In Defense of Christian Ethics, Part 4

In the first two parts of this series, I responded to some of the common objections made against Christian ethics by modern Western non-Christians.  In the third part, I responded to objections against the Divine Command Theory of ethics made by philosopher Michael Martin in his book, Atheism, Morality, and Meaning.^[1]Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2002.  In this fourth and final part, I will continue my response to the objections to Christian ethics Martin makes in this book, this time responding to Martin’s objections to the reasonableness of the Christian ethical concept of imitating Jesus.

Christian Ethics and the Imitation of Christ

Martin assumes that the basic and central concept of Christian ethics is imitating Jesus (158).  However, many Christians have called into question the idea that following Jesus as His disciple is the same thing as “imitating” Him; obviously, if Jesus is God, then Christians should not try to imitate Him in every respect, but only in certain respects.  Nevertheless, there is at least one instance in the New Testament where Christians are called to “imitate” Jesus (1 Cor 11:1), and many Christians do conceive of Christian ethics in terms of imitating Jesus.  So, it is valuable to respond to Martin’s claim that imitating Jesus “is unfeasible and morally inappropriate” (157).

Martin’s first objection to the reasonableness of imitating Jesus is that we cannot even know what Jesus said and did, since modern critical scholars have questioned the historical accuracy of the New Testament’s depiction of Jesus (158).  It is true that many modern scholars question whether the real historical Jesus lines up with Jesus’s depiction in the New Testament.  However, many other modern scholars disagree.  There is a wide variety of views among modern scholars about just how historically accurate or inaccurate the New Testament is.  There is not time here to delve into these complex debates, but it suffices to say that it is not unreasonable to believe that the New Testament is largely historically accurate.^[2]Martin argues that, since “Paul and other early Christian writers do not refer to the ethical teachings of Jesus as they are stated in the Gospels” (158), this suggests “that the teachings of … Continue reading

For argument’s sake, though, let us assume that the Gospels are historically inaccurate and put words in Jesus’s mouth that the historical Jesus never said.  In that case, a Christian could still believe that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, led the early Christian community to those teachings, and so they are, indirectly, the ethical teachings of Jesus.  A Christian could simply define “imitating Jesus” as “imitating Jesus as He is depicted in the New Testament,” and this would bypass the historical questions about the New Testament entirely.

Next, Martin argues that it is absurd to expect everyone to imitate the specifics of the life of Jesus, such as being celibate and dying as a martyr (161).  But, obviously, imitating Jesus does not mean having the exact same experiences and vocation as Jesus; it means developing a Christlike character, such that one will act in a Christlike manner in the particular, unique circumstances of one’s own life.  Martin, however, finds even this more nuanced understanding of imitating Jesus to be problematic, since, he argues, it means that “the typical Christian will have no idea if he or she is imitating Jesus” (161).  But a Christian can be confident about what it means to imitate Jesus, if they use a Biblically grounded and theologically formed wisdom to discern what it means to be like Jesus in their own particular circumstances.

The Morality of Jesus

After these initial objections to the concept of imitating Jesus, Martin then turns to argue that some of the words and actions of Jesus in the Gospels are actually immoral.  Martin criticizes Jesus’s teaching that sinners will face God’s judgment and go to Hell (Matt 10:14-15; Mark 3:29; Matt 25:4-46; Matt 23:33) as suggesting that Christians should be “punitive and unforgiving” (161-162).  This is a strange argument.  Warning sinners that they will face negative consequences if they do not turn away from their self-destructive path of sin is not at all being “punitive and unforgiving”; it is an act of love intended to benefit sinners by persuading them to turn away from this self-destructive path.

Martin criticizes Jesus’s command to His disciples to only preach to the Jews (Matt 10:5-6, 15:22-28) as an example of unjust favoritism (162-163).  But if one understands the Biblical narrative of salvation history, this command makes perfect sense.  In the Bible, salvation and reconciliation with God necessarily involve being a member of God’s covenant people, so it makes perfect sense that Jesus would first focus on restoring and saving God’s covenant people Israel, before later having His disciples invite the Gentiles to share in this salvation by becoming part of God’s covenant people (Matt 27:18-20).  

