"There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead"

It is refreshing to find a journalist who has done a little bit of homework prior to an interview and is ready to question spin, half-truths, strategic inexactitudes and "misstatements" from political leaders.

Rather than contribute another dissection of this particular interview, instead I thought I'd gather a few thoughts on the Australian carbon price and its place in contemporary Australian politics.

As Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott is so fond of reminding us (especially when facing an interviewer turning the screws on his own truthfulness), Australian PM Julia Gillard did indeed say during the 2010 election campaign, "there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead". Yet one of the signature pieces of legislation from this minority government has been the introduction a price on carbon coupled with income tax reform.

A straightforward broken promise? Yes and no.

It is axiomatic that a minority government will need to compromise its electoral platform in order to get the support of other parties or independents required to govern. If a party could gain the support of enough MPs without altering its policies, then the extra MPs would just join the party. It is abundantly clear in this case that the price on carbon was the top item on the Greens agenda (and also on the radar of the independents) and so compromise was necessary. Once the election results were known, that such legislation would be the price of Greens support (needed by either party to govern) was entirely predictable.

As far as I can see, there were really only four other alternatives: (a) for the Greens to have dropped this demand, which was considerably more core for them than a promise made once on the campaign trail (did Gillard make this claim more than once? If so, I am not aware of it), (b) for the Greens to have negotiated an agreement with the Coalition, which would have faced the same sticking point (along with likely even more disagreements on other policies), (c) for the two parties who were against a carbon price (Labor and the Coalition) to have made this the sine qua non of their respective positions and so come to a power-sharing agreement between them in order to prevent the Greens from introducing such an idea, or (d) for no agreements to be reached and a new election called.

As I've said before, too much is usually made of campaign promises. Governments exist to execute wise political authority, not merely to implement the majority will.

While it is a minor point, it's worth noting that the carbon price is not a tax. The current system is based on carbon credits that are sold to the five hundred or so largest polluting companies in a market mechanism that spends the first few years with a fixed price and unlimited credits in order to give business certainty and then shifts to a fixed number of credits (declining each year) and a moving price (with a floor and ceiling imposed). It may well have been better as a direct tax at the point of extraction with proceeds distributed equally to all Australian citizens (tax and dividend), but that is not the system that was chosen. Now it is quite arguable that most Australians do not understand the difference, but that is because there has been such an effective effort by the Opposition to muddy the waters and no effort on the part of the government to explain it. Public ignorance is assumed and reinforced by both sides.

More importantly, the current legislation is way too unambitious, with tiny targets that put Australia towards the back of industrial counties in its level of ambition and which, if adopted by all advanced economies, would most likely see us sail past two, three and four degrees. Furthermore, current legislation does not including our massive coal exports, which are already the largest in the world and are planned to double in the next decade (blowing any domestic reductions out of the water), nor the embodied carbon in imported goods, nor international aviation or shipping. It provides extremely generous free credits to many industries to soften the initial burden. And it includes international offsets, so that we can continue to emit locally while paying someone else to make changes elsewhere that Treasury does not actually expect domestic emissions to decline very much, if at all.

Yet perhaps the greatest failure by the government regarding this legislation has been the failure to make use of its introduction to keep raising climate literacy, explaining the basics of climate science (which are still widely misunderstood), why serious action of carbon emissions are morally justified (getting beyond short-term cost-benefit analyses) and necessary at every level (personal, local, national, international), why Australia must do its bit (which is considerably more than most other nations, not less) and why this battle is worth fighting, even if it looks like we're currently losing.

So be assured that I am no particular fan of the present legislation or government, but repeating Gillard's broken promise - while it may be a satisfying way of expressing anger at a government that has had its fair share of controversies while being surprisingly effective at getting more than an average amount of legislative work done - is doubly misguided.

Are all foods clean? A review of Food Inc.

"The way we eat has changed more in the last fifty years than in the previous ten thousand."

- Food Inc., opening line.

"'Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?' (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, 'It is what comes out of a person that defiles.'"

- Mark 7.18b-20 (NRSV).

Jesus' words were a radical challenge to the Jewish practice of his day, overturning the Old Testament food laws and the traditions that had grown around them. Jesus' redefinition of purity as a matter of the heart and what comes out of it rather than the mouth and what goes into it has left an important mark on our eating habits; we don't think twice about tucking into a crab soup or creamy bacon pasta.

