Ethics

Adultery/Incest

            In non-Christian societies, people wonder whether they can continue in their jobs if they become Christians. The minister of a new congregation in Moscow asked about that issue. A policeman had asked whether he would have to quit his job if he accepted Christ.

“Everyone that puts away his wife—except for sexual immorality—treats* her like an adulteress, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

            For purposes here, we pass over some technicalities associated with the aorist passive infinitive (μοιχευθῆναι, moicheuthēnai, “makes her to be adulterated[?]”) and deal with more straightforward considerations.

            Treating other people the way we want to be treated implies the fundamental continuity of humankind. Variations between people do exist, but they do not normally deal with matters that impinge on ethical considerations. Supposing the continuity of human nature as the background for the Golden Rule is preferable to supposing that the Golden Rule describes a non-content procedure, the approach of R. M. McIver, “The Deep Beauty of the Golden Rule” in Philosophy and Contemporary Issues, pp. 233-39.

What is the standard and the basis for it?

            In That Hideous Strength (p. 285) C. S. Lewis has Dr. Cecil Dimble telling his wife that polygamy was not wrong for Abraham. That comment seems misleading, but it does raise the question about standards. There seems to be more than one way of speaking of an “ethical standard.” There is (a) the ideal standard, the one that God has always had in mind for everyone everywhere. The ideal standard is based on the originating purpose of God before creation. PURPOSE

            Scripture says so much about marriage because it is a universal experience. Besides, it is an intense experience. Married life calls for more skill and understanding than other relationships. It is harder than living alone because it is more complicated, especially when children enter the picture. It is harder than being a good neighbor, getting along with people at work, or even living together in the community of faith. Marriage affects the full range of life rather than just some aspects of it (total). The actions of one partner likely affect the other, and marriage involves a degree of intimacy. We find it possible—and even fulfilling—to relate to many people in varying degrees of “distance” or “closeness,” but in marriage there is no “distance,” and nothing is hidden. Besides, marriage is all the time whereas work is only part of the waking hours and not every day. Marriage is exclusive of all other relationships; its distinctives are not experienced with anyone else. Finally, marriage is permanent while other relationships are not necessarily for life. In a universal, total, permanent, exclusive relationship, it is imperative that the partners share at least the basic values by which marriage operates.

I.  Luke 22:35-38

Preliminary Factors

            Relativity in ethics seems sensible because (a) incompatible moral beliefs and practices exist, and (b) no one seems able to establish a universal basis for ethical theory. 

            Love gets us past legal minimums of do’s and don’t’s. It provides a basis for going beyond the call of duty, takes into consideration other people’s differing preferences, watches out for negative effects on weaker brothers’ behavior, and concerns itself with good and better, not just with good and bad. Love fosters a concern for enhancing the quality of other people’s lives, not just with the rightness or wrongness of specific behaviors relative to some standard.

            Ethics and morality relate to the interpersonal realm, with humankind. Since persons in relationship constitutes the most complex reality there is, ethics is a complex discipline.

 I.  Not My Body, Not My Choice

            It is the other within the mother. It has its own DNA, its own blood type, its own sex, its own body type, skin tone, eye color, and eventually all the features that make it a distinct individual. Choice does come into the picture; it comes in the mother’s behaviors prior to the pregnancy. We have no right to take out on the baby our own sexual irresponsibility.