Do you cross the line?
I was struck by the words of Ravi Zacharias recently when he was talking about that ‘line’ over which we sometimes step. The line that separates good behaviour from bad behaviour. The line in our ethics that shows us the forbidden side of how we want to be and what we want to do:
Your passion, your appetite, is a gift from God, as mine is, and we are given the privileged of training that appetite and disciplining that appetite; and let me tell you: some people will live in a way to see how far they can go, as close to the wrong side of living and Daniel wanted to see how far away he could stay from that line and still retain contact and effectiveness.
He’s saying that some people will get as close to the line as possible, try and push the line over a bit. But the better way of living is to see how far away from the line you can live but still remain grounded and useful in life! I think it’s a great way of looking at our moral choices and our vision for what sort of person we want to become.
Filed under: Theology on March 20th, 2009
G.K. Chesterton said “Morality, like art, consists in drawing the line somewhere”. Of course it’s most important to remember why we’re drawing any lines at all – for artists the lines are drawn to create a beautiful picture that can be appreciated by many.
Ravi Zacherias, in his book “The real face of atheism”, quoted Peter Kreeft about morality saying ― “Ancient ethics always dealt with three questions. Modern ethics deals with only one, or at the most, two. The three questions are like the three things a fleet of ships is told by its sailing orders. First, the
ships must know how to avoid bumping into each other. This is social ethics, and modern as well as ancient ethicists deal with it. Second, they must know how to stay shipshape and avoid sinking. This is individual ethics, virtues and vices, character-building, and we hear very little about this from our modern ethical philosophies. Third, and most important of all, they must know why the fleet is at sea in the first place…I think I know why modern philosophers dare not raise this greatest of questions: because they have no answer to it.”
Unless we have an idea of why we’re drawing lines or why we’re staying shipshape, both individually and corporately, we will always push the lines because they’re meaningless.