Reservations of the Worldly-Minded: Shortcomings in Confucian Ethics

There’s a book I’d love to read if someone ever wrote it.  What if instead of being executed by the State, Socrates had been banished, sent to the outer reaches of civilization?  There, far to the east, he stumbles upon a humble village whereupon he starts to question the people about the nature of justice, love, and virtue.  He finds them to be well inclined to hear him and soon they direct him to meet with their king.  Socrates finds the old sage – who is named Kong – to be a very pleasant fellow indeed.  He is dressed in the robes of a lowly magistrate, and over a cup of tea they soon find themselves engrossed in a most passionate philosophical discourse, always coming back to what it would mean for a man to transcend himself and achieve true virtue and moral rectitude. 

Yeah, that’d be a fun read.  Perhaps Peter Kreeft will do us a favor and get on that.

Apparently I’ve been on a little bit of an East Asian religions run of late.  I did not intend to, but it happens that this fits as the third in a series of posts.  The first, “How High is the Threshold?” (Nov. 2012) dealt at some length with Buddhism Scriptures, sects, pluralism, and exclusivism.  Then “Gleanings from Shinto Theology” (April 2013) looked at a nascent awareness of monotheism from a brief passage by a leading Shinto scholar.  Now for the last in the Tripitaka of East Asian religions.  Though, of course, Confucianism is actually closer to secular-humanism than anything else. (The folk religion of Taoism would be more appropriate, but less relevant or influential here in Japan).

Confucius (孔子), or un-Latinized, “Master Kong”, is as seminal to the development and direction of Asian culture and history as Socrates/Plato is to Western civilization.  Plato I read and absorbed in grade school, but I did not look at Confucianism until university. 

Recently, in reading through the Analects (論語) and The Doctrine of the Mean (中庸), I was surprised that we are not given a sustained discourse so much as a brief smattering of anecdotal sayings.  Therein we might find very worthy axioms that speak directly us today.  My favorite is: “Gentlemen are in harmony without conforming, petty men echo each other without being in harmony” (Analects 13:23).  Or, if you are looking for something to hang on your wall or tattoo on your calf, here is the original Chinese:  子曰：「君子和而不同，小人同而不和。」

Other times the sayings read almost like fortune cookie wisdom.  “The Master said, ‘If a man take no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand’ ” (Analects 11).  Fine, but not much to base a civilization around.  Western civilization could not have been built on the foundation of Solomon’s Book of Proverbs alone.

Both Socrates and Confucius sought to bring reform to an age of moral dereliction – not so different from our day and age.  Confucius stressed fulfilling reciprocal obligations, pursuing ethnical norms, and propriety among human relations (or ren, yi, and li) rather than outlining the way to have right relationship with Heaven (God). I know many a Westerner that could benefit from the kind of introspection and self-cultivation that would lead to being deliberate in speech and careful in their reciprocal duties to others.  Socrates, who expressly saw himself as God’s gadfly, his own term, as well as a prophet of Apollo (Hmm – the same or different from God?), emphasized an analytical grasp of transcendent reality and political theorizing.  Socrates was all about “Know thyself”, and Confucius expressed the idea that “Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous” (Analects 2:15). 

But they pursued their philosophies so at the expense of probing the root of human nature and the complexity of our moral condition.  Their view of man was naively simplistic, blaming his moral failures merely on general ignorance of ethics/propriety, as if those properly educated in niceties at Eton ought basically to reach moral excellence and do not sin greatly in either their public or private life.  History and experience do not bear this out.  I wonder if this man-centered view is not so different from the cultivated Stoicism of, say, Marcus Aurelius, who slaughtered Christians, or of Seneca, who looked on while Nero engaged in his egregious dissipations.

As a side note, I hope I won’t sound too biased to say I’m glad we got Socrates since I think with his elenctic approach he penetrated more deeply into the nature of things and critical thinking than Confucius did.  Now it’s possible that aside from Laozi and Mencius I’m simply entirely ignorant of Eastern history and its philosophical traditions, but it sure seems like the West has the benefit of a far richer vein of thought from the Greeks transmitted through Cicero and subsequently the Romans.  Their reach is far.  Cicero’s dialogue Hortensius apparently had a seminal effect on Augustine and Boethius. The rediscovery of his letters helped spark the Renaissance and his De Officiis was the second book off the printing press.  The plays of Seneca would provide inspiration for Shakespeare’s early works.

