"Rubha na h-Adhairc ga chur fodha" le Montague Dawson (c. 1959)
'Rubha-Adhairc'
na h-EITICE Crìosdail.
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The 'Cape Horn'
of Christian ETHICS.
RUDOLPH VON JHERING called the logical distinction between law and morality the 'Cape Horn' (2) of legal philosophy. It would be more correct, perhaps, to say that if the modal boundaries between the different law-spheres are neglected, every theoretical distinction of a meaning-aspect from the others is a veritable 'Cape Horn' of philosophy. For how is theoretical thought to form a correct notion of these meaning-aspects, if their modal structure in the intermodal coherence of the cosmic time-order is lost sight of ?
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(2) Cape Horn was notorious for its dangerous storms.
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At present the prevailing conception (but not in the naturalistic sociological view) distinguishes between legal order and morality according to a threefold criterion:
1 - law is an external social order; morality is an internal norm of the individual human conscience;
2 - law is heteronomous, imposed by an external authority; morality is only binding on the individual conscience;
3 - law is a compulsory order sanctioned by organized constraint; morality demands voluntary observance.
A preliminary question. Does there exist a modal ethical law-sphere or moral aspect of experience with an irreducible modal meaning?
The distinction between the world of experience and the I-thou relation in Jewish and Christian existentialism.
From our previous analysis of the modal structure of law it has appeared that this distinction is quite unsatisfactory with respect to the inner modal meaning of the juridical aspect (see chart above).
Does it correspond to the inner modal sense of morality? Here a preliminary question urges itself upon Christian thought. In our earlier investigations it was continually supposed that there exists a specific ethical or moral modal law-sphere. But can this supposition be maintained from the Christian viewpoint?
The dialectical distinction between the 'world of experience' as an impersonal I-it relation and the existential I-thou relation is nothing but a modern irrationalist version of the dialectical basic motive of Humanism [ie ‘Mechanistic Nature versus Personal Freedom’]. It is intrinsically un-Biblical.
It deforms the integral structure of human experience and eliminates its relation to the central religious [ie ultimate transcendent root] sphere.
The world of experience seems to be impersonal and non-existential only if we identify it with an absolutized theoretical abstraction ('nature' in the sense of the classical Humanist science-ideal). But this absolutised abstraction has nothing to do with the modal horizon [ie the full panoply of ‘law-spheres’ aka ‘aspects of time’ aka ‘modalities of consciousness’] of human experience in its integral meaning from which we have started. On the other hand, the real meeting of I and thou is in the deepest sense a central, religious [ultimate transcendent root] relation, which indeed does not allow of modal boundaries of law-spheres. But if this central relation is sought within the temporal order of human existence, one gives oneself up to an idolatrous illusion.
Nevertheless, it is exactly the relation between Christian religion and ethics which is to be considered as the 'Cape Horn' of every Christian view of 'the moral sphere'. Can there be room for a modal moral aspect of human existence and experience which is to be distinguished from the central religious relation of I-we and I-Thou subjected to the central commandment of Love?
Can there be an ethical norm of love which is not identical with this commandment? If so, what is the meaning-kernel of the supposed moral aspect in which this norm functions? In our provisional delimitation of the ethical law-sphere we have assumed that this nuclear-meaning is to be designated by the word love. But if, according to the Biblical view, love is the very totality of meaning, the religious radical unity of all temporal modal diversity of law-spheres, how can there be room for love as a modal aspect of temporal human experience and empirical reality?
From our previous analysis of the modal structure of law it has appeared that this distinction is quite unsatisfactory with respect to the inner modal meaning of the juridical aspect (see chart above).
Does it correspond to the inner modal sense of morality? Here a preliminary question urges itself upon Christian thought. In our earlier investigations it was continually supposed that there exists a specific ethical or moral modal law-sphere. But can this supposition be maintained from the Christian viewpoint?
