(MORALITY AND ETHICS)[18th April 1987]

[Redbook3:204-210][19870418:1030](MORALITY AND ETHICS)[18th April 1987]

19870418.1030

(Continuing my reading of C.H. Dodd*, now to p.119, end[?] Ch.IV). The explanation of the link between God and Morality is to be found (in my view) in the polarisation between God as Unity and Separation: in the context of the Morality of Man, between Inner and Outer extremes, as seen in the inflation or lessening of the Self.**

This is not a precise formulation. However, it does enable one rationally to measure Morality against an inward standard, as well as by direct Con-science: the two should, of course, achieve the same result, in a perfect state of mind; but the perception of Con-science may be dimmed or clouded by the Self.

The easiest analysis of Morality arising from this polarisation is by asking: is it selfish? Most immorality is self-ish; it is hard (for me) to think of a self-less immorality. But that is partly because I have evolved (long ago) a distinction between Morality and Ethics which may or may not be apparent in other people's use of the terms. I think it arises from my contact with the rules of Professional Ethics, which often include regulations intended to not to preserve morality but to preserve good administration (for example, by carving up areas of work between sections of the profession).

The danger of exclusion of God from Morality is that good administration tends to become the only justification for a system of Ethics, and this is a concept without obvious limit: the practical result is a load of regulations having the force of Law without the power of Morality, leading to a separation in the popular mind between Criminality (in Law) and Morality*** (in Conscience), and an increase in law-breaking – and in Immorality, among those who have used the Law as their guide. (I suspect that this process starts**** with Taxation and ends – at least so far – with car parking regulations.)

*[C.H. Dodd, 'The Authority of the Bible' (1928) – See last previous entry.]

**I am not sure that the polarity of Union and Separation is exactly the same as that of Unity/Attraction (Christ) & Diversity/Distraction (+Mk, Satan etc.), although very close; the Separation is that within which all this happens, the Totality of God; the Union is God, the One, the Spirit. Union and Separation is [sic] the fundamental polarity making everything possible.

***[Immorality, presumably.]

****{(historically)}

[continues]

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