Legislated Morality

but without your consent I did not want to do anything, so that your goodness would not be, in effect, by compulsion but of your own free will.  Philemon 1:14  NASB

By compulsion – It doesn’t work, does it?  Legislated morality, I mean.  No matter how many laws or how many threats and punishments, you simply can’t legislate morals.  You can present all the right arguments.  You can demand compliance.  You can even threaten disobedience with death, but it won’t matter.  No one truly acts morally from compulsion.  The action might meet the requirement, but it won’t be a free choice.  Even God can’t force moral decisions.

Paul used all the right persuasive techniques.  Authority, power, sympathy, empathy, ethics—they’re all here.  But in the end, if Philemon does anything other than by his own elective choice, Paul will have failed.  Every parent knows this.  Oh, by the way, so does every government despite the fact that they ignore the necessity of free choice far too often in order to force people to do what they want.  But free will stands behind all truly moral acts.

Paul uses the Greek term ananke.  Greeks had a particular idea in mind when this term evolved in Hellenistic thought.  Grundmann writes, the idea was first connected to the gods but then “rationalized as immanent necessity, then repersonified in Hellenism as the inscrutable force controlling all reality.”^[1]  Philemon would have known the term well.  All Hellenism embraced the idea that Fate was behind every action.  Of course, Paul’s Jewish orientation recognized the Hebrew God as the supreme creator and sustainer of all, but that doesn’t mean Paul considered God in the same category as Fate.  The rabbis noted that God is sovereign—but man is responsible.  How that can be the case was not their concern.  It simply was the case.  When Paul writes to Philemon, he specifically notes that Philemon’s choice, whatever it may be, will be the result of his free will—in Greek, hekoúsios, that is, voluntarily and willingly.  None of Paul’s persuasive arguments are to be the true basis of Philemon’s action.  The act must come from his own desire.

It’s the same for us, isn’t it?  “Love the LORD your God will all your heart, mind, and strength” is the requirement, but it simply can’t be done by forcing someone to “act the part.”  Unless there is a real, uncompromised, free choice to fulfill this commandment, it remains nothing more than a legislated failure.  The only true commandments are pointers—suggestions about what God desires.  So, what’s better?  Following a commandment out of necessity, perhaps for fear of divine reprisal (like Hell), or admitting that you don’t want to do what God desires and doing only what you can from the heart?  Do honesty and sincerity count?  What about good intentions?  Which son pleased the father: the one who said “No,” and later repented and did what was desired, or the one who said “Yes,” but in the end didn’t do what the father desired?  What if Philemon accepted Onesimus on the basis of Paul’s authority, or friendship, or even because it was the right thing to do?  Would Paul consider any of those reasons good enough?

Topical Index: compulsion, free will, commandment, ananke, Philemon 1:14

^[1] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (p. 55). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.