The Unexamined Life

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

-Socrates

Over time, I have come to find that there are many unexamined assumptions in my thinking, assumptions which are already in place before I start to logically consider an issue. Everyone has unexamined assumptions, and they can often get in the way, but they're especially problematic when it comes to our faith.

American culture has many norms and values which vary significantly from those espoused in the New Testament. To see the effect the culture can have on our thinking, we need only to look at earlier Western civilizations.

The Greeks and Romans had no problem with slavery. Many Romans doubted that a modern society could work without their labor. Women were not only not equal to men, they were far inferior -- they could not participate in the political process, and typically could not own property. In Roman society, marriage and family were not especially important elements in a man's life. A Roman man focused his efforts on his work, valuing his family life to a significantly lesser degree.

Today, we see these views as ranging from abhorrent to misguided, but we feel a strong instinctual distaste for them. Yet these values were held by many of the people who founded Western civilization, and we retain and greatly value much of their legacy. Our modern culture has taught us that the above views are wrong, and we tend to disagree with those views reflexively. We rarely take the time to consider why slavery is wrong, or why women should be considered equal to men. Given time we could formulate an argument, but we don't see any need -- our culture believes these practices wrong, and we can rely on the assumption that others who share in that culture will believe the same things we do.

The trouble is, of course, that there were Christians in Roman times who had no trouble with slavery because their culture taught them that it was okay. We must be on our guard to see if our cultural assumptions are interfering with our perception of God's law.

I was struck by the illustration of this point that I once saw in a TV show. In the show, the (woman) President had started as essentially a strong political liberal but had grown deeply in touch with her religious beliefs, relying on her faith and holy book to guide her policy as commander-in-chief. So strong was her faith that she undertook a mission which risked many thousands of lives entirely based on her beliefs. However, in a subsequent episode the subject of abortion was raised. The religious leaders she talked to, the same ones with whom she had previously consulted for her faith-based operation, were all strongly opposed to any form of abortion. However, the President immediately dismissed out of hand the idea of banning abortion, angrily stating that she had "fought for women's reproductive rights for my whole career" and would not restrict them now. Her tone made it clear that the topic was not up for discussion, as the idea was not one she would consider.

I think the writers had intended to make a very different point through the situation, but what I drew from it was this: Here was a woman who claimed to believe; indeed, who had just risked her own life and the lives of others based exclusively on the assumption that her beliefs were true. And yet when that same faith asked her to give up one of her cherished ideas, one of her cultural values, one of her unexamined assumptions, she would not. Not only did she not want to, she wasn't even open to the possibility of following her faith and not her long-held political stance. The idea of "reproductive rights," a cultural value, had become so deeply ingrained in her thinking that she let it stand directly between her and her faith.

To me, this seems profoundly irrational; if her faith is true, as she claimed to believe, why listen to it some of the time and not all the time? But people do the same thing every day. There are the homosexuals who want to believe in everything the Bible says except the part about homosexuality being wrong, the women who believe in everything except (biblically-defined) submissiveness, those who claim to believe in Christian teachings but don't acknowledge Christ as the only Way to the Father, those who believe in Christ as a great moral teacher but not as the Incarnate God, and on and on.

We all have a tendency to let our unexamined assumptions keep us from adhering to the truth. Often we do it even though we know better -- I've read the parts of the Bible about forgiving others so that I'll be forgiven, yet I still want to hold grudges at times. I know that God tells us not to worry about what we'll wear or what we'll eat, but I still worry about those things.

I think what happens in these instances is that we do not allow ourselves to consider these issues, instead relying on the same cultural assumptions which prove to us, without a need for argument, that slavery is wrong or that women should be equal to men. While these cultural values can be good, as in those examples, they also allow us to skip the whole process of considering whether certain ideas or behaviors are consistent with biblical truth -- we just "know" that certain things are acceptable, so we don't need to consult with our knowledge of the Bible. If we did, however, we might realize that the thing we "know" is untrue.

I think the important element is to stop and consider, when we find our behavior or thinking at odds with biblical truth, what our reasoning is. If I stop to consider why I'm worrying about money, I have to start drawing up an argument which explains why I should be allowed to do something which God has told me I need not do. As I attempt to do so, I see that any argument I could make is flimsy and insubstantial. I don't really have a good reason to be worrying about money, except that American culture has inculcated the idea in me that I should. One would hope that the fictional president discussed above would realize, as she tried to make an argument as to why she should oppose the teachings of her own faith, that she was letting her cultural assumptions interfere with adherence to her religious beliefs.

I think the best thing we can do is try to be aware when we consider a course of action which is contrary to biblical teaching. In the future, if such a course seems right, it would be good to try to square it with Scripture. Does this action really comply with Scripture, or oppose it? If it opposes Scripture, is there any justification which could objectively explain it? Could I convince a disinterested person that my reasoning is sound, and not rationalization?

For my part, I hope that in the future an awareness and consideration of the assumptions which inform my thought process will help me to make decisions which are better and more grounded in the truth of Scripture.