This month Professor Theophilus considers two questions from readers: One is friendly, the other hostile.

Boundless Reader Writes:

I stand on the fact that God ultimately defines what is right and wrong ... my friend defines his entire moral code upon the statement, "As long as I am not directly hurting anyone other than me, then nothing that I do is wrong." I don't ... have an intelligent response ... do you?

Professor Theophilus Replies:

C. S. Lewis once remarked that the inventors of "new moralities" don't really invent new moralities; they merely accept the bits of the old morality that they like, and ignore the bits of the old morality that they don't like. For example, an extreme Nationalist accepts the parts about our duty to kin but ignores the parts about all men being brothers, and an extreme Socialist accepts the parts about our duty to relieve suffering but ignores the parts about justice and good faith. Your friend is doing much the same thing, for the duty to avoid unnecessary harm to others is a genuine part of the moral law. His problem isn't that it's wrong; his problem is that he ignores all the other parts.

The first problem with throwing out every duty but the avoidance of harm is that it will make him flat. We were made to serve God, not just ourselves. In the words of the Westminster Catechism, "Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever." By casting aside our greatest duty, your friend is also casting aside our greatest joy and privilege.

The second problem with his way of life is that it will make him selfish. What would he think of a man who had never lifted a finger to protect his wife, but bragged that he had never beaten her? Of a man who failed to sound the fire alarm, but boasted that he hadn't set the fire? How about a teacher who had never taught his students a single truth, but preened himself on the fact that he had never taught them a lie? Frankly, I don't believe that your friend would admire such people any more than you would. But by claiming that his only duty is to avoid unnecessary harm to others, he is training himself to be just like them.

The third problem with your friend's narrow-mindedness is that it will make him stupid. If the only duty he recognizes is not harming others, he won't have the foggiest idea of what harming others means. This is already happening in the way he limits harm to direct harm, then limits it further to "hurt," to physical harm. Suppose that through reckless driving I were to get myself killed, leaving my wife a widow. Would the fact that the harm of widowhood were indirect make it small? Suppose that I were to corrupt a young female student by seducing her. Would the fact that the harm of corruption were nonphysical make it trivial? You see, every moral duty depends on the other moral duties to flesh it out and complete its meaning. Keeping one duty but throwing out the others, in the end your friend won't even understand the one that he keeps.

The slogan "It can't be wrong if it doesn't hurt anyone" first became popular as a rationalization for sex outside marriage. That was 35 years ago. Now, after tens of millions of abortions, divorces, fatherless children, sterilization-inducing diseases and broken hearts, perhaps it's time to reconsider the meaning of "hurt." I don't know what your friend hopes to justify, but you can be sure he is looking for a way to justify something he really knows is wrong.

We've been talking about the surface issue — your friend's claim to be ignorant of every moral duty but avoiding harm to others. But there is a deeper issue — his implicit claim to be ignorant of his moral and spiritual dependence on God.

Boundless Reader Writes:

Once again I find another Web site ... with ... no evidence behind what is true. To the person reading this, ask yourself: Am I saved? How do you know? How can you be sure? I can think of at least seven ways that the Bible lists in which you can be saved:

1. faith and faith alone
2. faith and works (faith alone is insufficient)
3. works alone
4. obeying the commandments
5. faith and baptism
6. calling [on] the name of the Lord
7. nothing (you are predestined)

Which is it? You are a LIAR!

Professor Theophilus Replies:

"Which is it?" is a perfectly good question, and I'll answer it in a moment. Your anger, though, raises another issue. The normal emotional responses to unsolved puzzles include perplexity and disappointment, and the normal emotional responses to people who suggest solutions include doubt and hope. But why should you be angry with Christians and call them liars just because they think they have the solution and you think it doesn't work? It wouldn't injure you for them to be mistaken. Could there be something more to your anger? Could it be that you don't want to know the solution? Could it be that you're angry not with us, but with God?

I'm not mocking you; I've been there. When I was working for my doctorate, a teacher I hadn't seen for awhile asked me who or what I was studying. I named the 19th-century "God is dead" philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, a well-known hater of the Christian faith, who expressed all the anger that I felt. My teacher, a non-believer, laughed and said "Nietzsche! You'd better watch out, or the next thing you know you'll be a Christian." He knew that no one can be angry with God unless deep down he suspects that God is real. In the same way, I think that no one can be angry with a solution unless deep down he suspects that there is a real solution.

Anyway, here is the solution to your puzzle about salvation. The first step in the solution is to understand that your list is redundant. Faith means putting your whole trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior (your Boss and Rescuer) — saying "Yes!" to him with everything in you, including your mind and your will. Although your list treats "calling on the name of the Lord" as different than faith, it's actually just an expression for faith. Works means actions, or conduct. Although your list treats "baptism" and "obeying the commandments" as different from works, they are actually included in works. On the other hand, we do need a distinction. In some biblical passages the expression "works" refers to actions performed apart from faith, for example in Romans 3:28, where Paul says "we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law." But in other passages the expression refers to actions performed as part of faith, for example in Galatians 5:6, where Paul says our hope lies in "faith working through love." One of these is nothing; the other is everything.

Of your seven possibilities, that takes care of six of them. The seventh (do nothing, you're predestined) doesn't belong on the list at all, because the biblical idea of predestination doesn't mean you don't have to do anything to be saved; it only means that God knows before you do whether you are going to do it. If what you need is faith, He knows who will have faith; if what you need is works, He knows who will do works. So there are really only three possibilities, not seven: faith without works, works without faith, and faith and works together.

The next step is to see that "salvation" is one of the Bible's umbrella words; it covers more than one meaning. You can be "saved" from disease, "saved" from enemies, "saved" from guilt, and so forth. So instead of asking just one question, "What must I do to be saved?" let's ask two questions: first, "What must I do to be reconciled with God?" and second, "What must I do to be changed into the holy person God has always intended me to be?" This is important, because the two questions have different answers. Reconciliation is the beginning of the story, not its end.

The clear biblical answer to the question "What must I do to be reconciled with God?" is "faith." You have to put your whole trust in Jesus Christ, who took the guilt of your sin upon himself and suffered its penalty on the Cross. But the clear biblical answer to the question "What must I do to be changed into the holy person God has always intended me to be?" is that you must live your faith — you need "works" in the second sense. Everything begins with forgiveness, and the power to change comes from grace alone; but you also need to cooperate with grace, and that means working like crazy.

One more thing: Genuine faith does live; if you say "I have faith" but do nothing, you're lying. That kind of "faith" is phony faith, and the Bible says clearly that it does nothing for you. Even so, works apart from grace don't buy forgiveness; the sacrifice of Jesus did that. You can't earn your way into heaven. It has to be a gift.