Biblical Sermons, Commentaries, and Essays

Recently, the author of this blog posting heard online an otherwise good Christian sermon based on Chapter 10 of the Book of Luke, a sermon that was regrettably impaired by one flaw.  This sermon began promisingly enough by exploring the conditions under which it is advisable to be vulnerable (no extra shoes or luggage, etc.) when venturing forth to spread the gospel.  Such evangelists, being without dedicated supply lines, are like lambs among wolves.  The 70 (or 72) evangelists sent out in pairs by Jesus were directed to “set up shop” for peace and healing in every town and place that were about to be visited by Jesus.  Such locations would wind up being classified, retrospectively, either as “welcoming towns” or as “unwelcoming towns.”  When leaving either type of town, these 70 (or 72) evangelists were to proclaim the positive message that “the Kingdom of God has come close to you.”

However, in order to complete the unitary (single and complete) train of thought based on Luke 10:1-12, it should be noted that the evangelists departing from an unwelcoming town were also told to wipe the dust off of their feet as a warning against that town’s ways.  The unwelcoming town thereby elicited from Jesus the ominous pronouncement to the effect that “It will be more tolerable on ‘that day’ (the day of judgment) for the city of Sodom than for the unwelcoming town just left behind.”  This comment presupposes that the city of Sodom had previously set a high bar for maximally sinful behavior, a high bar that is nevertheless surpassed by the unwelcoming town under consideration.  Ultimately, one might argue about the results of a competition for the “worst of the worst” places, towns or cities; but wouldn’t it be a lot easier (i.e., more straightforward) merely to strive for the status of “welcoming town”?

Why does the Zeitgeist consider Luke 10:12 to be so “radioactive” that it may be neither explored nor mentioned?  (Related discussions of other cities exist in Luke 10:13-24.)  Clearly, what is needed is an authoritative Biblical commentary or book of essays, which includes Luke 10:12 and offers a way to finesse its interpretation.  But, of course, one surmises that the entire problem is that no authorities have survived the Zeitgeist’s contemporary reign of terror.  Not volunteering, as he most certainly is not, to receive theological tumbril-service at the present time, the present writer will also not elaborate upon Luke 10:12 in this essay.  On the other hand, the present writer is now sufficiently motivated to contemplate writing a limited series of Biblical commentaries or essays that might help promote mental clarity and avoid regrettable exegetical shortcuts.

A commentary is an explanation of, or an opinion about, a given text at hand.  An essay is a short work on, or an “attempt at,” a topic presumably written up as a text elsewhere.  Regarding either a text or a topic: Exegesis is a particular instance of interpretation (determination of meaning, including authorial intent); whereas hermeneutics is the general theory and methodology of interpretation (including the interpreter’s own viewpoint and presuppositions).

Commentaries on books of the Christian Bible may start with exegesis; but they inevitably incorporate some related topics from history, philosophy, sociology, etc.  At what point does the sheer volume of such related topics swamp out the Biblical exegesis and turn a purported commentary (text-based) into an essay (topic-based)?  Here, “swamping out” means overly reducing the analytical emphasis on authorial intent in favor of the interpreter’s own viewpoint.

It might be best to view the writing at hand as an introduction to a proposed series of hybrid commentary-essays on Biblical texts, as well as on some topics in the history and philosophy of religion (primarily Christianity).  For simplicity, these hybrid writings will be called essays; which will be indexed, or brought to mind, by many - - but not all - - of the successive books, chapters, and verses of the Protestant Bible (sixty-six books without apocrypha).  In these essays, some topics may be of more interest to Protestants (e.g., the theory with the acronym “TULIP”); while other topics may be of more appeal to Catholics (e.g., the Vincentian Canon or some ideas from G.K. Chesterton).

The Bible considers faith as trust, as in Matt. 6:28-30, which poses the question “Will God not clothe you better than the grass and the lilies of the field - - O ye of little faith?”  Dealing, as Paul Tillich does, with faith as the object of “ultimate concern,” one might think that there would be widespread agreement about the Bible’s meaning and application to questions of faith and practice.  Alas, not only are there civilizational differences about what faith is; but there are also seemingly innumerable anxieties besetting religious believers: Ontological anxieties (What is the most real?), moral anxieties (What are the criteria for right action?), and spiritual anxieties (What are the grounds, if any, for rejecting the thesis of the ultimate meaninglessness of life?  Or for rejecting the thesis that the existence of other minds cannot be philosophically proven?).

