Thursday, July 4, 2019

The Christian accepts, without the need for second thought, the duty of charity toward others

Well this is an interesting discussion. From Burning Indignation by Theodore Dalrymple.

I often make the case that the law can only go so far and that society succeeds in operating between deterministic law and chaotic humanity via a buffering of social norms, the product of culture and/or religion. Culture matters. Religion matters.

Read the whole piece. It focuses on the noxious behavior by a British one percenter but then explores the source of our repugnance.

Dalrymple performs a detailed diagnostic leading to a rationalistic impasse but then reaches a conclusion which I applaud.
If the Coyne case illustrates anything other than merely itself, it is the superiority of the Christian to the dogmatically secular view of a situation like this (and I write as a nonbeliever). The Christian accepts, without the need for second thought, the duty of charity toward others; he can respond unself-consciously to his natural feelings of sympathy for such as Davies because he knows that we are all sinners, and that there but for the grace of God go we. He can also extend mercy to Coyne.

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