HOLY LIVING—THE ADEQUATE ETHIC

By

Laurence K. Mullen

This quotation, taken from "The Trinity Manifesto" (1978), caught my eye as I was preparing to write this paper. I do not intend to debate the pros and cons of the statement. I do wish to challenge the key assertion that the fundamental problem of the twentieth century is epistemological. However critical the problems of epistemology may be. I wish to affirm that the central issue of modern man is not here. Let the words of Arnold Toynbee, in his monumental A Study of History, offer an alternative:

Here then, in the arena of moral decision-making, lies the real crisis of our time. Shall purity and virtue surrender to the obscene? Shall honesty and integrity be replaced by the expedient and the insincere? Shall personal morality be replaced by the double standard? Shall God’s absolutes be replaced by human relativism? Shall the standards of the Church be modeled by the behavior of the world? Shall the eternal values of truth, beauty, goodness be replaced by the false, the ugly, and the evil? These issues demand sane consideration and radical response.

The Apostle Peter lays the matter before us in these words:

Twenty years ago the word ethics was reserved for philosophy majors and college catalogs. It was primarily a classroom word. Not so today. The daily paper carries an average of three articles per issue that dealt with the subject of ethics. There are ethics committees and sub-committees in our Federal and State legislatures; there are studies in business ethics; there are endless ethics reports in annual church conferences. Ethics texts and pamphlets are having unprecedented popularity. It's "in" to be looking at the ethical aspects of politics, the Church, research, marriage and the family, sexual behavior, business practices, medicine, communications, athletics, education, and foreign policy. The issues of war, abortion, genetic engineering, cloning, capital punishment, homosexuality, human rights have come to dominate Christian journals as well as secular publications. No scholar, least of all those in the Church, dares to be indifferent to these issues.

The focus of this paper is the relationship between holiness and ethics. How do holy living and ethics come together? The underlying thesis that I wish to affirm is that holy living, made possible to us by the indwelling Spirit, provides the only foundation for an adequate ethics. A reasonable corollary that follows is that all other ethical systems contain an inherent flaw that renders them ineffective and inadequate.

My paper will be developed around three main topics.

I. The Inadequacy of Philosophical Ethics

II. The Nature of Christian Holiness

III. Ethical Dimensions of Holy Living

I. The Inadequacy of Philosophical Ethics

Philosophy was born when man first looked around and asked, "Why?" Why am I here and where am I going? What does existence mean? An inquisitive mind and an insatiable curiosity stimulated him to probe the questions of existence and being, beauty and justice, right and wrong. The ancient Milesians of 600 B. C. bequeathed to Western man their spirit of inquiry and their primitive formulations of philosophical problems. In trying to define the essence of reality these men gave some strange answers. There was fire and water, earth and air, number and atoms, mind and soul. The names of Thales, Anaximines, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Democritus, Pythagoras and Empedocles are all household words to the student of philosophy. While their answers were not always correct, their answers were not insignificant. How they thought was more important than what they thought!

Their way of thinking--the way of cautious reflection and logical deduction--provided a fertile womb out of which was born classical Greek thought with all its wealth of human insight and dynamic creativity. The fact that early Christian theology was able to utilize the language, the concepts, the forms of Greek philosophical thought bears eloquent testimony to its depth and versatility.

Concern of the Greeks about metaphysics wag matched by an equal concern about ethics. How may I find the good life? What is truth? What is justice? How may I save my soul? Not theoretical concern but a personal yearning for truth motivated such questions. Hence Socrates could declare, "The purpose of life is not to live, but to live well." Plato could declare, "The highest object of knowledge is not to discover facts but to convert the soul." And even Epicurus, the so-called hedonist, could declare, "The goal of life is not physical pleasure but rather peace in the soul and prudence in the mind."

The journey of philosophical ethics, all the way from the ancient Sophists to contemporary Analysts, is both exciting and complex. The many perspectives on man's highest good are beyond examination here, but in order to reflect a sampling of the many alternatives, I shall mention five well-known ethical perspectives. The thesis that I wish to defend is that in all these systems there is an essential moral inadequacy.

A. Plato's Quest for Justice

The genius of Plato does not need to be demonstrated. Alfred North Whitehead has said, "Western thought consists primarily of a series of footnotes to Plato." The comprehensiveness of Plato's system, coupled with the brilliant recording of his ideas in his immortal Dialogues, have earned him a deserved place among the greats of moral philosophy.

