When I taught an ethics course, as an adjunct, at Mount Vernon Nazarene University, I started the class by talking about the fact that moral decisions are at times exceedingly complex. Black and white categories do not work very well in the real stuff of life. To demonstrate this I used an illustration. I read several statements regarding a situation involving an organ transplant, and as each new piece of information was given, the students had to mark on a paper whether they agreed or disagreed with whether the transplant should take place. So here is the situation, and perhaps you can check off in your mind whether you agree or disagree with whether the transplant should take place after each statement is read. “You have been asked to join an Ethics Committee to review a case involving a possible kidney transplant. A young woman needs kidney transplant, but
1. Her father is the only possible donor
2. Her father has only one kidney
3. Her father wants to donate his kidney
4. Transplants are only viable for about 5 years
5. This is her second transplant
6. Her father is on death row for murder
7. She was an accomplice in the murder”
So you see that moral reasoning is never easy or black and white.
Many people think that they can figure these things out for themselves. After all, we have reached an age of scientific sophistication and great intelligence so that by using our minds we can come up with the right answer. But it is like the discussion in the popular Harry Potter series where the wizard Sirius Black is having a discussion with Professor Severus Snape, and says to him: “Brilliant, Snape — once again you've put your keen and penetrating mind to the task and as usual come to the wrong conclusion.” Like Professor Snape, it seems like the smarter we get about some things, the dumber we get about other things. We face a crisis of morals in our culture today which threatens to undo us. We have not only lost sight of the difference between right and wrong, we seem not to care anymore.
And it is tempting to say that all we need to do is get back to the Bible — and I do believe that is an important part of the answer. But I have heard people say things like, “The Bible says it; I believe it, and that settles it.” Oh, if only it was that easy. Unfortunately, the Bible does not speak to every issue. And not all decisions are between what is right and what is wrong. Sometimes we have to decide between what is good and what is best. At other times we are forced to decide between what is bad and what is worse. These decisions are difficult, and it would be great if there was always a nice, neat Bible verse that would give us the answer to any given situation. But we have all seen people line up on opposite sides of an ethical issue — both quoting Scripture. Scripture was used to justify slavery in the South. What makes it difficult is that there are some things that are not mentioned in Scripture. Things like smoking are not mentioned, since tobacco was not available. And many of the things the Bible strictly forbids are completely ignored by almost all Christians today; things like not getting tattoos, not eating pork, lobster or shell fish, men having long hair and women cutting their hair, women praying with their head uncovered (Paul wrote that their heads were to be shaved for refusing to cover their head during prayer). The Bible talks about stoning disobedient children, stoning adulterers, not wearing jewelry, observing the Sabbath on Saturday, etc., but we do not go by those rules today.
And then, technology is changing faster than our moral reasoning can keep up with. What does the Bible say about cloning? In Vitro fertilization? Harvesting embryos? Organ transplants? Transgender operations? Designer babies? Cosmetic surgery? Gene therapy or genetic modification? A few years ago, a mother desperate to have a second child reported that she lost her last In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) embryo when the U.K. National Health Service implanted it into the wrong patient. When the other woman found out that the embryo was not hers, she aborted it. In another case, a pregnant mother had to give birth to another couple's baby after a blunder by an IVF clinic. Carolyn Savage had the wrong embryo implanted into her and has had to give the boy up to his biological parents as soon as he is born. These ethical dilemmas would have been impossible to imagine in Jesus’ day.
With genetic engineering, parents can not only choose the sex of the child, but will be able to determine the color of hair, height, intelligence. We may be able to actually develop a super race. So what is good and what is bad? What is right and wrong? And how do we decide? If you think it is difficult now, how much harder will it be for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren?
Let’s look at how we approach moral reasoning. I’m going to use a few terms you may not be familiar with, but hopefully I will explain them clearly enough that you will get what I am trying to say. The first approach to moral reasoning is what is called “Deontological” (lit. the study of duty). Deontological reasoning approaches moral decisions solely on the basis of rules and laws and our duty to them. If you are a rule-keeper, this may be your favorite line of moral reasoning. I know people who say, “Just tell me what is wrong and I won’t do it. If the Bible says something is wrong, then it is wrong, no questions asked.”
Now there are a few problems with this. First of all, as I said before, there isn’t a rule for everything. Things are changing so fast that it is impossible to have a rule for every given situation. Secondly, it can lead to legalism where your religion is all about rules and laws, and miss what it means to actually be in a relationship with God and meaningful relationships with others. Third, sometimes doing the right thing calls for breaking a law, even a biblical law. The reason I can say this confidently is because Jesus broke many of the rules and laws that governed his culture – biblical and otherwise. The Pharisees, who were the ultimate rule-keepers, lifted up the fourth commandment as unbreakable. No work should be done on the Sabbath. But Jesus broke this law repeatedly in order to accomplish a higher good — healing a person with a dreadful disease or deformity.
Now rules are good and they perform an important function in guiding us in the right direction. They give us important information about what is right and wrong in most instances. But legalists can spend a lot of time figuring out how to get around a law. I have known some people who insist it is important for other people to keep all the rules, but somehow have decided that the rules do not apply to them. But if your morality is all about keeping rules, you may miss the difference between what is morally good and what is best. We all know that it is not right to lie to another person. But to use an illustration from history, many Christians lied to the Nazis about the whereabouts of the Jews, or whether they were hiding them in their home. In this case, it would have been immoral to tell the truth.
