Beyond Good and Evil

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

Isn’t it strange how you think you leave something behind you and somehow you travel a circle and return to where you left? I left Christianity a few months ago and started proceeding along a Buddhist path. Suddenly I became aware of something that I have “known” for some time, but now became very present. To explain, I will have to use scripture – which isn’t such a bad idea – Matthew 12:
At that time did Jesus go on the Sabbaths through the corn, and his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck ears, and to eat, and the Pharisees having seen, said to him, Lo, thy disciples do that which it is not lawful to do on a Sabbath.' And he said to them, Did ye not read what David did, when he was hungry, himself and those with him – how he went into the house of God, and the loaves of the presentation did eat, which it is not lawful to him to eat, nor to those with him, except to the priests alone? Or did ye not read in the Law, that on the Sabbaths the priests in the temple do profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? and I say to you, that a greater than the temple is here; and if ye had known what is: Kindness I will, and not sacrifice–ye had not condemned the blameless, for the son of man is lord even of the sabbath”.

The point of this dialogue is to show that the Law is not the last word – in particular, it isn’t the first either. The Law is given to those who break the Law in order that they become aware of it. The Law is a pedagogue says Paul. Jesus says, there are enough examples of people breaking the Law at certain times in scripture. Do they do this as anarchists? Are these people to be condemned? No, it is as Nietzsche says, “That which is done out of love is always beyond good and evil.” That is why Jesus quotes Hosea, saying “Kindness I will, and not sacrifice!”

The Gospel is the good news about a way to beyond good and evil, beyond the Law, beyond morality – to freedom as “sons of man”, a new generation – a new genesis. The path is by love and kindness, guided by the spirit, bearing fruits of that spirit which are, “Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”

This also means that Christianity, in my view, when preaching morality, has missed the mark. The true Christians are sons of man, and lords of the Sabbath.

Any thoughts?

2

Some laws are better honored in the breach than the observance. If I were God, I think of no better use of communion wafers or sacrificed lambs than to feed the hungry.

3

Rules and laws are made by those who see good and evil. The rules and laws are broken by those that see neither, but think and act in ways that enhance the well being of others. By doing so, they enhance the well being of themselves. Did christianity miss the mark? As a social movement, they never came close. A few understood the words of Jesus, but they were not part of the creation of the religion. Christianity simply repeated the mistakes of Judaism. But this is true of all religions, the abrahamic religions are probably the worst offenders.

Few ever see beyond the labels. The mind is a powerful tool and the ego uses it to full advantage to lead us away from heart, which only sees love of self and others. Virtue and righteousness are but shams to protect the ego, facades that prevent us from breaking the laws lest we become human.

4

It would be wonderful if love and kindness guided everyone - then you could go beyond rigid moral codes and laws. Unfortunately given that much freedom, the result is usually chaos. There is no balance. There is no longer a solid moral ground on which to stand. Love is used to rationalize anything. Don’t forget that the tortures of the Inquisition were justified on the basis that it was better to save the victims soul than his body. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

As soon as you use the phrase ‘beyond good and evil’, the extremists use it mean that anything is permitted. Look at this comment on your OP:

All virtue and righteousness is considered useless.

5

There is something to the energy of this consideration in our world. I sometimes feel as though I’m living in a surreal dreamworld where the law of the fang and social darwinism are clawing their way through it, while I’m just swimming through it against the current hoping for love and healing.

6

Hi tentative,
I agree that those who see beyond good and evil and enhance the well being of others and their own tend to break the laws of those who attempt to force everybody into a corset made to form people into the way they think the world should be. There are minorities made up of those who follow their ego and are self-seeking, but another made up of those who are able to follow their heart. The great majority seems to need laws and rules and even identify themselves by the rules they follow, but essentially they need the rules because they are playing a role on a stage and following a script.

I disagree – first of all that tentative is extremist – secondly that the quote you made was saying that anything is permitted. Rather, virtue and righteousness are terms used to describe some idea of “good”, which is simply inferior to the condition described in Eden prior to the Fall. In that analogy we are shown that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil leads to death which, in eastern understanding, is because good automatically brings evil along as the other side of the coin. As soon as you name something desirable which not everybody has, you create thieves. As soon as you name something beautiful, you create ugliness.

When the few special people who come along promoting the idea of breaking through the hypocrisy of morality, in this case I mean Jesus and Paul, they are normally misunderstood and in fear of the possibility that they could be misunderstood as libertarians, a “Christian” corset was thought up. Those who break through to the subtle message of Christ have to break out of that corset and follow freedom or be persecuted or ostracised. There just doesn’t seem to be places for such people at the moment – or I just haven’t found them.

