D
DL82
Guest
It seems to me that one of the biggest obstacles to people believing the truth about the moral law is that some beliefs just appear to make life intolerable in certain material circumstances.
Take the issue of abortion in contemporary America. I would provide you with two comparable examples:
JG Fraser points to the Mbaya indians of South America, who used to murder any child born after the last (living) one. While they may have constructed any number of mystical or magical reasons for doing this, there was a material reason behind it - each member of the tribe could only afford to care for one child at a time - when the tribe was marching through the jungle, each woman could only carry one infant in her arms at any one time.
To take another example, one of the reason the Scottish islanders of St Kilda died out was the practice of wrapping new-born babies in cow manure. While the islanders believed this insulated them against airborne germs, what it in fact was doing was exposing the children to the common diseases and bacteria in their environment, ensuring only the ones which could stay healthy survived. Again, in the harsh conditions in which they lived, this may well have been necessary for survival - yet the islanders, as good Christians, would have been horrified if they had known that what they were doing was in effect killing off the weak among their children. So horrifying, in fact, would this news have been, that, had you tried to tell one of them about it, they would likely have dismissed you as mad. The weight of evidence that is needed to convince someone that they have in fact murdered their own children, is very great indeed, because the consequences of such a belief are so horrific.
Sadly, in America today, the material conditions have been created which make believing in the sanctity of life of the unborn very difficult. A pregnant woman may be faced with the choice of giving birth without medical help (and, because of the presence of unaffordable medical help, without the traditional midwives who would have been in the community in past ages) or getting into a medical debt they will never be able to repay. The quality of life of the least well-off, and the absence of the quality public education which used to offer a way out, makes people despair of the prospects for their family if they give birth to a child unplanned. Increasing sexualization of teens makes it seem impossible to live a happy life, or to find a life partner, without being sexually active outside marriage. These conditions make the belief that an unborn child has a right to be born seem entirely counter-intuitive. We have built a culture that makes it hard to believe the truth.
While for some people, the recognition of the truth will come in a blinding flash of divine inspiration, a painful recognition which will lead to great penitence, we cannot rely on this as the normal means of God’s grace.
I would argue that, before any progress will be made, we need to work to create the material conditions in which it is possible and comfortable to live the moral life - and in the meantime, we must forgive. Judgment alone will not cover it. We must invite, and we must forgive, and we must be ready to atone for others and live with the hurt of knowing the evil that continues to be done.
Take the issue of abortion in contemporary America. I would provide you with two comparable examples:
JG Fraser points to the Mbaya indians of South America, who used to murder any child born after the last (living) one. While they may have constructed any number of mystical or magical reasons for doing this, there was a material reason behind it - each member of the tribe could only afford to care for one child at a time - when the tribe was marching through the jungle, each woman could only carry one infant in her arms at any one time.
To take another example, one of the reason the Scottish islanders of St Kilda died out was the practice of wrapping new-born babies in cow manure. While the islanders believed this insulated them against airborne germs, what it in fact was doing was exposing the children to the common diseases and bacteria in their environment, ensuring only the ones which could stay healthy survived. Again, in the harsh conditions in which they lived, this may well have been necessary for survival - yet the islanders, as good Christians, would have been horrified if they had known that what they were doing was in effect killing off the weak among their children. So horrifying, in fact, would this news have been, that, had you tried to tell one of them about it, they would likely have dismissed you as mad. The weight of evidence that is needed to convince someone that they have in fact murdered their own children, is very great indeed, because the consequences of such a belief are so horrific.
Sadly, in America today, the material conditions have been created which make believing in the sanctity of life of the unborn very difficult. A pregnant woman may be faced with the choice of giving birth without medical help (and, because of the presence of unaffordable medical help, without the traditional midwives who would have been in the community in past ages) or getting into a medical debt they will never be able to repay. The quality of life of the least well-off, and the absence of the quality public education which used to offer a way out, makes people despair of the prospects for their family if they give birth to a child unplanned. Increasing sexualization of teens makes it seem impossible to live a happy life, or to find a life partner, without being sexually active outside marriage. These conditions make the belief that an unborn child has a right to be born seem entirely counter-intuitive. We have built a culture that makes it hard to believe the truth.
While for some people, the recognition of the truth will come in a blinding flash of divine inspiration, a painful recognition which will lead to great penitence, we cannot rely on this as the normal means of God’s grace.
I would argue that, before any progress will be made, we need to work to create the material conditions in which it is possible and comfortable to live the moral life - and in the meantime, we must forgive. Judgment alone will not cover it. We must invite, and we must forgive, and we must be ready to atone for others and live with the hurt of knowing the evil that continues to be done.