For Christ's Sake. Bishop Geoffrey Robinson

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      In this life we are called to become all we are capable of being, all God invites us to be. If we wish to do this, we must try to live at the higher end of the six levels of morality I spoke of in the last chapter: on the bases of respect and love.

       THE RESPONSE OF LOVE

      The story of Jesus tells us that God is constantly saying to each one of us, ‘I love you’, and the only adequate response on our part is, ‘I love you too’. From this response will flow many truths, many principles of right conduct and a genuine worship of God, but the response of love to the person comes first. Without the response of love to the person, the truths will become lifeless, the principles of right conduct will be burdensome tasks and the worship will be empty. With the response of love, the truths will come alive, the principles of right conduct will be the most natural things in the world and the worship will be life-giving. Right conduct divorced from the response of love will always be inadequate.

      It follows from this that morality is essentially relational, for it is essentially about the kind of relationship we wish to have with God and, therefore, with other people. It is about the kind of god we worship: an angry god, a just god or a loving god. Despite all his studies, Rycker had failed to learn this simple truth and was caught in the worship of an angry god or—at best—a just god, but certainly not a loving god. He failed to see the fundamental truth that morality is about relationships more than individual actions. Christian morality cannot be simply about ‘not doing wrong things’. It must be about building our relationship with God.

      It follows that it is vitally important that morality and spirituality not be separated, so the saint is the truly moral person and the truly moral person will be a saint. The natural sense we all have within us that we should live morally must be seen as an invitation to holiness. If morality and spirituality are separated, morality will inevitably wither and die.

       COMMANDMENTS AND BEATITUDES

      If a family comes to live next door to me and I do no harm to them, I can hope that they will not become my enemies. But if I want them to be much more than ‘not enemies’, if I want a relationship of love and friendship, I must go well beyond ‘doing no harm’. Our first moral duty is not to harm others and our second is to do what we can to help them. The first duty comes first, for it is foolishness to speak of helping people while we are actually harming them. The concern of the commandments is with this first duty and, because it comes first, we can never do away with it. Jesus never rejected the Ten Commandments: it is wrong to kill, harm life-giving relationships, steal legitimate possessions and damage a person’s good name, and he proclaimed these truths constantly.

      The Commandments, however, largely express negative requirements for growth (‘You shall not…’). Even if we observe every negative commandment perfectly, this does not yet say very much about our spiritual state. It says what we have not done, but does not say that we have actually done anything positive to assist others. The negative commandments are a necessary foundation, for they ensure that we do not do positive harm to others, but they cannot in themselves build true moral and spiritual growth.

      It was for this reason that Jesus, without doing away with the Ten Commandments, added to them the beatitudes.¹⁴ To ‘You shall not kill’ Jesus added, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’. Not to kill or harm is the essential foundation, but true spiritual growth is to be found in doing all we can to create peace. To ‘You shall not steal’ Jesus added, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’. Not stealing is the foundation, but true growth is to be found in the active seeking of spiritual values. There is a profound challenge to adopt a true Christian morality in the beatitude, ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what is right, for they shall be filled’, that is, blessed are those who desire all that is right and just and good, and who desire it with the same degree of intensity as a person dying of hunger desires food or a person dying of thirst desires water.

      The beatitudes are not commandments, and we do not sin if we do not live up to their highest ideals, but it would be a total misunderstanding if anyone were to conclude that they are not, therefore, part of Christian morality. They are ideals rather than laws, but they are what has been called ‘prescriptive ideals’; that is, we do fail if we totally ignore the ideals and make not the slightest attempt to strive towards them.

      Any adequate understanding of Christian morality must include these ideas and purposes. If we take them away, morality will lack cogency in our lives and could become as empty and formalistic as it was in the life of Rycker.

       TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

      As well as determining the goals we are seeking, we must also think about the means by which we will achieve those goals.

      If rewards in an afterlife were our only purpose in performing right actions, it would be possible to believe that right actions might be adequate, in and of themselves alone, to achieve this goal. But if our purpose is to build a relationship with God and become all God wants us to be, then we must ask whether performing right actions is sufficient, in and of itself alone, to achieve this purpose.

       Doing Right Things

      Most certainly, doing right things and avoiding wrong ones is an essential part of growing to become all we are capable of being. We do not grow by doing things that harm other people or our own true good, even if we do them in good faith. E.g:

      Imagine that, in the midst of a powerful history of communal or tribal hatreds, a certain person makes the decision that he should take part in the massacre of his perceived enemies and does so. In the words of the Second Vatican Council, I would be compelled to say that his very dignity lies in following his conscience, even when he is wrong. Despite this, I would have to add that his decision has hurt him. He has become a murderer, and for the rest of his life, whenever he looks in a mirror, that is what he will see. To make serious progress as a human being, he would need to recognise that his decision had been a morally wrong one, and he would need to do all he could to repair the damage he had caused.

       Taking Responsibility for our Actions

      Doing right things is, however, no more than a means to an end and it is not capable, in and of itself alone, of achieving the end. Morality is about growth as moral persons and for growth more is required than simply performing right actions, as the following examples will show.

      As children grow, it is important that they learn right habits, but it is also important that they gradually learn to take responsibility for their own actions. If they learn wrong habits from their parents, or if they rebel against their parents and adopt wrong habits themselves, they will encounter problems. But if they do not learn to take responsibility for their own actions, obedience to parents will gradually become an obstacle rather than a help to their true growth as persons. A forty-year-old who cannot take responsibility, but must in all things still follow parents, is not an ideal for anyone. If this is true in all aspects of life, it is true also of moral life.

      Years ago much marriage counselling was directive, that is, a couple presented their problem to the counsellor and the counsellor responded by indicating the best way to resolve the problem. All too often, however, the couple went away not fully convinced the solution would work—or even not wanting it to work—and tried the solution in a half-hearted way; when it consequently did not work, they blamed the counsellor. So counselling became non-directive, that is, the counsellor undertook the harder task of helping the couple to find their own solution to the problem, a solution they were both convinced of and committed to. Even if the solution the couple decided on was not the one the counsellor thought ideal, it was the best solution СКАЧАТЬ