A Preface to Christian Ethics . . . I

THE SEARCH FOR THE GOOD MAN
By Leroy Garrett

This is intended as the first of several installments of a critical study in Christian ethics. The plan is to explore the history of thought with the idea of ascertaining what great minds have concluded in regards to the ideal man. It will be, therefore, a search for the Good Man.

The following treatment on the concept of the good life in the great oriental religions will be followed by a study of the good man in classical Greek thought, especially such sources as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The Stoics and the Epicureans will be included, followed by a presentation of the views of some of the medieval thinkers. Such founders of modern thought as Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Spinoza will be studied. Even such skeptics and pessimists as Nietzsche and Schopenhauer will be called upon for their description of the Good Man. Some of our modern contemporaries will likewise make their contributions.

The purpose is to study the different views of the Good Man in the history of thought from the Christian point of view. What is the Christian philosophy of the Good Man? Certainly it is Christ-centered, but what is the Christian to say about other moral philosophies? This study will attempt, therefore, to provide a criticism of the many divergent views of the ideal person in the light of the wonderful Person of the Bible. We propose to give the Christian’s response to the more influential classical and secular systems of ethical thought.

We hope to include in this series a consideration of certain personal and social ethical problems confronting the Christian, including such topics as the home, vocation, education, sin, fear, anxiety, self-fulfillment. We also plan to postulate our own view of the nature of man, and to show how such principles as love and freedom are necessary to the good life.

The plan calls for all these installments to be used ultimately in book form under some such title as A Preface to Christian Ethics, which we trust will be suitable for classroom use in high school and college courses in Ethics. It is our conviction that Ethics is too often taught with too little regard for Christian thought. Some college texts make no reference at all to Jesus or to Christian ethics! Those that do include references to Christian morality fail to give it proper emphasis. Few books in moral philosophy are written from the Christian perspective.

The first installment on the oriental views of the Good Man lacks only our analysis of Hinduism and other philosophies of India, which will appear later, or at least it will form a part of the completed book.

Our reason for presenting such material to readers of this journal is that we believe that disciples generally do not think along these lines enough. Ethics is surely one of the neglected areas of Christian study, especially among our people. Our pioneers were very conscious of the moral imperatives of the Christian faith. Alexander Campbell, for instance, penned extensive essays on moral culture, some of them running through many installments. In the mean-time both our thinking and our morals have grown rather shoddy. We trust this series may resume what the pioneers started, and thus help to create a higher sense of values and more moral sensitivity, both from a historical and a personal point of view.

Confucianism: The Gentleman

This account of man’s search for the ideal person begins with Confucius, the Chinese sage whose moral teachings have affected one-fourth of the people of the world for upward of 2500 years. His moral philosophy was the first systematic ethic, a truly serious and painstaking effort to spell out in detail the traits of the Good Man.

Confucius was one of the great teachers. He reminds one of Socrates in that his manner was informal, and because he was a great question-asker. His knowledge was so vast that he has been called a one-man university. Young men from all parts of China who heard of his “well-furnished mind” flocked to him. He and his students lived and worked together somewhat like Jesus and his disciples. At one time Confucius had seventy young men living in his home. He claimed to have instructed 3,000 men in his freelance manner, many of whom moved on to important positions in the world. He was a strict teacher and did not hesitate to send a lazy student home with a blow from his staff.

He would tell his students: “Hard is the case of him who will stuff himself with food the whole day, without applying his mind to anything.” And yet he was more exacting of himself than anyone else. Fame and fortune could have been his for the asking had he been willing to compromise his convictions. He chose instead his integrity and continued as a teacher of virtue, but not without severe deprivation. Like Jesus he sometimes had no place to lay his head (“my bended arm for a pillow”) and his food was often no more than bread and water.

Early in life Confucius tried the way of fame. He successively became chief magistrate, commissioner, and minister of crime of one of the Chinese towns. According to tradition an epidemic of honesty swept through the city while Confucius was in the government. His life was so influential that articles of value dropped in the street and were left untouched or returned to the owner. James Legge in his Chinese Classics quotes the Chinese records as saying: “Dishonesty and dissoluteness were ashamed, and hid their head. Loyalty and good faith became the characteristics of the men, and chastity and docility those of the women. Strangers come in crowds from other states. Confucius became the idol of the people.”

The little Chinese paradise ended when a neighboring ruler became jealous and fearful of its rising power and managed to divert Confucius into other activity by seducing his superior, the Duke of Lu, by means of lovely girls and beautiful horses. Even at this early date in history prostitution was already an old profession in China. It was still prospering in 1400 A. D. when Marco Polo laid the first western eyes on Kublai Khan’s capital and reported among other things that the prostitutes of the Khan’s court were “incredibly numerous and ravishingly beautiful.”

