Here’s what I’m doing. I’m thinking “on paper” here. Trying to work out a moral equation. If my conclusion satisfies me, and if your comments don’t demolish it, I’ll probably cross-post it over at Mere Comments.
How many times have you gotten into the Body Count argument? You know what I mean. Somebody brings up the tired canard that “most wars are caused by religion,” or “religion has killed more people than any other cause.”
It’s good to note that, at least according to one study, that’s simply not true.
And when they bring up the Spanish Inquisition (you know they will), the most efficient answer is to point out that it took the Inquisition nearly a century and a half to kill 3-5,000 people while the atheistic Reign of Terror under the French Revolution murdered about 40,000 in less than a year.
Still, at least for me, that’s not entirely satisfactory. Saying, “We’re not as bad as you guys,” isn’t quite enough when you’re talking about killing people in the name of Christ, whether in the Inquisition, or during the Crusades, or under a pogrom. The deeper problem, in my view, is how to think about Christians who act like the worst kind of atheists (for of course most atheists are perfectly decent people), and how to judge their acts.
It seems to me that, from a moral point of view, there are two kinds of atrocity. One is the utilitarian atrocity, which is hideously evil. The other is the “spiritual” atrocity, which is infinitely worse—but only in one sense.
The utilitarian atrocity rises, in a sense logically, from a view of human beings as objects; things either to be preserved or discarded as useful or useless. Oddly, primitive human societies and “advanced” materialist societies tend to hold this view in common. For Stalin, a million deaths was a statistic, because for him human beings were neither wonderful nor rare. They were objects, either of use to him or not, and if they didn’t serve his purposes there were plenty more just as good where they came from.
The “spiritual” atrocity is very different in motivation. The Inquisitor (as we view him; historically there were actually many inquisitors, and they weren’t all bloodthirsty) cares profoundly about the human being in chains before him. He believes that miserable prisoner was made in the image of God, and is infinitely loved by Him. Through an excruciating spiritual contortion he has convinced himself that he can save this precious soul by hurting and killing its body. He tortures and murders out of love—or rather, something he would describe as love.
From a spiritual point of view, this man is infinitely worse than Stalin. He has taken the command of Christ as to how a disciple must treat his enemies, and not merely turned it upside down, but inside out. The species of spiritual blindness necessary to countenance that must necessarily (it seems to me) imply the sin against the Holy Spirit, the terminal condition Christ warned of, where the light within a person is darkness, so that the darkness is appallingly great.
Thus the sin of the inquisitor is worse, because he ought to know better and has defiled the holiest of things.
But from a purely practical, utilitarian point of view, Stalin is worse. He kills a lot more people, and that’s hardly a technicality. Believing himself a machine, he harnesses the efficiency of the machine in the same way that the guillotine was more efficient than the Inquisitor’s racks and autos-da-fe.
This is interesting. I think Ravi Zacharias notes which murderer is acting consistantly with his worldview, and your focus on a tortured idea of love shows how godless the religious murderer can be.
It is an interesting exercise to try and fathom someone’s motivation, unless they spell it out in words, written or spoken, to others. (And if spoken, whether you think they told the truth as they know it, or what they wanted their audience to think they believed).
But rather than go around that circle, let me ask, are you sure the inquisitors thought of their subjects as enemies (did they declare it somewhere, or did you just assume it?). I don’t know, and have no historical research, so I’m going to posit something thay may or may not be plausible.
Didn’t they think of their subjects as heretics, or apostates, people once in the fold that needed to be brought back, brothers of a sort. So the rule of love your neighbor as yourself might say to them “I would want someone to do anything they needed to to my body, for the saving of my soul,” (“Fear not him who can destroy body only, but he who can destroy both body and soul in hell” — paraphrasing from memory there)so I should do whatever is necessary to bring the wayward brother back.
When you get down to it, it isn’t much different from (to go far afield)the attempts of big brother government today in choosing what is best for people — only the one is this worldly minded, while the inquisitor is other worldly minded.
There, does that help challenge your thinking to strengthen and sharpen your equation?
