Christian morality as regressive

As I detailed in an earlier post, there are three main stages of morality :

Stage 1 - order-based morality
Stage 2 - natural morality
Stage 3 - rational morality

Now, let's look at the nature and transmission of moral principles in each stage.

Stage 1 : At this level - mostly babies and small children - there are few ways by which morality is transmitted. There is pre-cognitive conditioning (giving orders, stopping from doing bad things, rewards and punishments) and there is narrativism. But narrativism at this level is used not for the power in the narrative itself but mostly for fear purposes (be obedient or Santa Claus won't give you anything, be obedient or you're going to Hell, be obedient or you'll get in trouble). So the nature of morality at this stage is definitely pre-cognitive, mostly in the form of conditioning and emotions.

Perhaps it can be questioned whether this is really morality at all, but it is morality insofar as it gives us a way to distinguish between right and wrong, just not a very good one. Basically, the little child does have an answer to why things are right or wrong : "because mom said so".

Stage 2 : Compounding the first stage are three new factors. First, narrativism at this stage is now used, in the form of stories and myths, to implicitly impart more complex attitudes through concretes. Secondly, the brain has developed, and most of our abilities are now in place. So on the one hand, you have instincts and emotions - the psycho-epistemology - that is fully developed and expressing itself in the body of the teenager. You also have other mental abilities gained, such as the realization that one is an individual, that one needs to do certain things in order to live well, that there are other individuals, that these individuals have distinct thoughts and values, and that other people have the same kind of feelings we do, all of which form an epistemic foundation (that can be disabled to a certain extent in children with autism).

It is my hypothesis that this dynamic in fact forms what Freud called the id (instincts and emotions), ego (moral maturation) and superego (order-based morality), as well as the "battle" between the "heart" (instincts and emotions) and the "head" (moral maturation). There is a lot of complexity but little means to solve dissonance. So there is a "struggle", and why the notion of "struggle" is a common theme in how culture views morality. On stage 1 and 3, there is much less struggle.

So the nature of morality at this stage is more complex, between pre-cognitive impulses and cognitive formulations. While a person at this stage can express simplistic moral principles, or in some cases express values, the reasoning behind these principles takes place "behind the scenes" and will likely only become conscious in cases of conflict.

Stage 3 : The role of philosophy is to make explicit our assumptions and reasoning, so at this stage everything should be, at least in principle, conscious, even though all the previous stages are still there in the background (the psycho-epistemology does not dissapear just because epistemology comes to the front). An understanding of causal facts, mediated by our personal values, is the origin of moral principles. I don't really need to expand on this stage because I've already described it more than enough before, and it is not relevant to Christianity.


Where does Christianity fit in this scheme ? It is definitely not stage 2 or 3 : Christianity contradicts most of our moral assumptions (from all stage 2 processes) dead-on, and there is no desire to make moral principles or reasoning explicit in Christianity or in the Bible. Certainly Christians are capable of expressing moral opinions, which differentiates them from babies, but this may be simply a consequence of the fact that adults can express themselves, period.

Either way, the transmission of morality in Christianity is definitely stage 1 - the level of small children. This is why I call it "regressive". As I said, there are two elements in this, which are orders from a parent figure and narrativism with the goal of implanting fear. This is what Christianity is, and all that it is. So we have God handing down commandments and being the ultimate source of morality, and also myths and parables designed to make one fear "immorality" (according to the story-teller's values), the wrath of God, Hell, and so on.

So at that level there are no values and virtues, except in a tenuous way, if only because any behaviour can be fitted to some values or virtues. This explains why Chrisitanity does not have explicit values or virtues - it would destroy the whole point of it. If we look at the behaviour of Christians, what they idolize, we can see, for example, that they loved the movie "The Passion of the Christ". This seems to indicate that victimhood, sacrifice and injustice are important Christian virtues. Also, the interest with the story of Moses aganist the Egyptians, and the Flood, also indicate very evil virtues. A sociologist would be required to make an inventory, and I'm woefully unqualified, but I think popular culture can give us a good idea.

There is still a lot of moral struggle for Christians, because they are old enough to have natural morality, which inevitably clashes with Christian repression. There are many ways for Christians to deal with this, including ignoring the conflict, projecting their own values into the Christian narratives, or trying to repress their natural morality.