If one were only seeking agreement among Christians, then one might perhaps hope for a greater chance of success in resolving all theological issues in an utterly perspicacious manner via Biblical commentaries or essays.  However, some attempted resolutions seem to leave behind irreducible disagreement (e.g., Luke 10:12); while others are more likely to lead to mental clarity and agreement (e.g., Matt. 6:28-30).  But “hope springs eternal,” and some commentaries or essays may possibly promote common understanding.

Apologetics is, generally speaking, a presentation of evidence and rational arguments in defense of deeply held beliefs.  That evidence may come from Biblical commentaries or essays, and the results may help remove conceptual clutter impairing religious judgment.  Apologetics in the form of certain Platonic dialogs (Apology, Crito, Phaedo, and Euthyphro) predates the New Testament.  For example, Euthyphro poses the controversial question: Is something good because the gods approve of it; or do the gods approve of something because it is good?  Later, apologetics came to be known as the rational defense of the Christian faith, often in the “Areopagus” or “Mars Hill” mode of debate found in Acts 17:16-34.  (One recalls that the Greek “Areopagus” refers to the Greek god Ares or to the Roman god Mars.  The “Hill” in this case was in Athens.)  Martin Luther and John Calvin thought that their commentaries might help to increase the accessibility of Scripture by lay persons and to promote the apologetics underlying such Reformation ideas as justification by faith alone.

Orthodox starting point: In the 400’a A.D. the Vincentian Canon was written in support of Christian doctrinal orthodoxy, where doctrine is “what is taught” and orthodoxy is right, correct, or true (ortho) thinking or opinion (doxa).  In this rather optimistic view, Christian doctrinal orthodoxy is “what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.”  (Here, “everywhere” refers to the known Greco-Roman world and its immediate border regions; “always” refers to historical time since Jesus walked on the Earth; and “by all” means “by all Christians.”)  For the sake of self-consistency, however, Christian doctrine has come to be thought of as including tradition, reason, and the development of doctrine; because, among those things widely believed and held in high regard, one finds the following concepts:

First, the concept of the “democracy of the dead” (G.K. Chesterton, in his book, Orthodoxy [Chapter IV]) implies that all spiritually engaged Christians have a say (or a “vote”), in what is believed, independent of their current status as being dead or alive. (One does wonder about normalization, or how the effect of increasing total population over time affects the weighted value of past votes.)  This is the source of tradition (what is handed down).

Second, the life of the human mind, with its limited logos, or reason, seems to run parallel to the life of the unlimited Logos, or Word of God, through which all things were made (John 1:3).  Without such parallelism there could be no perception of God in physical nature; no recognition of God’s own invisible qualities, power, and divine nature; no understanding of God from what has been made; and, contra Romans 1:20, abundant excuses for mankind to be and to remain ignorant of God.

Finally, some theologians find that the ongoing application of human reason to Christian doctrine leads, over long periods of time, to ever more highly articulated doctrine and - - if not exactly to an asymptotic approach of the Hegelian Zeitgeist to Absolute Knowing - - at least to a modest development of Christian doctrine over time (J.H. Newman).  This viewpoint was strongly opposed by C.S. Lewis in the Preface to his book “Mere Christianity,” in which he maintained that calling someone a Christian is like calling someone a gentleman (in the original British sense): We are dealing with a description of belief in the case of a purported Christian; and with certain facts about land ownership and possession of a coat of arms in the case of a purported gentleman.  In Lewis’ view, we must we stick to the original, obvious meanings of simple, unwavering, and, hence, time-independent doctrines when assessing a network of beliefs.

We will now turn, in subsequent blog posts, to the presentation of essays on selected Biblical books in English translation (most commonly, the NIV).  It is anticipated that some references may also be made, occasionally, to the Bible Hub online resource for Hebrew and Greek.  Finally, the Schlachter 2000 German translation of the Bible has also been found to be useful.  The first essay will start with the first part of the book of Genesis.

A Retrospective on Three U.S. Presidential Elections

Eight long years ago, the 2016 U.S. Presidential election resulted in the Electoral-College victory of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, despite Clinton’s winning of the national popular vote.  Trump won the popular vote in six of the seven so-called “swing states” (Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin), failing only to win Nevada.  (For a summary of these 2016 results, click here.)

