Objectives &Processes

On the Comprehensive Judgment

Bravery is one of the ethical attributes of human beings, but the ethical concept of bravery itself is neutral. If a person is unstable in the sense of the ultimate concept, then one’s bravery is likely to be a reckless, destructive sacrifice of evil.

Thinkers have debated the ethical concept of bravery for thousands of years. Aristotle first put forward the ethical content of bravery in “Nicomacus Ethics”: “Brave is the power of an act in the face of fear.” Later, Aquinas defined the ethical definition of bravery. Explaining that he translated Aristotle’s writings into Latin, and believed that the thousands-long Christian tradition of “martyrdom” is the most stable and ultimate definition of “brave”: brave because of the truth.

As a result, when people discuss the ethical spirit of “braveness”, they will cite the facts of martyrs in Christian history. People try to prove that truth is the cause of one’s bravery and the purpose of one’s bravery. Only those Christians who believe in the truth have the strength to truly refrain from cooperating with power, although not all Christians do.

In this absurd country and in absurd times, there are indeed some Christians who have kept their faith to the death. In this day and age, talented people are disobeying the Christian faith, brave people who would rather go to jail than make any compromises.

Among all the shortcomings of human beings, a hypocrite is the most harmful, causing people to live in hell forever, with almost no possibility of renewal. Jesus’ criticism and curse of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees were decisive and cruel. Chinese cultural tradition is originally a “hypocritical” tradition. In the past, we demonstrated our hypocrisy under the traditional concept of “benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, and trustworthiness”. This constitutes our “original position” and constitutes the origin of a concept and behavior. origin.

If he is fortunate enough to be chosen by God to become a Christian, it is very likely that one of the first signs of humanity he learns is Jewish hypocrisy. The hypocrisy of humanity and the hypocrisy of the Pharisees have a huge resonance in our religious life. If we don’t quickly realize that the sacrifice that God wants is a broken heart and a broken spirit, then our Christian religious life will be driven by hypocrisy.

Due to the limitation of time and space, people always try their best to create a visible goal for themselves, so as to comfort their short understanding ability. Confucius took Zhou as the goal, Confucianism took Confucius as the goal, Islamic believers aimed at heaven on earth, Buddhist believers aimed at becoming Buddhas themselves, Kant aimed at people, and Christians aimed at visible miracles. Look closely at people’s purpose orientation, and you’ll admit that everyone is short-sighted.

Yes everyone should think about what they are aiming for. Dante said, in the middle of my life, I lost the truth and fell asleep. This is a kind of self-recognition, a kind of repentance, a lamentation dedicated to oneself, and a fact of human nature. Our so-called life has always been looking for excuses for our laziness and shortsightedness. If God is not our goal, then we must die halfway.

Kierkegaard said that people who truly aim at God in human society are extremely rare, and most people are stuck in a vulgar place in the middle. This is his extreme suspicion of the finiteness of human nature. So he left his last words, and the pastor of his church is not allowed to preside over his funeral after his death, because in his opinion, it is impossible to find people like Abraham who really aim at God in life. The familiar priests of, but in the name of priests, consumption in this world. Surprisingly, the priest Kierkegaard was referring to turned out to be his own brother.

Descartes believed that the methodology of human beings is to doubt, and many people think that the doubts launched by Descartes are to doubt God, but Augustine stated very early that the only people who should always be doubted are people. Descartes, of course, was well aware of this truth, so he always doubted people.

Radical skepticism of man is a stable tradition of the Christian faith. A careful reading of the Gospels reveals that Jesus had a complete distrust of human nature, no matter how much people shouted the name of God, how firmly they expressed their stronger faith. Jesus would say, you always do not believe.

Unbelief, little faith, and irrepressible little faith are the normal state of human nature. Those who have never known God are unbelievers. Those who are chosen Christians are little faith. Human nature is incurable in a general sense.

Doubt about human nature must be pushed to the point of incurable, otherwise, all beliefs are to satisfy one’s own narrow mind. I’m going to put it a bit harsher. People who always emphasize their confidence are usually covering up their darkness. The sad thing about us is that when we became Christians, we did learn to praise God, but we never learned to doubt ourselves.

All wisdom and knowledge come from doubting people. A person who does not doubt himself is ignorant. When this ignorance develops to the level of hypocrisy, in fact, the hymn he dedicates to God may also be hypocritical.

Faith is really important, and without full faith, we cannot be saved by Jesus, and in this sense justification by faith is a perfectly correct statement. But this is a statement in a result-oriented sense, not a process sense. In a result-oriented sense, when we die, when our bodies disappear, Jesus’ redemption must become a fact because of our faith. This is all we are born to hope for. But in the sense of process, in the sense of pilgrimage and sojourn, we must doubt ourselves as much as Jesus doubted us, expand our horizons, and unfold the great open-ended error correction.

When emphasizing the process, emphasize the ultimate goal. When we emphasize the ultimate goal, we want to emphasize the process.

The Great faith can allow us to store in the depths of our hearts a synthesis of the ultimate goal and the meaning of the process.