Trusting In God's Judgment

by hilzoy

Glenn Greenwald has a piece up today about Bush and the neocons. I want to highlight and expand on one part of what he writes:

"To do this, they have convinced the President that he has tapped into a much higher authority than the American people -- namely, God-mandated, objective morality -- and as long as he adheres to that (which is achieved by continuing his militaristic policies in the Middle East, whereby he is fighting Evil and defending Good), God and history will vindicate him:

On one subject the president needed no lessons from Roberts or anyone else in the room: how to handle pressure. "I just don't feel any," he says with the calm conviction of a man who believes the constituency to which he must ultimately answer is the Divine Presence. Don't misunderstand: God didn't tell him to put troops in harm's way in Iraq; belief in Him only goes so far as to inform the president that there is good and evil. It is then his job to figure out how to promote the former and destroy the latter. And he is confident that his policies are doing just that.

Or, as luncheon attendee Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute recalled (also in The Weekly Standard) the President saying: "I want to have my conscience clear with Him. Then it doesn't matter so much what others think." (...)

Nothing matters -- not the disapproval of the American people of the President's actions nor rising anti-Americanism around the world. He should simply ignore all of that and continue to obey the mandates of neoconservatism because that is what is Good and his God will be pleased." (emphasis in original.)

Glenn seems to suggest that there's a problem with thinking that what really matters is not what other people think of one's actions, but what God thinks. This would of course be true if one worshipped a malevolent God, who commanded that we do dreadful things. (Similarly, if you cared about what other people thought, but all those other people were sadists, you'd be in trouble.)

But if the person under discussion accepts any one of the major religions, whose Gods are (basically) good, then I don't think it's a problem to care more about what God thinks than what other people think. In fact, God being God, it would be odd if a religious person didn't think this. In particular, it isn't a problem to have a President who is Christian and believes this. Christianity, after all, is a religion whose God commands compassion, and is deeply concerned about justice.

What is a problem is to have someone in office who claims to care only about what God thinks and how God will judge him, but who doesn't actually take this idea seriously. Someone like that will use the thought that only God's opinion matters simply to dismiss human criticism, without actually worrying about God. He will regard God as a convenient excuse, someone he can assume agrees with him. But to believe in a God who is, in fact, you, or who is so unreal to you that you don't need to bother taking His views seriously, is not faith; it is the opposite of faith.

Suppose you actually believe in God. You believe, that is, in a being who is omniscient, who knows not just what you do, but what is in your heart. Moreover, He cares deeply about goodness; in fact, his opinion of you will be based entirely on whether you are actually a good person. He is generous and loving, and so you don't need to worry that He will judge you in a mean-spirited way, taking what you think in the least charitable light. When you are genuinely trying to do the right thing, He can be counted on to know that.

On the other hand, since God does know your heart, He can also be counted on to see through your excuses. He is not interested in whether you can convince yourself, or even other people, that you are a good person. He is interested in whether or not you really are a good person. And, as I said before, He knows everything there is to know on this subject. You can fool yourself, but you cannot fool Him. Not only can you count on Him to give their proper importance to those things you do that you know are wrong but that other people are prepared to laugh off; you can count on Him to see through all the excuses for bad behavior that convince even you.

If you believed this, the idea of being judged by God would be genuinely terrifying. Even if you think you are basically a good person, you might be adopting too easily the lax standards of people around you, or convincing yourself that you are doing what's right when in fact you are not. And the flip side of the fact that God can be counted on not to be unduly harsh on you is that he can be counted on not to let you off the hook too easily either. He will make all the allowances that really ought to be made, but no more.

If a Christian managed not to have this rather obvious thought, a glance at the Bible would surely suggest it. Consider what CS Lewis rightly described as the "frankly terrifying" parable of the sheep and the goats:

""When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.""

Those who are cast away into eternal punishment didn't think they were failing in their duties to God. It wasn't God whom they turned away, left hungry and thirsting, failed to visit. Or so they thought.

And professing to worship God is no guarantee that God will judge you favorably:

"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
 
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? (...)

Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

And:

"“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.

I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’

And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”"

And:

"Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.

To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice."

Moreover, God knows whose goodness we should be most clearly focussed on:

"Judge not, that ye be not judged.

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

***

Someone who genuinely believed in this God, and who took these passages seriously, would (I think) have no reason whatsoever to regard God's judgment as a source of confidence. And no one who believed that God was an actual person, with His own judgment and His own views on what we ought to do, would have any reason whatsoever to assume that he had gotten those views right.

When we have, for some reason, to decide what we think one of our friends would want us to do, and we're not in a position to ask that friend, we naturally worry that we might have gotten it wrong, at least if the question at hand is important enough to make worrying appropriate. Our friend is, after all, a separate person with her own views, and we can't just blithely assume that we know what she'd want us to do. If you have to make an important decision about a friend's property, or her children, and you don't bother to worry about whether you're really choosing as your friend wanted you to, that's a sign that you don't take the friendship particularly seriously.