In 2016, the Electoral College once again achieved its Constitutional goal: inducing the candidates to campaign in a broader swath of the country and not limiting themselves to the states of largest population (California, Texas, Florida, and New York).  Widespread campaigning avoids the appearance that the smallest states are merely colonial possessions of the largest states.  In winning most of the swing states by small popular-vote margins, Trump rolled to a robust 304-227 victory over Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College.

An aside: The 2016 U.S. Presidential race revealed seven so-called “faithless Electors,” who voted for persons other than those at the top of their party tickets.  These faithless seven have never been punished, thereby providing a precedent for future Electoral-College misbehavior; yet as far as the present writer knows, no one has ever expended any effort to remedy this situation via statute or Constitutional amendment.  It would be more accurate to say that the 2016 U.S. Electoral-College results were 304-227-7; indicating support for Republicans, Democrats, and what might be described as Insurrectionists, respectively.

A second aside: The Electoral College is based on a number of Electors for each state (plus three Electors for the District of Columbia).  Each of the state numbers is equal to the sum of that state’s number of Senators (two for each state, assuming states to be co-equal in sovereignty) and of that state’s number of U.S. Representatives (representation proportional to population).  The egregious Seventeenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution sabotages the original idea that the Senators represent the states themselves via appointment by their state legislatures to the federal legislature.  James Madison thought that this appointment process would convey a sense of each state’s authority and legitimacy in the federal system - - i.e., that no state was a colonial backwater in a federal system.  But what did James Madison know about the Constitution?

Joseph Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election in the midst of the COVID pandemic, the George-Floyd riots, outdated election-integrity laws, and an unprecedented flood of mail-in ballots.  Biden won six of the seven swing states by small popular-vote margins, losing only North Carolina.  (For a summary of these 2020 results, click here.)  Biden recorded a strong 306-232 victory in the Electoral College.

In the 2020 U.S. Presidential race, Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin (11+16+10 = 37 Electoral votes) were decided by approximately 11,000, 13,000, and 21,000 popular votes, respectively.  However, a few percent of the millions of mail-in ballots in those three states in 2020 seemed, to some analysts, to lack legitimacy - - or even to have been wholly fabricated - - based on the following line of thought: If a relatively low level of mail-in balloting in 2016 and previous years had resulted in an error rate of a few percent (rejection rate due to defective signature, dating, receipt-time, voter-ID, or any other problem), then a relatively high level (flood) of mail-in balloting in 2020 must have had at least the same error rate, not the much lower error rate alleged by some election precincts in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin.

In the case of the U.S. Presidential race in Wisconsin in 2020, a remarkable example of the aforesaid mail-in ballot conundrum has been documented: In 2016, only 4.8% of the total number of ballots were mail-in ballots; and of those mail-in ballots there was an error rate (rejection rate) of 1.4%.  In 2020, however, an unprecedented 41% of the total number of ballots were mail-in ballots (due to COVID and other causes peculiar to 2020); and of those mail-in ballots there was an error rate of only 0.2% - - a seven-fold decrease in error rate coinciding with a more than eight-fold increase in the fraction of mail-in ballots (41% / 4.8% = 8.54).  Ultimately, in the case of Wisconsin in 2020, it seemed plausible that tens of thousands of questionable votes were being injected into a Presidential tally in which the purported margin of victory was also on the order of tens of thousands of votes, vitiating Biden’s claim to victory in Wisconsin.  Analogous remarks pertain to Arizona and Georgia in 2020.

In this novel situation, however, the judicial system typically professed not to find anyone with a suitable legal standing to sue election officials over anomalies in the rejection rate for mail-in ballots.  In these potential court cases, there was the distinct appearance that the judges just wanted “to get out of Dodge City” in unseemly haste before any rioting broke out.  Additionally, the candidate challenging the vote count was left with the nearly impossible burden of proving a negative, viz., that the true rejection rate for mail-in ballots did not go down by an order of magnitude or so even while a much higher volume of mail-in ballots was being processed.  If indeed the 37 Electoral votes of Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin had gone to Trump in 2020, then Trump would have achieved a 306-37 = 232+37 = 269-269 tie in the Electoral College, sending the election to the House of Representatives and generating even more excitement!

