Living Water

Knowledge of what is right versus the strength to do what is right.

"For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it." (Deut. 30:11-14)

Within our hearts we usually have an inkling of what is the morally right course of action. In Deuteronomy, Moses presents the 10 Commandments and makes clear that these commandments are written in our hearts that we make follow them and on our tongues that we may speak them. We know this Word of God not in the letter but through an unspoken relationship with the Divine.

Some people would claim that this inborn knowledge of right and wrong is not theological in nature, but rather biological. Biologists like Marc Hauser suggest that our intrinsic sense of morality is the product of natural selection, as following certain moral codes tends to preserve a species or a society.

The exact mechanism and turn of events that led to the fact that we have this Word of God written in our hearts is not important, and while most Conservative Quakers would not take issue with various theories of how evolution took place or the process of natural selection, to see morality as biological rather than teleological presents certain problems.

First of all, if morality is seen simply as a tool for self-preservation or the end result of centuries of natural selection, it becomes very easy to decide to disregard that moral sense when it seems advantageous to us. We know it is wrong to kill, but if someone can argue that more lives will be saved, values defended or world conditions improved, we may decide to go to war. Making grave decisions on what are right and wrong courses of action based on what we feel the outcome of those decisions will be is an act of vanity. Events in the world unfold with too great a degree of complexity for us as individuals or groups of individuals to know for certain what the end result of our actions will be. Yet we regularly defy God's laws for the apparent convenience of men -- often with unintended, distratrous consequences.

Moreover, in situations where we know what the right course of action is, how can we stay motivated to take that course of action, particularly if we have no fear of negative repercussions? What of the embezzler who may feel that their employer is evil and deserves to be stolen from? What of the wife who feels neglected by her husband and considers an affair? If we are careful to avoid being caught, and if the people we are wronging are in the wrong themselves, why don't we simply commit these sins and feel the satisfaction of having had our way?

In order to stay on the path of righteousness, we must see righteousness as its own reward. While we love our neighbors as ourselves, sometimes our neighbors are hard to love, and in order to remain moral we have to look to higher, non-human-centric reasons to behave ethically towards them. Humankind, the earth, our daily life situations, are all transitory. They are as the grass, and will pass away like the passing of the seasons. In God's time, we will pass in mere moments.

This being the case, why not take the transient, illicit pleasures of life because they are there for the taking? If the reason that monogamy is right is that it supports the development of children, why not engage in adultery if no children are to be produced? If the reason we know stealing is wrong is that it viloates an inbred social contract, as someone like Hauser may contend, why should we avoid the temptation to steal if we don't think we will get caught? If the reasons that we have for walking a righteous path are biological or practical, and if they are based only on what is right or even desirable for us in the moment, our morality is built on shaky grounds indeed.

Fairness, justice, balance, love -- we need to see these things as divine and everlasting. And when we are moral because it is what God wishes for us, and because we delight only in His presence in our hearts, then we can succeed in being moral when otherwise we might fail.