There are exactly two dialogues of Plato worth reading. The Symposium and Euthyphro. The first summarizes Platonic thought in brief without taking up 40 pages, and it gives a good picture of aristocratic Athens at its height. The second summarizes Socrates.
I actually don’t like Socrates. Like Plato, Socrates was a godless Democrat. Socrates sought to tear down society, but he didn’t offer anything to build it back up with. In one of them — I think the Meno — he eliminates two choices in a binary philosophical question and then the dialogue just ends. Later in The Republic, Socrates (or more likely, Plato) offers up the solution to how to rebuild society, in what is a horrible dystopia described as paradise.
Anyway, Euthyphro. The titular character is a pagan priest. It’s important to remember that Greek philosophy was a reaction against paganism, much how British Enlightenment philosophy was a reaction against Christianity.
Socrates asks Euthyphro if a moral exists because the gods command it, or do the gods command it because it is moral. If the former is true, then morality is subjective. Perhaps the gods could command rape or murder, but surely we wouldn’t support that. If it is the latter, then there is a force higher than the gods, and therefore the gods aren’t really gods.
Argue with enough atheists on the internet, and you’ll come across this. Usually they over-simplify it even more than I just did, because atheists tend to not be very intelligent people. Or they just all but block-quote it from Wikipedia, as though dry logic will win just be looking logicy.
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It’s important to remember that Socrates is arguing against paganism, not Christianity. What is paganism? Just the competitors to Christianity that lost, right?
No. I want to do a full post on paganism in the future, but for now, we’ll say that pagan morality is a simple exchange. The Romans called it the pax deorum — peace of the gods. If I give Zeus two sheep, he will make my crops grow.
So Euthyphro is doing his good deed — in this case, prosecuting his father for murder — because he believes that that is what will put him in good standing with the gods. If you do good, you receive good. It’s karmic. Like all religion, paganism tries to squeeze order out of a fundamentally chaotic world.
The casual student of Greek mythology knows that the gods are rather fickle. They don’t have a universal morality, and they act like spoiled children. They are glorified humans with super powers. And in the Hesiodic genealogy of the gods, the world was formed out of impersonal, amorphous forces like Chaos, Love, and The Abyss.
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This is not how the Christian God works. The Christian God is the Source of everything. He is the primordial Force, and though He is perhaps amorphous, He is not impersonal. Even using the word “He” to describe Him is faulty, because the binary between male and female is something He created. But He isn’t an “it”, because in English the neuter pronoun signifies a lack of personhood.
What is morality? Morality is an extension of who God is. Christian love is being towards others as God is towards others.
Could God have decreed rape to be moral? No. Because rape is not arbitrarily wrong. It is fundamentally wrong.
So is the moral against rape higher than God? No. Because the moral against rape extends out of God. Morality is an extension of God. To be moral is to participate in God’s nature. You are in imitation of God.
What about all the laws in Exodus and Leviticus? That’s rather subjective, yes? Does that extend out of God?
No. That was a ceremonial law intended to preserve the knowledge of God until the fullness of time when He could come and redeem man. Those ceremonial laws included some fundamental morals closely intertwined in.
Part of the ceremonial law works around foreseeable problems in society. This is why it seems like the Mosaic law tolerates polygamy or forced marriage. The Mosaic law doesn’t try to create the perfect society — it tries to create an orderly society that balances justice and mercy.
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And now we have to talk about forced marriage in the Mosaic law. The above link explains a lot but isn’t complete. It’s important to remember that the ancient world was radically different from ours, so you cannot take the Mosaic law at face value and filter it through our modern values.
In the past non-believers have thrown these problematic rapey verses at me, and of course I jump in defending it without doing the right research, which always ends out terrible. Much of Old Testament morality is difficult to understand at face value, and it’s best to just answer, “I don’t know” than to try to explain it. Otherwise you sound like you think rape is a good thing.
Fortunately for you, dear reader, I’ve learned my lesson and expanded my understanding. [Somewhere in here is a joke about how I would make an amazing atheist because I know the Bible so well.]
Deuteronomy 21:10-14 (Brenton):
And if when thou goest out to war against thine enemies, the Lord thy God should deliver them into thine hands, and thou shouldest take their spoil, and shouldest see among the spoil a woman beautiful in countenance, and shouldest desire her, and take her to thyself for a wife, and shouldest bring her within thine house: then shalt thou shave her head, and pare her nails; and shalt take away her garments of captivity from off her, and she shall abide in thine house, and shall bewail her father and mother the days of a month; and afterwards thou shalt go in to her and dwell with her, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be if thou do not delight in her, thou shalt send her out free; and she shall not by any means be sold for money, thou shalt not treat her contemptuously, because thou hast humbled her.
On the surface, this is terrible. I think, though, that God is trying to avoid the common practice of just raping the woman on the battlefield and letting her die. He is saying that if you insist on taking her in, then you should at give her a mourning period and then treat her like a proper wife. You can’t treat her like a common slave. You’ve already wrecked her life enough.
Look, it’s not a great situation. I don’t perfectly understand the Bible. But it’s better than gang raping her and moving on. Or the girl starving in the ruined village. All things considered, this is the best case scenario for a young female in a recently conquered city.
Let’s look at another. Deuteronomy 22:28-29:
And if any one should find a young virgin who has not been betrothed, and should force her and lie with her, and be found, the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the damsel fifty silver didrachms, and she shall be his wife, because he has humbled her; he shall never be able to put her away.
I feel like there’s another passage that says the father can refuse the woman to marry the rapist, but I can’t find it. So we’ll work with this.
In the ancient world, it was very difficult for a woman who was not a virgin to get married, especially if she didn’t come from money. Rape was not merely emotionally crippling her — you were financially and socially crippling her for the rest of her life.
Keep in mind that feminism can only exist in a safe, prosperous society. Practically speaking, it was unsafe for women to be out alone. She couldn’t just get a job waiting tables or whatever. People take it for granted today that women can support themselves, but this is near impossible for most of human history. Society just isn’t normally set up that way. You can’t do away with human nature by marching in the streets and changing laws — that can only happen with a massive surplus of resources.
So in our above hypothetical, a man totally ruins this girl’s life. Therefore, he should be made to bear the cost. Instead of receiving a dowry, he has to pay one to the father. He has to take the girl into his house and support her for life regardless of how he feels about her afterward. He can never cease supporting her no matter how badly she behaves. And while polygamy was not explicitly forbidden, it was somewhat rare and restricted, especially among the lower classes, so the man would likely be stuck with this bitter, resentful woman as his sole wife. A man’s wife is a reflection of who he is, and so the woman would be a reflection on what a shameful person he is.
Again, not a great situation. Actually, it’s a terrible situation. But all things considered, it’s the best case scenario for the woman. And perhaps the consequences would be enough to deter rape.
Blair Naso 