Just prior to the 2020 election, a widely acclaimed, professional, scientific poll of Wisconsin voters gave Biden a projected 17% margin of victory in Wisconsin - - the supposed expectation of all those who “follow the science.”  (This was in the October 28, 2020 ABC News / Washington Post Poll.)  The 17% projected Biden victory contrasted sharply with the 0.6% actual Biden victory.  One wonders whether, heaven forfend, the 17% projected Biden advantage had been a polling fiction publicized precisely in order to discourage Trump voters from voting at all or to encourage them to switch sides in the contest.

Now compare the U.S. Presidential pre-election polling results from Wisconsin in 2020 to those from Iowa in 2024: The now infamous Des Moines Register pre-election poll by “legendary pollster” J. Ann Selzer purported to find, just days before the 2024 Presidential election, that Kamala Harris was ahead of Donald Trump by three percentage points in Iowa.  Regrettably for Selzer, Iowa went for Trump by thirteen percentage points in 2024.  Whoops, sixteen percentage points’ worth of error!  The day after Election Day, Selzer seemed to be shocked - - shocked! - - that such egregious error could have infiltrated the inner sanctums of scientific polling.  Selzer pledged to comb through her data in order to find the source or sources of this monumental error.  One wonders again whether, heaven forfend, the 16% over-estimate of projected Harris support had been a polling fiction publicized precisely in order to discourage Trump voters - - nationally! - - from voting at all or to encourage them to switch sides.

Without the confusion posed in 2020 by the COVID pandemic, the George-Floyd rioting, and the inadequate voter-ID laws in some states, etc., the 2024 U.S. Presidential election resulted in the Electoral-College victory of Donald Trump over Kamala Harris.  Trump won the national popular vote by 49.9% to 48.3%.  Trump won the popular vote in all seven swing states.  (For a summary of these 2024 results, click here.)  The Electoral College again worked as intended in forcing the candidates to campaign in a broader swath of the country than just in the states of largest population.  Trump stormed to an utterly dominating 312-226 victory over Harris in the Electoral College

In the opinion of Michael Barone, emeritus fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, “Mr. Trump’s ability to connect with the voters has ‘shaped and hastened’ two developments that could portend a political realignment,” which is to say, a fundamental change in the so-called rainbow coalition of political factions in the U.S.A.  First, immigrants are drifting toward the Republican Party, demanding border security as much as any other citizen of any background whatsoever.  Second, there is an “unraveling of black political unity.”  One has recently seen extreme dissatisfaction expressed by some black citizens of New York and Chicago regarding the billions of dollars diverted away from the support of those cities’ citizens and funneled towards immigrant groups.  Like any other citizens, those residing in the inner cities expect all levels of government in the U.S. to operate preferentially on the citizens’ behalf.

Alternative Views of Free Will and Rationality

Aristotle noted that every agent, through his actions, aims at some good, which is an end (a.k.a. telos, goal, or purpose).  The chief good, specified without reference to any other good, is the final end, or final cause of that action.  The rational account (logos) of a complex set of actions, agents, ends, goals, and purposes is teleology.  Thus far, Aristotle’s logos of this matter seems to be straightforward; but he also held, more controversially, that nature itself is a cause that acts for a purpose and is analyzable via a natural teleology, or science of final causation in nature.

Aristotle’s immaterial and metaphysically perfect Unmoved Mover is the final cause of the motion of the heavenly spheres, which are physical enough to support the fixed stars (“fixed” because they all move in concert), but mental enough to qualify as cosmic “Intelligences.”  Desiring the perfection of the Unmoved Mover, these Intelligences are motivated to execute the observed, perfectly circular motions of the fixed stars.  Equivalently, one may say that the Intelligences freely choose to love the Unmoved Mover; hence, “Love makes the world go round.” Alternately one may say that the movement of the fixed stars occurs for the sake of the Unmoved Mover, which is the final cause of that celestial movement.

For Aristotle, the Unmoved Mover, as object, serves as the telos for celestial motion.  As subject, the Unmoved Mover thinks about itself through all eternity, which is a tall order, since the Aristotelian universe has no temporal beginning or end.  In contrast, some analysts maintain that Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover thinks about both itself and nature during its epic contemplation.

An aside: Aristotle seems to have held that if there had ever been a state of complete physical non-movement, then the passage of time would have lapsed; the universe would never have escaped the ensuing stasis; and, hence, the universe and its motion have no temporal beginning or end - - Aristotle’s universe is temporally infinite.  A separate Aristotelian analysis revealed, to his satisfaction, that the universe is spatially finite.

