, should find easy to applaud.

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ome a trapeze artist.

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to find - fulfilment.

nation of it.

Another reason to respect the value of self-fulfilment is to be found in the work of Freud. One of the things that he succeeded in identifying is the psychological mechanism (or, perhaps, better, tactic) of repression. This is the procedure whereby we deny strong desires that we do not wish, or feel able, to own. The desire might be for some kind of sexual engagement, for love, or for power. And we might not feel able to own it because we believe that our friends and family will desert us if we do, or that the lives that we have carefully built up for ourselves will fall apart. What Freud identified was that some desires, when summarily dismissed from consciousness, donot simply give up the ghost and cease to exist. Rather, they continue to live, but in the unconscious part of the self instead of the conscious. How do we know this? We know it fthe ways in which ‘repressed’ desires continue to assert themselves outside of full consciousness. One of these ways is in inadvertent behaviour that does not quite make sense in terms ofself’s official self-description, and which suggests that more is going on than that description admits. This is what the famous ‘Freudian slips’ are about - moments when the mask drops to reveal a rather different face. It is also partly what the slightly less famous Jungian ‘shadowabout: the insistent demand (often in dreams) for recognition on the part of a dimension of someone's life that has been too long neglected or denied - typically culnimating in the ‘mid-lifcrisis when, for (dramatic) example, a bank manager with suburban wife and two kids finds himself possessed by an irresistible urge to join a travelling circus and bec Part of what the phenomenon of repression tells us is that, in some cases, especially those involviug the deep and powerful desires for love and sex, sheer denial is not effective. Indeed, it can often be downright harmful, making the self a permanent battleground and inducing crippling depression. The irrepressible insistence of repressed desires for some kind of recognition requires a different response. It requires something other than uncompromising repudiation. It asks for some kind of negotiation. Andl this negotiation, as any other, is bouinvolve at least a measure of acknowledgement; acknowledgement that something of what is desired is legitimate, and has a right to seek - if not A third reason why the value of self-fulfilment should be affirmed is that, without it, it is impossible to explain why anyone should do what they believe to be right. ‘Why are you doing x?’ you ask me. ‘Because it’s right,’ I reply. ‘But why bother doing what’s right?' you retort. Here, I could answer; ‘Because what’s right is right.’ But that would merely underscore my belief in the value of what’s right; it would hardly amount to an expla Sooner or later, the explanation for why I or anyone else should bother doing what is right must be given in terms of self-fulfilment. The ultimate reason why we should bother doing what is right is that, one way or another, it is good for us. It benefits us. It helps to fulfil us. For what reason could I possibly have for doing something that benefits me in no way at all, not now orlater, neither materially nor spiritually? What reason could I possibly have for doing somethingthat simply harms or destroys me? Even the masochist seeks pleasure through his pain. Self-

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fulfilment, or the promotion of one’s own good, is the ultimate rationale for any human act.

elf-iour

id I am climbing.

moderating one’s own selfishness.

isely not to be selfish.

