This is the third in an informal trilogy of articles about power, which began with Might, proceeded with Just and Justifier, and is now concluding. Whereas my previous works on the subject have dealt with the matter in parable form, telling stories and then analyzing them, this article is a work of moral philosophy, aimed at starting from zero and concluding with a coherent framework of morality. This article is not apologetic, and assumes the truth of the Christian religion. I do not think the arguments put forth in this article effectively prove the existence of God in any way. The principal question that this article is aimed at is, “what makes God and His Laws moral?”
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Goodness Itself
III. Power and Its Master
IV. The All-Triumphant Will
V. Appendix: Reflections on a few Scriptural Usages of “Right” and “Good”
I. Introduction
Ethical systems are part of every culture. There is no group of people on earth that does not teach their children to discern between “right” and “wrong,” though there is great variance in what actions fall in which category. This is seen quite clearly in the modern world: a tourist of rural Iran will be greeted by a people who find the sight of an adult woman’s hair morally scandalizing, while a wayfarer in the urban regions of the United States may receive a severe verbal chiding for “slut-shaming” a promiscuous woman. Yet despite these regional variances, true moral relativism is quite rare. The conservative Shiite cleric does not believe it is right for any woman to be without her hijab; the progressive American prostitute does not believe that anyone has a right to condemn her lifestyle.
In the West, the judgement-seat of popular morality was historically occupied by a broad Christianity. Even many of the foremost deistic and unitarian theorists of the Enlightenment founded their ethical reasonings on the assumptions of the Christian religion. In modern times, however, the creeds of the humanists and individualists have triumphed over that of the Apostles, and a new champion of popular morality has ascended to the throne: consent. Supposing that a man, by nature, has sovereignty over his own body and self, consent-based ethics (CBE) teaches that he is entitled to do whatsoever he wills with that which is his, so long as any other involved parties give their consent to their involvement. That which is done in accordance with the consent of the involved is held to be above moral reproach, and that which is done without consent to be a great sin; excepting only as punishment for some prior breach of consent.
CBE is seen in a most exemplary manner in the abolition of nearly all sexual mores in the modern West. Foregoing gratuity, I can neither conceive of nor describe a sexual act which, if performed by consenting adults, is not justified under CBE. The sole caveat to sexual libertinism under CBE is pedophilia; the axiom resounds, “children cannot consent [to sex].” Justifications for this axiom vary between philosophers of the consent school. Some believe that children lack the intellectual and developmental capacity to consent, while others believe that it is the power imbalance between children and adults that renders the consent of a child an impossibility. Still yet others reject the axiom altogether, and though this latter perspective is growing in popularity, it is still hated and feared by those belonging to the former, more established, schools of thought.
The libertinism of CBE has proved highly successful, enjoying legal patronage all across the world, even extending beyond the West. It is, however, a far cry from the libertinism of its forebearers. The Marquis de Sade, arguably recent history’s most influential libertine author, rather famously had little regard for consent: his protagonists were often rapists, or at least endorsed various acts of sexual violence, and he himself was a rapist. Rape, defined under CBE as any sexual act done without sufficient consent from one of the involved parties, poses a difficult problem for CBE. The rapist desires not to be violated himself, yet he violates others. For CBE, this moral hypocrisy is enough to condemn him. Yet why should a man not be a hypocrite? Even further: is there even any hypocrisy in desiring gain for oneself at the expense of others?
A man’s opportunities are never exhausted so long as other men (who are not his friends) possess millions of acres and thousands of tons of gold.1
CBE, like any ethical system, makes moral assertions about certain actions. Yet in the face of the world’s great ethical diversity, not just between cultures, but even within them, one is left to wonder how, if it is even possible, to prove these assertions. “To rape is evil” is a highly uncontroversial statement, but how would one even begin to prove such a thing? Can it be done without relying on some other unproven statement, such as, “to cause harm is evil?” CBE, rather openly, exists to protect the weak from the abuse of the powerful—yet if its premises stand on the grounds of assumptions alone, there is no moral sense stopping the rich and powerful from doing as the Marquis’ libertines, and sequestering themselves in Sodomaic temples, to perform whatever ill they would.2 Even if ethical systems fundamentally exist as a secondary function of law enforcement—to regulate human behavior according to ultimately arbitrary rulings—they will fail at this task if some foundation unimpeachable to reason cannot be found.