Then it happened.  Following the advent of the Son of God coming to earth like a shooting star to usher in the kingdom of heaven, an unparalleled burst of inspiration ensued as men could draw upon this well of other-worldly wisdom.  Jesus focused his three short years at the crossroads of the world to culminate in his atoning work on cross and resurrection.  For various reasons the message mainly took root in the west as Paul of Tarsus took it to Rome.  We need merely think of Augustine of Hippo, Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Edwards, and so on.  Even Boethius is a delight to read against the backdrop of his solid grounding in theology allowing him to play with ease with the accoutrements of philosophy.  I might add, perhaps betraying my own provincialism, what people had the favorable theological and literary foundation to craft works that could approach the sublime beauty of Shakespeare or Milton or the Metaphysical Poets?

Unfortunately, I think the Elizabethan Age is where literary culture peaked.  In many ways the dominant philosophical views of the Western tradition in “Christendom” started going downhill after the humanist-rationalist insistence on the innate goodness of man, the very thing Confucianism stresses. The 1687 Latin translation of Confucian works reinforced that message in Europe.  We find this in the regressive Deist tradition of Descartes, Spinoza, Newton, Voltaire, Locke, Leibniz, Kant, etc., though here and there in the West were still to be found an elenctic non-conformist like Pascal or Kierkegaard, with that rare unity of heart and mind.


On God and the Silence of Heaven

The main shortcoming is in how Master Kong predicates his ethical philosophy.  There is no core, no framework of doctrine (i.e., teaching) that gives a meta-narrative to explain the world and why it is the way it is, let alone any attempt at uncovering the puzzles of ethical philosophy.  Here in Japan, much of people’s sense of societal roles and social obligations is bound up in the Confucian cultural background that lurks unconsciously behind their thinking.  The furthest thing from their mind are questions of the existence of God, the meaning of life, how to realize individuality, or of future the judgment to come.

To his credit, Master Kong’s was far from any mere sophist.  His chief concern centered around achieving a virtuous life, and therefore a virtuous society.  As a touchstone in his thought, his sayings often refer to the need for the superior man to be able to know the ordinances of Heaven, or roughly the equivalent to the Western idea of “Natural Law.”  But there’s a definite Deist undertone here - in practice, this basically boils down to respecting others and being careful to follow ritual ceremonies and traditions handed down, with no sense of divine immanence or participation in the governing of men or nations.  The Mandate of Heaven (天命) in Confucian thought is in practice little more than a check on the unrestrained tyrannies of emperors, whose sins threaten the prosperity of the whole nation.  It was the duty of the Confucian superior man/sage/virtuous gentleman (君子) to remind the emperor of such things.

–  “There are three things of which the superior man stands in awe. He stands in awe of the ordinances of Heaven. He stands in awe of great men. He stands in awe of the words of sages. The mean man does not know the ordinances of Heaven, and consequently does not stand in awe of them. He is disrespectful to great men. He makes sport of the words of sages” (Analects 16:8).

– “The Master said, ‘Without recognizing the ordinances of Heaven, it is impossible to be a superior man’ ” (Analects 20:3).

– “The Master said, ‘Not so. He who offends against Heaven has none to whom he can pray’ ” (Analects 3:13).

– “The way of Heaven and Earth may be completely declared in one sentence.-- They are without any doubleness, and so they produce things in a manner that is unfathomable” (Means 26:7).

– “Hence the sovereign may not neglect the cultivation of his own character. Wishing to cultivate his character, he may not neglect to serve his parents. In order to serve his parents, he may not neglect to acquire knowledge of men. In order to know men, he may not dispense with a knowledge of Heaven” (Means 20:7).

