Finite Absolutes

Two Ideologies

The United States of America is caught between two warring ideologies. It is not Creationism versus Evolutionism. It is not Conservativism versus Liberalism. It is not even Church versus State. It is something far more personal and far more dangerous.

America is trapped in a battle between selflessness and selfishness. Any man or woman, boy or girl in America (in the world really, but I'm focusing on the U.S.) exists to serve either themselves or someone else. People must have a purpose or there is no reason for them to live. End of story. Life without purpose is meaningless.

In case the terms selflessness and selfishness are confusing, they are polar opposites. One who is selfless thinks little of himself or herself and exists to help other people. On the contrary, one who is selfish thinks mostly of himself or herself and lives for his or her own comfort.

These ideologies transcend race, nationality, birth, and religion. They are a measure of a man or woman's own heart.

American Freedom

Normal Rockwell created four paintings in 1943 that would become famous as expressions of American freedom: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Fear, and Freedom from Want. These remarkable works articulate the foundational aspects of what it means to live in America, to be American. Freedom. American citizens are free to speak up and out, free to practice whatever religion they choose, free to live in peace, and free to live for themselves. But as many Americans have discovered in the last two-hundred-thirty-some years, freedom does not come without a price, and freedom cannot be maintained without a sense of responsibility.

There are those in the U.S. who believe that freedom means no limitations. They can do whatever they want whenever they want to do it regardless of who it might hurt or what property might be destroyed.

This raises a question. Can freedom and law coexist? Is it really freedom if the law restricts what it can and cannot do?

Law and Government

Law has been used since the beginning of mankind to keep order within civilizations. Whether it was the Code of Hammurabi or the instigation of capital punishment in Genesis 9:6, laws (and therefore governments) have been used to control people. The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution states that America's government, first off, will “establish justice.” America was to be a nation of laws.

Governments exist to control. Without governments and the stability they bring to a civilization, nations would be reduced to large groups of people with no greater purpose than to survive by any means necessary. However, though government's sole purpose is to control, what varies is the level of that control. If the established government is communistic in nature, the level of control is absolute. If the established government is a strict democracy, the level of control is next to nothing. America (as it has been through the ages) had a peculiar arrangement, since it was both a republic and a democracy, ensuring that neither the people nor the elected officials had too much power.

From there, it has become the government we know today, which is sadly a far cry from what our Founding Fathers dreamed. Quite honestly, I feel that this occurrence is a failure on the part of Christians who knew better than to sit back and let the government do the work that was intended for them.

Law, by its own virtue, is not wrong. Law is necessary. Without law, we would be (this sounds redundant) lawless. We could not live without fear, even in our own homes if no law existed to keep us safe, to protect our rights as American citizens (freedoms of speech, religion, and peaceable assembly).

But what makes the law right? What makes America's laws right? Are they right? Why is it legal to make copies of someone else's creative work in Sweden while it is illegal in America? Who is right and who is wrong and is there even such a thing? And if there is, how do you determine which is which?

Moral Absolutes

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary defines morality as “the manner of living as regards right and wrong.”

Many people in today's society will declare that there are no absolutes. There is no right; there is no wrong. Right is what is right for the individual, and it's not something anyone else can decide for you.

Any thinking person can see the flaw in this logic.

If it is right for Person A to kill Person B, no one should be able to tell Person A differently. But Person B doesn't want to die. So should Person A be allowed to kill Person B because it is right for him? What about what is right for Person B?