Western Values are Christian Values?

[Loki]

I often hear that Western civilisation is, at heart, a christian civilisation. Generally, this is meant to say that our morals and values are "christian" in origin and nature. I'd like to dispute that, at least for one key value.

It seems to me that one of the fundamental tenets (perhaps *the* fundamental tenet) is "all men are created equal". Under secular humanism, this expands into legal concepts like "innocent until proved guilty". The idea here is that humanity is an "opt out" system. In other words, everyone starts off as part of humanity, and is presumed to be on an equal footing with everyone else - this holds until such time as you demonstrate, though your actions, that this no longer should apply. All people are granted a default status of "equal/innocent", and you only lose this status when your actions prove you unworthy.

Christianity (especially, but not limited to, Catholicism) reverses this principle. It's an "opt in" system. Everyone starts off guilty, and you have to prove your worth through your thought/actions (ie, commitment to Jesus, etc).

At a moral level, christianity asserts we start 'bad', and have to work to reach 'good'. Secular humanism asserts we start 'good' and have the right to be considered 'good' until such time as we prove we're 'bad'.

Again, this just seems to be a straight out contradiction - if our legal system was built on christian lines, we'd assume people were guilty, and we'd ask them to prove themselves. The fact that western society has chosen a principle of "innocent until proven guilty" seems to be a rejection of the basic christian notions of how god has set up his judgement system. If god has adopted a "prove your worth" system, why has humanity adopted the alternative "assume your innocent, prove your failure" system?

 

[whitefork]

Some Western values are the same as Christian values.
Christian values predate Western values.
Therefore these Western values derive from Christian values.

Does one see the logical fallacy there?


If one does not, consider this:

Some Christian values are the same as Buddhist values.
Buddhist values predate Christian values.
therefore, etc.


Some features of Ptolmaic astronomy are present in comtemporary astronomy.
etc

Many similar arguments can be constructed.

 

[MRC_Hans]

While Christian ways of thinking have of course influenced our culture to a great extent, to say that it builds in Christian values is really a reversal of things. It is like those people who have claimed that athists must immoral since they lack religion to keep them in line.

Human morals and values have evolved together with our society. Different cultures have slightly different sets of values, often reflecting their practical situations. The values set of a culture is expressed through the laws, customs, and religion of that culture.

Christianity did not shape Western culture, it is the other way around. Does this matter? Yes, it does, because it makes a difference on where to look for authority. If Cristianity had shaped the culture, the authoritative reference would be the Bible. Instead, the reference is the culture, as expressed in the laws and customs within it, and the religion is applied in accordance with this.

This is also what happens in reality. Show me even the most dedicated Bible thumper who would willingly receive punishment for for a deed deemed punishable in the Bible, if the law of the country said he could go free. (it would not be difficult to find such an example)

Hans

 

[triadboy]

I read a wonderful essay that explained America was a conjoinment of two different ideals.

The Hermetic ideals were what our founding fathers were about. (separation of church and State, democracy, etc) These ideal came to us from Greece/France.

The Puritan ideals came to us from Calvinist Europeans settling in this country. Their ideal included (intolerance of others who are different, rigid outlook, etc)

You can actually see each of these thoughts in our society.

 

[EdipisReks]

personally, i believe that the secular western values that so many of us value are quite different from christian values. the Enlightenment, which is the foundation of so much of what we value culturally, had its foundation much more on the classics, and the classics as interpreted by Renaissance scholars, than it does on classical biblical teaching. however, since secular western values ar generalyl "good" values, and much of the population is christian, it is inevitable, in my opinion, that the christian population would like to claim those same secular values for their own. the fact that christianity and secular values are quite different seems to bother the christians no more than the more basic hypocricies of their religion do.

