God's Standard in the Judgment - 2

[A continuing commentary on some questions raised by friends.]

There are a couple of inherent problems with the idea that humans will be judged on the basis of an eternal, objective standard.

First, the very notion of an “objective standard” for assessing all humans is untenable. All human systems of justice include the notion of intent. Killing someone accidentally is not the same as killing someone on purpose. Killing someone with malice aforethought is not the same crime as killing someone because of sudden, drastic provocation. Some might argue that God can “objectively” assess motive. I argue that humans often operate from mixed motives, so even if God were to “objectively” and accurately assess the motives behind an action, labeling that action good or bad would still involve a subjective decision by God.

Further, how can we imagine a unified, objective standard of judgment when the those being judged range from infants to centenarians, from physicists to people with severe cognitive impairment, from people raised in cannibalistic societies to people reared in stable, warm, stimulating homes. Trying to imagine a single, unified, objective standard for assessing every human across the staggering variety of brain function, social conditioning, religious background and stage of psycho/spiritual/cognitive/social developmental is pointless. You end up with a standard that is so vague or simple that any meaningful application of the standard would require huge subjectivity on the part of the assessor.

Second, one classic approach to the idea of a universal, eternal, unitary standard is to make the simple statement of God's ideal—love God with your entire being and your neighbor as yourself—the standard. This works only if the purpose of the standard is to secure the condemnation of all humanity—a view apparently supported by some passages in Paul. A standard which is impossible to meet is not a meaningful standard. One could reasonably argue that the creator of such a standard invented it as a cover for his animus. Since God created both the standard and the people being measured by the standard, a one hundred percent failure rate by the people is stronger evidence against the creator than against the people. 

I argue it is wholly inappropriate to conflate “ideal” and “standard.” An ideal is a dream, the highest imaginable attainment. The command, “Love God with your entire being and your neighbor as yourself,” is an ideal. It provides guidance for life. It is an impossible standard—impossible to make sense of, impossible to apply, and (according to classic Christian views) impossible to attain.

Impossible to make sense of: are you loving God with your entire being when you are sleeping? When you are intensely engaged in solving a complex math problem? When you are making love to your spouse? Not unless you embrace either pantheism or panentheism. Or you redefine "love" or "entire" or "being" or all three.

The command is a nonsensical standard. It is a compelling, magnificent ideal.

The Ten Commandments will not work as an eternal, universal, objective standard. Jesus specifically declared the “murder commandment” an inadequate standard (Matthew 5:21-22). “Honor your parents” is hugely subjective and situation-contingent. A ten-year-old honoring his strong, capable  mother means something different from an eighty-year-old honoring his feeble, incompetent mother. Not only does the “standard” change. Even the ideal changes. The second commandment is nearly unintelligible in contemporary American culture: “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea” (Exodus 20:4). Sure, we spiritualize this command and gain wisdom for resisting the allure of contemporary “idols.” But we have to put “idol” in quotation marks because when we mean something wholly other than what the original audience understood.

So, neither the Two Commandments nor the Ten Commandments will work as an “eternal, universal, objective” standard. So where do we find the eternal, universal, objective standard? I argue it doesn't exist. Instead, we find a number of Bible passages that explicitly argue for a subjective standard—one that varies with the person and circumstance.

But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required. Luke 12:48

In the parable of the Talents, each servant receives a different trust to administer. Each produces different results. The clear implication is that proportional results are expected not equal results. Matthew 25.

Naaman the Syrian is authorized by the prophet Elisha to bow in the temple of Rimmon in direct contradiction of the second commandment not to bow down to idols. 2 Kings 5:18-19.

If there is a “universal, eternal standard” (note the absence of the word “objective”), it is the deeply rooted, though amorphous, sense of right and wrong that lives in all of humanity. (By “all” I mean the 80 percent of people in the center of a bell distribution curve, not literally 100 percent of humans.) Abraham invoked this “standard” when he challenged God before the destruction of Sodom: “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25). Curiously, the Philistine, Abimelech, lectured God on the basis of this same standard when God threatened him in regard to Abraham's wife. Abimelech said, “Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? Didn't Abraham tell me, 'She is my sister'? And she herself said, 'Yes, he is my brother.' I acted in complete innocence! My hands are clean.” God acknowledges the legitimacy of Abimelech's argument and tells him how to avoid punishment for his unintended violation (Genesis 20:1-7). Paul refers to this standard in Romans: “when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law” (Romans 2:14).

Here is my bottom line: God does what is right in the eyes of intelligent, mature, good humans. The decisions of God are the decisions that would be made by jury of wise people. God is not constrained by an inflexible, unattainable standard. “Justice” is not conformity to a rigid, objective standard. Justice is never a “technicality.” We sense it through some faculty that is essential to the fullness of being human. I argue the human sense of justice is part of the Image of God, the indelible mark of God's involvement in our creation. God does what is right according to this "standard."

Does this idea ultimately give hope or drive us to despair? I'll address that in my next post.