But perhaps sometimes, as a result of this very passage teaching us to see food as a non-issue, Christians can miss the ways in which our hearts may be deceived even as we eat food that Christ declared clean. In particular, there are ways of eating that fail to love our neighbour and fail to adopt a properly human, humane and humble attitude towards the rest of the created order. Our hearts may be defiled, even as we consume delicious feasts.

For anyone who is largely ignorant of contemporary industrial agriculture and its practices, Food Inc. is a good place to start to investigate where our food comes from. It is primarily a US perspective, and some of the details do differ elsewhere in the industrialised world, but not always by a great deal. Most urban dwellers are unaware of the social, ecological, animal and economic realities that get our typical diet into the supermarket. And most are surprised to find just how far we have departed from the stereotypical pictures of rural life still found in children's books and on food packaging. As in all kinds of other ways, the last fifty years or so have been truly revolutionary in this regard. I will not attempt here to summarise the various threads followed by the film, tracing the damage done to workers, animals, soil, waterways, other nations and farmers themselves by contemporary methods of industrial food production, though I was a little surprised to note that there were significant points still left unsaid, even after a string of unpalatable revelations.

But the film is not all ugliness and disgust. Having lifted the lid on the true cost of our cheap food, it moves on to explore two somewhat contradictory approaches to an alternative. On the one hand is an attempt to fight fire with fire, to build an organic and ethical food industry that can compete with factory farming by building a market for organic products in mainstream distributors at a competitive price. On the other is the pursuit of regenerative farming that moves beyond merely being organic to question the broader economic and political structures that govern the whole business. One asks us merely to change our consumption patterns and has faith in the market to deliver the goods that we demand; the other questions the very forces that help to (de)form those demands. The former, more pragmatic, approach is making significant inroads when measured by market share, but does it represent a form of greenwash, a slight improvement that actually serves to dull the necessary critique of a deeply flawed economic and political system? Or is the latter too idealistic and risks missing out on making small but real gains that are actually available for the sake of goals too radical to ever gain widespread acceptance?

This tension is a frequent one in ethical thought, where compromise needn't always be a dirty word, but where the possibility of self-deception via superficial changes is also ever present. This documentary is worth seeing, whether you are blissfully unaware of the origin of your next meal or already struggling with the ethical questions raised by contemporary food practices.

Jesus, who taught us that all foods are clean, also taught us to pray "give us this day our daily bread", and identified his body and blood with elements we take into our mouths. He was not seeking to remove food from the realm of faithful living before God, but to deepen our perception of what joyfully wholesome food might look like. It cannot be identified merely by its flavour or appearance, but depends on the relationships with our neighbours (human and otherwise) that it represents.

Can you give thanks for what will be put in front of you today?

Can a pacifist fill out a census...

...when the census is being conducted by the world's largest arms manufacturer?

Lockheed Martin won the tender for the 2011 UK census and will be collecting 32 pages of information from every household in the UK, except for those willing to risk a £1,000 fine and a criminal record.

I don't identify as a pacifist, though I have deep misgivings about the influence and scale of multinationals who trade in military hardware. Lockheed Martin built the UK's Trident nuclear system, continue to make banned cluster bombs and have supplied much of the equipment being used to suppress dissent in the Middle East, including the most recent violence in Bahrain.

I understand that government is an exercise in compromise, of doing the best that is actually possible, but some compromises are more important than others. Count me out are running a campaign highlighting the problematic nature of this particular government contract.

Hung parliament: not so bad?

Random thoughts on the Australian federal election result

"This is clearly the closest election result we've seen in Australian history."

- Antony Green, ABC's election analyst during an interview on Lateline.

I am not entirely disappointed with a hung parliament in Australia after Saturday's election. At the very least, it means that neither side can claim victory. They both lost. There was indeed a swing against the ALP (-5.4%) and towards the Coalition (+1.9%), but elections are not won on swings. And indeed, if they were, then the Greens received a much larger positive swing (+3.7%). One significant factor in this was likely to be disgruntled ALP supporters registering their disapproval of the Rudd/Gillard failure of nerve on climate. It may have also been punishment for Gillard's move to the the right on asylum seekers, but Rudd's popularity started its precipitous decline when he announced the shelving of his carbon trading scheme.