 

[ceo_esq]

It seems to me that one of the fundamental tenets (perhaps *the* fundamental tenet) is "all men are created equal". Under secular humanism, this expands into legal concepts like "innocent until proved guilty". The idea here is that humanity is an "opt out" system. In other words, everyone starts off as part of humanity, and is presumed to be on an equal footing with everyone else - this holds until such time as you demonstrate, though your actions, that this no longer should apply. All people are granted a default status of "equal/innocent", and you only lose this status when your actions prove you unworthy.

Christianity (especially, but not limited to, Catholicism) reverses this principle. It's an "opt in" system. Everyone starts off guilty, and you have to prove your worth through your thought/actions (ie, commitment to Jesus, etc).

At a moral level, christianity asserts we start 'bad', and have to work to reach 'good'. Secular humanism asserts we start 'good' and have the right to be considered 'good' until such time as we prove we're 'bad'.

Again, this just seems to be a straight out contradiction - if our legal system was built on christian lines, we'd assume people were guilty, and we'd ask them to prove themselves. The fact that western society has chosen a principle of "innocent until proven guilty" seems to be a rejection of the basic christian notions of how god has set up his judgement system. If god has adopted a "prove your worth" system, why has humanity adopted the alternative "assume your innocent, prove your failure" system?

But our legal system is built, to a considerable extent, along Christian lines. This prompts the question of whether Christianity is really somehow antagonistic toward the presumption of innocence in an individual context. Both historically and theologically, I think the answer is no.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432 (1835), citing Greenleaf on Evidence, traced the legal notion of the presumption of innocence back to Deuteronomy (also noting that the idea was present in Christianized Roman law and possibly even Greek law).

The natural law theological arguments of Thomas Aquinas have also been viewed as fundamental to the further development of the "presumed innocent" doctrine. See Joseph C. Cascarelli, "Presumption of Innocence and Natural Law: Machiavelli and Aquinas", 41 American Journal of Jurisprudence 229 (1996).

If there is any body of law that is strictly "along Christian lines", it’s canon law – and canon law has always incorporated a strict presumption of innocence for the accused, even while the civil common law lagged further behind in developing safeguards for the rights of accused defendants.

I think the reason for this is that, in one sense, innocence and goodness in the Christian worldview are not really (or at least entirely) an "opt-in" affair. Aquinas, in his discussions of natural law on this point, focused more on the notion that Creation really was innocent ab initio, and Adam and Eve "opted out". The murky doctrine of Original Sin that ensued does not, in Christian thought, presume individuals to be guilty of this or that particular sin (i.e., a fallen, sinful nature is not equivalent to personal sin). You still have to "opt out" for those, and this, in my view, explains why legal systems arising from Christian cultures do not generally include a presumption of guilt.

 

[ceo_esq]

Christianity did not shape Western culture, it is the other way around.

That's quite a claim. Have you come across many historians who agree?

 

[Chupacabras]

Re: Re: Western Values are Christian Values?

... (also noting that the idea was present in Christianized Roman law and possibly even Greek law).

Quite so, it's the Onus probandi, or burden of proof. This item - Innocent until proven guilty - is incorporated in the declaration of Human Rights. I would contest that this is somewhat derived or tied extrinsically to secular humanism, as originally proposed at the start of this thread. I would rather guess that, being based totally in Logic, it is quite commonly misunderstood and/or misused.

As of values in the Bible, one cannot overlook the works of Thomas Paine to ponder the proposal of western, or any culture, based on the bible (for a short review on Paine, click to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/paine.htm). Otherwise, check one of the many sites on Bilbe criticism for another perspective of its values.

 

[whitefork]

That's quite a claim. Have you come across many historians who agree?

I suspest that Hans means Western culture has softened and ameliorated the extremes of Deuteronomy and the rest of the Mosaic law. We don't stone people, we don't punish idolatry or Sabbath-breaking these days, we don't hang witches, and to argue that this softening is a consequence of the Judeo-Christian legal tradition doesn't make sense to me. Civilization civilized religion (some religions, anyway).

The features that you point to in Western law as originating from that religious tradition are the ones that remain after the others have been rejected as incompatible with our image of ourselves as modern, enlightened, civilized people.

