I had the chance to read selected passages of Augustine's City of God this semester and came upon some fascinating insights into the judgment of virtue which help with one of the big questions of today.
A number of times people have said to me, "Well I'm a good person" or "But I know so and so who's not a Christian but he's a good guy." The implied objection seems to be that if one can be a "good guy" without being Christian isn't that close enough? Doesn't that validate them and make them- who knows- OK for achieving the afterlife, even if they don't do silly little rituals like going to church and praying?
Well certainly not for Augustine. For Augustine virtue was determined by the relation of the body to the soul, and of the soul to God. Augustine believed that the body must be subjugated to the soul- that is, the soul (also sometimes understood as mind) must seek to prevent the body (flesh) from pursuing its own desires. This, like Aristotle's concept of virtue, can be understood basically as a prudent discernment and temperate moderation between the excesses and deficiencies of different virtues- moderate eating instead of starvation or gluttony, for instance.
However, the soul must ALSO be subjugated to God in order for any virtuous restraint on the body to matter at all. For, after all, if a man restrains himself from what is considered sin, but does so in order to glorify himself (whether openly or subconsciously), then the virtue has instead become a vice. In fact, Augustine goes so far as to say that without submitting yourself to God, how can you ever even truly do a good act? All that you do, in that it is bent towards your own glory, will be twisted from a good purpose to a self-promoting one.
This is not unlike the discussion of faith and deeds in the Bible- faith without works is dead, but works without love, without faith in God, is like "a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal." And that is the key here: Whereas Aristotle's concept of virtue is that each man does good because he naturally seeks his own good and it therefore advances his life's pursuit, for Augustine we are only virtuous if we act in love and submission to God. With such an understanding then truly only Christians might be counted virtuous people.
Now this sounds harsh- after all, didn't you help that old lady across the street? Don't you give money to the local food shelter?
I am glad that many people see the need to give and to be good in this world. I am ashamed as well that many so-called Christians do not feel such a need, instead being content to haplessly rest upon the imagined laurels of a non-judging God. However, I think a fair self-assessment of most people's charity would reveal that good acts are, more often than not, done that you might also receive something in return. I'm not talking material goods, here- I'm talking honor; glory; recognition; goodwill. Most of us can recognize that that is what motivates us a lot of the time.
True Christianity on the other hand, as Augustine understands it (and as it is) recognizes that God has already saved us. We don't need to DO anything to earn salvation. What we do in this life out of loving faithfulness to Him is in thanks for what He has given us. Is it necessary? Absolutely. A true faith and belief in God must produce good works. But this idea that simply doing good things for people is a merit badge you can gather to redeem at the pearly gates is ridiculous.
The real tragedy of the non-Christian "nice" people is that they understand to a limited extent how to show love. Much like Christ talks about how a father, when asked for a fish by his son, will not give him a snake- so we understand to a limited extent what is right and just and loving. Why? Because of 2 things: 1. God is always at work in our lives; and 2. We live in a culture which despite its best efforts has a fairly strong grounding in Christian ethics. What is normative even for non-Christians, even for vehement atheists, is often only so because of Christian influences which shaped this country and its people. But tragically, they don't care. By doing good and then rejecting God you are saying, "I do good so that you may glorify ME, not my Creator."
This is the fundamental difference between a Christian and "nice" people. I will not cease to be thankful that God is at work in our world and often does good things through nonbelievers- but I am also not going to stop praying that those who understand good and have loving hearts might turn their hearts to the true God who gave them life.
I can think of few greater tragedies I have witnessed in my life than the friend who is so "good", and yet so absorbed as to ignore God, or pay Him only lip-service but no heart-service. I only hope that God will turn their hearts to Him so that they may truly live virtuously in view of the eternal salvation awaiting us.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What many people fail to recognize is the fact that because God is good, he must be just. We would not appreciate a judge who allowed criminals to go free-in fact, we would call him a bad judge. God, likewise, cannot allow sinners to go free. That is why, no matter how many good works we do, our salvation is entirely dependent on our faith. (That's my way of saying Amen brother!)
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I will mention though, you said that we are to do good deeds out of thankfulness for God. I have recently been toying with the idea of a righteous selfishness. It seems to me that there is a human selfishness put within us that is good and natural. It is why we desire salvation-for after all, we would not be Christians if it weren't for the benefits of salvation. This leads me to this particular discussion because of the verse that says that good deeds are laying treasures up in heaven. As Tertullian said, "a good deed has God as its debtor". In other words, is it possible that we may do good deeds to gain a great reward? Could be seen as selfishness, but not necessarily a bad selfishness-if that makes any sense. Again, I reafirm that when you say deeds do not get us salvation, I completely agree. It is the motivation for doing good deeds after that I would question.
I think I get what you're saying here, so I'll try to address it.
ReplyDeleteAs to Tertullian's quote, it seems kind of dangerous to use language of God as debtor. Being as we are His creatures and rely fully on Him for life and salvation, the idea of putting Him in our debt in any form doesn't seem to fit.
As to storing up treasures in heaven, I've heard that text questioned before and my minister helped me out on this one: he says that it isn't referring to storing up treasures as we understand it- after all, heaven as we understand it is being in the presence of God for eternity and that itself is immeasurable so any further thing would be excess. Rather, Christ is saying that we are to trust in God and not put our hope in earthly possessions "where moths consume and rust destroys." Later in Matthew 6 this point is driven home further when Jesus encourages us to trust in God and not worry about having food and clothing and the like.
So those verses aren't referring to a storing of goods based on our works here- as for our desire to be in God's presence and have eternal life, I know that we tend to think in terms of "What I want" but I don't know that heaven can, or perhaps should, be cast in terms of selfishness. Maybe not that word, anyway. Selfish seems to refer more directly to a total focus on one's own needs. Conversely, our good deeds in service to God's glory are selfless.
So long as we're submitting our good deeds in faith to God's glory, not with some idea that they're earning us treasures or eternal life as other religions do, then good deeds remain selfless and worthy examples of our faith in God.
Of course the devil certainly tempts us when we perform good works to accept the praise and the benefits and forget God, but we must strive to turn the glory we receive up toward God who made us able and gave us gifts.