A Christian's Perspective on Ethics

What is good? What is evil? How do you know? It has been said if your actions lead to an outcome you desire such as “happiness,” then you are making ethical decisions. There is obvious fault in this. If your desires disturb the happiness of another then it would be selfishness on your part. Is selfishness good if it impedes on another’s happiness? In order to determine a set of actions as good in an absolute sense, without God, it would be a process of trying to make everyone happy with one set of “rules” so to speak. This is obviously a prodigious task of endless trial and error. Is it even possible? Should we settle for each individual to make a relative set of rules that defines what is “good?” If it is left to the individual person to decide, then the outcome will inevitably impede the happiness of another due to our finite existence. We would have to be omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient to know the effects our decisions have on all stakeholders.




There are many who go through great pains to rule out God in deciding what is good and what is evil. They want to do “good,” but not because they are told to do so, rather because they want to. I ask such as these, “Why do you want to do “good?” Again, we spiral back to the pursuit of happiness, doing “good” leads to happiness. How do you know you are happy? Well, happy is a feeling you have when your lot in life is befitting a desire you possess. Joy on the other hand is much different; it is an assurance that seizes the heart in response to doing what is right in the absolute sense.



Ethics is the pursuit of happiness or is it the pursuit of joy? By pursuit this implies the goal may or may not be reached, but the mode of reaching it, is Ethics. This mode is a labyrinth we travel through blind folded. We come to a dead end and turn around and try another route. Our ethics may lead to happiness, but if we are not happy then we conclude we are doing something wrong in our lives, something unethical, we must have taken the wrong route. I ask you, if we are suffering is it because we are unethical? The Jews of the New Testament believed this, this is why they scoffed at lepers, tax collectors, Samaritans, and the like, “Those unclean, untouchable, people are suffering because they sinned or their ancestors sinned.” Could this really be how things work? We know the story of the Good Samaritan; it is often the person humbled by suffering and sin that turns out to be the most unselfish and empathetic to the plight of others. Is ethics more than a pursuit of happiness then? Is happiness just a possible, but not guaranteed, byproduct of doing what is right and good?



I am a mathematics teacher at a public high school. I feel educating someone is a righteous pursuit, an ethical one. Many days I am quite unhappy though, but there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that a few kids know more than they did before. My unhappiness is most often due to unmotivated, unappreciative, and emotionally neglected students. I put all my effort and heart into giving them something divine (knowledge) and they treat me like I am a prison guard. Is this an implication that I am unethical for educating, or that public education is unethical in its current form? The real point is, just because we are doing good does not mean we will be happy, but we will have a certain amount of joy.



Who decides then, what is good? Is it us individually through trial and error? It may be if we do not read more than one book. We may just travel the labyrinth of ethics blindly running into walls and falling into crevices that we may never escape due to ignorance. We may gain sight through reading a couple more books, but still wonder aimlessly through the maze. We may find larger insight through studying and discussion, but still be found wanting. Instead of all this, we may finally discover there is a route through this maze that leads to a discovery of a joy beyond our past finite experiences, something so profound that it is worthy of the title GOD. We may actually discover that this route can only be accessed through humility and faith rather than our merits alone.

"Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right." - Abraham Lincoln