I'm becoming increasingly aware of my cognitive limitations. I have a clear goal in my mind, but I miss details here and there; I overlook small things and make mistakes. I review my work multiple times and fail to notice the errors. The limits of my mental faculty are exposed to me, and I'm not sure if these limits are hard and fast, or if I can overcome them by spending more time on a given project. Or perhaps it's my mode of thinking in general which can be improved. Should I work to train myself to multitask (perhaps I can play two pieces of familiar classical music simultaneously, sit and focus on distinguishing them, to build a mode of thinking relevant to multitasking). Or should I pursue modes of thinking relevant to focus (after all, I do struggle quite a bit with my attention span. Perhaps some transcendental style counting would build a good habit in me, although sometimes I'm afraid that this kind of mind-numbing exercise would serve only to make me more of a slave to common practice, incapable of seeing around erroneous cultural norms; swayed by every argument which tracks with itself). It's equally to my horror and my relief that I find myself able to identify these errors after the fact.
In addition to being convinced of my own foolishness, I'm beginning to suspect that most non-Christians are (at least selectively) illiterate. In my online debates (for which my distain seems to increase daily) I am frequently confronted with pasted "contradictions" from rational wiki. Someone online recently, who was hand-picking the ones he thought most compelling, asked me why Genesis 10 indicates that there were multiple languages developed by the time all the nations had spread abroad from Noah's children, but Genesis 11 indicates that there was only one language prior to the Tower of Babel, as if to suggest that the Babel incident must temporally come after the end of the genealogies by virtue of its placement below them in the text, ignoring the fact that the genealogy of Shem is written both immediately after and immediately prior to the Babel narrative in the text, appearing in both chapters 10 and 11. This is the caliber of textual criticism I find myself dealing with most often, and I'm not sure I have much recourse except to conclude that atheism somehow causes people to be illiterate.
Speaking of those debates, I've been working on picking open a small locket I found on the top of the garbage heap. The question which tumbles in this enclosure is, "what motivates us to do good?".
Certainly a few motivators can be listed readily:
- Fear of penalty (but there is no fear for believers; and fear is no proper motive on its own, should we desire not to be like the wicked servant who buried his talents saying, "I knew that you were a hard man.")
- The reward which follows (And again, is it right that we should only do good for selfish gain?)
- Love for God (But what is love, and what is it about love which motivates us to do good? Is it the case that the relationship with God motivate us by imbuing us with great pleasure at the thought of pleasing our loved one? And if so, is that not reducible to acting for selfish gain, whereas the selfish gain is the very same pleasure or satisfaction experienced at obtaining the knowledge that we have pleased our loved one?)
- Because it is our purpose, according to our design (but why act on our purpose or design? Don't we answer this question with statements to the effect that acting on our purpose brings great satisfaction and fulfillment, and that we are designed to experience best fulfillment when glorifying God? And if so, is it just another bid for selfish gain that we should choose to act on purpose rather than against it?)
It seems to me that none of these options really bring about "duty" or "ought". What is "duty"? Is it just a reference to a goal? ("You ought to do X if you hope to achieve Y")
When I was in college I maintained a transactional theory of ethics (cost and return). I thought, "doing this bad thing might be acceptable to me if there is no consequence which outweighs the fun of it", or, "eating this sauerkraut would be tolerable if I knew that it would benefit my health".
After college, I thought for a long time that I had escaped that transactional theory by recognizing that the ultimate consequences of my actions were so great and marvelous that I should be careful to pursue God's glory above all things. That is, having an eternal perspective enabled me to suppose that the ultimate and Biblical good were always transactionally best.
But now, I wonder whether even this "eternal perspective" is itself morally reprehensible on account of its still being transactional in nature. Shouldn't I do good simply for the sake of doing good? Or maybe, is it the case that doing good for selfish motives isn't impure (on its own) after all. Indeed, the Bible offers rewards and penalties regularly; does it make a vulgar appeal to our base natures by doing so? Certainly not; but to my recollection (off the top of my head) it also often seems to offer this reason when suggesting that we should do a thing, or not do a thing: "it is good" or "it is evil".
What does that mean? It makes me wonder if perhaps I am broken internally, on account of the fact that I cannot see the answer. I certainly am capable of feeling "guilt", which manifests in a way abstracted from fear of penalty. When I do something wrong, I feel guilt for it without consideration of whether or not there will be an eternal consequence -- I am very confident that there is no eternal consequence to my bad behavior, except that it subtracts from what would have been greater treasure in heaven had I chosen to act better. Temporal consequences for my bad behavior do bother me, but very often it is because of the lost joy I would otherwise experience at seeing others likewise happy -- an empathetic response. So while my good behaviors still appear to be transactionally motivated, my bad behaviors are deterred both by loss of transactional value and also by something I cannot rationalize (the feeling of guilt).
So then, the question on my mind: is guilt a spiritual phenomena (i.e. imposed on me by the Holy Spirit) or a chemical phenomena (such as lust)? Certainly atheists can feel guilt, so it must be in some ways a physical phenomena designed into us as per common grace, because their spirits are dead and enslaved to their flesh. However, it is also plain that the Holy Spirit guides believers occasionally by means of these pushes toward goodness, and the scope of behaviors which elicit guilt broadens during the life and sanctification of a believer. Furthermore, although guilt is a negative emotion, I perceive that it is not my aversion to guiltiness which prevents me from doing evil, but it is rather the failure to avoid evil which gives rise to guiltiness, and so the decision to avoid evil is based on some other impulse whose existence is implied by the presence of guilt in the aftermath of an evil deed. I can't think of a word for it, and it seems not motivated by either fear, greed, or even habit, but it seems to me that it must exist.