 

[ceo_esq]

I suspest that Hans means Western culture has softened and ameliorated the extremes of Deuteronomy and the rest of the Mosaic law. We don't stone people, we don't punish idolatry or Sabbath-breaking these days, we don't hang witches, and to argue that this softening is a consequence of the Judeo-Christian legal tradition doesn't make sense to me. Civilization civilized religion (some religions, anyway).

The features that you point to in Western law as originating from that religious tradition are the ones that remain after the others have been rejected as incompatible with our image of ourselves as modern, enlightened, civilized people.

Civilization has become more enlightened over time; so has Judeo-Christian tradition. A misconception I encounter with some frequency on this board has do with how this process typically occurs; namely, that "secular civilization" (whatever that means) has, over time, generally been in the position of softening the rough edges of unenlightened religious ideology. In fact, with respect to Christianity in the West, the process has historically worked at least as often (though certainly not exclusively) in the other direction.

I've discussed this at length in this old thread (which, coincidentally, I resuscitated earlier today):

http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9763

And, in the more specific context of legal systems, in the latter part of this thread:

http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17982

To return to your post, it's worth bearing in mind that Christianity itself softened many of the less appealing extremes of Mosaic law, which became obsolete not because the "culture" demanded it, but because they were not retained in the new dogma and the transition to Christianity. Thereafter, many successive enlightened reforms originated within the prevailing religious tradition and migrated beyond it, rather than being imposed from without. That is, many "unenlightened" old ideas no longer have currency in the West primarily because they were eventually rejected as being incompatible with Christianity, before they came to be viewed as incompatible with an enlightened humanist society.

 

[whitefork]

That other thread was good. I think the flow goes both ways, though I don't have any compelling reasons for thinking that most of the softening has originated from either side. It probably varies over time.

I'd like to see the same arguments applied to Islam, which arguably has not been softened up to the same degree as Christianity, though during the great flowering of Islamic culture it did, I'll grant. but since then, the pendulum seems to have swung back.

It would be a nice exercise to chart this somehow, looking at the history of law within the context of the great historical movements like the various Renaissances, the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution, and the like.

You have a lot of data on this. I should educate myself further.

Thanks for a provocative line of thought.

 

[Loki]

ceo_esq,

I had you in mind when I was framing this question! I was hoping to draw an answer from you, since you normally add something to the table that I may have overlooked.

But our legal system is built, to a considerable extent, along Christian lines.
...
If there is any body of law that is strictly "along Christian lines", it’s canon law – and canon law has always incorporated a strict presumption of innocence for the accused, even while the civil common law lagged further behind in developing safeguards for the rights of accused defendants.

I think my line of thought was prompted (initially) by Christian's (the JREF poster, not the faith) statements that legal laws *should be* an encoding of underlying morals. This made me consider what the most basic christian moral might be, and it seems that "Original Sin" comes into play here.

The murky doctrine of Original Sin that ensued does not, in Christian thought, presume individuals to be guilty of this or that particular sin (i.e., a fallen, sinful nature is not equivalent to personal sin).

I agree that a potential weak link in my theory is that I'm mixing "sinful nature" and "sinful act" - and perhaps this is a fatal flaw. It still seems to me that if the Catholic god was building the (human) universe using the principles we try to apply here on earth, then we'd all be heading for heaven by default, and we'd have to demonstrate our unsuitability for this (ie, "opt out"). This doesn't seem to be the case according to a large number of christian denominations - although, yes, we've discussed before just how many people are "in" by default under the Catholic teachings, and I agree that there's "wriggle room" in the catechism.

See Joseph C. Cascarelli, "Presumption of Innocence and Natural Law: Machiavelli and Aquinas", 41 American Journal of Jurisprudence 229 (1996).