Prostitution was a licensed profession regulated by the state, the most beautiful of the women being supplied without charge to members of foreign embassies, There were the “sing-song girls,” a special variety of charmers who could provide intellectual conversation as well as sex appeal. They were trained in literature and philosophy as well as music and the dance.

In respectable families chastity was rigidly maintained among the girls, who were taught that it was a shame should a man even touch them. Girls have been known to kill themselves because of the accidental touch of a man. The boys however lived on a different standard, for no effort was made to preserve purity among them. The Chinese thought of sex in the male as an appetite like hunger that could honorably be satisfied at brothels. It was improper for a man to have such relations with a respectable woman. The state supplied prostitutes in large numbers to satisfy men’s passion, and it was considered proper and legitimate for them to visit the houses of lewdness so long as they were moderate.

Confucius sought to foster a constructive ethical philosophy in a Chinese culture that had long been weakened by anarchy, oppression, and moral corruption. Political and social institutions had not preserved justice, and the rulers of the people had become corrupt, being more concerned with self-aggrandizement than with moral leadership. It was in this context that Confucius endeavored to define a gentleman. The gentleman is variously described by the sage as “Superman” and the “Higher Man.”

The Chinese gentleman has three supreme virtues: intelligence, courage, and good will. Confucius measured these virtues in terms of perfection. The ideal man is both a saint and a philosopher; he has character as well as intelligence. Sincerity is the basis of his character; he is never deceptive; he has an overflowing sympathy towards all men; he is courteous and affable; he ignores slander and violent speech; he is discriminate in his praise; he seldom speaks, but when he does he makes his words count; he is not jealous of the excellencies of other men.

The sage contended that government could be redeemed and the family preserved only by the rule of gentlemen. Obedience is the basic principle of an orderly society: children who are obedient to their parents, wives to their husbands, subjects to the monarch. Chaos follows anarchy. Obedience in turn is founded upon moral law, the principle of Reason that pervades the universe. As in the case of a man’s character, sincerity is the first rule for the king. The ruler must be eminent in moral behavior so that good conduct will flow from him into the lives of the people. He viewed killing on the part of the state as unnecessary and evil. Concerning the ruler’s influence on the people Confucius said: “Let him preside over them with gravity, then they will reverence him. Let him be filial and kind to all, then they will be faithful to him. Let him advance the good and teach the incompetent, then they will eagerly seek to be virtuous.”

He opposed the luxury of the courts and favored a wide distribution of wealth. He attacked mediocrity, insisting that the talented citizens produce according to their ability. He called for the education of all classes, pointing out that education promotes happiness and good morals. He argued that good manners makes for good government and that if propriety decays the nation decays with it. He looked to music as the elevating influence on the masses: “The best way to improve manners and customs is to pay attention to the composition of the music played in the country . . . Manners and music should not for a moment be neglected by anyone. Benevolence is akin to music. . .”

The Confucian gentleman is universal in outlook. He behaves so as to make his conduct a kind of universal law for all men of all ages. Confucius taught the Golden Rule in its negative form: “Do not do unto others as you would not wish done unto yourself.” When Confucius was asked to summarize in one word a rule for the whole of one’s life, he replied that reciprocity was such a word.

Kindness begets kindness. But how about an injury? An injury is to be recompensed with justice.

The gentleman knows the art of reasoning and he realizes that the purpose of speech is to be understood. He avoids obscurity of thought. Confucius viewed insincere and inaccurate speech as a national calamity and as a reason for bad government. Discipline in both speech and manners is the foundation of society. Self-development is the means of social development. The gentleman cultivates himself with reverential care; he has a passion for personal morality. This in turn makes for a stable home, which in turn makes for a stable government. The individual is unhappy, Confucius said, because he is undisciplined; and the world is at war because nations are undisciplined.

The family can be solidified only by each member of the family cleansing his soul of improper desires. This comes through sincere and constructive thinking. By the regulation of self the family is regulated, which in turn regulates society. It is not through virtuous sermonizing or passionate punishments that this is accomplished, but by the silent power of example itself. Morality will be spontaneous in a social order made up of people who seek impartial knowledge.

It is through moral awareness and commitment that the Confucian gentleman gains self-renewal, which gives him an independence that initiates the regeneration of society. There are three key Chinese words which describe the ideal man. Li means propriety or moral order. It is similar to the Greek work kosmios, which is used in the New Testament to mean orderly (1 Tim. 3:2) and modesty (1 Tim. 2:9). It refers to the well-arranged life, one that respects what is proper in all areas of life, including dress, manners, habits.

The second word is jen, which means “true manhood” in respect to the way one treats his fellows. It has been translated “man-to-manness.” Edwin Burtt in Man Seeks the Divine says that the force of jen is “knowing when to be sternly just and when to show kindly compassion, when to be trustful and when to be cautious, when to assert a dignified firmness and when to give way to the wishes of others.” It suggests wise adaptability.

