Honour Culture

Malcolm Gladwell mentions in one of his books the 'southern culture of honour' that is apparently still measurable in university studies with undergraduates- where their reaction to a stimuli is more aggressive than those from the north. This apparently is due to the founders having migrated from areas of the British Isles where this type of culture existed for survival value.


What is honour?
Honour is how you are esteemed by others? Your position in society or your worth is determined by others?
Dignity on the other hand is determined by your own sense of self-worth?

What is the Culture of Honour though?
Honour cultures could be characterised as cultures where you self-image is largely determined by the way others see you, rather than the way you see yourself. This would mean that if someone did something that would make you lesser in the eyes of the community, then you would be bound to act to restore your 'honour'. This would account for the practice of 'duelling', and other retributive acts on others if they slurred someone in the community. An honour culture often exists in nomadic tribes and in the modern world in gangs.

How could this have arisen?
It seems that the honour culture arises mainly in areas where humans live in relatively isolation from others- such as hunter-gatherers, or goat herders - where resources are relatively scarce. Outsiders or neighbours are not well known thus seen as a threat or at the very least, treated with suspicion. Survival in these circumstances requires one to rely on the strength of ones own hand or family. To protect  oneself and family, one has to react aggressively and decisively and show no weakness in the face of a possible threat, so that one would not be seen as a weak target. The aim would be to discourage future threats. Any act that would diminish the standing of the individual or family would then be just cause for retribution.

An honour culture is also often characterised by a loose form of loyalty to the 'clan', 'family', tribe or gang. Strength comes in numbers, and other members may be expected to band together when facing an external threat. However the loyalty doesn't always go beyond this, as internal honour killings, or punishment to restore honour.

An honour culture is said to exist amongst middle eastern herders, and historically in the Scottish highlands.

How could a loving God be a father and a judge, and damn people forever

On this one I think it also comes back to God’s character and core values. My thoughts on this (again with a disclaimer).

a.     God’s nature is in balance – one aspect of his nature can not be overemphasized above the others, or we get a distorted God. Our modern culture likes to over-emphasise the loving nature of God (and also use our own concepts of love in this also).

b.     Both the nature of his love and goodness (and power and knowledge) can be used to explain his role as judge and the existence of an eternal separation or ‘hell’ from his presence in eternity. I’ll explain.

c.      Because he is Good – there is no darkness in him, no evil, a combination of his goodness and power combined would explain the concept of Holiness too. Because he is good he created the universe to be good, and ultimately will act on earth, in heaven and in eternity to return things to this. Because He is good – He is just- and the author of justice. He must act in this world, or in eternity on those who are not good, who do evil. He has no choice in this because he is good, he cannot not act regarding evil. Because he is Love, He wants to act to try and bring about a better outcome. He tries a range of things to try and talk people round (being slow to anger and merciful and doesn’t punish us as or sins deserve) but there comes a time when he has to act more vigorously. When He deals with evildoing he has two aims – restoration (from his Core value of Love- we like that bit) but also retribution (from his core value of goodness- punishment/fairness- an eye for an eye, or whatever measure you use unto others will be used to you). This is easier to explain with an example. Lets say Julia stabs Johnny in the back, and he is injured. If Julia is sorry, she can be forgiven (Love satisfied), however Johnny still has a knife in his back and has experienced pain. For justice some retribution must also be dished out to be fair to both parties, in the courts of today (and in Israel) this might include recompense (money for pain and suffering) or more severe justice. Another benefit of justice is that now Julia has experienced the consequences of her actions, and hopefully less likely to offend again. Therefore Gods Goodness and Love can be a basis for his judgements on the earth.

d.     Because God is good, in eternity – he has to work out what to do with beings who have opted not to submit themselves to his will. Satan and his angels sinned in full knowledge in the blazing light of his Glory, so did not get a second chance. Humanity gets chance after chance, a redemptive work and a lifetime to respond to Gods call by the spirit in nature, history, humanity and the bible. Because God is loving he must provide enough light to each being to be able to make this decision, but not force them to make the ‘right’ decision.