II. Goodness Itself
When men speak of morality, they speak of a dichotomy between the moral and the immoral. What, then, do these words mean? The etymology of “moral,” reveals a relationship to mores and manners—the customs of a society. The matter is settled, then! The customary is the moral! Yet what if customs differ: which custom shall then find itself justified? According to shared custom, I am thought to act morally when I hold the door open for a stranger, and to act immorally when I cut someone off in traffic. Yet do I act morally when I attend a pro-abortion rally? My pastor wouldn’t think so. He might say to me, “abortion is evil.” My art professor, on the other hand, might support me. She might say to me, “you did the right thing.” Both have some clear concept that the customary is not always moral. In speaking of morality, we construct invisible pillars, not any surer of what they mean than the morality we seek to define by them. The moral is found in the right and the good, while the immoral is found in the wrong and the evil. Right vs. wrong, good vs. evil; these twin dichotomies are freely conflated when speaking of morality, but are not identical elsewhere.
When answering a question on a multiple-choice test, a student gets the question right or wrong; that is to say, the student’s answer was either correct or incorrect. When two men argue, the winner of the argument is said to be “right” or “in the right.” To be wrong is to be mistaken, to have made some error in calculation. Fundamentally, “right” and “wrong” are not concerned with ethics so much as truth. Nonetheless, they are imported to ethical discussion. Is this a sheer misnomer, or category error? Nay, I say. For in any discussion of moral right or wrong, there is a hidden factual question, so deeply implicit that it quite literally goes without saying. When my art professor says to me, “abortion is morally right,” what she is really saying is, “there is a moral standard, positively defined by moral behaviors, and I assert that it is factually true that abortion holds to this standard.”
I say to my wife, “I kicked a puppy today.” Incredulous, she responds, “is that right?” In so doing, she is asking two factual questions: whether it is true that I kicked a puppy, and whether it is true that kicking puppies is moral. I reply, “of course not,” answering both.
It is not incorrect grammatically or logically, then, to speak of morality in terms of right and wrong. However, since the moral application of these words are themselves referential back to the concept of morality, they do not help to define morality, so much as being defined by it. In order for the implicit factual question of moral standards to be asked, the moral standard must first be asserted. For the moral standard to be engaged with on a factual basis requires that it actually exist, at least in the minds of the speakers. To assert that there is even such a thing as a “right thing to do,” is to say that there is such a thing as morality, in an objective sense, but it tells us nothing about what that thing is.
Job said to his wife, “shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?”3 Isaiah the Prophet said, in the Spirit, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”4 Evil, here, is understood in the proper Anglo-Saxon sense as calamity or misfortune.5 Though this usage has somewhat fallen out of fashion, the original sense of the word “evil” was of anything bad or displeasing. Evil is found in the displeasurable, and good is found in the pleasurable. A high-quality shirt, I might call a good shirt. A faithful friend, I might call a good friend. A fun wedding, I might call a good time. Have any of these things moral element? They are amoral of themselves. Yet I call them “good” for the sake of the pleasure they brought me.
The good is identified with the pleasurable just as, if not more, often than it identified with the moral. A Papist who succumbs to his lusts might confess to his priest, “the sex was good, but I am racked with guilt.” The penitent here asserts that the good—the pleasing—can at times also be immoral. A corrupt politician may be said to be “good at manipulating the people.” Here, “good” means something like “effective,” which is really derivative of “pleasing,” but is certainly not “moral.” What then? The moral is the good, yet the good is not necessarily the moral? Yes, but we have not yet heard the whole matter. The moral cannot be found but in the good, but not just any good. What is good for one man is evil to another. The Marquis rapes, and this is good for him, yet it is evil for his victim. Our axiom, “the goodness of a thing is the pleasurability of that thing,” inspires a new question: “according to whom?”