In the Senate, before below the line and postal votes are counted (and below the line postal votes, like mine!), it looks like both major parties faced negative swings (Coalition -1.3%; ALP -4.6%) while the Greens are highly likely to have secured balance of power (+3.9%) and the most Senate seats of a minor party in Australian history. The DLP may have followed Family First's success in 2007 by gaining a Victorian seat with only 2.23% of the primary vote.

Earlier this year in the UK election, when it became clear that the parliament was going to be hung, there was a lot of misinformation peddled by politicians, pundits and certain sections of the media about what it was going to mean. Due to a busy weekend, I haven't been following enough Australian media to know if a similar pattern has been emerging there. So to clarify some issues that were muddied here and may be there, by constitutional convention, Gillard remains caretaker PM until the result becomes clear, the incumbent PM has first right to form a coalition or minority government, and there is no necessity for either side to have a formal coalition to govern. Having more seats (yet not a majority), having more primary votes, having more two party preferred votes: none of these are really relevant in determining who forms government (except insofar as they can be spun to provide some kind of moral weight).

That a hung parliament doesn't necessarily mean instability can be seen from a wide range of nations who regularly manage to get along with one. That they have been rare in the UK and Australia has led to a little hysteria (from what I've seen, not quite as much in Oz as there was here a few months back) about the dangers of no party having a majority. However, it ought to be remembered that neither the ALP nor the Coalition (!) are really a single party (the internal divisions within the ALP are famous, and were on display in paradoxical ways with the recent leadership spill) and so Australia has never really had a majority government. We've pretty much always had to get along with a cobbled together kind of political power, and that's not all bad. Yes, this might be a little more pronounced than usual, but I think that it could turn out to be healthy if it means some negotiations and compromises, with each issue needing to be argued on its merits and weighed against other priorities. That's how the system works. As long as one side can guarantee a majority who will pledge to avoid frivolous votes of no confidence and won't block supply, then a minority government is quite feasible.

To get there, both sides are now wooing the support of the three independents (Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter) who have pledged to work as a bloc. Although they are all former National Party members, it has quickly become obvious that they can not simply be assumed to belong naturally to the Coalition. They have affirmed their desire to (a) stay independent, avoiding a formal coalition and (b) provide enough stability for a full three year term, enabling one or other side to form a minority government with some stability. I found this quote from Oakeshott interesting. Along with a single Greens member, there is likely to be a fourth independent, Andrew Wilke, a former Greens member, who was also a whistle-blowing intelligence analyst under the Howard government.

In addition to these five, it is also important to note (and few media outlets seem to have mentioned it) that the sprawling WA electorate of O'Connor (which covers a greater area that NSW), saw not simply a surprise defeat by the outspoken and controversial Liberal veteran Wilson Tuckey, but a victory by a member of the National Party of WA, who are affiliated with the national National Party, but maintain a distinct party structure from them. In particular, they do not recognise a formal Coalition with the Liberal Party and so just as the Greens member is likely to side with Labor yet not enter a formal coalition, so Tony Crook of O'Connor is likely to side with the Coalition, but not be a formal member for the Coalition. There is no love lost in WA between the Nationals and the Coalition and Crook has indicated he is willing to negotiate with the ALP.

Speaking of the National Party (and for a moment lumping the WA Nationals in with the rest), that they can gain seven seats with 3.87% of the national vote, while the Greens gained just one lower house seat with 11.39% does make one wonder about the relative merits of arguments for proportional representation. Of course, Australia already has PR in the Senate and so the Greens' balance of power there is an indication of their current popularity. Whether it is a short term punishment of the ALP or indicative of longer term trends towards a greater consciousness of ecological issues remains to be seen.

Whatever happens, despite (or perhaps because of) a deeply disappointing and cynical campaign in which both major parties ran very negative campaigns almost entirely devoid of any global or long term vision, Australian politics just got more interesting.

Hope in what is unseen

"The kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul; it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.

"Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but, rather, an ability to work for something that is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper the hope is. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from 'elsewhere'. It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem hopeless as ours do, here and now."

- Václav Havel, Disturbing the Peace: A conversation with Karel Hvížďala,
(Knopf, 1990), 181.

H/T Entersection.

"Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?"

- Romans 8.24b.

We act (and wait) because of hope. The wellspring of genuine Christian action (and patience, even in adversity) is found not in the conditions which confront us. We do not act because we might be successful. The shape of Christian action may be tempered by compromise, the recognition of the good that is actually possible, but the motive for action is never the success of the enterprise. It can only be faithfulness to the God who has promised, love for the groaning world and the hope that what is not yet seen may yet appear.

