The Bible routinely commands God's people to practice what is good in the eyes of Jehovah, but to disdain or turn away from what is bad (Psalm 34:14; 97:10; Proverbs 4:27). While there are many blessing that result from doing the right/good thing, should God's people always expect good consequences from godly actions?
Even a cursory reading of the Bible probably will lead most readers (maybe all) to answer negatively. No, doing the right thing doesn't always bring about good consequences, contra utilitarianism (a moral theory that emphasizes actions bringing about good consequences/benefits). A Christian knows he/she is doing the right thing when it conforms to the will of Jehovah God (Matthew 7:21-23; 1 John 2:15-17). While good acts generally do bring about good results, it is not true that immediate benefits always result from doing God's bidding. That is far from the truth.
The Bible teaches us that we live in a fallen world, a world in which sickness, suffering and death obtain (Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 5:12; 6:23; James 4:1-2). So no matter how faithful we are, there will always be illness, suffering, and death in this world (1 Timothy 5:23; 2 Timothy 4:20). Secondly, those who desire to serve Jehovah in association with Christ Jesus will (not might) be persecuted (2 Timothy 3:12). Jesus told his disciples that they would be objects of hatred by the nations on account of his name: suffering is inevitable for Christians (Matthew 24:9; 1 Thessalonians 3:3-4). The more obedient we are, the angrier Satan gets, and the more he will war against us--even throwing some of us into prison (Revelation 2:10; 12:12, 17).
Having said all of the foregoing, I do want to end on a positive note. While good actions don't guarantee good consequences in our life, it is true that if we obey the dictates of God, we will be blessed in the long term. Furthermore, our lives will be richer now, we'll be happier, and we can avoid numerous problems by doing Jehovah's will (1 Timothy 4:8). Jehovah promises that he is the one teaching us how to benefit ourselves (Isaiah 48:17, 18). As the psalmist also wrote: happy is the people whose God is Jehovah (Psalm 144:15). Yes, he is satisfying the [proper] desire of every living thing (Psalm 145:16).
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Does the Performance of Good Acts Always Bring About Good Consequences?
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21 comments:
Amen!
Christian ethics ONLY make sense eschatologically, in fact the ressurection and eschatology are the grounding of Christian ethics.
Good point. I've been thinking a lot lately about the effects that emanate from obeying Jehovah's commands. There are some things we're asked to do that bring about hard times now, but the benefits of listening are everlasting. Job feared God, was blameless, upright and turned aside from bad, yet he suffered to a great degree because of his integrity.
I believe that Paul touches on your point about the resurrection in 1 Cor. 15:1-58. See also 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 and Romans 8:18-22.
I believe that Dostoevsky also played with these motifs in his fictional works. For instance, in the Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot.
Maybe you can do a post on Romans 10:9, 10. Many people believe as along as they believe Jesus is Lord and he was raised from the dead they are saved and they don't have to do anything else or their conduct doesn't really matter because they are saved.
I touch on this in my Jesus's Manifesto, it seems ot me the ethics of Jesus are all eschatologically orientated, the assumption is that this world is under wicked powers, who reward wickedness (hense the condemnation of the rich), whereas the world to come reverses that; therefore one ought to live in light of the world to come, which will mean suffering and hardship in this world, but reward in the world to come.
Without the eschatological reversal it's really all just sentimental claptrap, turn the other cheek and lend without expecting a return is a fast way to be exploited and abused (especially in the greco-roman world), Jesus's ethics certainly don't work in terms of political power. But with the eschatological reversal it makes sense. Building up storehouses is actually very good advice ... unless the robbers are coming; attaching field to field (Isaiah 5:8) is a great idea, unless the Jubilee is coming; acting as a cutthroad landlord (James 5) is a great idea, you'll probably get ahead, unless God brings the miseries due to them, and the poor person acting as a client, in deference to the rich, is also a good idea (James 2), if God didn't choose the poor for the Kingdom.
I'm using examples from political-economy only because that's what I've studied the most, but it applies in many other places as well.
Another clue is also to look at the "good guys" vrs the "bad guys" (I know that's way oversimplistic) and see who has good and easy lives and who suffer .... it's the righteous more often than not who suffer the most.
