Posted on by Abe Austin

False Moral Dilemmas- Moral Inaction

Jesus’ Silence)

In my previous post I discussed how Jesus managed moral quandaries and snares that his enemies tried to set for him. Another example that I did not mention was how he would employ silence, rather than engaging in the problem at all. We see this in his trials before the Sanhedrin, Herod, and Pilate. With the Sanhedrin and Pilate, he did not speak until the time was right, or to correct their faulty framing. To Herod, a most wicked man, and the murderer of his cousin John, he never said any word at all.

From Jesus’s example, we see that sometimes the outside-the-box moral solution to a moral dilemma is to just not engage with it at all. When the entire framework of the problem is flawed, when the premise of the whole thing is set to entrap us, there always remains the option of moral non-engagement.

Unforced Errors)

I previously gave silent non-engagement as a solution to the supposed moral dilemma of Nazis at the door asking where the Jews are hiding. Once again, if there are no good options to engage in, you can just not engage. Sometimes inaction is the most moral choice that there is.

This is a critical thing to understand, as it breaks the last parts of the illusion that sometimes we must choose one evil or another. If there are truly no good options, just choose none of them at all. No situation or contrivance can ever force us to do anything. They cannot make us break conscience. We only ever do what we allow ourselves to do.

Of course, all of us will compromise ourselves at some point. We will all break conscience. But it is important to understand in those moments that we didn’t have to do that, we chose to. That’s something I’ll explore more with my next post.

Posted on by Abe Austin

False Moral Dilemmas- The Third Choice

The Need for Miracles)

In the last post we discussed so-called moral dilemmas present us with only bad choices, each a compromise of conscience, but if we are willing and creative enough to find it, there is typically another option that sidesteps the dilemma and allows us to keep on the straight and narrow. First, we have to move outside of the manufactured box that our tester has put us in, then see the full range of possible choices, and finally be willing to accept the consequences for sticking to what is right.

Indeed, a common theme all throughout the Bible is people who are faced with exactly these sorts of situations, who then have to step outside the bounds of their initial perception and rely on a miracle to accomplish good and retain their souls. Think of Lot, who saw his only choices as letting the wicked men of the city either rape his guests or his daughters, but who was then saved by angels. Think of Joseph who could either put Mary away in secret or have her stoned for adultery, but who then received a heavenly message to show him that she truly bore the son of God. Think of Solomon who had two women claiming to be the mother of the same child, with nothing in their testimony to show him whom to believe, but who was blessed with wisdom to find out the truth.

Moral dilemmas, and their outside-the-box solutions, are a key theme in the scriptures. When the righteous are faced with no-win scenarios, that’s when the hand of God becomes manifest to show them another way. Indeed, the entire point of the gospel is that it provides a surprise solution to a damned situation. Many of us will sin and earn the suffering of hell, while those that die in their innocence are still swallowed in the grave. No matter which path we take through this life, we’re damned, at least we were until a Savior presented us a miraculous alternative.

The Master of Third Options)

It comes as no surprise that Jesus, himself, was a master of resolving seeming no-win, moral dilemmas. I think more than any other figure in the Bible he was put to the test with contrived situations that tried to get him to compromise himself one way or another.

Think of when the Pharisees brought him the woman taken in adultery, and asked if he would uphold Moses’s law, which required the stoning of the woman. Would he deny the law? That would be heretical. Would he condemn her to death? That would go against his mission to forgive and to save. Jesus stepped outside of their trap, though, and said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” In so doing, he touched their guilt and got them to slink away in shame.

But it’s not as though he was denying the justice of the law. Jesus was still worthy to stone her, but also, he was able to forgive her because he would take her stoning upon himself when he laid his life down as a ransom for the world. Thus, Jesus did not transgress justice, nor embrace condemnation. He found a third way to satisfy justice and make space for mercy.

