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Are All Golden Rules the Same?
Every “ethical” society seems to have a Golden Rule, some variation on Luke and Matthew’s “Do to others what you would want them to do to you.” Confucius stated it as a negative: “What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others,” which is functionally identical to Hillel’s, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.”
And yet there is a gaping chasm between all of these forms (the Wiki link contains dozens of other examples), and the formulation which is the middle topic of the middlemost text (Leviticus) of the Torah (Lev. 19:18). In other words, the Torah formulation makes the Jewish version of the Golden Rule at the heart of the text. And it is, upon reflection, very different from the Golden Rule of Confucius and Luke and Matthew and Hillel. The Torah says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
How is this different? Consider firstly that the negative construction of Confucious and Hillel do not require any engagement – you can fulfill the Golden Rule by simply leaving other people alone. No relationship is required or even encouraged; people who separate from each other have followed the rule. Which is fine, as far as it goes. But this version of the Golden Rule does nothing to build relationships, to build families and communities and societies. It enables and condones solitude and isolation.
The positive constructions are better, in that one should treat others as you wish to be treated. But that in itself does not necessarily entail a relationship. Instead, it suggests a quid pro quo, doing to others as you want them to do to you. If you want to be left alone, then you can fulfill this rule merely by leaving others alone as well!
Perhaps most importantly, the distinction of “loving others” is that love is an ongoing investment, not a mere thing or product. To truly love others means that one needs to empathize with them, to care about them in ways that are not readily measured by keeping score of who was nice to whom. Love is a lifelong, ongoing and neverending process, not just the sharing of rations or the kind of polite courtesy with which decent people greet one another on the street.
So while people all-too-often “keep score” in their lives about whether they have received their due share, whether they have given more than they have received, etc., loving them as you love yourself means caring about someone else, about learning to see through their eyes, hear through the ears, and feel as they feel.
In this sense, then, the Torah is quite distinct from other ancient documents and texts. The existence of the non-Torah Golden Rule can readily be used as a defense of a godless moral society– after all, the Golden Rule surely suggests that civil societies can logically deduce an ethical social structure and body politic.
But for Judaism, the idea of loving someone else like yourself is much richer in religious overtones. Each person, we are told by the ensoulment of Adam, contains the very spirit of G-d within them. So when we love other people, truly love them, then we are drawing closer to G-d, by connecting with and empathizing with His spirit as it is found in each person. This is a positive commandment: we cannot fulfill it by leaving them alone as we want to be left alone or even by treating them as we want to be treated. In order to be holy, we have to connect with others in love, to try to see things their way, and seek to make them feel the love that we, in turn, want to enjoy ourselves.
Golden Rules are necessary for any ethical society. “Do/Don’t do unto others” represents a baseline in human rights. But “Love your neighbor as yourself” is one step up: love is a prerequisite for holiness.
For Judaism, this Golden Rule cannot be separated from religious faith. Loving other people is a way to love G-d.
Published in General
Oh, no: not unorthodox at all.
Well, then so is death. Would you say the same about death? Should redemption in Christ grant automatic immortality in this life?
As I understand Christian theology, that would kind of defeat the point, wouldn’t it? The reward for finding redemption in Christ is admission to the Kingdom of Heaven. Which kind of requires death. So no, I don’t see an issue with death. I do see an issue with natural disasters, if you continue to claim that such events are God’s punishment for original sin. Redemption in Christ forgives original sin, does it not? So why is God visiting punishment on the redeemed?
Yeah, you’re missing a lot. If you could find the time, N. T. Wright’s Simply Christian would be highly recommended.
Christ isn’t so we can die and go to heaven. Christ is to redeem creation. At a personal level, that includes going to heaven if we die before He comes back. But that’s hardly the whole point.
Death still sucks, and still entered the world as a result of sin, and death dies when Christ returns. If redemption in Christ is meant to redeem all sin and all its consequences instantly, then we’d have to have automatic and instant immortality.
The unstated premise appears to be: That which is meaningful to a person creates a reality equal to what that persons imagines it to be.
This is dreadful metaphysics.*
[*Says Auggie, recklessly disregarding his own earlier remark:]
Auggie, I have a pet peeve about people who argue by saying “Go read a book.” It is intellectually lazy, and does not advance meaningful conversation. As I have said before, I am a firm believer that anyone who has a point to make, and who actually understands their own point, can explain it clearly and succinctly in plain English. If a person can’t do that, then I conclude that they don’t understand their own point. Which happens with alarming frequency.
I am not going to buy Mr. Wright’s book. I am not interested in what Mr. Wright thinks. I was asking about what you think. I did, however, read a review of the book that was available on line. It struck me as being the usual evangelical arguments, which I have heard many times before (and which, by the way, strike me as utterly unpersuasive and circular, even though I know that many, many people are persuaded by them).
One thing I did not see in the summary of Mr. Wright’s arguments was an answer to my question to you. So I will rephrase the question: Does God grant any material benefit or favor in this life to those who are redeemed? I say material benefit because I understand the psychological benefits and I am not talking about those. And, obviously, God does not grant immortality to the redeemed, so that issue is off the table. But if we stipulate your claim that natural disasters are God’s punishment for original sin (or, in the alternative, an expression of God’s wrath for original sin – you have not been quite clear about which you are claiming here), then does God in any way distinguish between the redeemed and the unredeemed? And, if not, why not?
