What is morality, (or ethics)?
A code of values to guide one's choices and actions, the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life.
To speak meaningfully of “value", one must first understand what a value is. A value is not merely something admired or preferred; it is something one acts to gain or to keep. It is pursued because it matters, because its presence is better than its absence, and its loss would be costly. If nothing can be gained, and nothing can be lost, then nothing is truly at stake, and if nothing is at stake, then nothing is of value.
We know this instinctively. Courage is only meaningful where danger exists. Faithfulness only matters where betrayal is possible. Love is not a risk-free endeavor; it is the willful investment of oneself in another, with the hope of gain and the possibility of loss.
This is why the immutable God of Calvin and Augustine cannot be the source of morality. A God who cannot change, cannot suffer, cannot be affected in any way, is a God who cannot have any values. He cannot be pleased or grieved, helped or harmed, served or thwarted. He cannot gain or lose anything and so cannot seek to gain or to keep anything and thus He cannot value anything. A being who cannot value anything cannot be righteous because righteousness requires a standard that defines something as better than its opposite, and, by extension, a being who cannot be touched by others cannot love anyone, cannot treasure any relationship because they are things, including other people, are all indifferent to its being. The doctrine of divine impassibility admits this openly: God does not rejoice, does not sorrow, does not respond. What remains is not the God of Scripture, but a metaphysical abstraction; immutable, impassible, impenetrable and unaffected. An immutable God, then, is an amoral God.
The alternative is not to reduce God to human volatility; it is to believe what Scripture actually reveals: that God created us in His image and that He, therefore, values us. He desires relationship with us and when that relationship was broken, He did not declare it of no consequence as if it didn't matter to Him, but rather He entered into history to restore it. In the divine economy, value demands a price, and God did not assign some arbitrary worth to His creation but demonstrated its value by paying for it with His own life.
The cross is not a put-on for effect; it is the cost of divine relationship. God did not feign loss; He entered into it. He did not pretend death; He suffered it. Jesus bore the weight of sin, endured real separation from the Father, and truly and willingly died in order to purchase our salvation. This was not theatrical, it was personal, it was just, and it was the fullest revelation of a God who pays the full price for what He values.
A code of values to guide one's choices and actions, the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life.
To speak meaningfully of “value", one must first understand what a value is. A value is not merely something admired or preferred; it is something one acts to gain or to keep. It is pursued because it matters, because its presence is better than its absence, and its loss would be costly. If nothing can be gained, and nothing can be lost, then nothing is truly at stake, and if nothing is at stake, then nothing is of value.
We know this instinctively. Courage is only meaningful where danger exists. Faithfulness only matters where betrayal is possible. Love is not a risk-free endeavor; it is the willful investment of oneself in another, with the hope of gain and the possibility of loss.
This is why the immutable God of Calvin and Augustine cannot be the source of morality. A God who cannot change, cannot suffer, cannot be affected in any way, is a God who cannot have any values. He cannot be pleased or grieved, helped or harmed, served or thwarted. He cannot gain or lose anything and so cannot seek to gain or to keep anything and thus He cannot value anything. A being who cannot value anything cannot be righteous because righteousness requires a standard that defines something as better than its opposite, and, by extension, a being who cannot be touched by others cannot love anyone, cannot treasure any relationship because they are things, including other people, are all indifferent to its being. The doctrine of divine impassibility admits this openly: God does not rejoice, does not sorrow, does not respond. What remains is not the God of Scripture, but a metaphysical abstraction; immutable, impassible, impenetrable and unaffected. An immutable God, then, is an amoral God.
The alternative is not to reduce God to human volatility; it is to believe what Scripture actually reveals: that God created us in His image and that He, therefore, values us. He desires relationship with us and when that relationship was broken, He did not declare it of no consequence as if it didn't matter to Him, but rather He entered into history to restore it. In the divine economy, value demands a price, and God did not assign some arbitrary worth to His creation but demonstrated its value by paying for it with His own life.
The cross is not a put-on for effect; it is the cost of divine relationship. God did not feign loss; He entered into it. He did not pretend death; He suffered it. Jesus bore the weight of sin, endured real separation from the Father, and truly and willingly died in order to purchase our salvation. This was not theatrical, it was personal, it was just, and it was the fullest revelation of a God who pays the full price for what He values.