Butt surely to say this is to make all human action, including action that claims to be ‘moral’, essentially selfish? No, it does not. It does make it essentially self-interestedl; but sinterestedness is not necessarily the same thing as selfishness. ‘Selfishness’ refers to behavthat seeks to serve the self only or without due regard for other people. Selfishness is self-centred, egocentric. Self-interestedness, however, need not be. I might suppose that it is in my own self-interest to behave selfishly. I might think that I’m doing myself a favour in being selfish. If I did, then my understanding of what is in my interest, of my own good, would make it reasonable for me to go around grabbing as much of what I want as I can, and fending off all other claims. It would make it reasonable for me to use and manipulate other people in order to satisfy my physical and emotional needs. It would make it reasonable for me to use the piled corpses of betrayed friendships as steps on which to mount tothe top of whatever social or professional pyram However, there are at least two reasons for challenging this selfish reading of self-interest. The first is that it is inefficient, even counter-productive. People who behave selfishly, manipu-latively, or ruthlessly, alienate themselves from other people. At the very least they are not trusted. At best, others will lend their co-operation only with reluctance, and then only with caution. At worst, they will withdraw co-operation altogether and engage in passive or active hostility. Utter selfishness engenders resentment and opposition. It gets in its own way. Paradoxically, then, there is a selfish reason for paying some attention to the just claims ofothers. There is a selfish reason for But there is also a very different kind of reason. And this is that human beings are not designed to be selfish. What is being claimed here is that human beings flourish when they pay active attention to the needs and rights of others. The most fulfilled human beings, the most fully hunian, are not those who grab but those who give, not the Robert Maxwells of this world but the Mother Teresas. It belongs to human self-interest precisely to give oneself in the service of others, prec ‘Well,’ someone might say, ‘that sounds all very nice and noble, but is it really true? Are not selfish, manipulative, ruth-less people often very successful and perfectly happy? How can it be said that they do not flourish? And are not those who devote themselves to the service of others often abused and exploited? How can it be said that they flourish?’ It is certainly true that people who behave selfishly can, in spite of the damage they do and the resentment and opposition they provoke, be very successful in getting what they want. And they may also be very happy in enjoying what they get. In one of Woody Allen’s finest films, Crimes and Misdemeanors,5 Judah, a wealthy and distinguished New York eye-specialist, adored by his family and lauded by his community, hires a professional assassin to dispose of his mistress before she tells his wife of their affair and brings everything that he has so carefully built - his marriage, his reputation, his status - tumbling down about his ears. Immediately after the niurder, Judah is wracked by guilt and almost brings himself to find relief by confessing his crime. But, as time passes, his conscience becomes dull and in the end he seems to succeed

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entirely in erasing the memory of what he has done, and in carrying on with his life perfectly intact. Sometimes, perhaps all too often, the wicked not only get away with their wicked deedsbut they actually seem to prosper as a result of them. How, then, can it be said that those who pursue their own interests selfishly and ru

,

thlessly are not fulfilled?

.

at

d so gether.’

eemed.

lfish person’s happiness, we can raise more certain doubts about the well-being of their

le of doing nything. For he has dismantled all the internal, psychological, subjective constraints upon

e to

s

erce libidinal want to possess someone who will love him, will be utterly oblivious to his

One possible response is to say that appearances deceive. It is to claim that the person who has spent his life feeding himself at the expense of others is bound always to be haunted by the sense of being isolated and vulnerable, by the fear of betrayal and attack, by paranoia. That may well be. Certainly, the appearance of equilibrium or contentedness should not be taken at face valueA moment’s honest self-reflection should be enough to persuade anyone of the yawning discrepancy between the public self that is filtered to the world out there, and the private self thlurks just behind the eyes. Those who seem content are not necessarily so; that is why news of a suicide so often comes as a complete shock. ‘Why did he do it?’ friends ask themselves in bewilderment. ‘He was such good fun. There was always a smile on his face. He seemeto S But beyond reason to doubt how genuine is the happiness of the selfish person, there is also reason to doubt their well-being. Where ‘happiness’ refers to someone’s state of mind, ‘well-being’ refers to something more objective - to someone’s character, for example, or to their relationships. If we can raise reasonable, if inconclusive, doubts about the genuineness of asecharacter and relationships. Woody Allen’s Judah may have succeeded in banishing from his mind disturbing memories of what he has done, but he certainly has not succeeded in banishing from himself the effects of his deed. He may no longer be kept awake at night by the thought of being a murderer, but a murderer he still is. More than that, he is a murderer who has learned to live with what he has done. And he has learned to live with it, not by owning his crime and then repudiating himself as criminal, not by repenting; but rather by pretending that he never did it, or that it is of little account if he did. And because he is a murderer who has learned to come to terms with himself in this way, he has made himself into the kind of person who is internally capabadoing horrendous acts. He has found a way of committing murder without allowing his crimdisturb his slumbers. What applies to murderers applies also to people who are merely selfish. They may not be disturbed by their selfishness, their happiness may be intact. But they are (at least in some respects) selfish; and their being selfish, their having a selfish character, determines the range of things that they are strongly inclined to do, and the range of things that they are virtually incapable of doing. Who someone is, determines the shape of that person’s actual freedom to act. People who are selfish will have a limited ability to see beyond their own wants and feelingto recognize the needs and rights of others. So, for example, such a person, driven by his ownfibeloved’s need for a certain distance, a certain space to breathe, a certain freedom to be herself

