"Isn't
Christianity just a lot of rules?", I was asked recently. "No",
I said, "It has some rules; but those rules are given so that we might
understand something even greater - just as a map, if followed carefully, will
lead us to our desired destination."
In considering rules, let's start with what I call the triangle of wrongdoing. There are generally three kinds of wrongdoing in the world - there is the kind that we willingly do in spite of knowing the wrongness; there is the kind that ensnares us despite our often futile attempts at resistance; and there is the kind that we convince ourselves is actually not wrongdoing at all. An example of the first kind would be breaking the speed limit because we want to get somewhere quicker. An example of the second kind would be failing to control our bad temper in an argument despite a hearty effort. And an example of the third kind would be believing that our extreme causes for social justice justifies an attack on a rival group because it is thought to be for the greater good.
In all of those cases, there is a notable commonality - our conscience, beliefs and reasoning help us manage our ethics, but they are no guarantee of our swerving wrongdoing. Because we change our ethics to accord with our behaviour, we can easily make up rules to suit ourselves and create justification for breaking them whenever we choose, or forgive ourselves very easily when we fail at keeping our own rules. This is the big failing of a rule-based system that has no other mechanism other than rules to sustain it.
Some groups even respond to this problem by creating systems of dogma containing rules within rules. For example, Islam has a set of rules to live by in order to justify the status of being a Muslim, but some tenets of Islam also have rules about not following rules - some of which can lead to loss of Muslim status (a term they call 'apostasy').
Rules do have a part to play in our Christian faith, of course - Jesus gave us plenty of commandments to follow (the sermon on the mount is full of them). But rules need something more primary above them in order to bootstrap their utility, otherwise they fall foul of a kind of variation of Munchausen's trilemma, where:
1) Rules are merely circular - the rules are right because they are necessary, and they are necessary because they are the right rules.
2) Rules regress infinitely - rule 1 is supported by rule 2, which is supported by rule 3, and so on
3) Rules are axiomatic - rules are supported without further explanation because they are the rules.
The upshot here is that rules exist not as ends in themselves, but as means to achieve some other aim. Rules of a board game do not exist to see who is good at following rules, they exist to create level boundaries in which one player can show themselves to be the winner. Rules of law do not exist to make us better at following laws - they exist as a substrate in order that society can flourish within a stable legal framework.
What strikes me most about Jesus' commandments is that He gave us many instructions that were impossible to live up to - the obvious one being 'Be perfect'. But they are given, not to set us up to fail, but to set us up to succeed. It’s a very profound thing we are contemplating here – that God gives us an impossible task because it’s the only way we can ultimately succeed. All the time, those laws, ethics and moral instructions are, by themselves, inadequate to the task of giving us what God really want to give us; He wants to give us the freedom to enjoy more of Himself, and more of His love and grace.
The commandments are given to liberate us into a full life, not to restrict us. Sensible laws can inhibit us, but they benefit us more. A law that makes it difficult for you to drink and drive also makes it less likely that a drunk driver will harm you. A law that means you can be sued for a breach of contract also frees you up to do things like get a mortgage or obtain a credit card. A bank would have no incentive to undertake financial exchanges with you without the legal power to obligate you. Similarly, the laws in the Bible are designed to take God's people from a penury state to a more prosperous one.
This point is illustrated wonderfully by G.K. Chesterton is his great work Orthodoxy, about how a wall of safety makes children freer, not less free:
“We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff’s edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased.”
Similarly, Christ's laws and commandments are given to us to help us do the will of the Father, to help us prosper on our journey with Christ, and to help us conduct ourselves in a way that will bring us more intimately closer to Divine love and grace. There’s a good reason why the origin of the word paradise is a ‘walled garden’. A state of true peace, protection, purity and harmony would be such, not just by what it lets in, but by what it keeps out.