For Plato, the real world is the world of ideas--eternal, transcendent entities that serve as patterns or archetypes for all temporal objects, including man himself. The individual man or the individual rose is but a tangible, temporal form of the eternal concept. Reason in man provides the bridge between the temporal and the eternal orders. For Plato, man's soul is eternal both ways. The soul pre-exists the body and beyond death becomes immortal. During one's lifetime the soul is a prisoner of the body. It is the body that provides the occasion for sin and the consequent disordering of the soul. Whereas in man's pre-existent state his reason was in control, that control was lost when the body provided an outlet for the will and the passions to become perverted.

The goal of life, then, is the recovery of the soul's order and unity, i. e., to once again let reason and intellect become the masters of will and passion. The process is not easy and is necessarily painful. Turning from the shadows of earthly existence, which appeal to the passions, man must direct his mind to the true forms, the eternal verities of truth, beauty, goodness. Here the soul finds its virtues-wisdom for our reason, courage for our will, and temperance for our passions. These virtues create in man a condition that Plato identified as justice. Man now recognizes the ultimate purpose of life as the realization of personal virtue and goodness. In other words, man becomes moral.

Plato saw the individual man as a microcosm of an entire society. The same virtues that make a just man are necessary to make a just state. This can happen only when wisemen, artisans, and warriors unite under the authority of reason to form a true Republic.

B. Aristotle's Notion of Self-Realization

Aristotle was a pupil of Plato but he disagreed radically with his teacher. Aquinas referred to him 1500 years later in his Summa simply as "The Philosopher." Dante referred to him as "The Master of those who know." Aristotle's philosophy dominated the thought of the Middle Ages and the period of Scholasticism. Thomas Aquinas, in master-minding a synthesis of Aristotle and Christian faith, gave to Aristotle an honor that few pagans ever achieved, i.e., a permanent role in the on-going process of Christian theology. In answer to Tertullian's question, "Does Jerusalem have anything to do with Athens?" Thomas' answer was a resounding, "Yes."

Whereas Plato looked outward to the transcendent order for the universals that would guide moral behavior, Aristotle looked inward to the innate laws within man himself. Key words for Aristotle were potential, actual, final cause, self-realization, moderation, contemplation. Man begins his life with raw potential that needs development. Goodness is within and needs only the proper conditions for its actualization. Like the acorn that grows to become the oak, when soil and moisture are in right proportion, so the natural man under the proper conditions of education and learning, develops into the moral man. The final end of man is happiness, achieved when the whole man functions under the sovereign control of reason. The "golden mean"--avoidance of excesses and moderation in all things--becomes the criterion for right action.

Contrary to Plato, Aristotle did not believe in the immortality of the soul. Soul and body are entwined as one, no body without soul and no soul without body. The question of immortality became crucial in the Middle Ages when followers of Aristotle sought to baptize him into the Christian faith. Aquinas' deft handling of the issue was to say that Aristotle was not altogether clear on the matter, not being dogmatic either way. Central to Aristotle's thought was man's rationality. To function as he was intended man must think. Vice is ignorance and ignorance is vice. Knowledge and virtue become one. To be like God, said Aristotle, is to think.

C. Kant's Moral Imperative

"Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe--the starry heavens above and the moral law within." The attempt to reconcile these two worlds--one governed by mechanical laws of necessity, the other characterized by freedom and responsibility-was Kant's declared purpose. Kant's genius accomplished what he called a "Copernican Revolution" in philosophy. Previous thinkers had argued that the external world, feeding data into the mind via the senses, shaped the nature and content of human knowledge. Kant reversed this assumption by affirming that it is the mind that shapes the world we experience. The innate forms and categories of the mind determine what the nature of knowledge shall be.

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason stated his epistemology. It was in The Critique of Practical Reason that Kant developed his moral philosophy. Kant's fundamental question, What is truly unique about man? is answered by man's innate sense of ought. All men, said Kant, recognize an innate sense of moral obligation, an inner imperative that says to man, "You ought to do your duty." Said Kant, "Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will." This inner sense of moral obligation that impels me to do my duty Kant labeled "the categorical imperative." Here was Kant's foundation for all moral decision-making.

1. Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

2. Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another always as an end and never as a means only.

