Source

This lecture is based on Zulueta, Costales, Jr., and Luaton’s book, Philosophy Made Easy. I think the discussion on value and ethics in chapters 5 and 6 is helpful for this course, CVE05 Christian and Values Education for Adults.

In the 5th chapter, I find an interesting paragraph worthy of being analyzed by the students:

In building a nation, the formation of values among the citizens is essential. Values are vital for productivity and progress and for social justice and stability. All efforts aimed at socio-economic well-being will never be productive if we are wanting for a moral upright citizenry. A nation can only be as strong as its people, and its people can only be as strong as the system of values that they uphold” (p. 60).

Analyzing the above paragraph, I prepared a series of four questions:

• What does the paragraph say?

• How can you say that a nation is strong? How would you describe the qualities of its people?

• Is the Philippines a strong nation? Explain your answer.

• How can we become a nation with a strong people?

Relationship Between Values and Nation Building

The paragraph teaches about the relationship between value formation and nation building. It further describes the qualities of a nation with strong people:

• Socially and economically whole

• Productive and progressing

• Socially just and stable, and

• Socially and economically whole

Value and Its Classifications

Diverse definitions of the term "value" exist. R. B. Perry defines it as a fulfillment of desire. Rokeach describes it as a quality of anything that makes it the best. For G. E. Moore, it is a concept that is difficult to define. Spinoza, on the other hand, understands it as something desirable and has good results for men. Values are classified as biological, economic, affective, social, intellectual, aesthetic, moral, and religious.

Chief End of Man: A Christian Hedonist

Reading this section of the book reminds me of the three basic questions in the Westminster Shorter Catechism: “What is the chief of man?” “What rule God has given to man for us to glorify and enjoy Him forever?” “What does the Bible primarily teach?”

The response to the first question can be divided into two parts: to glory God and to enjoy Him forever. No man can escape fulfilling the first part. As for the second part, this is where we get the idea of Christian hedonism.

A hedonist is someone who makes self-gratification or pleasure his ultimate end in life. This can be in the form of ambition or vices. Entertainment such as gambling, wine, girls, and guys are all part of the equation. Basically, the man lives for himself. In contrast to this secular hedonist, a Christian hedonist finds his ultimate pleasure in God. If one thinks of God as something boring or a “killjoy,” his understanding of both God and pleasure is mistaken. Since God is man’s Creator, God knows the best for him, and He wishes nothing but for his good and happiness. As Psalm 73:25 attests, it is possible for any man living on earth to find his ultimate pleasure in God:

Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

Christian Theistic Ethics

Turning our attention to the 6th chapter, another series of five questions to mind: “Is there a right and wrong way of living? Is there a pattern, a model, an ideal of the good life? If so, where can one find it? What is the good life for man? How should men act?” (p. 70).

I find two paragraphs from the chapel useful for class discussion:

Ethics, as a part of philosophy, examines all human conduct. . . . To live and to have a fuller life, one must know what he is living for. This is one of the most important considerations of ethics, to investigate the meaning and purpose of human life. This is the very essence of Socrates’ ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ For Plato, ethics is the supreme science, the apex in the hierarchy of human values, which is ultimately concerned with the attainment of life’s greatest good and goal – HAPPINESS” (pp. 70-71).

Ethics is a branch of philosophy dealing with actions and values . . . . and to the goodness and badness of motives and ends of such actions” (p. 71).

To qualify as ethical or good work, the criteria include a standard, motive, and end. And I find Cornelius Van Til’s concept of Christian Theistic Ethics as both philosophically sound and very useful.

The object of study in Christian ethics is primarily the human will, which is the immediate source of human action. However, it doesn’t mean that both the intellect and emotion are excluded from ethical discussion.

Given the focus of the subject under study is the human will, literature on the subject deals with three questions related to human action.

• What is the motive of human will/action?

• What is the standard of human will/action?