But always for Confucius, Heaven is an abstract concept.  Instead of the personal name/title “Shang Ti” that Chinese had used for Almighty God (sometimes mixing in the spirits of past emperors), Confucius substituted the general designation for the Heavens, “T’ien”, which is rather more akin to the idea of Fate.  The ordinances he mentions are largely just the proper ways to conduct ancestral worship ceremonies and the biannual great sacrifices, to speak the truth from a sincere heart, and act according to the station one has been assigned to.  Confucius no more knows the true name of God than the unlearned simpletons of his day.  So on the one hand he says it is imperative to first know the good and the true that comes from God, but exactly what that law contains he confesses to be a mystery. 

Socrates claimed a certain measure of inspiration from his “daemon” and the spurring of the oracle of Delphi – but these were intensely personal experiences and not something that stretched to universal principles. 

Later, Aristotle would reason out a little further the nature of God: “We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God” (Metaphysics, XII, 7, 1072b).  Though for him, this being, concerned not with action but consumed with contemplation, was still far away enough from our experience that he was essentially impersonal.

Confucius never went up the mountain to fast and sup with the Almighty.  He never received tablets of stone written upon by the finger of God.  At least he was honest.  He kept mum about what he didn’t know. 

– “Heaven does not speak; yet the four seasons run their course thereby, the hundred creatures, each after its kind, are born thereby. Heaven does no speaking!” (Analects 17:19).

There are times when Confucius implies that Heaven is more personal, knowing his heart.

– “The Master said, ‘Alas! there is no one that knows me.’
     Tsze-kung said, ‘What do you mean by thus saying – that no one knows you?’  The Master replied, ‘I do not murmur against Heaven. I do not grumble against men.  My studies lie low, and my penetration rises high. But there is Heaven;– that knows me!’” (Analects 14:35).

But generally speaking he remains quite hesitant to ascribe anything very definite to Heaven/God/Fate.

– “The Master said, ‘At the great sacrifice, after the pouring out of the libation, I have no wish to look on.’
     Some one asked the meaning of the great sacrifice. The Master said, ‘I do not know. He who knew its meaning would find it as easy to govern the kingdom as to look on this’ - pointing to his palm” (Analects 3:10-11).

– “By the ceremonies of the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth they served God, and by the ceremonies of the ancestral temple they sacrificed to their ancestors. He who understands the ceremonies of the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth, and the meaning of the several sacrifices to ancestors, would find the government of a kingdom as easy as to look into his palm!” (Mean 20:6)

The great sacrifice here would refer to the biannual sacrifices to Heaven and Earth performed by the Emperor on Mount T’ai.  It would seem then that he admits that to try to govern the land without accurately knowing the way to honor God would be quite difficult.

– “Tsze-kung said, ‘The Master’s personal displays of his principles and ordinary descriptions of them may be heard. His discourses about man’s nature, and the way of Heaven, cannot be heard’ ” (Analects 5:12).

His students ask about the spiritual world or the afterlife, but he refrained from speaking on things he was ignorant of, choosing instead to focus exclusively on proper behavior in this life. 

– Chi Lu asked about serving the spirits of the dead. The Master said, “While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve their spirits?” Chi Lu added, “I venture to ask about death?” He was answered, “While you do not know life, how can you know about death” (Analects 11:11)?

Here is a great fallacy.  Just because one does not know about how to live life, does not mean one ought to abandon study about the hereafter.  Rather, both questions are crucial and must be searched out.  In fact, how could one hope to have a proper perspective on living life without knowing the greater context of what comes before and after it?

This fuzziness continues today among people who give but the scantiest of thoughts to spiritual things, considering them to be too vague, too deep, too difficult to ever hope to understand.  So it is that one can ask a hundred Japanese what they think is their purpose for existence or what happens after death and most of them can blankly reply that they’ve never thought about it (nor are they likely to in the future).  Eternal things like heaven and hell are of little consideration to them compared to being sure that all their co-workers get along together.

Confucius did the Chinese a great disservice in relegating God to a scanty footnote as the source of the Way, as if the King of Heaven was barely worthy his consideration. 

A generation later, Mozi recognized this flaw and emphasized the Will of Heaven as a more active being, punishing evil and loving people regardless of their station or status, family or enemy.  The evidence for this can be found in general Providence; God causes the sun to shine on the good and the evil (Matthew 5:45).  God wants us to love each other in like fashion.

