By T.C. Lo (盧天賜); September 8, 2013
I grew up in Hong Kong and my family lived near the Victoria Harbor. As a little boy, I spent my leisure time watching big ships—U.S. carriers, British war ships, cargo ships, ocean-liners and Cruise ships—visiting and leaving the “The Peal of the Orient (東方之珠).” I found them fascinating (anther thing that fascinated me during my childhood was steam engine locomotive). Throughout the years, I realized that many philosophers and literati were using ships as metaphors to express profound ideas and life. Example:
The metaphor told by C.S. Lewis to describe ancient ethics consists of three questions concerning voyage (Ref. 1). These three considerations are like the three things a fleet of ships is told by its sailing orders:
1) The ships must know how to avoid bumping into each other.
2) They must know how to stay shipshape and avoid sinking.
3) And most important of all, they must know why the fleet is at sea in the first place.
How do these three questions relate to ethics? As I reflect on Lewis’ metaphor of the ships, my mind goes to the Ten Commandments based on which the Christian ethics is built. According to history, for 430 years—10 generations—the Israelite had languished in slavery, they were oppressed by their harsh Egyptian taskmasters and driven to the brink of despair. God heard their prayers and brought them out of Egypt—the land of slavery. God then spoke to Moses 3,500 years ago all these words known as the Ten Commandments. It is important to note that God saved them first before requesting them to do good. The world religions demand people to be good first before they may be saved. But Christianity says that God accepts us as we are before we’ve become good. Good deed is not a prerequisite for salvation. We are saved not by our good work but by the grace of Christ. The Ten Commandments are recorded in Exodus 20:1-17 as listed below in order.
1) You shall have no other gods before me (verses 2-3).
2) You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; (verses 4-6).
3) You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God (verse 7).
4) Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy (verses 8-11).
5) Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you (verse 12).
6) You shall not murder (verse 13).
7) You shall not commit adultery (verse 14).
8) You shall not steal (verse 15).
9) You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor (verse 16).
10) You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor (verse 17).
In the Bible, the Ten Commandments are called the “law,” and almost every law today is based in some way on the Ten Commandments. In United States, an image of the Ten Commandments is engraved in bronze on the floor of the National Archives, where the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution are displayed. A sculpture of Moses with Ten Commandments appears over the east portico of Supreme Court. The Ten Commandments are hung on the walls of England’s courts. The basic principles of our legal system (British New World and North American) come directly from the teaching of the Bible. Lord Denning, a leading civil lawyer in the 1960’s and 1970’s, claimed that the U.S. civil law had been molded by judges brought up believing the Bible. He concluded, “If religion perishes in the land, truth and justice will also.” (Ref.2)
Let us revisit the metaphor of the ships and consider the three points Lewis had made:
The first point “The ships must know how to avoid bumping into each other” is social ethics. This category is self-evident as “Objective Moral value” (Ref. 3). Regardless of cultural and ethnic differences, no one will think stealing is a good thing or torturing babies is right. Commandments #5 to #10 belong to this category. Both modern as well as ancient ethicists deal with it. Jesus of Nazareth summed them up in the most positive way known as the Golden Rule—“Do to others as you would have them do to you (Luke 6:31)”. Confucius could not have said that, neither could Buddha, Gandhi, Mohammad come up with such idea. Only Jesus—who is God—could give such unconditional initiation. Jesus himself had demonstrated this moral principle to us as example in that He loved us first while we were yet sinners.
The second point “They must know how to stay shipshape and avoid sinking” is individual ethics, virtues and vices, character-building. Commandments #3 and #4 belong to this category. These two commandments say that we cannot be moral unless we are God-centered. We hear very little about this from our modern ethical philosophies. When a national leader and elected officials commit the sin of sexual immorality, people would say, “Well, it is OK. It doesn’t matter what they do in private as long as they do their jobs well.” But the Bible teaches that leaders must be both virtue and capable because authority is instituted by the holy and righteous God. The essence of keeping the Sabbath is to be at peace with God. The Trappist (天主教西多會中的一派: 特拉普會) monk Thomas Merton was right when he once said, “We cannot be at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we cannot be at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.” In short, the break of communion with God caused our break with one another, even within the same family. Brokenness well describes the human condition. We see here that there is a connection between individual ethics and social ethics. Common sense tells us that “Bad people” cannot go to heaven; religions tell us “Only Good people go to heaven”; but Christianity teaches that “Only forgiven people go to heaven”. And we can only find forgiveness in Jesus Christ, our Savior (Ref. 4).
The third question “Why the fleet is at sea in the first place?” is the most important question of all. Commandments #1 and #2 are the answers to this life defining question. Most modern philosophers sadly dare not raise this greatest of questions because they have no answer to it. As a result, we find ourselves adrift in uncharted seas and have decided to toss away the compass. If we do not believe that God is in control and have formed us for a purpose, then we will flounder on the high sea of purposelessness and drown in its rushing currents. If you observe all commandments except the first two, you are worst off than the people without the Law because you end up being enslaved by the entanglement of legalism and you are no better than the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. If the Pharisees whose fully time job is to do good could not go to heaven, do you think you and I have any chance? Not a chance! But the good news is that in Christ we have mercy and grace from our Lord Jesus who had forgiven our sins by dying on the cross. No world religions offer forgiveness except the Gospel of Christianity. We can enjoy this gift of forgiveness by putting our faith in Jesus Christ who is God. The first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me” not only is first in location but first in importance, for from it all the other Commandments flow, and without it they lose their authority. Jesus claims, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6).”
References:
(1) “Real Face of Atheism” by Ravi Zacharias; pp.134-135.
(2) “Searching for Truth” by Joe Boot; pp.115-116.
(3) https://hocl.org/blogs/tincheelo/?320
(4) https://hocl.org/blogs/tincheelo/?p=996
(5) General reading on the Ten Commandments: “Foundations for Life,” a collection of articles edited by Decision magazine.