Martin argues that Jesus was a hypocrite, since he preached nonresistance to evil, but used force when he cleansed the temple (163).  However, Jesus’s teaching about nonresistance (Matt 5:38-42) has to do with not retaliating for wrongs one has personally suffered; it does not rule out the possibility of Jesus using nonviolent force to prevent further desecration of God’s holy temple.  And Jesus’s cleansing of the temple (Mark 11:15) was a unique prophetic-symbolic act indicating God’s judgment on the Jewish religious leaders; it provides no support to the legitimacy of the use of force in general.  

Next, Martin argues that it would be inhumane to imitate Jesus, since Jesus (indirectly) caused the deaths of a herd of pigs by casting out demons into them (Luke 8:28-33), and caused a fig tree to wither by cursing it (Mark 11:12-14, 20-21) (163).  However, these two episodes were unique symbolic-prophetic acts that do not in any way provide a model for how Christians are generally supposed to treat plants and animals.  The drowning of the demon-possessed herd of pigs recalls the drowning of Pharaoh’s army the Red Sea (Exod 14), and symbolizes Jesus’s victory over the demonic enemies of Israel, just as God defeated the Egyptian enemies of Israel.  The withering of the fig tree alludes to one of Jeremiah’s prophecies of judgment against Israel (Jer 8:13); the fig tree represents Israel, and its withering symbolizes God’s impending judgment.^[3]In the Gospel of Mark, the story of the withering of the fig tree (11:12-14, 20-21) brackets Jesus’s cleansing of the temple (11:15-19), making this symbolic meaning clear.

Martin claims that Jesus “does not value reason and learning,” since he called his followers to be like children (Matt 18:3), and never gave any reasons for why people should believe his teachings were true (163-164).  It is strange for Martin to claim that Jesus never gave reasons to believe His teachings were true, since Jesus frequently performed miracles and exorcisms that proved that He spoke with Divine Authority.  Jesus did call His followers to become like children, but obviously He did not mean for His followers to become like children in every way.  He did not mean that His followers should be ignorant and naive like children; Jesus commanded His followers to be shrewd, wise, and discerning (Matt 10:16).  When Jesus called His followers to become like children, He meant that they should have total faith and trust in God, like children have total faith and trust in their parents.

Martin complains that Jesus did not explicitly address many of our contemporary moral problems (164).  But it is unreasonable to expect a first century preacher to directly address every moral issue that might be significant thousands of years in the future.  Even if Jesus did not directly address a particular moral issue, we can still determine what He would say about that issue by having our moral vision formed by Jesus’s teaching and example, and then discerning what the implications of that moral vision are for that moral issue.  

Martin, however, argues that we cannot confidently discern what Jesus would say about contemporary moral issues, since Jesus’s teachings and actions were often ambiguous; he commanded love for enemies, but his cleansing of the temple “suggests that he might consider violence in a holy cause to be justified,” and his warning that sinners deserve hell suggests support for the death penalty (164).  However, it is absurd to argue that a single instance of the use of nonviolent force by Jesus provides support for the use of holy violence, when that would contradict everything else He said and did.  And Jesus warning sinners that they will experience eternal death if they do not repent was an act of love; it provides no support at all for Christians themselves sinfully using violence against sinners.

Martin complains that Jesus did not tell us what kind of government we should have.  Additionally, Martin criticizes Jesus’s teaching that we should pay taxes (Mark 12:13-17), since “citizens have a moral obligation to withhold taxes from an evil government” (164).  However, Jesus did repeatedly tell us what kind of government to have: a Divine Monarchy that delegitimizes all the kingdoms of this world.  And it is wrong to interpret Jesus’s cryptic and ambiguous statement, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” (Mark 12:17), which He uttered in order to get out of a trap set by His opponents, as establishing an abstract, absolute principle that we should always pay taxes to any government.  

