Adolf Wuttke · 36 of 107

Section LXXVIII. The Inner Revelation and the Conscience. (Concl'd) · SECTION LXXXII.

The sphere of the personally-peculiar element is that of the discretionary or the allowed. That particular action which is neither commanded nor forbidden in general by any moral law is an allowed action; this circumstance does not, however, by any means make it of a morally-indifferent character; on the contrary, the morally-allowed belongs per se to the morally-good in so far as the development of personal individuality is per se legitimate and good. The idea of the allowed relates therefore less to the moral activity per se and in general, than rather to the peculiar manner in which an end that is per se good, that is, correspondent to the moral law, is realized in particular, by virtue of the personal peculiarity of the actor; and the same moral law may be fulfilled in many ways, the moral quality of which, however, is conditioned in each particular case by the said peculiarity. There is nothing that is allowed under all circumstances; and all that is allowed, and all so-called indifferents (adiaphora) are in each particular case either good or evil, but never morally neutral, notwithstanding that such actions may be per se, that is, generally considered, morally undetermined, and neither commanded nor forbidden. The moral quality lies not so much in the action objectively considered, as in the disposition from which it springs and by which it is attended.—The sphere of the allowed is different for every stage of the moral development and for each particular circle of life. The farther the moral development of the person has progressed, that is, the more the moral law has become identified with his personality, so much. the higher will also be the rights of his personal individuality, so much the higher the morally-personal freedom, and consequently so much the wider also the sphere of the allowed; to the pure all things are pure. Free movement within the sphere of the allowed is therefore essential to a truly moral life, and conditions the all-sided development thereof; this movement is per se good, and it is in itself a good, the significance and compass of which increase with the moral development of the subject. Herein lies the contrast of the Christian freedom of the Gospel to the bondage of the law.

This is one of the most important and, at the same time, most difficult points in ethical science, and both for the same reason, namely, from the necessity of giving play to personal freedom, and of doing this without infringing on the unconditionally-valid moral law; and in exact proportion as a system of ethics embraces the idea of personal freedom, will it also be able to embrace the idea of the allowed. As in express laws—commands and prohibitions—God manifests himself as holy, so in the concession of the allowed he shows himself as loving. As in the fulfilling of the command and in the observing of the prohibition, man becomes conscious of his moral freedom, so, within the sphere of the allowed, this freedom becomes to him an enjoyment. Now, as freedom of will is not a mere antecedent condition of all morality, but also itself a moral good, and as every good is per se an enjoyment, hence free-created beings have also a moral claim upon the legitimate enjoyment of freedom,—not simply of freedom as subject to definite commands, but also of freedom as entitled to free choice in various directions,—that is, they have discretionary power to free activity; this constitutes in fact the divinely conceded sphere of the allowed, wherein mainly the personally-peculiar element of the moral comes to virtualization.

The very first moral direction, or rather blessing, that was given to man, contains implicitly the notion of the allowed or discretionary: “Replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea,” etc. This is really not so much a command as a blessing,—it proposes a moral goal, a good. But in this good that is to be sought after, namely, dominion over nature, there is at the same time implied a command to realize this supremacy of the rational spirit through moral activity. But within this command there lies also a discretionary field. The particular manner how man is to realize this dominion, is not expressed in the command, but is left to his free personal self-determination—in so far as he does not thereby come into collision with other moral commands. Thus, man may use animals for his own purposes, may domesticate them, train them, force them to help him. and use them for his nourishment; but as to what choice of them he shall make, and as to what kind of service he shall exact of them, this is left to his discretion,—here he may act freely, here he has the full enjoyment of his freedom. For unfallen man there was no need of narrower limits; but when depravity gained the upper hand these limits were drawn closer, and the Mosaic law gives very specific and narrower bounds within which man, as no longer morally stable, was to exercise his freedom upon nature.—The first definite command of God presents at once, along-side of the expressed command, also the allowed: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat;” whatever he may choose of the other trees is per se good; the choice he shall make is not prescribed; simply a boundary is set, beyond which begins evil. Now, we cannot say that this choosing within the given limits is of a morally-indifferent character; rather is such choice, as the realization of a good, itself morally good; and this goodness, consists in the simple fact that every choice is good, and that the choice of the one is not better and not worse than the choice of the other. To infer from this that the single objects of the choice are morally indifferent, would be to overlook the fact that the moral element does not lie in the object, but in the choosing person, and that the latter exercises his morality precisely in the fact of freely choosing in accordance with the peculiarity of his personality; not to choose at all would be to despise the divine gift, and hence immoral.