Consider Chesterton on this point:
So the Spaniard destroyed the Aztec civilization, but not the people — not all of them, and certainly not all their descendants. The Inquisitor, if you like, gave them an end to human sacrifice, and Our Lady of Guadalupe.
There’s a great sin that comes from defending others, because you take on the sin of the blood necessary to defend them. That is a sacrifice: you stain your soul to help them.
Sacrifices are holy things. They are things you give unto God.
The Jewish concept of Chillul Hashem is relevant here, IMAO. Stalin was a damned murderer who waged war on people. But an inquisitor can bring the very concept of a merciful God into question, and make all public displays of piety look like attempts at dissimulation.
Jonathan, your distinction is interesting, and may call for an edit.
Grim, I agree with Chesterton in terms of the Romans. I don’t waste many tears on Druids or Carthaginians. However, it’s hard (certainly in public in our time) to argue that the Jews, Muslims, heretics, and Protestants interrogated by the Inquisitors were on a moral level with Carthaginians.
But perhaps I have been a little glib.
I find that most of the damage historically attributed to Christianity has come from a misunderstanding of what constitutes Christianity and/or using the tools of secular government to create or impose Christian practice.
Luther’s doctrine of the Two Kingdoms distinguishes between the government of the kindom of heaven and the government of the kingdoms of earth. Put simply, the kingdom of heaven exists in men’s hearts and uses the Gospel to call them to repentance and faith. On the other hand, Earthly kingdoms have been given the sword to maintain order in society.
When the tools of the one have been used to achieve the goals of the other, tragedy has always resulted. When earthly governments think they can dispense with the sword and maintain order merely by appealing to their citizens better natures, criminals will run rampant and nobody will have a sense of safety or security. On the other hand, when churches think they can impose Christianity through external force, number one they have misunderstood salvation to be an external conformity to doctrine or practice rather than faith in the heart. Secondly they fill their congregations with people worshiping under duress rather than from the heart.
My concern with the Christian Right is not that they will impose a religious form of government, but that having done so, they will think they have brought salvation when they have merely enforced some changes in behavior. At the same time, my concern with the secular left is not that they are redefining morality, but that they think that they can maintain order in society with (edit = I meant to say without) the constraints of law and order. Intrinsically they both commit the same mistake. They try to achieve the goals of one form of government by using the tools of the other.
Greybeard,
It may or may not directly impact Lars original equation, but I’d find it interesting for you to do the two kingdoms analysis on the theocratic government that did/didn’t exist (i.e. its ideal vs. actual form) during the time of the Judges in Israel.
Lars,
Apologies for the digression, if it turns out not to be ultimately applicable.
Jonathan, To fully explore that topic would require a treatise of a length inappropriate to blog comments, but likely worthy of study if I were ever to go back to seminary to pursue a doctorate.
Yet, what I can say briefly is that the nation of Israel during the time of the judges did separate worship (Lead by Priests) and Administration (Carried out by Judges who came from all walks of life). There is the idea of the Two Kingdoms in that separation of powers. On the other hand the fact that one role of the administrative judges was to lead the nation in worshiping the one true God, turning from the practices of Baal, Ashteroth, and other false gods may lead one to think of Israel as single secular and spiritual kingdom. I think that idea may be refuted by an analysis of the role of the various Judges in the spiritual awakenings of those days. They generally came along after the nation had turned from the Lord, been defeated and oppressed by some enemy and then cried out to God, turning back to Him. A new Judge would then arise to lead in the military defeat and suppression of Israel’s oppressors. So, when done rightly, Israel followed the Two Kingdoms model, with the Priests carrying out the sacrifices and leading in the actions of worship and the Judges using the sword to maintain order in society.
If we wanted an even deeper discussion, we could also talk about the theologians who further divide the Kingdom of Heaven into three parts, the Kingdom of Grace, those who invite God to rule in their hearts through Faith, The Kingdom of Power, in which God rules his creation through natural laws such as gravity and thermodynamics, and the Kingdom of Glory, where God’s people live with him forever in heaven.