Martin argues that Jesus contradicted himself, since he commanded his followers to sell their possessions and give the money to the poor (Luke 12:33), yet defended a woman who poured expensive perfume on his head (26:6-13).  But Jesus did not say that everyone must sell all their possessions.  And Jesus’s response to her critics, “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have Me” (Matt 26:11), clearly indicates that this was an exceptional event that does not provide a model for Christians’ use of their possessions today.  

Martin argues that Jesus’s teaching that rich people cannot enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 19:23-24, Luke 6:20) is too extreme to be taken seriously (164-165).  But Jesus did not say it was impossible for rich people to be saved, only that it is very difficult for rich people to be saved, since riches are a source of spiritual temptation and danger.  Martin points out that most Christians do not practice the radical generosity that Jesus seems to demand (165).  But this does not prove that Christians ethical standards are untrue, only that Christians often fail to live up to these standards.  Finally, Martin argues that Jesus’s call to radical generosity is overly simplistic, since “poverty is a complex problem,” and just giving poor people money is not always the best way to address it (165).  But calling people to radical generosity is not in any way contrary to working on a variety of long-term solutions to poverty; these two approaches are complementary.  In a world where Americans live in extreme affluence, while hundreds of millions of people in the world live in desperate poverty, Jesus’s call to radical generosity is more relevant and urgently needed than ever.  

Martin criticizes Jesus for never condemning the institution of slavery and for focusing on saving souls rather than reforming the social order (166).  But Jesus did not narrowly focus on “saving souls” at the expense of reforming the social order; He clearly declared that the purpose of His mission was to “to preach good news to the poor,” “to proclaim freedom to the captives,” and “to set free the oppressed” (Luke 4:18).  Jesus did not focus on pointing out that Roman society was unjust, since His audience was well aware of that.  Instead, He focused on creating a community of disciples that would embody a radically different way of life and subvert that unjust society from within.  

Just because Jesus never explicitly addressed the issue of slavery does not mean that His ethical teachings have nothing to say about the institution.  His teaching that we should demonstrate unconditional, brotherly love across all social, economic, and religious boundaries forbids a human being to harm another human being in any way, and undermines the idea that one human being could ever truly “own” another human being.  This Christian teaching is what led to the eventual end of the institution of slavery.  

Finally, Martin argues that Jesus was a hypocrite, since he condemned anger (Matt 5:22), yet became angry himself on numerous occasions (Mark 3:5, 11:12-19; Matt 11:22-24, 21:12-15, 19; Luke 10:13-15, 19:45-47, John 2:13-17) (166).  However, the context of Jesus’s warning against being angry with a brother or sister is a discussion of the topic of murder (Matt 5:21-22), which suggests that He was talking about a particular kind of anger, an anger that involves an inner desire to harm someone else.  There is no reason to think that Jesus intended to set up an absolute prohibition of all anger, even righteous indignation.  When Jesus does express anger, it is always legitimate righteous indignation directed towards religious leaders who were leading God’s people astray; it is never directed towards a “brother or sister,” and it never expresses a desire to harm.

Following this attack on the morality of particular words and deeds of Jesus, Martin critiques the Christian idea of imitating Jesus through self-sacrificial, suffering, agape love.  Martin points out that doing the right thing only sometimes results in suffering, and that, in fact, Christians are often praised and honored for their good works (167).  But loving as Jesus loved does not mean suffering to the same degree that He did (although many Christians do suffer to this degree); it means loving all people, including one’s enemies, in the same way that Jesus did, even if this might mean experiencing deep suffering.  All Christians, if they are faithful to Jesus, will experience suffering for it to some degree, even if it is only a relatively small amount.

Martin finishes his attack on the reasonableness of imitating Jesus by critiquing the classic work, Of the Imitation of Christ, by Tomas a Kempis.  Martin argues that many of Kempis’s teachings are not really based on the New Testament Jesus, and that some of his teachings are arbitrary and problematic (168-170).  Many of Martin’s critiques of Kempis are sound, but this does not prove that the idea of imitating Jesus is problematic per se, only that Kempis’s teachings about this idea are sometimes problematic.  

