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Thoughts on religion, politics, life and death. And other banned topics.

Values Clarification


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I’ve been through half a dozen values clarification sessions in my life. I never liked them. For one thing, I never thought they helped clarify anyone’s values. Typically, the group is presented with a hypothetical scenario requiring the sacrifice of one or more members to guarantee survival of those that remain. Because the scenarios are always hypothetical, they always lack the real detail of a genuine situation. They force you to make decisions based on stereotypes when a real situation would require a much more complete and nuanced understanding. In addition, since no one really dies, the entire process is overlaid with a sense of academic curiosity that I find repugnant. We sit in our group calmly rationalizing the relative value of this or that human being based on gender, race, age, occupation, general knowledge, or usefulness to the group all the while knowing full well that the value of each one is incalculable. The values that become clarified are the values of those who devise the experiments.

God seldom asks or answers hypothetical questions. He has a way of asking very pointed and practical questions: Where are you? Did you eat the fruit I told you not to eat? Where is your brother? What do you see? Is the maker of the eye unable to see? Do you want to be well? What do you want?

One of the classic questions aimed like an arrow at Christians is this: What about those who have never heard of Christ? Are they condemned because of their ignorance? Behind such questions is a silent accusation of injustice. If God requires faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, then those who have no opportunity to hear of Jesus certainly cannot believe in him and must be condemned. This certainly seems unfair. Why would a just God condemn those who have not heard along with those who have willfully rejected Jesus?

The Apostle Paul tackles these question in the book of Romans. He makes clear that there is no such thing as simple ignorance. Instead, Paul says that people “suppress the truth by their wickedness.” He claims that “God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” The visible and tangible world testifies to the invisible God. Of course, there are many today who claim that nothing can be known of God—not even whether he exists—based on examination of the natural world. But such claims are based on an incomplete epistemology, one that tends to emphasize method and ignore the knowing subject. Besides, Paul says of those who persist in godlessness that “their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” They become unable to know God through his handiwork.

Nevertheless, Paul tells us that we will be judged according to what we have done, not according to what propositions we have given mental assent to. Those born under the Law—Jews—will be judged by the Law. Those who do not have the Law will be judged without the Law. Paul’s position is that everyone—with or without the Law—has done things they know they should not have done. They have acted from selfishness, meanness, cowardice, or malice. Those without the Law will be judged by their own guilt and by their hypocrisy, since they have condemned in others what they themselves have done. This fact, that none of us lives up to our own standards to say nothing of the standards of others, is an important clue about our human nature. Something in us demands perfection, and we are not up to it. What is this something, and where does it come from?

So there are no innocents undeserving of condemnation. Yes, there are some who are ignorant of Christ, but their ignorance is culpable, and they will be judged according to what they know, not according what they do not know. But what of you, O Accuser? If you are really concerned about those who do not yet know Christ, are you spending yourself as Paul did to bring the knowledge of the gospel to them? Or do you seek to divert God’s attention from your own sin by accusing him of injustice? There are some who have not heard Christ, but you have heard. What will you do with what you have heard?

Clarify this.

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2 responses to “Values Clarification”

  1. An innate ethical sense is indeed a powerful argument. However, scientists who study animal behavior are finding more and more that some animals also appear to have a sense of guilt or shame about certain actions. This is not the same as an ethical sense, but it could help explain the development of one. From the other end of the issue, social scientists question whether we really do have an innate sense of right and wrong. Differences across cultures suggest that any innate sense, if there is one, is powerfully shaped by environment and context. In other words, humans may not be unique in having an innate ethical sense and may not even have one.

  2. To me, the fact that all men have some sort of sense of what is inherently right or wrong is one of the greatest arguments against evolution. How did such a sense develop? Where did it come from? How did any kind of standard come to exist? To my knowledge, there is no such thing in the animal world.

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