Dr Greg Bahnsen - Political Ethics: Enforcement of Morals - Welfare (Part 19)

All right, let's continue our discussion of the enforcement of morals. I've given you three considerations. The first is since someone's freedom will have to be curtailed when you discuss the issue of like homosexual rights, you'll have to have a specific moral system within which you can make a decision as to whose rights, whose freedoms will be curtailed. Secondly, the basic questions about law and society, the limits of coercion and the source of rights also call for a specific moral system so you can distinguish between crime and punishment and you can make legitimate decisions about how version should go. That's going to call for a moral system within which you can make these determinations. And then thirdly, if we try to follow the liberty ideal, we could still conclude that homosexuality violates the safety of individuals, that it's harmful to our society. And the acceptance of that point of view, it will turn out, will be dependent upon what moral system you're using. When you look at the question, The next consideration is that the liberty ideal must be supplemented with a specific and discriminating moral framework. The liberty ideal must be supplemented with a specific, discriminating moral framework. And I'm going to give you three questions that will indicate that we have to answer the question, how do we clarify the liberty ideal? What is it that will count as injury or harm? The liberty ideal says you can do whatever you want to do. You're free to do whatever you want as long as it doesn't injure other people, doesn't bring harm to other people. Well, the question is, how are we going to understand harm and injury in this context? What do we mean by injury and harm? When my wife and I moved to Philadelphia to go to seminary, I know that that brought some harm to my wife's parents. They emotionally were not happy by the fact that their daughter was going to be so far away. Now, should the state have stepped in and forbidden me to go to seminary then? Well, I mean, on one open ended interpretation of the liberty ideal, yes, because that's what harm means. You have to have an understanding, therefore, of a clarification of the concept of harm. What kind of harm is it that the state will not allow? Now, if I'm running a shoe store in town, let's say that I own the Tyler shoe store and I'm the only merchant in town and I'm doing just great selling shoes, and I'm making just enough money to support my family with the business that comes to me here in the city of Tyler. And then somebody else moves to town and wants to open another shoe store. That's going to cause me injury, isn't it? It's going to draw away business. It's going to create a competitive situation. And if I lose that business, then I won't be able to support my family, at least in the style to which they become accustomed. Consequently, that too is a form of injury and harm. Is that what the state should forbid? Any economic competition in town? Well, the liberty ideal, by way of these questions I'm trying to point out, the liberty ideal has got to be clarified. What kind of injury or harm are we talking about? Moreover, the liberty ideal must be made consistent, must be made consistent where it turns out that those who advocate this liberty ideal allow paternalism to enter their system at some point anyway. You'll have this great liberal tolerant mentality. We don't discriminate against homosexuals and adulterers and Buddhist and that sort of thing like you Christians would want to do. And yet these liberals are also the ones who insist on the state stepping in when it comes to drug abuse, that the state should regulate the sale of drugs so that people aren't abusing drugs. We'll say that children have to go to school and that we cannot perpetrate acts of cruelty against animals. Well, now, why not? Why shouldn't I be free to abuse my body with drugs? Why shouldn't a child be free to decide for himself whether he'll go to school or not? Why shouldn't we be allowed to kill animals and torture animals? Well, I think all of those are morally abhorrent myself. But I mean, so that's my morality. Why should my morality be enforced? You see, the liberal establishment that says they hold to this liberty ideal turns out to endorse paternalism at some points in their system anyway. You see, the paternalistic attitude is that the state should act as the father knows best, agency the pater, the father. And the state knows that it's better for children to be educated. The state knows that it's better for you not to abuse your body with drugs and so forth. And therefore paternalism is allowed somewhere. And I'm saying that's inconsistent. The liberty ideal must have context of a consistent moral system within which you can make sense out of paternalism at some points, but liberty at other points. Then a third way of indicating liberty ideal has to be supplemented is that it has to be made applicable, has to be made applicable to cases that we're going to be disputing. According to the liberty ideal. If two adults are doing something and they are Consenting to what they're doing, that should exonerate them of any guilt for things. But as a matter of fact, consent is not taken as an adequate defense in some cases. I mean, just prima facie consent is not an exoneration of just anything you want to do. Say that a person is brought into court on a charge of engaging in sadomasochistic murder where the party involved, the party that got killed, was consenting. Let's say it was a snuff film. It's actually so perverse. The person was being tortured to the point of death, but the person wanted that wanted to be the point of death. Now, if we had the person who was guilty, who caused the other person's death, come into court and say, well, the other person was consenting, and that makes it all right, we wouldn't accept that as an adequate defense for taking another person's life. Consequently, I think the liberty ideal needs to be