The prime method to overcome these problems is overcoming exclusivity, extending the family, understanding that we are all interactive and interdependent, and part of the biosphere we live in, sharing the air and matter that passes through our bodies, rising from the dust and returning back again. Love is an amazing quality which has been deemed divine, and is indeed probably the only attribute that gives us a right to exist – which seems to be the message of most of our enlightened human beings.

Couldn’t agree with you more!

Take Care

7

As I recall, Matthew 12 was mainly an attack on the hypocrisy of the priests who imposed a severe law on the general population while they broke the law regularly.
Jesus suggested that obeying the 10 commandments was the minimum required to ‘enter into life’. (Matthew 19:17)

That’s the world we live in - dualistic. Jesus preached to a dualistic audience, as did Paul. The gate to Eden is locked now. We can’t go to a pre-sin state. Virtue and righteousness can’t just be tossed out because they no longer conform to some non-existent ideal.

But even Jesus didn’t give all to the poor and hungry. Matthew 14:3

8

phyllo, we do indeed live in dualism. There is no choice in that matter in a pragmatic world. But beyond good and evil is seeing and acting beyond our dualism. Virtue and righteousness still exist, not in words, but in heart. It is the difference between being and being as.

9

That’s fine for the few enlightened individuals. The majority are not enlightened and will use it to get around rules and laws. The idea is like a drug for the ego. If you try to apply it to the general Christian believer, as the OP seems to be doing, then you are just asking for trouble.

10

Well, I certainly don’t want to ask for trouble, but I think Bob was pointing out the failure of christianity to help it’s followers reach beyond the laws. He said:

11

Your take on Jesus and the Pharisees is typically over-subscribed (not your fault) since the Pharisees and Scribes represent respectively the pious and theologians of the day, which are today making the same mistakes as then. They weren’t “bad” people, but the people they accused weren’t either, but through their accusations they blocked “the Kingdom” (the realm of love since “God is love”) for everybody. That is the truth – this kind of behaviour means that their religious system is useless for the job it has to do – which is true of most Religion, because it is just a competition of one understanding of morality with all others.

I know that there is no going back to Eden because we are made for development, but progression is seeing and acting beyond our dualism, as tentative said. Enlightenment is the break through we need to make that progression, to become aware of what we are doing, in which snares we can fall and mindfully and compassionately overcome them. That way we gain experience and intuition. The Law is no longer external but internal and love is the interpreter. This capacity to love is in us and is the divine in us (“the realm of love in within you” - “if they tell you it is here or there, don’t believe them”)

My point was that the Christian church fails to address this in this way, the evangelicals say you need Jesus, others throw you into the pit of morality where everyone is biting to become better than others, but what we need is to become aware and see. Eternity is ours now if we can be here now, in the present moment, and act wisely. The advice given by Jesus is poetic and not as pragmatic as the Buddha’s advice, but most of it comes down to the same goal.

As Jonquil rightly said, some laws are “better honored in the breach than the observance”!

Take Care!

12

Actually lest we become less than human. A distinguishing mark of humanity is virtue and righteousness which go beyond the group. Any social mammal can understand the politics that regulate a social body. Everyone has a set of inherited, default, morality. Everyone looks after their kin. But only humanity came with the idea that the bounds of courtesy, kindness, duty, extended to all…in theory. This was held as virtue, as righteousness, and marked man, in theory, above the social brute.

13

Those that are in love need no laws between them. that is a wonderful statement. But it was followed by Christianity with the idea that no one is in love, that no one is righteous, that all are condemned. The hebrews were put under a law. The Christians under Jesus. Neither one was free, neither version of humanity positive enough to imagine a Reality were either the blood of calfs or the blood of a single man had to be spilled because man on his own, was simply incapable of love and kindness. All humanity has to offer then was it’s capacity to ammend, to offer something else, and hence the very root of all morality.

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Hi Omar,
You have certain ideas of virtue and righteousness in mind, which may differ to the ideas which organised religion and pious subscribers have in mind. Jesus rebelled clearly against these ideas in his day and I believe tentative answered with this in mind.

I agree, which is in effect the reason for my OP. The point I make is that Jesus and his first disciples were able to make that distinction, but that Christianity has hopelessly betrayed the original intention and just like the Sadducees and Pharisees, has proceeded to oppress those who discovered it.

Take Care

15

Hey Bob, long time no read.

