Religion

6.1. Historic evolution of ethics in religion

Human societies were first ruled by the patriarchs of clans. It is interesting to note that later in their development, most were ruled by a combination of political rulers and priests. The political rulers were men of action who were in charge of practical matters of state: public works, taxation, services, and warfare. The priests were magicians and thinkers who addressed the mysterious.

God is the spiritual essence behind or above the phenomena of existence. Hence, when the phenomenon of insight or enlightenment occurred to the minds of the searching priests, it came (or was thought to come) from God. (The “Holy Ghost” is still a basic tenet base of the Christian faith, although it was, and is, the least explained and understood). Reference to God gave the priests’ wishes and utterances power. Thus, the religions of most early societies postulated that the truths and rules pronounced by the priests were given to them by their Gods.

Early societies were concerned primarily with aversion of famine, disease, enemies, and death. This led to the desire for assistance from the gods who ruled destiny. What could the individual do to avert calamities and be favored by destiny? The priests offered two avenues: either sacrifices to the gods and ritual, or a conduct of life that pleased the gods and did not offend them. This established a correlation between personal conduct and destiny. It is important to notice that all religions addressing these concerns considered ethical conduct as God-pleasing (though with differences regarding the content of what was “ethical”).

As societies grew, they required guidance in order to maintain internal order. Such order reflected the ethical values of the constituting individuals, whether they were powerful rulers, a priestly class, or groups of people in some form of democracy. Today, these concerns are on a global scale. We strive to build a globally “human” or “humane” society.

The human mind continually tries to build unified systems of thought. After all, there is only one universe we can know. Consequently, a unified religion would address the structure of nature, the ethical teachings for the individual, the order of society, and the meaning or purpose in existence in one system of thought or belief. This has turned out to be difficult.

6.2. The remaining share of ethics in religion

The understanding of nature and the fight against famine, disease, enemies, and death was taken over by the sciences and technology, often in conflict with the priests. But did the sciences and pursuit of technology remain outside the ethical realm? Certainly not. Scientists, doctors, industry, and governments face innumerable ethical problems as their policies and actions - if only because all these are related to human concerns and are expected to be “humane”.

In the course of history, the political, practical order of society and the formulation and enforcement of criminal and civil laws became the domain of the political leadership. Do such leaders address only practical matters, without reference to ethics? Certainly not. In early Mesopotamia already, there were political rulers proclaiming themselves the protectors of widows and orphans (several of Hammurabi’s 282 mostly practical or “cruel” laws are based on ethical judgment to protect the weak). And in our own time, is abiding by the laws all that is needed to properly conduct oneself as a citizen? Aren’t our laws being changed and added to all the time? What guides us in creating new laws or modifying old ones? Are we not most concerned with fairness (to the point of compassion) and, more so, with caring for the “underprivileged”? From whence do we derive this judgment?

Philosophy appeared quite early in history as another endeavor of the human mind in addition to political order, religion, and science. Philosophy is the pursuit of thought and the search for truth without recourse to religion. “Ethics” became a discipline of philosophy, concentrating on the search for an understanding of and possibly a rational base for ethical judgment, with little success so far. As a matter of fact, some of that rational thinking turned into absolute catastrophes: not only Plato’s Politeia experiment, but to a much greater extent, Marx’s, Engels’, and Lenin’s teachings. Therefore, philosophy has not taken over from religion in the human quest for ethical clarification and guidance.

We should not forget the important personalities in history who provided role models of ethical conduct. They contributed more by their exemplary lives than most philosophers through the centuries who tried to rationalize ethics. But exemplary lives are not a school of thought - not, that is, until somebody teaches about them.

Therefore, the formulation and teaching of rules of ethics remained the realm of religions, their priests, and their saints. The great founders of the important religions established high ethical standards for human society. Their followers often implemented these rules in an exemplary way. However, following hierarchies, sometimes adapted capably to the needs of later times, often corrupted these directions.