Stanley Hawerwass goes a similar direction, based on John Howard Yoder's work (who's great ethical work was unfortunately sullied by his reprehensible actions in his personal/professional life).
Some people have said that modern materialist socialist movements (largely deriving from Marx) are a kind of secularized Christianity, I think there's something too that, which is their flaw, i.e. the secularized part ... one cannot posit a full critique of class domination from a purely secular standpoint, and his optimism was at the level of fideism, the idea that class domination can be overcome by purely material forces (when historically it has just intensified) is a fantasy, although his political-economic critique was good ... if you start from a secular standpoint you'll always end up getting it wrong. In the end nothing makes sense outside of the eschatological horizon, especially not Christian ethics.
John 2:13-16
Roman, I need to review that discussion in your book. Time and circumstances now place great limits on what I can read, but you give me a lot to ponder. When Jesus spoke of lending to the poor, he also said the reward would come later. This principle harmonizes with Proverbs 19:17. But I have to emphasize that we benefit even now by applying Bible principles; it's just that we don't always see immediate payoffs. But we can have better family lives now, and we avoid many health problems by obeying Jehovah, we have a measure of happiness/peace and reasons to be optimistic.
When people strive to be rich, think about the harm that comes from this lifestyle (1 Timothy 6;9-10). Ecclesiastes likewise speaks about how the rich man worries as he seeks to preserve his wealth, while the servant sleeps sweetly. Jesus taught that self-righteous ones have their reward in full now, but get nothing later. Yet I agree that the big reward for righteous persons is coming in the eschaton.
As for the righteous suffering, James, 1 Peter, and Revelation all back the idea that God's people can expect to be persecuted in the here and now. "Do not be surprised at the burning among you," etc. But prove yourselves faithful even to death and you'll receive the crown of life.
There is also a reason why the Marxist vision has been called "utopian." What society has ever experimented with such ideas without becoming abusive or totalitarian or a living contradiction?
http://way2benefits.com/pros-and-cons-of-marxism/
Agreed, so insofar as the world remains uncorrupted by satan and remains as it will be eschatologically there are payoffs now (i.e. marraige, health, etc), but inso far as this is Satan's world the ethics only make sense eschatologically.
Marxism as a positive political model really is vacuous, Marx didn't really write much about a post-Capitalist society, his real value is in explaining how Capitalism and class society as a whole works. So the pros and cons shouldn't really be thought of in terms of a positive political program it's gonna be difficult, but I think a better judgement is how Marxist ideas make sense of Capitalism, history, and political-economy as a whole.
But yes, the Leninist regiems were horrific, and I don't think Marx is completely without blame, especially in his "historical determinism" or at least how people read his historical determinism, which I think contributed to the idea of history as a continual progress (this was an unfortunate aspect of Marx, which is also found in other early modern liberal thought).
But, in terms of an anlysis of political-economy, and how class societies, and especially capitalism works, I think Marx was largely on point, although I would say his framework needs to be qualified with other later theorists, especially Karl Polayani (who argues, correctly, that Marx granted all too much of the economism of the classical economists, i.e. that society was embedded in the economy, and that in reality this is only true in a Capitalist framework, for most of history the economy was embedded in society).
Anthropologist Michael Sahlins, in an essay in the Volume "On Kings" with David Graeber (https://haubooks.org/on-kings/) has a great line:
One might justly say that “spirits own the means of production,”
. . .
Not only are metahuman persons ensouled in the primary resources, they thereby govern the outcome of the productive process. As intentional beings in their own right, they are the arbiters of the success or failure of human efforts. For theirs are the life-forces—which may be hypostatized as mana, hasina, wakan, semengat, orenda, nawalak, or the like—that make people’s gardens grow, their pigs flourish, and game animals become visible and available to them. Some decades ago, Jonathan Friedman and Michael Rowlands put the matter generally for “tribal” peoples: “Economic activity in this system can only be understood as a relation between producers and the supernatural. This is because wealth and prosperity are seen as directly controlled by supernatural spirits.”
The larger point he's making is that ancient political-economic systems CANNOT be understood if one assumes a naturalistic worldview and posits their own spiritual enchanted worldview as a projection of their own political-realities, he's saying that one has to assume their own worldview was true (at least for me) and analyze it from that standpoint.