The natural world is a world of war; the natural man is a warrior; the natural law is tooth and claw. All else is error.6
In practice? According to the powerful. The Marquis’ libertine heroes recline to some ancient castle built for piety, and perform acts unbearable to description. His libertines are never the weak and the downtrodden. When they are poor, they prove themselves by their ruthlessness. In a world which thusfar seems to be an even match, all morality being a matter of personal preference for particular pleasures, it is the strong who decide right and wrong for those under their influence. When Christianity came to Europe, it came not by mass conversions of the populace, but by the zeal of converted kings. St. Olaf of Norway smashed and burned the idols of his fathers, continuing the work of forcible conversion that would eventually prosper all throughout the Norwegian kingdom. What had once pleased the Norwegians—to worship Odin—was displeasing to St. Olaf, and thereby became evil to the Norwegians; what was pleasing to St. Olaf—to worship God—became good to the Norwegians. St. Olaf had the ability to reward that which pleases and to punish that which displeases. This ability is called power.
III. Power and Its Master
Power is the ability to alter or sustain. If I lift a weight, I am altering its position in space. If I hold a weight, I am sustaining its position in space. When my muscles are worn down and defeated, the power which they struggled against, gravity, alters the position of the weight back to the ground. If I attempt to lift a weight that is too wonderful for me, my power proves insufficient against gravity, which sustains the weight’s placement on the floor.
Where my power differs from the power of gravity is that my power is subject to my will. My arms do not go out from me and exert themselves of themselves, lifting whatsoever can be lifted; rather, I will to lift a weight, and thereby I employ my power to accomplish this, succeeding or failing depending upon the measure and employ of my power. My will is limited by my power, for as much as I may will to, I cannot lift a weight that is too heavy for me. I may find that the weight is greatly heavy, but that if I should use all my strength, I will be able to lift it once. It is within my capacity to lift, that is, the capacity of my power; yet my power is subject to my will, and I do not will to potentially injure myself by such an exertion.
Any rational will, such as mine, seeks its own pleasure—that which it finds to be good—and employs its power so to do. No will ever seeks what is contrary to itself. Even a man bound in chains, physically forced to move by his captors, is not employing his own power against his own will. He has been overpowered, made subject to the greater power, just as we are all subject to the power of gravity. Even if the will’s assessment of what will bring it pleasure is fleeting or vain, it will still only execute its power to the end of its own enjoyment. The suicidal will identifies its pleasure as death, and uses its power towards this end.7 “Life is hell, and the sweet still night of absolute death is the annihilation of hell.”8 The will employs its power to attain its good pleasure in two manners: by altering a state of displeasure, and by sustaining a state of pleasure. If a man is displeased with his singleness, he may endeavor according to the measure of his power to take a wife. If he then is pleased with the wife he has found, he will therefore endeavor according to the measure of his power to sustain their marriage.
In these ways, St. Olaf, and the other Christian kings of Norway, used their power to gain what was pleasing to them, namely, the conversion of the country. Whenever pleasure is sought from a teachable entity—that is, one which changes its behavior in response to stimuli—the will employs its power to reward pleasing behaviors, and to punish displeasing behaviors. This is done in order to maximize pleasure while minimizing displeasure. For St. Olaf, the peace and protection he gave converts to Christianity created more converts, which was pleasing to him, and he may have gained some pleasure from the act of rewarding these new friends of his. In punishing the pagans, such as by destroying their shrines, he discouraged them from continuing the behavior of theirs which so displeased him. Doubtlessly, he also relished the mere act of this pious iconoclasm for its own sake. The will always operates in this manner, rewarding or punishing good or evil respectively according to the measure of its power to do so. The will reserves to itself to identify good and evil, and makes these judgements in an entirely subjective manner.