– “I know Heaven loves men dearly not without reason. Heaven ordered the sun, the moon, and the stars to enlighten and guide them. Heaven ordained the four seasons, Spring, Autumn, Winter, and Summer, to regulate them. Heaven sent down snow, frost, rain, and dew to grow the five grains and flax and silk that so the people could use and enjoy them. Heaven established the hills and rivers, ravines and valleys, and arranged many things to minister to man's good or bring him evil. He appointed the dukes and lords to reward the virtuous and punish the wicked, and to gather metal and wood, birds and beasts, and to engage in cultivating the five grains and flax and silk to provide for the people's food and clothing. This has been so from antiquity to the present” (Will of Heaven, 27:6).

Of course, this all seems quite basic and elementary.  Paul begins his introductory remarks in like fashion to the Greeks in Acts 17.  There is much that he draws from the implications though, which we will examine at the end of this paper.


On Dealing With Our Fellow Man

Confucius’ ignorance of the true nature of God and his ways has far-reaching consequences.  This fuzziness plays itself out in his understanding of morality.  Lacking a sufficient theological grounding, Confucius was left to try to respond to ethical dilemmas with merely humanist reasoning.  One can find out a lot about someone in how their philosophy works out in the messy affairs of day-to-day living.

– “Some one said, ‘What do you say concerning the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness?’
     The Master said, ‘With what then will you recompense kindness?’
     ‘Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness’ ” (Analects 14:36).

On the contrary, returning kindness for kindness is nothing special.  On this matter the doctrine of Christ clearly supersedes Confucius, for Jesus taught that evil should be repaid with kindness (Matt. 5:38-48; also Rom. 12:17-21).

Jesus’ command to love one’s enemies has no place in the schema of Confucius.  If every magistrate were to act so, wouldn’t all the criminals run wild and chaos destroy society?  Well, yes, actually.  But Jesus wasn’t talking to civil government authorities, but to individuals in their daily affairs:

But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?”

Jesus: 1.  Confucius and pagans: 0.

Further on, Confucius relates hearsay about one of the five key reciprocal relationships that mark the virtue of the superior man.  (Spoiler: He never mentions the relationship of Creator to creature).

– “I have also heard that the superior man maintains a distant reserve towards his son” (Analects 16:13).

In his opinion, such an attitude seems fitting and proper to the dignity of a father for the culture of that time, but in reality distorts the healthy function of fatherhood, and fatherhood is vitally rooted in the nature of God Himself.  Compare this to the image of the Father we get from the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15.

Confucius lost his own father at the age of three.  One would imagine that that would have left a painful hole in his heart.  We also know that his father divorced his first wife because she only bore daughters and a disfigured son.  Confucius later lost his mother when he was a young adult.  Though he focused his philosophy around the importance of family and filial piety, he had no experience in caring for parents.  He got married at a young age and they had a son and daughter, but later his wife either died or they divorced.  So when he went traveling around the country for fourteen years, he did so without family, just some disciples.  Confucius had an estranged relationship with his children.  Buddha abandoned his wife and child.  And we all know Socrates had a notoriously nagging wife – though perhaps that was due to the fact that he spent his time gadflying in the streets instead of getting a real job.


On Attaining Truth and Righteousness

Is it not striking that the very thing Confucius was practically indifferent to discussing, and which Socrates never conceived, was the subject of supreme important to Jesus? – the rule of God in the lives of men.  In his parables and his commands, Jesus constantly enjoined his hearers and disciples to make this their one overriding passion and to obtain it at all costs.  As the King come to earth, he continually reminded them that the kingdom of God was at hand, spreading over the earth, and it was the primary duty of man therefore to seek above to all else to enter and embrace that kingdom and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33).

When Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God, he never implied a duality or some escapism like abandoning one’s focus on earthly relationships.  Instead, the heavenly perspective informs and guides out understanding of this world.  Loving God with all of one’s being and loving one’s neighbor was oneself is meant to be two sides of the same coin (Matthew 22:34-40).  Righteousness and the Kingdom are inseparable.

Jesus knew everything about this life as well as death.  Would one accuse Jesus of skimping on ritual or propriety?  Well, actually, yes, I suppose they often did so.  Nevertheless, there is no man who more fully understood knew the “Mandate of Heaven” (“My food is to do the will of Him who sent me”) and followed the heart of God’s law.  He did not slavishly conform to the traditions of man.