clarified. It needs to be made consistent, and it needs to be made applicable to cases in dispute. Is consent a sufficient defense in the case of homosexual perversion? Well, we have to have some moral system that's going to go beyond the liberty ideal to answer such a question. My fifth consideration against the liberty ideal is that, as a matter of fact, there are values beyond liberty which are prized by moral men. There are values going beyond liberty that moral men value. And in fact, for some of these values, moral men will even forfeit liberty for the sake of them. The values of justice or security, the value of life and human dignity or interpersonal integrity. There are some people who would rather forfeit their liberty than to give up their security or to give up life or human dignity or integrity or what have you. So the liberty ideal is going to have to reckon with that. That liberty is not the highest value for moral men. And then finally, let's ask, how can the liberty ideal make an exception to freedom of action without justifying that exception by reference to some moral system? More pointedly, how can the exception be made that I should be free to do what I want to do, except where my actions do harm to another person or jeopardize his freedom? How is that exception justified? On the liberty ideal, why shouldn't I be free to do whatever I want? Now, I'm not saying that I should be, but I'm trying to press this system to see what kind of strength or lack of strength it has. John Stuart Mill says, well, now you can do whatever you want to do, provided you don't get in somebody else's way, provided you do not infringe upon the liberties of others. Well, why don't I counter by saying no? My moral system says I can do whatever I want to do, period. If I want to get in somebody else's way, tough. And also, if I'm driving down the street and you're trying to use the crosswalk and I don't happen to want to slow down, I run over you. That's right. I infringe on your liberty. I infringe on your safety and on your life. So what? I can do whatever I want to do because freedom is all that counts, you know. Well, now, what is John certain Mill going to say to that? He's going to have to have some moral system, isn't he, that says, no, it's immoral for you to infringe on another person's freedom. It's immoral for you to infringe on another person's safety. It's immoral for you to take another person's life for your own selfish ends. Well, you see, that's a moral judgment, isn't it? That calls for some system of morality that will warrant that kind of idea, that notion, that application, or that judgment. I mean, there's got to be some way of showing that, as a matter of fact, morality should keep me from running over people when I'm late for an appointment. Now, what's the problem? If you look at all of these considerations, what have I been hammering at? The liberty ideal calls for an underlying moral system. The liberty ideal is the enforcement of some underlying moral system. And therefore, we have shown through this questioning method that the liberty ideal cannot conflict with the enforcement of morality. The liberty ideal is simply the enforcement of a particular morality. The liberty ideal cannot be utilized and cannot be justified apart from some underlying moral system. And therefore, where freedom should be granted and where freedom should be curtailed is a question that cannot be determined without bringing to bear the principles of an underlying moral system, one that is consistent, one that allows for particular applications. And since you have to enforce some moral system, thus, we can say two things. First of all, Christians have as much a right as others to push for their moral system to guide the state. Christians have as much right to push for their system to guide the state as others. I mean, if this is a free society, a pluralistic society, then we too have the right to enter into the arena and say, no, listen to us. We propose that you punish homosexuals and you punish rapists, and you punish and you punish and you punish. I mean, if there has to be some moral system. We have the right to try to persuade people of our moral systems adequacy and viability, which I think is something that has to be said, especially today with the influence of derivative right, the religious right in our society as seen in the last election. There's been a whole lot hypocritically written by people saying, well, there shouldn't be any mingling of church and state. It isn't right for you to enforce your morality. Well, if it isn't right for us to enforce our morality, then it's not right for you to enforce your morality. And it's not right for him to enforce his morality. It's not right for her to enforce her morality, which is to say there shouldn't be any morality enforced at all. Which is to say there shouldn't be any state. I mean, if you're going to be consistent, that's to say there can't be any moral code applied by the state at all, which is impossible. That's the do away at the state state and the whole purpose of the state. And so if the liberal has the right to try to persuade people that homosexuality is not a crime, the conservative has the right to try to persuade people that it is. You can't have it both ways. What sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander. So the first application is that since we've seen that you have to have an underlying moral system, and that is demonstrably true, it's not just, well, I think morality is involved anyway, even though you don't. I can demonstrate that morality is involved in any of these judgments. Since that's the case. We Christians have as much right as others to push for our moral systems. But I want to add secondly, the non Christian systems cannot be followed because they are not cogently justified and validly applied. It's not only that we have as much right to push for ours as others have for their own, but. But other systems of morality cannot hold up philosophically. They have vague principles