Or – ontology precedes teleology which precedes ethics.

Or – οντος → τελος → ηθος

It’s worth noting (as I have before) that one cannot speak of anything . . . → Read More: teleology & ethics]]> The word ‘teleology’ (from Greek τελος ‘telos’ – meaning ‘goal’, ‘end’, ‘purpose’ or ‘that toward which things tend’) is not a street-level term.  However, the concept of a purpose, goal, function or ‘end’ to things most certainly is.  It’s a common as anything.  Teleology is blindingly relevant.

It’s worth noting (as I have before) that one cannot speak of anything being truly good or bad, well or poorly functioning without some kind of teleological concept.  From complaints (or amazement) about how poorly (or well) ‘designed’ the universe is (if designed at all – see this rebuttal), to the largest complaint of all – the ‘problem of evil’ (which has an often forgotten twin, the ‘problem’ of good); every kind of value-judgment we make assumes some kind of teleological concept.

Teleology, then, underlies the whole prospect of moral and ethical enquiry.  If things merely ‘function’, but do not function toward a certain end, goal or purpose, then there can be no such thing as a truly or ultimately immoral action.  Nothing can be said to ultimately or truly right or wrong with either the universe or human behaviour.

One can give an account of the ‘functioning’ of an event/thing in purely numerical, metrical or otherwise descriptive terms: human ‘a’ swings their right arm with tightly-closed digits in such a way that the digits impact the face of human ‘b’ with ‘x’ amount of force, resulting in human ‘b’ losing the state of balance and falling to the ground… etc.  This is a statistical, and purely ‘objective’ account of an event.  No ethical comment here.

The moment someone begins to say that one person should not have hit someone (or should have in the case, for example, of self-defense or protecting a helpless person being raped or otherwise harmed), they are imposing a teleological assumption onto the set of events.  They are no longer giving a merely descriptive account of the event, they are giving a prescriptive account.

As a Christian, my ethical thought (and hopefully my action too!) is shaped by my belief that creation has a telos.  Things are being brought from a state of chaos (Genesis 1 creation poem says ‘tohu vo vohu’ – wild and waste – formless and void) to a state of more and more orderedness.  Things are going somewhere – toward an ‘end’.  Things are meant to behave in a certain way and not another way.  This, in a basic sense, is what the notion of God’s “will” (desire) means.

The most tightly compacted summary of the desire of God is one word – Love.  Jesus summarised the entire ‘Law’ and ‘Prophets’ in two commands: Love God. Love Others as Self.

A summary that I’ve found helpful is the desire of God for humans to be in right relationship 1) with God, 2) with other humans, 3) with ourselves, and 4) with creation.

Christianity views humans as having a unique status (and therefore responsibility) within Creation.  This anthropocentricism is not, however, to devalue the rest of creation.  All of creation is seen to ‘reflect’ God’s beauty and creativity.  But humans as the ‘crown’ of creation, the ones with the capacity to bear God’s ‘image’ in a unique way, have a special role.  Humans are put ‘in charge’ of creation, commissioned to take care of it, and use it wisely – working to bring it to the fullest expression according to God’s will/desire.

Interestingly, no matter what one believes about God or whether or not humans reflect a God, it is manifestly obvious that humans have the greatest power to either utterly wreck things or to behave in a way which helps creation, humanity included, to flourish.  (And we note, again, in passing, that things being ‘wrecked’ or things ‘flourishing’ are meaningless concepts with no teleology.)

Christian ethics, then, are based on a Christian understanding of God’s purposes for His creation; namely to bring it to full and rich orderedness.  An orderedness characterised by not control but freedom to be all that it was made for.  And an orderedness characterised by Love.

Here are a few (quite random) examples of my out-working of this:

• Education: Knowledge is to serve relationships.  Humans are to celebrate any/all kinds of knowledge which enrich their relationship to/with creation, each other and the creator (i.e. medical knowledge, social knowledge, scientific knowledge, relational knowledge, etc.), while not letting knowledge –or the pursuit of it– become an idol or an enslaving thing.
• Sexuality: Sex is to be used in such a way as to bring an orderedness characterised by freedom, and not slavery.  Many forms/expressions of sexuality are characterised by human slavery to sexual desire.  Sex is for humans, not humans for sex.  Also, sex is to bring relational fullness, not relational pain.  Sex should thus be respected as the powerful thing it is, and used in ways that reflect freedom and full relationships.
• Poultry production (one of my favourite examples): God’s desire is not for chickens to live the life of a chicken in a cage covered with it’s own feces, and to be injected with steroids and killed in a mechanical and abusive fashion, etc.  God’s desire is also not for chickens to be deified to the point where they are forbidden to be eaten.  Chickens are a part of God’s good creation, and are to be farmed, ‘egged’ (hens) and processed/eaten in a way that is characterised by order and freedom (the ‘free range’ movement is brilliant here).
• Eating (while on the topic!): Humans (like other animals) need to eat to survive, but eating should not be treated as a merely biologically sustaining thing, but rather in a way that brings dignity to both what is eaten and who eats it.  One of the most degrading and undignified forms of eating is (we all do it) fast food.  Where speed and efficiency of production is the telos of eating.  The food is mass-produced, the food preparers have little/no relationship to the eaters, and the eating experience is rushed and shabby.  Contrast this with a community that grows and harvests their own crops, and where the cooks sit at the same table with everyone, serving each other and sharing in the creativity of food preparation and the joy of sharing the eating experiene (the culmination fo the whole process) together.
• Work: Work is to bring freedom not slavery and enable us to bless, rather than participate in being a curse.  Laziness and greed are equally destructive things.  Slacking on the job or working 60+ hour work weeks are ways of cheating and enslaving (or being enslaved).  Industry and production should serve to bring about the flourishing of creation – including humans.  Work in fields such as education, social-work, government, police-work, food industry, transport/travel, clothing, entertainment, etc. can all be done in either a dehumanising way or a humanising way.
• Music/Art: Art (including poetry) is a deeply human thing, and should reflect the creativity of the creator.  Art can deeply reflect reality in a way that other things cannot.  Art can be characterised by chaos and confusion with no hint of redemption or freedom, or it can speak of healing, order, justice and transformation (even while acknowleding brokenness and pain).  Sadly, much ‘Christian’ art is often cheap copies of what has been done before, and has no staying power (it is quickly forgotten).
• Technology: All technology (from eating utensils to wireless broadband) should serve to bring order, freedom and to deepen relationships.  Sadly, we often end up being enslaved to our conveniences.  Technology allows us to have higher frequency and quantity of contact with other people – bringing the sad reality of ever-increasing numbers of ‘contacts’ and ever-shallowing depth of relationship with family and friends.  Transportation technology takes us further and faster away from home than ever before, giving us more options than we know what to do with.  Add to this, the constant reminders that our basic normal life is boring, and that we ‘deserve’ another trip to this or that resort place to ‘escape’, and we find ourselves often on a treadmill-ish pursuit of ‘happiness’, being less and less satisfied with ‘normal life’ and seeking more and more after the elusive reality we see in the advertisements.
• Medical Activity: Medical knowledge and activity should serve to bring order to the chaos of disease and injury and freedom from blindness and pain.  It should always be used in the service of rich human life, not to destroy it.  Surgery should be about healing (even if it temporarily makes you bleeed), not about making a womans breasts look like this or that super-model or about doing away with an inconvenient developing pre-born child.
• Violence: Violence is only justified when in the service of bringing freedom and preserving relationships – for example protecting those who cannot protect themselves from rapists, thiefs, abusers, torturers and (actual) terrorists.  The power to inflict violence (and control people by doing so) comes with great responsibility.
• Community: Obviously, community is a place where relationships are central.  True community is characterised by freedom and whole and holistic relationships.  Community that leaves people enslaved to things, experiences or addictions, etc. is not a community characterised by love.  Also, community that controls and micro-manages people is to treat people as cogs in a system and is therefore dehumanising rather than humanising and thus not characterised by freedom.  True human-ness if found not in isolation from all others, nor in being forced into conformity with them, but in a community which values true genuine human flourishing and which is characterised by loving, patient and consistent transformation to it.
• Money/Possessions: All possessions are to be held with gratitude, and to be not merely ‘used’ or ‘consumed’ with our comfort/survival/convenience as the telos, but rather to be shared with and passed on to others.  Life’s telos is not acquisition or status, but transformation and wholeness; and our handling of money and possessions should reflect this.
• Clothing: Clothing is a wonderfully rich and creative human thing.  It can be used (both by wearers and producers) to enrich our freedom and relationship to others, or to enslave us.  Fashion, for example, can often serve to alienate and degrade those who are not able (for either financial or body-style reasons) to keep up with things.  This divides and dehumanises, and is not God’s desire.  Although modest dress will look differently from place to place and time to time, for each culture/place, there will be uses of clothing that either serve to enhance a person’s personality and humanness or which will serve to rob them of their person-hood, and make them into an object.  Clothing design and production can and should be a creative and body-honouring thing which encourages human relationships.