3. Act as if you were a legislator in a realm of law.

The focus in the third formulation is on the individual who must consider himself both as the legislator who makes the rules and at the same time the subject who must obey them. That is, only make those rules as king that you as subject would be willing to obey!

The moral postulates, those necessary prerequisites that enable the categorical imperative to function, Kant declared to be freedom, immortality, and God. Freedom is necessary in order for man's moral decisions to have moral significance. Immortality is necessary in order that man might achieve the supreme goodness that forever eludes him in this life. And God is necessary in order to account for man's sense of moral obligation.

D. Joseph Fletcher's Situation Ethics

In 1966 Joseph Fletcher, formerly Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, Cincinnati, Ohio, and later, Professor of Social Ethics, Episcopal Theology School Cambridge, Mass., published his well-known Situation Ethics calling his concept the "New Morality." Fletcher contended that his ethics harmonized with the best in Christian tradition.

Ethics, said Fletcher, cannot be put into a system; it can only be situational. Is adultery wrong? "I don't know," says Fletcher; "tell me the situation." Every law must fall eventually under the demands of agape love. Truth is particular, never universal. We make truth, we do not discover it. Nothing that is true today needs to be true tomorrow. Truth is existential; it happens only in the moment of decision.

According to Fletcher, all ethical choices fall under one of three possible classes: legalistic, antinomian, situational. The legalist chooses by law alone. The antinomian makes no reference to law at all. Only the situationist responds with meaningful ethical decisions.

Four underlying presuppositions provide a foundation for Fletcher's system:

1. Pragmatism: Workability and practical application are the values here. Truth ought to bring good results. All ethical choices must include calculation of consequences. Christian concern, says Fletcher, requires one to measure his actions in terms of ends.

2. Relativism. Says Fletcher, "Only love is a constant; everything else is a variable. The shift to relativism carries contemporary Christians away from code ethics, away from stern iron-bound do's and don'ts, away from prescribed conduct and legalistic morality."⁴ Fletcher's concern here is to put an end to so called pious rules and 'regulations and to put man and humanity in their place. Says Fletcher, "This concept of human creatureliness at the very heart of Christian ethics cries relativity in the face of all smug pretensions to truth and righteousness. Christians cannot go on trying to 'lay down the law' theologically, about either creed or code."⁵

3. Positivism: This means theological positivism, not logical positivism. Fletcher refers here to the faith propositions that one "posits" as true. "Thus Christian ethics 'posits' faith in God and reasons out what obedience to his commandment to love requires in any situation."⁶

4. Personalism: "Situation ethics puts people at the center of concern, not things. Obligation is to persons, not to things; to subjects, not objects. The legalist is a 'what asker' (What does the law say?); the situationist is a 'who asker' (Who is to be helped?). That is, situationists are personalists."⁷

Fletcher also refers to his system as agapeic, existential, and utilitarian. It is agapeic in that divine love is the supreme criterion for all ethical decisions. It is existential in that truth only exists in the moment of decision. And it is utilitarian in that the good for the many must take precedence over the good for the few.

E. The Non-Ethics of Analytic Philosophy

The current movement of Analytic Philosophy has its roots in the thought of Francis Bacon, David Hume, Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill, and many others. The essential idea is that the test of cognitive statements is empirical verification. This movement reached a high point in the so-called Vienna Circle, a group of scholars at the University of Vienna in the nineteen-twenties and -thirties which included Ernst Mach, Moritz Schlick, Rudolph Carnap, Herbert Feigl, and Kurt Godel. More recent representatives of this type of thinking would include Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gilbert Ryle, and G. E. Moore. The essential argument of the movement can be stated in the following syllogism:

All cognitive statements are empirically verifiable.

No ethical (theological, metaphysical) statement is empirically verifiable.

Therefore no ethical (theological, metaphysical) statement is cognitive.

If this syllogism is sound (i.e. both true and valid) it follows that ethics, along with theology and metaphysics, is excluded from meaningful discourse. A. J. Ayer, a key representative of this movement, expressed just this conclusion in his book Language, Truth, and Logic. Ayer says:

What then is to become of ethics, theology, and metaphysics? The best that can be said is that all pronouncements in these disciplines are subjective, emotive, and non-cognitive-roughly equivalent to saying, "Ouch," or muttering, "So what."