or unauthoritative specifics in their systems. The moral system of Platonism and Aristotelianism and utilitarianism and egoism and all the rest end up with vague principles or specifics. Rather than vague principles, but specifics that don't have any authority behind them. There's this rational irrational tension that we've talked about so often in our course. Moreover, non Christian sociopolitical systems all tend in practice toward either totalitarianism or anarchy, giving the state centralized authority and moving it into a totalitarian direction or becoming anarchistic and giving every individual the right to do what he wants. There's arbitrariness, inconsistency, equivocation, lack of support, lack of logical coherence in every non Christian moral system. So what I'm saying is, when we get down to the meta ethical job, the apologetical job of arguing ethical systems, the non Christian hasn't got an ethical system to enforce. So let's review our argument. We've shown by six different lines that you have to have an underlying moral system to use the liberty ideal. And if that's true, then Christians have as much right to use their system and try to persuade people of it as others. And thirdly, since the non Christian doesn't have an underlying, consistent, viable, coherent, warranted moral system, then only Christians should be enforcing their system. Philosophically speaking, we alone have the right to bring to bear our morality in the civil domain. Now, I think you might find it helpful. I hope it would be a little bit enlightening if I follow up this general discussion. I'll give you time for questions in a minute or so. If I follow up this general discussion by responding somewhat hurriedly to pages 78 to 80 in Richard Mao's book Politics and the Biblical Drama, Again, I know you haven't read that, but I'm trying to trusting that you will. And when you get to that book, you will find that one of the things Mao does is he defends the liberty ideal. He says Christians shouldn't want to punish pornographers. I mean, we think pornography is terrible and we ought to preach against it and try to convince him that it's wrong. But we shouldn't hate, should punish pornographers, he would add, homosexuals, adulterers and so forth, that we shouldn't want to enter into bedroom morality. You see, in terms of the strong arm of the state, he certainly is against pornography. In fact, I want to say this in Dr. Mao's defense, that he's taken a very, very strong stand against this. He's a popular lecturer on Christian social ethics and so forth. And so from time to time, when these demographic magazines want to show their cultural sophistication and they have a panel of theologians and ethicists come in to discuss an issue, they'll call up these schools and invite these guys to come down. And it's always disappointing to me when somebody gives into that saying, well, for the sake of giving a Christian witness and they're going to publish it, I'll go ahead and play along with it, even though the whole institution that puts out these pornographic magazines is corrupt. Well, Dr. Mao's problem. He has consistently told people where they get off when they call him and ask him to give an interview to Playboy or to come down to a Penthouse Panel discussion of theologians. Of course, the liberals and the less than consistent evangelicals are glad to do that, and he isn't. He utterly reprobates pornography. He thinks it's terrible. It demeans women. We ought to preach against it. He'll have no part of it. Fine. But he doesn't think the state should get involved. Okay, so as he's discussing unfair pages 78 to 80, he doesn't believe in the enforcement of morals. He says the church must attempt to bring society into conformity with Christian standards. But in what ways ought Christians to attempt to influence attitudes of those who don't acknowledge biblical norms? That's the issue, he says. In what ways should we as Christians try to influence the attitudes of people who don't hold the biblical norms? He says, not by legislation, however, he means not by legislation where the motivation is to coerce and manipulate, where the primary purpose is to coerce and manipulate, or where the sole purpose is to force non Christians to conform to Christian patterns of behavior. If legislation is simply designed to prohibit non Christian patterns, he says that isn't a Christian way of trying to change society. Well, let me answer, first of all, that this is somewhat ambiguous. What is the criterion of simplicity? When Mao says, if your sole purpose is to try to coerce and manipulate people against non Christian patterns of behavior, but what amount, when is it, under what circumstances? How do I know that my sole motivation is that motivation? What is the criterion of singularity? It's very hard, you know, to isolate motivations. I mean, it's one thing to take apples and to lay them out on a table and isolate apples and say, here's one apple, two apples. But how do you isolate motives? You know, what was my motive for coming to the church this morning? Well, somebody could say, well, his motive was to earn money because, as a matter of fact, I get paid for my services. So that was my motivation, right? Well, no, not really. I mean, that may have been there, but I also wanted to fulfill my obligation. I had promised that I would come. Moreover, I have, I trust, the respectable motive of wanting to educate some people. I want to get out some information. Or is that my motive? Or is my motive to glorify God? Or is my motive to get my work done so that I can fly back home? Well, I don't think it would be fair to say that I had one single motive. I'd say that at one time or another, all of these things entered into my mind. And as a complex of motivation, these things played upon me and got me down here to do my teaching today. See, it's very hard to isolate motivation. So when Mao says legislation is wrong when the sole motive is to manipulate people, well, when do we ever have just the sole motive of