"OK, thanks," my student said, "but I still think the quiz was too hard."

"Noted. Anything else?"

"Wait a second." He walked to the door, peered out into the hallway, then came back to his seat.

"Is someone following you, Nathan?"

He shook his head. "No. But you only answer non-course questions when nobody's lined up out there to ask a course question."

"Thank you for being considerate. So what's your non-course question?"

He bent over and pulled a beat-up black notebook from his backpack. It looked suspiciously familiar.

"That wouldn't be your old biblical errors notebook, would it?"

"Yes and no," he said. "I'm not recording inconsistencies in the Bible any more."

"That's the 'no.' What's the 'yes'?"

"I'm recording your inconsistencies."

I laughed. "How long have you been doing that?"

"Since this morning."

"And what do you expect all my inconsistencies to prove?"

"I don't know yet. But it seems to me that people who say they're Christians are always saying and doing things inconsistent with their supposed principles. Like that governor who disappeared from his state for five days to cheat on his wife in Argentina or wherever it was. I figure he must be a Christian. He sure did quote the Bible a lot at that press conference."

"You watched it?"

"I read about it on Disgracebook."

"Oh."

"Now you're going to ask, 'But Nathan, how have I been inconsistent?"

I smiled again. "I'm sure you'll tell me, if I wait long enough."

"It wasn't anything you did," he answered, "it was something you said."

"When?"

"In class today."

"Today? But we were only talking about the political philosophy of Aristotle."

"See, you didn't think anyone would catch you. You were explaining that Aristotle made a big deal out of whether the rulers have virtue. Remember that?"

"Of course."

"And you agreed with him. You thought he was right."

"I did."

"You said it's impossible to be a bad man and a great statesman."

"Yes, that's what I said."

Nathan smiled, folded his arms, and leaned back. "See?"

"I'm afraid not. Sorry."

His smile disappeared. "How can you not see?"

"What am I supposed to see?"

"That you were totally, blatantly inconsistent."

"How?"

"I suppose your statement fit in all right with what Aristotle said. But it didn't fit in at all with the Christian beliefs you say you hold."

"You still aren't telling me why not."

"Aren't you supposed to be teaching me this stuff?"

I grinned. "You'll just have to help out."

Nathan muttered something about "ignition sauce." Or maybe it was "tuition costs." Aloud, he said, "For starters, when you say someone's a 'bad man,' you're judging the person. The Bible says 'Judge not.' Everybody knows that. Hey, are you OK, Prof?"

"I'm fine."

"But you —"

I sighed. "What 'everybody knows' about the Bible is often wrong. You're thinking of the place where Jesus said, 'Judge not, that you be not judged.'¹ That passage has been misinterpreted so often that it's like an old sore with me."

"How am I misinterpreting it?"

"Jesus couldn't have been condemning all kinds of judgment, because another time he said, 'Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.'"²

"I didn't know that. Still, we can't look right into a man's heart, like God does, can we, Prof? Not even into a politician's heart."

"You're right, we can't, and we shouldn't pretend that we can. That's forbidden. But we have to make reasonable judgments about how far a person can be trusted. If the waiter says the fish is fine when all around you the other diners are getting sick, you'd be a fool to believe him. Why should it be different with politicians than with waiters?"

"OK, so I'm wrong about judging. But you're still inconsistent with other stuff in the Bible. Like what it says about David."

"Do you mean David, the king?"

"Yeah. According to Disgracebook, the South Carolina guy said he shouldn't have to resign his governorship for committing adultery with the woman in Argentina, because David didn't have to resign his kingship for committing adultery with Bathsheba. And that wasn't even the worst of what David did. He arranged to have Bathsheba's husband die — hey, there you go again. Did I say something bad?"

"What?"

"Your face. You look real mad all of a sudden."

"Sorry. It's not you. It burns me, though, when people like that twist the word of God. It's nothing but a ruse, and it's horrifying that people are so often taken in."

"But David —"

"Nathan, forgive me, but you're doubly mixed up. You've let what you've read about the press conference scramble your thinking. In the first place, I haven't said that the governor should have to resign. I haven't even addressed that issue. More importantly, the Bible doesn't say that a man in that position shouldn't have to."

"But what he says is right there in the Old Testament."

"The story is there. The lesson he draws from it isn't."

"You mean in your opinion it isn't."

"Yes, in my opinion."

"But David didn't have to resign."