Copenhagen and Climate Change: hope and hopelessness

Tomorrow, in at least 177 countries, over 4,600 political actions (many of them involving hundreds or thousands of people) will be taken under a single banner. The banner? A number, three hundred and fifty, referring to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide (and equivalents) in the atmosphere. This is the level many leading climate scientists (including the head of the IPCC) now say is required to minimise the likelihood of passing various climate tipping points that trigger positive feedback mechanisms virtually ensuring further destructive changes. The challenge? We're currently at about 390 ppm. Even the most rigorous goal for the Copenhagen negotiations stands at 450 ppm, on the assumption that this gives us a better than even chance of limiting average warming to 2ºC, widely quoted as a threshold beyond which the dangers multiply. But even an average warming of 2ºC will have enormous effects on many aspects of climate, not least precipitation patterns (and so agricultural yields) in some of the world's most food-stressed areas. To avoid this, the 350 campaign brings together a huge number of organisations, individuals, congregations and parties from nearly every country, calling for global leaders who will soon meet in Copenhagen (see clock in sidebar) to reach an agreement that is strong, equitable and grounded in the latest science. Today's Sydney Morning Herald includes this opinion piece by Archbishop Desmond Tutu explaining his support for the campaign.
H/T Matt Moffitt and Geoff Broughton for this link.

Personally (provided we are both over a cold that has been dogging us recently), Jessica and I will be going to one of the Edinburgh events tomorrow in order to add our voices and bodies in support of keeping this issue high on the agenda. You can find an event near you here.

However, political support for a strong deal seems to be waning. New polling shows that only 57% of Americans believe the climate is warming (compared to 77% in 2007) and only 36% accept that the human actions are primarily to blame. In Australia, 68% saw climate change as a threat to Australia's vital interests back in 2006, by last year that was still 66%, but is now only 52%.

With national leaders concerned about national interests, every country is out to minimise its costs, particularly since the primary dangers are decades away, well beyond the term of any of those responsible for current negotiations. Different approaches to sharing the burden are also evident between countries that have historically contributed most to emissions and those whose emissions are currently rising fastest.

And there is worse news. Even if leaders manage to agree in Copenhagen to limiting emissions to 450ppm, reaching some kind of compromise between developing and developed nations, then even the most optimistic assumptions about a best case scenario put the chances of actually sticking to anything like that as almost impossible. Clive Hamilton, one of Australia's best known public intellectuals and Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, a joint centre of the Australian National University, Charles Sturt University and the University of Melbourne, in a lecture delivered earlier this week, summarises the situation like this:

It is clear that limiting warming to 2ºC is beyond us; the question now is whether we can limit warming to 4ºC [to see what a 4ºC change might look like, see here, or here]. The conclusion that, even if we act promptly and resolutely, the world is on a path to reach 650 ppm and associated warming of 4°C is almost too frightening to accept. Yet that is the reluctant conclusion of the world’s leading climate scientists. Even with the most optimistic set of assumptions—the ending of deforestation, a halving of emissions associated with food production, global emissions peaking in 2020 and then falling by 3 per cent a year for a few decades—we have no chance of preventing emissions rising well above a number of critical tipping points that will spark uncontrollable climate change.

- Clive Hamilton, "Is it too late to prevent catastrophic climate change?"

The whole article is worth reading. In it, Hamilton argues that things are worse than we thought. Whereas until recently most policy makers assumed that we could limit change to less than 2ºC and that the effects of that change were "worrying but manageable", new research into the likely negative effects of even 2ºC warming and into the extreme (political, economic and social) difficulty of staying below the 450ppm barrier makes even the most aggressive suggestions currently on the table seem at once both beyond our reach and too little in any case.

So why bother at all? Why campaign for a basically impossible target? Why make the (sometimes painful) lifestyle, legislative and policy changes required to reduce our carbon footprint? If all our efforts will be too little, too late, why not "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die"? A longer answer will probably take much of my thesis to articulate. An excellent 11-page answer by Andrew Cameron in his 2007 report to Sydney Anglican Synod on behalf of the Social Issues Executive can be found here.

