Thought for today

Maanantain rukous

Herra Jumala, taivaallinen Isä,
sinä olet ottanut meidät palvelukseesi.
Vahvista meitä, ettemme väistä kutsuasi,
kun sinä tahdot käyttää meitä
valtakuntasi työssä.
Auta meitä unohtamaan se, mikä on takana,
ja lähtemään tielle,
jonka sinä avaat eteemme.
Kuule meitä Poikasi Jeesuksen Kristuksen,
meidän Herramme tähden.

(Kirkkokäsikirja II)

Moral law

"When you say there's too much evil in this world you assume there's good. When you assume there's good, you assume there's such a thing as a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. But if you assume a moral law, you must posit a moral Law Giver, but that's Who you're trying to disprove and not prove. Because if there's no moral Law Giver, there's no moral law. If there's no moral law, there's no good. If there's no good, there's no evil. What is your question?"

—Ravi Zacharias

According to The Free Dictionary by Farlex “The rules of behavior an individual or a group may follow out of personal conscience and that are not necessarily part of legislated law in the United States. Moral law is a system of guidelines for behavior. These guidelines may or may not be part of a religion, codified in written form, or legally enforceable. For some people moral law is synonymous with the commands of a divine being. For others, moral law is a set of universal rules that should apply to everyone”.

Moral law is something stated in the personal conscience, not in the law. In today’s speak it is something a person decides to follow, as in I’ll be a Christian and I’ll follow their Moral law, or I’m a Buddhist so I follow their Moral law. There is no one Moral law above another, just personal opinions.

In Mere Christianity C. S. Lewis claims that “The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys”. But what if there is no “real” moral law, with capital letters? What if each one of us is following their own moral laws?

For instance, according to Kant , “the source of the good lies not in anything outside the human subject, either in nature or given by God, but rather is only the good will itself. A good will is one that acts from duty in accordance with the universal moral law that the autonomous human being freely gives itself. This law obliges one to treat humanity – understood as rational agency, and represented through oneself as well as others – as an end in itself rather than (merely) as means to other ends the individual might hold. This necessitates practical self-reflection in which we universalize our reasons”.

In other words, there is no higher Moral law. The humans themselves make the moral law from their good will. Sadly we know that not many of us have enough good will to create an universal set of moral laws. And if someone does create them, there is no reason or obligation to follow them, but your duty.

And how many of us are willing to do that duty? Just out of kindness of our hearts.

C. S. Lewis states in Mere Christianity that “Strictly speaking, there are no such things as good and bad impulses. Think once again of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the “right” notes and the “wrong” ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or set of instincts: it is something which a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts”.

According to this, if we trust our instincts to lead the way, to tell us to “do our duty”, “choose the right thing” it will not work. The instincts are not wrong. We need to eat, to sleep, to seek security and we need to procreate. But there is a place and time for all this. And if we trust ourselves to choose what is right and wrong it will not work.

Like Ravi Zacharias says, without a moral Law Giver, there is no moral law. Or in Albert Einstein’s words “God did not create evil. Just as darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of God.” 

 

Did you find this post interesting and would like to know more?

 

To know the basis of Moral law, read first Natural law. 

To continue with the series, read Which moral law to choose.

Thought for today

Saturday Book Review

A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven by Chris Loehmer Kincaid

Chris Loehmer Kincaid writes about her Mission trip to Kenya, Africa. The goal of the trip was to educate the Kenyans about disease prevention and to share the word of Christ. What a found most compelling about the book was her quest to surrender her life to Christ and find the meaning of her visit, what God wanted to accomplish with the time she spent in Kenya.

The author tells us how mission trip was the last thing she had on mind. It was through many consequences and nudges from God that she finally understood God was calling her to visit Africa. Sometimes we can be quite hardheaded to understand what God is telling us, and I found Chris’s honesty compelling. The way how she tells about her own down comings and how she feels not able to fulfill God’s calling in her life is both raw and touching.

The story starts while the author is still in the States. We get to see how she prepares for the journey with her daughter Val, who travelled to Africa with her. And how her worries make her doubt her decision and calling.

Chris spends two weeks in Kenya, seeing the reality of a developing country, the beauty of the countryside, goodness of people, poverty and need of the slums and the hunger for God’s love that the people have. Even though the author gets to help orphans, commune with AIDS victims and to educate the Masai people about hygiene and disease prevention, she feels lost and alone. Chris keeps asking, why is she in Africa? What is the meaning of her visit? What kind of difference her two weeks can make to the people’s lives?

There are answers. As the representatives of the organization say, it is very impressive for the local people to see how far you have come to here to share the time and information with them. But as in all of our lives, some things are left unanswered when Chris returns to the States. Only after the trip she sees the differences that the visit to Africa made in her own life. But finally there is an answer, the author says, she discovered a God she never knew before.

In Chris’s own words “My first book, “A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven – One Woman’s Trip to Africa: My Story”, was published by Life Sentence Publishing in December 2012. This memoir tells the story of my mission trip to Kenya in 2006 and how it changed how I look at life and how I look at the God I love and serve. After the book was published, I was drawn to return to Kenya, where my daughter had already decided to start a nonprofit organization to help the people we had met there. We may not be able to change the entire world, but we can improve the world for many people.”

The Amazon tells about the author: Chris Kincaid has been writing since she was in the third grade, and though she has worked in the medical field for over 20 years, she has never lost the desire to put words to paper. However, her family and her faith have always come first, making some days a challenge as she continues to work fulltime, mentor a local Kinship kid, mentor her church’s college students and remain active as a member of the state society for her career in medical assisting. She lives in northern Wisconsin with her husband, four cats and one dog. Her two children, Nick and Val, are grown and living on their own. They both share their mother’s passion for Africa.

I found the book interesting and thought provoking. I enjoyed reading Chris's story, her struggle with the African culture and the difference with Western efficiency thinking. I also identified with her quest for meaning, the reason why God had chosen her to go to and what she was supposed to do. Her honesty spoke to my heart and her vivid descriptions of African culture, people and landscape made reading like participating in her story. I highly recomend the book for everyone and anyone.

Chris Loehmer Kincaid has an author page in Amazon.

You can also find Chris in Facebook.

LIFE SENTENCE Publishing has provided me a complimentary copy of the book but the opinions expressed here are solely mine.

http://www.amazon.com/Time-Every-Purpose-Under-Heaven/dp/1622450302/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1388617198&sr=1-1