Lost in Ethical Reflection
October 28, 2010 § 7 Comments
In the spare moments between course work, normal life, and our new blogging project, I have been attempting to narrow in on my thesis topic a bit more. I’ve found it difficult for two reasons: (1) it seems to be dually focused on Christian ethics and theological anthropology; and (2) it seems to be dually focused on a specific doctrine (ethics) and a specific thinker (Bonhoeffer). I have found that converting this into a coherent thesis topic is not as straightforward as I thought it would be. If you’re interested, I offer some of the reflections that have been rolling around in my mind lately, what my personal starting point for this thesis is. Of course, a personal starting point doesn’t always make a good scholarly starting point, so I’d love to hear what you think in terms of how it might be focused. I’m always open to the wisdom of my peers.
Christian ethics is often pursued as the attempt to conform to ‘the Good’ and reject ‘the Evil’, but in fact this is precisely the dichotomy that makes ethical reflection non-Christian. For an ethic to be truly Christian, it must be normed not by the knowledge of good and evil but by Christ. It must be defined not by our reach toward the gods of right and wrong but by God’s reach into our very lives. It must be governed not by principles but by a person. It must refer not to a dead letter but to the living Word. Christian ethics, therefore, must begin at the incarnation and the resurrection.
The logic of the incarnation is twofold. First, it states that Jesus Christ was really God made human. What God was, the Word was; whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father also. Second, it states that Jesus Christ was really God made human. What we see in the face of Jesus is not only God but ourselves. Not only was he truly God but he was truly human. In Christ, God and humanity are truthfully revealed. The extent to which we differ from Christ has not to do with his divinity but with his humanity––becoming like Christ means becoming human. If we are to equate “being like Jesus” with ethical perfection, we must understand that this process is less about being conformed to his deeds and more about being formed to his person. WWJD must be replaced with WWJB––who have we, in Jesus, become? If our deeds imitate those of Christ, it is because we now participate in his new humanity.
Christian ethics must also begin at the resurrection. The resurrection says that we serve a living and active saviour, a God who has come into our lives and continues to work in and among us. Participation in the new humanity means participating in what Jesus is doing today. WWJD must be replaced with WIJD––what is Jesus doing? It is not so much about imitating what we think Jesus would have done in a given situation; it is about discerning what Jesus is actually doing in this situation. The action of a Christian is an expression of their new being in Christ and is normed by the contemporary ministry of Christ.
Obeying God’s command should thus be viewed as both an expression of who we are and a participation in God’s activity. When we consider these two concepts together––and they certainly should not be divorced––we assert that Christian ethics is human participation in God’s activity through the new humanity of Christ. Through Christ, we participate in what God is doing in the world today. Yet God’s activity inheres in his being, and we cannot truly be caught up in the action of God without also being caught up in the person of God. Surely such a thing would be unthinkable apart from the hypostatic union! Put more succinctly, the Christian life is life in the humanity of Christ.
The essence of sin is bondage, the bondage to a subhuman way of being. The essence of God’s command is freedom, the freedom to live as human beings before God. The question driving my thesis, the question which I believe to be the starting point for all Christian ethical reflection, is this: How does our new humanity in Christ find concrete expression in our lives?
Could a sacramental view come into play in the realization of the resurrected Christ in our midst? As the once-and-for-all baptized body and the continuing shared partaken body where we look (and long) for his coming again while still experiencing and living with his presence already. Have you read the last chapters of Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship where he treats the sacraments? I know he offers a more Lutheran perspective than most folks are comfortable with, but just thought I’d throw it out there. In this way, Christ is truly within and among his Church. Bonhoeffer would also tie the sacraments in with the proclaimed word of God, because the sacraments are never sacraments apart from that word which alone calls us to faith and obedience and points us to (and re-creates into the very image of) THE Word. This also all plays out ONLY in community (which is something not always considered in the notion of Christian ethics)…one is baptized as a part of that one community…and one participates in the table as a member of that one community. Just a few thoughts off the top of my head. Perhaps some more will come later. I truly am looking forward to whatever you end up writing on this. You actually seem to be a MUCH better writer than I am…which just makes reading you that much more enjoyable. Blessings.
I really like the idea of taking the thesis in a sacramental direction. And remember: I’m married to a Lutheran, so I’m more comfortable with a Lutheran perspective
Nate Kerr, in his book Christ, History, and Apocalyptic, argues for a doxological orientation for the church’s existence in the world, i.e., our action toward others is normed by our worship of Christ. I had thought of exploring how this same idea could play out in terms of Christian ethics. This is similar to the approach of The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics edited by Hauerwas, which explores how certain aspects of the liturgy overflow into Christian behaviour with respect to particular ethical issues. A compelling idea, to say the least!
You seem to have a great take on Bonhoeffer’s theology. I’ll probably be prodding you for advice as I write!
I’ve told you before I think, but I’ll put in writing: I will want to read your thesis.
This post reminds me very much of *Ethics* (the class and the book). It’s a wonderful concept that I haven’t quite wrapped my head around (which is why I have wanted to re-read Ethics since I finished it for the first time).
My question, coming out of that class and book, is the same as your question. But I wonder: does that question not lead right back into the question of what is good, even if it’s in the context of incarnation? And isn’t that the question B specifically didn’t think we should ask?
(This was my persistent frustration throughout that course.)
That’s a great question Marc, and one that I think we all had while we struggled through Ethics. I think that if you look at the context through which Ethics is always read, namely, B.’s participation in the plot to assassinate Hitler, it becomes clear that if B. ever meanders to the question of the ‘goodness’ of his decision, it is always subordinate to his understanding of Christ’s work in the world. What I think this meant for him is that the question of whether killing a tyrant is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ will never lead to a constructive answer, because murder is always ‘bad’ but allowing genocide to occur is also ‘bad’. You might argue that the decision then becomes a choice between the lesser of two evils, but that’s the sort of abstraction B. could not accept. Who’s the judge between the ‘bad’ and the ‘worse’? For Bonhoeffer, good and evil dissolve into arbitrariness if they are seen as absolute values in and of themselves. I think that’s why he sought to frame the discussion on more concrete grounds: Jesus Christ. He saw Hitler as someone who was working directly against the contemporary ministry of Christ, and he was willing to bring the guilt of murder upon himself in order to confront it. But it was real guilt. I don’t think he ever saw his decision as ‘good’. But nor did he see any other option.
Probably the most difficult thing to understand in his thought is what he saw as most simple and basic: the reality of Christ. If God really became human, and if he raised that human from the dead, then to be human is to participate in the reality of the true human. I hope to understand the implications of this better when my thesis is done.
Does that make it any clearer? I fear I may have just obscured it further. Any discussion of ethics that rejects good and evil as primary categories requires a pretty serious paradigm shift. Again, I don’t think Bonhoeffer sat around weighing the options until he concluded that although normally it is evil to kill, in this particular scenario it would be the best option and thus good. This would simply be self-justification, something he flatly rejected. His sole desire was to act in accordance with the will of God, which Christ was really working out in the here and now. He wanted more than simply to be good or to do something good: “Where God is known by faith to be the ultimate reality, the source of my ethical concern will be that God be known as the good, even at the risk that I and the world are revealed as not good, but as bad through and through” (Ethics, 48).
No, that clears it up nicely (as far as that can be done). Thanks!
Was this clear to you in the class already, or did you get clarification through further (re)reading?
Mostly through later reflection, though the class helped. I still don’t know how clear it is.