As alluded to previously by the example of the man in bonds, wills do not exist in isolation. “The natural law is tooth and claw.” They conflict often, such as when one man seeks his good to the evil of another. The liberties of the Marquis have a will to murder, and their victims have a will to live. CBE works as a social contract of collective resistance against such men, offering, if not an objective moral reason why they should not do as they would, the objective factual threat of violence for breaking the unspoken pact of respect for consent. If the collective will of the moral establishment is able to restrain the abominations of the Marquis’ libertines, then the latter will continue to employ their power in seeking their will’s good pleasure, under the restraint of the moral establishment’s power. When wills strive against one another, the will of greater power triumphs, and subjects the lesser will to itself.
This subjection takes the form of a purely external synchronization of the formerly competing wills. The triumphant will is pleased or displeased with the behaviors of the lesser will, and may employ its power in rewarding or punishing accordingly. In some cases, the triumphant will is not concerned with long-term behavioral change. The libertine’s will-to-murder triumphs over the victim’s will-to-live, and thereby the libertine executes his power, that is, the power to murder, in punishment of a behavior he finds displeasing in the victim, namely, their living. In other cases, the triumphant will is pleased to compel the lesser will to utilize its power to some end of the triumphant will. The man in bonds is compelled by his captor to use his power to walk, not according to his good pleasure, but the captor’s. The will of the man in bonds, of course, still seeks nothing but its own pleasure, yet can only do so in the confines of where it finds itself. It would not be to the good of the bound man’s will to resist his captor, due to the captor’s punishments, and even if he did resist, the captor’s power is a compelling force, much like gravity. Just as I am compelled to drop the weight, though I would rather lift it, the man is compelled to walk, though he would rather sit. While it pleases the captor to keep the man in bonds, the good of this is purely subjective to the captor, even if the captor’s subjective perspective is supported by some sort of ideal. The Marquis de Sade is blunter and more self-aware in his subjectivism:
You should have no other limits than your leanings, no other laws than your cravings, no other morals than nature; stop languishing in those barbaric prejudices that caused your charms to fade and imprisoned the godly surges of your hearts.9
In real life, the will that is subjected to another may triumph over one of even less power than itself, and the will that triumphs may be subjected to some will of greater power. The entirely subjective codes of good and evil (that is, pleasing and displeasing) of the triumphant wills are passed down to their subject wills, which according to the bindings of the triumphant wills’ power in turn pass down these codes to their subjects. This is the hierarchy of subjectivity. The French libertine wills some depraved act upon some poor victim, yet is frustrated in this by the will of the Emperor of the French, who, through his soldiers, has sufficient power to restrain the libertine. He may rage in his books, and may confess that these religious laws are unjust and baseless, yet the emperor’s sheer will prevails nonetheless over him, protecting his would-be victim from harm, for just as the libertine sought pleasure in their harm, the emperor found pleasure in their safety. In this way, the emperor’s will has transcended the subjective boundaries of the emperor’s own life and conduct, and become a very real, objective, entity in the life of both the libertine and the would-be victim.
The Emperor of the French is not the only man with a transcendent will: all triumphant wills are also transcendent in that they transcend the confines of the willer’s mind, and place some restraint upon the subjected wills. The libertine’s will-to-murder transcends him and becomes real to his victim. Alexander’s will-to-conquer transcends him and, by the execution of his power, creates something very real—the Macedonian Empire—and binds the wills of all those subject to his power. The transcendence of a will corresponds exactly to the measure of its triumph, which corresponds exactly to the measure of its power. That will which possesses the greatest power, and is under the power of none other, is necessarily the most transcendent.