Since Aristotle’s cosmos exists from all eternity, there is no requirement for any cause, final or otherwise, to have created it.  Instead, the Aristotelian question is “What is the logical source for observed cosmic motion and order?”  Aristotle’s answer is “The Unmoved Mover, which is the cosmic final cause, is a rational principle existing outside of nature (metaphorically beyond the highest heaven) but yet accounting for motion and order.”  The cosmic Intelligences are both heavenly, rotating crystalline spheres in the natural order, as well as mental processes that are linked to final causes outside of nature, up to and including the Unmoved Mover.  These Intelligences do the explanatory work of bridging the gap between the eternal realm of rational principles, final causes, and free will, on the one hand; and the spatial and temporal world of concrete existences, observed motions, and neurological states, etc., on the other.

While comparing abstract thought to the capacities of matter, Stephen M. Barr notes that Aristotelian thought is something more than the activity of a bodily organ.  The human intellect and will are rational and immaterial (i.e., spiritual) powers.  Presumably, no one would deny that if one particular, carbon-based biological organism or platform for thought (i.e., a human person) were to die, then universal reason would persist in other human persons, if they exist; in other non-carbon-based organisms, if they exist and have minds; and in pure ideas that would ricochet around a depopulated universe, if no finite rational agents were to survive.

In the hyperlink cited above, Barr reviews the book, Determined, by Robert M. Sapolsky, who gives the impression that further developments in the philosophy of thought and action are superfluous.  Indeed, “neuroscience can settle the question of free will on its own.”  Barr reviews the so-called Libet experiments (from the 1980’s) that seem to indicate that a characteristic brain-state (“readiness potential”) arises, presumably deterministically, before a human agent (1) becomes aware of his own decision to move a randomly selected finger and then (2) executes the chosen movement.

In contrast, Barr interprets some more recent Libet research as indicating that the “readiness potential” is not a sign of the brain actually having reached a decision.  These tests on so-called “consequential choices” - - choices that involve a reason to act, rather than randomly elicited finger movement - - found no “readiness potential” preceding the awareness of choosing.  If truly free will is the power to choose the good, then free will pertains to consequential choices based on reasons, rather than random choices based on indifference or spontaneity.  Finally, even when a “readiness potential” exists, it is not a reliable predictor of whether the agent actually executes the chosen response.

In Barr’s view, Sapolsky has two interpretive problems in his analysis of Libet experiments: First, Sapolsky demands that true “free will” not be influenced at all by various physical factors.  But such influences abound in everyday experience: Aquinas, an enthusiastic expositor of Aristotle, writes about “temperaments and dispositions” that interfere with free will.  Indeed, the Bible (Matthew 26:41) identifies cases in which “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” i.e., free will sometimes fails to be executed when the “flesh” (natural, unreflective passion) presents overwhelming temptations.  Second, Sapolsky inverts the burden of proof in his argument: “One need not know exactly how free will works to have rational grounds for thinking one has it, any more than one needs to know exactly how vision works to believe that one is able to see.”  Indeed, Sapolsky has the burden of showing that no other causes are at work if he is to prove that physical causes completely determine one’s thoughts and actions.

Barr continues by conceding that the traditional conception of free will raises deep, as-yet unresolved problems.  Not knowing how free will interacts with physical brain states raises questions but does not of itself present sufficient reason to deny free will.  Indeed, there are profound problems in understanding the existence of consciousness itself and how consciousness fits into the science of physical brain states.  But this also does not of itself present sufficient reason to deny that consciousness exists.

Barr concludes that Sapolsky veers into an unfruitful “eliminative materialism,” which is the theory that whatever neural mechanisms cannot explain is either unreal or not sufficiently well-defined for polite, scientific conversation.

Sapolsky seems to welcome determinism on utilitarian grounds, in that determinism undermines moralizing judgment , thereby reducing the frequency of wrongful punishment.  In contrast, Barr maintains that decisions - - moralizing or not - - can be influenced by reason, indicating the presence of free will.  For example, mathematicians may come to new conclusions via attainment of new insights into old problems.  How could the brain be open to new truths if its operation were “determined”?  Long live “free will”!

Hyperbolic Tendencies in the 2024 U.S. Elections

In the November 2024 U.S. general election, Donald Trump won the Presidency with about 50% of the popular vote, compared to about 48.5% for Kamala Harris.  Since Harris ran up big popular vote totals in California, Illinois, and New York, she had fewer popular votes with which to carry other states; and Donald Trump hence won the Presidency with an Electoral-College landslide (312 to 226 Electoral votes).