This is an idea I want to look into more. Because I think that ancient enchanted societies' political-economic worldviews were more accurate to the full reality than contemporary reductionistic views (be they liberal/neo-liberal, marxist, or Durkheimist. I.e. insofar as class society can be understood from a materialist standpoint, it will always be incomplete unless one brings in the 'supernatural' (Demons and the such). I touch a bit on this https://macrinamagazine.com/issue-6-general/guest/2021/01/23/love-beauty-and-the-demonic-as-saturated-phenomena/ , but I would like to see if more can be done.
Dear Anonymous, you mentioned doing a post about Romans 10:9-10 one day. Maybe so, but in case something keeps me from writing such a post, I think it's fairly easy to show that once saved, always saved doesn't work. Furthermore, to say that "accepting Jesus as one's savior" is sufficient doesn't cut it either. But another way to address such thinking is by asking someone just what it means to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Does it mean that someone makes a confession to the Lord, and that's it? What about pick up your torture stake and follow me? Or what about Hebrews 5:9, which emphasizes obedience? I guess we don't need Bibles if all we need in a punctiliar confession to our Lord and Savior. Nor do we need the Law of Christ mentioned in Galatians 6.
I agree with you that Christian ethics needs the eschaton/eschatology to help it make sense, and I guess what I'm saying about the benefits of Judeo-Christian living is informed by 1 Timothy 4:8 and Psalm 73, where Asaph questions the benefit of living a godly life since the wicked seem to fare better in this world in some ways, even having a measure of peace. But he ultimately concludes that there is value in being "innocent" even now; there is also value in being honest and having fidelity, even now. Some brothers used to say that even if we never received an eternal reward, that would be okay since the best way of living is by Jehovah's standards. However, one of our COs (and the publications) later debunked that way of thinking. After all, Jehovah is the rewarder of those earnestly seeking him, and Paul said we are the most pitiable men if Christ did not rise from the dead, and provide a basis for a future hope. Granted, we can have a measure of peace and happiness now, but if what the Bible says is true, to entertain the possibility that God might not reward us in the future does him a disservice, to say the least.
I'm no Marxist nor am I sympathetic to Marxism: he had some insights, and I think Marx needs to be read within his unique sociocultural context. Another problem with Marxism (besides its atheistic presuppositions) are its tendencies to reduce everything to economics, including art and religion. I agree with Marx that we are conditioned by our socioeconomic environs but I'm not convinced that religious belief and practice is reducible to economics although some of these TV preachers might make one think otherwise.
Leslie Stevenson does a great job discussing Marx, Durkheim, and the early sociologists in his Twelve Theories of Human Nature. I believe that Josef Seifert provides a critique of Mark through a phenomenological lens. See https://books.google.com/books/about/Back_to_Things_in_Themselves.html?id=w5kOAAAAQAAJ
What you said about ancient societies reminds me of people who try to read the Bible, but they want to omit/ignore all of the supernatural parts. Or people who read the Iliad and Odyssey but they try to divest the stories of their theistic elements.
I had an interesting discussion with someone about the possibility prior Jesus's death and resurrection, of Jesus falling in with Satan, which I think must have been a real possibility, my conclusion is that at that point creation would be lost forever, God would fail to be God, and I think ultimately creation would destroy itself.
But this is where Alain Badiou's and Slavoj Zizek's theorizing about love comes in for me. It would still have been correct for the prophets to trust in Jehovah's promise, because it was out of love for him, and it would still have been correct for Jehovah to trust Jesus, since it's out of love. Love is always grounded in a contingency which locks itself into eternity (I'm highly condensing the idea :P).
I absolutely agree with your critique of Marx as reducing everything to economics, which is why I like Karl Polyani's critique of that school. I am sympathetic to his methodology though, and i think his critique of political-economy and his analysis of class dynamics has proven to be correct over time.
the demythologisers (i.e. Bultmann) will always end up falling short in my opinion. And I am excited to see more ethnographers (and perhaps some historians) recognize this.
What you say about love also reminds me of Kierkegaard and his reflection on the absolute and the religious life. I need to check out Karl Polyani: have not read him before. I notice that Polyani influenced Peter Drucker, whose thought I know fairly well because of working for a company in the past that utilized his thought and pounded it into our heads.
