timeimmortal

“I am not a fan of self-indulgence. I have contempt for those who yield sovereignty of their reason to their appetites.”

Shivers, I tell you, O Reader. Shivers.

The actual discussion centers on Morality, and whether moral rules concern only those things which are external (i.e. actions and consequences thereof) or internal things as well (thoughts, desires). The Christian response is that morality necessarily deals with both the internal and the external — as Wright himself points out, “hatred is immoral as murder, lust as immoral as adultery.”

His opposite in the discussion asserts that internal morality does not exist. This would seem to be a contravention of the basic human capability to reason out a conclusion based on observable evidence, even if only from within his or her own life: ask any married person who has seen a particularly attractive member of the opposite gender and had a most vivid fantasy about a chance dalliance, or ask any person who has ever been enraged what sort of calculated physical cruelty he or she had imagined on the person that had made him or her so cross.

Of course, in our debased society, men and women often find it too much of a trial to resist physical, external temptations, and the thought of outward morality alone is an almost unspeakable burden. To suggest that one’s internal state should be similarly regulated is, to them, entirely too much to ask. “I can’t help what I think or feel,” the argument may go.

It’s a bollocks argument, of course…but it has a surprising grip on the thoughts of many people.

“Are there temptations men cannot resist? Perhaps so. Men are weak. Are we excused from the duty to resist temptation merely because temptation often wins? Oh, Hercules! Are we allowed to throw down sword and shield and flee the battle merely because the Persian outnumber us, and their horns and flags and brave plumes daunt us? Is it not nobler, whether victory or defeat awaits, to close ranks, ready the spear, and rally to the standard to which we are pledged? Cowardice is unbecoming both in battles of the flesh, and of the spirit.”

The term “die trying” is crude and not entirely accurate, but it will suffice as a descriptor of the proper approach to mounting a moral resistance against temptation. That we may — or that we most likely will — fail is no reason to allow the temptation to have its day; to the very last moment, the moral person must rail against his or her being drawn in to sin.

~ by Kenneth on May 30, 2008.