I'll try and follow up on this - it sounds like it's right at the heart of what I was thinking about.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chupacabras,

This item - Innocent until proven guilty - is incorporated in the declaration of Human Rights. I would contest that this is somewhat derived or tied extrinsically to secular humanism, as originally proposed at the start of this thread

Sloppy language on my behalf - I meant to say that Secular Humanism has embraced this concept and made it a central tenet - I didn't mean to imply that the concept cannot exist without Secular Humanism, or that it was first thought of by Secular Humanists. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[MRC_Hans]

I suspest that Hans means Western culture has softened and ameliorated the extremes of Deuteronomy and the rest of the Mosaic law. We don't stone people, we don't punish idolatry or Sabbath-breaking these days, we don't hang witches, and to argue that this softening is a consequence of the Judeo-Christian legal tradition doesn't make sense to me. Civilization civilized religion (some religions, anyway).

The features that you point to in Western law as originating from that religious tradition are the ones that remain after the others have been rejected as incompatible with our image of ourselves as modern, enlightened, civilized people.

Exactly.

Hans

 

[ceo_esq]

I'll try and follow up on this - it sounds like it's right at the heart of what I was thinking about.

For convenience, I'll excerpt a few relevant passages from the journal article here (omitting footnotes):

Creation – in particular, creation "in time" – is crucial to the political and jurisprudential question of whether such a thing as Justice both exists and is possible in this World. Creation is crucial to this question precisely because Creation in time unlocks the secret about whether man's beginning are innocent (Aquinas) or whether man's beginnings are corrupt (Machiavelli). Genesis is the story about Creation in time and about man's perfect beginnings.
… .
In summary, Genesis teaches that Man came into this World, in time, which is to say that Man was created with a good or perfect beginning. Man's beginning is marked by plenty and peace (as opposed to scarcity and war). Thus, the origin of evil is a fall, an act of human disobedience to God's commandment. To perfect oneself – real progress, in other words – therefore means a return to the beginning when Man was good. As Professor Marvin Fox writes: "One purpose of the divine Law is to create the best possible social order so as to protect men from themselves and each other, to assure justice, and to prevent violence. . . . The aim is, in effect, to return mankind as closely as possible to the ideal state of the original Adam."
…
It is important to recall, at this juncture, that Machiavelli (and the tradition that follows after him) maintains the opposite view. The Modern Tradition says that the World has a bad beginning, or, at a minimum, that Man's beginning is neutral, that is, neither good nor bad. This is significant. If Man's beginnings are bad, then Man will lead or will be led towards a bad end since he is already corrupted in his very being.
…
Philosophically speaking, if Man has good or perfect beginnings, then we may draw the conclusion that Man's nature, in its original state, is essentially good. If Man's beginnings be imperfect, then Man's nature, in its original state, is either essentially bad or, at least, is not necessarily good; but this is the same thing as saying that Man's nature, in its original state, is open ended: There is nothing inherently good or inherently bad in whatever a man does either to himself or to others. In short, we may say this: If Man's beginnings are imperfect, then Man is not innocent in his original state. But, if Man's beginnings are perfect, then Man is innocent in his original state. This leads us back to our central theme. Why is it the fair thing, the right thing, the Just thing for any man or woman charged with a crime to be presumed innocent until proven guilty? The answer seems to rest in the way in which Western Civilization understands Man's beginnings. Western Civilization begins its thinking about Justice with the premise that Man's beginnings are perfect.
…
Therefore, if one subscribes to the proposition (as does St. Thomas Aquinas) that Man's beginnings are perfect and Good, then it is only right to presume a man accused of a crime possesses the same innocence that he possessed in his original state. To do anything less would be Unjust precisely because Justice (which asks the question, "What is Right? and What is Wrong?") is not possible if Man's original state is morally neutral, that is, indifferent to good and evil. To the contrary, if Man's beginnings are good, then Man is innocent in his natural state. There is, then, a necessary connection between original innocence and Justice. This is why, traditionally, Justice is associated with Law, which, in turn, is associated with Authority, which, in turn, ultimately finds its primary expression in equating the Good with the Ancestral. Western Civilization is grounded in this Great Tradition. And one of the central tenets of the Great Tradition is that in the beginning, Man was made good and that the purpose of Law is to return man to First Principles. Or in other words, the purpose of Law is to help bring Man back to, or at least approach, his original condition, which was a condition of Goodness.
…
Thus, in drawing this essay to a close, we point out that the presumption of innocence is a well-established rule of law in American Jurisprudence – a child born of a long history or genealogy in Western Civilization, which itself finds its roots in the Great Tradition, which is itself premised upon the principle that Man was created by God and was made Good in the beginning. Justice is founded upon this principle and finds its expression in American Jurisprudence, in the doctrine of the presumption of innocence and its progeny[.]