The third word is shu, translated reciprocity, to which reference has been made. The principle involved here, to quote Burtt again, is that “the superior man creates, so far as in him lies, the moral order that will bring enduring harmony and mutual fulfilment when practiced by others as well as by himself.”

With these three qualities the Chinese gentleman is unqualifiedly devoted to the right and his ultimate aim is moral growth and preparation for moral leadership. He does not mistake his true nature to be a quest for wealth, reputation, or power, but rather a commitment to moral law. If he can be his true self he has attained man’s greatest achievement. He does not seek a “new birth” in the Christian sense of that term, for he feels no need for a drastic transformation. He has the power within himself to remold his character into what it should be.

A Christian evaluation of the Confucian ethic centers in its interpretation of the nature of man. It is actually humanistic in that it has no frame of reference greater than man. Man is his own god, and he is sufficient within himself to attain moral perfection. To Confucius there is nothing gained by other worldly thinking. Divinity is nothing more than the highest expression of humanity. To the Christian the Confucian philosophy falsifies the nature of man in supposing that he can save himself and in assuming that man is naturally good.

In the early chapters of Romans Paul states his case against such moralists: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3.23). Will Durant in Our Oriental Heritage sees Confucian ethics as “a counsel of perfection that forgets that man is a beast of prey.” Man simply cannot live up to the perfect standard set by Confucius, just as the Jew could not measure up to the code of Moses. The reason is man’s sinfulness. To suppose that man has the power within himself only leads to self-righteousness on one hand and pride on the other. Paul describes the plight of the man who seeks moral perfection by his own powers: “I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.”

Then Paul cries, “Wretched man that I am! Who wiII deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7). But Confucius had a different view of himself: “At fifteen I began to be seriously interested in study. At thirty I had formed my character. At forty I had no more perplexities. At fifty I knew the will of heaven. At sixty nothing I heard disturbed me. At seventy I could let my thought wander without trespassing the moral law.” Confucius attained such moral heights that he no longer sinned.

The Christian can agree with Will Durant that by means of Confucianism China developed “a harmonious community life, a zealous admiration for learning and wisdom, and a quiet and stable culture which made Chinese civilization strong enough to survive every invasion, and to remould every invader in its own image,” He likewise sympathizes with Durant’s analysis that “no better medicine could be prescribed for any people suffering from the disorder generated by an intellectualist education, a decadent moral code, and a weakened fibre of individual and national character, than the absorption of the Confucian philosophy by the nation’s youth.”

Christian philosophy insists, however, that the Confucian ethic falls short of the Christian ideal. In Confucianism there is little or no place for love, peace, and joy. Because of its lack of tenderness and benevolence it kept women in supine debasement. Its cold perfectionism hindered China’s progress, making it so conservative that it became hostile to change. Perhaps Confucius’ greatest contribution was shifting the Oriental mind from a worship of its dead ancestors to a concern for the living family. He taught the people that their obligation toward the living was more important than their duties to the departed. But Confucianism is weak as both an ethic and a religion in that it has nothing to point man to except the social order itself. To the Christian it illustrates the difference Christ makes!

The present Chinese dictator, Mao Tze-tung rejected Confucianism in his earlier writings as semi-feudal. More recently he has advised his people to read Confucius along with Marx and Lenin. While the Christian would be glad to see Communism imbibe the high moral principles of Confucianism, the fact remains that as a religion there is little in Confucianism that would be offensive to the naturalism, materialism, and atheism of Communism. And the Christian doubts whether any ethic is satisfactory that looks to nothing greater than man for its ideal.

Confucius’ great search for self-understanding, while admirable, was in one important respect a terrible failure, for he failed to discover man’s sinfulness and inadequacy. If, like the Greeks and Romans who came after him and like the Jewish prophets who were his contemporaries, he could have seen God at work in history in behalf of sinful man he too might have anticipated the great day of the Lord in which man would find redemption. It fails as both a religion and an ethic in that it never gets off the ground!

The old sage died in 479 B.C. at the age of 72. His students buried him with pomp and ceremony, and then they built huts by his grave where they lived for three years, mourning for him as for a father. One of them remained several years more after the others had departed, mourning at the tomb alone. Despite the sage’s claims of moral perfection, he could do no more than give an incomplete picture of the ideal man. His disciples were left with no vision that reached beyond man, sin, and the grave. Man’s search for the good life had little more than a frustrated start.

