There are numerous Scriptural passages that speak to the moral significance of our treatment of animals.  There is a biblical duty of compassion for animals, and this has implications for the dinner table as well as the backyard.  (See, for example, Exod. 23:12, Deut. 25:4, Psalm 50:10-11, Psalm 104, and Prov. 12:10.)

Recently, as I’ve been reading through the book of Genesis, a passage jumped out at me that I had overlooked before—Genesis 9:5.  Amazingly, this verse refers to the fact that animals themselves will be judged.  Getting a running start from verse 4, it reads like this:

“You must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.  And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting.  I will demand an accounting from every animal.  And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man” [my italics]  

That’s the New International Version of the Bible.  Several other translations instead refer to animals giving a “reckoning,” and some use the term “punish.”  But what is consistent in each translation I’ve seen is a sense of something like moral culpability and judgment.  Now some folks could read too much into this and erroneously infer that animals are on the same moral plane as humans.  Clearly, we can’t run to that extreme given the unique standing of human beings as divine image bearers (cf. Gen. 1:27).  Still, it seems noteworthy that God will judge animals in this regard (and that God would make special note of this in Scripture).  This appears to be one more biblical reinforcement of the moral significance of animals.

There is definitely a temptation to feel a sense of superiority in reading about the Israelites’ rebellion issues or the Gospels’ descriptions of the disciples’ lack of comprehension (I mean, really guys, I understand when Jesus says “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up” that there might be some room for interpretation, but when He says “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life,” did that really leave you scratching your heads and thinking “Hmmm, wonder what He means by that?) I have often wished to be among the few who traveled in the desert with Moses, waiting for that moment when he draws the line in the sand (literally) proclaiming “Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.” I am so ridiculously (and unrealistically) confident that I would be among the first to jump aboard the Moses Express to Godly Obedience. I have also fantasized, as perhaps many of you have, about being among Jesus’ disciples. Maybe not one of the twelve, but somewhere in the back row, waiting for a characteristically cryptic Jesus question, ready to raise my hand in fine Sunday School fashion and yell “Oh, oh! I know!”

Something has recently struck me though in regards to my desire to experience the stories of the Bible first hand. According to the Savior I so desire to see, I am in a better spot today. When speaking of His ascension, Jesus says He is going away so that the Holy Spirit can come. It doesn’t appear that He was giving us something second best, a sort of spiritual teddy bear to keep us company until He gets back. If we believe the doctrine of the Trinity, He is giving us something equally good. So why do I begrudgingly accept the indwelling of God as if this were a consolation prize? I suppose it has a great deal to do with the limitations of our physicality. We have a great deal of difficulty valuing the unseen over the material. And yet, perhaps the Israelites would lie in their tents at night whispering, peering over to our side of the fence, saying “If only we had God living inside our hearts rather than in the tabernacle. Then we could obey.” I suppose it is our nature to constantly suffer from the “grass is always greener” syndrome. Fortunately, however, we all will someday meet in the middle and bask in the eternal glory of God where all good things meet. In heaven, by God’s grace, I will kiss the feet of Jesus, and the Israelites, who, despite their bad sense of direction, have beaten me there by a few thousand years, will get their indwelling Spirit. Until then, I will try to be content with my allotted grass and look forward to greener pastures ahead rather than longing to be back in rocky deserts.

First, some argue that when we get to heaven we will be see the justice in God’s damnation of our loved ones, so it won’t cause us sorrow or otherwise undermine our happiness.  But Talbott notes that seeing the justice in our loved ones’ punishment would not eliminate the sadness of their plight.  After all, even when our loved ones suffer just punishment in this life, we are still reasonably sorrowful about it.  Moreover, we could still regret that God did not move in the hearts of our loved ones to prompt repentance in them as he did those of us who are redeemed.

A second way of dealing with this problem is to propose that God will change our attitude towards our lost loved ones.  In short, God will turn our love for them into hatred.  We will despise them for their wickedness, just as God does (assuming that God truly hates those he damns, as the traditional view seems to entail). This approach is even more problematic, however, since (1) God commands us to love others, even our enemies, and (2) our love for those closest to us is so tied up with who we are that to so dramatically change such attitudes and affections would be to fundamentally alter one’s character.

So if these lines of response are of no help in explaining how we could be happy in heaven despite the on-going agonies of some of our loved ones, then what alternative explanation is more promising?  If there are no better approaches, then chalk this up as another point against the doctrine of eternal conscious torment.  

