What is virtue and what helps promote a virtuous life - Essay Example

?Part1: What is Virtue and What Helps Promote a Virtuous Life? Introduction Virtue consists of positive traits and qualities that reflect high moral standards and set of values that bring about goodness in the person and in the recipient of a certain virtue. It is important to live a virtuous life to promote inner peace and to build up honorable and harmonious relations within the family and in the society. Some of these virtues are honesty, loyalty, patience, prudence, humility, justice and other traits that depict moral excellence even in the midst of adversity and trials. These virtues spontaneously go with principled love. The sum total of all virtues is principled love, which is love of God and love of neighbor. When principled love is exercised, there is no law that is against love, it encompasses all goodness and virtues. The Apostle Paul described principled love with the following words in the Holy Scriptures at 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 which says: Love is long-suffering and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, does not get puffed up, does not behave indecently, does not look for its own interests, and does not become provoked. It does not keep account of the injury.  It does not rejoice over unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Long-suffering or patience no doubt is a virtue worth emulating. Economic hardship and the daily stress of life can easily make one impatient and loose self-control causing tensions in relationships within the family, in workplaces, and in the community. But with the exercise of love, one is willing to suffer the tensions, weaknesses, and show kindness despite unfavorable circumstances. There is humility in love. A truly humble person is not contentious and does not seek to compete to gain favor, honor, and praise from onlookers. One does not step on the rights of others just to be on the pedestal but recognizes personal limitations. In this highly competitive world, exercising true humility is a real challenge but with love, pride is conquered. Love is willing to forgive trespasses, conscious of the fact that every now and then humans err as a result of sinful tendencies. Love readily forgives and without harboring pain and revenge. This is a virtue that fosters peace and harmonious relationship. Love is truthful, faithful, loyal and prudent. When there is principled love, there is no deception, infidelity, and indecency. Love works for what is good towards all and is willing to suffer pain and inconvenience to allow some degree of comfort and joy to those who are in greater distress. God is love (1 John 4:8). Because love is the personification of God, and God is all goodness, then love encompasses all goodness. It is the source of all virtues. In an imperfect world, it is not always easy to exercise love and to live a virtuous life. Aside from imperfection, there is the pressure of everyday living and the influence of the people around. It is during trials that a virtue is magnified. In times of dire need, and extreme poverty it is a challenge to exercise love of neighbor through honesty. It requires strength and courage to return a wallet full of money when one badly needs money to buy food for the family or buy medicines for a sick loved one. Likewise it is extremely challenging to endure injustice when the suffering has become unbearable to the point of death. It is challenge to live a virtuous life when most of the people are no longer virtuous and yet they are living better lives and enjoying unreasonable profit of corruption and greed. Furthermore it is a real challenge to live a virtuous life, when one is raised in a family whose culture is far from being virtuous. Love must be more overwhelming to conquer these challenges and live the excelling way of living a virtuous life. Elements in Society that Promotes a Virtuous Life To learn the ways of love is to learn the virtues to live. Love as the embodiment of virtues must be inculcated in the heart and mind right from infancy. The mother plays an important role in inculcating virtues and teaching a child the ways of love. It is the mother that has the greatest influence in virtue formation even from conception. This influence becomes more powerful as the child is born and nurtured by the mother, and then comes the influence of the father. If parents lived a virtuous life, then these virtues are learned and adapted by the children more strongly during the formative years. Parents must also be wary not to allow into their homes the immoral influence of pornography and violence through television shows and the internet. Next element in society that can help promote a virtuous life is the school and educational system. School administrators and faculty members are role models in school, the second home. They can promote virtues by living examples and by inculcating virtues and Godly love through values-oriented curriculum. Government authorities can also promote a virtuous life by being virtuous themselves by seeing to it that laws support a value-oriented system of governance that upholds virtues and secure the society against all forms of evil. Conclusion Virtue consists of positive traits or qualities that reflect high moral standards or set of values. It is important to live a virtuous life to have inner peace and to have a harmonious relationship with the people in a society. The sum total of all virtues is principled love. Since man is imperfect it is not