Buddhism: “The Awakened Man”

Buddhism is the only one of the great religions that is centered in a rational attempt to analyze and solve the basic problems of human existence. Judaism is based upon its institutions and ordinances, while Christianity is centered in a Person and in the revelation of God through the church. Confucianism is basically ancestral and Taoism is magical and mystical. Only Buddhism is intentionally and frankly rational. Those characteristics that we expect to find in any great religion — authority, tradition, ritual, miracles, mystery, the sovereignty of God — are almost non-existent in Buddhism. Because of its reluctance to establish rituals and institutions of its own, emphasizing ethics instead, Buddhism is adjudged by some of its critics as a “rational moralism” rather than a religion.

In his China’s Religious Heritage Y. C. Yang accounts for Buddhism’s success in China on the grounds that it deals so directly with what it considers the basic problem of life — human suffering. Life is pictured as a sea of suffering where men are tossed, helpless and hopeless, on the angry billows of the stormy ocean. Yang points out that the Buddhist philosophy is an invitation to escape. “Life is suffering” says the Buddhist. “So indeed have I found it” says man in his desperation. Then the Buddhist replies: “Follow me, for I have found the way of escape.”

Buddhists found their ideal man in the person of Buddha himself, and it was in his exemplary life that they found the way of escape. Edwin Burtt refers to two significant facts about Buddha: (1) his complete renunciation of worldly interests in order to attain illumination, and (2) his whole-souled commitment to the salvation of others as well as himself, in a sense of loving oneness of all living creatures. Burtt thus describes him as “a pioneering lover of men and a philosophic genius rolled into a single vigorous and radiant personality.”

Siddhartha Gautama was born around 500 B.C. of royalty in Benares, India. He grew up in luxury: “I wore garments of silk and my attendants held a white umbrella over me.” He was handsome, rich, and gifted. He married a beautiful princess and he was heir to his father’s throne. But he turned his back on all this to enter upon a career of renunciation of worldly things. He went into the forest, the accepted haunt of those in India who become disenchanted with the lure of the world, to begin his search for the eternal verities.

Gautama’s father turned every stone in an effort to keep him from going astray. He outdid Solomon in providing 40,000 dancing girls and three palaces for his son’s entertainment. Since Gautama was so sensitive to the sufferings of men, his father ruled that no form of ugliness, pain, sickness, disease, old age, or death was to pass before the young man’s eyes. Despite the father’s efforts, the son became so disturbed over the pain, sorrow, sickness, and death that plagued man that he set out to find the answer to human suffering. It was through his experience with the evil in the world that he found “the four noble truths” of Buddhism. Through these truths he became the awakened one or the enlightened one, and hence came to be called the Buddha.

These four truths, which can be viewed as pre-requisites in the life of the Good Man, are as follows:

1. The problem of unhappiness is the universal problem of life.

In plain English the Buddha is saying that life is a hard deal for all of us. Even those that may escape sickness, poverty, and pain throughout their lives must nonetheless pass through the throes of old age and death. This is a world of woe; life is difficult and traumatic. The first big step toward understanding is to realize that suffering is the basic ingredient of this thing called life.

2. Selfish craving is the cause of the misery in the world.

It is the inordinate desires that pull us away from the wholeness of things into the shell of self. Separateness is the cause of woe, for life is one. When man understands, he will treat others as brothers, as extensions of himself. Huston Smith in The Religions of Man suggests that one’s concern for self may be reflected in the way he will look at a group photograph to see how his own face came through before turning to the effectiveness of the photograph as a whole. “It is a little point,” Smith observes, “yet a telling symptom of the devouring cancer that lies at the root of all our sorrow.” Buddha is saying that this is why men suffer. Few men are as concerned about the hunger of the world as he is that his own children not go hungry. Rare indeed is he who is more concerned for the betterment of the whole world than that his own salary be raised. It is because man coddles self to the neglect of the eternal that this is the world of woe.

3. Escape from selfish craving will release one from suffering.

The condition described above can be overcome through self-discipline. Man has the power within himself to escape the narrow confines of his own ego and soar into the vast expanse of universal life.

4. There is a way (an eight-fold path) whereby one can find release from selfish craving and find eternal happiness.

It is in this eight-fold path that we have more specific reference to the Buddhist concept of the Good Man. They are as follows:

(1) Right understanding. Even though Buddhism has no formal creed or set of doctrines, it still insists that there are truths to be understood and believed. These are mainly the four noble truths. But Buddha also spoke of man’s need to understand the power of “the company of the holy.” He stressed the importance of associating with the right people, “right association” becoming a preliminary step to the eightfold path. The best way to train a wild elephant, he pointed out, is to yoke it to one that is already trained.

(2) Right purpose. If the first path teaches one to get his thinking right, the second tells him to get his heart right. It calls for consistency of intent. Men who achieve eminence are those who have their hearts set on the one thing that matters most.

(3) Right speech. Not only is one to guard his words, but he is to become more aware of the motives that lie behind what he says. Speech is often self-deceiving, for we seek to “explain away” what we really are. We likewise deceive others because we do not want them to know our true character. Proper speech patterns enable us to move in the right direction in all of life’s experiences.

