ETHICS

CHRISTIAN ETHICS

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      Why, please explain, does Christianity burden itself with the topic of ethics?

      If ethics were a true thing, then why is there no mention of ethic, ethics, ethical, moral, morals, or morality in the Bible? There exists the Greek “ethos” as “customs” in Luke 1:9 “According to the custom of the priest's office,” but customs are not ethics.

      If a man creates a new standard of behavior, then does the new standard of behavior supersede the standard previously handed down by God? Can man’s scale of right and wrong be of a greater weight than God’s scale of right and wrong?

      If Aristotle used the term “ethika” around 330 B.C., a term that is said to imply ‘matters of character,’ then in what manner does Aristotle’s ethics rule over the thoughts, behavior, and character of Christians? If a man today were to invent a new word, perhaps the word “lovika,” must a Christian then contort his love to meet the definition of lovika? Yes lovika is ridiculous, and so is ethika.

      Ethics, as is typically understood in the English language, has no bearing on Christian behaviors, not on Christian character, nor on Christian spirituality. Ethics is man’s invention, not God’s, and no invention of man’s can rule over the laws of God.

      In the beginning, God created Creation; man did not create Creation. God created man; man did not create God. God created the laws of Nature; man did not create the laws of Nature. God’s laws dictate what is right and wrong; man’s ethics do not dictate what is right and wrong.

      Surely it is a difficult thing for many individuals to accept, that ethics is a man’s invention, and that not all inventions of man’s are useful.

      Jesus taught a spirituality that included perhaps the most perfect psychology ever known to man. Jesus taught “But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” (Matthew 5:37). But which teacher is to be trusted and followed; Jesus, or the long-winded Aristotle? No man can follow the teachings of both Jesus and Aristotle, and so then, which teaching is to be followed? Which? Aristotle will, of course, always be preferred over Jesus, for man much prefers acceptance from man, and if a man claims that Aristotle’s ethics is a true thing, then other men will deny Christ and accept the belief in Aristotle so that the men might gain the approval of other men.

      Ethics is a man’s invention, for men of long wind to ramble endlessly about for thousands of years without arriving at a conclusion. A Christian can be honest without submitting to Aristotle’s ethics, and a Christian can love without submitting to Aristotle’s ethics, but will a Christian choose Christ over Aristotle?

      Honesty, love, compassion, and patience are actions that a Christian does, and his actions are judged by God’s laws, not by Aristotle. The man who loves, his behavior and character are proper because he loves, but the man who does not love, he is the man who vexes himself with questions and dialogues of whether an act of love might be right or wrong. Western philosophy was born upon the questions and dialogues of men who themselves chose endless debates rather than to simply become of proper character. Only the most honorable of souls will find within themselves the strength and determination to let go the grasp upon man’s teachings, letting the words fall to the ground, and to then walk upon his own two feet with the decision to become the love and the righteousness that the words spoke of.

      “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” John 7:24

      What is righteous? Within the creative laws of Creation, the laws established by the Creator, and binding upon all men, is the law that all things are composed of three or more components. The man who is righteous, he knows within himself what things exist – and what things that are absent – that render him righteous. Within the state of righteousness, a state of being that possesses an innocence and purity of essence unlike any other ideology’s goal, there is never at any time a question of what is right or wrong, and only the man who is not righteous can wrestle with Aristotelian ethics.

      And the man spoke “God is love, and love is my only standard, for it is from love that I exist.”