Source: Joseph C. Cascarelli, "Presumption of Innocence and Natural Law: Machiavelli and Aquinas", 41 American Journal of Jurisprudence 229 (1996).

An interesting notion: Law strives toward an original (ontologically if not historically) virtuous condition – to replicate, as it were, a moral state in which the Fall had not occurred. Certainly, I can see how this notion would lend philosophical support to specific legal doctrines such as the presumption of innocence in criminal trials.

 

[kedo1981]

One point that is almost always missed or left out in these kind of discussions is that Christianity and it’s stated “values” self promotes it’s own perfection.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Freedom of religion and expression are not christian values. The 1st commandment is evidence of this.

 

[Christian]

Loki wrote:
think my line of thought was prompted (initially) by Christian's (the JREF poster, not the faith) statements that legal laws *should be* an encoding of underlying morals.

Just to clarify, from the athest's position, the only laws that should exist are the legal ones.

Two other clarification,

1) "equal under the law" does not mean "equal under the law".

2) "innocent until proven guilty" only applies to penal law.

 

[Jet Grind]

Loki wrote:
think my line of thought was prompted (initially) by Christian's (the JREF poster, not the faith) statements that legal laws *should be* an encoding of underlying morals.

Just to clarify, from the athest's position, the only laws that should exist are the legal ones.

Two other clarification,

1) "equal under the law" does not mean "equal under the law".

2) "innocent until proven guilty" only applies to penal law.

Come again?

 

[thaiboxerken]

Just to clarify, from the athest's position, the only laws that should exist are the legal ones.

I'm atheist, and that's not my position.


1) "equal under the law" does not mean "equal under the law".

This is a contradictory statement that doesn't apply.

2) "innocent until proven guilty" only applies to penal law.

I think that's the current system, and I don't agree with it.

 

[TexasBEAST]

The Christian scriptures ordered Christians to submit to the government at all costs, even during the height of Roman Imperial persecution. Fortunately for us, the Founders of America said, 'You can take your "submission" doctrine and shove it up your @$$! We're rebelling!' Clearly our nation was not founded on Christian values.

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution laud the value of the rights to life and liberty. The Christian scriptures order Christians to just go along with whomever oppresses you, and not to fight back. "Turn the other cheek", "Go another mile", etc. And if you are killed, count it as a blessing. Don't resist; just embrace your enemy. Clearly our nation was not founded on Christian values.

The DoI mentions the pursuit of happiness. The Constitution uses the more familiar wording of "property". At either rate, the Founders were indicating their respect for the importance of earthly happiness and pursuits. They felt that people should be able to seek out some form of enjoyment and fulfillment in this earthly life. Not so with Iesous (Jesus). He taught that the end of this world was at hand, and so, Christians should turn their backs on all earthly pursuits and seek not pleasure in them. He ordered Christians to give away all their property and follow him. And the first church of JYerushalem (in the book of Acts) did just that, creating a sort of socialistic commune. Clearly our nation was not founded on Christian values.

Wisdom and philosophy are scorned in the NT scriptures. Christians are warned to stay away from any knowledge not taught by the Church. The philosophical movement of the Enlightenment, on the other hand, taught people to seek such knowledge out! Our nation was founded because people dared to go beyond the Bible. Thank goodness!