In the state of innocence the sphere of the allowed was, notwithstanding the indispensable educative limitation, wider than it was subsequently in the state of sin, not, however, because men were then morally more contracted, but because they were morally purer. In consequence of redemption from the power of sin, the now sanctified personality becomes also freer, and the sphere of the allowed is enlarged; herein lies one of the most essential differences between Old Testament and New Testament ethics. The moral itself receives, in contrast to the specifically and particularizingly prescribing ancient law, a more general form, and the whole law and the prophets are summed up in one short command: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself.” The sanctified personality acts within the limits of the law with more freedom; the boundaries of the allowed, as established for the state of sin, are thrown more into the back-ground; the laws as to the Sabbath and as to meats and other similar prescriptions, are thrown into a freer form by the personality as made free in Christ. Instead of the limiting laws regulating the use of “meats,” and other material objects in general, and which were framed with reference to the sinful impurity of man, Christ gives the broad principle: “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man” [Matt. xv, 11]; and Paul expresses this in a still more general form: “Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving” [1 Tim. iv, 4]; and elsewhere [Titus i, 15] he states the thought in its highest exaltation: “Unto the pure all things are pure;” that is, the higher the morality rises, so much the wider becomes also the sphere of the allowed, and hence of freedom; and upon him who is morally perfect, who is inwardly fully identified with the divine will, there is no longer imposed any degree whatever of outwardly-legal limitation to the employment of his freedom; for whatever he can love, that God loves also, and his sanctified personality cannot choose any thing that would be offensive to God,—and such a person is again invested with his original full right of dominion over nature, with his full right of free choice; and whatever he does of free choice, that he does to the glory of God [1 Cor. x, 31].

The words of Paul [1 Cor. vii, 28] may serve as a further illustration of the notion of the allowed: “If thou marry, thou hast not sinned;” whereas on this very occasion the apostle dissuaded from marriage. The Christian has a right to marriage; whether, however, under circumstances that would otherwise morally admit of it, he put into execution this right, does not depend on any particular legal prescription, but on his own untrammeled personal choice. Paul had discretionary “power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles” [1 Cor. ix, 5]; but he did not do so; all have the “power to eat and to drink” [verse 4], but our choice is, within particular limits, left free. Ananias was at liberty to keep his field or not [Acts v, 4]; what he did was of his own election; it was not a moral law, but solely his personal choice that determined his conduct. [Comp. 1 Cor. vi, 12; x, 23; Rom. xiv, 1 sqq.; xv, 1 sqq.; Matt. xii, 3, 4.]

The sphere of the allowed is the more special theater of personal freedom, as distinguished from mere moral freedom. In obedience to the commanding law I am indeed free, but this freedom is nevertheless a controlled one; it is true, I can will and act otherwise than the law wills, but I dare not; and if I in fact do so, then I violate the law, then I am an enemy of God; I have the liberty but not the right so to act. Commanded duty has consequently, notwithstanding the liberty on which it rests, always still a certain constraint in it; and though in the mere literal fulfillment of the law, man becomes conscious of his freedom, yet he does not come to a proper and full enjoyment thereof. If God’s law actually entered, prescribing and prohibiting, into all the details of individual action, without, by some concessions, allowing play-ground for discretionary action, then, though man would indeed have the privilege of freely obeying or disobeying at each particular moment, nevertheless he would feel the law as a burden upon him; and Paul was very apt in expression when he spoke of the preparatory law of the Old Covenant as a chastening-master. For the simple reason that the essence of man is freedom or self-determination, it is natural for him to aspire to become also fully conscious of this freedom,—to put it into exercise in so far as consistent with his moral obedience,—and hence he needs a free field wherein he may act with real freedom, without having his actions in every respect prescribed to him, without being strictly bound by the law,—where, in a word, he may say: I may choose this, but I do not need to choose it; and whether I choose this or that depends entirely on my personal self-determination, and that too without detriment to my moral duty.

