Psalm 119:161-168
People often despise the rule-orientation of religion. In this day and age people foolishly associate freedom with a lack of rules and laws. But in point of fact boundaries and rules are necessary for freedom. Real freedom is creativity, and creativity requires rules. Think about Chess. Chess without rules isn't even a game. Cheating removes the power to genuinely create within the game. But chess with rules allows and makes possible remarkable variety and creativity.
Further, a purely chaotic universe would make creativity impossible, for no new form could endure very long, and so no act of creation would ever be completed. It would be like an artist who starts a painting but never finishes.
Of course an absolute order is no better, for in such a world new forms would be impossible. Badly placed boundaries and hardened legalism are just as evil as mindless anarchy. Freedom is found in the interplay between the two extremes.
Gods laws do not exist to limit our freedom, but to maximize it. We can tust the boundaries He sets because we know He loves us. That love can only hope for our freedom because love always wills the freedom of the other, the genuine freedom of the other. But application of these laws without the overarching laws of love for God and neighbor can lead to puritanical legalism that misses the very point for the Law's existence.
A great examination of the interplay of order and chaos can be found in this short animated film, I love it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGh97__-uLA
A couple of things come to mind when reading this and watching the video.
ReplyDelete1. It's all about l'amour ain't it? :) But seriously if women did not demand good behaviour and such from men, would we be anything other than barbarians? Truly it is the mothers in our lives that bring us many of the most civilizing lessons we pick up. The rules rather than the laws if you will. I remember when the Soviet empire was coming apart, babushkas were standing before tanks wagging their fingers at Russian solders admonishing them to behave.
In my experience fathers and other men set the larger boundaries, the limits of the true danger zones. This manifests in a concern for the rights of others, with an eye to others respecting mine. Here are the larger lines to stay within, Mom will help you navigate within those. YMMV obviously but it seems that what drives most improvement or the abandonment thereof is a desire for another person.
Therefore I loved the fact that this was set in the context of love. I particularly enjoyed the ending, "If not happily ever after then reasonably so."
2. Is the argument so much rules/no rules as it is these rules/those rules? In the Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis uses the term the Tao to refer to that sense of how things should or should not be done. Our wrangling seems more about the way to interpret and handle the Tao. For instance, one wife or four wives is less of a difference than any woman or man you wish to have.
I've met the truly debauched. They are a miserable lot. I've met those who give themselves over entirely to the Lords of Law as it were. They are equally miserable I believe though it manifests differently. Both are miserable because they have tossed aside what makes them human. Without control we have nothing and without risk we lose what little we have.
Thanks for posting these things. It gives me much food for thought.