IV. The All-Triumphant Will
As power increases in degree, it increases correspondingly in scope. In ancient times, the power of an army might have been measured by the amount of swordmen within it,10 afterwards being measured by the tactical use of pikemen or chariots. The use of gunpowder increased the power of armies, such that a powerful host could forego the storming of a city wall in favor of smashing straight through it. With time came airships, and bombs, and finally the nuclear bomb. For an army to utterly annihilate the entire land of their enemies has become feasible, so much so that the self-restraint of armies is credited for the continuation of human life. From Cain’s murder of Abel to the threat of global holocaust, the scope of human violence has increased according to its power.
The same is true of governments. “Small” governments, that is, governments which have less power, regulate less for their citizens than “big,” that is, powerful, governments. The “biggest” governments are said to be totalitarian, having interest in and control over every aspect of a citizen’s life, down to the last detail. As power increases, so does its scope. The captor has power over the bound man’s actions, compelling him even to walk when he might will otherwise, yet it is outside of the scope of the captor’s power to make the man love his bonds.
It belongs to a lesser order of power to regulate merely the external and visible, as the captor does. It belongs to a greater order of power to preside over the internal and the invisible. This greater order of power is attained by vanishingly few, for who can discern the hidden things of the mind and will? St. Olaf can tear down a wooden idol to Thor, but can he tear down the idols in the Norwegian hearts? A clergyman can preach vigorously for the ethics of his catechism, yet can he ever know whether a parishioner truly believes or not? The triumph of a totalitarian’s will is restrained in this way: that try as he might, he cannot prosecute a thought. The mightiest of men are still found to reside in the lesser order of power.
The difference between the lesser and greater power is this: under a lesser power such as the Emperor of the French, the libertine can gainsay the unjust, unnatural laws, and protest them in his mind without any fear of repercussion. In fact, so long as he publishes his pamphlets anonymously, the emperor, having a lesser order of power, can do nothing to him. Even if caught, he might escape the country, or seek the protection of some powerful patron. The one who gainsays and protests the law of God, on the other hand, cannot escape His judgement. To God belongs the greater order of power: omnipotence, all-power, universal power. God is not omnipotent merely because none can bring Him to heel, or stand in judgement of Him, or subject His will to theirs, but because also because of His universal jurisdiction. What is pleasing or displeasing to Him has objective relevance to all, in that He will stand in judgement over all, rewarding good works with blessings and punishing evil with damnation; and He brings forth even the most hidden of evidence in making this judgement. By His omnipotence11 His will is all-triumphant, and thereby all-transcendent.
I desire to go to Hell and not to Heaven. In the former I shall enjoy the company of popes, kings and princes, while in the latter are only beggars, monks and apostles.12
One may, yet still, find fault with God. Perhaps a man shakes his fist at God’s tolerance of human suffering, or grumbles in his heart about the arbitrariness of God’s Law. A tyrant possesses the power to reward and punish according to his good pleasure, yet the one who dissents to tyranny in his conscience is justified. How, then, is God any more than the greatest of tyrants? In this: the tyrant’s power is of the lesser order, and his law of good and evil remains subjective to himself, while God’s Law is objective. That is to say, what God says is good, is objectively good.
“Objectivity” refers to the quality of being, as opposed to “subjectivity,” which refers to the quality of supposition or opinion. That which is, is objectively so. That which is supposed or opined, is subjectively so. Being has to do with right and wrong, matters of truth and falsity. If I say that there is a red car in the parking lot, my statement is either true or false. If there is a red car in the parking lot, then my statement was not only true, but also objective. Now what distinguishes falsity from truth is universality: that which is false may be false in a particular manner, but that which is true must be true universally, and not conflict with other universal truths. This does not mean that true statements cannot be made about contextual or temporary states, for spatial, temporal, etc. context is essential to the truth statement being made. For example, “the White House is in Washington D.C.” is a true, universal statement, despite the impermanence of the White House and the limitation of its location to Washington D.C. That which is universal, therefore, must also be objective.