(4) Right conduct. This begins with introspection, for as one understands himself aright, so is he able to behave nobly. Buddha was more like Socrates than any founder of a world religion. He could have said as well as the old Greek philosopher that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Once more Buddha emphasized a scrutiny of motives, insisting that his disciples understand why they behave as they do. Buddhism has few explicit commandments, but it does have the Five Precepts, which are similar to the latter half of the Ten Commandments, being proscriptions against killing (not even animals), stealing, lying, unchasity, drinking intoxicants. One European ruler is reported to have refused to lend his influence to either Islam or Buddhism because they ruled against drinking. He turned to Christianity instead!

(5) Right vocation. Buddha ruled out poison-peddling, slavery, prostitution, and even brewing, butchering, armament manufacturing, and collecting taxes! In a similar way Luther accepted the hangman as having an honorable occupation but rejected the speculator. The important point about this step of the eight-fold path is that the disciple be conscious of his vocation, to make sure that it is kept a means rather than the end itself.

(6) Right effort. Buddha pointed his disciples to the example of the ox who marches through the deep mire carrying a heavy load. Even though he is tired, he persists until his task is done. So man must remember that “passion and sin are more than filthy mire and that you can escape misery only by earnestly and steadily thinking of the Way.”

(7) Right alertness. Man is to be aware of what he is about and what is happening to him. Greatness is in proportion to one’s self-understanding. So one must see a thing as it really is. Events in our life are to be analyzed rationally, not emotionally. To do this one needs to set aside a time for self-exploration and meditation. Buddha recommended that his disciples periodically withdraw for several days at a time for silent meditation and solitude. Alertness calls for a steady awareness that requires practice.

(8) Right concentration. The Buddhist mind is taught to make the most of each experience. Man is to have adventure into higher and higher levels of absorptions. It is when man begins to realize the futility of worldly desires that he has his first foretaste of deliverance. It is when he escapes from delusion, craving, and hostility that he sees reality. It is the mind that is out-of-focus with things as they really are that is weighed down with fear. It is through absorption of the good and the true that deliverance comes.

Buddha is described as “the man who woke up,” and this is a fitting summary of the good man according to Buddhism. Goodness is enlightenment, a concept not unlike the “knowledge is virtue” of classical Greek philosophy. Enlightenment to Buddha meant gentleness, good will, strength, sympathy, and friendliness, and he himself was all this. And yet he was a thinker — “a thinker of unexcelled philosophic power” — to quote Edwin Burtt again.

The good life to a Buddhist might be described in terms of the absent-minded professor who, while present in this world, lives in a world of thought. Buddhists are well versed in the art of meditation and reflection. Charity and almsgiving are highly respected virtues. Kindness is thought of as the way to impart happiness; compassion as the means of remove suffering.

The Christian philosopher will be critical of the Buddhist view that the good life can be realized without any reference to God or to anything that transcends human experience. The Four Noble Truths and the Eight-Fold Path are entirely man’s doings. There is indeed no frame of reference in Buddhism bigger than man himself. It is in this respect humanistic in its ethic, and insofar as it has a theology it is pantheistic. The Christian would ask the Buddhist if it is indeed within man’s power to direct his own way. Is reason enough? Is man capable of bridling his desires merely by appealing to his rational powers? Has not experience taught us that the more man gets the more he wants, and that man’s effort to control his passions by his own strength alone is futile?

The Good Man of Buddhism is nobly described. He is deeply sensitive to the suffering of the world, and he is dedicated to the alleviation of human misery. Its tragic fallacy is to suppose that humanity has no problems that are too big for its own rational powers. It overlooks the sinfulness of man. It is naive to suppose, as it does in its third Noble Truth, that man can be his own liberator from the selfish craving that causes all the human misery.

Buddhism is eloquent in its description and analysis of the human predicament. But when it comes to the remedy it is virtually helpless. It seeks to direct the disciple along paths of enlightenment without any reference to the possibility of any superhuman aid. All of life’s perplexing problems are resolved within the confines of human experience. God and the soul are not mentioned. There is a complete omission of anything savoring of a metaphysical theology. In his efforts to make the way simple for his disciples, Buddha over-simplified. He made it so easy that he made it impossible. He was most articulate in his analysis of the human problem, but he failed to realize that some aspects of that problem are simply too big for man.

Taoism: “The Natural Man”

Taoism joins Confucianism and Buddhism as the three great religions of China. As a philosophical system it dates back to the sixth century B. c., and it is centered in the person of Lao-tze, a Chinese philosopher who was contemporary to the prophet Jeremiah. Taoism did not develop into a religion until eight centuries later. Unlike Buddha who wrote nothing, Lao-tze created the Tao Teb Ching, a unique classic that has greatly influenced Chinese thought for many centuries.