God is infinitely worthy of all our praise.  What is this insane injustice that His creation does not render to him the honor he deserves?  How is it that the man who claims to follow Christ does not fully yield his heart to the glory of Jesus?  How could we for a moment forget his bountiful blessings and focus instead on the fleeting and vain earthly pleasures, preferring video games or social media over and against the High King of Heaven?

Confucius was guilty of minimizing the glory of God.  For him, the goal to strive for was a virtuous life, but inwardly focused – like the man who stands at the podium to accept an award and devotes the majority of his speech to his own accomplishments with but a passing reference to the aid of Heaven. 

– “The Master said, ‘The superior man in everything considers righteousness to be essential. He performs it according to the rules of propriety. He brings it forth in humility. He completes it with sincerity. This is indeed a superior man’ ” (Analects 15:17).

– The Master said, “The object of the superior man is truth. Food is not his object. There is plowing - even in that there is sometimes want. So with learning - emolument may be found in it. The superior man is anxious lest he should not get truth; he is not anxious lest poverty should come upon him” (Analects 15:31).

A hearty amen.  Righteousness and truth are indeed worthy to be strived after, but outside of manners and mien, these values are left undefined.  For him, there is no transcendent standard from which to measure our definition of truth and righteousness.  This shortcoming leaves his ethical system open to interpretation. 

To hunger and thirst for wisdom and righteousness more than gold or silver or bread, like the Scriptures enjoin, is indeed of first importance, but unlike Confucius, the Scriptures set forth exactly what is meant and needed to be righteous and wise.  These are relational values.  For example, part of true righteousness is treating the poor well and not oppressing them.  But even more so, these abstract values are tied to our relationship with Creator God, walking with him and not resisting his word.  “To fear the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  Righteousness comes from entrusting our lives to His rule.

Confucius would have agreed that one should defer to one’s conscious rather than blindly follow the next fellow higher up the hierarchical chain.  And yet, we are never given the answer of what would happen should we violate our conscious, as we often do.  Is there any consequence to our moral actions beyond that of government jurisdiction?  Is there such a thing as divine reward and punishment for such a thing as envy or pride or greed or lust?  If not, how can we pretend there is such a thing as true justice?  How would any of us actually know if we have become “superior men” or are still “mean men”?  Though Confucius often praised some of his contemporaries, he also can cast a fairly negative opinion on the moral condition of man.

– “I for my part have never yet seen one who really cared for goodness, nor one who really abhorred wickedness” (Analects 4:6).

– “As to being a divine sage or even a good man, far be it from me to make any such claim” (Analects 7:33).

– “The master said, the ways of the true gentleman are three. I myself have met with success in none of them” (Analects 14:30).

But that did not mean he did not think it attainable. 

– “The Master said, ‘Is goodness indeed so far away? If we really wanted goodness, we should find that it was at our side’” (Analects 7:9).

And yet, Confucius at other times seems to hint that goodness is not found in self-effort alone.  It is not something one attains (self-righteousness, if you will), but rather to be obtained from above. 

– “Heaven produced the virtue that is in me” (Analects 7:22). 

In short, a man of virtue is a rare thing to find, but not impossible.  To achieve it, one must have the help of Heaven.  But as for Confucius himself, he fell short of reaching such a standard. 

At any rate, Jesus in Matthew 19 (and Luke 18) responds that the only truly good teacher is divine.  Jesus proclaims that he alone is the good shepherd; all others are worthless and false teachers (John 10).

Elsewhere, Paul quotes the ancient psalms of King David to lay out,

“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one […] and the way of peace they do not know.  There is no fear of God before their eyes.  Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.  Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.  This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:10-12, 17-24).

It is strange and sad that Confucius could come no closer to realizing the truth of the matter than seeing that there was some element of personal responsibility that man had to own up to: 

– “The Master said, ‘In archery we have something like the way of the superior man. When the archer misses the center of the target, he turns round and seeks for the cause of his failure in himself’” (Mean, 14:5).

