Trite but True

I am indebted to Dennis Prager’s thought-provoking book Think a Second Time (New York: HarperCollins, 1995) for bringing to my attention the “Doctrine of Moral Equivalence.” The DME is the idea that one cannot or should not make fine distinctions between behaviors considered immoral or unethical. This idea takes many forms.

• You can’t fight violence with violence because all forms of violence are wrong. By this reasoning, capital punishment is wrong because it is responding to a wrong (typically murder) by doing the same wrong (execution).
• All life is sacred. The life of a dog is just as important as the life of a human being.
• A person who steals 10 dollars is just as bad as a person who steals 1000 dollars because a thief is a thief.
• Western capitalism is no more justifiable than Chinese communism since both have committed injustices and have infringed upon human rights.
• Christianity is just as dangerous a religion as Islam since both Christians and Muslims have, over the course of history, slaughtered those they believed to be infidels (unbelievers).
• George W. Bush was just as bad as Adolph Hitler since they both used strong-armed tactics to get their way and because their policies have resulted in the deaths of many innocent people.

Prager argues, rightly it seems to me, that this Doctrine of Moral Equivalence is wrong because one can indeed assign degrees of turpitude. The measured violence used by police to protect society is legitimate and not to be compared with the gratuitous violence of a Mafia hit man. A person who makes personal use of supplies at the office is not as evil as the chief financial officer of the same company whose risky and fraudulent activities eventually drive the business into bankruptcy, thereby stealing the livelihood of its employees and the capital of its stockholders. George W. Bush certainly did not committed crimes against humanity on a par with those of Adolf Hitler.

Nonetheless, I believe Dennis Prager, who is Jewish, errs when he implies that Christianity affirms the Doctrine of Moral Equivalence. The question arises, “Who speaks definitively for Christianity? Who determines what Christian doctrine is or is not?” Do you quote the Pope or Billy Graham? Jeremiah Wright or Jerry Falwell? Mother Teresa or Jimmy Carter? Obviously, over the centuries many have claimed to speak as Christians or in the name of Christianity, some more stridently, eloquently, and authoritatively than others. But claiming authority does not make it so. Christianity is, after all, as it is in the mind of God, not as it may be half-perceived or half-distorted by its various human adherents.

Nevertheless, in order not to beg the question one must ask, “How can anyone know what Christianity is in the mind of God?” The only reliable answer, to my mind, must lie in the core document of Christianity, the New Testament, since it constitutes the closest thing Christians have to ultimate and authentic authority in Christian doctrine. Any latter-day revision that contradicts the original teaching of the New Testament must naturally meet with skepticism, for if one cannot trust the New Testament as a doctrinal standard, why should one trust anything in Christendom?

The New Testament, plainly and simply, does not teach the Doctrine of Moral Equivalence. For example, I John 5:17 states, “All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.” Later Christian writers will clarify by distinguishing between venial sins (wrongdoing) and mortal sins (sins that lead to eternal punishment in hell). In Luke 12:47-48, Jesus concludes that those who intentionally do wrong bear greater responsibility than those who do wrong in ignorance. While ignorance of the law is no excuse and wrongdoing is wrongdoing, nevertheless intentional wrongdoing and ignorant wrongdoing are not morally equivalent.

Luke 12:48 also says that “to whom much is given, much is required.” This conveys the notion that some people are more morally responsible than others simply because they are better educated, more intelligent, more spiritually enlightened, or better endowed with financial resources than certain others. In other words, according to Jesus, both nature and nurture may conspire to create a lack of moral equivalence in the eyes of God. The idea that all human beings are sinful and in need of God’s grace (that is, forgiveness by way of atonement) in no way suggests that all human beings are equally sinful.

Prager’s contention that Christianity espouses the Doctrine of Moral Equivalence derives primarily, it seems, from Jesus’ teaching about loving your enemies, which a number of Christians have taken to be an endorsement of pacifism—the belief that it is always wrong to kill. It is Prager’s belief that some people just deserve killing. Among these, he includes Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, and Charles Manson (Think a Second Time, 192). He believes that pacifism is a logical extension of the Doctrine of Moral Equivalence. If it is always wrong to kill, then killing Hitler would be just as bad as killing an innocent child.