Christian Theism and Moral Skepticism

In the final chapter of his attack on the reasonableness of Christian ethics, Martin argues that “Christian ethics itself leads to four different kinds of moral skepticism” (173).  

Moral Nihilism

Martin argues that Christian ethical theory leads to moral nihilism.  His argument is that, if Divine Command Theory is true, and God does not exist, then this logically entails moral nihilism; since, Martin contends, there is good reason to believe that God does not exist, then accepting Divine Command Theory does lead to moral nihilism (173-174).  However, Martin is wrong in his assertion that there is good reason to believe that God does not exist; in fact, there are good reasons to believe that God exists.  Therefore, this argument fails.

Moral Epistemological Skepticism

Martin argues that Christian ethics leads to a Moral Epistemological Skepticism, in which we cannot know for sure what is or is not moral.  This is because, Martin argues, “the Christian position on many issues is unclear,” Christians have differing views on many moral issues, and “the basic principles of Christian morality are vague and in many cases it is not possible to tell what they entail” (175-176).  But Christian Scripture contains many specific ethical commands and examples that help us understand how to apply the broad principles of Christian morality, and Christians can use a Biblically grounded and theologically formed wisdom to confidently reach conclusions about what is or is not ethical in a variety of situations.  Christians do sometimes have moral disagreements, and sometimes it is unclear how Christian ethics applies to particular, complex situations, but this is true of adherents of any ethical theory.  

Martin supports his claim that Christian ethics leads to Moral Epistemological Skepticism by arguing that the Bible is inconsistent with itself regarding four moral issues (177-178).  First, he argues that Jesus’s teaching about loving one’s enemies (Luke 6:27, 35) is in contradiction to Old Testament commands to use violence (Ex 32: 25-28), as well as Jesus’s own teachings about Hell (Matt 13:41-42, 49-50). However, there is nothing contradictory about saying that God had different ethical demands for Old Testament believers than He has for Christians today, at a different point in salvation history.  And there is nothing at all unloving about warning sinners that they will experience Hell if they do not turn from their sinful, self-destructive ways.

Second, Martin argues that Jesus contradicted himself by forbidding insults (Matt 5:22), while he himself insulted people on multiple occasions (Matt 7:6, 12:34, 23:17, 33).  However, Jesus’s teaching against insults should not be understood as an absolute, abstract prohibition.  The context of Jesus’s warning against calling one’s “brother or sister” a fool is His discussion of the topic of murder (Matt 5:21-22); what He is forbidding is abusive insults towards one’s “brother or sister” that demean them and deny their value and worth.  Whenever Jesus calls people “fools,” He either applies it to a theoretical person or to Jewish religious leaders, who needed to be called out for leading God’s people astray.  There is no contradiction between forbidding abusive insults of one’s “brother or sister,” while also calling religious leaders fools when this is necessary and appropriate.  

Third, Martin argues that the Bible’s prohibition of lying (Matt 15:19, Mark 7:22, Prov 6:17, 19) contradicts its teaching that God sometimes deceives people (Ezek 14:9) or causes them to believe a delusion (2 Thess 2:11-12).  However, the Bible’s general prohibition of lying does not necessarily rule out the possibility that there might be some extreme circumstances in which lying is morally acceptable (e.g., in order to save a Jew from the Nazis).  In any case, human morality cannot be directly applied to God, so there is no contradiction between God forbidding human beings from lying even though He Himself sometimes engages in deception.  