But the short answer for an already over-lengthy blog post is found in the context of that famous quote ("eat, drink and be merry") in 1 Corinthians 15, namely the Christian hope of the resurrection of the body. The resurrection of Jesus is a promise and foretaste of the general resurrection of the dead: for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. The distinctively Christian hope of resurrection includes the belief that God has not given up on creation, nor on humanity, and that even our stupid self-destruction cannot ultimately thwart divine love. If God has not given up, neither can we. Our actions may or may not make a difference. Our society may or may not survive in anything like its present form, but living well, with humility and repentance as responsible members of the community of life, is enough.

Happiness

"Happiness is neither in us nor outside of us; it is in God, both outside and in us."

- Blaise Pascal, Pensée, 465.

We are not the source of our own happiness, yet nor are our surroundings. Our happiness is a sharing of the joy of God. Yet rejoicing in God leads us not away from the world or ourselves, but deeper into both.

According to Spaemann (Happiness and Benevolence, 52), to deny that happiness is found in God leaves three alternatives: despair, the search for a utopia of human construction, or compromise (lowering our standards).

Discuss.

O'Donovan on wakefulness IIIb: Resolving

Resolving (cont)
Ideals are goods imagined negatively, as possibilities. Goods are known historically and so can be anticipated, or imagined, where they do not yet exist. This turn from love to hope is dangerous. By focussing on possibility we may lose sight of the good already actually given to us. Yet this danger is inescapable; we must deal in possibilities. The key is to frame our hope in response to God's promise, which ensures that it will be in the service of created good, rather than an invention or construction of my wishes.

It is necessary to focus on the negative to anticipate the possibility of future good. O'Donovan discussed the example of Psalm 139 in which the final prayer of verses 23-24 "requires" the sudden shock of verses 19-22; the psalmist's gaze needed to shift from the perfection of God's work (verses 1-18) to the lack of perfection in the world.

Yet in the whole world of unrealised possible good, I have one life before death to achieve something. It is possible to fall in love with the as yet unrealised good and ignore the actual thing I can do. I may end up merely hoping for things I cannot realise and to which I cannot even contribute. Deep changes can and will occur; the lion will lie down with the lamb. I can't make this happen, but I may be able to help two quarrelling friends patch it up. We don't bring in the kingdom. Even though God's kingdom is our ultimate hope, I am instead to ask after the concrete thing given to me to do in the present in light of that hope and in witness to it. Paul Ramsey said, "Not everything that can be done should by us be done." The bad idealist can be dangerous - the negativity of the ideal will become the hallmark of all I do. I ought not to linger amongst the yawning caverns of non-existence; I ought to press on for what God has given me to do.

Compromise is thus what makes ideals realisable. We acknowledge our limits and seek what good we can do. We know this from the realm of law. An idealistic law is vicious, requiring too much, and so causes despair amngst those who would do good within their limits. On the other hand, we can have a demoralised law that demands too little. There are bad compromises as well as bad ideals, where we conform to the pattern of this world. We need to stand our ground where we have ground to stand upon. Judgement regarding what is possible is difficult, requiring courage as well as wisdom. Yet we are confident to risk failure if we know that even in our failure our actions will witness to the kingdom of God.

A good ideal is a possible ideal. A good compromise focuses the mind on where and how it is possible.

Not every possibility ought to be done. Asking "can we clone a sheep?" is the wrong question (and is answered by actually cloning a sheep, or by failing for long enough and in enough ways that we give up). The better question is "can we do good by cloning a sleep?" (and this is not answered by actually cloning (or failing to clone) a sleep), or "can it be a coherent pursuit of a God-given good?". This is where our description is crucial. Our ideals will be as good as our description of the good.

Moral rules are formulations of generic obligation. The basis of following them is that they are grounded in reality, not just that they are directive. Such rules are not given in nature, ready to be discovered by a careful observer, yet neither are they invented. They are 'constructed' in the same way as diagrams, arguments or formulae are constructed, i.e. it is not their content that we construct but their form. Like arguments, they are open to dispute, clarification and correction. And the claim that we ought to follow rules is itself a rule, grounded in the reality of regularity.

