The other discussion of Calvin's that caught my attention was that of the 10th commandment: "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house [...] or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
Calvin's understanding of this commandment is as an application of Jesus's message to "love your neighbor as yourself". Calvin points out that an earlier commandment already forbids actually taking your neighbor's belongings, so the essence of this commandment is something else and points us toward Jesus's message. If we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, we certainly must eliminate the covetous envy that we harbor.
Of course, not coveting does not by itself imply love of neighbor. (It is necessary but not sufficient.) However, Calvin's view is that the commandment requires love. He cites Augustine as well as the Apostle Paul, who wrote "the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart..." I.e., the goal of the commandment is to love your neighbor not simply to avoid wanting their stuff.
Of all of Calvin's discussions of commandments, this was the one with the most obvious political implications.
For example, it is hard to hear a pundit nowadays talking about the "top 1%" without straying directly against this commandment. Indeed, many political arguments pretty much say, "Look how much bigger their house is than yours!" It's hard to be more blatantly afoul than that.
This is not to say that one cannot care about the poor without being un-Christian. Indeed, Jesus praised charity frequently and loudly.
However, it is possible to try to help the poor without stoking feelings of envy. Indeed, it is not clear that most discussions of the "top 1%" have anything to do with the poor. Usually the pundit is saying that we should take from the rich and give to the middle class (in the form of medical care, education, or retirement benefits for "ordinary Americans").
Finally, it is worth pointing out that, while the author of the 10th commandment describes a scenario that involves clear inequality (e.g., your neighbor has a bigger house), he does not point at inequality as being the primary outrage. Rather, he is outraged by the covetousness of the first man.
Indeed, it is easy to see that inequality is not a moral problem in and of itself. For example, suppose that, of two neighbors, the owner of the smaller house is retched and covetous. Now, suppose that the larger house burns down in an accident. Then the owner of the smaller house may no longer feel covetous. His emotional state has improved, yet the problem in his heart remains.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Calvin on Gay Marriage
I was recently reading Calvin's discussion of the 10 commandments in his Institutes, as part of my ongoing campaign to understand the contribution of Christian theologians to moral theory.
Calvin discusses each of the commandments, but a couple of his discussions in particular caught my attention. The first was his discussion of the 7th commandment: "You shall not commit adultery." I'll discuss the other in a subsequent post.
Calvin does not base his argument for this commandment on the notion of the importance of families, for example. Rather, he follows in the Greek traditions (e.g., stoic): human beings should strive to rise above their base emotions and instead rely on reason. (Recall the Greek tradition of equating reason (logos) with God.)
With this in mind, Calvin states that the ideal is actually not monogamy but celibacy! Unfortunately, few people are capable of being celibate, so God gives them a backup option of being in a life-long, monogamous relationship.
What's intriguing about this argument is that it applies equally well to heterosexual and homosexual people. A homosexual person, in Calvin's view, should be trying to be celibate, but since, like most people, they likely cannot achieve this, they should limit their sexual activities to be within a life-long monogamous relationship.
In other words, it would seem that Calvin is (perhaps unintentionally) making an argument in support of Gay Marriage.
I found that very interesting. On the other hand, I also think Calvin's view sounds antiquated to modern ears. My general impression is that modern philosophers are fairly critical of the Greek tradition that says all emotions are base and should be ignored and overcome.
From a theological point of view, you would have to wonder, if emotions are bad, then why would God have created them. Unless you take the view that life is simply a test that you must past to get into a subsequent, better reality — a view largely rejected by Protestants, I would think — you are left without an explanation for why emotions should exist at all.
A more attractive view (at least, in my opinion) is that emotions are a critical part of the human experience, and that the meaning of life, at least in some small part, is to experience a full, human life.
This view, by the way, is certainly not anti-Christian. Indeed, Christians place critical importance on God, in the form of Jesus, living a full, human life, including all of the emotions. And indeed, the typical Christian view (as I understand it) is not that Jesus was simply trying to show us that these emotions could be overcome — what one might call the "See. Was that so hard?" Christian tradition.
Before this post runs completely off the rails, though, let me just summarize by saying that Calvin's views, though in some ways antiquated, still make for an interesting read.
Calvin discusses each of the commandments, but a couple of his discussions in particular caught my attention. The first was his discussion of the 7th commandment: "You shall not commit adultery." I'll discuss the other in a subsequent post.
Calvin does not base his argument for this commandment on the notion of the importance of families, for example. Rather, he follows in the Greek traditions (e.g., stoic): human beings should strive to rise above their base emotions and instead rely on reason. (Recall the Greek tradition of equating reason (logos) with God.)
With this in mind, Calvin states that the ideal is actually not monogamy but celibacy! Unfortunately, few people are capable of being celibate, so God gives them a backup option of being in a life-long, monogamous relationship.
What's intriguing about this argument is that it applies equally well to heterosexual and homosexual people. A homosexual person, in Calvin's view, should be trying to be celibate, but since, like most people, they likely cannot achieve this, they should limit their sexual activities to be within a life-long monogamous relationship.
In other words, it would seem that Calvin is (perhaps unintentionally) making an argument in support of Gay Marriage.
I found that very interesting. On the other hand, I also think Calvin's view sounds antiquated to modern ears. My general impression is that modern philosophers are fairly critical of the Greek tradition that says all emotions are base and should be ignored and overcome.
From a theological point of view, you would have to wonder, if emotions are bad, then why would God have created them. Unless you take the view that life is simply a test that you must past to get into a subsequent, better reality — a view largely rejected by Protestants, I would think — you are left without an explanation for why emotions should exist at all.
A more attractive view (at least, in my opinion) is that emotions are a critical part of the human experience, and that the meaning of life, at least in some small part, is to experience a full, human life.
This view, by the way, is certainly not anti-Christian. Indeed, Christians place critical importance on God, in the form of Jesus, living a full, human life, including all of the emotions. And indeed, the typical Christian view (as I understand it) is not that Jesus was simply trying to show us that these emotions could be overcome — what one might call the "See. Was that so hard?" Christian tradition.
Before this post runs completely off the rails, though, let me just summarize by saying that Calvin's views, though in some ways antiquated, still make for an interesting read.
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