But neither does this surprise us.  Any ethic without an eternal reference is no different from being stuck in the Matrix of one’s own best guess at reality and human nature.  Jesus though brings forth truth as one who has power and authority.  There is the thunder of majesty in his words when he declares what is so in heaven and on earth, in life and in death. 


Of Life and Death

When Confucius or Socrates speak of death, we are left with nothing substantial to hold on to.  Confucius acknowledges the baseline of theology, that Heaven/God is benevolent, and it is possible to offend against him to the point of punishment, but not much beyond that.  Presumably he would imagine himself good enough to escape such a punishment, but again we have precious little of his thoughts on that, so it would be better to turn back to Socrates’ thoughts at this point.

I’m a great admirer of Plato and love to read his stories of the snarky brilliance of Socrates.  Nevertheless, it’s clear that their understanding of a righteous life was largely confined to heeding one’s conscience (or in Socrates’ case the “prophetic voice”) and the norms of society, and not any sense of having to answer to a holy God.  In this way, Socrates greatly overestimates his standing in light of what he could expect after death.  In his ignorance, he is far too confident of what awaits him.

In Plato’s Apology he tells his jury, “Moreover, we may hence conclude that there is great hope that death is a blessing. For to die is one of two things: for either the dead may be annihilated and have no sensation of anything whatever; or, as it is said, there is a certain change and passage of the soul from one place to another. And if it is a privation of all sensation, as it were, a sleep in which the sleeper has no dream, death would be a wonderful gain. […] If, therefore, death is a thing of this kind, I say it is a gain; for thus all futurity appears to be nothing more than one night.

“But if, on the other hand, death is a removal from hence to another place, and what is said be true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing can there be than this, my judges? For if, on arriving at Hades, released from these who pretend to be judges, one shall find those who are true judges, and who are said to judge there. Minos and Rhadamanthus, Æacus and Triptolemus, and such others of the demigods as were just during their own life, would this be a sad removal? At what price would you not estimate a conference with Orpheus and Musæus, Hesiod and Homer? I indeed should be willing to die often, if this be true. For to me the sojourn there would be admirable, when I should meet with Palamedes, and Ajax son of Telamon, and any other of the ancients who has died by an unjust sentence. The comparing my sufferings with theirs would, I think, be no unpleasing occupation.

“But the greatest pleasure would be to spend my time in questioning and examining the people there as I have done those here, and discovering who among them is wise, and who fancies himself to be so but is not. At what price, my judges, would not any one estimate the opportunity of questioning him who led that mighty army against Troy, or Ulysses, or Sisyphus, or ten thousand others, whom one might mention, both men and women? with whom to converse and associate, and to question them, would be an inconceivable happiness. Surely for that the judges there do not condemn to death; for in other respects those who live there are more happy than those that are here, and are henceforth immortal, if at least what is said be true.”

Of course, what he omits is the third option – that the bar to paradise is high and those who have any stain of guilt and shame must be condemned to Tartarus.  This excluded middle is naturally far from his mind.  To dwell on it would be to despair.  In the first chapter of Romans, the apostle Paul put it directly when he said that universally men know the truth that God is just and punishes sin.  Jesus also tells us they hate this idea since their deeds are evil and would rather hide in darkness.  Therefore people suppress this truth in unrighteous so that they can go about and live as they like.

Later, Socrates relaxes in his cell with his friends before downing his cup of hemlock.  There’s a great touch in Plato’s Phaedo when his friends are remonstrated for their emotional reaction to his impending death.

“Until then the majority of us had been able to keep ourselves from crying reasonably well, but when we saw him drinking and that he had finished it … no longer. And my own tears poured out of me with the force of a flood, and I hid myself in shame and cried for myself—for truly I was crying not for him but for my own misfortune, that I was being deprived of a man like this as my friend.

“Crito had turned away even before I did, when he was unable to restrain his tears. Apollodoros had been crying throughout the entire time, and when he howled with grief and anger at that moment in particular, nobody who was present could help breaking down, except Socrates himself.

“And he [Socrates] said, ‘What a way to behave, you remarkable men! I sent the women away mainly for this reason, so that they would not make such an offensive sound, because I have heard that one must meet one's end in calmed silence. So be quiet and collect yourselves.’

