Black, White, and Gray

    This morning I was sitting in New Testament, half-listening to the professor describe the facets of John's epistles when he said that for John, everything was in black and white. Scanning through the epistles, you see he is right (not surprising given his PhD in New Testament studies). The letters are filled with images of light and dark; perfection and sinfulness; friends and enemies of God. John makes it seem that everything is either good or bad and there is no middle ground. This, of course, got me thinking. An oddity is that the class that I consider the most boring keeps stimulating my mind, but I digress.

    Is life really that black and white where there is a definite right and definite wrong? My friends who would say absolutely not; life is not black and white, but gray. "Everyone has different beliefs that work for them and are sincere about it," they tell me. "These people sincerely believe they are following god of some kind. You're telling me that God doesn't accept that because it isn't exactly in the way he prescribed?" My more conservative relations would disagree, claiming that there is an absolute truth and therefore an absolute right and wrong. "If there isn't," they argue, "then what's the point of anything? How do we know whether or not we are following God? Why bother trying to follow God if it doesn't matter what we do or believe? That's chaos."

    I say they are right. Who is right, you ask, the postmodern mind or the traditional mind? Yes. As in yes, they are both right. Allow me to explain.

    There is such a thing as absolute truth. This is because Yahveh is absolute: he, and only he, is the source of everything (Genesis 1:1, Exodus 20:11, Job 26:7, Psalm 33:6, John 1:3, and so on). As the creator, he makes the rules and has the right to make the rules; indeed he must for without rules there is only chaos. By rules of course I mean a certain way things ought to run, like my car has the rule of running on gasoline. If I tried to use diesel, things would not turn out so well. Therefore Yahveh is the lawgiver as well as the life-giver and he does not change (Numbers 23:19, Hebrews 13:8). If you break the rules, i.e. live in a way that disharmonious with the way you are designed to live, there are definite consequences, namely death. Look at Adam and Eve: they choose to go against what Yahveh had commanded and there were immediate and long-term consequences. There was a big, black line that they had crossed and there was the result, one we all live (and die) with. It was black and white; do what Yahveh says and live a happy, joyful life; rebel and die.

    Because there is an absolute creator, there is therefore an absolute law-giver. Because there is an absolute law-giver, then there is an absolute law. Because this law-giver is unchanging, then so is his law. Therefore there is an unchanging, absolute law, one that determines the best possible way we are to live our lives. Anything, anything, that is not in harmony with that law is bad. We would call it wrong, or even sinful. Hence there is an absolute morality.

    What are not absolute are ethics. Morals and morality are the ideal standards that we live by. In other words, if all was perfect in the world, this is how we would live. I am sure by now you see the catch to all of this: we do not live is such a world. This is where ethics come in: the practical application of morals in our day-day life, at least as I understand the terms. Instead of living in a place that nothing bad ever happens, we live in a place where bad is the norm. As such, we have to make judgments about what is right and what is wrong. For example, the Bible says do not take a human's life, but does that mean I allow one person to kill another because I should not take a life? Is there a difference? Is it wrong to steal money so that I can pay a medical bill to save someone's life? While we will probably never be faced with such issues in our lives, we do face issues like that, simply on a much less dramatic scale, all the time. We ask ourselves do the ends justify the means? Or do the means justify the ends?

    The more relevant issue we deal with is that so many people have different ideas of what is right and what is wrong. In our culture, it is completely appropriate to have sex with virtually whoever you please before (and sometimes during) marriage. In an Islamic culture, you would get stoned for it (and I do not mean with drugs). In this culture, women can wear whatever they like, as long as it something (though that does depend on your job); in Islamic culture women are strongly encouraged to cover-up. Who is right? Or is everyone right?

    This is where things become gray. What should be crystal clear (Yahveh's law) is not. The law says love Yahveh with all your heart, soul, and mind and your neighbor as yourself. How do I do that? To be honest, I do not always know. I know it looks like Jesus, but how do I apply the principles of his life 2000 years ago into today's life and society. It is not like we all walk around wearing bathrobes and have the Roman government sitting on our heads.    The fact is that we live in a world where the black of sin and the white of Yahveh have collided, resulting a gray fog that makes telling the difference between the two very difficult.

    During the American Revolution, the British and the Americans fought over New York in the Battle of Long Island. The Americans were soundly beaten and in danger of being destroyed, which have relegated the Revolution to a mere footnote in history. General George Washington had to retreat, which he did. During his retreat, which was near perfect, there was a thick fog that obscured the Americans from the British who were nearby. It was so thick that one American claimed you could barely discern a man six yards away. The last Americans could say that they heard the British soldiers digging their trenches, they were so close, but the British did not know the Americans were gone.

    Life is like that. We are caught in the middle of this dense fog between two sides. The closer we get to Yahveh, the clearer and clearer the picture becomes, but it is still a shadow or silhouette. So is there an absolute morality? Yes. Can I, in good conscience, claim to know it? No. Rather understanding right and wrong is a process that takes a lifetime to figure out through the fog. Some days I am nearing the enemy's side and so what appears to be right is really wrong and vice-versa. Other days I come closer to Yahveh's side and the gray of life becomes more black and white. But this does not mean that I can impose my sense of morality on anyone because I might be wrong. This is a personal journey that each of us must undertake for ourselves. To be sure there are things that we discover together and if we see those we love veering wrong, we try to help them. In return, we must be willing to admit that we may be wrong and need to correct ourselves. But in the end, the search for absolute truth is an individual journey that we must make and cannot impose on anyone else. Therefore, morality is black, white, and gray.