manipulating people? I mean, I could imagine a really extreme case where legislator gets up and he says, well, I'm a Christian, and you know what I want to do today? I just want to push my weight around. I just want to tell people where they get off. And so I'm going to go pass a law that makes people do something. Well, I mean, maybe that's what Mao's talking about, but that's so unreal realistic that it's not even helpful. Moreover, we have to ask this. Does justice, does seeking justice constitute a purpose that we can count? What if somebody. If somebody says, okay, I'm passing a law against homosexual behavior, and I'm asked, what is your motivation? And I say, justice. I'm seeking justice for my society. Will that count as a motivation? Well, if it does count as a motivation, then this issue is, it seems to me, completely unhelpful as to what my motivation is, because the whole issue is what is justice then? And if it doesn't count as a motivation, I don't know what to make of the fact that oftentimes we support laws which we ourselves recognize are uncomfortable or unpleasant or unpopular, but we do so just because we think it's right. I mean, that's a motivation, too, and I don't think Mao can deal with that. Notice here that Mao also wants to distinguish between the effect of coercion and the desire to coerce. Apparently, coercing people is not wrong as long as you didn't desire to coerce them, since motivation is the key point, and I think that's a questionable assumption. Okay, well, then he goes on and he gets a little clearer. He says, well, we shouldn't push for legislation to enforce Christian morality except, I quote, when it infringes seriously on the genuine rights of others. Not when here's a time when we shouldn't do it. We shouldn't push for legislation when the Christian is the. Oh, when the subject himself is the only one oppressed by his actions. That is, if the only harm is being done to the person engaged in this action and he's not hurting anybody. We shouldn't press for legislation. Mao says, well, we need a standard for all of that, don't we? What amounts to serious infringement on the rights of others, what amounts to the genuine rights of others, and what is in fact a victimless crime? I think there are victimless crimes. I think there are some things that hurt only the people that engage in them. For instance, anger. If anger is expressed or leads to outward action, it might hurt other people. But anger is a debilitating emotion for the person. So there is such a thing as a victimless sin. That is, the only person victimizes the individual. But is it true that that God only calls for the state to punish such cases? And what are the true cases of victimless sins? Is homosexuality a victimless sin? Well, I've argued that it victimizes our society in a number of ways and we have to deal with that. Well, why is it that Mao opposes the idea of the enforcement of morals? He says, on Christian standards, people must freely offer their lives to in service to God. Christian morality calls for people freely doing so. We must have a desire that human beings be free to pursue the interests and projects that flow from their fundamental life commitments, however regrettable we may see those life commitments. For God exhibits respect for the actual choices of other creatures, even if they are regrettable choices in the eyes of God. And so, as God avoids coercive lordship and vindictive manipulation of people, then we must avoid coercive lordship and vindictive manipulation. Well, let's remember that vindictiveness aside, that's of course importing a motivation that doesn't have to be part of our motivation. God does coerce people. God brings about his will on earth despite the opposition of men. In fact, God tells magistrates to execute his wrath on evildoers. That's coercion. What if a murderer were brought before the magistrate and he said, no, you're trying to coerce me into a Christian lifestyle. I like murder, you don't like murder. But hey, you can't tell me what to do. Now even Mao would say God has given the magistrate the right to coerce that man into a different lifestyle. In fact, we would say to coerce him out of this life altogether because of the fact that he's taken unjustly, he's taken other lives. Well, if God allows coercion at some points, then the issue is how far is the coercion to go? And this whole question about God exhibiting respect for the choices of others people must freely do what is their fundamental life commitment? That's Irrelevant because there are certain free decisions coming from life, commitments that God does not honor. How far should coercion be allowed to go? And the only way you can answer that question is by having a system, a moral system that tells you the source of rights, the extent and scope of coercion, the source of individual liberties and freedoms, and the function of law in a society. As Christians, our system tells us you can punish homosexuals. We've argued that on a theonomic basis because the law of God tells us that you can punish homosexuals. And therefore, if you have to have a moral system, even Mao will have to come up with a different moral system. Or we'll have to have a theological refutation of the theonomic premise and thesis if he's going to argue his case for the enforcement of morals. I have a good deal more written down here about the enforcement of morals in Mal's discussion, but I hope I've said enough that as you read it, you'll be guided in your reaction to it and you'll know how to respond. I think I can let the rest go. In fact, I will, so that we can take up another question before we get done with this lecture hour. And then in the last lecture hour today, we'll talk about capital punishment, and I'll leave it to our next course and as it deals with contemporary social issues, to take up the notions of human rights, war and civil disobedience, because we won't get to those today. But any questions about the enforcement of morals? Let me give a time for discussion here.