e.     Because he is good (just), he must also act in a retributive way in eternity on those who did not have justice (or fair punishment) exerted on them in this life. He must make sure that no one ‘gets away with it’ so to speak. All sin deserves some form of consequence, if there is no short term consequence in this life, then their must be one in eternity. For the Christian, God’s goodness meant that the punishment we should get had to be meted out on Jesus where he became sin for us. For the God-Man to be made sin and suffer separation from God, this is so unbelievably amazing that it blow my mind. That’s why he experience hell for us-  hell being the absence of relationship and presence of God and carrying the guilt of sin. Even a microsecond of this must have been excruciating for the sinless Son of God.

f.      Eternal destinies. If everyone who exists is an eternal being, then they must exist in eternity somewhere. If everyone has a free will, and they are free to choose to respond and follow God or not and be their own god, then their destiny is determined by this not by any other factor (how good they are, how much they suffered in this life or any other factor). If God is Good, then His eternal kingdom will be good. There wont be a dollop, smidgeon of evil in it. Because He is good and loves His creation he wants them to exist in an eternal state where there is no sorrow, no suffering  or pain which all stem from evil. Only His will will be done in heaven, it is theoretically impossible for someone to exist in heaven who will not willingly surrender their will to Him utterly. That’s why Lucifer fell like the morning star, and the angels who followed him, because they would have been like antimatter meeting matter, or if not, they just couldn’t stand being in a place where they could not express their fallen nature. The same will be for the unrepentant sinner – they can not exist in a place where they will have to follow all the rules forever (they would not be able to meet the expectation) and would either have to be removed or create pain, suffering, cruelty and a host of other problems all over again. So what to do with them?

·      The eternal destiny of an unrepentant sinner must be somewhere separate from ‘heaven’. Because God is good – he must keep heaven a good place. Because he is good – he must create a place where satan, demons and unrepentant evildoers can not do any more harm to each other or the universe. In this place they must also not be able to sin – thus it is place of confinement in terms of the inhabitants not being able to satisfy their evil cravings. This gives rise to the possibility that hell will be worse for some than others (a position supported by scripture) depending on the sin nature they bring with them. This would be hell in itself – like an itch you could never scratch J. Because of confinement – no potential for sinful actions exist in the universe – satisfying Gods core value of goodness. Because God is good the inhabitants are not forced to follow Gods ways in heaven, but can continue existing but be prevented from doing further evil.

·      The eternal destiny must be opposite from heaven in nature as the unrepentant have rejected God, his nature and offer – if heaven is light then hell must be dark, if heaven is full of love (implying relationships) then hell must be a place of loneliness, if heaven is a good place (because God is good) then hell must be a bad place (in comparison). If there is no pain, or sorrow in heaven, then these must be possible in Hell as He will not be there to wipe the tear out of any eye.

g.     The only question that really remains is – well even if ‘hell’ is an eternal place, do humans have to exist there eternally. Wouldn’t it be possible for them to pass through – like the purgatory that the Catholic church envisages? Or could this be a third temporary place. Now this is a nice thought – I like it. But it is difficult to find a lot of evidence for in the bible. Possibly because such a place does not exist. I couldn’t see why it should, why would their need to be a place of waiting? What purpose would it serve – punishment until someone had a change of heart? Wouldn’t seeing God face-to-face be enough for everyone to say “OKAY I believe now!”.  That’s an even nicer thought. All I can say to this is that perhaps it is simply not possible. If Satan sinned in the glory of God and a 1/3 of the angels, then it is concievable that seeing him face to face doesn’t make any different. In the old testament the people followed a Glory cloud out of Egypt and still worshipped Baal. In the new testament they saw the Son of God (and that wasn’t enough for many). Perhaps more can be saved by responding to what measure of light they receive here than if this occurs after we die? Perhaps the outcome would have been the same (those who respond in this life would be the only ones who respond when they see Him)?  We tend to think that if only there was greater light or more awareness then that would work? Perhaps it doesn’t. Perhaps it is psychologically/spiritually impossible for someone to repent after they have died? Perhaps the work of the cross only works through human belief- death and physical resurrection into newness of life, (unless alive at the coming of the Lord) and can’t be applied afterwards? I am thinking that if it was possible that there was another way – God would have made this other way possible, but there was no other way, so Jesus went to the cross.

