Question

Analyze the religious code of Christianity (the Ten Commandments). Indicate to what extent the code of ethics Christianity has is absolutistic or relativistic, and describe the problems that are created by its being one or the other.

PHIL3010

Answer 1

Religious code of Christianity(The Ten Commandments)is relative, rather than absolute. One needs to realise that these codes were formatted specially in interest of the Bronze Age tribe, as these tribes were considered apart from the world and their God has its own rituals to worship, and ethics to sustain the community. The first four commandments are rituals on how to worship the God , while the last six are norms on behavioural conduct and maintaining male hegemony in the society.

Philosophically, we must try and raise questions about whether these codes are ethical because God commands it, or does God commands it because it is ethical ? While the former has an absolute essence to it, the latter defies absolutism and defines relativism in Christianity. If these codes are ethical because the lord commands it, then the esence of these codes transforms into an arbitrary one. This belief of the Middle Age era is that God is 'outside law', defines the absolutism of The Ten Commandments. However, if God commands a law because it is ethical , it suggests that ethics are above God and is pious in its essence. Again, in the Middle age, this ideology was called sub-Lego, meaning that God is under the law. Last but not the least, as we have progressed as a social-political-cultural animal, so has our ideologies. To philosophers like Nietzsche, God is a reflection of a human mind. Therefore, I believe that Ten Commandments are nothing but a reflection of our own psyche , which makes it relative in its very origin.

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