Saturday, December 16, 2023

What Logically Follows From A Biblical Command

You cannot know from conscience that the Bible's moral tenets are true.  Indeed, for myself, I never had any moral feelings flare up at the notion of having a weekly Sabbath (Exodus 35:2-3) or not eating animal fat (Leviticus 3:17).  My conscience never made me feel as if charging any level of interest at all on a loan to a fellow countryperson (Deuteronomy 23:19-20) or the poor (Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:35-37) is sinful.  Not that anyone's moral feelings matter--independent of whether Christianity is true, they are only subjective and random, malleable emotions, not something that could possibly provide proof of anything but the feelings themselves.  People who cling to conscience only do so because they are stupid or frightened of some alternative, not because it is rational or even morally right to do so.  The person who truly cares about morality would disregard conscience anyway, caring about actually doing that which is obligatory and avoiding that which is evil regardless of how they feel about anything.

Moral epistemology is far more nuanced and yet simple as far as broad philosophy and Biblical teachings go.  Here, I will focus on the latter.  Within Biblical statements, everything that one needs to ascertain what would be immoral, permissible, or mandatory on the worldview described therein is addressed (Deuteronomy 4:2).  The Bible's central and only primary, complete moral teachings are put forth in Mosaic Law, with some narratives affirming or elaborating upon this--if God tells someone to do something, then on the Christian worldview, the thing is not evil, but looking to narratives rather than or apart from Mosaic Law is not going to unveil most Biblical moral doctrines.  Some of the commands have logically necessary ramifications that mean they are really touching on more than just one particular case at once.  Though no one needs this example to realize the preceding or many of the following things, Paul realizes this when referencing Deuteronomy 25:4 in both 1 Corinthians 9:7-10 and 1 Timothy 5:17-18 in contexts that are not at all about animals, but about people having a right to the rewards of their labor.

The verse from Deuteronomy says not to muzzle an ox while it is treading the grain.  This is because animals are also beings with the breath of life (Genesis 7:20-23) that have moral value on the Christian worldview (Genesis 1:20-25, 31).  It happens to be the case that Yahweh's nature is such that to prevent an animal from eating the grain it is spreading is mistreatment.  Still, the New Testament quotations of this verse are about people who plow literally or figuratively deserving to reap the harvest, and 1 Corinthians 9:10 as much as says this outright.  If disallowing animals from having some of the grain they are distributing is sinful, how much more is unfairness to humans who are made in the image of God in denying them the proportionate rewards of their labor?  In Mosaic Law itself, which Paul cites as someone who in no way teaches that its obligations have been superceded or annulled or revealed to be tyrannical as many pseudo-Christians assert (Acts 24:14, Romans 7:7), there are many instances where it would be obvious to any rationalistic person what follows and does not follow by necessity, even if the text does not mention something.

To follow is an example of a broad issue that is addressed on the level of both trying to persuade others to commit an evil act and then going further by doing the action.  Regardless, only the former would be needed to condemn the latter.  In Deuteronomy 13:6-10, suggesting to someone that other deities besides Yahweh be worshipped is prescribed the punishment of execution by stoning.  Four chapters later, Deuteronomy 17:2-7 says to do the same to someone who has worshipped other deities or celestial bodies.  Deuteronomy 13, without Deuteronomy 17, already would condemn actual worship of anything but Yahweh.  If merely enticing someone to worship other deities or the natural world is deserving of death, then of course it would follow that actually going further than this and engaging in worship of other deities would deserve at least the same punishment.  For a sin where this sort of logical necessity is presented without the Bible writing it all out, if attacking someone with a stone or with one's first outside of self-defense is evil (Exodus 21:18-19), attacking someone with a shovel or a brick would, if it has the same level of resulting injury, also deserve financial restitution for the victim to make up for any time they could not work.  The obligation articulated in this verse is not largely or exclusively about stones and fists.  It is about how, according to Yahweh's nature, this level of assault (without permanent injury or accidental death, which are addressed separately) is always sinful and the just punishment is always for the aggressor to pay the victim in the aforementioned manner.

There are many more such things in Mosaic Law.  Is Deuteronomy 25:11-12 really only teaching that a woman who grabs a man in this way is sinning, as opposed to if she had gone beyond grabbing or if a man had done this to a woman?  No!  If a woman sins by just seizing a man's genitals--not in a consensual sexual encounter that is morally permissible (such as within marriage)--in the context of defending her husband, then of course she would have sinned even moreso by using her fingers to inflict pain on the man's penis or testicles in that situation, and of course grabbing a man's genitals in a nonconsensual or degrading manner in other scenarios would be at least just as immoral.  This law, therefore, is of great relevance to the sexual assault of men by women, which the Bible never denies or trivializes.  A woman who grabs a man's genitals to harass or humiliate him if he refuses to have sex with her or because she thinks she is entitled to sexually touching him against his wishes, having nothing to do with self-defense, would still deserve to have her hand cut off.  Moreover, a man who grabs a woman's genitals (breasts on either gender are not genitalia and thus are not "sex" organs even though exposure or admiration of the genitals can be entirely nonsexual) to control her in a fight, even to protect his wife whom she is attacking, sins because the act is the same (and Genesis 1:26-27, not to mention many laws in the Torah, plainly teaches gender equality).

The Bible does not need to mention the then-far-future technology of automobiles for it to logically follow from exact Biblical statement of Leviticus 19:16 (if true) that driving recklessly is immoral, for this would already endanger any people around oneself while driving as this general verse condemns.  Exodus does not need to say when it condemns kidnapping (Exodus 21:16) that a race-based slave trade is evil because if all kidnapping deserves death, then of course race-based abduction for the transatlantic slave trade of several centuries ago is even worse than basic kidnapping.  By saying to not bring the payment of a male or female prostitute into God's house to fulfill a vow because God hates them both (Deuteronomy 23:17-18), it is saying that prostitution is evil in all cases, or else God would not hate their compensation.  Many premises are articulated in particular phrases from which it would follow by necessity, in itself or in light of other passages, that things not mentioned at all or not specifically included in the statement would have to be evil as well.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

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