In 2024, the Electoral College has again worked as intended, forcing active campaigning beyond just California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas; thereby preventing the appearance that most states are “colonies” without much effect on the federal system.  The resulting increase in the area of active campaigning brings effects that are perhaps more psychological than substantial: In practice, California, Illinois, and New York (54+19+28 = 101 Electoral votes) were locked up for Harris; Florida and Texas (30+40 = 70 Electoral votes) were solidly for Trump; and virtually all the campaigning took place in the “seven swing states” of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin (with 11, 6, 16, 16, 19, 15, and 10 Electoral votes, respectively, for a total of 93).  Ultimately, Trump won all seven swing states and, hence, the election.

The main issues in the 2024 Presidential election were the U.S. economy, the U.S. southern border and immigration, and international security in Ukraine, Taiwan, and the Middle East.

Large deficits after the global COVID pandemic led to inflation, which led to high price levels.  Inflation then moderated; but without actual deflation, high prices remain high.  For example, if a particular product or service incorporates a 9.5% inflation rate for two successive years, then the corresponding price level is 20% higher after the second year, even if the applicable inflation rate returns to zero.  That 20% price-level increase will remain in perpetuity even if the applicable inflation rate remains at zero in perpetuity.  However, no government will work to achieve deflation, because inflation has been seen as one permanent funding source for government ever since ancient Roman emperors perfected the art of debauching the Imperial currency by shaving coins or recasting coins with baser metals.  People are infuriated and are looking for economic growth in order to increase real incomes, thereby overcoming high price-levels for fuel, food, housing, insurance, and much else.

Over the past four years, there has also been a public outcry over the crime and drugs that have entered the U.S. via its southern border.  The murder of Laken Riley is a highly visible case in point.  Moreover, there has been public indignation over the abrupt U.S. abandonment of Afghanistan, over the ensuing world-wide decline of U.S. deterrence, and over the increasing adventurism of Russia, Iran, and Communist China.

During the recent U.S. political season and its discourse, there have been hyperbolic overtones of outrage, fury, and uproar.  It has been remarkable to observe how many claims have been made about the ranking of contemporary U.S. political figures on a “Fascist scale” that culminates in Benito Mussolini or Adolph Hitler.  Such corruption of argument has been noted by Alec Ryrie, writing in the November 2024 edition of First Things.

Ryrie relates that, in 1990, a pioneering internet enthusiast named Mike Godwin formulated a “law” that “the longer that an online discussion goes on, the chance that someone will compare someone else to Hitler or the Nazis inexorably increases, and once it happens, the discussion ends.”  The present writer would say that “Godwin’s Law” is an emotive theory of language in which “facts” are replaced by “strong feelings that certain states of affairs must have been instantiated.”  Ryrie continues by saying that “calling someone a Nazi … ends an argument because it is a punch to the face.”  Thus, reasoned replies are not long sought, being replaced by internet pugilism.

Ryrie states that “in a relativist, pluralist age, Nazism is our one absolute reference point.”  One might say that, in the Western world, the dominant moral compass - - that had pointed to Jesus as the absolutely desirable moral example to be emulated - - has been replaced by a “moral anti-compass” that points away from Hitler as the absolutely evil moral example to be avoided at all cost.

Ryrie agrees with demonizing Hitler and celebrating the Allied achievement in defeating him.  Ryrie worries, however, that replacing attraction to a positive moral example with a repulsion from a negative moral example poses some problems: Attraction to a point provides a clear view of destination, whereas there are many unpredictable paths away from a point of repulsion.  This is apparently what Ryrie means when he writes that World War II has graduated from observable fact to a myth (an object of a post-1945 de facto religion that is truly Ersatz in quality and was incapable of opposing the secularizing tsunami created by the various rebellions of the 1960’s).  In Ryrie’s view, post-World War II churches faced a terrible loss of faith, as exemplified by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his proposed “religion-less Christianity.”