His point is well-taken, and I would say that the majority of contemporary Christians, despite the teachings of Jesus, have renounced pacifism for pragmatic reasons. But the question remains, “Is original, authentic Christianity, as conceived in the mind of Jesus and God, fundamentally pacifist?” The answer to this question, I believe, is “Yes.” Jesus recognized that vengeance and retribution will never solve the problems of the world. The Middle East is still held in the throes of implacable hatred simply because both the Muslim and Jewish religions believe in vengeance and in the fundamental idea that some people just deserve killing. For Muslims, polytheists and atheists deserve killing (Koran 9:5; 10:4), not to mention anyone who slanders the prophet Muhammad or denigrates Islam. For Jews, anyone who would deny them the holy land of their ancestors deserves killing, as do those who would attack or kill innocent Jews.

The pacifist ethic of Jesus (loving your enemies and turning the other cheek, Matthew 5:38-48) is a heavy burden for conscientious Christians to bear. But it is not the Doctrine of Moral Equivalence. Jesus clearly recognized that some people are guiltier than others and some sins more deserving of punishment than others. Killing is wrong, not because one murder is as unjustified as another but because the mindset that “some people just deserve killing” is ultimately destructive to humanity and leads to the sea of misery in which we find ourselves drowning. It is for God to dispense judgment and justice, not human beings (“Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord,” Romans 12:19).

It is an article of Christian faith that if we treat people kindly and altruistically, they will eventually respond in the same way and the world will be a better place. If others don’t respond in kind, at least Christians will have done their part to make this world a better place and will have secured for themselves a place in the world to come. As G. K. Chesterton famously wrote, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult; and left untried.”

“Tout est perdu, fors l’honneur” (All is lost, save my honor). These were the words that King François Premier of France penned in a letter to his mother after his defeat and capture at the Battle of Pavia in Italy (24 FEB 1525). I have been thinking about honor recently owing to two events.

In November of 2008, the professional golfer J. P. Hayes disqualified himself from the PGA Tour Q-school when he discovered he had inadvertently made two shots on one hole with a golf ball not approved for competition by the United States Golf Association. His admission of an honest mistake (his caddy had handed him the ball) cost him a 2009 PGA tour card and, presumably, quite a bit of money. When interviewed about his decision to self-report a violation no one else would have noticed, Hayes said, “I didn’t feel like I had an option. We play by the rules.”

Another incident came in January of 2009. Micah Grimes, the coach of a high-school women’s basketball team in Texas was fired for refusing to apologize after his team beat another team 100-0. Grimes responded, “We played the game as it was meant to be played. My values and my beliefs. . . will not allow me to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity.”

What is honor? What exactly did François Premier have left? What did the girls play basketball with? Did J. P. Hayes deserve to be praised and Micah Grimes deserve to be fired? Hayes strictly followed the golfer’s code of honor and won acclaim. Grimes somehow broke his principal’s code that you should not run up the score on a hapless team—and it cost him his job.

Honor can mean “esteem” or “acclaim” as in “to be held in honor.” But that is not the sense it has in the examples I have given. In these, honor is adherence to a code of behavior. The motto of the West Point military academy is “Duty, Honor, Country,” a motto made famous by the graduation speech given by General Douglas MacArthur on 12 MAY 1962. Such honor is not a biblical virtue, although the concept appears in the Bible. It is not a biblical virtue, I think, because honor as adherence to a particular code of behavior is an ambiguous term. Whether one’s honor is good or bad depends on the legitimacy of the code of behavior it obeys. Honor, in an of itself, is not a virtue.

Sometimes honor is quixotic, vain, or misplaced. Lord Cornwallis, the British general, surrendered to George Washington’s forces at the Battle of Yorktown, but he refused to offer his sword to Washington (or even to attend the surrender ceremony) because it was beneath his honor. Instead, he instructed his lieutenant, Brigadier General Charles O’Hara, to present the sword of surrender to Washington’s French ally General Rochambeau. Rochambeau refused to accept it and pointed to Washington. Washington then refused to accept it and pointed to his lieutenant, Benjamin Lincoln.