F. Critique

In denying to ethics meaningful or cognitive propositions, Analytic Philosophy must be considered separately from the four previous perspectives. When Analysts deny validity to ethics, one wonders if Analysts themselves have not indulged in declaring ethical propositions that they consider to be meaningful. If the test of a cognitive proposition is empirical verification, as Analysts affirm, then the statements used to refute ethics must also be tested by empirical verification.

While this charge against the non-ethics of Analytic philosophy may seem trivial, there remains a further charge that must be considered serious. That charge concerns the supreme values that men have lived for and have been willing to die for. The price that Analysts must pay in order to achieve logical and scientific certainty is the price of man's finest realities--his faith, hope, and love, his beauty, justice, and freedom, his holiness, peace, and salvation. The bargain is a bad one when we trade what is ultimate and eternal for the empty sentences of logical and scientific certainty.

Specific criticisms for each of the other ethical systems cannot be considered here, though each system has its own unique and fundamental weaknesses. All the systems share common inadequacies that need to be recognized. Three common criticisms are here considered.

1. All the systems assume the innate goodness of man. The tacit assumption is made that man can be his own savior, can somehow make himself good. When Plato illustrated the discovery of the "good" by his famous Allegory of the Cave it was a do-it-yourself project all the way. The prisoner in the allegory leaves the cave of shadows, ascends the escape shaft to sunlight, and experiences the revelation of reality all by his own effort. Man's natural inability to save himself is not once considered. The dream of saving himself by temperance, wisdom, and courage has occupied the imaginations of history's greatest minds. Advocates of such a hope are still with us.

2. Secondly, all the systems assume that knowledge and virtue imply each other. It was inconceivable, said Aristotle, for a wise man to do evil. Education and wisdom lead necessarily to virtue. To know the good is to do the good! St. Paul refuted such a notion in his Roman Epistle when he made the strong point in chapter one that men who knew God refused to keep God in their knowledge, and turned knowingly and deliberately to the practice of sinful acts. While both philosophers and churchmen have dreamed of the day when education would dispense with evil, giving birth to an ordered society and universal peace, the realism of today's broken world shatters such a hope.

3. A third weakness in philosophical ethics is the assumption that an "I ought" implies an "I can." Kant believed that the categorical imperative implied the possibility that one could obey its specific commands. According to Kant, man can obey the commands of the imperative if he will but choose to obey them. No innate inability or disposition keeps him from doing what is right. This optimistic assessment of human nature is supported neither by experience nor by biblical revelation. In contrast to this view, St. Paul contends that a war is on in the soul of man, a war between the law of sin and the law of the spirit, a war that man can never win without the assistance of divine grace. The problem is, said Paul, that even when I know the good and want to do it, I find myself doing the very opposite. Paul's pessimistic picture of the natural man reminds us in no way of the optimistic picture that classical philosophy has sought to paint.

II. The Nature of Christian Holiness

A. Holiness as Normative Christian Experience

The call to Christian holiness is written on every page of sacred scripture. "Be ye holy, for I am holy" is a divine imperative that accepts no challenge and bears no refutation. Christian holiness proclaims the grand truth that what Satan by sin has destroyed, God by grace can recover. St. Paul's description of the new man in Christ merits our thoughtful attention, for Paul does not leave us with man in sin, struggling, defeated, and forever wrestling, but rather man marvelously delivered, transformed, renewed "in righteousness and true holiness" (Eph. 4:24b).

Concerning the nature of biblical holiness, two unfortunate notes have been sounded: (1) that the life of holiness is intended for a select few, that somehow the experience of holiness is an option for Christ's followers, that there is a high road and a low road in Christian experience, and one can simply take his pick; (2) that man must be saddled with sin until death provides a final deliverance. The reformers Luther and Calvin, and before them St. Augustine-theological giants though they were-must bear much of the blame for this latter heresy. These men, I believe, failed to grasp the total spiritual significance of divine grace. Luther's words at this point are instructive, and depressive:

though it still runs and is sore.

Calvin echoed the same note in his Institutes when he argued for the necessity of an imputed holiness. Said Calvin:

But while the problem is still with us of defining the exact meaning of the sanctified experience in terms of what stays and what goes, i.e., the relationship between our holiness and our humanity, the strong conviction among us here today is that the purifying flame of the Holy Spirit deals adequately with sin-both its outward manifestation and its inward disposition. Such a claim would be pure presumption if it did not rest upon the most clear and unambiguous claims of holy Scripture. Such is our firm conviction!