We have already heard of the universal jurisdiction of omnipotence. The all-transcendent subjectivity of the omnipotent will is necessarily also universal, for the all-powerful will is all-triumphant, and the all-triumphant will is all-transcendent. Therefore, on account of its universality, all-transcendent subjectivity is by definition identical to objectivity; if there is such a thing as objectivity, it cannot be understood in any other sense than this. Put another way, that which is enforced universally is thereby itself made universal, and all transcendent subjectivity is enforced universally by omnipotence. Therefore, since universality is being, and being is objectivity, all-transcendent subjectivity is objectivity.
What this means is that what the omnipotent, all-triumphant will of God finds to be pleasing or displeasing, on the basis of naked volition, is good or evil respectively, not just in God’s subjective view, but actually and objectively. Anyone who shakes their fist at God and demands a second opinion will find none. Anyone who calls for an appeal to a higher court will stand in the phonebooth forever. Anyone who comforts his own soul by saying that God is unjust and unworthy of worship cannot be stopped from doing so; yet he is as those who say that the noontime sky on a spring day in rural Michigan is red, or that 2+2=5. He may have his opinion, but he cannot expect it to bare out in the real world.
Having found solid ground on which to stand in goodness, we may return to the matter of defining morality itself. The moral is the good, and the good is whatever is pleasing to God: therefore morality is found in those things which please God, and immorality in those things which cause Him anger. Knowing the moral, we may also know the right, for as the good is the moral, the moral is the right. To be morally right or correct is nothing less than to “get the right answer” on the test of God’s good pleasure, and to be morally wrong or incorrect is to get the wrong answer. All other moral terms and standards are the same; there is no good aside from the will of God.
Clearly therefore, in every department of life, the lesser force must be overthrown by the greater; which (being interpreted) meaneth: — MIGHT IS RIGHT, absolutely, unreservedly. From the records of history, the facts of life, and the discoveries of science, this startling deduction may be thoroughly proved.13
V. Appendix: Reflections on a few Scriptural Usages of “Right” and “Good”
In Job 2:10 and Isaiah 45:7, “good” is spoken of as peace and prosperity, and “evil” is spoken of as calamity and adversity. There is a distinction to be made here between the sort of evil that one “receives from God” spoken of here, and all other evils which come to pass. Surely, nothing comes to pass that God did not permit. But there is a difference between the sort of “evil” that God permits and the sort of “evil” that God causes. The evil which God permits is sin; those things He finds utterly detestable, yet in His wisdom and long-suffering endures it with patience, just as he endures the detestable and displeasing mass of sinful flesh that is mankind. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”14
The evil that God causes is not sin, for “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man,”15 “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace,”16 and “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all,”17 but, as we have already said, is the evil of calamity. It is evil in Job’s sight, for all the terrors which came upon him were greatly displeasing to him; yet Job did not accuse God of sin. Neither did Isaiah accuse God of sin by prophesying, “I create evil,” for here God was boasting of His power as a warning to Israel, that they might repent.
Isaiah also spoke against them who confound good and evil. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”18 That which is good is the objective good, that is, good according to God; so also for evil. That which is called good is the subjective good, that is, good according to the speaker; so also for evil. To call what is evil good is to say, “I love what God hates,” and to call what is good is to say, “I hate what God loves.” Those who say—or think—these things cannot really have faith in God. It is written again and again that those who love God must hate evil, i.e., the things He hates.19 Of course, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”20 He might actually mean it when he says that the things God hates are good in some objective sense, although this is logically impossible. These say things like, “abortion access for teenagers is a good thing,” because they believe that the ‘universe,’ otherwise described as aloof and uncaring, has a set of codes and values, which allows them to be objectively right on moral matters. Yes, it is not without reason that these are called fools!