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and not just someone else’s lover. A selfish person is more or less handicapped in his ability to see what is not himself. Selfish people might feel happy, but selfish they nevertheless are; and because of who they athey are capable of re

re, lating to other people only in selfish kinds of ways. As a consequence,

me levels and qualities of relationship will be beyond them completely. Others will not trust

ppy

n being that we instinctively admire, whom we cognize to have matured somewhat in humanity, are generally not those who sit slumped in

o the world, not those who lie passively turned in upon themselves.

onsequently never seem to develop lives of their own. It is as if they exist ntirely to meet the parent’s wants. Often it seems that there is something distinctly unhealthy

at

t

sothem and will not give them the gift of their unguarded selves. And their attempts to build andmaintain any relationship will always be hindered and threatened by a selfishness that gives too little and demands too much. It could be argued that selfish people might be happy enough with such a level and quality of relationship as they have got, since they do not know what they are missing. Can we say, then,that they do not flourish? Surely, we can. Even if it were simply true that alcoholics are haso long as they are drink, heroin addicts so long as they are high, masochists so long as they are being hurt and sadists so long as they are hurting; even if all this were true, we could still reasonably say that none of them were flourishing. We could still doubt their well-being. We could doubt it with reason in so far as the phenomenon of a happy fool is immediately recognizable to us: the phenomenon of someone who is content to live his life at a very immature or even subhuman level, without having taken the trouble to explore all the other possibilities. We could also reasonably doubt their well-being because of their lack of freedom; because of their being driven by physical and psychological passions; because of their inability to pay attention to anything other than the next drink or the next fix; because their addiction is leading them to kill themselves. There is a lot more to human well-being, to human fulfilment, than pleasurable states of mind. The kinds of humaresome happy, drug-induced trance, but rather those who have engaged successfully with life, those who have invested themselves in building something worthwhile. We admire those who have actively moved out int Selfish people may be happy, but they do not flourish. But what about selfless people who, in or because of their service to others, are abused or exploited or injured? How can they be said to flourish in their suffering? We are familiar enough with the phenomenon of adults who devote themselves to taking care of a parent, and who ceabout such a situation. It seems that the parent’s demands are unwarranted and unfair; and ththeir son or daughter’s acquiescence has a pathological quality about it. Their service seems akinto a form of voluntary slavery. The point to note here is that selflessness is not all of a piece. There are some ways of being unselfish in which we do not flourish. This is so when one’s selflessness is less an expression of love for another than it is of contempt for the self. And as such it is wrong. It is wrong because there are duties that we owe ourselves as well as duties we owe other people. We too have a value that deserves respect - even our own. We are required to love our neighbour as, and not instead of, ourselves. This means that we have a duty to resist unjust claims upon us. The fac

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that Mummy would be terribly lonely and feel cruelly abandoned if little Philip (aged forty-two) ever left home, and the fact that Philip should be grateful to Mummy for all that she has done for im (as she reminds him daily), does not mean that she has a right to forbid him to see another

rt us, then we need to forgive; and since injury an never be undone (even by compensation), forgiveness always requires of the forgiver that

e is

f le

ps, better, the deep satisfaction - of knowing that I am doing right, of nowing that I am investing myself in something intrinsically worthwhile. In the midst of more

f ffering, I am aware of being fulfilled.