And in conclusion, some reflections upon acting together with others. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13.13) Why is love the greatest? We began with love, in a faithful admiration of the goods of the world, and have proceeded via hope to faith. But the whole movement becomes a cycle when faith is itself directed to love. Or to put it another (more Johannine) way, how is the command to love both an old and a new command? (John 13.34; 1 John 2.7-11; 2 John 5-6) Our actions contribute to a human history of action. If others can't build on my bold action, then I'm narcissistic (the classic example of a bold action that others are unable to build upon is suicide). Perfection of moral action is that we awaken together to shared service of God. Rowan Williams has devoted his whole office to this point (he is less understood on this side of the world at this great distance). With one purpose and acting as one (Philippians 2.2) - yet what is it that we are to imitate in the incarnation (Philippians 2.5)? Not simply being kind or humble, but Christ's acceptance of service and his demonstrated obedience to God. The Son is wholly equal with the Father, yet he was wholly absorbed in the Father's will. He gave priority to the Father, not because they were not equal, but because asserting equality was no part of his project. May we have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus. May we act as one.

-----

Given the present situation in the Anglican communion and O'Donovan's concluding comments, I asked the question that I thought many would be thinking: can disagreement serve unity? His answer: yes, of course, in a dialectic pursuit of true unity rather than uniformity. I wish he'd had the chance to say more. For those interested, he has addressed this question (and the specific situation of the Anglican communion) at some length in seven sermons posted on the Fulcrum website.

Further questions proceed thus:
Q: Are laws just for the unvirtuous, as Aristotle claimed? Don't the virtuous simply do what is right?
A: No, Aristotelians overvalue spontenaity. "I believe that St Paul would, as St Paul always does, agree with me."

Q: 'Compromise' has a bad name around most Christians. Are we really meant to compromise?
A: Let's distiguish again between good and bad compromise. The latter is to conform to the pattern of the age. The former is simply trying to do what can be done, to bear witness to what God is doing. The key question to hold together ideals and compromise: "what is the best course of action that is actually available?"

Q: How can I know God's will for my life? How can I distinguish it from my imagination and desires?
A: I can't give you a series of rules beyond orienting you correctly: are you listening to God's word? Are you living the good things he's made (esp your neighbour)? Are you attending to his laws? I can lead you round and round the issue, but I can't resolve it for you because I'm not the Holy Spirit. The resolution is left to you and the Spirit.

Q: Are rights and duties good ideals or not?
A: Rights are more complex than duties. The focussing of moral discourse on rights is like the focus on equality. Both return to ontological presuppositions and make them do the work of phronesis. In each case, this is an abuse of a term, which in its correct place is quite useful, but which won't do the whole job for us. Duties are simply what the rules teach us. Of course, they need to be placed in a broader understanding of the world and admiration of the good that shows how duties relate (and do not ultimately conflict). We ought to avoid an atomistic understanding of either rights or duties. Morality doesn't start from a single point, but aims to get to one.

Trevor Cairney, Master of New College, thanked O'Donovan and offered an excellent summary of all three talks, which he has now published as a single post.
Twelve points for correcltly naming the Sydney suburb in which the photo was taken.
Series: I; IIa; IIb; IIIa; IIIb.

Worse than death? III

Jesus' obedience unto death

...let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

- Hebrews 12.1-2 (NRSV)

Jesus was obedient to the point of death. The possibility, even the inevitability, that following his Father's will would lead to a painful and shameful execution was not for him a reason for compromise or recalculation. He knew that sin is worse than death. And so he continued walking the dangerous path of calling Israel to repentance and of living without fear of what others might do to him because of it.

Now Jesus clearly loved life. He wept over his friend's death. He healed and forgave those threatened by death and sin. He spoke of life to the full and celebrated children and weddings. He feasted and drank, thanking his Father for good things. Yet his love for life and the good creation did not dominate his existence so that every effort was to be made to preserve his life and health. First came faithfulness to his God and Father. This was his agenda, wherever it led him. He would not sacrifice everything to stay alive, nor was he in a rush to die. Indeed, all other things being equal, he would have preferred to have been able to avoid the cup of suffering, but instead he prayed and lived "not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22.42).

For Jesus to have treated death as the worst possible outcome and as his primary enemy would have distracted him from the very path that would lead to its defeat. Jesus defeated death not by avoiding it but by solving the problem that causes it, by healing the crack in the world that leads to all decay and degeneration. He undid Adam's disobedience through obedience. He took on our temptations and succeeded where we failed.

Much more can and should be said about the cross, but at the very least, we see that regard for God trumps fear of death in Jesus' willingness to obey in all things, even when life itself is at stake.
Ten points for the name of this stone.
Series: I, II, III, IV, V, VI.