Is winning a competition morally justified in Christian Ethics? 先生からの評価85点でした。マジで頑張った。えらい。

Is winning a competition morally justified in Christian Ethics?

Ryoma Shioya (ID 251397)

 

Prompt Option 1: Engage with three or more case study texts to make a constructive proposal for Christian ethics today rooted in a clear vision of how Christians should understand reality and what Christianity is all about. →　I am using the text of Teaching Christianity by Augustine, The Freedom of a Christian by Martin Luther, Why the Christian Church is Not Pacifist by Reinhold Niebuhr, and the Bible.

Introduction

 We humans need to win competition to survive throughout history, and especially in today's capitalistic era, people face lots of competition, for example, the competition among companies for more profit, coworkers for promotion, classmates for better grades, and entering better schools. For Christians, this can be a problem for their faith because winning a competition means that instead of that person, someone loses the chance to win the competition and also loses the benefit. Suppose I win the entrance exam to go to the university. In that case, it will give me honor, a good education, a promising future after graduation, and good friends in the university, instead of someone who fails the entrance exam losing the chance to have them, which they might get. If they fail the exam, they will feel depressed, and their effort will be in vain.

Moreover, if that person is a Christian and, in that case, whether winning a competition is morally justified by the Christian ethics lying in the foundation of the Bible, which has such verse, "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets (Mattew 7:12) will be a problem. First, this paper will discuss whether winning the competition is morally justified or not in Christian Ethics using the text, "Why the Christian Church is Not Pacifist" by Reinhold Niebuhr. Second, discuss that In what condition, winning the competition is morally justified using the text, "Teaching Christianity" by Augustin, and Finally discuss that whether a Christian who wins the competition is more justified than who lose or not using the text, The Freedom of a Christian by Martin Luther. In addition, there are many forms of competition, and it is difficult to deal with them all, so this paper uses the competition of the university entrance exams as the primary example to discuss whether the competition is morally correct or not, and as necessary, I will use other examples. Throughout this paper, I state that winning the competition is a sin, but only by loving God and loving their neighbor can Christians be allowed to win the competition by being driven by the motivation of appreciation they have already justified, without worrying about their spiritual goodness.

 Argument

 In the first discussion, whether winning the competition is morally justified or not will be discussed using the text of Why the Christian Church is Not Pacifist by Reinhold Niebuhr. First, I will discuss whether winning a competition is a sin or not, such as a violation of the Golden Rule. If a person wins an exam competition, instead of another person loses the chance to go to that school, and they cannot get the educational resources and feel depressed. The person who lost also might have made a lot of effort to win the competition, and the person who won made it in vain. If Christians truly love their neighbor, they seem to need to surrender the win to that person according to the law of the Golden Rule. This would be the Golden Rule of competition: "You want to give yourselves a win because of self-love; as you to yourself, you need to give the win to others." Some might say that this is just a social system that causes this outcome rather than an individual which should not be blamed. In addition, the Golden Rule should apply to more individual and personal life, like kindness towards others, gift-giving, and not talking behind someone's back. By the Reinhold Niebuhr's uncompromising way of thinking, winning the competition is still a sin. In his text, he compared non-violence resistance and violent resistance, and there is no reason non-violence resistance is better and not a sin because both are resistance and compromising the Bible's law because what Jesus did was nonresistance while arguing against the pacifists (10). From the uncompromising Niebuhr's perspective, there is no distinction between the case in which a person makes someone feel depressed in an individual, like hurting someone, and the case in which a person makes someone feel depressed through the social system, like beating in the competition, so winning the competition is sin. Second, I will use Reinhold Niebuhr's way of checking whether one specific action is good or not and state that winning the competition is a sin, but it can be justified because there is no other way. In the text "Why the Christian Church is Not Pacifist," Reinhold Niebuhr thinks the thought experiment that if Christians do not resist the tyranny following the Bible, what would happen? He says that tyranny will grow and people will get into worse situations (15). He argues against the idea of idealism and Optimism that tyranny collapses itself because of their sin (15). Throughout human history, there is no simple way out of sinfulness in his realistic view (3). He makes it clear that simply following the Bible passage does not lead to a good situation using the assumption that Christians follow the Bible's passages. Then, I want to discuss what will happen if Christians follow this decision of not winning or not participating in the competition, like Niebuhr's thought experiment. At first, that person might become lazier at studying. One of the reasons why the government allows competition in the education system, and also, many cram schools and teachers use competition in their classes, is to motivate them to study more because they feel anxious about the outcome of the competition. If Christians lose the motivation to win the competition, keeping their motivation to study will be challenging. This case is a worse situation than participating in the competition. Second, there are some cases in which some people are unsuitable for the university instead of those who did not participate in the competition. Suppose there is a Christian with reasonable intelligence and the motivation to save people and become a doctor. However, the person gives up on entering the medical school, which offers a competitive entrance exam, because of his faith and feelings about wanting others to enter the medical school. This is a social loss for society and the medical school that wants better people to work as doctors. This case is also a worse situation than participating in the competition. Thirdly, If Christians do not participate in competition, they do more sin because they struggle with finding good jobs. In this capital society, competition exists everywhere, and if people do not go to good schools, they might face difficulties in finding good jobs. Job hunting also offers competition, and If Christians give up participating in the competition, they might only get lower-wage jobs. There are some possibilities that they are struggling to finance, and they might cause some trouble to their family members or their friends in terms of money. In the worst case, they might get public assistance from the government, which is initially other people's money and taxes. So far, we have looked at that as a Christian; not participating does not simply lead to a better result than not participating in the competition. Then, Christians still might come up with the question of why there are reasons that they are regarded as sinners because they do not have the faculty to avoid that. For example, suppose people who have mental disorders like Schizophrenia or personality disorder commit a crime, which is sin. In that case, they sometimes reduce the penalty or get innocent because they do not have faculty to take responsibility and are not considered sinners in law. Let us get back to the discussion by Reinhold Niebuhr. In his text, he argues that war against a tyrannical country should be justified because there is no other reasonable way, but he says that war, even against a tyrannous country, is a sin (24). In his view, humans are sinners, and our society is mixed with sin, and it is impossible to achieve the idealistic idea of the Kingdom of God, which is not sinful (25), so in some cases, there is no choice other than sin. Then it sounds weird why many Bible norms forbid not sinning and commanding good actions if we cannot avoid sinning. However, Niebuhr says that the Bible explains the fact of sin rather than the law of love. The truly good news of the gospel is that there is a resource of divine love and mercy that is able to triumph over a contradiction within our souls that we cannot ourselves overcome, rather than not the law that we should love one another (2). In summary, participating in competition is a sin, but there is no other reasonable way, so competition is justified. However, Reinhold Niebuhr makes a condition that only when attacking tyranny or avoiding anarchy is power justified, and he does not support the power of tyranny or other random power without justified reasons; I believe that Christians should make the condition that in what case, participating in competition is justified.

