A Public Conversation about Christianity and Evangelicalism in the 21st Century
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Ends and Means...
The end of the Christian faith is Christ-likeness; that is, to be virtuous as Christ is virtuous. If this is so, then this end justifies any means. Thoughts?
if it is, which i'm not convinced it is, even then, christ-likeness is more the means (or the process) than some arrived-at state, isn't it?
but to follow your point: no, the ends do not justify the means, unless they are the same.
but we are never able to be the "end" (goal) until the "end" (fulfillment), so along the way there is pastoral grace on GOd's part to accept our righteous acts even though they are filthy rags, and to redeem us from motives on through to actions, always gracious along the way. so the end does justify the means, in the sense that the goal justifies the flawed but redeemed activity of pursuing it, as a work in progress.
I had the same reaction as Dustin when I read this question – “EEEEK . . . we’ve been there, haven’t we?”
Even if the end IS Christ-likeness, we have an imperfect understanding of what it is to be like Christ. People who kill abortion doctors, or that church that pickets gay funerals, would say that they are seeking to be virtuous as Christ is virtuous, and that the ends justify the means . . . I would say a) that they are not being Christ-like (but why should my definition of virtue trump theirs?), and b) even if I did agree that at the end of the day their actions would result in less “sin” on earth, doing it through murder, intimidation, and hate does not create a better world, nor do I believe that it brings the “holy warrior” closer to the likeness of Christ.
I think that the means matter. If we are called to be virtuous (a word that makes me nervous b/c of its puritan/Victorian undertones), then we have to BE virtuous in every step we take, rather than looking at some end sum – it’s like the big climax scene in all the superhero/action movies, where the hero can drop the villain out of the window, but then says “no, if I do it, I’ll be just like him . . .”. Maybe the world would be a better place without the Joker, but should Batman forfeit his soul (said in all flippancy, and with the disclaimer that no analogy is perfect).
But if the end (ethically) is Christ-likeness then how can someone pursue the Crusades? That would negate Christ-likeness as an end. The point of my incredibly overly-simplistic syllogism was that in almost all ethical systems the ends are used to justify the means, while in an ethical system in which virtue is meaningful, the means and the ends are the same thing.
Plus I was kind of being flippant, curious how people would react ;).
I also went down that same rabbit-hole, Colin, but I guess that my point is that the people who use un-Christlike means usually think their end IS Christlike, so the proposition is scary nonetheless . . .
Actually I'm not sure that people using unChristlike means do think their ends are Christlike...not in an ethical sense at least, though perhaps in a metaphysical sense. Your point is correct, of course, that ends shouldn't justify means. But the fact is that in pretty much every ethical system that I can think of they eventually do. If you collapse ends into means, which is to say if you make the means (behaving like Christ) the same as the ends (behaving like Christ) you short-circuit what I see as the serious eventual flaw in most (all?) ethical systems. I am not, however, an ethicist by any means so this is all completely off the cuff.
6 comments:
i don't know. is that the end?
if it is, which i'm not convinced it is, even then, christ-likeness is more the means (or the process) than some arrived-at state, isn't it?
but to follow your point: no, the ends do not justify the means, unless they are the same.
but we are never able to be the "end" (goal) until the "end" (fulfillment), so along the way there is pastoral grace on GOd's part to accept our righteous acts even though they are filthy rags, and to redeem us from motives on through to actions, always gracious along the way. so the end does justify the means, in the sense that the goal justifies the flawed but redeemed activity of pursuing it, as a work in progress.
Ends justify the means = Crusades?
I had the same reaction as Dustin when I read this question – “EEEEK . . . we’ve been there, haven’t we?”
Even if the end IS Christ-likeness, we have an imperfect understanding of what it is to be like Christ. People who kill abortion doctors, or that church that pickets gay funerals, would say that they are seeking to be virtuous as Christ is virtuous, and that the ends justify the means . . . I would say a) that they are not being Christ-like (but why should my definition of virtue trump theirs?), and b) even if I did agree that at the end of the day their actions would result in less “sin” on earth, doing it through murder, intimidation, and hate does not create a better world, nor do I believe that it brings the “holy warrior” closer to the likeness of Christ.
I think that the means matter. If we are called to be virtuous (a word that makes me nervous b/c of its puritan/Victorian undertones), then we have to BE virtuous in every step we take, rather than looking at some end sum – it’s like the big climax scene in all the superhero/action movies, where the hero can drop the villain out of the window, but then says “no, if I do it, I’ll be just like him . . .”. Maybe the world would be a better place without the Joker, but should Batman forfeit his soul (said in all flippancy, and with the disclaimer that no analogy is perfect).
But if the end (ethically) is Christ-likeness then how can someone pursue the Crusades? That would negate Christ-likeness as an end. The point of my incredibly overly-simplistic syllogism was that in almost all ethical systems the ends are used to justify the means, while in an ethical system in which virtue is meaningful, the means and the ends are the same thing.
Plus I was kind of being flippant, curious how people would react ;).
I also went down that same rabbit-hole, Colin, but I guess that my point is that the people who use un-Christlike means usually think their end IS Christlike, so the proposition is scary nonetheless . . .
Actually I'm not sure that people using unChristlike means do think their ends are Christlike...not in an ethical sense at least, though perhaps in a metaphysical sense. Your point is correct, of course, that ends shouldn't justify means. But the fact is that in pretty much every ethical system that I can think of they eventually do. If you collapse ends into means, which is to say if you make the means (behaving like Christ) the same as the ends (behaving like Christ) you short-circuit what I see as the serious eventual flaw in most (all?) ethical systems. I am not, however, an ethicist by any means so this is all completely off the cuff.
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