Liturgies

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In this post -modern world there is a view that my perceptions about truth are as valid as your perceptions about truth however incompatible they may be. Rowan Williams is suggesting that this is not always the case. Some ideas of truth can lead us into some very dark places.

Story. A few years ago a man got onto a train. He was scruffy, dirty, had lipstick all over his face and a half-empty bottle of whiskey in his pocket. From the smell one might have deduced that he had not seen a bath for sometime. However he sat down next to a priest and started to read his newspaper. After a few minutes he turned to the priest and said ”Father, can you tell me what causes arthritis.’ The priest saw this as an opportunity to deliver a small sermon and replied  “My son arthritis is the result of sin. It is caused by not keeping oneself clean, by drinking too much and by associating with loose women. Arthritis is god’s punishment for those who turn their backs on him.” “I see” said the man and turned back to his newspaper. After a few minutes the priest had a pang of conscience and turned to the man saying  “I hope I did not sound unsympathetic. How long have you had arthritis?”  “No problem father” replied the scruffy man “I don’t have arthritis. I was just reading in the newspaper that Pope Benedict has arthritis.

This story is probably not true but it is a story that has ‘morals’ and the morals of this story are about judging people by their appearance, making assumptions about why someone is asking a question and about answering questions in a way that makes you feel good but which does not help the questioner. Morals, or moral truths, like these are also found in abundance in The Little Prince.

 

Don Cupitt in his book Above Us Only Sky defines moral truth as “clusters of values that shape our life-policies.” It is different to objective truth. Objective truth includes things like scientific truth, testimonial or legal truth and deductive truth. These truths are easily identified by their origins and the ways in which they can be tested. And, because their origins are identifiable, their shortcoming can, sometimes, be predicted.

Don Cupitt’s definition of objective truth is “the current consensus about what works.” It does not play a large part in religion or morality or in the actual living of our everyday lives. Our very existence depends on the objective truth about the forces which keep the atomic nucleus together but few of us will worry about them in the next few weeks or months.

Moral Truths do shape our day to day activities but their origins are much less clear cut and their ‘testability’ much less certain when compared with objective truths. Traditionally many of our moral truths come from the church and from books like the Bible and Koran - which many would claim are works of fiction. But we can also find moral truths in our own lives, in the lives of those around us and from books, plays, films etc. As in stories about Little Princes or scruffy men on trains, moral truth can be found in fiction as well as non-fiction.

We can consider some examples of moral truth and compare briefly the teachings of the bible and church with other potential sources of moral truth.

What behavioural qualities define us as human.

The Bible story of the Good Samaritan is an excellent example. It is a story still relevant after two thousand years and one which is so well entrenched in our culture that it has changed our language. A ‘samaritan’ is no longer someone from Samaria but someone who is good. Linguistically, bad samaritans have been phased out of existence!

An alternative  source of discussion about fundamental human qualities can be found in Raimond Gaita’s auto-biographical account of his childhood  ‘Romulus, My Father’. The gentle and beautifully written ‘Never Let Me Go’ by Kenzuo Ishiguro ultimately reveals the grim account of children raised almost as farm animals, their destiny being to die early having provided their vital organs for transplantation. ‘The Chrysalids’ by John Wyndham tells a story set in a post-nuclear-holocaust world where those born with the slightest abnormality are cast out of the community to fend for themselves in the forest.  In the television series ‘Star Trek’, when the voyagers arrive at a new planet which contains life they first ask themselves if the life is the equivalent of dogs and cows back on earth or is it equivalent to the human travellers and thus entitled to be treated with the respect that we feel should exist between one human and another. Pity that the voyagers who arrived on Australia’s shore in 1788 were not all so enlightened.

Revenge, justice, punishment, forgiveness

This is a much used topic in the bible and in theology but the account which recently caught my eye concerned a priest who admitted to 1400 cases of sexual abuse of children. He had felt able to continue committing the acts for so long because each time he went to confession he was given absolution by one of 35 different priests! One cannot but feel that there is something amiss in this theology.

This topic is more thoughtfully dealt with by Shakespeare in ‘The Tempest’ and ‘The Merchant of Venice’. It appears in several of Graham Green’s books including ‘Brighton Rock’, ‘The Man Within’ and ‘The Quiet American’. The author who has made guilt his specialty is Bernhard Schlink who wrote ‘The Reader’ a novel about an illiterate woman who had a minor and somewhat equivocal role in a world war two concentration camp and who goes on trial after the war. Schlink has written other novels set in more mundane circumstance (‘The Weekend’ and ‘Summer Lies’) as well as an academic treatise, ‘Guilt about the Past’.

Sacrifice

Sacrifice is a major biblical theme from Abraham to Jesus and beyond. This theme is picked up in may ways by a variety of authors. CS Lewis uses it overtly in the Narnia Chronicles and Graham Green, in a more nuanced way, in The Heart of the Matter. But the story which tells this moral truth with stark simplicity is Charles Dickens’ ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. Stanley loves Lucie but Lucie loves Charles. Unfortunately Charles is locked up in a French prison awaiting an appointment with the guillotine. Stanley visits Charles in prison, exchanges clothes with him and Charles walks free to be reunited with Lucie. It is Stanley who keeps Charles appointment with the guillotine. The same theme is used in the classic movie ‘Casablanca’.

Thus moral truth is widely available, perhaps too widely. But humans are sentient beings. We are conscious of ourselves and other similar humans around us. We are aware of our past and of a future in which we will be part but also a future in which we will not be part. Ultimately it is up to each one of us to identify, evaluate and prioritise the moral truths we encounter. Perhaps that is one of the principal qualities and one of the principal responsibilities of being human. In choosing our preferred moral truths we should remember Rowan William’s words that some seemingly benign moral truths can lead us into some very dark places.

Terry Pratchett who died a few weeks ago was a prolific source of moral truths in his discordant novels. A the very end of the one titled “The Truth” he says,

“Nothing has to be true forever – just for long enough to tell us the truth.”

Peter Bore

April 2015

Reading 1 - From ‘The Little Prince’. Antoine de St Exupery 1944

Reading 2 - From ‘Faith in the Public Square’ Rowan Williams 2112  Introduction to Chapter 24

Gospel reading - The Good Samaritan