The Parable of the Two Sons

 29" 'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

 30"Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go.

 31"Which of the two did what his father wanted?"
      "The first," they answered.

   Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

This always comes to mind when I hear Tom's point about motivation.  One son did the will of the father basically on the spot.  There seems to have been no time for "motivation" analysis.   And so, I'm not sure things have to be done for all the right reasons, if that could be done i.e. motivated by sentimental love which is what I have in mind when I think of what Tom is saying about Paul's 1 Cor 13.  On the one hand, I do think it is impossible to "love" faceless humanity, but that might be with a sentimental type love.  But when I think of our talks on politics I don't think that kind of love figures into why someone wants to "make the world a better place."  Is this not love? I may help someone, because I have a passion which has developed over time..."solidified" as we say around here.  Am I gonna now say that because someone like a Jim Wallis may not directly help the poor, but seek to change politics such that the poor are helped, that that is not loving?  Aren't the poor faceless here?  Love seems to express itself concretely in many different ways.  Does someone honestly think that someone who takes a different approach is being less loving?  See, sometimes, I think your being wrapped up in "motivation of an action" is unbearable when what God calls us to is the action non-the-less.  Done deal.   Sometimes the passion or the motive doesn't "catch up" until after the action is done. That's why you have people like Dr. Laura who tell her listeners to love on their spouses by hugging them, kissing them, etc. Like as with a child. The motivation and feelings to genuinely love start to come AS YOU ARE LOVING. And sometimes they seem to come under situations and circumstances in which you least expect them to like when you do something FOR THE WRONG REASON i.e. you are enlightened through a terrible act that you perpetuated to be a better person, to show mercy, kindness, etc.

Post Edited (BBBCanada) : 8/9/2008 12:15:20 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Similtude) : 8/9/2008 8:47:49 PM (GMT-5)

Again, limited, faulty perspectives.

Post Edited (Love's Child) : 8/10/2008 8:15:24 AM (GMT-5)

D: God can take ANY suffering and/or evil, turn it inside out, and redeem it by his eternal Love...because Love is infinite (God is Infinite Truth) while all contexts for suffering and evil (as movement away from Infinite Truth) are finite. Hence, no suffering and/or evil is ever fundamentally irredeemable.

J: Indeed, D! INDEED!

Tom: No time for motivation? So I guess this son’s obedience was entirely ‘unmotivated’? How much time does it take be motivated?

Brandon: Well in a sense. I’m saying that some acts of compassion and love that we take are not deliberative, which is why I had to correct myself and say, “motivation analysis”--asking ourselves, why we are doing such an act. For instance, if I were to take a bullet for someone or push someone out of the way of an oncoming bus. There really isn’t much time to analysis my motivation in such situations that are mostly of a personal type. Did I do this because I “love” this person? It may be love if it was my child, but what if it was a total stranger? Can we call that love? However, what I’m talking about is another class of “action” which is more political in nature.

When we think of Jim Wallis’ “action” in politics, we should ask, “Are they ruled by “love” of the first order above or is it something that is ruled by compassion which is developed over time?” In this, there has been a deliberation and an analysis of motivation for why someone does what they do. That seems very different to me than what is in the first paragraph.

Tom: If they’re not, then Paul says they’re clanking noise and ‘nothing’.

Brandon: But you see, this is why I have a problem with your being wrapped up in motivation. I don’t know if what we want to concentrate on in such questions is so much the motivation, as important as they are, but on justice. For example, I’ve come to see that compassion has limits in life--both in the private area as I said in the first paragraph example and in the Jim Wallis example of the second paragraph (and governmental action) and this seems problematic for what you are saying about love as motivation. You seem to isolate compassion and love from the rest of the narrative--which is justice. Think about it. Compassion, by itself, tends to lead, not to justice, but to favouritism and one-sided advocacy. It is necessarily selective. That is, our ability to enter into the suffering of others cannot be stretched indefinitely. For instance, parents naturally feel for their own children more than they do for others'. We suffer along with our friends in adversity more than with mere acquaintances, or with the faceless names we read about in the papers. Now, it seems to me that there is nothing wrong in this, that its simply part and parcel of our created limitations but what I’m gathering from what you are saying, my “action” or “inaction” in such situations would be wrong. Do you see the point? My action motivated by my love for my children will automatically mean someone else’s child is loved less which means some sort of action or non-action on my part toward that person all of which is motivated out of compassion.

And this can be played out in rather deliberative cruel ways. Think of Marxists. Marxists are moved to action by compassion for the proletariat, but in attempting to emancipate oppressed workers, they are unmoved by the suffering they may cause those getting in the way of their agenda. Ironically, this appeal to compassion can be a cover for acts of genuine cruelty, scores of millions of which were committed by the heirs of Marx and Lenin in the former Soviet Union and China. The Pharisees it seems to me were like this. They seem to be all about protecting God’s word but in the end, something so noble and sincere ended up be very cruel.

In the end arguments from compassion are often a way of short circuiting the deliberative process – of keeping some arguments from being heard (which isn‘t very compassionate then is it?). If politics necessarily entails conciliating diverse interests in accordance with public justice (thinking of Jim Wallis example), then arguments need to be heard from all sides before a decision is made. Ruling an argument out of court too soon on the grounds that it is not compassionate is a recipe, not only for less than peaceful politics, but for outright injustice. Say someone committed a crime. An unmitigated compassion may prompt us to forego punishment (an action) because it inevitably causes suffering. But if the punishment is deserved, then to refrain from imposing it would be unjust.