The answer, then, to "why do good", and "what is duty", must manifest itself in a way opposed to that impulse underlying guilt, but similar in nature (as blue is opposed to orange, though they are both colors). I acknowledge that there is a certain small satisfaction which grows and culminates in broad contentment following many good works, as long as they are plucked while ripe and in season, and as long as the worker is careful to avoid giving way to pride at his own goodness. However, it is not this satisfaction which motivates me to do good, although certainly I anticipate contentment should I persist in good works with a right heart.
... (stopped writing... waited 3 days... began writing again here) ...
So I spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I have concluded that the train of thought I was going down suffered from a few significant flaws. First, that I was mistaken in my assumption that it's unacceptable to do good with expectation of a consequent gain or positive experience. If I followed that path to its end, the result would be that the only good things are those done devoid of pleasure, which is opposed to the Biblical principle that a righteous man rejoices in God and takes joy in doing good. Indeed, if the definition of "good" is "that which conforms with God's character", and by implication, "that which gives God glory", then every good thing God does is for the express purpose of his own benefit, and that is good. Furthermore it is God's great mercy to us that he created us in such a manner so that we would experience fulfillment and joy whenever we conform to God's good pleasure, so that we with similar motive to God can do good for His glory, while receiving a well anticipated reward. So then the good we do is for two reasons: first and foremost, because we desire to glorify God on account of our love for him (which translates to the idea that we do it because it pleases us to please those who we love); second, because when we do things on account of our love for him we achieve, by virtue of our design, contentment on earth, and much pleasure and reward in heaven. So, in short, transactionalism is not itself either wrong nor evil, but overly simplistic; a transactional view must be qualified with a firm understanding of reality and eternity. The "eternal" transactional view is still a stable and fine system.
The next conclusion I came to was somewhat disappointing to me, and I am given to think that this is really the root of the whole issue. I don't understand what "duty" is. Certainly this lack of understanding is due in no part to my father, who was a military man, and who modeled duty in my presence in ways most admirable and even awe inspiring (from my perspective). I could go on a long tangent about the excellent virtues I perceived in my parents while I was young, and I still hold them both in high regard (though I still struggle with anger toward them for the part they each played in their divorce, in particular my dad, who appears to have in the most significant way possible breached the very duty for which I only just now praised him). But on to the conclusion anyway.
Now, I said I don't understand what "duty" is, but in reality I think it is more that I do not wish to accept that it is the thing which I think it is. That is, simply, that duty is a function of authority, authority is an abstraction which is entirely dependent on the existence of God. In the words of Epictetus's good student, "He is the master of every other person who is able to confer or remove whatever that person wishes either to have or to avoid. Whoever, then, would be free, let him wish nothing, let him decline nothing, which depends on others else he must necessarily be a slave." If that is the case, then even the man who wishes and declines only what depends on himself is a slave of God, for he can neither wish nor decline anything, and has no power whatsoever, except that God upholds him by the Word of His Power. Thus all men are intrinsically enslaved to God, and so God is the final and ultimate authority.
What's disappointing about it is that I have not yet derived a clear relationship between "duty" and "authority", except that God, who has authority, has by verbal articulation commanded us to observe duty. Furthermore, although I do see a relationship between authority and empirical reality (I'm using "empirical" in a sense here which is unique from my usage of the word in other posts on my blog), I do not see the same relationship between duty and empirical reality, except simply that God's choice will affect reality in consequence of our observance of duty. Duty isn't a "stuff" like authority or morality (where morality can easily be called a "stuff" when we look at the way that an immoral person experiences physical and psychological destruction in the presence of the holy God, and if we consider the impact of morality on ceremonially clean and unclean objects, etc. There is plainly an interaction between the physical and spiritual world, hinging on consideration of morality and holiness).
And therein is the answer: God's design is ultimate as an epistemological justification; his character is ultimate as a moral rule; his modes of thought are ultimate as imposing logical uniformity on all things; his status and power are ultimate in divine authority; and so his preferences are ultimate in determining duty. So then, I have to ask myself, what is so disappointing about making God's simple preferences an ultimate, when I have no issue saying "God is in all respects ultimate, and is ultimate over all things"? Why should I be bothered that my "duty" is a function of God's supreme choice and pleasure? Isn't it rather a convenient and happy coincidence, a burden lifted, that I can accomplish my duty by acting on my love for God, achieving all "should" by observation of a single rule? Yeah, I have to again change myself so that I will see God's imposition of duty on me, his choice, not just as the choice of any being, but as the ultimate choice whereby duty is generated and distributed to all other choices. My disappointment is a symptom of my imperfection, and I must be transformed so that I will love what I previously hated.
The next step is to consider what implication this view of divine authority has on my respect for earthly authority. I'll think about it and maybe get back here later.
"If a person gave your body to any stranger he met on his way, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in handing over your own mind to be confused and mystified by anyone who happens to verbally attack you?"