Something on the Body, where the m oved:

n you loved. The pain stops, there are new

is in the shape of you and no-one else can

o?

hwoman - or to insist that, if he were to marry, she should be allowed to move in with the newlyweds. One person’s want does not amount to another person’s duty; and being strong in love precisely does not involve giving whatever is demanded. Nevertheless, it remains true that caring for other people, even when one’s own motivation is healthy and one’s action is an expression of genuine love, can be costly. Sometimes, respect for another's freedom or for another’s trust requires the painful foregoing of one’s own wants. And if we would be reconciled to someone who has hucthey simply absorb it, bear it, suffer it. But, if that is true, then how can it be claimed that lovthat state of being for which humans are made, and in which they flourish and are fulfilled? For how can self-fulfilment be compatible with suffering? As has been argued already, human self-fulfilment is not equivalent to a pleasurable state of consciousness. It is more active and objective than that. It refers more to a state of being engaged than to a state of mere physical or mental sensation. It is possible to be well, then, without feeling good. But that does not quite capture the matter; for there are different levels ofeeling. At one level I might be painfully aware of the loss of time to myself, or of disposabincome, or of sleep that my care of an aged parent or a young child is costing me. The thought of it might make me groan aloud. But at the same time, on another level, I can experience the deep pleasure – or, perhakor less severe suffering, I can have a strong sense of being well invested, and therefore of my own value and integrity. And this sense, this knowledge is actually worth the pain. In spite osu

like this is poignantly affirmed in Jeannette Winterson’s novel, Writtenain character reflects on her grief at the sudden death of someone she had l

‘You’ll get over it . . .’ It’s the cliches that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because ‘It’ is the persopeople, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heartfit it. Why would I want them to? I've thought a lot about death recently, the finality of it, the argument ending in mid-air. One of us hadn’t finished, why did the other one gAnd why without warning? … The day before the Wednesday last, this time a year ago, you were here and now you’re not. Why not? Death reduces us to the baffled logic of a small child. If yesterday why not today? And where are you? Fragile creatures of a small blue planet, surrounded by light-years of

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silent space. Do the dead find peace beyond the rattle of the world? What peace is there for us whose best love cannot return to them even for

e.

s I think of you and feel giddy. Memory makes me lightheaded, drunk on champagne. All the things we did. And if anyone

. That surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shaft of recognition. It was

resence of pain need not signal the absence of self-fulfilment.

le be

ing

o e

t that ey have come to the point of having to give up their lives may well be precisely because their

r

vested themselves entirely. We admire them as shining examples of the fullness of humanity.

e

d in

a day? I raise my head to the door and think I will see you in the framI know it is your voice in the corridor but when I run outside the corridor is empty. There is nothing I can do that will make any difference. The last word was yours. The fluttering in the stomach goes away and the dull waking pain. Sometime

had said this was the price, I would have agreed to pay it

worth it. Love is worth it.6

The p But what about death? In what sense could someone who dies in the service of other peopdescribed as ‘fulfilled’? How can self-fulfilment be compatible with the very loss of one’s own life? But there is a prior question to ask. It generally makes sense, before enquiring about how something could be, to ask first whether in fact it is. For it may well be possible to establish its existence before being able to explain it. So, first, is self-fulfilment compatible with losing one’s life in the service of others? Accordto the testimony given on the eve of their death by some of those who have lost their lives in this way, and according to the testimony of those who have beheld the self-sacrifice of such people, the answer would seem to be, Yes. In so far as we admire martyrs who give their lives in some noble cause, in so far as we regard their acts as heroic rather than foolish, we assume that in their martyrdom these people have achieved a certain profound fulfilment of their humanity. We dnot admire them on account of their effectiveness, because those who give their lives in the causof, say, justice have not necessarily been successful in defending it. Indeed, the very facthdefence has failed. We do not admire martyrs because of their success, but because of theibeauty; because in their acts of self-sacrifice they shine with the goodness in which they have in Our own instinctive assumption as third-party spectators is corroborated by the subjective experience of at least some of those who have looked upon their own impending martyrdom. Take the example of Helmuth James von Moltke. Born in 1907 the son of an English mother, hwas a member of the Prussian aristocracy and was the great-nephew of Bismarck’s greatest general. He was a lawyer by profession and was embarked on a high-flying career when the National Socialist Party came to power in Germany under Hitler. A man of deep Christian conviction and humanitarian commitment, von Moltke set himself to oppose Nazism – an1934 we could have found him in All Souls College, Oxford, earnestly engaged in trying to persuade some Fellows there that the Third Reich could not be tamed by a policy of

