The concepts of good and evil, right and wrong are a fine place to begin any moral or ethical discussion. They are statements of what we value, of Who We Are. They are thus very real in our experience.
At the same time, we know from history (and sometimes not very distant history) that values are subject to change over time and across cultures. Whether we agree with such change or not, the fact that such changes occur is beyond dispute.
My thinking on this subject began many years ago with the opening of Matthew 7: "Judge not, that you not be judged. For with what judgement you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you." This makes perfect sense to me, even more so if one chooses to know that We Are All One. For if there is only one of us then whatever we do to another we indeed (literally) do to ourselves. The "golden rule" also flows naturally from this observation.
In this sense values change over time because our self-concept evolves over time. True, certain values seem deeper and more universal. The classic example is murder, which most people and cultures agree is wrong. The problem comes when we ask whether a particular killing is considered murder. We then discover that the reason murder is considered wrong is because the definition of murder is a "wrongful or unlawful killing". But we'll search in vain for a common definition of what constitutes "wrongful or unlawful" when it comes to killing or anything else.
This leaves us with a dilemma. If we wish to maintain that values have an absolute meaning then whose values are the "right" ones? Not surprisingly, every time and culture offers the same unhelpful answer to that question: "Ours, of course". Yet even in the Bible there is an acknowledgement that values change over time. In Matthew 16:19 Jesus says to Peter: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."
Let me know your thoughts on this and I'll be happy to continue the dialog. |