always easy to live a virtuous life. It is an everyday challenge. Part 2: What is the Relationship between Religion and Morality? Religion is reverence and worship of a supreme being, God. Belief and faith follows after acquiring accurate knowledge of God’s qualities and after recognizing his authority as the sovereign and life-giver. For a believer in God, obedience to God’s laws is important to gain his approval. Obedience to his laws is an indication that one’s faith is active. Since God is the source of all goodness, his laws represent the highest standard of morality. According to Jesus Christ, the greatest of all commandments is “to love God with all your whole heart, whole mind, and whole soul” (Matthew 22:37). This love of God keeps the faith deeply rooted and obedience to God’s laws becomes an expression of love. Religion and Morality There are a number of Christian and non-Christian religions throughout the land. Each religion has its own set of beliefs and teachings. Such beliefs and teachings shape the moral values of the worshippers. Since beliefs and teachings differ from one religion to another, the set of moral values from one religion to another also differs from one group of worshippers to another. Strict adherence to the teachings and moral values also depends on the condition of one’s faith. When faith for some reason becomes weak, adherence to the teachings and moral values of the church may also become weak. Different religions worship different Gods. Christians and non-Christians have different set of beliefs and teachings. The degree of adherence to religious teachings and beliefs depends on how strong the faith of the worshipper is. Therefore, the moral values of one religion to another differ and the moral values of one believer to another also differ. Although religion influences the morality of a person it does not follow that a religious person is always of good moral. Morality that is based on religion alone is relative and never absolute or fixed. Religion is not perfect. There had been so many vile things done in the name of religion and in the name of their deities. Consider for example what history tells about the ancient worship of the Aztecs and how they offer human sacrifices to their gods. In Jesus day, he also condemned the Pharisees and scribes for their religious malpractice. Jesus said at Matthew 23: 27, 28: Woe to YOU, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because YOU resemble whitewashed graves, which outwardly indeed appear beautiful but inside are full of dead men’s bones and of every sort of uncleanness. In that way YOU also, outwardly indeed, appear righteous to men, but inside YOU are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. It is not difficult to understand how there are those who loses faith and belief in God. And it is not difficult to understand why faith weakens. In some cases, religious leaders are to blame. Like the Pharisees in Jesus day, they used religion and the name of God to advance their selfish motives and profit from the loyalty of the worshippers. Religious worship must be directed to the God of all goodness, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, whose moral standard is perfect in order to expect a high degree of morality from the worshippers. This morality would only be universal when all humans regardless of race and nationality worship only the Creator of the universe, and the only source of life. Since there is only one Creator, there should only be one God to worship. Morality and Goodness in a Non-religious Environment Religion is not perfect and man is not perfect as well. So when religion fails and when faith fails, what happens to morality? God in his perfection, himself, had instituted measures to safeguard morality in his human creation that had fallen to imperfection when the first human pair disobeyed his law. The Christian Apostle Paul said: “Let every soul be in subjection to the superior authorities, for there is no authority except by God; the existing authorities stand placed in their relative positions by God (Romans13:1).” The superior authorities refer to human governments. They have the God-given authority to imposed laws and regulations to uphold a certain measure of order and morality among all people. Where there is no faith and belief in God, the law of the land helps shape the moral standard of the people. The law of the land also serve as a deterrent that would prevent further abuses and illegal acts by religious leaders. Human government and authorities also help shape the moral standard of the community and all the families in that community. Their God-given authority helped in promoting public peace and order. The extent of the goodness and the state of morality in a non-religious community will depend largely on the kind of governance and values of those who have the mandate to rule. The moral values acceptable to society will also depend on the value orientation of each family. Conclusion God is the highest authority on morality. He is perfect and all his laws must have perfected morality. There should have been one religion for all man and worship only one God who is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and there would have been one universal standard of morality for all humans. Although religion helped shape moral values but then everything is relative rather than absolute. The level of morality and goodness of an individual is influenced by the strength of one’s faith and belief in God, and by the moral values of the family, the