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appeasement. When the Second World War came he joined the Abwehr, the German Intelligence Service, as a legal advisor on international law. In that post he strove to do what he could to resist and ameliorate the increasingly ruthless policies of the Nazi regime toward prisoners-of-war and Jews. He also began to gather around himself an ecumenical group of like-

inded men - later known as the Kreisau Circle - to discuss and plan for the reconstuction of

one to his death in sheer despair. For his renuous work in resisting the Nazi regime had done very little, if anything, to bring it down.

that everything had been leading to this point; that all his life’s work was bout to find its fulfilment, its final integrity, in the moment of his death. Echoing and

here is evidence in the experience of martyrdom, both on the part of those undergoing it and on e admiring it, that self-fulfilment and suffering to the point of losing one’s life

re, in fact, compatible. But how can that be so? Surely someone who loses their life has lost

rs

ing one’s own skin at all costs. Certainly, such a grim estimate of uman beings might conceivably be the truth. But we should hardly welcome it with open arms;

e was

mGermany after Hitler. In January 1944 von Moltke was arrested, and subsequently fell under (false) suspicion of being implicated in the von Stauffenberg plot to assassinate Hitler. Just over a year later he was tried, condemned to death and executed. It would have been quite understandable if he had gstAnd what it certainly had done was to abort all the dreams and plans he had had for his career and his family, and to bring him to the gallows at the age of thirty-eight. It might well have seemed to him that all his work had come to naught – and worse. But that’s not how he saw it. On the day he was condemned to death he wrote a letter to his wifethat was almost euphoric. In it he spoke of what had befallen him as the climax, not the nadir, ofhis life. It felt to himaparaphrasing the last words of Jesus on the cross, he wrote: ‘My life is finished and I can say of myself: He died in the fullness of years and of life’s experience . . . The task for which God has made me is done.’7

Tthe part of thosaeverything. How, then, could they be said to fulfil themselves? How, indeed? There are two possible ways out of this quandary. One is to question our admiration for martyand to wonder whether, in fact, we should not rather pity those who squander everything for the sake of making a futile gesture. We could consider regarding martyrs as idealistic fools. The price of this, however, would be a grim deflation in our estimation of human beings. Instead of being such as complete themselves in devotion to what is true and good, humans would henceforth appear to us small, grubby and egotistical beings, for whom reasonable behaviour is reduced, in the end, to savhand if there is an alternative way of reconciling self-fulfilment and death, we should prefer it. So, instead of doubting our instinctive admiration for martyrs, we should rather question our assumption that to die is to lose everything. It is commonly assumed that in the contemporary west religious beliefs, such as belief in life after death, are on the wane. It is frequently taken for granted that ‘modern’ people cannot believe such things. There is, however, some good reason to doubt such assumptions. They arusually made by people educated in the 1950s and 1960s when it did seem as if religion

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receding before the relentless tide of secularism. Nowadays that picture of events appears substantially mistaken. For whereas it is true (in Western Europe) that traditional Christian belief and practice have been losing their appeal, and that church attendance has been decliningit is not true that ‘modern’ people in a supposedly secularized society such as Britain have been becoming si