6.3. Basic structures in religious ethics

Most religions found that the expected correlation between good behavior and favorable destiny did not hold, and thus resorted to what I call “mechanisms” of “this-for-that” as motivation for the ethical behavior of their followers. These “mechanisms” provide certain connections between merit and reward, failure and punishment, life in this world and the state of the individual after death. Purification rituals, baptisms, doing good deeds for admission to a better afterlife, Christ’s death for the forgiveness of mankind’s sins, and rebirth according to merit are all such “mechanisms”. Do we still believe in these “mechanisms” of reward? Can and must ethics not stand on its own?

We now approach the time of a global society. This leads to the need for a common, globally acceptable standard (code of ethics). The problem in defining such a code lies in the diversity of the religious teachings and the divergence of scientific, practical, political, philosophical, and theological thought. The theologian Hans Küng, Tübingen, attempted to unify all ethical teachings of the major religions for the most important areas of concern to human society. He did so by searching for the area of commonality among these religions (“Projekt Weltethos”, Piper, München & Zürich, 1992). In his conclusions, Küng found the humanitarian teachings, the “Humanum”, as to be the most important common base for a world standard of ethics. The value and dignity of the human individual is at the center of such consideration in a mixture of intellectual enlightenment and the voice of the heart. Further thought leads to human rights and brotherhood, a vision of a humane world. Obviously, as predicted by Hume’s law, Küng’s conclusions were influenced by his own provenience from Western humanistic thought and the ideals prevailing at present in our societies.

In more detail, the basic human ethical requirements common to today’s major religions that are requested by most people are:

Most people all over the world hope that “human rights” will bring them security, codified and enforceable protection against abuse by the powerful, and practical improvement to their lives. In the Western formulation, “human rights” are expected to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in equality under the law and in equality of opportunity. However, it is important to notice that the equality of obligations usually is not mentioned.

6.4. New areas of ethical concern

Traditional religious teaching is related to individual conduct only, not to the conduct of organizations, whole nations, or societies. Only in exceptional cases does religious history apply the same judgment to nations or society at large, as it does to individuals, but, even then, such judgment is based on the account of individual behavior within those societies (for example, the “great flood” stories).

Mankind’s obligations toward other species or toward the environment are increasingly mentioned. However, this is mostly in the form of an obligation to maintain the present state of the world at any one time (!) for later generations of mankind to enjoy. Thus, ethics looks like a set of rules established by the dominant species on Earth (humanity) to maximize its own well-being and to mitigate the misery of those worst off.

The frequent conflicts between the human rights of an individual and society’s interests at large lead to deeper questions of ethics. For example, people may be expropriated for the construction of a highway, but human lives and freedom (the remaining part of it) are protected.

6.5. Some fundamental concerns

In summary, one wonders whether the religious conclusions arrived at by Küng and the political conclusions arrived at by international commissions are merely a rewording of all the intellectually analytical and philosophical conclusions for ethics as they attempt to maximize benefit in a utilitarian way. Is ethics nothing else than another exercise in cost/benefit analysis? Is there no intrinsic value in ethics?

The Christian religion also has a utilitarian perspective - do not do to your neighbor what you do not want done to yourself. However, in today’s prevailing form, the Christian attitude is not only one of fairness, but one of caring for your fellow human being. Christian love and compassion are the guiding principles. Christ is the teacher and example, as are many of his followers. The sanctity of Christ gives this teaching its religious base. Christ’s teaching of a God-image as “father” is further religious ground for caring and love among humans. Clearly, this moves Christian ethics away from the logic of calculating benefit, and moves it into the area of the emotions of the soul. This teaching would be “cleaner” yet if it were not burdened with the scheme of reaping personal benefit in the final judgment for admission to paradise - if Christian love were the right value just because it was right. It would be cleaner if it were not preached for its usefulness and possible material benefit. It would be cleaner if Christian ethics were preached as the right understanding of God’s Creation and of mankind’s role in that Creation -- if ethics was understood as a gift and mandate to mankind, and nothing else.

