Once again, I'm structuring a post here so that I can also use it as a response on a forum-thread. All the readers of this blog need to know is that the forum-thread involves discourse on the subjects of atheism and agnosticism. As I am an agnostic, I reject the certitudes of both theists and atheists as to whether gods do or don't exist, but one comment on the thread, with respect to Christian morals with respect to slavery, raised some interesting questions that bring me back to Nietzschean perspectivism. _________________ "Slavery would likely be inherently immoral from [Jesus'] point of view. Like thousands of isolated moral conundrums, there is no record of him responding to slavery one way or another. But he did have a take on how to love. Slavery would be in contrast to that principle."
I would tend to speak of things like "pro-slavery sentiments" and "anti-slavery sentiments" alike as being intersubjective rather than objective, but your argument as a Christian is far more interesting than the rote dogma of the atheists here, and so deserves a longer response. The dominant atheist response here to the question of morality has been to claim that it's purely determined by social factors. This claim is made according to atheist beliefs about the absence of any overriding human nature that simply takes different permutations in different societies. Now, though I have argued (and still argue) that atheists cannot be sure that nothing like gods or spirits existed for early man, I also have not dismissed the equal possibility that such gods and spirits did not exist except as poetic metaphors. But for this post, I will hew to the latter possibility: looking at the human custom of slavery as if its attendant morality was independent of any divine input. This is also possible to me because I am a perspectivist as well as an agnostic: I seek to understand how perspective affects morals. Jesus' most famous statement of "love" in relation to human bondage would be, to my mind, "Do as you would done by." This speaks to an innate human need: the need for cooperation in activities that are mutually beneficial to the parties involved: cooperation between families, tribe-members, nations. However, the human need for cooperation may be partly if not wholly predicated on competition as well: families gather together to keep away intruders, nations sign peace treaties to repel common enemies, and so on. There are legitimate areas of human endeavor to which the ethic of cooperation does not unilaterally apply. A merchant who never "bought cheap in order to sell dear" would embody the lovingkindness expected by Jesus's admonition. However, he might also find himself going out of business and being unable to feed his family. So in my terms both ethics, of cooperation and competition, are intersubjective in that they apply across the whole of human cultures, rather than each culture being determined by local standards. From this formulation it follows that slavery, too, would be judged by these two competing ethics. Prior to the Old Testament, recorded history doesn't preserve a lot of moral commentary on slavery (though there's no reason to assume that there was none). We know from Exodus that Jews didn't like being slaves (even of the economic variety) in Egypt, because their slavery is depicted as being bad. Yet the Jews of the Nation of Israel kept slaves, as we know from Leviticus. How did those archaic Jews justify slavery? We don't know this in any precise sense. We do know that the custom of Jubilee encouraged slaveowners to emancipate slaves under just the right circumstances, though. This suggests that archaic Hebrews were aware that slaves of other nations didn't like being slaves in Israel any more than the Jews had liked it in Egypt. Leviticus 25:44 even seems to be justifying the taking of foreign-born slaves over the enslavement of one's fellow Jews, though we can't be certain what the actual practices were like in such a distant period. To wind up somewhat, if we could ask a tribesman of early humanity why his tribe took slaves, he would probably answer with some version of an ethic born out of competition: "They did it to us first," or "If we don't have some of their people held captive, the enemy tribe may try to wipe us out." At the same time, the ethic of cooperation would have co-existed. It was probably easier for two tribes, even if they disliked each other, to use tradecraft to facilitate exogamous unions rather than by going to war every time one's tribe had a bridal shortage. These contending aspects of human nature are reflected in the mythopoeic conceptions of the philosopher Empedocles, who wrote: "The force that unites the elements to become all things is Love, also called Aphrodite; Love brings together dissimilar elements into a unity, to become a composite thing. Love is the same force that human beings find at work in themselves whenever they feel joy, love and peace. Strife, on the other hand, is the force responsible for the dissolution of the one back into its many, the four elements of which it was composed."
Perhaps more pertinently, he also wrote: "Each man believes only his own experience."
7 comments:
GENE,
As a 69-year-old who spent ages 25 through 44 as a daily-zealous "born-again" Bible-literalist, the latter of those decades in an extremely conservative Mennonite congregation, acting not only evangelistically but as an apologist...yet who never found objective evidence nor impartial verification for the existence of any deity or supernature nor for the supernatural narrative or "divine origin" of the New Testament text...and consequently dismissed Christianity and all theism at age 44 and have lacked belief in any theism or supernature since...
Two thoughts for you.
First, that, "atheism" is often, perhaps popularly, inferred to mean, "God does not exist." The term seems to have originally permeated English-language philosophy with that definition.
However, since that claim itself lacks objective evidence, I don't claim, "No God exists".
Distinctly, I (and many others categorized as atheists), state, "Since I'm unaware of objective evidence for any deity, I lack belief in any." The implication being that, I admit the possibility of a deity existing for which I have no evidence; and that, objective evidence becoming available, I'd accept the existence of a deity.
On the spectrum of atheism, my lack of belief due to "I don't know of any objective evidence" does perhaps overlap with agnosticism.
Second, your point about the subjectivity of "love" and how "love" relates to the historically-ubiquitous practices of slavery is one among the important examples of the Bible's, pertinently the New Testament canonical text's, unavoidable interpretational ambiguity.
I faced that ambiguity and the chronic interpretational uncertainty precipitated as a Bible-literalist among the differing, contrasting, and conflicting doctrinal variants of Bible-literalism. After years of earnestly, sincerely, carefully seeking to understand all its "Old Testament"/Tanakh and New Testament canon passages and to harmonize it as a whole (even in its original languages) led to more and more interpretational uncertainties.