society, and of those who are in governance. Part 3: What the World Would Be Without Evil? Introduction After God created the universe and everything in it including the vegetations, animals and the first man and woman, “God saw everything that he had made, and look [it was] very good (Genesis1:31).” God’s creation is perfect in itself and goodness is inherent in all of his creation. That is how God designed man perfect for every good work. There was no need for evil in order for God to appreciate the goodness of his creation. As man is created in the likeness of God’s image, there is no need for evil to exist in order to understand what goodness is. What the World Be Without Evil To get a preview of what the world would be without evil, identify all the moral and natural evils happening in society and remove these from the surface of the earth, so that what would remain in view is God’s original design of the earth’s goodness. First remove all man-made evils like greed, corruption, contentions, hatred, crime and violence. What remains in society is the spirit of giving and sharing, trustworthy governance, harmony, love, peace and security. Millions of money spent on national defense and armaments would now be use to cultivate the land and generate more food, there would be sharing of wealth, land for the landless and home for the homeless. Poverty and deaths from malnutrition, hunger, crime and violence would be a thing of the past. Nations will no longer be competing against each other for power and riches. It would be one borderless global nation collaboratively working for the goodness not of a nation but for the entire human race. Next remove the natural evils, those caused by calamities, disaster, sickness and death from imperfection. After the first sin, God’s design of perfect goodness was tainted with imperfection. Sin, sickness and death got into the picture. Man’s greed and uncaring attitude of the environment have caused climate change and disrupted the ways of nature. The arrival of the evil did not reveal the goodness in God’s creation. It destroyed the goodness of man and the perfect beauty of God’s creation. Only God can remove the evils of nature and restore the earth to perfect goodness free from calamities, disaster, sickness, and death. If there was no evil, the first man and woman, Adam and Eve together with all their offspring, would still be living until now and see the goodness of their submission to God. It would have been a perfect paradise. Does Morality Count in a Perfect World When God created the fist man and woman, God himself defined the standard of morality for them to live by. Though created perfect, Adam and Eve were bestowed by God with free will so that their submission to His laws would not come out of compulsion but out for their love and regard for God’s authority as the life giver and the sovereign one of the universe. God himself had laid down the command for them to obey: “From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die (Genesis 2:16,17).” Therefore the highest degree of morality is possible if there was no evil. Man should have been directly accountable to God for upholding the divine standard of morality. Man is given by God the free will, the freedom to decide for himself whether to obey God or not. There would be no such thing as morally neutral. If there was no evil in the world, God’s kingdom government would have ruled over mankind. God’s law is perfect. He is the grand authority over morality, and he had instituted the moral requirement right after the first man and woman were created. When God gave out the command for Adam and Eve, he did not leave man in the dark and wondered about the consequence of disobedience. Adam and Eve knew that they would die, the moment they would disobey God. Being created perfect, they could have resisted the temptation of the evil one and prove their loyalty, or moral stand on the issue of subjection, to their Creator. Jesus Christ, himself, was a perfect man when he spent more than three years on earth. He proved that Adam and Eve, who were created perfect by God, could have resisted evil as he had successfully done so when for three times, the evil one tempted him (Matthew 4:1-10) It would not be reasonable to conclude that God himself created evil in order to bring out the goodness of man or put man’s morality into test. Because God is perfect, all his creation is perfect as well, and need not go through a process of some sort of morality test. When one of his creations turned evil, it was a choice and a decision, and God could not be blame. Conclusion The beginning of creation tells the original design by the Creator of the universe and there is no other book on earth that provides a reasonable explanation of how the earth came to be except for the simple explanation that there exists God, the Creator, a sovereign one of the universe, and that is the Holy Scriptures. The question of whether it is necessary for evil to exist in order to bring out goodness cannot be morally answered without looking at God’s original design when he created the first man and woman according to his image in perfection and goodness. There is no better way to answer questions on the relationship between morality, goodness, and evil without consulting the perfect authority on morality that is God himself, and through the universally accepted divine word of God, the Holy Scriptures. Human philosophy cannot withstand the wisdom of God. Reference: 1. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. 1961 Read More