10-20-2019 “It’s All Relative…Or Is It?”

Sunday, October 20, 2019 ~ Pentecost 19 ~ Hebrew Bible Lesson: Jeremiah 31:27-34

Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

One of the subjects I teach within philosophy is ethics: ethical theory, medical ethics, social ethics, business ethics, environmental ethics. One of the areas within moral philosophy that is quite controversial is ethical or cultural relativism. The saying, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” is the best way to sum-up relativism. The generally accepted popular view is that if a particular culture finds a practice ethical, then it is ethical for them, even if it isn’t for us. Furthermore, we often feel that if we criticize the practices of another culture, we are being intolerant.

James Rachels is the philosopher who has challenged this idea in depth. First, Rachels claims that we can criticize practices in other cultures. We need to examine the values that underlie the practice in question. If the practice hurts someone or demeans their inherent worth as a human being, then it is unethical regardless of what the culture who embraces it says. Also, criticizing a particular act does not mean that we are intolerant of the people who practice it. We may think that they are perfectly fine people, otherwise. It is just the practice that we question. Finally, it goes without saying, that people of other cultures can criticize us using the same formula.

There is much more to ethical relativism than this, but let’s just tackle that much for now.

This leaves a question that we need to answer: how do we evaluate the values that underlie practices? What framework do we use? Rachels (and many other philosophers) will tell us that we just need to use reason. A rational person can figure out what’s right and what’s wrong. In general, that is true, but if you look around you see that reason is in short order these days. Common sense isn’t all that common.

There is another way that we know right from wrong. Jeremiah tells us in this morning’s Hebrew Bible lesson. Speaking through his prophet, God announces the new covenant that he is going to establish.

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant…I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

This passage is often misread to suggest that God’s covenant with Israel is now null and void and that the new covenant that Jeremiah speaks of is with Christians. This is referred to as the supersessionist view. Walter Brueggemann reminds us that, “The ‘new’ covenant now wrought by God also concerns the Israelite community.”[1] What should be our focus here is that the new covenant, according to Jeremiah, will be put in the minds and written on the hearts of believers by God.

Ah…maybe we have an answer for Prof. Rachels right there in the Bible: we know right from wrong, because God planted it in our hearts and minds. This is not to discount reason, but think about it: isn’t reason a gift from God? Maybe being created in the image of God (the Imago Dei) has something to do with our ability to reason.

When we look at the life of Christ, we focus on what some call the high holy days: his birth, his crucifixion, and his resurrection. If you think about it, though, those stories take up a relatively small part of the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have more to say about Jesus’ life and ministry than anything else. The first four books of the New Testament are filled with stories of Jesus healing people, performing exorcisms, and teaching people about the kingdom of God. In fact, most of what the Gospels cover are the teachings. Some of it was done in parables. Some of it required Jesus to just draw upon the natural environment: “Consider the lilies of the field.” These are good moral teachings. I may have shared with you a conversation I had with a very close friend of mine years ago. He was an atheist who often read the New Testament. When I asked him why, he said, “Because Jesus’ teachings are good precepts to live by.” In other words, it’s good moral philosophy.

Through the voice of Jesus, God plants his Word in our hearts and minds. We know what we are supposed to do (and, conversely, what we are not supposed to do) just by looking deep within.

We talked about this at Bible Study the other night. We were talking about how God spoke to Joseph through dreams. This led us to ask, “How do we know when God is speaking to us now?” “How do we hear God?” A few us said that God speaks to us through our conscience. A couple of us noted that when we followed our conscience, things went well. It was when we ignored that inner voice that we got into trouble.

Granted, it’s not always easy to hear what your conscience says. Maybe that is the still small voice of God that we read about in 1 Kings? I think it is, at least in part. Let’s face it: God is not going to be appear before us in burning bushes the way he did for Moses — not on a regular basis, anyway. If that is true, then how else can God communicate with us? Dreams are certainly one way, and, as mentioned earlier, there is a biblical basis for this. However, there are some people (like me) whose dreams are so bizarre that I hope such nocturnal visions are not the work of God. (If they are, then God is more like the surrealist novelist Franz Kafka than the creator of heaven and earth.) Saying that God speaks to us through our conscience is a totally legitimate, theological claim.

Regardless of one’s race, or culture, or ethnicity, or social status: we all know right from wrong, ultimately, because God provides all of us with the same moral insight. People may try to justify immoral actions, but that has nothing to do with relativism. The love of God, and the love we are to have for God and one another, is the rule by which we are to measure our actions.

“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” Indeed, the law of God is written on our hearts. It is in our minds. Reflecting on this verse, the great twentieth century theologian Karl Barth wrote, “This and this alone is the basis of the love which is the fulfillment of the whole Law. And as God does this His Law, in virtue of which love is expected of [humankind], is the Law of the Gospel.”[2] It’s not all relative. The love of God just is. Amen.

[1] Walter Brueggemann, To Build, To Plant: International Theological Commentary on Jeremiah 26-52 (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991), 70.

[2] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Index Volume with Aids for the Preacher (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1977), 375.