Re: Social Evolution

Quoting George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>:

> There would be some force in David's argument if a kind of social Darwinism
> were the only type of ethic that social evolution had produced & if we were
> then trying to impose some different ethic. But along with survival of the
> fittest ethics there have also developed altruistic ones. (The illustrations
> of the "Tao" which C.S. Lewis gives in the appendix of The Abolition of Man
> is helpful here.) & in fact the ethics of the Bible can be seen to have gone
> through a kind of evolutionary process. E.g., there is a definite
> development from the demand for unlimited vengeance of Gen.4:23-24 through
> the limits placed on rettribution in the lex talionis of Ex.21:23-24 to the
> move beyond any retribution in Mt.5:38-39.
>
> Shalom
> George

Mennonites are pretty keen on that "evolution" you mention from the O.T.
unlimited vengeance to the eventual N.T. prohibition of vengeance -- a useful
thing to remember when people try to construct a 'just war' theology from the O.T.

Regarding Lewis' Tao, he made a pretty good case for the evidence of some moral
law built into creation. The verse comes to my mind in Romans 2:14 where the
gentiles do by nature the things required by the law showing that the law is
written on their hearts. Perhaps Lewis refers to that passage -- I can't
remember. But this is the only thing that keeps me from whole-hearted agreement
with Keith that no moral can be read from nature, but must be read into it.
There may be two meanings of nature in use here confusing the issue for me. But
it seems to me that somewhere in our human 'nature' has been encoded that law
(or at least the possibility of recognizing it) that leaves us without excuse
even in the absence of the externally given law.

Altruism is another of those sticky issues in which something important seems to
dissolve the moment you try to inspect it. Even if one was willing to cast away
this entire life for the sake of the eternal Christ (the most noble thing we
Christians can imagine), aren't we still acting in our own self-interest? So
I'm chasing a heavenly carrot instead of an earthly one! Good for me. A wise
old pastor of ours once referred to this as "enlightened self-interest". But it
still seems to be one of those things that begins to stink when you ruminate on
it.

Regarding evolutionary explanations for moral development, one can read books
like Dennett's "Freedom Evolves" to get some idea how the Dawkins type crowd is
attacking. As much as I disagreed with his foundational assumptions, it was
there that I was made acquainted with delightfully fascinating things such as
the "prisoner's dilemma" which is a kind of dramatization one can enact in
classrooms to make a point. I thought, though, that Lewis' Tao concept still
anticipates and answers much of this evolutionary "moral-making" in an effective
way. Thanks for reminding me of this, George.

--merv
Received on Tue Jan 24 17:44:00 2006