Review Essay, Keeping the Balance
Williams explains that “However much the head may wish to suspend belief, life involves commitment to action, no matter how uncertain we are of our convictions”. Both “inaction” and contemplation may be viewed as forms of action; we are always doing something with our time. A person may be in a moral dilemma about whether or not to have an abortion, but in the end she must either choose to have one, and get it over with, or not. Our action is “in some sense inevitable” and “in some sense committed”. We are “bound” to it. And Jesus’ action effectively judges ours, “not because Jesus is sniffing out the weakness of inferior spirits, but because he is bound to act, as we are, and by the nature of his action he seems both to parade the high vocation of humanity and to convict us of our own failure”. If, at the very least, we grant compassion a high, if not the highest moral worth, we are undone. Shouldn’t our lives “be suffused with it”, then? “For anyone willing to exalt compassion and face the facts, it appears that Jesus possesses an integrity, in the sense of a unity of conviction, will, intention and action, that we do not have”. In this man, “sinlessness and integrity come together, as we realise that our disunity is not there in terms of sinlessness but in terms of concrete integrity of conviction and action, it is different. We feel not only something amiss, but something deeply fragmented in our humanity, something that needs healing”. Williams does not think it is plausible to say that Paul and the others baselessly supposed there was in Jesus “an integrity and influence that moulded them according to his perfection”.
The will to understand and the problem of scepticism The next point Williams considers is the human will—specifically, how the human will relates to our understanding. When we reflect on the matter a little, it is evident how easily the will can dictate the course of our reason. We wish to go on living in a certain way, and so choose to turn a blind eye to things that may, when duly considered, compel us to make a change. I wish to come to a particular conclusion—perhaps about my responsibility to give away more of my money—and so I look for arguments to persuade myself. Perhaps I know something to be wrong, but choose to yield to it anyway, and “the more I yield, the less the conscience protests”, and “the more open I am to the intellectual persuasion that, after all, it may not be unethical”. It is plain that “the will is fundamentally involved in our assessment of the claims of and about Jesus”. Christ “calls for a personal revolution that transforms my practices and my allegiance. If I admit his moral authority, let alone his claims to be speaking for God, I am bound to change my life or at any rate stop justifying my failure to change my life”. In short, we cannot approach the question of Jesus, or indeed, the question of God, “in a disinterested way”. We may not want to believe in Him. We bring with us a hidden agenda. Williams hastens to add that not all lack of faith or certainty should be attributed to unsound motivation. But there are two basic points to draw out of this discussion: Firstly, it would be a mistake to “assume that epistemological issues are just intellectual issues”. Secondly, where Jesus is concerned, “the issue at stake is profoundly existential and not dispassionately cerebral”. And now we have a new problem: “If most, if not all, of us approach these issues with our hidden agenda, can we settle arguments on the objective level at all?” Are we, in fact, “doomed to scepticism”?
Category: In Depth, Spring 2006
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