I think their arguments are (mostly) excellent, though of course it would be interesting to a) see how non-pro-life atheists would respond to them, and b) converse with them concerning things like how they determine (judge/establish/discover) the nature of human worth/value/dignity.

We are (almost always subconciously!) actually affected by some hyper-loud voice telling us something in the ad-breaks of whatever TV show we’re watching or by some image we see on a billboard, in a magazine, etc., etc. ad infinitum…  That is how . . . → Read More: the power and fragility of the imagination]]> The effects and pervasiveness advertising is a good example of both the power and fragility of the imagination.

We are (almost always subconciously!) actually affected by some hyper-loud voice telling us something in the ad-breaks of whatever TV show we’re watching or by some image we see on a billboard, in a magazine, etc., etc. ad infinitum…  That is how fragile our imaginations are.

And we act, behave, decide, spend-time/money, choose, etc. ‘out of’ our imagination.  We buy ‘this’ or ‘that’ product based (often) on nothing but our imaginitive affection for it…  That is how powerful our imaginations are.

This is a double edged sword.  Great strides in medicine, architecture, physics, art, education, etc., etc. have been made because someone ‘imagined’ a different way.  Also great pain has been caused in marriages, families, communities and nations because one or more people ‘imagined’ that that woman, experience, possession, ideology or whatever would be desirable, fun, cool or powerful.

Take an affair for example.  They don’t just ‘happen’.  A man/woman must first enjoy the company of someone other than their spouse.  Imaginitive step after imaginitive step are taken.  And boom – there you have it – an affair.

This appreciation of (and respect for) the power and fragility of the imagination is what should drive all concerns about things like pornography, boobs-on-bikes parades and modesty, etc., etc.  Sooooo often, they are often driven by what seems like an assumption that if we could just get the laws sorted out to how we think they should be, people will behave like we think they ought…

…leaving the power and fragility of the imagination (the heart of the issue) untouched, un-dealt-with, un-appreciated… and not solving any problems whatsoever.

…and my wife just now walked in the door from a work-leaving do (for non-NZ readers, ‘do’ means ‘event’ or ‘party’), which involved walking through the Sky City building, and mentioned how surprised she was to see how busy the casino was.

Interesting.

Apparently, the board of a Vancouver bus company has the following regulation on bus ads:

“No advertisement will be accepted which promotes or opposes a specific theology or religious ethic, point of view, policy or action.”

Stackhouse makes a great point, however, that . . . → Read More: buses, religion and life]]> Prof. John Stackhouse’s post (here) on the recent “bus campaigns” is quite good and balanced I think.

Apparently, the board of a Vancouver bus company has the following regulation on bus ads:

“No advertisement will be accepted which promotes or opposes a specific theology or religious ethic, point of view, policy or action.”

Stackhouse makes a great point, however, that it’s not only atheists, churches or other groups which are sending a ‘relgious’ message…  Actually, many groups might advertise in such a way as to be religiously and morally instructive.  In this sense, many groups have their own kind of ‘orthodoxy’ (right belief) and ‘orthopraxis’ (right action), whether they are preaching to us that (a positive example) “it’s not the drinking, it’s how we’re drinking”, or whether they are evangelising to us (a not-so-positive example) that we can borrow x amount of money to splurge on that ‘must have’ this or that.

((Dale resists the urge to write 17 paragraphs about the compelling analogy made by many between ancient empires and modern capitalist global structures/processes; and the common assessment that ancient devotion to various ‘gods’ has been replaced in our culture in quite sneaky-yet-remarkably parallel ways  by a fervent and ‘religious’ devotion to identity-based consumption, which is spurred on by the evangelism of advertisements, hailing their various products/services as saviours, etc….))

Quite apart from the issue of what kind of censorship policy bus companys should have or not, this is just another example of how forever joined beliefs and actions are.

That said, I just don’t like the thought (much less the passing) of the new stimulus package (and I’m not at all anti-Obama – to be crystal clear).  $US838 . . . → Read More: stinking stimulus]]> Anyone who has a knee jerk (i.e. less than critical) reaction to political events in general and the recent U.S. stimulus package in particular, should shut up and think before ranting.