• What is the end or purpose of human will/action?

As for the source of material for Christian ethics, we have to distinguish between the Christian source and the non-Christian source. Of course, even “Christian” philosophers, as demonstrated by literature on the subject, utilize this non-Christian source.

Cornelius Van Til identifies this non-Christian source as the “experience of the human race” or the “autonomous moral consciousness of man." On the other hand, the Christian philosopher true to its name derives its source of material for Christian ethics from the Bible, or “the revelation of the self-contained God," “the ontological Trinity as found in the Scripture.”

Basic Presuppositions: Epistemological and Metaphysical

When it comes to epistemological presuppositions, the question of authority, the final court of appeal, or the ultimate reference point is very important. We find here that similar questions and objects of study received different answers. We cannot then avoid asking, “What causes the difference in answer?" Van Til answers this question:

For Christian ethics the revelation of the self-contained God, the ontological Trinity, as found in Scripture, is the ultimate reference point in all ethics as well as in all other questions. For non-Christian ethics the autonomous moral consciousness of man is the ultimate reference point in all ethical as well as in all other questions (p. 20).

Here, the influence of sin on moral consciousness of man is inescapable if we take the Bible as the source of ethics. We are informed that man’s moral consciousness is corrupt and totally depraved. How then can it be a reliable source of answers to ethical problems with its current state? It needs to be regenerated for it to become a reliable source of ethical information. From here it is clear that man’s basic problem is not his finitude but ethical:

Perhaps the most fundamental difference between all forms of non-Christian ethics and Christian ethics lies in the fact that, according to the former, it is man’s finitude as such that causes his ethical strife, while according to the latter it is not finitude as such but created man’s disobedience of God that causes all the trouble” (p. 31).

Shifting our attention to metaphysical questions, the question of the relationship between the will of man and its ultimate environment is unavoidable:

The same difference between the Christian and the non-Christian position meets us again when we consider the metaphysical presuppositions of the ethical life. In a discussion of the metaphysical presuppositions of the ethical life, we deal with the will of man from the point of view of its ultimate environment (p. 33).

Is human personality independent of its environment? If it is not independent of but dependent upon its environment, how then can it be held responsible for its choices? Can there be any ethics if the will is wholly independent? Can there be any ethics if the will is wholly dependent? (p. 33).

The Place of the Individual

Christian theistic ethics doesn’t see a contradiction between the collective and the individual, though the priority starts with the latter. The self-realization of the individual has an appropriate place in the program of God. Due to the limitation of this article, I could not describe the place of the collective. Instead, I want to focus on how the will of the individual can be capable of reflecting God’s glory self-consciously. Here the will must develop spontaneity and determination in order to achieve momentum. Van Til describes what he meant by these terms:

Man must work out his own will; that is, he must develop his own will first of all. Man’s will needs to become increasingly spontaneous in its reactivity. Man was created so that he spontaneously served God. For this reason he must grow in spontaneity (p. 45).

. . . Man's will needs to become increasingly fixed in its self-determination. In other words, man must needs develop the backbone of his will. . . . man had to develop his self-determination. Man’s God is absolutely self-determinate; man will be God-like in proportion that he becomes self-determining and self-determinate under God. In proportion that man develops his self-determination does he develop God’s determination or plan for his kingdom on earth. God accomplishes his plans through self-determined characters. An unstable man would be useless in the kingdom of God” (pp. 45-46).

. . . man’s will must increase in momentum. Man’s will would naturally increase in momentum in proportion to that it increased in spontaneity and self-determinateness. Yet the point of momentum must be separately mentioned. As man approaches his ideal, the realization of the kingdom of God, the area of his activity naturally enlarges itself. Just as the manager of a growing business needs to increase with his business in alertness, stability and comprehensiveness of decision, so man, with the development of his progress toward his ideal, would have to develop momentum in order to meet his ever increasing responsibility” (p. 46).

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Grace and peace!