You've talked a lot about the enforcement of morality and guaranteeing civil rights, et cetera.

And then you talked about the problem.

Of discerning the liberty ideal. And exactly how do you discern that?

Should we not ask the question, where.

Does one find his justification for liberty at all, much less his enforcement? In other words, shouldn't we as Christians force them to justify their own proposition that men have a right to liberty? Where do they get that right?

Yes, the question is, can't we push even further and become more fundamental in our critique of the liberty ideal by calling for the non Christian his pursuit or the ideal of liberty in the first place? And I think the answer to that is yes. And in a sense, that criticism is reflected in one of the questions I posed earlier. How can you justify an exception to the liberty ideal? I realize that's not precisely how do you justify the ideal of liberty, but that, you see, calls for an explication of what liberty means. They say you pursue Liberty, unless it brings harm to someone else. Well, why that exception? Well, calling for a defense of that exception is to call for a defense of any moral principle, in a sense, even liberty. Now to the call for a more abstract defense of liberty. The response of most non Christian philosophers would be morality is impossible without liberty. That's one of the preconditions of a moral system. And if you don't have liberty, you don't in fact have political rights. The whole universe of discourse changes if liberty is not part of it. That's a precondition of our. I mean, we don't even have to discuss political ethics. If you don't believe in liberty, if you don't believe in liberty, then might makes right and the government can just do what it wants. But we're talking about justice. And therefore the assumption is there's a freedom to do this or the freedom to do that. And since freedom is a precondition, you should be given freedom and he should be given freedom. We're all equal. So your freedom is equal to his freedom. Well, some of that looks like it's logical preconditioning of the discussion. But then once the thing gets running, it looks like there's a lot more than just logic being talked about. We're talking about a particular concept of freedom, a particular concept of equality and that sort of thing. And I think you're absolutely right. We can say, okay, what if I don't believe that at all? What if I figure whoever has the biggest stick should say, and that your freedom means nothing?

Well, your freedom is to conform with the state.

That's where your, where your freedom is to take the punishment and die or to go along with what the bully says, for instance.

Yes, well, for the Marxist, isn't that what the Marxist says? Your freedom exists in serving, serving the one that is the state. And you're truly free when you do that.

Well, but do that. Well, then you're. But the Marxist would say that he's doing that so that the state would wither away in this dialectical way. You affirm the state so that you can get rid of the state. Strangely enough, I was thinking more particularly.

Of the idea of naturalism for the Christian. He says that we are granted such liberties and freedoms because God has granted them to us. And when we live in borrowed capital, we can do that for a while. And the pagans, they can do that with a Christian, then they come to say that, well, it's our natural right.

Precisely, which is where.

Is there any justification for that? Nature would seem to say that the lion is the king of the jungle because he kills them most fiercely.

Well, I think what the Christians need to do is to call for a campaign of demythologizing natural rights. Here's this myth of nature. And nature bestows on people certain human rights, inalienable rights. But of course, if you'll note, the Declaration of Independence of our country, the Declaration of Independence says that these rights are granted by nature's God. Okay? And so I understand that that God makes men in his own image and gives them certain privileges and responsibilities and certain rights. But the idea that they come from nature has plenty of counterexamples, as we've seen in our discussion of natural law in our previous class. But it dawns on me this question about how you justify this. The very idea of liberty is going. If liberty is not part of it, that's a precondition. I mean, we don't even have to discuss political ethics. If you don't believe in liberty, if you don't believe in liberty, then might makes right and the government can just do what it wants. But we're talking about justice. And therefore the assumption is there's a freedom to do this or the freedom to do that. And since freedom is a precondition, you should be given freedom and he should be given freedom. We're all equal. So your freedom is equal to his freedom. And well, some of that looks like it's logical preconditioning of the discussion. But then once the thing gets running, it looks like there's a lot more than just logic being talked about. We're talking about a particular concept of freedom, a particular concept of equality and that sort of thing. And I think you're absolutely right. We can say, okay, what if I don't believe that at all? What if I figure whoever has the biggest stick should say, and that your freedom means nothing?

Well, your freedom is to conform with the state. That's where you're.

Well, your freedom is to take the punishment and die or to go along with what the bully says, for instance. Yes.

Well, for the Marxist, isn't that what the Marxist says? Your freedom exists in serving, serving the one that is the state. And you're truly free when you do that.

Well, do that. Well, then you're. But the Marxist would say that he's doing that so that the state would wither away in this dialectical way. You affirm the state so that you can get rid of the state. Strangely enough, I was thinking more particularly.

Of idea of naturalism for the Christian he says that we are granted such liberties and freedoms because God has granted them to us. And when we live in capital, we can do that for a while in the pagan state, can do that with a Christian heritage. Then they come to say that, well, it's our natural right. Precisely, which is where Is there any justification for that? Nature would seem to say that the lion is the king of the jungle because he kills them most fiercely.