Think also of when he was asked whether the people should pay taxes to their oppressor Caesar. On the one hand, he could say that yes, they were required to pay their taxes, which would offend the people. Or he could say no, that they should defy Caesar, which would make him an enemy of the state. Jesus, however, chose a third option. He showed the people that their entire framing was wrong. They were putting too much value in worldly currency, thinking that it amounted to anything of moral weight in the eyes of the Lord. He reminded them that worldly treasure and spiritual sacrifice were two separate things, one properly pertaining to the world and one to God. By helping to disentangle the two, and setting the spiritual as superior to the temporal, Jesus found a third path that both approved the paying of taxes while also diminishing its importance in the broader scheme of things.

The stories of Jesus and others in the Bible shows us that we may be given traps where it appears that there are no good solutions, but that if we have some ingenuity, or even some divine intervention, the moral way is still there for us. As Paul told the Corinthians, “With the temptation,” God will “also make a way to escape” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 14:23-25

23 And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.

24 And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians,

25 And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians.

Eventually the Egyptians were able to get around the fiery, cloudy pillar and gave chase to the Israelites. Verse 24 makes it clear that the pillar did not vanish, but perhaps by the light of rising sun, during “the morning watch,” they were able to see well enough to navigate around it and follow their quarry into the sea.

Meanwhile, God watched all of the Egyptians’ doings from within the pillar. He watched as they stubbornly continued in their efforts to molest His people, and so He took away their chief advantage: their chariots. It says that He “took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily.” This might mean that the wheels became sloughed down in the wet sand or mud that had been saturated by the Red Sea. No matter how hard they drove their horses, the dragging sludge was apparently too great, even to the point of breaking the wheels under the stress.

Now, at last, a panic fell upon the Egyptians. They were on foot, deprived of their speed, and caught between two great walls of water. Perhaps the Israelites had still been finishing their journey through the channel, and they had judged that they would be able to catch them before they were all out, thus God would not be able to close the channel without destroying His own people. But then, by getting partway through before losing their chariot wheels, they may have suddenly found themselves not able to reach one side or the other before the Israelites would fully vacate the chasm and God could close the channel with no friendly casualties.

They had stepped willfully into the trap, practically daring the Lord to destroy them, and finally they could see with their own eyes the manner of their destruction. They attempted to flee, acknowledging that God, Himself, was at war with them. It was, however, too late.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 14:1-4

1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baal-zephon: before it shall ye encamp by the sea.

3 For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in.

4 And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord. And they did so.

Thus far, God had been leading Israel by day and by night, moving them as quickly through the land as He could. Now, though, He instructed them to stop their progress and make camp, and He deliberately instructed them to do it with their backs to the sea, thus cutting off any escape route.

God even said that this was so Pharaoh would see a moment of supposed weakness where the Israelites would be “entangled in the land.” This would tempt Pharaoh to come out with his armies and destroy them. Pharaoh would think that the Israelites had walked themselves into a trap of their own making. And indeed it was a trap, but a trap for catching Egyptians!

Thus, it was Pharaoh’s hubris that was to be his downfall. He could, of course, have left well-enough alone, but God already knew that he would not. The trap was effective because it was targeted towards Pharaoh’s character flaw: his pride and unwillingness to accept when he had lost. Due to this flaw he had already unnecessarily subjected his people to unnecessary suffering through the plagues, and now he would do so again.

Of course, verse 4 does say that God would harden Pharaoh’s heart, but I’ve already written many times that I believe this rendering is inaccurate, given the other times where it instead says that it was Pharaoh who hardened his own heart. And while this may not be the most significant of evidences, after reading today’s verses it occurs to me that another reason for believing that Pharaoh was culpable for his actions is that to assume otherwise would disrupt his character arc. Pharaoh is a type and example to us all of hubris and pride and self-defeat, but his cautionary tale would lose all its weight if he wasn’t a free agent in choosing that path of self-destruction. From a narrative perspective, it is essential that Pharaoh chose of his own free will to do evil so that the moral of his story may resonate in our hearts.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 44:7-10

7 And they said unto him, Wherefore saith my lord these words? God forbid that thy servants should do according to this thing:

8 Behold, the money, which we found in our sacks’ mouths, we brought again unto thee out of the land of Canaan: how then should we steal out of thy lord’s house silver or gold?