Richard Watson, the father of Wesleyan theology, affirmed that the grace of entire sanctification is as distinctly marked and as graciously promised in the Holy Scriptures as justification, regeneration, adoption and the witness of the spirit.¹¹ Watson used two primary passages for his biblical support: 1 Thessalonians 5:23, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ," and 2 Corinthians 7:1, "Having these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."

Watson argued that it is an axiom of Christian doctrine that "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord" and that if we are to "be found of him in peace" we must be found "without spot and blameless."

B. Holiness and Wholeness

If sin implies sickness, then holiness implies health. When St. Paul speaks of our "whole spirit, and soul, and body being preserved blameless," he is taking into account the whole man. Thomas Cook says, "You could not get any better definition of what holy really is than healthy, completely healthy."¹² If Romans 7 pictures a sick man, a man with a war in his soul where two laws are in contention for his allegiance, then Romans 8 pictures a healthy man where "there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:1). The climax to Paul's study of sin seems to come in Romans 6:21-22 when Paul declares, "What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life."

Calvin's notion that original sin must continue with us "that we may not forget ourselves and be filled with pride" cannot be sustained ethically, psychologically, or biblically. A divided heart cannot be a healthy heart! The idea of a little sin to keep us humble is about as convincing as a little cancer to keep us healthy. Surely God had a better plan! That plan, we affirm, includes in its compass the cleansing of our sinful heart and the creation in its place of a pure heart. The essential message of the holiness people is here.

A distinction always needs to be made between purity and maturity. Perhaps more misunderstanding has arisen at this point than at any other that relates to the holiness message. Perfection of heart is not perfection of performance. Wesleyan theology has tried, not always successfully, to make the distinction clear. Wesley affirmed that Christian perfection is compatible with faulty memory, poor judgment, involuntary transgressions, the experience of temptation, and faults of various kinds and colors.

The danger of this theology is that it can so easily be abused. My sins can very easily become mistakes, my irresponsibility can be chalked up to faulty memory, and my offenses to others can be blamed on poor judgment. Wesleyans do sin when they try to justify sub-Christian behavior on the basis of ignorance or good intentions.

A more crucial point concerns our need for spiritual growth and development. The healthy soul is a growing soul. Wesleyans in my tradition have focused so much on the crisis experiences of the new birth and entire sanctification that some have never caught on that anything ever happens in the life of the believer beyond those great events. Being "saved and sanctified" have become for some ends in themselves, to be declared in prayer meeting, rather than to be basic spiritual prerequisites for further growth and development. Some of us in the Wesleyan tradition heard very little about this aspect of holiness when we were starting in as young Christians. Holiness began and ended at the altar in a crisis experience. Our emphasis ought to be no less on the crisis, but more so on the growth in grace that

God wills in our sanctified lives.

C. Holiness as Christ-Likeness

In all our attempts to define the nature of Christian holiness, nothing expresses the meaning quite so well as Christ-likeness. No theological jargon can add to the essential concepts that are here exemplified in the divine person, the Son of God, Jesus, who was holy and sinless and who commanded us to be followers of Him.

Thomas a Kempis, in his classic Imitation of Christ, makes one fundamental point-that Christ-likeness is the beginning and the ending of all religious endeavor. It is good to know that there is one place where all of us can meet on common ground, theological differences and dogmas put aside temporarily; for if Christ is truly in us and we follow him, then we share a common spirit and a common Lord. Said a Kempis, "Let therefore our chief endeavor be to meditate upon the life of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of Christ exceedeth all the doctrines of holy men; and he that hath the spirit, will find therein the hidden manna."¹³

While it may appear much too simplistic to define holiness in terms of Christ-likeness, upon closer examination one finds in Christ's example the highest goals and aspirations of the human spirit. Holiness can do no more than make us like Christ-in compassion, obedience, and love; in submission, self-denial, and service; in forgiveness, devotion and self-sacrifice.

Dr. Daniel Steele, a prince among holiness exponents, observed that the "Son of God" and the "sons of God" share common characteristics. Said Steele:

D. Holiness as the Spirit's Fullness

The command of Jesus in Luke 24:49 to "tarry in Jerusalem until . . . endued with power" was fulfilled in Acts 2:4 when "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit." The poured-out Spirit prophesied by Joel, reaffirmed by Christ, and promised by God the Father, was experienced climactically by the 120 gathered in Jerusalem's upper room. Fearful, doubting, timid followers of Jesus were, in a moment, transformed into fearless, certain and bold witnesses. What made the difference in these men? The sufficient answer must be found in the energizing flame of the Holy Spirit, described by John the Baptist as a baptism of fire (Matt. 3:11).

