On Doing Good to/for Others [“Charity”]

Foreword

This paper is in the category of… do as I say, not as I do, because I am a hypocrite to say it. 

My World View et Al.

The picture [world view] that informs this paper is presented in a separate post on this blog.  [It definitely needs expanding into a book (which I am doing), but the skeleton is all there.] 

As needed, I have included in this post — as asides [following the main body] — some terse defence of parts of my various views — which includes part of the above-noted picture.  Ideally, the reader could read only the main body. 

The Term “Mainstream Christian[ity]”

Suffice it here to say that I use the term mainstream Christianity to denote a set of popular views that I consider to be formally incorrect.  (Actually, the particular view I refer to herein is from the subset:  notions that I have gathered to be widely held by Christians but not formally argued anywhere.) 

On Doing Good to/for Others [“Charity”]

The Original Fall [in Heaven]

The impression of the author is that… the mainstream Christian picture of the original fall in Heaven is not especially thoroughly thought through, and quietly imagines that it was all about one person — Satan — who had “bad wiring” [not to mention the view that there was no original Fall in Heaven].  [If that impression is incorrect… I apologise, as that would make the foregoing aspersion unnecessary (as well as wrong).] 

The unfortunate reality was that… although Satan was the instigator and driver of the whole movement… the actions of all involved [Satan and all of the other participants] were not informed by any pathology.[1] 

That is… the reality was that billions[2] of perfectly normal angels, in a perfect environment, all elected to sin. 

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When we think of sin, in this fallen world, we think of the whole range of evils, from relatively minor sins such as lying and cheating on one’s taxes, through to murder and rape and torture and worse. 

It is completely implausible — absolutely untenable — that the perfectly normal, non-pathological angels in Heaven who fell… all decided that a picture like Earth — with billions of persons all living fallen lives, and with murder, torture, vandalism, war and so on — was in any way preferable or desirable.  I am taking this as a given. 

The corollary is that what they desired certainly would have been some other, less disastrously evil picture… with the difference between what they desired and what eventuated being caused/accounted for by the attendant fall. 

[    Aside_01 — About the Attendant Fall    ]

I submit that the evil that these billions of (normal, non-pathological) angels found desirable, in a perfect environment, would have been…  not • embracing what I call the morally negative — directly harming others (or oneself)…  but rather • “merely” rejecting what I call the morally noble or [the morally] positive — doing things for other persons, out of love.  (I have declined to explicate The Fall in Heaven here.  Nonetheless, I venture that one tenet is very plausible (given that sinless angels fell into terrible evil), being that… it would have been much more plausible to them that they could • decline to do some good for others, than that they could • do a small amount of harm to others… without falling.) 

[    Aside_02 — Positive- and Negative-Type Evil    ]

⌘    In other words… (in a perfect environment) these persons decided that they would prefer to live some or all of their lives for themselves, rather than always valuing the needs and desires of others as highly as their own needs and desires. 

The Challenge for Us

The point of all this is conceptually very simple. 

The emphasis is on the point that the angels who sinned were all perfectly normal persons.  …Like you [the reader] and me. 

The question — the question that [this] life is all about (I submit) — is as follows. 

!    If I had been one of the unfallen angels, in the perfect environment in Heaven… would I have been one of the billions of (perfectly normal) persons who elected to  take time out from or give up entirely on [whichever it was]  caring about other persons as highly as myself? 

Life on Earth is very different from life in Heaven.  The two immediate differences are  • that one is fallen and  • that everyone else is fallen.  That is…  • it is a great effort for one [being fallen] to live for others as one does for oneself, and  • it is an effort greater again for one to live for others, when they are all continually inclined towards hurting one. 

Indeed, I suggest (tentatively) that the question is different for us, in praxis — that, whereas the angels in Heaven were considering whether or not to  not  live their entire lives for others (as well as for themselves [“love others as you love yourself” (adaptation of Matt 22: 39)])… the question for a fallen person on Earth is whether or not to  not  live their entire life for themself.  (Conversely… far be it from me to lower the bar.) 

I suggest that there remains this simple, core question in life… of whether or not — in a black-and-white sense — I am prepared to make the effort to live for others. 

[Again] I submit that this is the question that this life asks of us — would I have been one of the falling angels, in Heaven? 

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[1] If and insofar as any pathology was involved — which must surely be strictly theoretical — God not only could, but indeed absolutely should, have dealt with the situation by fixing the pathology. 

[2] There are a few Bible verses that (collectively) suggest that the population of Heaven is of the same order of magnitude as that of Earth.  Even without that… I submit that it seems inconsistent for God’s original (spiritual) creation to be far smaller (nor indeed far larger) than His second (physical) creation.  [The picture for which I argue, in the mentioned book, strongly suggests that the two are of the same order of magnitude in population.] 

[3] The interpretation might be attractive, that the subject is unable to undo the change particularly and precisely because it is not part of — i.e. within — their own moral agency.  This is a neat picture in some aspects, but I venture that it positions the fall as a non-moral pathology, such that • the solution would be for God to remove the pathology and • [such that] the subject would not be morally responsible for any future actions that they would or might not otherwise have done. 

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Asides

Aside_01 — About the Attendant Fall

There are three alternative opposed pictures here. 

One is that the pertinent angels actually intended to fall.  That reduces to the above picture that I have rejected as absolutely untenable. 

The other two are similar… being that the pertinent angels… • did not know or • did not believe… that they would fall. 

There is a rich discussion to be had, around the question of exactly what change the pertinent angels thought they were making… and why it differed from the reality, if it did.  […For which see my above-noted [future at the time of writing] book.]  Fortunately for us, here… we can gloss over that question; all that concerns us is that they were choosing something less bad than a horror like that of Earth — that they desired some picture that did not involve the other future-ly fallen angels, and implicitly themselves, engaging in murder, torture, vandalism, war and so on.

 

Aside_02 — Positive- and Negative-Type Evil

I have developed a picture of morality as having two categories [as above] — or three including the amoral.  [I am aware that there are “virtue”-based moral systems, but those are one-category systems (or two including the remainder as a category), like their evil-based antecedents [I believe].  It is theoretically possible that I simply have not read widely enough [I dislike spending time and effort mastering systems that I am confident are incorrect], but (to the best of my knowledge) it remains true that I have had to work this out for myself.]

Of course, this construct of morality admitting of categorisation into positively evil and positively good deserves a separate, thorough treatment.  At the time of writing, I have not published such anywhere.]  What needs to be said here is that failure of the morally positive has different significance [from positively doing a negative-type evil deed].  

I suggest that a person in Heaven would not fall on account of one instance of (one way or another) not doing the greatest possible good for the greatest possible number of other persons.  In other words, I submit that there are degrees of being morally good in Heaven, just as there are degrees of being morally evil and of doing moral evil and of doing good on Earth. 

The key point is that… conversely, it is still a sin — such as to result in a fall — to substantively reject positive moral good [i.e. whatever it was, exactly, that they did], in spite of this not involving any intent to (directly, positively and substantively) harm any other person.