I have always considered my father and my father-in-law to be great men of honor in the best sense of the term. From my youth, I have been keenly aware that my father lived by an unwritten code. Once, when I was quite young, I was severely provoked (as I remember it) by the remarks of a neighborhood girl. I lashed out and hit her. Upon learning about this, my father let me know in the strongest terms that I was never again to hit a female, no matter how provoked. I am happy to say I never have, but it was my father’s code of honor that has constantly guided me in this and other matters on which I have had to choose a course of action.

My own sense of honor is a bit prickly. I have resigned secure, high-paying jobs simply because I didn’t like the way business was being done. In retrospect, my code of honor may have been too delicate and recherché for my own good, but at least, if much is perdu, like François Premier, I still claim my integrity.

Hellenism says, “Be moderate; know yourself.”

Epicureanism says, “Be calm; enjoy yourself.”

Stoicism says, “Be strong; control yourself.”

Confucianism says, “Be superior; correct yourself.”

Buddhism says, “Be detached; enlighten yourself.”

Hinduism says, “Be mindful; merge yourself.”

Judaism says, “Be holy; behave yourself.”

Islam says, “Be submissive; bend yourself.”

Existentialism says, “Be authentic; create yourself.”

Pragmatism says, “Be practical; accept yourself.”

Materialism says, “Be industrious; maximize yourself.”

Aestheticism says, “Be refined; cultivate yourself.”

Christianity says, “Be unselfish; give yourself.”

I have adapted and expanded these epigrams from an anonymous source. Can you correct, add to, or improve upon them?

Why do most people believe in an ultimate reality, an intelligence behind the universe, that is called God? Children, of course, may grow up believing or not believing in God because of their parents’ influence, but eventually thinking adults decide for themselves to maintain their childhood faith or, sometimes, to reject their family’s lack of faith and become believers.

Believing in God is an act of the will. People choose to believe and to suppress whatever doubts they have. In a previous post I gave the reasons some people do not believe in God. Here are the reasons why I think most people make the choice to believe.

1. People believe in God because they don’t like the alternative. They want to believe in truth and justice as absolutes. They feel repulsed by the concept of a universe without absolute values where only chance, necessity, and self-interest reign.

“If there is no god, then there will be no time when the blind will see and the deaf will hear and the lame will walk. If there is no God, there is no hope of a time when all will be made right.”

Jeff Jordan, “Not in Kansas Anymore,” God and the Philosophers: The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason, ed. Thomas V. Morris (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994) 134.

2. People believe in God because they see order in the universe. All science is predicated on the assumption that order exists, that the same experiment, properly conducted, will yield the same result every time. They think there must be some overarching intelligence behind a regular, predictable world that can be described by mathematical equations.

“It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in the numbers, has been rather carefully thought out. . . . Perhaps future developments in science will lead to more direct evidence for other universes, but until then, the seemingly miraculous concurrence of numerical values that nature has assigned to her fundamental constants must remain the most compelling evidence of an element of cosmic design.”

Paul Davies, God and the New Physics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983) 189.

3. People believe in God because they are convinced there is a universal moral sense implanted within human beings by divinity.

“The concept of right and wrong appears to be universal among all members of the human species (though its application may result in wildly different outcomes). It thus seems to be a phenomenon approaching that of a law, like the law of gravitation or of special relativity. . . . As best I can tell, this law appears to apply peculiarly to human beings. . . . It is the awareness of right and wrong, along with the development of language, awareness of self, and the ability to imagine the future, to which scientists generally refer when trying to enumerate the special qualities of Homo sapiens.”

“After twenty-eight years as a believer, the Moral Law still stands out for me as the strongest signpost to God. More than that, it points to a God who cares about human beings, and a God who is infinitely good and holy.”

Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (New York: Free Press, 2006) 23, 218.

4. People believe in God because such belief gives meaning to their lives and to their experience.

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.“

C. S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry?" They Asked for a Paper: Papers and Addresses (1945; London: Geoffrey Bles, 1962).

