The Moral Being
W. Carl Ketcherside
[Page 171] |
A moral act is not an act in obedience to an external law, human or divine, it is the inner law of our true being, of our essential or created nature, which demands that we actualize what follows from it.--Paul Tillich in "Morality and Beyond," page 20.
That man, by his very nature, is a moral being, seems to be a proposition which will evoke little dispute. His nature endows him with rational powers, and the exercise of these powers leads to the development of an idea concept that there is a law, or rule of action, a principle within the human self, to which he is obligated. The function of the intellect in that realm which we call conscience "endorses the existence of such a law, for there is something which condemns or excuses their actions," as the apostle Paul states it.
It is this innate principle which produces a sense of moral obligation, or oughtness as it is sometimes called. The Greeks had a word for it--dei--and they applied it especially to the constraint which arose from relationship to the divine. But since it involves the nature of man as a rational being it is a concept as universal as mankind. There is no nation or tribe without its ideas of right and wrong. All men have some sense of the fitness of certain actions and of the obligation to perform those actions.
This idea of moral obligation is not subject to definition because it is an initial idea arising from the simple exercise of the rational powers, and being primary, there are no simpler terms into which one can break it down, and define it. The universal idea of oughtness exists even in the minds of the most primitive peoples and we cannot go back beyond it to employ simpler word images to explain it.
Obviously, in cultures which we refer to as uncivilized, although this is a relative term, the sense of oughtness often gives rise to superstitions and taboos, but this is no argument against the validity of moral obligation. It rather enforces the fact that this obligation is powerful, even in the untutored mind and produces a corresponding sense of responsibility to a force superior to the person, and even to the community of persons.
Since man is a moral agent, and thus under moral obligation, it is essential to his development of true selfhood that he understand the conditions imposed upon him by virtue of the rationality of his being. Moral agency grows out of the fact that man cannot only conceive of the fitness or impropriety of certain actions, but that he can choose to perform what his conscience endorses as right. He possesses will and through it he can act voluntarily.
I do not like to employ the term "free will," which is so current in the language of systematic theology. It appears to me that the word "free" is redundant. The very power to will implies, and I think, even necessitates freedom to choose or elect, and freedom to act in accordance or conformity with that choice.
Moral obligation, then, is first the obligation to choose an ultimate end of life as the highest good in the universe. To aim below this potential, or to fall beneath it by voluntary action, is immoral. Mediocrity by choice or neglect (which is actually choice), is immorality, because it consists of taking the powers provided for the achievement of the highest good, the divine plan for one's life,
[Page 172] |
We have no trouble in seeing that the expenditure of sexual potency in prostitution falls within this category, but we forget that there can be also a prostitution of talents or abilities. One can "waste his substance in riotous living" without spending it on harlots. Immorality is not limited to sexual exploitation.
The obligation to choose the ultimate end which will work for the highest good is always accompanied by a correlative obligation which is just as imperative, that is, the choice of the necessary means by which to obtain that end. The means by which the ultimate purpose can be achieved is holiness, or sanctification. It is the deliberate choice of the disciplined life.
It will at once be ascertained that man cannot be made a moral being by law or statute. He cannot become such by imposition of authority from without. It is true that such authority can enact, and if powerful enough, can enforce, guidelines for social conduct, that is, rules to govern man in his relationship to and dealings with his fellowbeings. But neither the rules nor the subservience to the authority which imposes them can make one a moral being.
Man possesses intellect and sensibility, the power of knowing and feeling. As a conscious being he knows that he knows, and he knows that he feels. Consciousness is the mind in the act of knowing itself. But man is also conscious that he is free. He knows that as a moral agent he has the right, and also possesses the freedom to choose. He may deny this, or speculate that it is not so, but this will not alter the fact of his own consciousness.
Man may seek to convince himself and to influence others to think that he is not free because of environmental or other factors. These do not abrogate his moral freedom. They only produce consequences from which he shrinks if he makes a certain choice. It is not that he does not have the choice but that he does not want to pay the price which its exercise will require.
One knows that he is free exactly as he knows that he is, and it is this nature of which he is conscious that makes him a moral agent. Thus no man, who is not deranged, can ever be wholly unaccountable. Moral agency produces responsibility and responsibility demands accountability. Degrees of responsibility exist and these determine the extent of accountability but they do not deny the fact of it.
Any religion which attempts to make man be good, according to its definition of good, by authoritarian pronouncement, is doomed to failure. In making man conform by such a method it destroys him as a man. If you could inject a serum which would deprive a person of all knowledge of evil and all desire or inclination for it, you would make him good, but he would be a good machine, and not a good man. It is precisely because tension exists and we feel the tug of it that we are moral beings.
When Karl Marx wrote in his "Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right," in 1844, that, "religion is the opium of the people," there was a great deal of truth in the statement. No one with a knowledge of history can deny that religion has often been used to stupefy the masses so they could be used and manipulated for unworthy ends. Cruel and senseless wars have often been fought in the name of religion which were in reality attempts of political factions to gain supremacy. Russia furnishes a good example.
But the freedom for which Christ set us free is not an opiate. It is a stimulant to the best that lies within. It is an eye-opener. Under its influence I can see clearly and it is in the full beam of this light I reject the dialectical materialism of Karl Marx, and choose the "spiritual dialectic" of Jesus of Nazareth as the basis of my hope here and hereafter!
"He that hath this hope purifieth himself even as he is pure." When I make my decision for Jesus I include in that decision all that goes with it, and that includes striving for his likeness.