"That's right, but not every historical event recorded in the Bible is intended as a precedent. Would you make that assumption about an ordinary history book?"

"Of course not."

"You shouldn't make it about the Bible either. To say 'David didn't have to resign when he did wrong, therefore no officeholder should have resign when he does wrong' is like saying 'David was a king, therefore every ruler should be a king.' The Old Testament story isn't even about appointments and resignations. It's about forgiveness."

"All right, Prof, but that's just another way you're inconsistent. God forgave David for adultery and murder, right? So who are you not to forgive the South Carolina governor just for adultery?"

"It's not for me to forgive him, Nathan. I'm not the one he sinned against."

"Now you're playing word games with me. You know what I mean. God can forgive anything."

"Not anything," I replied. "He can't forgive what hasn't been repented."

"Who are you to say that guy hasn't repented?"

"Nobody. I don't presume to see into hearts."

"But if it were up to you, you'd hold his adultery against him. It's all the same."

"It's not all the same — but if it were up to me, yes, I'd take his adultery into account. Along with a lot of other things. Do you think that I shouldn't?"

"I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't," he answered. "I'm just saying that as a Christian you shouldn't. I'm saying that if you would, then you're inconsistent, as Christians always are. You're going against Christian mercy."

"Nathan, think. If a man proposed to enter into a business partnership with you, but you knew that he'd cheated his last business partner, would it be contrary to Christian mercy to think that he might cheat you too?"

"No, but this isn't the same. It just seems to me that virtue in marriage, virtue in business, and virtue in politics are different things."

"In the Christian view," I answered, "the virtues are interconnected. Why are you so sure that a man who can't keep his marital vows will keep his oath of office?"

"When you put it that way," he said hesitatingly, "I'm not sure. Even so, you don't know that he won't."

"In this case, I would say that he didn't. While he was in Argentina, he left his state untended for five days, not even telling his staff where he was. Do you see my point?"

"All right, you win on that one. Still, when you say it's impossible to be a bad man and a great statesman, isn't the statement awfully strong?"

"In what way?" I asked.

"A crooked man might have political skill. A virtuous man might lack it. Just like skill in other fields."

"That's true, and skill is important, but statesmanship requires more than skill, and that's just like skill in other fields too. We want our accountants to be skillful in accountancy, but we also want them to be honest. When I call a statesman 'great' I don't mean that he holds power with great skill, but that he rules with great justice."

"So are you saying that only a virtuous person can ever do the right thing?"

"No. Even a bad person might sometimes do the right thing. But what do you think? When a bad person does do the right thing, does he do it because it's right, or does he do it for other reasons — reasons that have nothing to do with its rightness?"

"I guess he does it for other reasons. Like maybe who his supporters are. Or who paid him the biggest bribe. Or what the focus groups say."

"That's just my point. It isn't that a bad person can't do the right thing. It's just that, all other things being equal, the less virtuous a person is, the less likely he is to do the right thing — because when he does do the right thing, he doesn't do it because of the kind of person he is, but only by accident."

"Aren't there any exceptions?" asked Nathan.

"Yes, one."

"What is it?"

"When a bad person does the right thing because he's trying to become a better person."

Nathan thought that over. After a few seconds he said, "All right. You've convinced me that you weren't inconsistent. What you said in class isn't against the Bible. But I'm still confused."

"Why?"

"Because I don't see how it's all from the Bible either. All that analyzing of virtue."

"Does it have to be?"

Nathan was aghast. "I thought that for Christians the Bible was supposed to be the main guide."

"It is our guide. But it isn't an encyclopedia. Would you say that a Christian architect was being unbiblical just because the formulae he used to calculate stress in load-bearing walls didn't come from the Bible?"

"But that's just architecture. The Bible is supposed to be your encyclopedia for life, isn't it?"

"A truthful and authoritative guide, yes, but an encyclopedia, no. The Scriptures could have said 'Read this book' and nothing else, but they don't. They also say 'Seek Wisdom.' Prayerfully setting the intellect to work on questions like the ones that you've been asking is part of what that means."

"Professor T, I've come here pretty often to argue with you about Christianity, but you know what?"

"What?"

"I'm beginning to think I don't have a clue what Christianity is."

I smiled. "Knowing what you don't know is a pretty good place to begin."

"So what should I do next?"

"What do you think?" I asked.

* * *

1. Matthew 7:1, RSV.
2. John 7:24, RSV, emphasis added.