Can vs. Must

³³ Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

³⁴ “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”

³⁵ “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”

³⁶ Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

³⁷ “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

³⁸ “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. ³⁹ But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”

⁴⁰ They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.

John 18:33-40

My latest audiobook is The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. The subject is moral psychology. There’s too much for me to cover in just one blog post, so concepts will trickle out over the coming weeks. First up: “can” vs. “must.”

The whimsical story Haidt tells is about his young daughter who had a strong reaction to being told she “must” do something. “You must get dressed now.” “NO!” “Can you get dressed so we can leave?” “OK.” “You must eat ice cream.” “NO!” “Can I get you some ice cream?” “Yes!”

Most moral reasoning is actually post hoc justification of a decision you have already made. You encounter something and decide whether it’s right or wrong, good or bad, and THEN you develop reasons why. Your initial reaction is related to your prior experiences, the impact on yourself, and, perhaps most importantly, the group to which you belong.

Once you’ve made your judgment, the reasons, or perhaps rationalizations, start to come. You start looking for reasons you can make the judgment you’ve already made. If someone comes along and wants to convince you otherwise, they need to provide reasons you must make the opposite judgment.

Let’s look at the “trial” of Jesus by Pontius Pilate, as told by John. Pilate is told in advance what the verdict should be. So he interrogates Jesus seeking a reason why he can find him guilty. He finds one, sort of, but Jesus pokes holes in it: “My kingdom is not of this world.” Now Pilate instead makes his own judgment, and asks the Jewish leaders why he must find Jesus guilty. He ultimately finds a way out of making a judgment at all.

The Bible is a pretty thick book, compiled over many centuries by many authors in varied contexts. So, there are verses that, if taken out of context, support any judgment. This is prooftexting or eisegesis. You make a judgment, then go to the Bible looking for reasons you can believe that it’s biblical. What does the Bible say about COVID-19? Well, if you are looking for reasons you can hold a regular worship service, you might look at Mark 16:15-18, ‘He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”’ Or if you’re looking for reasons to stay quarantined, you might look at the section of Leviticus about leprosy and the requirement that lepers stay separated from those who are well.

But the reality is, the Bible does not say one word about COVID-19. Instead, it reveals God’s intention that we all should have abundant life, and that God will be with us in our grief and pain. We need to look to modern medical and public health experts, not ancient texts, when deciding how to take action against a pandemic.

Just as the Bible says a lot of different things, the world itself and the news we hear or read are highly complex. There are reasons you can believe anything. If you want to believe that immigrants bring crime with them, you can find stories of crimes committed by immigrants. If you want to believe that immigrants strengthen our nation, you can find statistics about their economic impact and relative frequency of criminal behavior. Statistics tend to be pretty dry, though, so anecdotes win more often.

This is all just human nature. How can we make better decisions? Some people might say that we need to be more rational, but that just isn’t going to happen. You cannot convince someone to change their mind with facts, unless there is such an abundance of the facts that they must change. That’s an insurmountable barrier.

The more realistic solution is to train our hearts and souls so that they see the right facts in the first place. Spiritual formation, not information. Do not ask yourself, “What would Jesus do?” That’s too hard. Instead, conform yourself to Christ, so that you start to see the world as Jesus would. Soften your heart to see the good in people, so that you will start looking for reasons you can love them.