Two other interesting people when it comes to Marxism are https://redshelf.com/app/ecom/book/1792792/science-politics-and-gnosticism-1792792-9781596983038-eric-voegelin
and https://www.jstor.org/stable/4319371
About Karl Popper
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/harvard-theological-review/article/demystifying-the-program-of-demythologizing-rudolf-bultmanns-theological-hermeneutics/0E19E549FB0E7780B4CBFA5FC15637FC
Let me be concrete in terms of the value I find in Marx (i.e. not the historical determinism and the progressivism, etc etc).
1. The distinction between exchange value, use value, and value (defined using Ricardo's value of theory, but adjusted by Marx), i.e. that under Capitalism there is a use value of a commodity i.e. what it is used for, there is a value, the labor that goes into it, and then the exchange value, what one can get on the market.
Marx demonstrates that Capitalism will always drive for more and more exchange value, which overwhelms the use value, as well as the value. As profit from commodity production dips (i.e. producing and selling for more than the cost of production), Capitalism will find ways to inflate exchange value, for example in fictitious Capital, monopoly, speculative bubbles, etc etc.
2. That Capitalism cannot help but to continually example, due to the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, which Marx showed comes from the development of labor saving technology and the coercive power of competition squeezing profits. In order to overcome that Capitalism must continuously find new markets to invest in. Or Capitalism must simply invent new markets, or Capitalism must find new ways to increase profits (squeezing labor even more for example).
3. That Capitalism has a natural business cycle, that internal contradictions inevitably lead to crash, for example the tendency to push down labor cost destroys demand. The tendency to push up efficient production pushing down prices (which raising capital costs). Exchange value overwhelming use value leading to bubbles and debt crises. Etc etc.
4. The idea that politics is largely determined by class struggle and class interests. I.e. in slave societies you had a political ideology that followed, in hyper Capitalist societies such as today you have extreme individualistic and atomizing ideologies. You also will have political leaders who will serve the ruling class interests. This helps to explain much of political history.
Now What Karl Polyani does is demonstrate how these mechanisms largely come from a revolution in Capitalism in which the market took over the economy, and the economy took over society, rather than the market being a small part of the economy and the economy being embedded in society. Karl Polyani says that the main cause of this shift was the turning of land, labor, and money into commodities by liberal ideology and Capitalism
Duncan: I wouldn't be surprised if Bultmann had been carcartured; it happens all too often. On the other hand, I've read some of his writings, and still felt underwhelmed. Of course, he made the famed statement, "I do indeed think that we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus, since the early Christian sources show no interest in either, are moreover fragmentary and often legendary; and other sources about Jesus do not exist."
Some folks have tried to clean up his remarks, and to be fair, we must read an author in context. Nevertheless, I find it difficult to parse this statement in such a way that it would be acceptable or true.
Roman: I agree that Marx exposes many of the weaknesses of capitalism. A he time he wrote, abuses existed in capitalism that are mostly non-existent now. But I agree that capitalism has many flaws, which Marx made salient.
I think that Jesus ministry was very specific and focussed. If there is one NT statement that I take with a pinch of salt, it must be John 21:25 .
There are definitely parallels to this in hermetica. At best it is hyperbole. What he did had far more impact than what was said.
Why would "books" be written as opposed to just one? Bearing in mind that the twelve was considered a book rather than books.
My mother in law used to write letters to David Attenborough and I became clear toe that his mission polarised over time. Its the response to attack. Things tend to polarise.
Regarding John 21:25, I agree that the passage is hyperbole and I would submit that it's possibly idiomatic. Whatever is the case, one should not take the statement at face value. The plural "books" emphasizes just how much Jesus did that was not recorded, especially in the Johannine account.
Edward W. Klink: The Beloved Disciple, speaking for the first time in the first person, concludes with a “hyperbolic praise” of his Gospel’s subject matter, a common literary convention, although the robust Christology of the Gospel and the truth of its subject matter reduce the hyperbole to reality.55 By referring to what could be written but was not, the author magnifies Jesus as worthy of endless description and gives greater emphasis to what was written.56 Since v. 24 alludes to the prologue, it is likely that this verse is as well.
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