You and I are comparing apples and oranges.
Doing what’s best for oneself is far from doing whatever one pleases. In fact, one could argue from a philosophical position that these two behaviors rarely align with each other. From a religious perspective, choosing to do or failing to do an act that would lead to damnation would not be in an individual’s best interest at all.
If you choose salvation as the individual’s best interest, then you simply have to follow whatever’s best from God’s perspective — including His law, his love, his mercy.
But you cannot possibly justify looking out for no. 1 — for one’s own best interest, whether you add adjectives such as ‘subjective’ or ‘egoistical’ — as a proposal compatible with Christianity. This is because God has to be at the top of the hierarchy, and whereas one has more of a duty of preservation toward oneself than one’s neighbour, one can’t claim to matter more and rank higher than one’s spouse does.
Extreme individualism is not compatible with Christianity or indeed with any form of monotheism. It goes against the first commandment. God > you, me etc. — and there are no buts. At the end of the day this really is just so simple.
And when I spoke of protecting oneself, I literally meant from harmful actions/behaviors of others that will damage or destroy that individual. We have the God-given right and responsibility discern and take action to keep ourselves safe from spiritual, physical, emotional, mental, and sexual harm (from self and from others). That’s the context of protection of which I speak, so your example doesn’t apply under those circumstances.
Our first obligation is to do good and avoid evil, not to make ourselves safe, comfortable or whatever, especially not in a perfect degree (and never rest until that perfect degree is achieved). This is because we believe in one God that isn’t in the mirror.
It would be convenient to recast egoistic or at the very least individualistic desires as moral obligations owed to oneself, but that only works to a very limited extent. It covers not taking unjustified risks, not making stupid decisions about one’s health or livelihood, not slacking off at work and getting fired for it (though the obligation not to fail the employer and/or clients and colleagues would rank higher), basically to not do something harmful to oneself, just like — in the extreme example — suicide is wrong. But it doesn’t go as far as to give religious sanction to looking out for no. 1.
As far as the polygraph is concerned, once a spouse breaks the marriage vows with infidelity, lies, and trickle truths, the betrayed spouse has a right to require a polygraph,
Nope. Not even if you could prove a right to honest and full answers could you take it as far as to require a specific method of corroboration (especially not one that isn’t fail-safe).
This relates not only to polygraphs per se but also to the idea that the wronged spouse (or simply suspecting spouse) gets to call the shots and gets to make very specific demands about everything that have to be obeyed to the letter.
There is no such putting of that spouse in control. Control is not a moral right, nor a necessity.
On the other hand, something like STD/HIV testing seems to me to be something a concerned spouse could legitimately require. Notably STD/HIV testing would squarely pertain to the assurance of the concerned spouse’s safety rather than investigation of the allegedly unfaithful spouse’s conduct. I also support the right of the male parent to paternity/DNA tests (which means not forcing the wife to do something but simply taking a hair from the child and from oneself without inventing reasons to allow the wife to prohibit that). However, just simply ordering one’s spouse to take poly would be taking it too far.
or whatever else the betrayed spouse needs to move forward,
Nope. That’s psychologism combined with individualism, not Christianity. You are simply trying to vest individualism with religious sanction here, and in Christianity that won’t work.
There is simply nowhere the kind of shortcut that would lead to just putting the innocent/suspecting spouse totally in control and with total discretion and licence to do anything and especialy act only with his/her interest in mind, let alone outside of moral law.
as a condition of re-entrance into the marital bed.
The innocent spouse does a grave wrong in not accepting a repentant unfaithful spouse. Notably, the ban against remarriage after being abandoned reflects this possibility of repentance — shutting it off by doing something like relocating to a different place without leaving one’s address or taking the spouses, basically forever removing the possibility of being contacted, would be a grave moral wrong. This is an aside addressed to those of our fellow posters here who would (wrongly!) justify civil divorce and complete cutting off of ties in the circumstances.
I don’t want to sound cruel, but the world dosn’t revolve around the innocent spouse. The innocent spouse is not God or centre of the universe. The unfaithful spouse actually still has rights, and the innocent spouse actually still has obligations that stem from their marriage. At no point does a licence appear to just take control or subject the other spouse’s interests and rights to one’s own.
There is just too much at stake otherwise.
Life isn’t easy. There are a lot of stakes, but one’s own stake isn’t the most important and all-trumping. Again, first commandment and commandment of love, with neither of which extreme individualism is compatible. Commandments are always possible to fulfil — God doesn’t allow us to be tempted more than we can resist. He gives us strength to resist temptation and do the right thing. We can’t really use our own high stakes to justify playing an egoistical game against everybody else.