Dude, I only cited Wright as a suggestion, and then I made the necessary point myself. Did you not read the part where I made the point myself?
Not that I know of–not to the redeemed as such. At least nothing in the Bible to that effect comes to mind. (I vaguely remember reading something in Calvin that might have had something to do with that. If he said it then he thought it was in the Bible, in which case either he is wrong or I never noticed it myself.)
G-d does grant material benefits in this life to people; “he makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”
The only alternative phrasing I recall ass the natural consequences of the sin of Adam. I also recall being quite clear that I approve of both formulations.
Yes, by the gift of the Holy Spirit. That answer is definitely in the New Testament.
Okay. Well, that answers that question. As an answer to the question of why God allows bad things to happen to good people (or, phrased alternatively, why is there suffering in the world) I consider iWe’s explanation to be more acceptable than yours. But I only know of one explanation offered by any recognized religion that actually makes sense to me. I know of two other explanations that also make sense to me, but I don’t think that any organized religion (except, perhaps, Buddhism) asserts either of them.
Well, there was a lot in iWe’s answer that was good!
There is, like Boethius said (cartoon version here!) no end of investigating the question why there is suffering; but the basic answer is still what Augustine said it was, the answer drawn from Genesis: free will given by G-d to humans (and, if we want to be thorough, to angels as well). (Maybe I’ll plan a post on the problem of evil sometime sooner than I’d earlier planned!)
But I’m puzzled. If you wanted to know my answer to the question why there is suffering in the world, why do you write in # 127 as if I finally answered it in # 126? I answered it in # 43.
Oh, wait. Your italicization of “that question” means that in that sentence you were talking about another related question. Ok, I think I get it.
Darn. I though maybe @Majestyk might have been involved in that conversation. That led to this old thread, which is nice. But it’s not the conversation I’m remembering. I’d like to review that one.
Yes, clearly they were two different questions. I’d like to comment on your answer in #43. It is two sentences, and you later disclaimed the second sentence as being a bit of a flight of fancy on your part. So that leaves one sentence, which is very vague and oblique, to answer one of the more complicated questions in all of theology. And you seem almost offended that I asked for clarification and follow-up. This is sort of an ongoing issue in discussions with you. You make an observation that only hints at your thinking, and then treat it as if you had given a comprehensive explanation. I will offer you a piece of advice, which you may disregard, but which you would benefit from considering. This observation is not original with me, but I can’t give attribution because I don’t know who came up with it in the first instance. But here it is, for what it’s worth: Don’t write to be understood; write so that you cannot be misunderstood.
It was three sentences:
And no, I did not later disclaim the part about angelic sin. (It’s no flight of fancy. I believe it!) I only said in # 50 that it’s a less important answer than the one about human sin.
I don’t see how # 43 is vague or oblique, although it was very brief.
But if you wanted a more thorough account you could have just asked for one, and you still can. I answered as well as I knew how every follow-up question in your # 100. (Studying that answer is part of what I do for a living!)
What on earth are you talking about? If it’s # 84, the “almost offended” reading is way off, and in any case # 84 is plainly a reply to your # 53 which contains no request for clarification.
If it’s # 106 the “almost offended” reading is still way off the mark, and I can’t imagine how you arrive at it.
I have never done that even once. You are welcome to cite some sources to accompany your accusation. In this thread, for example, why don’t you name the comment where you thought I was treating # 43 or #s 106-7 as a comprehensive explanation?
Larry, if you think that I have not been trying to be understood by you all these years then you are badly, badly misreading my intentions.
#128. So I understood it. When you say you answered the question way back at #43. It was a actually different question, but even if it had been the same question your claim that you were “puzzled” carries a whiff of, if not offense, at least annoyance.
#128.
Are you trying for irony there, or are you just missing the fact that you just claimed to be doing what I suggested you should not do? The aphorism I quoted – what do you think it means?
Do I think you are sometimes deliberately oblique? Well, yeah. But that’s part of what makes it fun to discuss issues with you.
A ridiculous eisegesis. The claim that I’m “puzzled” carries with it no whiffs of anything. It simply means I’m “puzzled.” I don’t know why you would read anything else into it.
I was puzzled, and by the time I’d finished thinking it through I said “I think I get it” because I thought I did–correctly, as it turns out.
Again, a ridiculous eisegesis. In # 128 I say that I’d answered the question in # 43, because I did. There is not even a hint of the idea that it was a “comprehensive” answer. To the contrary, # 128 notes that a truly comprehensive answer would be endless, which entails that # 43 was not such, since it had an end.
Not at all. I have been trying, in all our conversations, to be understandable to you and avoid misunderstandings.
I have no idea where this accusation comes from or even a clear idea what it means. But if you would care to cite some evidence I’ll take a look at it.
Now about that adage you mentioned. It is very good, and my writing would probably benefit from keeping it constantly in mind. Still, some responsibility for understanding must always fall on the reader. I don’t know what I could possibly do to avoid your misunderstanding me when you engage in the sort of strange eisegeses mentioned above.
Aha!
Got it. It was that thread on Klavan.