‘Autonomy Hits the big time and Duty was put on the backburner’ What does this mean for Society?

 

Autonomous reason hit the big time now people wanted to put Jesus Christ onto the back burner.  This really did happen as the traditional doctrine of the atonement and allied subjects were replaced by the logic of reason. In fact, no religious tradition has escaped unfazed with the march of the new ideas.  The adventure of secularism in some ways has paved the way to more freedoms but on the other hand it has let loose old-time boundaries in Science, Ethics and Aesthetics.   In some cases, we have lost parts of our humanity through data.  We are not people anymore.  We are in fact data.  If we are out of work and want to make a claim, we need to show a number.  If we are ill, we have to show a number.  Even if we are dead numbers are still used. 

Let us not be a lonely rider.

 

Science on its own (with the wrong type of ethics and aesthetics) can be cold as it is the driver behind a lot of advances in our society. Yes, on the one hand we have more so called ‘rights’ but on the other hand we have lost our individuality and are more like a person inside a Picasso art piece.

In some of these theories, Man wants himself to be autonomous from anything outside of himself this includes morality. Man, thinks can make his own decisions and make good decisions about ethics.

However, there are many arguments, On the contrary, I mean:

·         who made the nuclear bomb?

·         Who made the wars?

·         What about deaths and pestilences?

Human autonomy also has serious problems when it comes to ethics and I think it is refreshing that we have the Master Theologian Herman Bavinck 150 years later, after he wrote this book that went into some library somewhere and only was discovered recently that he can give us fresh advice about how we ought to live as Christians.

The 10 Commandments are not a dead subject, and it never has been.  As I said earlier in one of my other blogs on in Matthew's gospel, that even though the ceremonial law was done away with the moral law is always there the two Commandments love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind and soul, and strength and its parallel on the horizontal line love your neighbor as yourself are the summing up of the 10 Commandments.  Herman, Bavinck does us a favour when he goes through each of these 10 commandments, explaining to us what it actually means, explaining to us how the Christian man by faith is supposed to live this life.  Autonomy doesn't work.  It's only through freedom in obedience that works that gives us a true ethic that can actually protect our neighbour as well as ourselves. 

I bought a book while the Late Lord Sacks was alive and, in that book, he explains to us that we went from ‘We’ to ‘Me’, ‘I’.  (Morality; John Sacks; page 77) Obviously, the rot in society set in a long time ago.  We know exactly when this malaise set into our society.  One of the big philosophical ideas was done by the work of Kant with his categorical imperative.  There is a section in my late professor’s book from KCL (Colin E. Gunton; The One the Three and the Many; pages 114-119) As Gunton says the big problem today is that in culture; science, ethics and aesthetics have been ripped apart!   Herman Bavinck was warning us about these things over a 150 years ago. 

As Herman Bavinck is closer to the time of these so-called great ideas in Western Culture it is very helpful to go down Memory Lane.  Obviously, I take a Trinitarian position, but I think Bavinck’s Ethics Book 2 speaks to Western Culture now in the 21^st century!  Even if you do not believe in God or hold another view, you have to agree that something is seriously wrong in Western Culture.  We have forgotten how to be truly human and to be a real person.  Perhaps through John Sacks, Colin E. Gunton and Herman Bavinck, they can help us to find our way in a broken society. Anyhow as you can see, I have received my second volume of Ethics by Herman Bavinck so I will be focusing on his writings.

So, we can pick up where we left off.  In the last blog we are reminded that ‘Duty’ presupposes ‘Law’.  This then become a minefield in the scholarly world.   We proved this in our last blog.  Herman Bavinck also proved to us that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfil it.  This raises all sort of questions for the Christian. Some theologians put all the emphasis on Gospel and go as far to say that the Old Testament has been superseded (Heresy).  Others put all the emphasis on law at the expense of our Christian freedom in Christ.  Before Herman Bavinck even looks at the 10 commandments he goes into the minutest details of precepts and councils and adiaphora.  

·         What we have to do (precepts)

·         What we ought to do (counsels)

·         The area of actions that are outside of ethics such as touching one’s beard. (adiaphora)

·         Do duties collide?

(The above are found in volume 2; Reformed Ethics; Herman Bavinck chapters 13 and 14; pages 1-89)

This has been a minefield since the Reformation including Protestants and Roman Catholics.  I am just mentioning this, but I will not go into detail because it isn’t such a hot issue for ordinary Christian believers.  I am more interested in the nitty gritty of why the 10 commandments are important to the Christian community.  There is indeed a relationship between the law and the Gospel, but it would be nice to understand why this relationship is so important.  For Reformed Christians they hold a tension that it is by faith through our Trinitarian God that we are saved and because we are indebted to what our Lord Jesus did for us the fruit of this is good works (loving in a practical manner our fellow human neighbour no matter who they are.) the list above are underpinning questions Bavinck answers before he goes into the 10 commandments proper from page 119. 

Reflection

Our society has become more individual based and our relationship to one another is not emphasized as much as it ought to be.  In the newspapers I read recently that Boris the prime minister should have gone to a Cobra meeting (to do with the heat wave) but instead he was a British fighter jet enjoying a once in a lifetime experience before he stops being prime minister.  We all have to make moral choices and perhaps it is sometimes a good thing to reflect on the relationship of the Gospel to the law.  As Christians we know that decisions, we make here will determine what happens in the eschaton on Judgement Day. 

I would go a stage further and say that no matter what our background; Do we not have a duty to our neighbour as they have a duty to us.  What should have Boris done? Should he have gone for a joy ride or spent time thinking about human lives?  What moral choices do you make on a day-to-day basis, where you live and who you spend your time with? (Friend and family)

Whatever we believe we are under some natural law (the law of nature).  For Christians the natural law goes back to the creation of Adam and Even.  If you do not accept this story, you still are under the natural law (the law of nature) because you are a natural being.

These first two chapters I have to say have been a rather dry subject (but necessary for any theologian).  After the ‘collision of duties’ and the ‘classification of ‘duties’ we will find ourselves in part A ‘No Other Gods, no images.’  I am getting excited about this as we return to our Creator and find out what he expects of us.