1. Scott Peck liked to distinguish between existential and
neurotic emotions. The way I like to put it is that emotions
like guilt and fear can either be existential, which I like to
call life-giving & relationship-enhancing, or neurotic, in
other words, life-destroying & relationship-detracting.
If we're walking down the railroad tracks picking brown eyed
susans and a train is coming, our sympathetic nervous system
will kick in and our adrenal rush will place us in fight or
flight mode. If one uses that fear to quickly run away from
the tracks, then we'd call it an existential fear. If we're
sitting in the front row of a movie theater and a train is
hurtling at us on the big screen, our bodies will react the
same way with the same neuroendocrine responses. If one uses
that fear to run from the theater, then we'd call it a
neurotic fear. If our neuroses get even worse, then we might
call our response psychotic. Interestingly, then, it is not
our feelings but our behaviors that earn us one label vs
another.
segue back to Warren's weekend leit motif of whether or not
and how gospel love interacts with government:
Another distinction that is worthwhile is that between moral
evil and ontic evil. Some call ontic evil - nonmoral or
premoral or even physical evil. But those terms all draw on
the same distinction. A moral evil is a complex reality that
takes into account "act, intention and circumstances." An
ontic evil (or good) evaluates whether or not any given act
tends to frustrate (or enhance) human potential. Because we
are finite, ontic evils are unavoidable. That's the evil to
which we refer when talking about killing in self-defense,
just war, surgical pain or even that "necessary evil" called
government.
So, when people object to Thomas Paine's characterization of
government as a necessary evil, often they are not
distinguishing between moral and ontic evil, between what is
morally wrong and what is simply unfortunate (but
unavoidable). No one is suggesting that government, in and of
itself, is morally wrong; correction: "few" would say that! ;)
But its unavoidable use of coercion, whether for taxing,
policing or military intervention is clearly unfortunate, as
with any other sacrifice of individual freedom for the common
good.
It is love, in and of itself, that is free & cannot, by
definition, be coerced. But does love, itself, ever coerce?
Sure it does. So, the means of government and of agapic love
can overlap, and so can their desired ends. The end can
justify the means if an ontic evil is in play, but such evil
is to be avoided as much as possible. The principles of
limited government and subsidiarity are grounded by moral
reason. Still, religion mostly informs our aspiration for the
higher goods, which can be enjoyed without measure, while
government is preoccupied with the lesser goods, which require
moderation. If any given people ever truly "got religion,"
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2. then we'd witness NGOs (nongovt orgs) taking over the
government's job w/o any coercion and wholly on a voluntary
basis. That would be a Kingdom that is simply "out of this
world"!
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