That said, I just don’t like the thought (much less the passing) of the new stimulus package (and I’m not at all anti-Obama – to be crystal clear).  $US838 BILLION – on what I can’t help but see as a kind of massively over-sized whallop to a horse that is eventually going to die.  Yes, I’m aware of the complexity to all this, and No, I don’t think there are any quick fixes.  But I still cannot understand or begin to support spending nearly a trillion dollars on trying to preserve the “American Way of Life” ™.

What kind of precedent are we setting for future generations?  What are we saying to the rest of the world – much of which is living in some mild or severe form of poverty; a different kind of poverty indeed to the ‘poverty’ some are facing in ‘developed’ nations around the world.

Some may think, “Oh, but financial prosperity for the ‘rich west’ will enable them to be generous to the ‘poor rest’…”  That kind of capitalistic mentality (a.k.a. ‘the rising tide will lift many small boats’) is utter Bull.  Greed does not engender generosity.

Instead of our bank account levels needing to go ‘up’, we need our standard of living to go ‘down’ to a realistic and sustainable place.  And as long as ‘going out and spending money to stimulate the economy’ is part of doing your ‘patriotic duty’, then I think I want to be unpatriotic.

Layered Explanation.

In the science/religion ‘debate’ (as if it needed to be a debate – which, as we shall see, is the whole point of . . . → Read More: atheism and explanatory monism]]> I’ve quite enjoyed reading through “Is Nature Enough: Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science“, by John Haught.  One of the many points he articulates well is what he refers to as “layered explanation”.

Layered Explanation.

In the science/religion ‘debate’ (as if it needed to be a debate – which, as we shall see, is the whole point of this post), I think one of the most urgently needed concepts is that of “layered explanation”.  What is meant here is that there can be more than one layer/level/kind of explanation for a given phenomenon.

Here’s a quote from the book:

“Naturalists put too heavy a burden on evolutionary science whenever they turn it into ultimate explanation.  What I shall propose instead, as a way of giving a place to both science and religion is layered explanation.  By this I mean that everything in the universe is open to a plurality of layers of explanation.  The alternative to layered explanation, or to explanatory pluralism, is explanatory monism, an approach dear to the heart of most naturalists.” (p. 16 – italics in original)

Science: enemy or fount of all knowledge?

I think two kinds of people will benefit most from this: fundamentalist religious believers (who either a) make an enemy of science, or b) attempt to create a ‘better’ kind of science) and convinced philosophical naturalists (who generally both a) think religion ‘poisons everything’, and b) think science is the ultimate way to explain everything); they both happen to agree that religion and science are directly and totally incompatible (at least for some definitions of ‘religion’ and of ‘science’). One – religious fundamentalism – demonises science as anti-God, and the other – scientism (another kind of fundamentalism) heralds science as the ultimate key to any and all kinds of knowledge.

Fencing reality – fencing explanations

When a theist (of any kind) suggests to a science-heralding atheist that there are ‘limits’ to what science will ever be able to explain, he/she is sometimes sharply reprimanded for attempting to maliciously ‘ring-fence’ reality, with the obvious motivation of keeping some bits safe for theistic belief.  But the science-heralding atheist does his/her own kind of explanatory ‘ring-fencing’, when she/he restricts ultimate explanation to the tool of science.

Science – a powerful tool, but with limited uses

What I appreciate about John Haught is that he passionately and repeatedly affirms the need to encourage science to go as far as it possibly can in it’s scientific explanation of phenomena.  But there are modes of knowing which are sourced by methods other than methodological naturalism, such as the realm of ethics.

For example, science can offer ever-increasingly detailed accounts of the biological journey in which sperm, egg, placenta and foetus/baby have starring roles.  This kind of account is infinitely valuable (and I’m conscious that this statement is a non-scientific one!), and constitutes a powerful tool of knowledge to be used in many situations… but scientific accounts are unable to provide any guidance whatsoever concerning ethical questions such as: how to (or whether we even should!) reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortion, or when/if a developing foetus can/cannot be ‘terminated’ (on which – just to ground this quickly and easily in reality – it has seriously been proposed by ethicist Peter Singer that ‘termination’ can ethically occur as late as 1 month after birth! – see Singerian principle #9 here).

As valuable as scientific explanations are, they remain (if I may use the strongest language that comes to mind) utterly impotent for the grounding of values from which ethical decisions are made.  However one does ground (or not ground!) the values for their ethical life, they are not using the knowledge arrived at via methodological naturalism, but rather some kind of tradition, philosophy/logic or life-value-system – which can broadly be called their ‘religion’.