As a friend of mine says, “I’ve come to understand the limits of compassion in politics. I’ve grown suspicious of politicians who claim to be able to feel our pain.” I said this to Modes way back when we were visiting him--justice needs love, but love needs justice.

Tom: How about just ‘love’ and leave the sentimentality out? Where’s the ‘sentimentality’ coming from?

Brandon: K..just leave that out. Not a biggie.

Tom: Well, it’s what Paul’s saying, until somebody can give me a better way to understand Paul. You must have an alternative way to understand him that’s consistent with entirely discarding our being “motivated” by anything (or consistent with our being motivated selfishly). I’d be interested in hearing somebody attend to attribute this meaning to Paul in 1Cor 13.

Brandon: Aside from there being times when motivation may not be able to factor into something, I’m also saying you can’t take Paul out of the broader context of justice which you seem to be doing.

Tom: Of course not. Bro, we’re on entirely different pages. I keep asking (and nobody will grapple with the actual words of Paul in 1Cor) what the implications are of Paul’s claim that I can give all I own to the poor, and the poor can have their lives changed for the better because of it, but if I do so for selfish reasons and not out of love my act is a piece of crap, it’s “nothing.” And I am nothing for it.

Will somebody please speak to this? I asked D and Jeff to tell me WHERE in that scenario are the ‘consequences’ which are supposed to determine the rightness/wrongness of the rich man’s gift to the poor?

Brandon: And I’m saying that love or compassion is not all of what’s involved in the equation. Love and JUSTICE HAVE to go together. You can have acts of compassion that necessarily be selective. You can have acts motivated out of love and compassion but end up being unjust. So for me, it is understanding love and compassion as motivation is also understanding it within the broader scope of justice.

Tom: That’s nowhere near the issue that I’m inquiring about. Of course love is creative and can be expressed in different ways. The question is whether my doing SELFISHLY (say, give all my money to the poor) what another does LOVINGLY (give all his money to the poor) are equally morally good acts because the consequences for the poor are the SAME.

So far I hear D, Jeff, and Brandon saying, “Yeah, they’re the SAME act and are equally ‘good’ and virtuous since irrespective of the disparity in motivation. And you guys think Paul is actually saying this in 1Cor 13?

Brandon: Understood. In the end I think it’s about justice. I’ll use another example to argue for what I’m saying. Take abortion. There has been no short supply of proponents of abortion (Christian or not) who argue that the legalization of abortion in the U.S. was a genuinely progressive development favourable to the well being women everywhere. Those who were opposed to the abortion licence were guilty of erecting barriers to compassion for women.

But the thing is, the media often report someone who is adversely affected by some policy pursued (action) by some government (again, you generally see action on a personal part ie. giving to the poor, taking a bullet, etc, whereas I’m thinking personal, but many times, on the part of government, that is can the acts of government be compassionate?) somewhere and clearly we are expected to oppose such a policy, ignoring the fact that, if another policy had been pursued, someone else would have suffered from its consequences (the law of unintended consequences?). If anything, this should show us that appeals to compassion are not enough to bring about justice.

Tom: Really? Is that what Paul says in 1Cor 13? Just “do” and “act” without regard to motivation?

Which version of the NT are you guys reading from?

Brandon:  Again, I’m thinking about what I put up in the first part.

Post Edited (BBBCanada) : 8/10/2008 7:55:33 PM (GMT-5)

Jeff: Why can't we say love is sometimes just. This all gets back to Christ talking about forgiveness being tied to repentance. For us as individuals, as long as there is GENUINE forgiveness, we should forgive (i.e., become reconciled unto fellowship again). But we ought not to undermine the God-given role of the State to dole out justice either. For it has its place.

The only rule that is absolute is Love. But love does what is best given all the factors relevant. And Paul says we are to pay taxes to the State because we owe it for its ministry UNTO GOOD. And this is so even though it doles out justice--indeed, BECAUSE it doles out justice (=vengeance). Love is the only absolute. All else is conditional.

There is a time to forgive, a time to not eat with one, a time to not keep company with one, etc. Both Jesus and Paul teach this, though Paul's teaching is more systematic.

Brandon: Sorry, I didn't get to this.  I was in Dallas with my daughter.  I just got back last night after a 20hr drive and boy are my wheels tired...lol.    

Let me put it like this. One could define love or compassion (which, though I had said should not be sentimental what I meant was that I don’t want to say that it should ONLY be sentimental, compassion obviously entails both emotion and volition and I don‘t think I want to draw a clear delineation between them) as regarding the good of another person when it is ONLY YOU AND HIM/HER? So, in those times, love can be said to be just. But justice is what love does when it is confronted by two or more neighbours. See, love will affirm the value and well-being of each person, but it gives us no reason for preferring one neighbour over another. It responds equally to both. But obviously, we don’t treat all people the same, right? We have certain obligations toward some that we don’t have toward others. So, how will love take into account the needs of particular people? It is justice that aids love in these considerations because it deals with the individual needs of my neighbour as a member of the community, in the context of his or her special claims ie. a child or parent, one who is impoverished or one who is the victim of discrimination. Justice carries out what love motivates. It is the ORDER which love requires. Once this is done, then I think we will have responded to Tom’s question of motivation. That is, once we’ve worked love and justice out together, then maybe we can say that one genuinely loves the other. For example, loving actions may take place in an evil society, but if the order of society is not changed, then love is thwarted and we may have a clanging symbol. Just noise. And yes, in society, we have A LOT of noise. In other words, both individually and societally, the proof is in the pudd’n.