Another type of moral reasoning is Teleological. Teleological moral reasoning looks at the eventual outcome of an action. For example, if you are tempted to be unfaithful to your spouse, the rule against adultery may not be enough to keep you from doing it. But when you also look at the fallout of what it would do in the end, first of all to your wife, but also to your children, your parents and other family members, friends and fellow Church members, how it would affect your career, what it would do to your character, and most of all, what it would do to your relationship with God — all of that together may persuade you to remain faithful, even if you are sorely tempted to stray.
This kind of reasoning also takes on a utilitarian dimension in that when you are faced with a moral dilemma, you ask, “What will have the greatest impact for good for the greatest number of people.” One of the things that concerns me about our present culture is that we are so self-focused. We don’t take other people into consideration when we make decisions; we just do what we want to do. But the Bible says, “Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others” (1 Corinthians 10:24).
Another type of moral reasoning is what Joseph Fletcher termed “Situation Ethics.” That is to say, there is no set of rules that always apply. Every situation has to be looked at separately to determine what is right or wrong in its own context. The overarching principle is to seek to do the loving thing in each individual circumstance. It sounds pretty good at first, but it often degenerates into the subjective position of doing what “feels right”, or what I want to do in each situation. The end justifies the means, so that no action is intrinsically wrong in itself. Fletcher’s famous illustration for this kind of ethical thinking was the case of Mrs. Bergmeier. In the book he tells her story: “As the Russian armies drove westward to meet the Americans and British at the Elbe, a Soviet patrol picked up a Mrs. Bergmeier foraging food for her three children. Unable even to get word to the children, she was taken off to a POW camp in Ukraine. Her husband had been captured in the Battle of the Bulge and taken to a POW camp in Wales. When he was returned to Berlin, he spent months rounding up his children, although they couldn't find their mother. She more than anything else was needed to reconnect them as a family in that dire situation of hunger, chaos and fear. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, Mrs. Bergmeier learned through a sympathetic commandant that her husband and family were trying to keep together and find her. But the rules allowed them to release her to Germany only if she was pregnant, in which case she would be returned as a liability. She turned things over in her mind and finally asked a friendly Volga German camp guard to impregnate her, which he did. Her condition being medically verified, she was sent back to Berlin and to her family. They welcomed her with open arms, even when she told them how she had managed it. And when the child was born, they all loved him because of what they had done for them. After the christening, they met up with their local pastor and discussed the morality of the situation.”
So... were her actions right or wrong, good or bad? There is no simple answer. The story ends well in the book — it may not have in real life. It opens the door to a host of dilemmas, and we find that situation ethics creates more questions than answers. But to move on, there is another form of moral reasoning popular today, and that is ethics based on social consensus. Simply put, it says, “What determines ‘rightness’ and ‘wrongness’ comes from within the society, not imposed from outside by religion. It is a shared understanding of what is acceptable moral behavior.” But it degenerates into, “Everyone is doing it, therefore it must be okay,” or “Since everyone else is doing it, why can’t I?”. This is why the influence of movies and television is so strong. Is there anyone with any resemblance to healthy sexual morality on television? When was the last time you saw a character who had a really great marriage? The adage is that if you tell a lie often enough over a long enough period of time, it is accepted as truth. Hitler used this to create the social acceptance of the genocide of the Jews.
The reality is that if everyone else is doing it, it must be wrong. And every Christian has to understand: You can be like everybody else. God has chosen us to be different so that we can make a difference. If you are like everybody else, you will never challenge anybody and help them to see that their life can be different. The Bible says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).
There are actually many more ethical theories, and most are helpful in some way, but let me close with what I believe to be another method God gives us to be able to choose and do the right thing. We need to know the law of God and do our best to follow it. But knowing the law does not mean we can always do what the law says. We fail, so we need forgiveness and the power of the Holy Spirit to lead a new life. The law never saved anyone. The law cannot make us do what is right, it can only bring guilt when we do not do what is right. The law never changed anyone; that is the work of the Holy Spirit of God. So what method do we use to decide what is right and wrong. I believe that it is not found in ethical rules alone, but in something called “virtue reasoning”. Virtue reasoning says, “As a result of the decision I make, what kind of person will I become? Will I become more like God or less like him? How will this affect my character?”
Let me give you an example. A friend of mine, early in his marriage, was going for a walk with his wife one day when she suddenly asked him if he would ever be unfaithful to her. His response was, “No, I would not ever cheat on you, but it is not because I think you are beautiful, although you are. And it is not because I love you, although I do. It is because it would violate who I am and who I want to be in Christ.” You see, he was not just committed to keeping a rule. He was not just following the rule of love. He was not faithful to her merely because of his great affection for her. It was stronger than that. It was a more secure moral approach for a marriage than merely being committed to keeping the seventh commandment.
The Bible talks about the time of Christ’s return and says, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming” (2 Peter 3:10-12). So here is the question: “What kind of person are you becoming? Are you becoming transformed into the likeness of Christ?” You see, that is a far different question than if I ask if you are keeping the commandments or doing what the Bible says. Paul wrote to the Romans saying, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Romans 8:29). So, as we strive, not just to live according to the rules, but to be virtuous people, we experience the regenerating influence of the Holy Spirit and find that we are being transformed into the likeness of the one we love. The Bible says, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Rodney J. Buchanan
April 15, 2012
Amity United Methodist Church
rodbuchanan2000@yahoo.com