Unlike many non-believers who charge the Bible with "contradictions", I describe it as "too ambiguous in meanings to know definitively what is supposed to be believed, practiced, and preached, even in what are claimed to be foundational teachings." For myself, that possible "contradictions" can be plausibly dismissed demonstrates the blatant ambiguity throughout the text: passages which superficially seem to say something definitively are, on close consideration, ambiguous therefore subject to multiple plausible interpretations. The ambiguity renders the text ultimately useless for "knowing God and his will".
The constant existence beginning even in the first century of competing and often mutually-condemning Christic groups, and the inability of any of them to use the Bible to decisively and conclusively prove itself "the true faith!" demonstrates the interpretational ambiguity inherent in the text.
The reality of that inescapable ambiguity underlies the debates between Pro- and Anti-slavery Christians during the US Civil War era - - both sides appealed to the same Bible to support their views.
Thanks for a very intelligent comment. I was somewhat religious up until about age 12 but I began to question the uniqueness of Christian faith in part because of all the differing sects-- as a kid I couldn't understand why they weren't all "just Christians"-- and in part as I began to learn more about other religious beliefs, ancient and modern. To your first comment, I would tend to class anyone who just has no experience of Deity as an agnostic. I usually reserve the term "atheist" for those who are militant about their non-faith. To your second comment, I agree that there really is no consistent voice representing the will of God to His people. The most one can say is that there are assorted tropes that the various authors, even those separated by centuries, keep coming back to when describing the ways they think about God, the Devil, angels, etc. Atheists, as you point out, view all of the contradictions as proof that the Bible was merely a bunch of separate texts and therefore not divinely inspired. But in the view of the concept called intersubjectivity, the points held in common might be much more significant than points of difference. The author of Leviticus may have truly believed that it was okay for Jews to keep non-Jews as slaves. But admitting that it's degrading for Jews to be kept as slaves by fellow Jews, just as it was for Jews to be slaves to Egyptians, that could lead one to the conclusion that slavery was just less as degrading for non-Jews.
GENE,
Of the perpetual consequents of the ever-present tension between our instincts for autonomy and social dependency, the intersubjectivity due to the latter seems more significant in human survival and thrival than the subjectivity due to the former, I agree. The limitations and fallibilities of our human capacities to perceive and conceive probably contribute to the historical theistic tropes, but, our instinct and need for collective, tribal intradependence and belonging likely contribute moreso?
The alleged "Paul" of the New Testament canonical "epistles" may have been one such person who formed that conclusion regarding slavery being degrading for non-Jews?
A Jew himself (according to the narrative in "Acts of the Apostles" and his autobiographical notices in those epistles), his theological development from "Jew as Ya'h'weh's special covenant people, subject to the divine Law given through Moses", as emphasized in the Tanakh to "Jew and Gentile equally accepted into covenant by God, subject to the divine law given through Iesus" evidences someone for whom that conclusion about slavery would follow.
Believing themselves "God's special people", Jews might have argued that while enslavement of non-Jews was permissible, Jews' "specialness" exempted them from being enslaved to anyone.
But as someone who believed that Iesus extended God's covenant to all people and thereby integrated Jews and non-Jews, it'd been logical to Paul to conclude that since all people were now effectually "special", enslavement of no one was permissible.
Yeah, Paul's a tough one to figure out. On one hand, he enjoins slaves to be obedient, but he also wants masters to abide by the moral standards decreed by God. At least some of his rhetoric might be rooted in political reality, in not wanting to get a rep for being an aide to fugitive slaves. But he certainly talks a good game of ultimate brotherhood in heaven for all nations. And to extend your earlier point, most militant atheists will insist that Paul's unwillingness to condemn slavery must mean either tacit approval or hypocrisy, which is a pretty gross overstatement.
Yep, the Paul problem was one that precipitated multiple questions I wrestled with during my many "apologetics" years.
Being familiar with the canonical text, I agree that militant atheists and anti-theists typically ignore the complexities of the character's
theologically-radically-transitional situation to pontificate (often confirmationally-biased if not sophomoric) oversimplistic accusations.
The character's approach to the slavery question may parallel his approach to the serious first-century question, "how does the apparent supersession of the Mosaic covenant by the 'New' covenant affect the daily-practicably relationship between non-Jewish converts and those Jews who converted to Christianity; as well as affect preaching the 'new law' within Christianity to lived-their-entire-lives-obedient-to-the-Mosaic-law Jews?"
The canonical text narrates his approach to the Old/New covenants-question involving "the doing of all the things which the new law of Christ permits is not always beneficial nor constructive" and "the voluntarily limiting of one's privileges under the law of Christ is expedient in order not to unnecessarily offend or obstruct those who are uninformed."
Paul's mixed message regarding slavery might reflect a similar approach. He may be tactically juggling the matter-of-fact of its existence and the Iesus-emphasis on "treating others as one would like to be treated", with a goal of gradually changing peoples' perspective of slavery by emphasizing brotherhood in Christ, rather than employing an overt condemnation of slavery and triggering the probable counterproductive reactional resistance?
Yes, so far as I can tell, Paul was all about the inner transformation that would promote cross-cultural love. Merely saying, as skeptics do, "if Paul hated slavery he should have enjoined owners to free all their slaves" would not have brought about any such transformation. After all, a freed slave in Paul's time might not be all that much better off than a slave with a generous and conscientious master. Or so one rationalization might run.
I may as well mention that when I wrote in my most recent essay about the philosopher Cassirer's distinction between "mythical thought" and "dialectical thought," I had the thought that the war between "believers" and "atheists is almost like a war of these two ways of thinking. Rightly or wrongly, the believer can often reconcile seemingly opposing concepts through the use of myth, while the atheist insists that everything in his view must conform to some pre-conceived standard of reason.
Post a Comment