H. Orton Wiley quotes Phineas F. Bresee on the subject of Christian holiness. Said Bresee:

Five significant facts relate to the work of the Holy Spirit:

1. This experience is the will of God.

2. This experience is provided for us in the death of Christ.

3. This experience is for believers.

4. This experience is characterized by perfect love.

5. This experience prepares us for further growth in grace.

Maynard James, in a sermon entitled "Recovering the Lost Glory," states three biblical conditions for being filled with the Holy Spirit:¹⁶

1. Ask. "How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him" (Luke 11:13).

2. Obey. "The Holy Ghost whom God hath given to them that obey him" (Acts 5:32).

3. Believe. "That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Gal. 3:14).

III. Ethical Dimensions of Holy Living

No one has ever questioned that there are ethical dimensions to the holiness experience. We have always assumed that the relationship was there. But I am reasonably sure that the specifics of that relationship have not always been spelled out in concepts that are sufficiently clear. The thesis that I wish to defend is that the experience of holiness meets the criteria that are demanded of an adequate ethic. We have made the point of exposing the inadequacies of philosophical ethics. It is not difficult to see the flaws and the gaps in naturalism, humanism, and situational ethics. Criticisms there come easily. But what about holiness ethics?

I recall a criticism of the holiness people that came from a former teacher of mine, the late Edgar Sheffield Brightman of Boston University, whose early years in the Methodist Church gave him opportunity to speak from personal experience. Said Brightman to me one day, "The holiness people have a great message. I cannot flaw it. The problem that I have observed across many years is that your people generally do not live the doctrine that you profess." Needless to say, the criticism hurt.

Honesty requires us to admit serious gaps in our holiness ethics. We have not always been sensitive to social justice and human rights. Personal piety has tended to take precedence over social responsibility. My experience in a white, holiness church in the South of our nation in 1952 revealed to me so much bitterness towards Blacks that my northern conscience, unfamiliar with such attitudes, was smitten with grief and embarrassment I confess that I had difficulty in reconciling holiness ethics with the blind prejudice that I observed in those days. While that in9tance of unethical behavior is isolated, and certainly not a general attitude, I want to suggest that other, more subtle and dangerous attitudes, beget the holiness movement.

Obviously we have not been aggressive in seeking equal rights for women and Blacks, in promoting equitable justice for the poor and the handicapped, in challenging entrenched evil in high places, in taking leadership in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. On many issues we have buried our heads in the sand and not uttered a peep to promote reform in government or Christian justice in society. Few of us want to identify with the prophet Amos in his fearless and blunt condemnation of the social evils of ancient Israel, yet his spirit and courage exemplify the ethical sensitivity that becomes Christian holiness

In a chapter entitled "Sanctification and Ethics," Dr. Daniel Steele probed the charge of inconsistency among holiness people. Said Steele:

One charge against us that needs examination is that of exaggeration and overstatement in the claims we make for the holiness experience. When such occurs it is often the case that conscientious people are reluctant to claim the blessing while others, more confident in their seeking, claim too much! Asked Bishop Leslie R. Marston, "Why do good people resist a teaching that Christians may be holy in heart and purpose in this life? Partly because those claiming the experience are sometimes led by enthusiasm into over-statement in testimony or are carried away by rhapsody in preaching."¹⁹

Another problem among us concerns the growing tendency to divorce ethics from holiness. While boasting, perhaps unconsciously of our freedom from antinomianism in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, and reading Fletcher's Checks to Antinomianism with some degree of smugness, saying "Thank God, we escaped that heresy," we have become victims of an even deeper and more devastating heresy than wag challenged by John Fletcher two hundred years ago. The heresy of which I speak concerns the silent, pervasive influence of worldliness that reaches us from every quarter. The manifestations are endless and no one of us dares to point a finger at another and identify the particular form it has taken. Worldliness may knock at our door in the form of an unjustified concern about comfort and security about the good life of ease and pleasure; it may come in the form of our unprotested acceptance of petty thievery and dishonesty; it may come under the subtle temptation to be successful, first in the office selling contest or at the top of the list in the church statistics column. The success syndrome affects all of us and while there is nothing intrinsically evil about success, the danger of being successful at the price of integrity is ever present. St. Paul warned the Church about being squeezed into the world's mold. Holiness people are not exempt from that admonition. Jesus said, "Beware of the leaven of Herod." I believe Jesus here was alerting us to the insidious influence of a sinful world that has no other end than the destruction of the spirit of holiness.