Well, I think what the Christians need to do is to call for a campaign of demythologizing natural rights. There's this myth of nature, and nature bestows on people certain human rights, inalienable rights. But of course, if you'll note, the Declaration of Independence of our country, the Declaration of Independence says that these rights are granted by nature's God, okay? And so I understand that that God makes men in his own image and gives them certain privileges and responsibilities and certain rights. But the idea that they come from nature has plenty of counter examples as we've seen in our discussion of natural law in our previous class. But it dawns on me, this question about how you justify this. The very idea of liberty is going to reoccur when I discuss human rights in our next course. And so we'll have more opportunity to get into that. But you're certainly right that we can press even further beyond what I've been saying and ask people, well, now why should we even believe in liberty? I think we should, but we as Christians have a reason. What reason have you got to offer other questions on the enforcement of morality? This would be an interesting question for you to pursue or a good test for how well you understand this issue. Try to go home and explain this to your roommate or to your wife or what have you. Do we believe in the enforcement of morals? You know, draw fine distinctions, define your terms and defend your position. Give warrant for it. There's a sense in which we do, a sense in which we don't. I don't believe in enforcing dietary morals, okay? If somebody wants to overeat hot fudge sundaes, I believe that's his freedom. I don't think the state should do anything about it. But I do think I can enforce sexual morality. Okay, what about acts between consenting married adults? Does the state have anything to say about sexual perversion among a couple? Or is it the very idea of sexual perversion by definition that wrong when you're talking about a married couple? But if it's a sexually perverse or what some people consider a sexually perverse act between those who Are not married, doesn't say they have the right to enter into the bedroom, you know, metaphorically speaking, to enforce morality in that area. So you see, you have to think through what you mean by the term morality and what you mean by enforcement. In light of that.

Would you say something about the difference between public morality offenses and private offenses and where the state comes in there?

Yeah. As I said before, we have to draw a distinction between sin and crime. Not all sins are punishable by the state. And when they are punishable by the state, they become crimes. I remember when I was arguing with my Presbyterian once for a particular position on homosexuality that somebody who doesn't like the point of view said, well now how do you distinguish between sin and crime? Just how do we know what's a sin and what's a crime? And I said, well, the answer to that is very simple. When the word of God says it's punishable by the state, it becomes a crime. I mean, this is such a simple position. It's almost, you know, how did anybody miss it? Right, because that's how I define crime. Crime is a sin punishable by the state. Well, what is punishable by the state? Punishable means legitimately punishable. Obviously the state can punish anything, any. It could try to punish even the thoughts in my mind. But by punishable I mean God has allowed the state to punish it. And so the law of God, if it lays down a penal sanction for a sin, a social penal sanction, or in some way implies a social penal sanction, I want to allow for inferences as well, not just explicit out of punishment, then we'd say that falls within the category of crime. Crime. So there is a difference between public and private. And the private is those things which are not punishable by the state. Here's an interesting question. Is there such a sin that is so private? Are there sins or even a sin which is so, or which are so private that no body of men can punish? Now here I'm thinking about ecclesiastical discipline. We would say that the state cannot punish overeating, I would maintain the church can. The church can say, you are abusing your body, you are not taking care of your health needs. And although it's one of the furthest things from what the church in practice is doing today, in theory we should say that a good church with good elders are going to take concern for the physical well being of their people and they could actually discipline somebody for not taking care of their eating habits, their weight and so forth. That's a sin. That the church could discipline, but the state ought not to discipline because God hasn't given permission to do so. So the question is, is there any sin that the church cannot discipline? Now, there are some sins that the church might never know about. Okay, let's say that I have this lust in my heart for some particular woman, and that's not shared with anybody. Nobody ever knows about it. Well, obviously you can't punish what you don't know about. But what if it did come out? What if I admitted or what if I admitted I've hated this person for 30 years and I just can't stand him and I never want to be in the same room with him? Now, could the elders call you before them and counsel you and try to take care of this and try to bring about your repentance? I think so. Well, are there any sins that the church cannot point punish? Provided, of course, that the church could know about them and you would admit it and that sort of thing. I don't know if you want to offer an answer to that or not or just reflect on it, but there's certainly a difference between the church and the state there, because there's plenty of things the state cannot discipline. Yes.

Would you comment on slogan you can't legislate morality?