The sphere of the allowed stands in the same relation to that of the express law as play to earnest activity. Play also is an element essential to the full development of youthful moral life. With the child, play is of high moral significancy, as it is thereby that it learns to comprehend, to exercise, and to enjoy its full personal freedom. In learning and working the child is also free; but however good and zealous of work it may be, it is nevertheless conscious at the same time of being controlled by an objective law to which it must adapt itself; the other and equally legitimate phase of its life, that of personal freedom and self-determination, is revealed to it in its purest form only in play; and the child, even the morally-good one, finds so great a delight in play, for the simple reason that it thereby comes to the enjoyment of its personal freedom; and the essence of its enjoyment lies in the simple fact that in its playful activity and feats it is free lord of its own volitions and movements; and those children become spiritually dull whose plays are strictly watched over by tutorial intermeddling. Playing is freedom, however, only in form, and is without definite contents; hence it is essentially only a transition-occupation appropriate to the age of childhood. The sphere of the allowed in general, is the wider and positive-grown extension of that play. Here belongs recreation after labor, as in contrast to the positive fulfilling of the law; recreation is per se morally good and its essence consists in freedom; that I select precisely this path for a promenade, or busy myself thus or thus, is neither prescribed to me by any law, nor is that which I do not select forbidden. It is entirely erroneous to say that man must be totally swallowed up in his calling, that he has a definite duty to fulfill at every moment; this would be a moral slavery. The sphere of personal liberty has also its own good right, and for the plain reason that man is not merely an obligated member of the whole, but also a free individuality. Recreation per se is therefore by no means of a morally indifferent character, but the particular mode of its realization is discretionary, and the moral law is not, at this point, of a detailed particularizing character, but it simply hovers protectingly on the outskirts, and wards against abuses,—even as a prudent educator simply exercises a protecting oversight over the child’s play, but does not prescribe the details. Man is indeed moral at every moment of his existence, and should at each moment be and act morally right. but every thing that he does is nevertheless not a direct expression of some moral formula, on the contrary there is a share therein that belongs, and rightly too, to personal free choice,—just as, in regard to his clothing, a sensible man, though in the main following the prevalent mode, will nevertheless reserve the privilege of deviating therefrom whenever it better suits his personal individuality.—Even as a fish in the water, though indeed swimming according to the natural laws of gravitation and motion, yet, within the scope of these laws, disports itself at pleasure, and exhibits precisely in this free motion the traits which distinguish it from the unfree plant, so also does man, within the limits and conditions of the moral law, comport himself freely on the field of the allowed, and in so doing manifests the characteristics of the free child of God as in contrast to servitude under a chastening law.