— You have certain ideas of virtue and righteousness in mind, which may differ to the ideas which organised religion and pious subscribers have in mind. Jesus rebelled clearly against these ideas in his day and I believe tentative answered with this in mind.
O- “rebelled” might be too strong a word. Jesus was no rebel because he was not denying the law but affirming it, every bit of it. It was areturn to it, for he saw that the Law had been misused. Like prophets before him, other “sons of God”, he wanted the people to harken the words of God. His message was that the people, including those in the highest rungs of their society, had left the highest and noblest duties of the Law, for it was the Law-giver that said that He wanted kindness and not sacrifice (also justice), and not because He had rebelled against His own Law, but because the Spirit of His Law was not in attonement through sacrifices, but as a Template of a just man. Looked at it from this perspective, commandments are prescriptions to how to live a just life, a righteous life. But it’s prescriptions could not be done without love. It is useless to hold a cross to a vampire unless you have faith. It is useless to perform the rite without belief, or to do right without convinction. Once you have this love, this desire to do right, to garther joy in doing right, then the law is within you and no longer outside of you or above you.
Those that stuck to the Letter of tyhe Law forgot it’s Spirit, which is Love, kindness, Justice. They got stuck in the nihilist belief that all the Law could do was teach them how to make ammends to God through proper sacrifice. In that, they rejected the Law. So Jesus did not rebel against the Law but against the letter of the law, or the literal perfromance of the Law that ignored the Spirit of the Law which was to teach man what it meant to Love.
We are not born knowing how to love, knowing justice. We learn these and then they become part of us that we may forget the letter of the Law, once internalized, but we remember it’s spirit that is then in our hearts.

16

Hi Omar,

I would go further than that, since the quotes from scripture back me up. The Law is for those who do not realise their capacity to love, but in the sons of man will have the Law of love “written on their heart” and even in breaching single commandments, they fulfil every “iota or tittle”.

Whilst I agree with you largely, it is no longer a question of doing “right”, because in love there is no right or wrong, but spontaneous action (e.g. the left not not knowing what the right is doing; “when did we help you?”; the good Samaritan etc.) – what our problem is with this, is the fact that we weigh ourselves down with the trappings of society and prevent ourselves from being free to do this.

I agree.

Take Care!

17

Thanks for the clarifications Bob and Tentative. I think that Christians come to the religion for various reasons. But the vast majority are basically two types. Those who have no interest at all and those who are interested in having some questions answered concerning morality and the afterlife. The uninterested ones only need to know how to act in order to coexist with others. They may participate in rituals or say appropriate things in order to blend in with their family or society. Those who have some interest are looking for meaning and need some guidance on how to attain the afterlife. They perform rituals and hold beliefs which enhance their lives. Their lives are more understandable, more meaningful or more tolerable because of these beliefs but they don’t need to go beyond a set of rules. So I think that Christianity, as a religion, adequately serves the needs of the majority of Christians. What Bob is referring to is a small minority who wish to have a more intense and meaningful experience of God. Typically this group has turned to the monastic orders to get a deeper level of experience. The idea of being beyond good and evil could apply in this case, provided that love is the real motivator.

18

My understanding of Christianity is that Christ preached the internalization of moral law. And as he himself pointed out, that internalization is an act that requires more discipline, more attention to detail than the old way of rigidly following external law while letting the mind run wild. Christ said, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” His message was not about being more lax, it was about being more diligent. And when you pay careful attention to your own mind, your own outlook and attitude towards others, you can relax and be more playful in your interactions. External laws then become reminders if you start to fool yourself, and helpful guidelines for those who have not fully matured. But they do not impose restriction on the psyche, which is completely pure and free. It’s a bit like jazz improv, perhaps. External rules are a help in the beginning, a hindrance in the end. Just as a baby has no idea how to act in any given situation, an advanced practitioner likewise has no idea how to act in any given situation. In the meantime, external rules of behavior can offer an enormous amount of help.

19

A Buddhist story…

On rare occasions killing is done through a good motivation,
in which case a negative result will not come from that action.
For example, in the account of the previous life of the Buddha
he was a sea captain. At that time a great fortune of jewels could
be obtained by going out to sea, but it was also very dangerous
and one could die. It was a risky adventure; one could return
either wealthy or not at all. If one set out to sea, one needed a
guide to lead the ship, a good person with experience. Buddha
was such a sea captain in a previous life and his actual name was
“Courage;” He led 500 merchants in a ship to obtain jewels but
there was a very negative person on that ship who became very
angry with everyone else. He thought that if he made a hole in
the bottom of the boat, it would sink and all the merchants
would die. He didn’t care if it killed him too. But Captain
Courage saw this and thought, “If I kill him, then it will save the
other merchants. The negative result of killing will come to me,
but it doesn’t matter what happens to me. I have to save the 500
merchants and also the man from accumulating such negative
karma.” With this motivation, Captain Courage hit this man on
the head with an ax and he died. Because of the good
motivation, this act did not lead to negative karma. He did kill
one man but saved the lives of 500 people; therefore it was a
good action instead of a negative one. Though the act may be an
act of killing, it may not be a negative action. This is because of
the motivation that was involved.

(told by Thrangu Rinpoche)

20

Thanks for your input and I agree with you, but I would say that this minority would be the true followers of Christ and the rest are equivalent to the Pharisees and Scribes or the “multitudes”.

Take Care!