Yeah. I think that amounts to the same ambiguity that I was getting at when I said, do we believe in the enforcement of morals in the first place? The state. Somebody says the state cannot legislate morality. Oh, well, it's been doing it for a long time. So the state can legislate morality. That's one response that plays on the word can, because the person who's saying this obviously means the state ought not to legislate morality. Okay. Well, if a state ought not to ought to legislate morality, notice the word ought that's now been substituted. That's a moral word, isn't it? And so that is to say, within my moral framework, the state ought not to legislate morality. And the question is, is your moral framework correct? Then maybe the state ought to legislate morality on a different moral system, depending on which one. Then there's a question. What do you mean by morality the state ought not to legislate. You know how many hot fudge sundaes you can eat in one week? Well, I don't think the state ought to be involved in that sort of thing because God doesn't say so. But the state does legislate. You don't commit adultery or it ought to legislate. You don't commit adultery. And so there it's a question of what kind of morality, private or public? And then how do you distinguish between private and public? The Christian has a ready answer to that. God did it for us. We don't have to have some abstract rational principle that we go and follow and try to figure out empirically in each particular case, is this a private or public offense? God simply told us, this one's public because the magistrate's going to punish it. And then finally, it also turns out to be the case with that slogan that the state, whenever it makes a law, is legislating morality. Because by morality we mean the following are the failure to follow the violation of law. And so the state, by making laws, is setting up the conditions of civil morality. And one almost could ask with bewilderment, what's the alternative? How could you have a civil morality if you didn't have a state setting up laws? And so with the idea that the state can't legislate morality, I think you have to start looking at each word and considering options for interpretation. Well, in our remaining moments here for this hour, before we get to capital punishment, we do have to say something about the notion of distributive justice. What is called distributive justice, or what we call the welfare state, the idea of distributing benefits to people. Justice is depriving somebody of a right. It is held by many people that individuals have a right to, say, medical benefits or to a guaranteed annual income or to support if they're disabled, on and on and on. Since people have that benefit right, it is unjust of the state not to provide these things. And then justice calls for doing these things in an equitable way. How do we distribute the benefits to people? The benefits of education or fire insurance or medical insurance or disability pay or unemployment compensation. How should these things be distributed? What does justice demand with respect to these questions? It's a question of welfare. I really wish I had time to go over this more than I do. Let me summarize. When we say that someone has a right to X, a right to X means that you are licensed in the use, enjoyment and expectation of X and that there are obligations on the part of others to perform those actions which the right involves and or to refrain from those actions which would prevent the exercise of that right. If you have a right to X, let's say you have a right to free speech, that means you are licensed in the use, enjoyment and expectation of free speech and that others have the obligation to perform those actions which the right to free speech involves, or to refrain from actions which would prevent the exercise of your right to free speech. And so a right notice licenses you to do things and lays an obligation upon others. Now, when we speak of freedom rights, the duty that is laid upon others is the duty of forbearance, the duty of refraining from interference. So that if I have the freedom right of speech, that means you have the duty to forbear me when I speak. A benefit right, on the other hand, puts a duty of provision upon other people. If I have a benefit right to welfare, that means somebody has the duty to provide my welfare. So there's a difference between the duty of forbearance and the duty of provision following from freedom rights and benefit rights, respectively. Now, Abbott argues in his book, in his chapter on the distribution of justice, that equalities must be protected. Equalities must be protected, pages 116 and 117, he speaks of procedural equality. We must treat like cases coming under accepted rules as alike. So that, you know, if you're accused of stealing, the way they handle your case should be the way they handle somebody else's case. If they're accused of stealing, so there's procedural equality. Secondly, he speaks of political equality. One person's freedom is as valuable as another person's freedom. If a case can be made for the inability of some groups to exercise such influence, for example, children of the mentally ill, unequal access may be justified. But apart from such cases, your access to political processes should be the same as anybody else's. So that a denial of voting rights, a denial of representation, denial of political office to women, the denial of political office to racial minorities, and so forth, is the denial of political equality. So he speaks, first of all of procedural equality. Everybody being treated alike before the law, political equality, everybody having the same access to political means. And then thirdly, he speaks of equality of opportunity. He says, when a rule, if applied fairly, and even if it does not deny political equality, still has the effect of denying some people access to or share in essential social goods, this rule is thought to create unjustified inequalities. So what he's dealing here is with the concept of equality of opportunity. The principle involved is that each person's welfare is to count no more than another's welfare. Then he adds, there can be little doubt that people do make many claims of equality along these lines. Further, they argue that it is ordinarily the business of the state to try to remedy the situation in some way by enforcing, underwriting, and even Actually redistributing goods to remedy the inequalities. Okay, so the equalities to be protected in our discussion of justice here are the equality, procedural equalities, political equality, and then equality of opportunity. Now, equal opportunity tends to lead to the view that wealth needs to be redistributed. If people are going to have the same opportunities as other people, then they're going to have to be in the same general financial condition as other