Taoism gets its name from Tao, an old Chinese word that is as significant in the orient as Logos is in the Christian world. It means the way and could be rendered Nature, for the Good Man in Taoism, the man of “the way”, is one who accepts Nature for what it is and lives according to it. But Tao is more than this: one can say for it about what a theist would say about God. And yet Tao is an impersonal Power that is without substance. It is the source and support of all things, but it has neither intelligence nor will. Taoism interprets suffering as the result of man’s departure from the Tao state of pristine innocence and simplicity.

W. E. Soothill in The Three Religions of China explains the function of the Tao: “Calmly, without effort, and unceasingly, it works for good; and man by yielding himself to it, unresisting, un striving, may reach his highest well-being.” In reference to man’s obligation to the Tao, he says: “It would be well to give up all study and the pursuit of knowledge, and return to the absolutely simple life of Tao. War, striving, suffering, would then all cease, and, floating along the placid river of time, the individual in due course would be absorbed in the ocean of Tao.”

The Tao is therefore that indescribable, invisible, inaudible, intangible something that can be interpreted many different ways. But Taoism is obviously naturalistic — a pantheistic naturalism. It is perhaps a naturalism after the order of Spinoza and Wordsworth rather than Einstein or Galileo. It is in its appeal to Nature (Tao) that we see its concept of the ideal man. Unlike the Western attitude, which is aggressive toward Nature, Taoism teaches that man must accept and befriend it. Huston Smith in The Religions of Man illustrates this point by a reference to the time that Mount Everest was scaled. In the West the common description of this feat was “the conquest of Everest.” But a Taoist remarked, “We would put the matter differently. We would speak of ‘the befriending of Everest.’”

Man is to be in tune with Nature. The Taoist temples emphasize this by their subdued position behind the trees or by being nestled in the hills. Huston Smith suggests that the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, drew some of his inspiration for his unique plans from Taoism.

The basic plight of man is that he is caught up in the competitive struggle for honor, power, and wealth. He is driven by his need for social approval. Fear, worry, distrust, and sickness are the result. Unlike Buddhism which looks for a solution within man’s rational powers, Taoism insists that reason is not the answer. Anxious endeavor is futile, as is man’s cleverness. The answer is simple naturalness and integrity of self. They have a special word for their panacea for these ills: wu wei. Huston Smith renders this creative quietude. It means that man is to give up the silly and pathetic struggle that puts him in “a rat race” with his fellows. Instead of hectic rivalry that makes men enemies to each other, let them engage in the creative quietude that can make coexistence possible.

The Good Man realizes therefore that the compulsive pursuit of conventional goals (wealth, honor, power) is futile, and that anyone who seeks to justify such a pursuit is perverted. He is one that has come to understand and to conquer himself. He has resisted his self-centered and aggressive passions, realizing that they are the source of human misery. He accepts all things in the universe as a pattern for his own behavior. He sees Tao as “the way man should order his life to gear in with the way the universe operates.” He is as “selfless as melting ice,” a rather descriptive phrase in Taoistic literature. He is also like water in that he seeks the lowest level, and because he is willing to settle in the hollows that other objects struggle to avoid.

It is not therefore by self-assertion that one becomes good, but rather by yielding. Patience, non-violence, tolerance, impartiality, and gentleness are important virtues in Taoism, but humility is the greatest of all. By his gentleness the good man overcomes strength, and by love he is victorious over attack. Many Taoists are conscientious objectors of war.

In these respects Taoism is more like Christianity than any other non-Christian religion. Yet it is guilty of a fatal blunder. If Confucianism magnified man and over-estimated his creative power in the world, Taoism minimized man’s role in the light of his relationship to the vastness and majesty of Nature. It is the fallacy that runs through all naturalistic systems: man becomes lost in the greatness of Nature, of which he is but a small part. Naturalism fails to draw a distinction between man and matter. Man is higher than Nature and must be guided by something greater than some impersonal principle, which in Taoism becomes but another term for Nature. It is understandable that as the centuries passed Taoism became more and more enmeshed in priestcraft, idolatry, magic, mysticism, polytheism, and superstition.

Its chief interest to us is that through all the complexities of its philosophical system there shines through some penetrating insights into the character of the Good Man.

Islamic “Life of Surrender”

It is offensive to the Muslims for their religion to be called Mohammedanism, which is often the case when people of the West refer to it. The proper name is Islam, the full connotation of which is “the perfect peace that comes when one’s life is surrendered to God.” Mohammed is honored as the founder and the great prophet of the religion, but he is not worshiped in any such manner as Christ is worshiped by the Christians. A corresponding offense to the Christians would be to name their religion Paulism. Muslim, a term derived from Islam, is also an acceptable term.