The dialectical distinction between the 'world of experience' as an impersonal I-it relation and the existential I-thou relation is nothing but a modern irrationalist version of the dialectical basic motive of Humanism [ie ‘Mechanistic Nature versus Personal Freedom’]. It is intrinsically un-Biblical.
It deforms the integral structure of human experience and eliminates its relation to the central religious [ie ultimate transcendent root] sphere.
The world of experience seems to be impersonal and non-existential only if we identify it with an absolutized theoretical abstraction ('nature' in the sense of the classical Humanist science-ideal). But this absolutised abstraction has nothing to do with the modal horizon [ie the full panoply of ‘law-spheres’ aka ‘aspects of time’ aka ‘modalities of consciousness’] of human experience in its integral meaning from which we have started. On the other hand, the real meeting of I and thou is in the deepest sense a central, religious [ultimate transcendent root] relation, which indeed does not allow of modal boundaries of law-spheres. But if this central relation is sought within the temporal order of human existence, one gives oneself up to an idolatrous illusion.
Nevertheless, it is exactly the relation between Christian religion and ethics which is to be considered as the 'Cape Horn' of every Christian view of 'the moral sphere'. Can there be room for a modal moral aspect of human existence and experience which is to be distinguished from the central religious relation of I-we and I-Thou subjected to the central commandment of Love?
Can there be an ethical norm of love which is not identical with this commandment? If so, what is the meaning-kernel of the supposed moral aspect in which this norm functions? In our provisional delimitation of the ethical law-sphere we have assumed that this nuclear-meaning is to be designated by the word love. But if, according to the Biblical view, love is the very totality of meaning, the religious radical unity of all temporal modal diversity of law-spheres, how can there be room for love as a modal aspect of temporal human experience and empirical reality?
We have called the question concerning the modal meaning-kernel of the ethical aspect [see above chart] the 'Cape Horn' (i.e. the most dangerous point) of Christian ethics. In taking cognizance of different attempts to establish the real relation between the ethical sphere and the central commandment of Love we are confirmed in this opinion. We shall mention only two of them.
In his Manual of Ethics (1) the late Dutch theologian W. J. AALDERS, who was professor of ethics at the University of Groningen, clearly saw the necessity of a distinction between the ethical and the religious relation. He, too, seeks the qualifying meaning-moment of the former in love (2).
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(1) Handboek der Ethiek (Amsterdam 1941). See also his De Grond der Zedelijkheid (Groningen-Den Haag) 1933.
(2) Handboek, p. 129.
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But he sees no other way to distinguish ethical love from the central religious love than by introducing this distinction into the central commandment itself. The love of God, as the summary of the first table of the Decalogue, is considered as the religious relation proper which has directly to do with God. This love has a unilateral character insofar as the creature is dependent on the Creator but not vice versa. The love of the neighbour as the summary of the second table of the Decalogue, is considered as the ethical relation which has directly to do with the creation, especially with our fellow-man, and only indirectly with God. This relation is a real correlation because it is bilateral. So the author concludes that the ethical sphere of love is that of creation (3).____________________
(3) ib., p. 123 fl.
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In this way he thinks he can escape the danger of moralizing religion, on the one hand, and that of an absorption of morality by religion, on the other. The moral [ethical] sphere remains dependent on the central religious one without being dissolved into the latter.Though this intention deserves the greatest respect, it must be denied that AALDERS has succeeded in correctly delimiting the ethical aspect in its relation to the Christian religion. In our opinion it is a fundamental mistake to seek the criterion within the central commandment of Love itself. The latter is an unbreakable unity and does not permit itself to be considered as a composite of a religious and a moral part.
In its religious fulness of meaning the love of our neighbour is nothing but the love of God in His image, expressed in ourselves as well as in our fellow-men. This is why Christ said that the second commandment is equal to the first. One can also say that it is implied in it.
If the central commandment of Love is indeed the radical unity of all the temporal modal law-spheres, it must be impossible to delimit within it a specific ethical aspect [ie law-sphere/ modality]. If we see aright AALDERS has arrived at his conception under the influence of the existentialistic view of MARTIN BUBER, who considered ethics as the sphere of the I-thou relation in its dialectical opposition to the contemplative I-it relation of human experience (4).
