Without wishing to cause offence, cc has to be honest that he has found the Alumni magazine a bit too politically correct in recent years, and a tad self-important. The latest issue described the appointment of the first woman head porter as 'historic'.
Here are some selected highlights from Professor Blackburn's essay:
Who needs moral philosophy? Not 21st century man. Human behaviour is all in our genes (or, for the economists, in our inevitable selfishness)...But just as we need clean air, we need a clean moral climate - and one of the tasks of moral philosophy is to worry about whether we have it.
Margaret Thatcher's notorious remark...that there is no such thing as society, was believable because the ideology of the self-interested agent in eternal competition with others seemed in line with the theory of evolution by natural selection. Thatcher seems not to have taken the time to notice that language, money and law (the last two were especially dear to her government) were socially constructed and sustained. But then, the lady was not for pausing.
The danger lies in supposing that since nature has done it for us we can lie back and neglect children's moral educations. They will grow up with the right views just as they grow up with hair. My only comment about that is that I am glad to be old enough to hope not to be around when the experiment comes to fruition.
Clearly, the cleanest moral climate possible in a fallen world is one in which the Ten Commandments - with their vital function of revealing God's character of holiness and goodness and our need as sinful human beings of redemption by Christ - are known and honoured and taught to children.
Reading this essay prompted Cranmer's Curate to wonder, in the current moral climate, how many Anglican clergy are able to recite the Ten Commandments from memory in the correct order.
The problem is of course, that the 10 commandments speak of a moral absolute, which is progressively unacceptable to a morally relativistic generation.
ReplyDeleteThe Law, when properly received tends to a conviction of sin within man, which is also politically unacceptable nowadays.
Of course that conviction of sin, should lead to the realisation that, in and of ourselves, we are incapable of not breaking the Law of God, which in turn leads to the cross and the redemptive work of Jesus.
The power of God's grace, lies within the power of the Law, so when the Law is not preached or taught, what need of redemption, salavation or grace does man need.
In other words, saved from what, when from a morally relative and subjective viewpoint, I am 'good' anyway.
Do we have to obey them in the correct order as well?
ReplyDeleteMaybe the God-given 10 Commandments are a kind of 'template' within our God-given Moral Instinct ?
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