There came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.21
“A complete understanding of the reply must come from the reason that prompted the question, for the answer will be directed to the matter that led to the inquiry…. He voiced his objection to the title of “good master” in such a way as to challenge the faith of the questioner rather than the designation of himself as a master or as good.” - Hilary of Pontiers
“God, therefore, is uniquely good, and this he cannot lose. He is good. He is not good by sharing in any other good, because the good by which he is good is himself. But, when a finite human being is good, his goodness derives from God, because he cannot be his own good. All who become good do so through his Spirit. Our nature has been created to attain to him through acts of its own will. If we are to become good, it is important for us to receive and hold what he gives, who is good in himself.” - St. Augustine
What does it mean for God to be good? Properly, it means that God is pleased with Himself. This must be so, “For the Father loveth the Son,”22 and “God is love.”23 In God’s triunity, there may be bonds of love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, (blessed forever, Amen!) so that His love is never self-centered, as it is written, “charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.”24 What does it mean when we say, “God is good!”? It means, “I am pleased with God!” In times of reward and plenty, we say, “God is good!” in recognition of His kindness towards us. In times of suffering and want, we say, “God is good!” in recognition of his discipline and longsuffering, and as an expression of humility and faith; as if to say, despite this trial and abuse of the devil, I, like pious Job, will not lose my faith, nor my love for God.
In Jesus Christ, Christians have righteousness. “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ.”25 What is righteousness? It is nothing except God’s good pleasure. A Christian should not be concerned with what it means to be a “good person” according to that phrase’s meaning in the world, yea in part due to the sin of all mankind, but also because the one with genuine faith is already a “good person,” in that they are a person who has received the righteousness of Jesus Christ by faith, and become a person in whom God is greatly pleased!
“Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”26 God was greatly displeased with the Pharisees, because of their faithlessness. Now the Pharisees were not without human virtues or good works, often giving great amounts to the poor and making intercessions for their whole communities, righteous acts upon which God smiled. Yet when God turned His gaze from the righteous act to the person who performed it, His countenance darkened, and He was once more filled with anger at the children of hell.27 Those who see this passage and worry about their good works have missed Jesus’ point here altogether. By works, one cannot earn the pleasure of God. “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight,28 […] But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.”29 The righteousness of God is by faith of Jesus Christ, which is what the Pharisees lacked. Therefore, the righteousness of every Christian, no matter how wanting his works, surpasses the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
Redbeard, Ragnar. Might Is Right. 1927. Reprint, Libertine Press, 2008.
Indeed; they do this now, and they do not keep it secret.
Job 2:10
Isaiah 45:7
Redbeard, Ragnar. Might Is Right. 1927. Reprint, Libertine Press, 2008.
Provided that the desire to die is strong enough in a person to overcome their other desires.
Mainländer, Philipp. Die Philosophie Der Erlösung, 1876.
Marquis De Sade. Philosophy in the Bedroom. 1795. Reprint, New York: Grove Press, 1971.
Any military historian will skewer me for this section; but I trust my audience can restrain its autism long enough to understand that I’m not making a point about military history.
Jeremiah 32:17
Niccolò Machiavelli
Redbeard, Ragnar. Might Is Right. 1927. Reprint, Libertine Press, 2008.
2 Peter 3:9
James 1:13
1 Corinthians 14:33
1 John 1:5
Isaiah 5:20
Proverbs 8:13, Amos 5:15, Psalm 97:10, Romans 12:9, and others.
Psalm 14:1
Mark 10:17-18
John 5:20
1 John 4:8
1 Corinthians 13:4; “charity” means “love” here.
Philippians 3:8-9
Matthew 5:20
Matthew 23:15
Romans 3:20
Romans 3:21-22
Do you think that if you were created by an omnipotent Satan, he would have the right to rule over you?
Outrageous! You've scooped me completely! haha. Our thoughts and ideas on this are so similar, I feel like whatever spirit has you also has its hold on me. I posted my ideas a few seconds ago, give them a look over if you feel inclined.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jamesaway/p/might-makes-right?r=3h47jo&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true