5. People believe in God because they have had some personal experience that has convinced them of the existence of a spiritual reality beyond the natural.

“The expression ‘mystical experience’ is often used by religious people, or those who practice meditation. These experiences, which are undoubtedly real enough for the person who experiences them, are said to be hard to convey in words. Mystics frequently speak of an overwhelming sense of being at one with the universe or with God, of glimpsing a holistic vision of reality, or of being in the presence of a powerful and loving influence.”

Paul Davies, The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992) 226-227.

6. People believe in God because they feel they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by believing in God.

“Blaise Pascal computed the value of a religious life. . . . The value of eternal happiness must be infinite, said Pascal. If you grant this, he reasoned, it pays to be religious. For if eternal happiness is like the prize in a lottery, and even if the probability of your winning by leading a religious life is very small (like that of the ticket-holder in the lottery), your mathematical expectation (or the value of your ticket in this eternal lottery) is still infinite, for any fraction of infinity is infinite.”

Edna Kramer, The Mainstream of Mathematics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951) 171.

7. People believe in God because they generally like believers better than unbelievers, and they take this as evidence that believing in God is better for one’s character and mental health than not believing.

If you watch the documentary Religulous (2008), you will most likely be struck by how unattractive a person the filmmaker and interviewer, Bill Maher, is. Most believers in God would rather be ridiculed about their beliefs than become the snarky, arrogant, and amoral persona Bill Maher likes to inhabit.

No doubt there are many noble atheists, but, historically, those known for their sainthood have virtually all been believers in God.

“I’ve spent a number of years in India and Africa, where I found much righteous endeavor undertaken by Christians of all denominations; but I never, as it happens, came across a hospital or orphanage run by the Fabian Society or a Humanist leper colony.”

Malcolm Muggeridge, "Me and Myself” in Jesus Rediscovered (New York: Pyramid Publications, 1969) 157. Originally printed in The Observer, 15 December 1968.

Belief in God is known as theism. Theism does not require belief in any of the specific deities worshiped by the great world religions. A theist believes in an ultimate reality, a transcendent mind of the universe, but not necessarily in the God revealed in the Bible or in the Koran or in the Bhagavad Gita.

Theists generally settle on an idea of God they find attractive and convincing. A theist might be a deist like Voltaire who conceived of a being who set the universe in motion but who did not personally interact with that universe. A theist might be a pantheist who sees divinity suffused in nature. A theist might also be a Christian, Muslim, or Hindu. Whatever the case, these are the primary reasons most people believe in God.

Mormon missionaries often ask, “Have you read the Book of Mormon?” I personally get the feeling this question implies you cannot criticize a book you have not read. Since few have actually read all of the Book of Mormon, the question opens the way to a presentation by undermining anyone’s grounds for rejection. Sometimes I respond simply by asking, “Have you read the Koran?” But in all fairness, it is true you can’t comment intelligently on a book you haven’t read, so I determined to read the Book of Mormon this year just as I had read the Koran last year.

The Book of Mormon, like the Koran, is rather painful to read. I handle books like these by reading them only five or ten pages per day. Since the Book of Mormon is slightly over 500 pages, it took me about 100 days to read it. One other advantage to this approach is that, by reading slowly, you can take better notes and ruminate more on what you read.

In chapter 16 of his book Roughing It, Mark Twain gives an excellent account of the Book of Mormon, which he describes as “chloroform in print,” a descriptive phrase that has yet to be excelled. As Twain notes, the Book of Mormon is composed of 15 shorter “books,” the longest of which is the Book of Alma (150+ pages). If you had to identify favorite passages among Mormons, I think most of them would come in the last third of the work. This means you have to slog through a lot to get to the “good part.”

While I cannot improve on Twain’s trenchant comments about the Book of Mormon, I want to make my own independent observations that reiterate, document, and expand on some of his thoughts.

