If Christian morality is rooted solely in fear of damnation and promise of reward, then Dershowitz has a point. As a matter of commonsense, it’s obvious that virtuous behavior rooted solely in self-interest isn’t really virtuous behavior. If I’m kind to the unpopular guy on campus, but only because being so benefits me, I’m not really being kind. I’m faking it for self-gain. To be truly virtuous, my own interests can’t be the primary intent of my deeds.

Let’s call the idea that I am truly virtuous when acting solely out of self-interest “egoism.”² Does the Christian faith — with its emphasis on punishment for bad behavior and rewards for good behavior — implicitly affirm egoism, as Dershowitz claims it does? Is Dershowitz’s argument for the selfish heart of Christianity a sound one?

While Scripture does teach that we’ll be punished for bad behavior and rewarded for good behavior, there’s a significant moral difference between achieving what’s in our self-interest as a by-product of our behavior and our self-interest’s being the sole intent of our behavior. For example, the Fifth Commandment says “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). Obviously, we should obey the Ten Commandments because, among other things, they’re the commands of a Holy God and obeying them is part of living in relationship with him. But this means that we should obey the Fifth Commandment regardless of whether or not we want to live long lives. Scriptural passages like Exodus 20:12 point out the positive by-products of moral behavior. They do not condone self-interest as the primary intent of a moral behavior.

This observation relates to a second important difference: the one between a motive and a reason. Roughly, a motive is some state within a person that moves that person to action. (For example, hunger might be a motive for eating a hotdog.) By contrast, a reason is something that serves rationally to justify an action. Citing a reason for obeying your parents is an attempt to cite something that makes obeying them the right thing to do. (The fact that obeying your parents pleases God is a reason to obey them; it makes obeying them the right thing to do.) In this context, just because a desire to live a longer life might serve as your motive for obeying your parents, it doesn’t follow that it serves as the reason for your obeying them. Self-interest may be a legitimate motive for moral action, but God’s pleasure can be rationally cited as the thing that makes it right in the first place. Scripture is likely citing self-interest as a motive for action, not as the reason that justifies an action. Third, even if Scripture teaches that self-interest is a good reason for doing something, it may be offering self-interest as a prudential reason for doing it rather than a moral one. In other words, the Bible might be teaching that it’s wise, reasonable and a matter of good judgment to avoid hell (for instance), without teaching that these considerations are moral reasons for acting according to self-interest.

In sum, we can understand Scripture as advocating self-interest as a by-product and not as an intent, as a motive and not a reason, or as a prudential reason rather than a moral one. If any of these understandings are correct, then Scriptural connections between moral behavior and self-interest do not entail egoism.

Moreover, even if Scripture teaches that self-interest contributes to making something my moral duty, egoism still doesn’t follow. For one thing, egoism teaches that I’m morally justified in acting solely out of self-interest, whereas Scripture teaches that things like self-sacrifice and God’s glorification are also essential factors. Moral duty is not exhausted by self-interest as egoism implies, but self-interest can be a legitimate factor in moral deliberation, and Scripture sometimes expresses this point.

But even here, the self-interest conveyed in Scripture is different from the self-interest of egoism. The Scriptural emphasis on self-interest bases the appropriateness of self-interest in the fact that I am a creature of intrinsic value, bearing God's image, not in the trivial fact that such interests are mine. Scripture emphasizes self-interest because God is interested in me and because, as an image-bearer of God, I obviously ought to care what happens to me. On the biblical understanding of self-interest, I seek my own welfare not because it’s mine, but because I am God’s.

There is a second way self-interest in Scripture differs from the self-interest of egoism. As C. S. Lewis argued, there are different kinds of rewards, and some are proper because they have a natural connection to our accomplishments and express what God made us to be.³ Money is not a proper reward for love because it’s foreign to the desires that ought to accompany love. By contrast, victory is a proper reward for battle. It’s proper because, rather than being unnaturally tacked onto the activity for which it is given, victory is the consummation of the activity itself.

According to Lewis, our desires for heaven and other biblical rewards are natural desires expressing what we are as creatures of God. We were made to desire His presence and recognition, and these things are the natural consummations of our activity on earth. Thus, the appropriateness of seeking heaven and God’s approval derives from the fact that these results genuinely express who we are and consummate the activities for which we were designed.

Our commonsense intuitions about egoism are right: There is something morally wrong with acting only for your own gain. Contrary to Dershowitz’s argument, however, the Bible’s emphasis on rewards for good deeds and punishment for bad ones doesn’t implicitly justify such selfish behavior. Even where Scripture does appeal to one’s self-interest, the self-interest being referred to is irreducibly other-oriented, and this constitutes an outright rejection of the egoism Dershowitz claims is part of Christianity.

Copyright © 2005 J. P. Moreland. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.