Thank you again, Pr. Eckstein, for this ongoing exchange. From my end, I think we're making progress; this is helping me to clarify my own thought, and to try to communicate better. I appreciate that your writing is clear and direct, unlike so many academics whose writing is resolutely elliptical and obscure.
OK, I'm not sure I understand the distinction you are trying to make. Are you saying that "rules" show us WHAT must be done but not WHY? Or, to use your football analogy, are you saying that "rules" are abstract and we can't really understand them unto they are "played out" in concrete, particular human situations? I'm trying to understand what you're getting at here.[/i]
I think the suggestion embedded in the football analogy is where I want to go. Yes, in a sense, the rules are abstract. But more than that, they are simply a formal structure within which the game is actually played. Or to use another analogy, the rules are the scaffolding on which the game is actually constructed. And yes, we can't know what the life of the game of football is like until we play it, or until we see it played. And yes, I am always fundamentally interested in concrete, particular human situations. It's in such situations that we find morality occurring, isn't it?
You're right, though -- I don't think rules in themselves can ever show us "why" something is to be done. I'm not even convinced that rules in themselves can even show us "what" must be done.
If I understand you here correctly (and maybe I don't?), you seem to be saying the Law cannot produce "morality" - and by "morality" you see to mean a person who actually desires to do the good and wants to accomplish it. In other words, you seem to be using the word "morality" to define not merely what a person OUGHT to do but what a person WANTS to do because he/she IS a "moral person." Am I understand you correctly? If so, then I agree with you that the Law cannot make sinners into "moral persons." Only the Gospel, which makes us into New Creations in Christ, can make us into the people who LOVE God's Law and WANT to live according to it. So, and this seems to be one of your concerns, how does the Law produce "moral people" in our culture, that is, in the Left-hand kingdom? My response: it DOESN'T! The purpose of the moral Law in the Left-hand kingdom is NOT to produce "moral people" but to curb sinful behavior and encourage good behavior - regardless the motivations people may have for avoiding evil or doing good. Simply put, the purpose of the Law in the Left-hand kingdom is to keep us sinners from destroying ourselves. However, in the Right-hand Kingdom, where the Gospel produces truly "moral people," that is, people who love God and trust His Word and want to obey Him, the Law then functions in its proper sense, that is, it shows us what God's will is for our lives of love. Simply put, the condemning/curbing function of God's Law is not some inherent in the Law itself but is the Law's response to unbelievers who reject God's Law as God's will for our lives of love. Does any of this help clarify things?[/i][/b]
Yes, I think this does clarify some things, particularly about your own position. But for me, some dark and congested problems remain. For instance, when trying to think through what morality is, I don't ask questions about what people "desire," or what they "want." That seems mostly irrelevant to morality. I may "desire" the best for my children, and so I discipline them severely, and thereby drive them away from what may be best. When trying to think through what morality is, I am much more interested in ethical performance -- I ask questions about what informs the practical, on-the-spot decisions people make about what may be the proper moral action to perform (or to refrain from performing) in that immediate situation. And here I think law (understood as a set of rules) is of limited assistance. At best, law (or rules) can provide some of that scaffolding I mentioned upstream, but not much else. That's because law (or rules) are broad and generic (as they must be), and don't provide much of the specific instruction that is critical for making moral judgments in an immediate context.
For example, look at Luther's Small Catechism, the first section on the Ten Commandments, the sixth commandment. In the Kolb and Wengert edition, it reads as follows:
You are not to commit adultery.
What is this? Answer:
We are to fear and love God, so that we lead pure and decent lives in word and deed, and each of us loves and honors his or her spouse.
That clearly sets some boundaries, and invokes some ideals. It is scaffolding. But it also leaves a lot of empty space. Just what does a "pure and decent life" look like, on a day to day basis, when moral judgments have to be rendered? Luther does not tell us. Exactly which behaviors are excluded in each and every episode of married life, as I try to follow the rule that I "love and honor" my spouse? Luther does not tell us. That's because, I would argue, that no law, no rule, no rubric, ever can. And that's because no law, no rule, no rubric can ever offer us an exhaustive inventory of application of itself.
One response to all this might be to say, "C'mon, Pearson, you can't plausibly expect morality to be reduced to the minutiae of momentary decisions people make in highly constrained situations. Morality is big-picture stuff. Without an eternal, transcendent, abstract and idealized "moral law" to provide that big picture, everything collapses into a subjectivist shambles. Right?" No. Wrong. I emphatically do plausibly expect morality to include, first and foremost, that minutiae of momentary decisions people make in highly constrained situations. That's in fact where nearly all moral judgments normally occur, isn't it? Temptations and uncertainties abound in this life, and the rule book may not be available or definitive when you need it. Something else will have to be sought out.
But it is not certainly not the case that the something else can only be, in your words, Pr. Eckstein, "some undefined feeling that is at the whims of whatever a person thinks is good for himself or someone else." The moral battle here does not reduce down to only two contestants: either a subjectivist and emotivist pernicious relativism, or the "moral law." That's a false alternative. I suspect a more morally robust approach is to take the long view, and focus on the development of each individual's moral character over time by immersing them in a culture largely normed by ethical practices, where persons can learn how to make those moral judgments in those highly constrained situations by participating in such ethical practices, and then absorbing the standards that define the right and good, standards that can be actually applied in a myriad of day-to-day situations. Could this possibly work? How might we create conditions under which this sort of model could be realized?
Those are the kinds of questions I'm inclined to ask, and the sort of answers I'd like to discover.
P.S. Just one other thing, if I may: at one point, Pr. Eckstein, you say: ". . . in the Right-hand Kingdom, where the Gospel produces truly "moral people," that is, people who love God and trust His Word and want to obey Him. . ."
Here's my question: do you think "being obedient" is the same thing as "being moral"? Thanks.
Tom Pearson
Tom, sorry for my delayed response. Other things have been demanding my time. I have time for only a brief response here.
First, your respsone (quoted above) helps me understanding where you're coming from. Simply put, I think I agree with Ed Engelbrecht who in a post after yours (quoted above) made the point that God sets general boundaries with His Law and then gives us freedom to make rational moral decisions in particular cases with the general principle of the Law being our guiding foundation.
Second, to give a concrete example, Luther explains "Thou Shalt Not Murder" not only as refraining from harming our neighbor in his body (which means punching my neighbor in the nose because I don't like him is breaking the 5th commandment!) but also positively as helping my neighbor in his time of need (which means that the 5th Commandment means if my neighbor is starving, and I have the ability to feed him, the 5th commandment teaches I should do that). Even civils laws like speed limits on city streets are a concrete application of the general principle expressed in the 5th commandment. In addition, killing a developing human being in the womb is also breaking the 5th commandment. In fact, Jesus points out that BEFORE GOD even hatred for others is "murder" in His eyes - and so we Christians repent of our hateful thoughts/desires BEFORE GOD even though there are not civil laws against hateful THOUGHTS (although some liberals might like to imprison some conservatives for the way we think -

)
I don't know if this answers your questions, but this is my brief response to what you said quoted above. Simply put, I think God's Law is somewhat like "policy based governance" when it comes to concrete behavior: The policy (God's Law, if you will) sets the boundaries within which indivuals have freedom to act in particular situations without being constantly "micro-managed." In other words, based on His Law, God expects that discerning what is "moral," that is, what is good or evil, should be obvious in particular situations. So, for example, "living a chaste and decent life" (6th commandment) means that is should be obvious to me that I should not view porn nor should I force my wife to have sex when she is ill and treat her as a object of my lust. As Paul says in Romans 13, the Law can be understood as: "Love does no harm to the neighbor."