1. The Book of Mormon is plagiarism gone amuck. It is a shameless pastiche of the Bible. Countless words, phrases, and whole passages are lifted verbatim from the King James Version of both Old and New Testaments (2 Nephi 12-24 = Isaiah 2-14; Mosiah 13: 12-24 = Exodus 20:5-17; Mosiah 14 = Isaiah 53; 3 Nephi 12:3-14:27 = Matthew 5-7). The minor borrowings are simply too many to enumerate. Ether 12:6-22 is a pastiche of Hebrews 11. Ether 8:8-11 derives from the story of Herod’s daughter’s dance in Matthew 14:1-10. Helaman 10:4-11 reprises Peter’s confession in Matthew 16:13-20.

2. The Book of Mormon is relentlessly dull because it is so wordy, tedious, and repetitive. Sometimes the wordiness is downright comical. In Jacob 4:1, for example, the writer says, “I cannot write but a little of my words because of the difficulty of engraving our words upon plates.” Then he proceeds to repeat the phrase “and it came to pass” 28 times in chapter 5 alone, one of the most confused examples of English prose imaginable. If writing on brass plates is so difficult, why so much repetition and useless verbiage? The Book of Mormon began recycling long before it became trendy. Instead of recycling plastic, however, it recycles the same names, ideas, and phrases over and over and over (4 Nephi, for example, just rehashes all that has gone before).

3. The Book of Mormon is badly written. It seems to admit that fact to itself. Ether 12:23 notes that criticism will arise because of “our weakness in writing.” He rightly remarks, “I fear lest the Gentiles shall mock at our words” (Ether 12:25). Consider this sentence: “And it came to pass that Moroni felt to rejoice exceedingly at this request, for he desired the provisions which were imparted for the support of the Lamanite prisoners for the support of his own people; and he also desired his own people for the strengthening of his army” (Alma 54:2). Such confused prose and confused narrative abounds in the Book of Mormon (see, for example, Alma 23-25). I personally feel sorry for highly educated Mormon English teachers who feel compelled to defend this book.

4. The Book of Mormon strikes you as somewhat surreal. Most of it is predicated on a detailed belief in something that supposedly has not yet happened—the advent of Jesus Christ. Consequently, the book is chock full of anachronisms. Mosiah, for example, purports to be written in 124 B.C., yet it mentions “Mary” the mother of “Jesus Christ” (3:8), the resurrection of Christ (16:7-8), and the ascension of Christ into heaven (18:2). Other naïve anachronisms include “the twelve apostles” (1 Nephi 13:40), “Bible” (2 Nephi 29:3), “churches“ (2 Nephi 26:21), the “baptism” of Christ along with the descent of the Holy Ghost in the form of dove, “the atoning blood of Jesus Christ” (Helaman 5:9), Jesus in the tomb for “three days” before rising (Helaman 14:20), and speaking in the “tongue of angels” (2 Nephi 31:5-14).

5. The Book of Mormon is obsessed with the spirit of revelation and prophecy (3 Nephi 3:19; 6:20; 29:6). It is, of course, this inspiration from heaven that permits such detailed looks into the future. Prophecy is the device by which absurd anachronisms become legitimate and writers can mix quotes from the Old and New Testaments in the same breath (for example, 2 Nephi 30:12-17 which uses language from Isaiah 11:6-9, Matthew 10:26, and Luke 8:17). It is interesting to see Jesus himself in 2 Nephi 26:3 borrowing language from 2 Peter 3:10 and Revelation 6:14, books yet to be written.

6. The Book of Mormon is preoccupied with themes of the early American republic: the “cause of our freedom” (Alma 60:30), “rights”, “privileges,” “their freedom and their liberty” (3 Nephi 2:12), doing “your business by the voice of the people” (Mosiah 29:26), a “land of liberty” (Mosiah 29:32), “free government” (Alma 46:35). Representative government is instituted (Mosiah 29:25), monarchist traitors denounced (Alma 51:5-6; 60:17-18; 3 Nephi 6:30), and conspiracies to overthrow political freedom detected (3 Nephi 7:6; Ether 8:18-26). The Book of Mormon is a thoroughly nineteenth-century American book, not a book of antiquity.