In conclusion, let me point out three essential characteristics of Christian holiness that confirm its adequacy for practical ethics.

1. Christian holiness offers to each of us the personal guidance of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth" (John 16:13). Joseph Fletcher has declared that on the point of the Holy Spirit's guidance he prefers to be agnostic. His ethics falters at that critical point. He defines the good abstracts, but makes no provision for how that good-that is, love-is to be determined in particular situations. The Christian has been given the Scriptures and the guidance of the Holy Spirit to direct him in his quest to know the good.

2. Christian holiness deals realistically with the nature of man. It recognizes his sinful nature for what it is, and deals with it efficaciously. Philosophical ethics, on the other hand, has failed consistently at this point. The blanket assumption has always been made that man is basically good that he is naturally capable of altruism, and that no innate condition hinders his quest for virtue, perfection, and peace of mind. An optimistic and idealistic view of man has been the shoal upon which all purely philosophical systems, from Plato to Fletcher, have foundered.

What does Christian holiness offer as an alternative? The answer lies in the adequacy of divine grace to deal radically with the problem of sin. The sanctified heart is a healed heart, a united heart, a heart set free-free to love, to serve, to praise. God, in His infinite wisdom, knew what was in man, and knowing, He acted graciously in Christ to release us from our sinful natures and to re-create us in the image of His Son. Christ's cross signaled the ultimate triumph of God over Satan's kingdom, the Prince of this world was judged, and we share by faith in that mighty victory!

3. Christian holiness brings to us the enabling power of the indwelling Spirit. "Not I . . . but Christ" speaks of an inner dynamic that surpasses all human effort and inclination. Philosophical ethics has not been short on ideals and programs for human betterment. Where then lies the flaw? The answer lies in man's constitutional inability to actualize the very ideals that he strives to realize. Why should I pursue the good of the greatest number? The utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill did not have a good answer. Their grand dreams of equity and justice, in a new world of peace, were shattered by innate selfishness and naked greed. Why should I treat others as ends and not as means? It was obvious to Kant that here was a worthy ideal, but Kant failed to show us how to put that great ideal into practice.

In summary then, it is in the Holy Spirit that we find the uniqueness and the adequacy of Christian holiness ethics. God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, chooses to indwell the hearts of His children-to guide them into truth, thus enabling them to know the good; to purify them from sin, thus enabling them to will the good; and to empower them for service, thus enabling them to do the good.

Notes

¹ "The Trinity Manifesto" (1978).

² Quoted by Harold Hopper Titus and Marilyn S. Smith, Living Issues in Philosophy (New York: Van Nostrand Co., 1974), pp. 205-06.

³ 2 Peter 3:11-12, RSV.

⁴ Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1966), p. 45.

⁵ Ibid., p. 46. ⁶ Ibid., p. 47. ⁷ Ibid., p. 50.

⁸ A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic (New York: Dover Publications, 1946), pp. 103, 112.

⁹ Quoted by Hugh Thompson Kerr, A Compend of Luther's Theology (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1943), p. 87.

¹⁰ Quoted by Hugh Thompson Kerr, A Compend of the Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1939), p. 114.

¹¹ Richard Watson, Theological Institutes (New York: Carlton and Porter, 1857), 2:450.

¹² Thomas Cook, New Testament Holiness (Fort Washington, Pa.: Christian Literature Crusade, n. d.), p.8.

¹³ Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ, Book I, Chapter 1, 1-2.

¹⁴ Daniel Steele, Milestone Papers (New York: Easton and Mains, 1876), pp. 21-22.

¹⁵ H. Orton Wiley, Christian Theology (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1941), 2:440.

¹⁶ James McGraw, The Holiness Pulpit (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1957), p. 72.

¹⁷ Daniel Steele, Milestone Papers, p. 122.

¹⁸ James McGraw, The Holiness Pulpit, p. 45.

Edited by KimberLee Bingham for the Wesley Center for Applied Theology of Northwest Nazarene University, 2000.