The only friends you can just assume will agree with you are imaginary friends. The only God you can assume will agree with your views about what He wants, or how He will judge you, is an imaginary God.

The judgment of an actual God can be thought about only with fear and trembling. For He will judge us as we are; and while he may turn out to be more generous to us than we are to ourselves, he might also turn out to see through the tissue of self-justification that we have used to hide our own sins from ourselves. In that case, this would be the appropriate response to the thought of finally getting what you really deserve:

"And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;

And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
 
For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?"

I would not in the least mind having a President who worried in this way that he might fail to find favor in the eyes of God -- that same God about whom this was written:

"Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God:

Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever:

Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The LORD looseth the prisoners:

The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind: the LORD raiseth them that are bowed down: the LORD loveth the righteous:

The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down."

Such a person would be more likely to take that concern the way Abraham Lincoln did than to allow anyone to presume to convince him that God favors the neocons:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Comments

[hilzoy]

Batocchio: thanks. I have felt this way since I was a Christian, and (when I was trying to work out for myself what that meant, in the more or less complete absence of actual people I could ask), assumed that all Christians felt this way. Imagine my surprise.

The time it really hit me was when I was in college, and there was a group of fundamentalists that I knew, one of whose members decided that it was God's will that two others should marry. Iirc, they didn't like each other that much, but the one who imagined that he had access to God's specific will -- not just to the Bible, which is general, but to His will about these two people's matrimonial plans -- convinced the two of them that it was, in fact, God's will. I believe they did marry, though I have no idea how it worked out.

Anyways, I remember being just dumbfounded, as a Christian who had always found it pretty difficult to figure out what God wanted me to do, at this guy's confidence about it. And I thought: I sure hope he's right.

[Donald Johnson]

" and I completely accepted that view. As I saw it (when I was a teenager), there were two main advantages of being a Christian: first, it's easier to do the right thing when you have the right beliefs about why it's right, and when you can call on God's assistance; and second, if you were an atheist who found herself, after death, in the position of the person in that passage, one of the things you'd bitterly regret was that you had missed all that time during which you could have known and worshipped God. Whereas if you were Christian, you could get started right now."--hilzoy

I'm partial to Lewis's "heresy" myself. So were the theologians at Vatican II, if I understand correctly, so even though I'm not Catholic it's nice to know that the oldest Christian body agreed with Lewis about this. (Or anyway, I think so).

But a fair number of Christians I've known don't think this way--they think that if non-Christians can get in, so to speak, then what's the point? Sort of the wrong attitude, not that I'm going to mount too far up on my high horse about that, having numerous bad attitudes of my own to worry about.

In reply to Anderson about people who are privately humble and politically arrogant, all I can say is that I think I know people like this. Friends of mine, who seem like good Christians to me, humble and not arrogant in their private lives, who on the other hand buy into the whole crusader mentality regarding the war on terror. Since C.S. Lewis is everyone's favorite authority in this thread, he alludes to people like this--somewhere in the Screwtape Letters Screwtape is moaning over the deplorable (from the demonic viewpoint) people who loudly proclaim that death is too good for the Germans (this was in WWII) and who then do the best they can to tend to a wounded German pilot who comes parachuting down in their backyard. Having said that, I'm not sure that all the current-day cheerleaders for the war on terror would necessarily be that saintly.

[bernard Yomtov]

Such a wide and well-paved road it is, this path from "doing" to "paying for", and it starts in such a reasonable place: salvation by works. And yet ... and yet ... it takes you to such an ugly place, where rich people steal from the poor, donate a part of it to build a fancy church and shore up their afterlife, then use the rest to support their life here on earth. Those not rich or sociopathic enough had to play by much more stringent rules.

But Amos, is giving to charity not doing good works? Is building a fancy church really the same thing?

If I want to feed the hungry I can volunteer to work in a soup kitchen for a day, or I can donate a day's pay to the kitchen. If the latter ends up feeding more people why is it to be condemned?

I think the problem is the definition of good works. If building monuments does not count, then what difference if I build them by hand or pay craftsmen to do it? I think the "good works" notion ought not be seen as a set of discrete acts, but as way of life. Stealing from the poor counts against you. Living a life of generosity, honesty, good will, etc. matters.

In a comprehensible religious system these ought, in my opinion, count for more than believing specific theological ideas propositions.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"In contrast, I don't know of any religious tradition that says upfront, 'we can't know exactly what God is or wants, but here's a workable approximation until something better comes along.'"

It has been a long time, but isn't that pretty close to what is going on in "Mere Christianity"?

[SomeOtherDude]

But for MOST people, the way they 'know' both is exactly the same--people they trust tell them what it is.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw | March 15, 2007 at 11:41 AM

Epistemologically, I’m with Sebastian.