“And when we heard this we were ashamed and ceased crying.”

Finally, to complete the picture, Socrates further gives his reasoning on why he can go calmly to his grave.  In Crito, he tells his friend that he is comforted by the guiding voice that whispers in his head.  He says that he knew what consequences to expect from his actions long ago and that his conscience is clear - he had made his bed and now he had no choice but to lie in it.  It’s very interesting too that here he explicitly mentions some sort of accountability to or opinions of “the princes of the world below”, presumably the great men (now judges) of the past.

Crito wishes Socrates to escape while he could and flee to another country that had a non-extradition treaty.  Thessaly perhaps.  Socrates retorts that such is the path of cowardice.

A true friend, Socrates says, would offer the following deathbed advice: “Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito.”

It was common for Greek thought to imagine the Underworld as a rather bland state of existence, the way Homer described it.  Most ordinary people and quite a few notable figures generally just moped around by themselves emo-style, while the exceptional folk were able to enjoy a more conscious state of awareness and fellowship.  If Socrates imagined himself good enough to make it to Elysium Fields or the Isles of the Blessed, then of course he had no need to fear death.  Worse case scenario, he would just be assigned a space with average folk and amble about Asphodel Meadows.  No big deal.  Although what Socrates called “the laws of the world below” are apparently none to friendly to promise-breakers. 

Before Confucius or Socrates, the Prophet Daniel spoke to the actual nature of the realm of the dead.  “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (12:2).

Paul of Tarsus even went to heaven (either physically or in a vision), and received from Christ firsthand knowledge of the afterlife. 

When staying with Phillip the Evangelist in Caesarea, a prophet named Agabus visited him.  He prophesied that if Paul continued in his mission to return to Jerusalem that he would be arrested by the Jewish leaders and given over to the Roman authorities so that they could put him to death.  Paul’s friends then urged him to stay away.

“Then Paul answered, ‘Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.’  When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, ‘The Lord’s will be done.’  After this, we started on our way up to Jerusalem” (Acts 21:13-15).

So he could say, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).


On the Words of God and Judgment to Come

Here is the conclusion to the matter.  A loving God is not silent, and we do not have to speculate about eternal things; the very Word of God came down to live among us. 

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.  The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:1-3).

Jesus was not shy to speak clearly and urgently about the Day of the Lord, also known as the Day of Judgment.  In fact, he spoke about hell more than any other topic.  This was no armchair speculation or philosophical musing for him.  Full of the love of God, he declared the truth in the boldest of terms and made dire pronouncements on who is allowed entrance and who is cast out.

His parables about the Kingdom are double-edged: they set forth the importance of entering the Kingdom as well as the warning about the dire consequences for those who persist in their own self-centered sinfulness.  Despite all of our excuses, at the end of the day, evil is evil and the Judge of all the earth will do what is right and just.  A good and holy God cannot and will not wink at sin.  Will any man, be he a Socrates or Confucius, pretend to justify himself before such a King?  

And so the writer of Hebrews warns, “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment […] Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.  How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?  For we know him who said, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ and again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’  It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (9:27; 10:28-31).

More than a tenth of his teachings or half of Jesus’ parables are concerned with this warning.  Here are but a few examples.

“For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). 

“But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12). 

“Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). 

“The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:41-43).

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:31-46).

With these terrifying images, we are given a command to repent and an invitation to come and receive forgiveness. 

Like a firefighter rushing from room to room to wake people up before the flames could reach them, Jesus tirelessly sought to rescue men from damnation.  Then, to fulfil his mission, in the ultimate expression of love he gave his life in the place of sinners as a sin offering to the Father.  As a perfect sacrifice on the cross, he bore the righteous wrath of God.

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’ For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:24-25).

If God is so evident, so forthright in his word to us, so loving in his bearing on his back the punishment for sinners, it is a great error to presume to try to live our life separate (or rather against) his ways. 

If Confucius says he is ignorant and silent about the ways of God, then let us hear Jesus as he speaks the very word of God.  It is neither wise nor safe to continue to shut our ears to his call.  He has gone to the trouble to explain to us the truth about our condition and has loved us so wonderfully to provide the cure.