Schleiermacher (Werke III, 2, 418 sqq.) denies the admissibility of the notion of actions that are merely allowed. We have, in his opinion, no time for that which claims to be, not duty, but simply allowed, not morally necessary, but only morally possible; every performance of such an action implies a definite willingness to act otherwise than from moral motives,—which is immoral; the idea of the allowed belongs not to ethics but to civil law. This we concede in so far as Schleiermacher speaks of such actions as are held to be neither in conformity nor in disconformity to duty, that is morally indifferent, but this is by no means the true idea of the allowed. However, we do not admit the existence of such a class of actions; but in morally-good actions there is a phase which is not determined by the law itself, and which constitutes the allowed.—Rothe (Ethik, 1 Auf. § 819) finds the idea of the allowed in the fact that particular forms of action cannot be referred with certainty to a particular legal formula, so that consequently their moral worth cannot be estimated thereby beyond a doubt. The reason of this may lie in the incompleteness of the law; hence the allowed has a larger scope in the minority-period and with children; but as the law becomes more definite and perfect, the sphere of the allowed grows narrower; the more fully man is as vet without positive law, so much the more numerous are the actions that are allowed to him; but there arrives a turning-point in the development where the relation again changes, and for the reason that, then. the law begins to retire into the background and to become progressively simpler, so that the sphere of the allowed becomes again more extensive. With this view of Rothe we cannot coincide. According to it the sphere of the allowed rests only on a lack of the law, and it would. be more properly termed the sphere of the morally doubtful. Adam, however, to whom the allowed was at once presented in connection with the commanded and the prohibited, could not possibly be in doubt as to what would be moral for him; and the divine word placed before him with perfect definiteness the sphere within which he was allowed entire freedom of action. And it is utterly erroneous to say that in childhood the sphere of the allowed is wider than in maturer years. The fact that many a thing is allowed to the child which does not become it in later years, is not a proof that it has a wider liberty, but only that at this period the allowed lies in a different circle, and one that answers to the childish understanding; on the contrary, the fact undoubtedly is, that to the child more things by far are not allowed which are allowed to the man, than conversely; and every wider stage of development brings to the youth a consciousness of an increased freedom of self-determination, although, on the other hand, it is true that the more earnest demands that are made by the growing positiveness of the life-work, exclude much of the earlier childish liberty. But that there comes again afterward a turning-point when a contrary relation begins, cannot be substantiated, and moreover it conflicts directly with the idea of a constantly progressive development toward moral maturity.—With a similar tendency, Stahl (Rechts-philos. II, 1, 112) transfers the allowed beyond the sphere of the ethical proper, as being in its fulfillment morally indifferent, and into the sphere of satisfaction, that is, of earthly enjoyment; hence he infers consistently enough, that the sphere of the merely allowed must constantly decrease as morality advances, and that satisfaction is ultimately to be sought only in that which is at the same time a fulfilling of the moral law,—as, for example, in the exercise of benevolence, etc. Christian Friedrich Schmid arrives at the same conclusion (Sittenl., p. 450 sqq.). According to this view the sphere of the allowed would amount in fact but to a sphere of the non-allowed, and would be simply a temporary concession to moral immaturity and weakness. This seems to us incorrect. For a truly rational man, there can be no other satisfaction than a moral one; whatever he does and receives, he does and receives in faith and love and with thanksgiving, and in virtue of this thankfulness every truly allowable enjoyment becomes invested with a moral character. Stahl appeals to the fact that, with the progress of moral development, many a thing that is otherwise allowed must be renounced; but this is only in appearance a greater limitation; for though it is true that mature man no longer allows himself many of the pleasures of his unripe youth, yet he has in their stead other and wider fields of the allowed which are denied to youth. The greater freedom of the Christian as compared with the law-observer of the Old Testament, is perfectly evident. It is true, many things were allowed to the Jew, which, because of the higher morality introduced, are no longer allowed to the Christian, such as the putting away of wives, and retaliation [Matt. v, 31 sqq.], so that it might seem as if the sphere of the allowed, and hence of personal freedom, were really more narrowly limited in Christianity than in Judaism. However, when we reflect upon the above-cited declarations of Paul as to the contrast of Christian freedom to the yoke of the law, the matter will doubtless appear in reality very differently. Many things were not indeed morally allowed to the Jews, but only tolerated in them, because of their hardness of heart; the whole significancy of the moral law was not yet exacted of them, just as in children many a thing is tolerated and overlooked because of their more limited moral knowledge, which in riper persons would be regarded as improper and blameworthy, without implying, however, that that which is tolerated is actually admitted as allowable. The fact is, that as the moral consciousness grows in clearness, the compass of duties grows wider also, so that many a thing that was not previously a moral requirement now becomes really such. This does not, however, render the sphere of the allowed narrower, but in fact wider, inasmuch as every duty admits also of a variety of ways of fulfillment, and consequently also a diversity of ways of virtualizing our personal peculiarities. Thus, the fact that consorts may no longer discard each other, though at first sight a seeming limitation of the sphere of the allowed, yet really greatly exalts the moral personality of both parties; they have by far a higher right in each other,—may require more of each other, may more strongly emphasize the right of their moral personality, may each allow to the other, and to himself toward the other, more than would be proper were marriage merely an easily-dissolved contract,—even as the son of the house is freer and may allow himself more liberty than the servant, and for the simple reason that the former is more indissolubly united with the house than the latter;—the closer and firmer the bond, so much the greater mutual trust and confidence, so much wider also the sphere of the allowed.

Writers often admit two different species of the allowed: the one is allowed because of the meagerness of the moral knowledge, as with the child; the other, conversely, because of the advanced state of the moral maturity. This difference, however, is by no means a real one; and, when expressed in this form, the idea of the allowed has no longer any unity, but involves a direct antagonism. Rather do both of these forms of the allowed fall under the one notion of the rights of the personal peculiarity. Many things are, for the peculiar nature of the child, morally good, which are not so for a riper person, and for the simple reason that the unsuspecting child, in doing that which would be improper in those of riper years, “thinketh no evil,” and because the sentiment holds good also of unconscious innocence, that “to the pure all things are pure.” And the case is essentially the same with him who is morally matured; simply the form is different. When man has come, through moral growth, into a state of conscious innocence, then also to him, as being pure, many a thing is pure which would be impure to the sinful.