,

mply non-religious. Indeed, one piece of social scientific research has found that bout 70 per cent of British adults claim to have had a significant ‘religious’ experience.8 People

heless hold ligious beliefs of one sort or another; and among these will often be the belief in life after

s for some noble cause as heroic ther than foolish. But such a view would not make sense if, in dying, such people lost

ent

igion. He chose to let himself be killed rather than abandon the cause of humane stice. After his execution by crucifixion his followers were understandably disillusioned. It

inclined to take them seriously: ‘these ords seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them’.10

ut then Jesus himself appeared. In strange form, but recognizable. Not once but several times.

its the Christian movement into

igorous life out of the ashes of the crucifixion is hard to explain convincingly.11 And the belief

amay find themselves alienated from much institutional religion; but that does not mean that theyrepudiate religious experience or even religious belief and practice that is less formal and dogmatic, more private and immediate. There are, then, plenty of ‘modern’ people who, despite not going to church, nevertredeath. Those who hold such a belief at all firmly might well also hold what it implies: that to die is not necessarily to lose everything. But for those who are not so sure that there is an after-life, and for those who assume that there is not, here are two reasons in favour of its existence. The first is that some of our deeply rooted moral convictions require it in order to make sense. We are strongly inclined to regard those who give their liveraabsolutely everything. In order to be intelligible our high esteem for martyrs requires belief in life after death. Immanuel Kant argued roughly along these lines when he described immortality as a ‘postulate’ (that is, a fundamental assumption) of ‘practical’ or ‘moral’ reason.9

This basic assumption of one of our deeply held moral convictions is corroborated by the evwhich the original Christians attested and upon which the specifically Christian view of the world is founded: the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. Jesus was put to death in large measure because of his conviction that the way of compassion and forgiveness is the wayof God, and because of his consequent criticism of the oppressiveness of much current institutional reljumust have seemed to them that all the hopes that he had inspired had come to nought. Maybe in the bitterness of disappointment some of them even began to think of him as a naïve fool. They would not have been the first. Then came reports that the tomb where his body had been buried had been found empty - though since these were brought by women, no one was veryw BAnd to different groups of people. Or so it is claimed. Whether this claim is true or not is beyond proof either way. But there are reasons that tell infavour: for example, if it were not true, then the bursting ofv

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in the after-life implied by our instinctive esteem for martyrs should at least clear the ground of materialist prejudice, make the notion of a resurrection from the dead initially plausible, and incline us to consider the Christian claim sympathetically. As with the Resurrection, so with the after-life: belief in it may not be able to command proof, ut it can call upon good reasons. It is reasonable as well as humane, then, to suppose that those

ffer death in the cause of upholding the truth or defending justice have nevertheless ained rather than lost themselves. For if there is an after-life, then the notion of pursuing self-

York,

sche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part One, ‘Of Voluntary Death’, tr. R.J. Hollingdale

, Part One, ‘Of Reading and Writing’, p.68. y Fox

llins Harvill, 1991),

9. I. Kant, The Critique of Practical Reason, Book II, Chapter 2, Section 4, tr. Lewis White Beck, Library of Liberal Arts (New York, Macmillan, 1993), pp. 128-30

10. Luke 24.11. 11. For a concise argument along these lines, see Thomas V. Morris, Making Sense of It All:

Pascal and the Meaning of Life (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1992), pp. 173-6.

bwho sugfulfilment unselfishly, even to the point of suffering death, makes good sense. Notes 1. F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book III, section 130, tr. Walter Kaufmann (New

Vintage, 1974), p.185. 2. F. Nietz

(Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1961, 1969), p.98 3. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra4. Fanny and Alexander (1983) is published on video by Artificial Eye, and distributed b

Video. 5. Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) is published on video by Vision Video and distributed by

Polygram. 6. Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body (London, Jonathan Cape, 19920, pp. 155-6. 7. Helmuth James von Moltke, Letters to Freya, 1939-45 (London, Co

p.412. 8. David Hay, Exploring Inner Space: Scientists and Religious Experience (London and

Oxford, Mowbray, 1982, 1987).