The problem with American Christianity, more specifically American Protestantism (Evangelical or Calvinists) and new comers (Roman Catholic) is its fusion of Right-Wing Nationalism/Progressive Empire and theology.

My research shows that Protestants across the world really appreciate American Protestant theologians but despise the fusion of American Empire and "The Word and Son Of God." American Protestants tend to forget the world of Christianity outside of their tribe, history and political theories.

[Donald Johnson]

"American Protestants tend to forget the world of Christianity outside of their tribe, history and political theories. "

Yep, though I don't know what fraction of American Protestants fall into that category. Quite a few, I think.

[Anarch]

Amos Newcombe: The Protestant way around this was to cut it off at the beginning, and deny salvation by works.

Which is itself a wide and well-paved road, too, potentially leading to a carte blanche for various depravities after being washed in the blood of the lamb.

[Or, as I like to call it: pressing the magic Jesus Button.]

And that's the issue: given these two alternatives -- which may or may not be a false dichotomy, but let's stick to the established paradigm -- I would much rather that people did good things than believe good things. I don't care if you have Jesus in your heart if you eviscerate programs for the poor or try to roll back the Enlightenment; neither do I care if you have Allah, or Buddha, or Satan in your heart if your actions result in a freer, more prosperous world. Theologically, IMO as long as you try to make the world a better place, the quality of your faith -- in God, in Jesus, in the Divine -- is irrelevant.

it takes you to such an ugly place, where rich people steal from the poor, donate a part of it to build a fancy church and shore up their afterlife, then use the rest to support their life here on earth.

Well yes. Salvation by works != salvation by money, as I said above. OTOH, the only part of that that I find objectionable is the stealing from the poor; if a rich person makes money via legitimate enterprise and then choose to donate some -- key point in the "works" portion of salvation, both that there is a donation and that it is non-trivial -- and support their life with the rest, rock on.

Batacchio: Also, despite their more literalist bent toward the Bible, they seem to ignore much of its content to a striking degree.

Slacktivist has extensive writings on the (copious) failings of Biblical "literalism".

Anderson: What Christian claims an encyclopedic knowledge of what God wants on all topics? (Though this Protestant would snarkily suggest that the Roman Catholics come rather close to this ....)

Actually, my experience with the religious broadcasting around these parts suggests that, while none would actually admit it, there are many who believe exactly that. Or at least, encyclopedic knowledge of what God wants on anything germane to them.

[SomeOtherDude]

In defense of Sola Fide (and the other “solas: Sola Scriptura, Soli Deo Gloria, Solo Christo, Sola Gratia). It liberates one from the layers of bureaucracies religion (Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox) can place on one’s understanding of God…and then deliver us into purer Anglo bureaucracies.

[Ted]

If we're still allowed to quote rock music, I'm partial to Randy Newman:

Cain slew Abel Seth knew not why
For if the children of Israel were to multiply
Why must any of the children die?
So he asked the Lord
And the Lord said:

"Man means nothing he means less to me
than the lowiliest cactus flower
or the humblest yucca tree
he chases round this desert
cause he thinks that's where i'll be
that's why i love mankind

I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee
from the squalor and the filth and the misery
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me
That's why i love mankind"

The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said "Lord the plague is on the world
Lord no man is free
The temples that we built to you
Have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won't take care of us
Won't you please please let us be?"

And the Lord said
And the Lord said

"I burn down your cities--how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You must all be crazy to put your faith in me
That's why i love mankind
You really need me
That's why i love mankind"

[Hartmut]

"In contrast, I don't know of any religious tradition that says upfront, 'we can't know exactly what God is or wants, but here's a workable approximation until something better comes along.'"
The Baha'i would fit the bill. If I understand their teachings correctly, sentient beings receive only as much of the divine "plan" as they can cope with at their stage of development. Thus all current religions are only transient (transitory?) and will be replaced by something more refined when we are ready for it (and so forth).

Concerning: Salvation by money

Gospel according to Luke, Chapter 21, 1-4
21:1 And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.
21:2 And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites.
21:3 And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all:
21:4 For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.

A billionaire spending millions for charity can of course do more good than the average person but the personal merit of someone who has barely enough for him/herself and still puts efforts into helping others may well be greater. And as far as I understand the bible there is a great difference whether you do good works with the sole/main purpose of achieving salvation (or just a good conscience) or doing them because it is the right thing to do. The former will have their award in this world, the latter in the next.
As I understand Luther, good works are just evidence (not proof) of salvation, i.e. a saved person will do them to his/her ability because that's natural for one to do.
I consider myself a "Lutheran agnostic".

[Batocchio]

Posted by: Anarch | March 15, 2007 at 06:29 PM

Thanks for the tip! (Also, to respond to one of your earlier comments, it's been a while since I read Euthyphro. Maybe time to break it out.) ;-)