7. The Book of Mormon sets out to clarify and improve upon Christian doctrine as set forth in the Bible. It carefully clarifies issues that nineteenth-century Protestants longed to have clarified. Has the age of miracles ceased? See Moroni 7:27-29. Do young children need to be baptized? See Moroni 8:5-24. What is the significance of baptism? See 3 Nephi 7:25. How should a baptism be performed? See 3 Nephi 23-27. What should be the name of the church? See 3 Nephi 26:3-10. What exactly is the gospel? See 3 Nephi 27:20-21. What is true faith? See Alma 32:17-21. Numerous doctrinal sermons, evangelistic sermons, and hortatory sermons sprinkled throughout the text explain all the essential beliefs a true Christian must have.

8. The Book of Mormon is strangely fatalistic. Despite all the preaching and teaching, despite all the missionary activity and conversions that take place, righteousness never seems to last very long. The Book of Mormon has a bloodthirsty view of humanity (Mormon 4:11; Ether 14:21; 15:2). The Holy Spirit, the blessings of prophecy, and good Christian living don’t seem to count for much over time. People always return to their sinful ways and eventually self-destruct.

9. The Book of Mormon is full of prophets who talk like nineteenth-century protestant preachers. They speak of “the plan of salvation” (Jarom 2). They extend “invitations” to be saved (Alma 5:62). They call on people to “repent and be born again” (Alma 7:14). They speak of life as “a time to prepare to meet God” (Alma 12:24). They explain archaisms in King James English that nineteenth-century readers might misunderstand (e.g., the word “charity” in 2 Nephi 26:30 and Ether 12:34) and clarify that, despite what you might gather from the Bible, the earth moves, not the sun (Helaman 12:15). The book seems not only to contain anachronisms but to be itself one long, sustained anachronism.

10. The Book of Mormon is not that controversial from the standpoint of Christian doctrine. I think conservative, charismatic Christians of the twenty-first century would object to little or nothing professed in the book. Virtually all of what is controversial and heretical about Mormonism (e.g., baptism for the dead, multiple gods, temple ceremonies, polygamy) does not appear in the pages of the Book of Mormon. This gives support to the contention that the Book of Mormon was originally an early nineteenth-century novel stolen before it was ever published, then revised and adapted by Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon for their own purposes. The Book of Mormon is badly written, but it is clearly within the bounds of standard Christian doctrine. It was written by someone intimately familiar with the Bible and with nineteenth-century biblical theology.

I close with a few specific observations.

1. Unlike in the Bible, there are no important female characters in the Book of Mormon. It is entirely male-dominated. In the entire book, I noticed only one woman mentioned by name (Sariah in 1 Nephi 5:1). All women seem to do is produce male babies who eventually become fodder for slaughter in battle.

2. Unlike the Bible, the Book of Mormon is skin-color conscious. God curses the Lamanites by making their skin turn black (2 Nephi 5:21). Six hundred years later, God blesses the Lamanites by turning them white again (3 Nephi 2:15). Black is not beautiful in the Book of Mormon.

3. Some stories in the Book of Mormon would make great Monty Python sketches. Check out Alma 17-18 (Heroic Arm Slicing); Alma 44:8-20 (Get Scalped and Come Back Fighting); Ether 3:6 (The Finger of the Lord); Ether 15:23-32 (Last Man Standing Falls); Helaman 16:1-8 (The Leaping Prophet); 3 Nephi 28:7-40 (The Three Immortal Missionaries).

4. If you ever wonder where Mormons get their zeal for door-to-door evangelism, read Alma 26:23-29 to learn about some of the first Mormon missionaries.

5. According to Ether 15:2, in the final conflict between the Nephites and the Lamanites one side alone lost two million people "slain by the sword." That's a lot of sword fighting. Two million is nearly five times the number of American soldiers killed in World War II.

What happens when a work of fiction is presented as truth? Some people in the eighteenth century objected to the rise of novels because they were “lies” foisted upon the public as truth. Over time, thoughtful people came to realize that fiction is not really a lie but potentially a form of imaginative truth. Fiction could be “true” insofar as it was “true to life” and provided insightful aesthetic pleasure. In my view, the Book of Mormon is inferior fiction that is neither true to life nor aesthetically pleasing. Is it a lie? I prefer to think of it as influential fiction. And yes, I have read the Book of Mormon, but I never plan to read it again.