The Gift of Moral Knowledge
What help do we look for when life feels confusing and frustrating?
Recently I went to a soccer match to watch our 5-year-old nephew play. It was the embodiment of pure charm: little bodies moving about in scrums on a small-scale field, kicking at a tiny soccer ball.
I couldn’t help but notice the looks of pure frustration when an attempt at dribbling, passing, or applying defensive pressure went wrong. Those moments yielded plaintive kids: wide-eyed, mouths agape, alternatively looking to a parent or to the heavens, trying—not always successfully—to hold back tears. I’ve never seen slumped shoulders convey such resignation.
Those kids revealed a universal truth: It's hard when we can’t figure out life–when truth and the ability to successfully navigate reality seems out of our grasp. Like the kids, we are unsure about the right thing to do. We grope for ethics and feel unsteady in relationships. When things get complex or nuanced, we can feel fearful, bewildered, and panic a bit. We stop, slump our shoulders, and cry out to God. Or, in our frustration, we sometimes lash out and harm others.
What we need is a gift that comes from God: moral knowledge. Knowledge of the right, true and good is a Divine resource for living. It is the operating system by which human bodies and societies are meant to function. It is therefore a gift of liveability. Moral knowledge is meant to guide and enable the various performances and interactions of life for everyone’s good including both the performer and the recipient of an attitude, a word, or an action.
Truth Stumbling in the Streets
The prophet Isaiah was no stranger to our modern-day confusion and frustration. He described the lack of moral knowledge as truth stumbling in the streets (Isaiah 59:14). He says such awkward lurching is caused by false and wicked speech, by failing to seek justice, by not acting with integrity, and by speaking oppressive and lying words. (Read verses 3-15 for the full picture.)
Why would anyone behave the way Isaiah describes? We think we need to push God’s moral knowledge away so we can be free. Free to lie if it gets us elected. Free to have sex with whoever would make us feel good. Free to misuse employees if it helps the bottom line. Free to be unfair with an employer if we don’t like them. On and on that sad and dreary story goes, a hurricane destroying everything and everyone in its path.
However, the banishment of moral knowledge in the name of human freedom is not true liberty. Pushing God’s moral knowledge away from our families, our neighborhoods, and our national conversations means justice and righteousness are pushed away too. Isaiah says that in such a condition:
We look for light, but all is darkness;
for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows.
Like the blind we grope along the wall,
feeling our way like people without eyes.
At midday we stumble as if it were twilight.Isaiah 59:9-10
The prophet says the disappearance of moral knowledge comes from uttering lies our hearts have conceived (59:13). Paraphrasing verses 14 and 15a, it is the willful rejection of moral knowledge that keeps honesty from entering our life which then creates an environment in which truth is nowhere to be found. In that social reality, those who try to shun evil and do good become prey, injured in a system that has willfully and consistently rejected moral knowledge.
The Gift of Moral Knowledge
Moral knowledge, as opposed to being deceived or misunderstanding a situation, is a gift, not a burden or an imposition. Moral knowledge is not something that blocks the unmitigated pursuit of our desires. Nor is it meant to take all the joy out of life. Nor is it unknowable or unattainable.
Yet, large swaths of people today believe that “moral knowledge—knowledge of good and evil, of what is morally admirable and despicable, of simple right and wrong—is no longer available in our world to people generally.” I understand how people come to that conclusion. And I know that seeking and finding specific instances of moral knowledge is not always straightforward or easy.
In the midst of confusion or even helplessness concerning truth, God asks one thing: that we do not reject him. He asks that we seek him, that we “devote our heart and soul to seeking the Lord our God” (1 Chronicles 22:19), that we seek first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33), that we:
Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.
Colossians 3:1-2, MSG
Exchanging the true freedom empowered by moral knowledge for pseudo-liberty means we will miss out on the goodness, the gift, of knowing reality from God’s point of view. This imprisons us and too often causes us to harm others. Moral knowledge, on the other hand, frees us from the bondage of our disordered desires and releases us to love and to become agents of God’s goodness in the world.
This is a heavy topic. It makes me want to pause in humility and breathe in peace. It calls to mind the words of the Psalmist:
Show me your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.
Psalm 25:4-5
In your pursuit of moral knowledge, may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7).