Saturday, September 21, 2002

Values or Virtues

I do not intend to write about my friend, David Virtue, or his web news service, Virtuosity, but about Virtues (plural) as an ethical theme!

A well known best-selling book entitled THE BOOK OF VIRTUES was originally intended to be called, THE BOOK OF VALUES. Then the distinguished author, William Bennett, was told by friends (including I think Gertrude Himmelfarb, who has written eloquently on Victorian Virtues) that what he had written about was "Virtues" not "Values" and the publisher agreed to change the title.

Mrs Margaret Thatcher is well known for her espousal of "Victorian Values" [e.g., hard work, thrift, intelligence, sobriety, fidelity, self-reliance, self-discipline, respect for the law, devotion to family and community, cleanliness, God-fearing and so on] but according to her autobiography she originally spoke of "Virtues" and the Media changed the word to "Values" and she did not try to change it once it had taken off, as it were. So she is associated with the rightness of "Victorian Values" even though the Victorians themselves most carefully and distinctly referred to "Virtues." They did not use "Virtues" in its plural form.

But there is a big difference (if we use words aright) between values and virtues.

From Aristotle we get the cardinal virtues - wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage, together with prudence, magnanimity, munificence, liberality and gentleness. From Christian tradition we get faith, hope and love/charity as the theological virtues. The classical philosophical, together with the Christian tradition, saw moral standards and law as objective and so virtues belonged to objective reality and standards. Virtues were very serious things possessing authority (for they were anchored in objective reality).

In contrast, "values" as a plural noun was first used by F Nietzsche not as a verb meaning "to esteem something" (e.g., I value his contribution) and not as a singular noun meaning the measure of a thing (i.e., the economic value of money or labor or property) but describing the attitudes and beliefs, moral and social, of a given society.

Max Weber the sociologist took up this use of "values" and so it moved from sociology to ordinary speech, accelerated into common conversation by the radical & revolutionary 1960s. This use of "values" came with the general assumption that all moral norms and ideas are entirely subjective and relative for they are mere customs, conventions and mores, that belong to different societies at different times in their history and experiences.

Thus for sociologists it can be a most useful word!

However, it is really disastrous for Christian discourse and teaching when the word values is used in such expressions as "biblical values"!!! Regrettably American and British Evangelicals seem wedded to this and like expressions and do not seem to realize that they undermine the whole basis of the norms of God in creation and in redemption by using such a word. The only biblical values that there are - and this is a sobering thought - are those condemned by prophet, Messiah and apostles in the OT and NT as being of the world, the flesh and the devil and of being totally opposed to [that which is commended] the virtues or fruit produced by the indwelling Spirit of the Lord in the Church of God. The Bible as a whole places supreme value on the objectivity of the revelation of God's law and of the standards [virtues] or righteousness and holiness therein set forth.

I recall that at the first meeting of what has become the Anglican Congress Movement (Richard Kew et al) I had to protest strongly to get the word "values" out of the major statement that was produced (I think in the end they went for kingdom norms). I suspect that few people really appreciated what I was talking about for the word is so much used by those who claim to be biblically-based! [But alas so are many other words and phrases which by their use actually make the norms and standards of the Bible subjective and relative!]

Let us use "value" both as a verb and as a singular noun, and let us seek to avoid it in its plural form when we are referring to objective, God-revealed norms and standards.

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon
Minister of Christ Church, Biddulph Moor,
England & Vice-President and Emissary-at-Large
of The Prayer Book Society of America

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