Talbott recognizes that affirming the eventual annihilation of the damned does circumvent this problem, which is somewhat of a relief to me, as a conditional immortalist.  Still, his analysis left me wondering whether even conditional immortalism supplies a sufficient shield against this problem.  After all, might we not also be saddened that some of our loved ones were destroyed and that we will never see them again?  This, too, appears to undermine our heavenly happiness.  Clearly, the problem is not as severe for conditional immortalism as it is for the traditional view of hell.  Given conditionalism, at least the sufferings of your loved ones will eventually end.  Not so for the traditionalist, whose loved ones’ unspeakable agony will continue for eternity.

A few thoughts have struck me afresh this Eastertide as I have pondered the triviality of what I have sworn to forgo for the next 4 weeks (4 weeks and 2 days to be precise but who’s counting?…other than me, that is). One is the ridiculous amounts of freedom we are granted as Christians. Many, both inside and out of the church, would like to reduce our faith to a bunch of restrictive “dos” and “don’ts” to be obeyed. But my desire to wiggle out from underneath my self-imposed restrictions only goes to show how rebellious my heart truly is. I have a refrigerator full of food and drink that I am free to eat—surprised that I gave up something food related?—and yet all I can focus on are the things that I can’t have. My kids are often amazed, and not a little angry, at Adam and Eve’s choice to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil when they had all the other trees to pick from. And yet our ancestors’ attitude is reflected in our own ingratitude for our many blessings and that hankering we all feel for just a little of the grass on the other side of the fence. In Christ, we find true freedom and yet complain that becoming what we were created to be is too restrictive.

Along with pondering the insignificance of our sacrifices, I have been thunderstruck anew with the enormity of Christ’s sacrifice for our sake. Over the last week, I have been thinking about his life on earth and its implications. In thinking of Jesus’ life as a sort of 33-year Lent, his human experience has taken on a different meaning for me. I think I am self-disciplined indeed when I swear off Diet Coke for 40 days and yet Jesus left the banquet halls of heaven to eat among fishermen and carpenters. I complain when my knees feel a bit achy and yet the Son left a glorious existence to inhabit an earthly body that must have felt torturously confining and frail. Each day of His life was a fast from close fellowship with the Father and Spirit. The enduring of each insult or failure to show Him proper respect an act of humility that we cannot begin to comprehend. Of all the paradoxes of the Bible, this servant King must surely take the prize.

Now Christ is in heaven, receiving all the glory and honor that is due Him. And soon we here left behind will honor Him through the celebration of Easter. I hope, however, that I can find increasing freedom in obedience and that I can honor Him with my heart not just my actions. Too often I fear I care more about the outer trappings than the inner temple. Like a defective Reese’s Cup, I hide my hollow center with an attractive wrapper and chocolate shell. But I want to be the real thing and by God’s grace, someday I will be. Until then, I will keep plodding along in my own lifetime of Lent, awaiting my own day of resurrection Celebration.

Not only do atheists (typically) maintain that ethics (both the concept of the good and the incentive to live rightly) is possible without God, they also often argue that God actually undermines ethics.  That is, they claim, ethical theories that appeal to God are problematic at best and incoherent at worst.  And it’s interesting to see how often they trot out a 2500-year-old argument, originating with Socrates (who, ironically enough, was himself a theist).  The argument, commonly known as the “Euthyphro dilemma,” originally took this form:  Do the gods love piety because it is pious, or is something pious because the gods love it?”  Transposed into the context of a theistic (rather than polytheistic) divine command ethic, the dilemma looks like this:

1. Does God command X because it is good

               or

2. Is X good because God commands it?

 The question might appear trifling, but it does have some bite to it.  If we opt for (1), then something besides God’s commanding a behavior makes it good.  That is, the standard for goodness is not God’s commands, which seems to flout the notion that God is the foundation of ethics.  On the other hand, if we go with option (2), then this prompts the question why God commanded X, so it is really no answer at all.  Now, one could insist that this “why” question admits of no answer and that God’s commands are ultimately arbitrary.  But, then, this implies that God could just as well have commanded that we rape, murder, and steal from one another and, consequently, such behaviors would have been just as moral as kindness, compassion, and generosity are now.  This seems absurd, so option (2) is no more appealing than option (1).

The theist appears to be stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place here—specifically the options of admitting either that God is not the foundation of ethics or that God’s commands are arbitrary.   Is there a way out for the theist who insists that God is foundational to—or in any way crucially related to—ethics?  Many atheists and agnostics believe this argument to be devastating.  But, really, the solution is quite simple (as evidenced by the fact that in every one of my philosophy classes in which this argument is discussed some student solves the riddle on his or her own, or else with just a little Socratic leading by yours truly).  Can you figure it out?  See if you can do so before reading the next paragraph.