Ryrie thinks that one may still hold religious values, mixed in with the anti-Nazi moral values of our age; and that this mixture may be accepted by some as the best available result for hopelessly divided societies.  (In this analysis, let “one,” “we,” and “our” refer to some reflective members of Western societies.)  Ryrie writes that “our myth is that we live in a secular age based on self-evident truths about human rights.  But in fact, we live in the age of Hitler.  Our religion is World War II.”  Ryrie means that the moral values of the Allies in World War II are a good starting place but need to be connected with the values that emanate from religion.  As an extension of Ryrie’s analysis - - considering the rhetoric heard during the 2024 Presidential election campaign - - one might say that our contemporary political speech is measured on a Hitlerian scale that does not allow for the nuanced gradations of evil that exist today.

The Idea of Virtue in Antiquity (I): Plato (C)

In Plato’s Republic, we have previously seen that Socrates’ first deduction from the interlocutors’ presumably faultless construction of the ideal city-state is that such a city-state is wise, brave, temperate, and just (Book IV: 427e).  The guardians, warriors, and producers are as perfect as their city; and the social classes of an ideal city-state function harmoniously together.  Socrates has just gone down a “check list” establishing that these four virtues are indeed present in the ideal city. 

Socrates and Glaucon now summarize the characteristics of the social classes by asking which contributes most to making the city good (433c): unanimity between rulers and ruled (an aspect of soberness), holding fast to lawfully mandated convictions about things to be feared (courage), intelligence residing in the guardians (wisdom), or the principle (justice) of not being a gadfly or busybody.  They agree on the difficulty of preferring one principle to another.  One notes in passing that it is just this “gadfly” characteristic that became a major factor leading to Socrates’ drinking of a fatal beverage (hemlock).

In 435b-c, Socrates notes that a just man will not differ from a just city in respect of the form of justice.  Now the just city was thought to be just because its producers, warriors, and guardians all performed their characteristic functions, and only those functions.  The just city is thereby sober, brave and wise by inclination (affections) and habit.  By analogy, Socrates expects the soul of an individual also to have certain affections and habits that allow harmonious operation of the three-fold faculties of the soul: intellect, will (or desire), and emotion (436a).

Justice in the soul is not connected with doing one’s own business externally, but with regard to that which is within one’s self (443c-444c).  It is intolerable for one faculty to expropriate the business of a different faculty in the same person.  One must attain to self-mastery and beautiful order within oneself; and, after having harmonized these principles (faculties), one becomes a self-controlled personality instead of a locus for many conflicting personalities that emerge from time to time.  The just and honorable action is that which preserves and helps to produce this condition of soul.  Wisdom is the science which presides over such conduct, while injustice tends to overthrow the spiritual constitution into brutish ignorance.  Injustice is a kind of civil war between the principles or faculties of the soul, resulting in licentiousness, cowardice, brutish ignorance, and turpitude.  

Healthful things (overt, just actions in the external world) engender health (a disposition of the just soul); and disease-bearing things (overt, unjust actions in the external world) engender disease (a disposition of the unjust soul).  In other words, virtue is the habit of doing good (or doing the right thing easily and with pleasure); and vice is the habit of doing evil.  In 444e Socrates concludes that virtue is a kind of health, beauty, and good condition of the soul; whereas vice is disease, ugliness, and weakness of the soul.

In 448c-d, Socrates mentions that there exists one form of excellence in political constitution (the ideal city-state, delineated in Books I - IV and referred to as aristocratic; unless there is only one guardian, in which case it is referred to as royal).  In addition, there is a quasi-infinite number of evil forms of constitution with various degrees of depravity, among which four stand out.  We do not learn the names of these four additional types of constitution until Book VIII, 544a-e.  The five types of constitution, in Plato’s order of increasing defect, are aristocracy (government by the best [best-born or noblest]), timocracy (government by the most honorable), oligarchy (government by the few [wealthiest]), democracy (government by the people), and tyranny (government by the worst).  One notes in passing that animus against King George III led to the proscription against nobility in the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 9, Clause 8.  Further constitutional analysis is beyond the scope of this series of blog postings.  Our investigation of Books I - IV is now complete. 

Later (not in Plato’s time), some contingent or secondary, personal virtues were proposed.  These secondary virtues were said to be related to, or hinged together with, the four so-called “cardinal virtues” that were identified by Plato: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice.  For example, there are secondary virtues of liberality (free spending, but of whose money?), magnanimity (good works, but at whose expense?), magnificence (hyper-liberality), friendliness, truthfulness, ready wit, and some measure of ambition.  There are virtues corresponding to the opposites of the medieval Seven Deadly Sins: pride, greed, anger, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth.  There are even other vices that come to mind, such as vanity, shame, and grandiosity (pretentiousness); all of which presumably have opposites as secondary virtues.

