Imagine. You buy organic foods, recycle, and clean up toxic chemicals. You consider yourself to be environmentally green. Yet, you arrive at your local whole food store in an SUV getting 19 miles to the gallon. Did I mention the store was within walking distance of your home? Social psychologists have named these contradictions, “moral licensing.” In a recent Washington Post article Stanford University researchers explain that we have a good-bad balance sheet going on in our heads. [Quote] “For many people, doing good makes it easier — and often more likely — to do bad. It works in reverse, too: Do bad, then do good. We have these internal negotiations going in our heads all day, even if we don’t know it. People’s past behavior literally gives them license to do that next thing, which might not be good.” [End quote] But I’m left scratching my head. How do I know if the so-called “good” that I do, outweighs the so-called “bad?” What is the definition of “a good person”? And if I am “a good person” what difference does that make?
One thing I know for sure: if I do bad things, good cannot come from inside of me. I once served on a summer camp staff. A favorite source for drinking water was a spring located on the property. But, unbeknownst to anyone, an underground sewer leak poisoned the spring. The camp was shut down for a week. Everyone was so sick. If I know that a water source is polluted, do I want to drink from it? I don’t think so. If I can be the source of bad things, I would have to question if good things can come from me.
Over 20 years ago I picked up The Atlantic Monthly boasting this cover title, “Can We Be Good Without God?” I was happily surprised by the answer: no. Glenn Tinder wrote that if political theory has taught us anything it is that humans desperately need an outside source of truth. And just five years later, Vaclav Havel, then president of The Czech Republic, gave an address to Stanford University where he took this stand: [Quote] “I am deeply convinced that a spiritual dimension connects all cultures and all humanity. If democracy is going to survive, then it must discover and renew its own transcendent [or outside] origins. Respect must be renewed for that non-material order which is above us and among us. [An outside source of truth] is the only possible and reliable source of man’s respect of himself, for others, for the order of nature, for the order of humanity, and thus for secular authority as well.” [End quote]
So how can the SUV-driving, environmentally green conscious American know that he is being virtuous or good? If the good I do is still tainted by the bad in me, I might want to look for another source of goodness. I better leave behind that good-bad balance sheet in my head for a deposit-slip change in my heart. For Moody Radio, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found.
Mark can’t get over grace and still struggles with overcoming his works-centered thinking. He is Professor of Old Testament at Crossroads Bible College. To be aired on Moody Radio, Fall, 2010.