God as a Fair Judge

Hey hey, so people have liked my post about moral luck! Thanks for the encouraging comments =)

There's a couple of things I wanted to add about the topic, especially regarding Wesley's question about how God will judge people who have had unfortunate circumstances growing up that have shaped their character in a negative way. Nagel, the author of "Moral Luck," actually identified four kinds of moral luck. The first is "resultant luck," which is the way things turn out like in the example I used with Sean and I simultaneously firing guns.

There's also "circumstantial luck" which refers to the circumstances you find yourself in. For example, imagine a Nazi collaborator in Germany who participates in carrying out morally atrocious acts - but if that man was transferred to Argentina by his company a year earlier, he would have lead a life without any such heinous crimes. The way he acted was determined by the circumstances he found himself in, which was out of his control.

Then there's "constitutive luck," which is the luck Wesley is referring to; it's luck in who one is. Who we are is highly shaped by our genes, our environment, our friends, teachers, parents. We blame someone for being selfish or cowardly or self-righteous, though he is that way largely because of the genes he was born with and the way his parents raised him, both of which are totally out of his control. The example Wesley gave was a person who is really hateful because he was abused as a child. Lastly, there's "causal luck," but it's a little redundant, it's basically about how our free will choices are heavily influenced by causal forces prior to them.

All this points to the fact that people are not dealt an even hand. But, we learn from the parable of the talents that God holds people responsible for what they have been given. What to do you do with what you do have, what do you do with what you do know? That is what each of us is responsible for, and if we have been given much (good parents, good circumstances, etc.) much will be asked, and if we have been given little (abusive parents, bad neighborhood, etc.) that will be taken into account too. We can trust that God is a fair judge.

There's a practical application to all of this, and that's how we judge others. Most of us educated people are the ones who have been dealt the good hand, the ones who have been given much. I think for much of my life I was like the Pharisee in Luke 18; I thought myself righteous because I was not like all those sinners who sold drugs, stole, murdered. But just to look at things statistically, most people who are dealt the bad hand that these criminals had end up being criminal, and most people who are dealt the good hand turn out as good kids. Just how much better am I than these criminals; am I really that sure I would have been different if I had been dealt their hand? So, to echo this past Sunday's message at Gracepoint: pity the fellow sinner, and have mercy as we have been shown mercy.

Ok, that's all for now. I've gotta study now... gotta be more studious, I've been kinda slacking.