people. Now, does a poor Negro child growing up in a ghetto with a mother who is not able to work and a father who has left home, does he have equal opportunity to go to Harvard along with somebody who was raised in a wealthy Boston family that has influence? Is there equality of opportunity there or not? Well, people who say, no, there is not equality of opportunity would then say there must be some form of redistribution of the wealth. That redistribution takes place by the wealthy Boston family being taxed in such a way as to underwrite an affirmative action program where the young black child can go to college. Abbott points out that the redistribution of wealth in order to achieve equality of opportunity first of all involves the positive introduction of newly created, created inequalities in order to remedy some other inequality. He says, it isn't as though you're going to get rid of inequality. It's just that you're going to prefer one form of inequality to another. The inequality that says the rich family's got to pay so many thousands of dollars in taxes, whereas the black family doesn't. And so what you do is you're just introducing a new form of inequality. Secondly, this is a state that enforces this. A redistribution of an inequality is bound to violate the rights of individuals. Thirdly, to impose some distributional pattern is to deny people the right to choose what ends they shall pursue and how they will pursue them. Let's say that the state decides the distribution should be according to this pattern, okay? And they've got this so much money for this person, so much money for this, so much money for this. Now, what if the person being taxed doesn't choose those goals for his life and the use of his money? What if he chooses to have a different type of goal, a selfish goal in life or something? To impose a distributional pattern is to deny people the right to choose what ends they shall pursue and how they will do it. And then Abbott's criticism of these points being made is found on page 123. Abbott says the difficulty with people who are arguing against the redistribution of wealth is just this. Nozick is the author that he's using as his example. Nozick nowhere demonstrates that a distributive conception of justice requiring a state to ensure equality of opportunity is in itself morally repugnant. Only that it is repugnant given a concept of individual right that is essentially the nearly absolute right to acquire, hold and transfer property. It is, of course, precisely that right which distributive theorist, socialist or liberal, want to deny. Abbott does a very good job. He brings it right down to the bone. He says the issue is that people who want a minimal state, who don't believe in a welfare system, believe in private property, and those who don't, those who want a welfare state, who want to redistribute the wealth, don't believe in private property. They don't believe that's an absolute right. And so there you have it. So Abbott's point is that the criticism of the redistribution of wealth and distributed justice assumes private property. Now then, we might argue as Christians that the duty to provide welfare via the coercive agency of the state, the duty to provide welfare, can be denied if we have a warrant for private property. If God teaches the right of private property, then there would be a warrant for denying the duty to provide welfare to others. The duty I'm speaking here now is a social duty backed up by coercion. And the eighth commandment in the decalogue is precisely that warrant for private property. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not steal means that you don't have the right to come and take away my property. Property, or to use it for your purposes. It's under my sovereignty and control. And since private property is guaranteed by the 8th Commandment, the 8th Commandment thereby conflicts with the notion that we should redistribute wealth to achieve some distributional pattern that's been set by the state. Now, to this line of defense, it is often replied, but Christians certainly have the duty of charity to help those who are in need to help the poor. And I trust that our answer as Christians is going to be to that. That's correct. We are to help the poor. We are to be good Samaritans. We are to be concerned for the disadvantage in this world. However. However, that is a matter of social obligation, not a matter of pull. Obligation, obligation that I must help the poor out of charity, not out of coercion. And on this point you could do little better than to read Carl Henry's Aspects of Christian Social Ethics with his dealing with his chapter. Read his chapter that deals with the idea of the character of God in social ethics. A lot of people appeal to the character of God as benevolent. Therefore try to have the state enforce morality, the morality of benevolence. Whereas a matter of fact, you have to distinguish between justice and benevolence in God. The state is the agency of justice and the church the agency of benevolence. So the deacons, to use our terminology, the deacons in the church are. Are under moral obligation to help those who are poor. And they will be judged by God if they don't. And Amos the prophet could rise up and condemn them if they're laying on beds of luxury while their brothers are suffering all well and good. And it's not something that we should just pass off as though we're just trying to defend private property and capitalism. But our point is a political point that the state does not coerce benevolence. In the nature of the case. You can't coerce benevolence. Charity is not coerced. Charity means it is gracious, it is undeserved. It comes out of a heart of love. It's not something that is a claim of somebody upon you. Nobody can claim God's charity. Nobody can say, God, you owe me grace. It's a contradiction in terms. And so a poor person is in a position to receive the grace of others. But the poor person cannot go to the state and say, you owe me this welfare. There's a confusion of moral notions there. So I want to, as I conclude here, inadequate brief discussion of the subject, remind us that we do have an obligation to the poor. That obligation is exercised individually and through our churches. It's not an obligation that should be backed up with the force of the sword because charity is not enforceable in private property is something that stands in the way of a redistributional pattern that is set by some people for the goods of other people. Nobody has the right to tell us our goods have to be redistributed according to what they consider a more equitable social arrangement. So I deny the freedom. I'm sorry, I deny the benefit right of welfare as being some. Something the state should enforce. Well, let's take a short break and then we'll come back and I'll try to give you some remarks on capital punishment.