Mohammed (570-632 A.D.) was a camel driver who at the age of 25 married a wealthy widow who was the owner of the caravan concern that had employed him. Being mystically inclined and terribly distraught over the decadence of Arabian culture, he began long periods of meditation in a cave on Mount Hira near Mecca. His thirst for spiritual reality was not satisfied by the desert gods of Arabia. Some of his fellow Meccans believed in a god called Allah, but even he was but one God among many they supposed. Mohammed spent years frequenting his quiet cave and communing with Allah, only to discover that Allah was the one and only true God.

Allah gave him both a commission as his prophet and a special revelation to the people. Thus came the dictum so basic to Islam: “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet!” The special revelation he received in the cave was put into writing and is known as the Koran, which, to the shame of Christians, is certainly the most memorized and perhaps the most read book in the world. It is almost as lengthy as the New Testament and is composed of some 114 chapters. Every Muslim believes it to be the infallible word of God even though, like the Christians and Jews regarding the Bible, they differ as to the manner of its inspiration.

What kind of man is the ideal man of Islam? He is indeed like Mohammed, for there is no higher source of moral ideals than the prophet himself. Raymund Lull, the first Christian missionary to the Muslims, affirmed that Mohammed was guilty of all the seven deadly sins and that he had none of the seven cardinal virtues. This was no doubt too strong, but it does appear probable that pride, lust, and injustice were prominent traits in his character. He used the gangster’s methods of disposing of those who got in his way. Polygamy, divorce and slavery are consistent with Muslim teaching. Islamic missionaries to Africa have also been slave-traders.

A good Muslim can have as many as four wives according to the Koran, plus any number of slave-concubines. He can divorce as often as he likes and temporary marriages can be arranged. The wives are actually slaves to the men, for absolute obedience is required and the beating of a wife is approved by the Koran. The Koran also says that all slaves taken as plunder in war becomes the lawful property of the master, and while the master is told to be kind to his slaves, slave-traffic is legislated by Islamic law and made sacred by the example of the prophet. Slaves and animals are treated alike in the Muslim ethic.

Mohammed’s relations with women is anything but exemplary. Until he was fifty he had but one wife, but after her death he married eight more times. One might quote the Jews of Medina in asking, “What kind of prophet is this man who only thinks of marrying?” To quote Tor Andrae again: “Undoubtedly a prophet who declares that women and children belong to the enticements of worldly life, and who nevertheless accumulates a harem of nine wives, in addition to various slave-women, is a strange phenomenon when regarded from the standpoint of morality.”

Interesting enough the Muslims also accept the divine origin of the Old and New Testaments, and they even accept the prophetic mission of Jesus and believe in his virgin birth. To be sure, Islam has been strongly influenced by both Judaism and Christianity, for it is a mixture of Jewish history, Christian theology, and Arabian mysticism. As for the Koran, it does not make for easy reading. Carlyle is quoted as saying, “It is as toilsome reading as I ever undertook, a wearisome, confused jumble, crude incondite. Nothing but a sense of duty could carry any European through the Koran.” But to the Muslims it is a miracle, the only one Mohammed ever performed.

Mohammed was slower than Hitler in building up a following. His wife was his first convert, which should be a vote for his integrity. After three years he had less than forty followers, but he was not to be contained for long. Within a century after his death the Islamic empire was greater than the Roman Empire ever was, and mosques were being built in China, Spain, Persia (Iran), and India. It soon spread through the countries of northern Africa, most all of Central Asia, and even into Europe. Today one of every seven people (350 millions) are Muslims. While it is true that this conquest was by the sword, the question remains “Where did Mohammed get his sword?” How was he able to attract such loyal and fanatical followers?

Since we are primarily interested in the Islamic concept of the Good Man, we will consider only those aspects of the religion that reveal its moral standard. The standard is to be found very largely in the life of Mohammed, for Islamic ethics appear to vary but little from the pattern set by the founder himself. While there are sharp differences regarding the kind of life the prophet lived, we may consider the evaluation of Tor Andrae, a sympathetic authority on Mohammed, as at least a mild understatement: “Unfortunately it cannot be said that righteousness and straightforwardness are the most prominent traits of his character as a whole.”

But the prophet’s work began with a strong moral tone. His early preaching caned for repentance, and he was bitterly opposed not only because of his denunciation of Arabian idolatry, but also because his moral teachings demanded an end to the licentiousness of the people. He also called for social justice and an end of class distinctions, insisting that Allah made all men equal.

Mohammed and his disciples were at first rejected with dirt, filth, and stones. The first Muslims were imprisoned and subjected to starvation. Sometimes they were abandoned in the hot desert to die. One rather unsympathetic critic of Islam, Sir William Muir, is quoted by Huston Smith in The Religions of Man as conceding: “Never since the days when primitive Christianity startled the world from its sleep and waged a moral conflict with heathenism had men seen the like arousing of spiritual life — the like faith that suffered sacrifices, and took joyfully the spoiling of goods for conscience sake.”