9 With whomsoever of thy servants it be found, both let him die, and we also will be my lord’s bondmen.

10 And he said, Now also let it be according unto your words: he with whom it is found shall be my servant; and ye shall be blameless.

I find it very interesting that Jacob’s sons are so confident in declaring their innocence. Yes, they know that they have done no wrong, but they also didn’t put the money into their sacks the first time they came to Egypt, yet there it was even so. I would think an abundance of caution, and suspicion of treachery would be warranted, but apparently it doesn’t cross their minds that they might be walking into a trap.

For if it did cross their minds, why on earth would they stake their very lives on the matter? Their own suggestion is that if one of them has committed the crime then that brother should be killed, and all the others will be made into slaves!

The steward cools down their fervor somewhat. They won’t all be punished if only one of them has committed the crime, and the thief won’t be killed, but he will have to become Joseph’s slave. Given that they are willing to the higher punishment, the brothers are agreeable to this lesser one as well. And so, they willingly commit themselves to their own ruin.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 43:15-18

15 And the men took that present, and they took double money in their hand, and Benjamin; and rose up, and went down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph.

16 And when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the ruler of his house, Bring these men home, and slay, and make ready; for these men shall dine with me at noon.

17 And the man did as Joseph bade; and the man brought the men into Joseph’s house.

18 And the men were afraid, because they were brought into Joseph’s house; and they said, Because of the money that was returned in our sacks at the first time are we brought in; that he may seek occasion against us, and fall upon us, and take us for bondmen, and our asses.

Jacob’s sons set out as instructed, bringing with them the present, the double-money, and their youngest brother. Once again they come to Egypt, and once again they find themselves dealing directly with the great Egyptian ruler Zaphnath-paaneah, who is in reality Joseph. And so, at last, Joseph sees Benjamin, and he is moved. Shortly he will show an abundance of tender and caring feeling towards him.

Rather than conduct his business with his brothers right away, Joseph makes ready for the second stage of his test. He is going to play the part of gracious host and treat them kindly, presumably to set his brothers at ease.

But Joseph’s brothers do not receive the invitation to his house with any enthusiasm! Thus far Zaphnath-paaneah, has seemed extremely paranoid towards them, and they immediately assume that this is all a trap. What would stop him from doing whatever mischief he desired to them, just as soon as the doors to the outside world were closed?

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 42:35

35 And it came to pass as they emptied their sacks, that, behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack: and when both they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid.

One of the brothers had opened his sack of grain on the way home and found his money restored, but apparently the others did not check theirs until they were all gathered before their faither. Now they see that all of them have had their money returned to them and it fills them with dread.

On the one hand, they might rightly assume that this is a trick by that suspicious head Egyptian, Zaphnath-paaneah, who sold them the grain. And based on his attitude towards the brothers earlier, it would seem likely Zaphnath had done this to entrap them, rather than as a kindness. Indeed, they will suggest as much in the very next chapter.

Or, on the other hand, it might have ended up in their grain as a mistake, in which case the Egyptians might have found the imbalance in their ledgers, and then they might assume the brothers had somehow stolen their money back again. In either case, the presence of this money is a disturbing turn of events, giving the Egyptians ample reason to persecute them further.

The prospect of going back to Egypt thus becomes so distasteful, that they won’t even attempt it until they are once again at starvation’s door in the next chapter. Indeed, if it weren’t for the shadow of death upon them, perhaps Simeon would never have been retrieved. He would have been left by his brothers to rot in prison, just as Joseph.