 In the second discussion, the question of what condition competition is justified will be discussed using Augustine's text of Teaching Christianity. In his text, Love for God is the fundamental idea, and I will state that with love for God, winning the competition is justified, but without it, the winning competition is not justified. Then, We will look at how winning the competition is justified in the state with love for God and not without love for God using Augustine's idea. At first, according to Augustine, humans should love God, and Christians should love their neighbors through the love of God (22,20). Let us consider the concrete examples. If people win the entrance exam and they will get the resources from that education, Augustine would say that people should study hard and use that resource properly to serve others or prepare to do it through the love of God. Moreover, if people enjoy and waste time in university and do not study that much, or they study to spend money to enjoy themselves in the future, Augustine would argue against it because they love themselves and serve lower things than higher things that are themselves (23,22); God ought to be served, and you can serve God by serving your neighbors (32,35). Augustine says that one single end should be the love for God, and to be connected to the end, we should use educational resources to serve others (29:30). Second, according to Augustine, people should appreciate God and what they have but not be proud of themselves. Everything that enables them to pass the exams comes from God, including the ability, education from their parents, good health, luck, and even the university itself came from God (22,21). If people won the exam competition, Augustine would argue that people should appreciate God, enabling them to pass the exam. That is what people who love God should do. However, if people were proud of their abilities, effort, and abilities, Augustine would argue against it because they are not ultimately theirs, and that's not what People who should love God are allowed to do (22,21). So far, we've looked at the positive and negative aspects of winning the competition, but if winning the competition can be used for good things, are those people spiritually better or more justified than those who lost the competition?

 

In the last discussion, we will discuss whether the Christian who wins the competition is spiritually better and more justified than those who lose the competition and cause anxiety or not, using the text of The Freedom of a Christian by Martin Luther. Suppose the person who wins the exam competition can go to a better school and become a more skillful person and will have more faculty to serve others. In that case, they look spiritually better than those who lost the competition, and this causes Christians some problems, as they might obsess with the idea of winning the competition to become better Christians, or those who lost the competition might feel inferior complex to the people who win the competition. However, I state that not to be justified, but Christians have already been justified; Christians should study hard to win the competition, and the goodness of winning the competition is by far little things than God's goodness, and losing does not mean you are less justified than those who win cause every Christians are perfectly justified as Jesus's justification level. At first, according to Luther, action does not justify people. However, faith justifies people, and people cannot do good actions without faith, so people cannot justify themselves with good actions (348). This means that winning or losing does not affect their spiritual justification as Christians. Luther also says that humans are corrupted and sinners, so good actions are not good enough. Then, suppose people feel inferior complex to those who win the competition or people who win the competition feel more spiritually justified because of winning the competition. In that case, they do not understand the severity of sin and how tiny their goodness is compared to God’s goodness (351). Secondly, according to Luther, people with faith can feel free from everything and serve all. The reason is that people are no longer obliged to do good works to justify themselves. God justifies them by sacrificing Jesus's crucifixion and not asking for anything in return from them, so they want to do good things for others for nothing to benefit them. This does not mean Christians are justified and work does not matter, so they do not need to study hard or try to win the competition. Faith means becoming a good tree, and good works means bearing good fruit (361). That is why, because of faith, they want to study hard to become more skillful people, serve others, and win the exam competition. If people have faith, they are not pressured to justify themselves and are obsessed with winning. In summary, Christians have already been justified, so they do not need to care about the relationship between the outcome of the competition and their spiritual justification, and they feel not anxious but free to study hard to win the competition driven by the motivation of love for God, which justifies them.

 Conclusion

 So far, we have looked at the discussion about the ethics of competition as Christian. Helped by three theologians, I conclude that winning or trying to win the competition is a sin, but there is no other way, so that should be justified. In addition, Christians should use educational resources after winning to serve others through love for God and appreciate their resources to God as a virtuous attitude that people loving God should have. Finally, people should notice that people do not feel anxious about the outcome of the competition because Christians have already been justified by God, and the outcome of competition is by far little things compered to God’s goodness.