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(4) Op. cit., p. 125.
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Here it appears once again that this dialectical existentialism cannot be accepted without detracting from the integral and radical meaning of the Christian religion. AALDERS doubtless would positively deny every intention to do so. Nevertheless, in spite of his unsuspected intention, he could not escape from a partial moralization of the central religious sphere in consequence of his acceptance of the dialectical opposition between the existential I-thou relation and the contemplative sphere of human experience. Starting from this opposition, he was unable to conceive of the ethical sphere as a modal aspect of the temporal horizon of experience and reality. In order to avoid its reduction to the religious sphere he could find no way out but a limitation of the latter to the effect that the central commandment of Love was divided into a religious and an ethical part. In addition, a distinction was made between the sphere of religion and the sphere of creation, and this is incompatible with the Biblical conception. The central religious sphere belongs to creation as well as the temporal sphere of human existence which embraces the ethical relation.Together with the existentialistic opposition between the ethical sphere and the contemplative sphere of experience AALDERS accepted the dialectical Humanistic motive of ‘nature and freedom’. Morality [in Aalders’ view] is separated from the 'lower vegetative and animal functions of human life', ruled by natural laws, and is localized in the 'higher sphere' of freedom or 'spirit', ruled by norms (5).
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(5) Op. cit., p. 84.
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This means that the second part of the central religious commandment of Love, which AALDERS reserved for ethics, is related to an abstracted complex of normative functions of temporal human existence, instead of being related to the religious centre of the whole of temporal human functions. So it loses its absolute character and is denatured to a specific norm (6) regulating only the higher temporal volitional life of man.______________________
(6) A 'norm' is always a rational standard, founded in the logical manner of distinction. Therefore it is confusing to call the central commandment of Love a norm. In my opinion this term is to be applied only to temporal standards of what ought to be. The religious commandment is identical with what we have called in the Prolegomena: the religious concentration-law of human existence. It cannot be opposed to 'laws of nature', as is done with norms. [Note that on the above law-sphere chart the Analytical Aspect and all aspects ascending from that are “norms”. Normative laws such as the law of logical non-contradiction can in practice be infringed but not fruitfully.]
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A second example of a serious confusion of love, as the modal meaning-nucleus of the ethical aspect, with love in the fulness of its central religious sense is to be found in EMIL BRUNNER's famous work Das Gebot und die Ordnungen (Tübingen, 1932).Already in his definition of Christian ethics: "Christian ethics is the science of human conduct determined by divine action" (7) he reveals his aim to merge Christian morals [ie a single temporal law-sphere] into the Christian religion [ie the time-transcending integral core of all the (fifteen) differentiated law-spheres/ aspects] , which is diametrically opposed to the moralization of religion [reduction of the transcendent center to the absolutised analytical aspect/ law-sphere] in rationalistic Humanism. This leads to a fundamentally erroneous definition of the relation between love and justice [juridical aspect/ law-sphere].
That's why, according to this writer, it is a contradictio in terminis to speak of 'perfect justice': for what is perfect cannot be justice (8) [Daarom is het volgens den schrijver een contradictio in terminis van een ‘volkomen gerechtigheid’ te spreken: ‘denn das Vollkommene kann nicht Gerechtigkeit sein.’ (WdW Deel2 p98)].
In fact BRUNNER contradicted himself by saying that justice is the pre-supposition of love, and that love which has not passed through justice, is arbitrary, unreal [onzakelijk], sentimental. If love requires justice for its pre-supposition, it cannot be absolute, "unbedingt" [“unconditioned”], in contrast with justice.
BRUNNER's error is that he opposes love, as the exclusive content of the fulness of God's commandment, to the 'temporal ordinances', which owing to the fall show God's will only in a broken state. He wants to build Christian ethics on the basis of the actions proceeding from this love within the formal framework of all the temporal ordinances. This is an after-effect of the dualistic scheme of ‘nature and grace’ in LUTHER's world of thought (10).