Synonyms abound for the cardinal virtues:  They may be referred to, respectively, as practical wisdom or choosing prudently; possessing courage, fortitude, or endurance; being temperate, moderate, sober, or self-disciplined; and giving to others their due (what they have earned).  That which is earned may be payment to a creditor; allegiance to the government; honor to the Greek gods or, later, to God himself; or punishment meted out to a criminal.

Summary and Conclusions: Justice is harmony and healthy functioning among the classes of a Platonic society (guardians, warriors, and producers) or among the competing faculties (intellect, will or desire, and emotions) in the soul of an individual human person.  One might say that justice occurs whenever each class maintains its own prerogatives or whenever each individual - - receiving his or her own due - - proceeds to do his or her own task.

Virtue is a kind of health of the soul, in which the performance of the tasks set for classes - - to the extent that classes can be said, metaphorically, to have souls - - or the tasks set for individuals are accomplished efficiently, easily, and with pleasure.  Plato described healthy virtue as a kind of beauty and good condition of the soul; while vice is disease, ugliness, and weakness.  A person’s happiness results from a life devoted to knowledge, virtue, and the self-fulfillment found while pursuing the good and eschewing ephemeral pleasures.

Aristotle acknowledged the verbal agreement that happiness is the attainment of the chief good; and, further, that “human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there is more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete” [Nico. Eth., Bk. I, Ch. 7].  Aristotle’s view of ethics is usually summed up as “Virtue is right action done easily and with pleasure.”

Why should a person or city-state be just?  The highest faculty of a rational animal is self-evidently the intellect; hence, the greatest happiness of an individual human person is found in the intellectual contemplation of the Platonic Forms of the true, the beautiful, and the good.  Such contemplation is facilitated by a mind that is just, i.e., harmonious and healthy.  Among the guardians called to their special task, the greatest happiness is administering a just city-state, in which there is no conflict between the classes of guardians, warriors, and producers; and no impediments to economic prosperity and security.

The modern reader is struck by the insightful Socratic distinction, in Book I: 354b, between “what justice is” (regarding its essential nature) and “something about justice” (regarding its possible description as virtue or vice).  At that point, Socrates says that “the present outcome of the discussion is that I know nothing.  For if I don’t know what the just [or justice] is, I shall hardly know whether it [justice] is a virtue or not, and whether its possessor is or is not happy.”

The present writer would characterize Socrates’ problem in the preceding paragraph as stemming from his twin intuitions that justice must indeed refer somehow to virtue; but that virtues are often means between extremes, leading to unacceptable imprecision in the notion of justice.  Only by working out, during the dialogs in Books I - IV of the Republic, that there is a higher-order nature of justice; i.e., that justice is the harmony and smooth functioning of the different classes in a city-state or of the different faculties of an individual human soul, can the notion of justice be adequately specified.  The successful city-state depends on the agreement of guardians, warriors, and producers.  The successful individual human person depends on the agreement of his or her intellect, will or desire, and emotions. 

As a penultimate observation, one notes that Plato had no way to anticipate future societies that would become so wealthy that four classes of individuals would arise: not only rulers, warriors, and producers, but also a class that might be named “equity warriors.”  This new class is composed of critics and bureaucrats whose raison d’etre is to provide rationales for redistributing resources among individuals and groups on some basis other than merit.  Intrepid equity warriors destroy previous norms of “equality of opportunity,” replace them with new norms of “equality of outcome,” and confer upon the new norms the Orwellian title, “equity.”  One thinks in this regard of the multitudes of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) officers in modern universities.  

Finally, at the societal level, Plato saw justice as harmony among classes, whose members were not busybodies, i.e., did not interfere in what other members had coming due as their earnings.  He would have viewed medieval “trial by combat” or the Hobbesian “war of all against all” as standing in dire need of more rational proceedings based the concept of justice as distribution of “what is earned.”  The specter of the equality of outcome, superseding the equality of opportunity, has the potential to destroy the notion of “earnings,” to reignite the war of all against all, to extirpate the Platonic quest for justice in the city-state or nation, to suppress the intellectual virtues required for free academic inquiry, and to vitiate the individual’s pursuit of the four-fold cardinal virtues.