Character First?

“The Three Crosses” | Rembrandt van Rijn

Pagans and Christians have one thing in common: They believe in morality and decency. Of course, definitions of this kind of thing can be shifty, but when you read Aristotle you ought to observe immediately that his perception of what is right and wrong is quite similar to the view of a Christian philosopher such as St. Thomas Aquinas. Certain forms of Paganism are as respectable as Christianity. Consider the almost Puritanical moral austerity of Immanuel Kant, for instance, or the modest utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill.

(Of course, the brilliant Nietzsche gave the lie to the virtuous naturalists. He realized that if man has erased God from the universe, he cannot claim to hold moral standards or even uphold the value of rationality. The horizon is gone; all that is left is the unrestricted exercise of will. But this is another discussion.)

Morality cannot be the aim of Christianity. If the essence of Christianity is found in making virtuous human beings, there is no need for Christianity at all. Let us dispense with revelation and study Plato instead, for if there is no great good in a cross, we ought immediately to abandon it.

The cross, after all, is an embarassment. The unsightly spectacle of a dying Son of God fills pagans and naturalistic moralists with disgust. Pagan morality is tidy and respectable; Christianity is a wild comedy with a horrible enigma at its center. The Pharisees stumbled at the hanging Christ; Gentiles blanched at a suffering God. Remove the offense of the Gospel and we would get along much better.

In John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Mr. Worldly-Wiseman lures Christian out of the way to the Wicket Gate with the promise that his burden of guilt can be removed more easily in the nearby town of Morality, and that he may live out his days there in “Safety, Friendship, and Content.” After Evangelist has rescued Christian from a certain doom, he tells him that Mr. Worldly-Wiseman “loveth that doctrine [morality] best, for it saveth him from the Cross.” But Christian now knows that the Law is death to those who follow it. It is when Christian sees the Cross that his burden falls away, “and I saw it no more.”

A kind of education that focuses on training children with good “character” and moral behavior needs very little Gospel. Gospel-centered education is very different.

[ To be continued . . . ]