The Christian vision of Creation allows for a pure vision of ethics in its own right. In this vision, Creation is a spiritual phenomenon, originating from and penetrated by the spirituality of God. After all, what is the appearance of energy in the original Big Bang? Electromagnetic and gravitational fields in the vacuum, a totally abstract, spiritual phenomenon, forces appearing in emptiness. What is material matter? A form of energy, hence, as abstract as fields in the vacuum. Radiation and matter follow precise rules, as discovered by physics - a spiritual order of abstract phenomena. And what is life, what is thought, what are values? Again, abstract, spiritual phenomena, in coherence with the phenomena of energy and matter in an all-comprising concept. The deterministic orderliness of some areas of Creation is interwoven with other areas of random distribution, as the distribution of waves on the ocean, or of trees in the forest. The modern “chaos” theory shows how the minutest differences in a random appearance can lead to the most substantial consequences later on. The believing mind sees God’s action as being as subtle as such minute occurrences at the right time. Thus progressed Creation. In sum, what is faith? Faith is a spiritual vision of the universe. This vision includes an understanding of mankind’s place in Creation and indicates a beneficial direction for our lives within Creation. Thus, the religious vision is a unified vision of the universe.

The mind and ethical behavior, both gifts of nature, are the unique qualifications of the human being. In exercising his or her given capabilities, the human individual participates in Creation. This world is not seen as stable. The Christian (and Jewish and Islamic) world expects a better world to come. Ethical human behavior contributes to such an evolution. Thus, in using his or her mind, and in leading an ethical life, the human individual fulfills his or her existence to the fullest.
What are proper rules of ethics, then? Christian ethics sees every part of creation as a marvel from the hands of God. As humans, we see all other humans as other “children of God” - our brothers and sisters.

Are there limits to ethical behavior? “Love your neighbor as yourself” was possibly meant as an admonition to love without limits. Practical interpretation (exegeses) has converted it to the opposite - a limitation of love to “no more than to be in balance with my personal interests”. These interests can weigh quite arbitrarily. This leaves us with the most important dilemma in our Christian faith. We are not willing to divide and donate our resources down to the lowest common denominator with all the bums on the street (and there are many!). However, we should, and often do, feel a very sincere caring for the many unfortunate ones around us - especially in close, chance encounters or close family relations. I still see in my mind the unfortunate lepers sitting on the sidewalk in Ujung Pandang. However, I gave them only a few dollars. At other times, I cannot sleep when something befalls one of my sons. However, in practical terms, there is very little I should do without improperly interfering with their own conduct of life.

There are other practical limits to love as set by nature. The experience of abuse and decay in socialism and the welfare state (including the United States, Germany, and Sweden) results in the need to limit the protection and welfare of impoverished individuals. The desire by the wealthy countries to survive leads to limitation of immigration from the poor countries. The population explosion on Earth leads to countermeasures. And regarding other species and the environment? We kill bacteria to survive. We try to eradicate some deadly diseases. We kill mosquitoes and moths. We do not let wolves roam through the suburbs of our cities. We establish vast fields for our crops where wilderness once was. We take the water from rivers to irrigate our fields. Darwinian nature is a fact. We have even reintroduced wolves to nature parks to keep the wild herds in balance. Religion has not provided a clear answer to such situations.

The answer may lie in expanding the ethics of caring and help to some ethics of obligations. There must be an ethical obligation to struggle for well-being with one’s own resources. There must be an ethical obligation to return to self-support as soon as possible. There must be an ethical obligation not to have children one cannot care for. Only when such ethical obligations are met, and only as long as they are met, can the concerned side expect to receive support from the side of the ethics of compassion and help.

Such thoughts may be useful for public policy. However, in the chance encounters of daily life and in family relationships, the heart speaks, and Christian love is the guide. In a human world, there must be some room for caring beyond logic and calculation of efficiency.

Religions are generally more concerned with problems than opportunities, more with suffering and death than fulfillment of life. As some people enjoy a high standard of living and others learn to find happiness with less, the meaning and fulfillment of life are in the foreground of our thinking. The thought and teaching of the major religions (and of moral philosophy) are little developed in this perspective. The striving for success, position in society, and pleasurable entertainment, all so much promoted in our society and yet so transitory, cannot be all there is to life. Are growth in mind and character, service to others and society, and the partaking in the many enjoyable offerings of our various cultures not more meaningful and fulfilling endeavors for our lives?