The best response—as I see it anyway—is to take the approach of Thomas Aquinas, among many others, and go with option (1) but to qualify this in an important way.  Yes, God commands what he does because those things are good, but the standard for goodness is not something external to God.  Rather, the divine nature is the moral standard.  It is the character of God which determines how God commands us to behave.  This explains why Scripture often uses the term “godly” and “godliness” as synonyms for moral goodness or piety.  They are one and the same thing.  To be moral is to reflect the moral nature of God.  So each divine command is essentially a specific application of the general command to morally imitate God.  Moreover, given this approach, divine commands are not properly conceived as the source of goodness but rather they serve the function of making the standard of goodness known.  That is, the role of divine commands is epistemological, whereas God’s character is the ontological ground of ethics.

Of course, atheists and many others will object that defining moral goodness in terms of the divine nature begs the question, Why call God’s nature good?  But this question could be asked about any proposed ultimate standard for ethics (e.g., pleasure, human survival, universalizability, etc.).  If there is indeed a moral standard, then its goodness must be fundamental, absolute, and inexplicable.  The nature of God is far superior to any alternative proposal because God is a being, not a mere concept or ideal.  Moreover, this Thomistic approach has the additional virtue of paralleling the foundation of ethics to that in theistic ontology and epistemology, where we understand God to be the ground of all being and of all rationality, respectively.  (I would even extend this, perhaps more controversially, to the realm of aesthetics, and propose that God is the ground of all beauty.)  Here we see another dimension of the conceptual coherence of theism.

Blindsight:  Despite the fact that I write nearly all of the film reviews for Wisdom and Folly, Jim actually has better taste in movies than I (just don’t tell him I said so). So I don’t know why I resist watching every film he recommends. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that he always chooses movies that I know will need to be digested and pondered. Anyhow, this documentary was no exception. Not to be confused with the recent and more well-known The Blind Side, this is a film about one woman’s determination to help visually impaired children in Tibet. With the help of the first blind person to climb Mt. Everest, Sabriye Tenberken hopes to help others come to understand the capabilities of the blind. One of the things that struck me most about Tenberken, who is herself blind, is her determination to do what is best for the children in her care and not allowing others to define success for them or to exploit the kids for the good of “the cause.” A great flick, even if Jim recommended it.

Scenes from a Marriage:  Every time I sit down to watch an Ingmar Bergman film, I have to remind myself why it is I watch his films. They come in bleak, bleaker, and so bleak you might as well do yourself in rather than watch them. He is like Woody Allen on a really, really bad day without the humor. And I think that is why I like him. If you are an atheist (which Bergman was) who believes that there is no intrinsic meaning to life (which Bergman did) then life is quite a bleak affair, especially if you live in Scandinavia where the sun rarely shines and the food is really bad. (Okay, I can’t verify either of those last two facts but I am going on a hunch, alright?). Bergman is an honest filmmaker and though I don’t agree with his worldview, I appreciate his honest portrayal of his beliefs. I will give a disclaimer here. Though the movie is not graphic, it is disturbing. I couldn’t shake it for days, and Jim had to put up with one or two absurd arguments regarding our marriage before I was finally able to put it behind me. So be sure not to watch it on a cloudy day, and give your spouse fair warning.

Twilight Samurai:  It surprises me every time how much I love samurai moves. I have seen quite a few including one that was an adaptation of King Lear. Perhaps it’s something about the atmosphere being so foreign that brings the characters and their emotions into a greater clarity. Whatever the reason, I always enjoy them and Twilight Samurai is no exception. Touchingly depicting the conflict of duty to family and the honor of the clan, this is a great film that I couldn’t recommend more.

Public Enemies:  I couldn’t recommend this movie less. Are we really supposed to believe that John Dillinger wasn’t such a bad guy after all? One of the many low points for me was when Dillinger, played by Johnny Depp, refuses to take the money from a poor farmer’s pocket, assuring him that he isn’t interested in the farmer’s money, just the bank’s. Up until this point I hadn’t realized that magic fairies created the money held in bank vaults rather than the money coming from those who deposit their money there. Thanks for the clarification. Sure Johnny Depp is charming and well dressed, but that is about the only positive thing I have to say about this one.

