Black and White, or Grey?

I was once told my my father that I am a "Star Wars Child" There's the light and the dark and I see nothing in between. Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader, and that's it. To this day I still don't see the problem. I've run across dozens of people that will try to insist to me that there are shades of gray out there, and there is no real black and white, or that perhaps there is black and white but it is rare to find. I disagree with all of them on the grounds that they don't break anything down far enough. Gray is a color and a name for a dog, it is not a moral state.

I've even had cousellors try to sway me from this direction. In the end their motives were off. They were trying to get me to change to be more likeable to people, they should have been encouraging me to realize that everyone will hate me anyway, they might as well hate me for who I am. My counselor tried the cute, classic examples that cause everyone else to stumble when they strive for the black and white view.

"Look at Robin Hood" The arguement goes that Robin Hood, while stealing was doing the "Right" thing by giving the money to the poor and that while stealing is wrong, stealing from a tyrant to do good deeds is a morally grey area and therefore is permissable under certain circumstances, especially when the starving are fed by it. It sounds cute and romantic. They love to try to trick me by asking the beautifully deceptive question of "Who is the hero in the story?" or "So Robin Hood is wrong to give to the poor?"

Who is the hero is a trick question. There is no hero. John is a coward and a schemer who unjustly tries to usurp the throne from the rightful king. During this time he treats the people of the country unjustly and causes suffering for people everywhere. Robin Hood is just as cowardly, though he has the people's full support he hides out in the woods collecting funds and handing them out as charity though he is well aware they will only get collected again as taxes, and running a hide-out militia takes up money so the time he is messing around collecting his fees, he is actually using up the money that he is supposed to be giving the people, furthermore as a citizen of a monarchy he has a duty to his king by remaining a citizen. If he wanted to go the right way about it, he should have gotten foreign support against his king and declared independance, at that point he is in his own government using his own currency and any supporters are in allegiance to him rather than comitting treason against their own country. In this unfortunate story, even Richard's hands are not clean because he put the potential for the injustice in place by leaving to covetously take the holy lands back from the muslims. Just like every other main character, he is neglecting what is his to take what is not his from someone else.

And no, it is perfectly right and good for Robin Hood or anyone else to give money to the poor, but it should be their money, not stolen goods. Stealing from the government is not ok just because you donate the majority of the funds to charity and use the rest to build a treasonous militia all the while holding on to your citizenship under that government. At least claim to be part of a revolution for goodness sake!

The next story problem she threw out is "If your wife was sick and only this medicine could get her better but the only way to get it is to steal it, wouldn't you steal it?" First off, why do people think that because I'd be willing to do something that means I think it's the right thing to do? I'd be willing to jump out of an airplane and ride a bull, but both of those things would be pretty stupid and selfish because of the potential consequences for my wife. And no, that doesn't make me a hypocrite. I would be a hypocrite if I said "YOU can't jump out of an airplane, but it's okay for me" Secondly I would be thoroughly suprised to find myself in that position to HAVE to steal the medicine to get it. I don't have huge faith in people, but I know my friends and the people I live around, something pretty earth shattering would have to happen for my pharmacist to withold medicine that would keep my wife alive even if he knew we couldn't pay for it. And finally, stealing is wrong, stealing from a pharmacist I consider my friend would be more wrong, administering a drug without a prescription would be wrong and reckless. I'd have to commit several moral breaches aside from stealing to just consider it, and... I would do it in a heartbeat. I would do the wrong thing to trade for my wife's life. There is a line: I would do the wrong thing when temporal things are at stake, not eternal. I would never renounce Christ simply to save my wife's life, at that point I would be a creature so despicable my wife would have no reason to love me though she had her life. But, yes, I would steal, lie, even murder (note I said murder, not kill. Killing in and of itself is not a sinful act) to protect my wife. That doesn't mean that any of those things are right. I would also have to accept getting arrested and going to jail for it because I choose to live in this nation where stealing is wrong. Odds are the Jury would have mercy on me because they see everything as greay but in truth aside from our "Legal System" (which doesn't decide right and wrong at all) I will have done the wrong thing to spare my wife.

The issue is that people try to blend everything together when they cannot be blended. Water is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, its atomic weight is 12. This does not mean that Water is Magnesium. It is not Beyrillium either. It is not Hydrogen and it is not Oxygen, It is dihydrogen Oxide. Period. It's not adding together what it's made of and seeing what it weighs the same as, like so many see justice. It is not averaging together all the weights to see what it turns out to be between the two, it is not the one that there's more of, it's not all the other thing because the other thing exists. It is it's own thing made up of parts. Morality is atomic, not molecular, you break it down until it cannot be broken down any more. Water is 2 hydrogen, 1 Oxygen. Stealing to save my wife is stealing and saving my wife is saving my wife. The ends are the ends, the means are the means, and you don't try to mix them all together. You only see grey because you took off your glasses and can't see the dithering.

The most destructive part of this belief system is because when you follow it to its maximum end, you reduce people to the things they do and unless you want to renounce the person you must accept everything they do. While we don't run into issues as long as we focus on perfect people and genocidal maniacs that hold beliefs different from us, it appears to work. But as we move into the sins that we aren't made sick by, we start to call the sins ok, because we've combined them with the sin. People say I'm bigotted because I call homosexuality a sin. I call them pathetic because they call the person comitting the sin a homosexual. You think I hate the person. I think you have judged the person and are forced to accept their sin because by your judgement if you call the sin sin, you must reject the person too. I see the "homosexual" as a human being that commits the sin of homosexuality at times, just like I sin sometimes. I am not the sum of my sins and neither are they.

So who is the bigotted one? The one who sees the person as a person and what they do as what they do, their intentions as intentions and the results of their actions as results? Or the one who sees the person as merely the sum of what they do with a disregard for the fact that the guy under the bridge is a man who lost his wife and needs a friend and the love of Christ rather than "The meth addict"