Why would God create someone knowing they would be damned?

This issue has been a matter of debate for hundreds of years, so there is a lot of literature that can be referred to. To make a summary decision based on what feels right about this is probably not going to cut the mustard. My thoughts on this (disclaimer: this is my own limited understanding and should not be taken as definitive eternal Christian legal advice) go something like this:

       It is possible for starters that we create we – not God. This power of procreation was given to humanity, all other animals and plants during creation to re-produce after their own kind. We get to choose whether we do so or not, what we become is due to a mixture of genetics, nurture and our own free will. Some theologians believe the soul/spirit is created by God at conception, others think it is part of the conception process, I think it is probably the latter because he finished his creation on the 6^th day and said it was good. If this is the case – then the first part of the question is invalid – God doesn’t create someone to be damned. It could be argued that we were all in Adam – so in essence he created all of us – but I think this is really an argument regarding our ancestry not our individual being.

b.     Perhaps a similar question is why did he create Adam at all knowing he would sin, and knowing all the trouble that would get us all into. In this case it is important to recognise that God acts according to his divine nature and “core values”. If we agree that His divine nature includes: perfect love, goodness, complete knowledge, creativity and complete power; then al His actions stem from this.
Love and creativity – relationships are core values for God, they exist in his trinity, therefore the expression of these two values is apparent in the creation of Adam. For Love to be realised – the created must be intelligent, emotional and have a free will (free to truly love the creator and other humans or not to do so). Otherwise he would have sophisticated blow-up-dolls, I am pretty sure he wasn’t keen on this idea. Because of his core value of love he created man anyway– knowing that some will break his heart, because Love is very important to him.

c.      Because God is all knowing (omniscient) and all powerful doesn’t mean he can do everything. He can’t do things that are non-sensical or against his core values or divine nature: i.e. he can’t make a square-circle, or will himself out of existence,  or do evil, or forget things. Perhaps foreknowing doesn’t help Him out because he can’t fix it. A couple of ideas around this:

·      If Adam and Eve (perfect beings with no sinful nature) blew it, and he created them anyway, why didn’t he create another different Adam version 6201 who wouldn’t have made this decision. Obviously he couldn’t.

·      If he had no power to alter the decisions of Adam and Eve, how could He have better luck with those born with a sinful nature – would selecting sperm 2071 to meet egg 103 make any difference?

·      Could he select before something exists – i.e. until something exists it does not exist so how could He know something that is not and never will be? I.e. He knows everyone who exists and will exist and their choices and destiny, but he doesn’t know everyone who doesn’t exist because they don’t exist.

·      For arguments sake if he could selectively breed us to improve the odds that ‘good natured’ people will exist who would choose Him, how would we know whether this is occurring.

·      He could also wait for someone to exist, then knowing their future actions, abort them to avoid them doing this. But then he would have a dilemma on his hands – should he let them into heaven knowing that they would have not chosen him? Perhaps because they never lived and acted, their future actions never exist, so he couldn’t know them anyway (as above).

d.     Because he is “good” he will not force a person to love and follow him. If he gives this right (a free will) to one He must give it to all. He must allow people to be born with this choice whether He likes it or not (and whether we like it or not).

e.     If we all have a free will, then we will not be able to stand before the throne and say I didn’t follow you because you created me that way. We get the choice full stop.