Ethics without a plumb line

“We’re creating a mandatory ethics curriculum for every student,” the college president stated to a group of anxious alumni. The implication was that he wanted each graduate to leave the institution with a well-implanted set of principles.

The president made his case for the program by citing ethical issues in areas such as medicine, including euthanasia and rationing; the IRS scandals involving misuse of power; sexual harassment in the military; prevalent lying on résumés; business executives fudging financial reports; politicians pressing the limits of credulity; and students cheating to improve their GPAs. He made a convincing case.

“On what basis will you teach ethics?” a crusty voice from the audience asked the president. The room grew silent—everyone was listening.

“We’re putting our brightest, most competent faculty on the task force,” he replied. “We’ll have philosophers, historians, and theologians writing. I am confident …”

“Mr. President, I am not asking who,” the gravelly voice persisted, “but what? On what basis will they write their ethical material?” Western thought, Eastern, religious?”

The president now seemed to better understand the question. “We don’t want to put a label on our course to make sure it’s all-inclusive,” he said. “We want it to offend no one and be a balance of the best from every source available.”

Most of the room was satisfied, but the old man groaned with such pathos that the entire room heard him. “I was afraid of that,” he said. With that he stood and walked out.

You may think this conversation farfetched. Don’t. Both my undergraduate and graduate alma maters have embarked on such a path.

Years ago, after the Harvard Business School installed just such a course, Chuck Colson was the gravelly voice. “You can’t teach ethics without a belief system based on absolute truth,” he said. That was 1991—before Enron, the fraud at WorldCom, the misuse of power at Hollinger, the theft at Tyco, and the embellishment of truth at Yahoo. Any objective study would find that ethics have declined, not improved, since the course began.

The intentions of these schools were honorable, but the thinking flawed. There’s a vast difference between “prescription” and “description.” The course’s objective to “prescribe” how to behave can’t be achieved by teaching a course that “describes” how others acted. Description doesn’t change thinking any more than listening to great music makes one a musician.

Certainly there are non-Christians who behave ethically—sometimes more so than Christians. But apart from an objective standard, all human thinking and personally imposed ethics are flawed.

Jesus said, “out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks,” and the Bible implicitly adds, “And so he acts.” Knowledge of a subject doesn’t equate to behavior. Apart from a changed heart, obedient to God’s Word, no one can hope to behave biblically and ethically.

One cannot build a house without a T square, a level, and a plumb line, and likewise, one cannot build character without a submissive heart, the Holy Spirit, and the plumb line of Scripture.