Honorable Mentions:  Love Happens—Laundry needed to be folded and the Colts had just lost the Super Bowl, but I must say I actually liked this one. Emma—It’s Masterpiece Theater; it’s Jane Austen; it’s even available online for free. Need I say more? I actually convinced Bailey, our ten-year-old, to watch a bit of this one, and he was quoting it the next day, though he did want to know why all the people in the films I watch are British and dress funny. Perhaps a few too many period pieces of late?

So far, most responses to the book have been enthusiastically positive, though there have been some negative comments (from folks who have yet to read the book!), suggesting that I commit an ad hominem fallacy in claiming that atheism results from self-deception and immorality.  This would be true if the point of my book was to argue that atheism is false.  That’s not the book’s aim at all.  Rather, my purpose is to give an explanatory accountof the origins of atheistic belief.  That’s quite a different matter, and my account actually parallels the attempts of such atheists as Feuerbach and Freud to explain theistic belief.  Atheists typically applaud their accounts and aren’t inclined to accuse them of ad hominem reasoning.  Perhaps its too much to expect that they would show me the same courtesy.

Early in his study Austin considers some foundational questions regarding the essence of parenthood itself.  What is it that establishes the parental tie to a child?  Austin discusses several lines of response to this question—the biological account, the causal account, and the social construct account.  He considers the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, introducing readers to some leading proponents of each along the way.  Wisely, Austin refuses to throw his lot in entirely with any of these views but rather acknowledges the insights of all three as well as their weaknesses.  In the end, he emphasizes the moral-social dimension of parenthood and the critical role of stewardship that mothers and fathers must play in the lives of their children:  “The aspects of parenthood that have primary value include helping children to become flourishing individuals within a loving parent-child relationship” (43).

With regard to the parental role, there is a wide variety of perspectives among philosophers, from Aristotle’s ownership view to the more contemporary child liberation movement.  Austin argues that a Christian view of the matter would fall somewhere between these extremes, affirming both the parents’ duty to guide and direct their children while also recognizing that parents do not own their children.  This balanced perspective is captured in the concept of stewardship.  A steward is someone who cares for something that belongs to someone else.  They exercise a certain authority, but only because it has been granted to them by another.  This is precisely the situation with parents, Austin notes:  “Parents are responsible for managing what God entrusts to them—the lives of their children.  The authority is temporary, as they must acknowledge that their children are ultimately God’s” (68).  This is a simple point and one with which few Christians would disagree.  But the implications are significant for an ethic of parenting, as Austin demonstrates throughout the book.

Like any significant human endeavor, parenting has a telos—an end, purpose or goal.  And, as Austin observes, the telos of Christian parenting is perhaps best captured by the Hebrew term shalom.  The concept suggests peace, wholeness, harmony, and integrity.  As parents, we should strive to raise our children to embody shalom.  This means we should train them to be virtuous people, both intellectually and morally.  In the book’s fourth chapter Austin discusses several “key virtues for Christian families,” which include humility, forgiveness, patience, compassion, and frugality, as well as the so-called (by Aquinas) theological virtues of faith, hope and love.

Austin’s illuminating, not to mention motivational, discussion of virtue lays the perfect foundation for his extensive discussion of practical parenting issues in chapter five.  He tackles such thorny matters as child discipline, sports involvement, educational approaches, and the challenges of consumerism.  With each issue, Austin manages to be informative and balanced, acknowledging the latitude Christian parents enjoy in managing their households and rearing their children, while also reaffirming the importance of making all of one’s parenting choices in light of the moral formation of their children and the end-in-view of shalom.

The final chapter of Wise Stewards explores even more controversial issues, specifically those related to reproductive technologies.  Here, as elsewhere in the book, Austin brings a carefully integrated theological and philosophical analysis, resulting in wise and tempered counsel on everything from in-vitro fertilization to gene therapy to anonymous gamete donation.

At a time when the moral challenges to faithful Christian living are greater than ever, the need for Christian ethical discussions that are smart and principled, yet also winsome and compassionate, could not be greater.  Refreshingly, Mike Austin’s Wise Stewards is all of these things and provides a welcome alternative to contemporary Christian parenting books that  amount to “how to” manuals.  While many current parenting texts are essentially (not so well) disguised applications of particular psychological theories where moral-theological themes and values are underdeveloped at best, Austin’s Wise Stewards offers a much-needed corrective.  He reminds us that parenting is not only a deeply moral-spiritual endeavor, but one of the most important endeavors of all.

I was recently interviewed about the book on Prime Time America.  The interview is in two 10-minute parts.  Here are links to the first and second parts of the interview.