Finally, Martin argues that Jesus contradicted himself by teaching that we should honor our fathers and mothers (Matt 15:4, 19:19, Mark 7:10, 10:19, Luke 18:20), but also teaching we must “hate” our fathers and mothers (Luke 14:26), and being rude to his own mother, for example, calling her “woman” (Luke 2:49, John 2:4, 19:26).  However, it is clear that Jesus’s command to “hate” one’s father and mother is a hyperbole intended to emphasize that devotion to Jesus must take priority even over one’s family obligations.  There is no contradiction in saying that honoring one’s parents is important, but honoring God is even more important.  And Jesus was not rude to his mother.  There is nothing rude about Jesus’s question, “Why were you searching for me?  Didn’t you know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” (Luke 2:29).  While calling a woman “woman” is considered rude in contemporary American English (for some reason), it is not considered rude in many languages and cultures today, and it was not considered rude in Jesus’s language and culture.

Amoralist Skepticism

Martin argues that Christian ethics leads to Amoralist Skepticism: believing you have a moral obligation to do something, without having a motivation to do it (177).  Martin assumes that the only motivation Christians have for acting morally is their desire to avoid punishments and to receive rewards in the afterlife (178).  But this is not Christians’ primary motivation for acting morally; their primary motivation for acting morally is their love for God and their gratitude for the gift of salvation He has given them.  Nevertheless, the New Testament does sometimes speak of punishments and rewards in the afterlife as a motivation to act morally, so it will be valuable to respond to Martin’s critiques of this as a moral motivation.  

Martin’s first argument is that theism must not provide a very strong motivation to act morally, since “we know from history that many theists act immorally” (178).  However, people of every sort of belief act immorally.  If a Christian acts immorally, this does not prove that their beliefs are false, only that they are inconsistent, and perhaps do not really believe what they claim they believe.

Next, Martin argues that punishments and rewards in an afterlife are only an effective motivation for elderly people, since, for everyone else, the afterlife will be far in the future (179).  This is a strange argument.  Anyone of any age could die at any time from violence, accident, or sudden illness, so no one can ever be confident that the afterlife is far in the future.  

Next, Martin points out that many Christians believe salvation is an undeserved gift for their faith, not a reward earned through their works, and argues that, for these Christians, there is no motivation to act morally (179).  However, Christians who believe in salvation by faith alone do have a motivation to act morally.  They are motivated to act morally by their gratitude to God for His gift of salvation, and by their love for Him.  Furthermore, since the Bible makes clear that there is no such thing as being saved by faith without being subsequently transformed by God’s grace, these Christians have a motivation to demonstrate that they truly are saved by living out their Christian identity in concrete ways (i.e., acting morally).

Finally, Martin argues that, whether the afterlife is a reward for faith or for works, it is an unjust system (since many people are never given the opportunity to hear about Jesus and be saved), and this undermines any motivation to go along with it (179-180).  However, it is strange to think that a person would willingly choose to experience eternal death rather than eternal life, just because they believe another person was unjustly never given the same opportunity to be saved that they were.  In any case, while Christians cannot be certain exactly how God will deal with those who have never had the opportunity to believe in Jesus, they know God is perfectly just, and so they do not need to worry about whether God will deal with them in a just manner or not.

Pragmatic Moral Skepticism

Martin argues that Christian ethics leads to Pragmatic Moral Skepticism; since Jesus set up an impossible standard Christian Perfectionism and demanded that his followers conform to it if they wanted to be saved (Matt 5:17-48), Christians have no motivation to act morally, since it is impossible to be moral enough to be saved (180-181).  However, while Jesus did have high moral demands of His followers, He never expected them to always be perfect; He knew they would often sin, and He taught them to pray regularly for forgiveness (Matt 6:9-15).  Christians know that they are forgiven and accepted by God as His children, and so they never have cause to despair, no matter how much they struggle with temptation and sin.  It is not unreasonable for Christians to strive to conform to Jesus’s high ethical standards, even though they know they will sometimes fail to do so.

Martin’s criticism of the concept of imitating Jesus, as well as his criticisms of the morality of Jesus’s words and deeds, are superficial.  His attempts to argue that Christian ethics leads to moral skepticism likewise fail.  In spite of Martin’s claims to the contrary, Christian ethics is coherent and reasonable.  

Series Navigation

<< In Defense of Christian Ethics, Part 3