In article <m3OVj.357$za1.108@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Jani says...
>
[snip]
>Babies are actually incredibly self-centred little creatures.
Self-centered, yes. But self-centered is not necessarily always the same
as
selfish, neither does the one _necessarily_ lead to the other.
>
> One of the points in the Bible that I do
>> believe is truth..is that God wants us to come to it as little
>> children..in that we are to be open and trusting and love...pure love
>> getting past all the ego onion layers that we build on us as we get
>> older. Ever see how children can play and get along before they learn
>> how to distrust? before they learn how to over-identify with the
>> differences and not the similarities?
>
>What age-group do you mean, here? Very small children *have* to learn to
>recognise difference, otherwise they function as if everyone else was a
>'clone' of themselves, and can't understand perspectives other than their
>own.
And alas, I can think of a lot of adults who never seemed to have learned
this:(
> That's a fairly major factor in autism.
Which, alas, does not explain the adults I just mentioned.
[snip]
>I was reading an interesting article on the Golden Rule which is relevant
>here; the author pointed out that the GR relies heavily on the actor's
>assumption that the recipient has exactly the same view of a situation as
>they do.
But does it? Or is making this assumption a _mis-application_ of the Rule?
[sni]
>Jani, who hadn't considered the GR in that light before, and finds that
it
>makes a LOT of sense. Although I expect that Matthew, amongst others,
will
>think it too relativistic :)
Actually, since you mentioned 'relativistic', my first response was to
misread
'GR' as meaning "General Relativity", even though you had already shown
you
meant "Golden Rule" just a few lines above;)
But as I hinted above: the major problem is not that it is too
_relativistic_
but that the article and your summary of it appear to rely too much on a
rather
simplistic interpretation of it.
After all: consider the example you and the article use, that of placing
steak
before someone who is fasting. Now recall the audience he was speaking to:
they
were all very familiar with, for example, the Yom Kippur fast. Would _any_
of
them even _think_ of placing food before a fellow Jew keeping this fast?
Of
course not. They all knew better.
In short, the GR was never supposed to be understood to mean _whatever_
you
would like to be treated as. It was always meant to be understood as
meaning how
you would like to be treated, assuming you were thinking rationally and
piously
about how you would want to be treated.
To make this a little clearer, let's take a look at the _whole_ verse:
So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is
the
law and the prophets.
(Mat 7:12 RSVA)
Notice the check: "for this is the law and the prophets". Of _course_ the
law
and the prophets never recommend eating on Yom Kippur. So your desire to
eat
during the Fast is _not_ how you should treat others either.
Finally, this would perhaps be a little more clear if the RSV translators
had
correctly observed the distinction between 'wish' and 'will' in the
translation
above: it really should read "will tha men would do to you", not 'wish'.
The
difference is that the _will_ is by definition rational and natural.
'Wish' is
often neither. This is why Theophylact says, commenting on this very
verse:
what you do not love yourself, do not do to others; in this instance, both
the
law and the prophets agree with what natural law dictates to us
[http://pagez.ru/lsn/0113.php#07]
Note the reference to _natural_ law. This is justified by Christ's
reference to
our _natural_ will, in the word 'will'.
--
------------------------------
Subducat se sibi ut haereat Deo
Quidquid boni habet tribuat illi a quo factus est
(Sanctus Aurelius Augustinus, Ser. 96)
|