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(7) Op. cit., p. 73: "Christliche Ethik ist die Wissenschaft von dem durch das göttliche Handeln bestimmte menschliche Handeln".
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According to BRUNNER the love mentioned in the central divine commandment is absolute. It concerns the whole person, and is concrete and not legal. Justice, on the contrary, is universal, legal, "vorausgewusst, unpersönlich-sachlich, abstrakt, rational" (known in advance, impersonal, objective, abstract, rational).That's why, according to this writer, it is a contradictio in terminis to speak of 'perfect justice': for what is perfect cannot be justice (8) [Daarom is het volgens den schrijver een contradictio in terminis van een ‘volkomen gerechtigheid’ te spreken: ‘denn das Vollkommene kann nicht Gerechtigkeit sein.’ (WdW Deel2 p98)].
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(8) Op. cit., p. 436/7.
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Even when we speak of Divine justice we mean [from Aalders’ viewpoint] nothing concrete and material but "jene formalen Qualitäten der Entsprechung, der Zuverlässigkeit und Konstanz göttlichen Handelns" [“these formal qualities of the consistency, the reliability and the constancy of divine actions”]. For in the idea of justice is implied especially: 'the idea of the reliability, of the objective and active operation of a rule that has been imposed on us, and which we know as such' (9)._____________________
(9) Ib.: "Die Idee der Zuverlässigkeit der objectiven und wirksamen Geltung einer "gesetzten" und als gesetzt bekannten Regel."
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Here the fundamental error in BRUNNER's view is laid bare. In this view it is forgotten that the fulness of meaning of love, as revealed in Christ's cross, is at the same time the fulness of justice. If we assign a higher place to Divine love than to Divine justice, this procedure necessarily detracts from God's holiness. In his later work Die Gerechtigkeit BRUNNER appears to have avoided this error.In fact BRUNNER contradicted himself by saying that justice is the pre-supposition of love, and that love which has not passed through justice, is arbitrary, unreal [onzakelijk], sentimental. If love requires justice for its pre-supposition, it cannot be absolute, "unbedingt" [“unconditioned”], in contrast with justice.
BRUNNER's error is that he opposes love, as the exclusive content of the fulness of God's commandment, to the 'temporal ordinances', which owing to the fall show God's will only in a broken state. He wants to build Christian ethics on the basis of the actions proceeding from this love within the formal framework of all the temporal ordinances. This is an after-effect of the dualistic scheme of ‘nature and grace’ in LUTHER's world of thought (10).
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(10) Cf. Vol. I, ch. 3.
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It leads to the identification of morality with the Christian religion, and at the same time it leads to a misinterpretation of the temporal moral meaning of love, i.e. of the moral aspect [law-sphere] of temporal human experience and existence.That's why everywhere in this ethics antinomies arise. For BRUNNER's conception of love as the opposite of justice is not really Biblical, but much rather an absolutising of the temporal modal [aspectual] meaning of love. Only the latter can be significantly opposed to the meaning of justice as another aspect [law-sphere] of temporal reality, and to the modal meaning of the other law-spheres. Anyone who tries to do so with the [transcendent central decalogue-summation] fulness of meaning of love, violates its religious fulness. He has no eye for the new religious root of creation in Christ as the concentration-point and the fulness of all the temporal meaning-aspects.
It is an essentially un-Biblical thought to deny Divine Justice its perfection by calling it a 'merely formal idea', and to seek that perfection only in love. [Het is in wezen on-Christelijk, on-schriftuurlijk gedacht, aan de Goddelijke Gerechtigheid als een ‘bloot formeele idee’ de volkomenheid te ontzeggen en die volkomenheid alleen in de liefde te zoeken. (WdW Deel 2 p 100)]
(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol II/ Part I/ Chapt 2/§5 pp 154-158)