The year 622 A. D. was a big one for Mohammed and it is regarded by the Muslims as the turning point in history. It may also be viewed by this study as the point of decline in Muslim ethics, for from that time on the prophet resorted to the same carnal practices that his enemies had used against his moral revolution. The prophet became a politician, the despised preacher became a military general. That year Mohammed fled from Mecca to Medina, organized his followers into an army and soon ruled Medina. After a few years he captured Mecca, which is today Islam’s holiest shrine, and finally all Arabia had accepted Allah as the one true God — converted by the sword! The prophet died in 632 A. D., but his generals (evangelists!) went on to conquer Persia, Syria, Palestine, Armenia, Turkey, Iraq, Egypt and other nations of North Africa, and even Spain before the century closed. Had it not been for the Frankish general Charles Martel, who stopped the Muslims in the Battle of Tours, the whole world might have become Muslim.

All this was of course to make man what he ought to be — an Allah-surrendered man, a man of the straight path. And what is the straight path? Here perhaps is the secret of Islamic success, for the straight path was one of certainty. By its lists of do’s and don’t’s Islam provides assurance of right conduct. There can be no doubt if one simply does what his religion tells him, and all the requirements are spelled out in detail.

At least once in his life, but preferably several times a day, the Muslim is to say, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.” Five times a day at stated intervals he is to pray with his face turned toward Mecca. Those who have possessions are to surrender one-fortieth each year to those who have not. One month each year, the month the prophet received his commission from Allah, the Muslim is to go on a modified fast (no food while the sun shines) so as to make him think and be more humble and more self-disciplined. Once during his lifetime he is to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. He does not gamble.

It was the prophet’s first wife who said that his three greatest pleasures were praying, smelling perfumes, and women.

While even the Muslims admit the prophet’s weakness for women, there is less agreement that he lived in pride and luxury once he became a conqueror. At the outset, while yet in Medina, he scorned palaces and chose to dwell in a clay house, milk his own cow and mend his own clothes. But the prophet’s ascetic ways apparently were not long lasting. As W. W. Cash says in Christendom and Islam: “After his flight from Mecca, when more prosperous days came and Moslems sought to meet their needs by raiding surrounding tribes, there came a distinct fall in the spiritual level of the Prophet’s utterances and in the idealism of his message. With the growth of temporal power and the increasing wealth of the Moslem community at Medina this decline in moral and spiritual vitality is most noticeable.”

The Muslim leaders who came after Mohammed were even more greedy for wealth and power, and they plunged deeply into the pleasures of luxury and gaiety. This led to reformatory efforts within Islam that has resulted in a number of sects that endeavor to restore the spirituality of the prophet’s initial utterances. One such sect was called Sufi, meaning purity, because of their spiritual goals in a dissolute age of declining Islamic morals. Another sect wears mystic girdles, which were put on and off seven times a day, using the following formula.

I tie up greediness and unbind generosity,

I tie up anger and unbind meekness,

I tie up avarice and unbind piety,

I tie up ignorance and unbind the fear of God,

I tie up passion and unbind the love of God,

I tie up hunger and unbind spiritual contentment,

I tie up Satanism and unbind Divineness.

Some of the criticisms we have leveled against Islam can certainly be made of other religions, including Christianity. After all it was so-called Christians who expelled the Jews from Spain in the fifteenth century after they had lived for generations in peace under Muslim rule. Then there is the Inquisition in which Christians disposed of heretics with the sword. And there are the Crusades staged in the name of the Prince of Peace. And there are all those religious wars of Europe fought under the banner of Christ and the church.

The Muslims complain that Western writers misrepresent them and their history, making far too much of the Islamic use of force. This may be a just complaint. They further contend that even though there are ugly spots in their long history, which is the case with all great religions, the principles of their faith are pure and the Koran is perfect. This claim would be more difficult to sustain.

The crucial question to the Christian in his search for the ideal personality in the history of thought is what contribution does Islam make? In its efforts to lay a foundation for an ethic, Islamic doctrine depicts Mohammed as sinless! Unlike Confucius, Mohammed himself admitted his imperfection and infallibility, which is one of the best things that can be said for him. The awful truth is that Islam is left with nothing bigger or better than Mohammed. Tor Andrae is right when he says, “We Christians are inclined to compare Mohammed with the unsurpassed and exalted figure whom we meet in the Gospels . . . And when it is measured by such a standard, what personality is not found wanting?”

What a difference the wonderful person of the Bible makes! Since it is true that no one can measure up to the character of the Christ, then perhaps Christian ethics has a point in looking to the Christ as God’s illustration of the Ideal, realized by man not by means of rules and regulations or by works of supererogation, but by faith in the grace of God and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.