No Further Questions
The Life that Ought to Be
I ended my previous article with the following question: What is the end of all the why questions to any explanation of the good life? (e.g. Why is this particular life the good life?)
Let’s begin our quest with the answer to this question: What is the end of all the why (or why not) questions of the persistent child who demands an answer from Mom or Dad as to the rejection of the child’s misplaced desire? You just said it in your head: “Because I said so!” In the minds of parent and child alike, “Because I said so” is the end of all things. The matter is closed. The response is impenetrable and exudes finality. Unfortunately for the child, the why question meets its nemesis and is blasted into oblivion. I do recall as a child, uttering under my breath as I stomped away defeated by that clause of termination from the mouth of my mom, “I will never say that to my child!” Sorely mistaken was I!
But what is an accurate hermeneutic for the “because I said so” bomb drop? Often times, in order to evade the potential for ongoing litigation and debate, it is the parent’s more impassioned and abrupt way of saying, “That is the way it ought to be.” Whether just or unjust, or subjective or objective, the parent is fundamentally appealing to the nature of ought-ness. Ought-ness draws a line in the sand. The why question that crosses that line traverses into utter obscurity. Why loses its significance because a final answer was given!
Ought-ness also finds its place in creative enterprises. Think for a second about a great piece of art. The one you just thought of is the piece of art that you thought of. You narrowed a seemingly infinite number of pieces of art to the piece that you thought of. Because it is the piece of art that you thought of, it has a form; it has a boundary; it is a defined work that has no duplicate. It is the one piece of art that came to your mind. Now, let’s insert the word ought into the equation. The artist, in creating this piece of art, said to him- or herself (well, maybe figuratively speaking), “This is how this piece of art ought to be.” Otherwise, he would not have followed through in completing the work. No one sets out to create a piece of art with the thought, “This is not how it ought to be, so this is how I will do it.” Ah, you might argue, Beethoven tore apart his works every step of the way, so didn’t his mind change with each alteration of notes? Sure, his mind changed, but ought was a companion to every musical adjustment he made. Each alteration derived from the thought, “THIS is how it ought to be,” thus rendering ought a necessity of his creation. Think of any created entity. Its completion was a product of at least one ought in the mind of its creator.
So when Beethoven completed his 7th, someone could have asked him, “Why did you compose it like this?” Beethoven might have responded, “Because this is the way it ought to be.” The why question has to thus be satisfied. The line in the sand is drawn. No further questions, Your Honor.
So what about our question, what is the end to the why questions when it comes to the good life? As discussed above, I’m wondering if there’s an ought that can help us. But if ought is posited as an end to the why question to the good life, Someone has to provide the ought. Like life, ought doesn’t pop into existence out of nothing! And ought that Someone be the Author of life? If we looked at Beethoven’s 7th and asked a random stranger, “Hey, why is Beethoven’s 7th composed that way?” And the stranger replies, “Well, that’s the way it ought to be.” Does that response hold any credibility? Who is this stranger to say so? Now, if we heard the response from Beethoven himself, I think we could probably live with that. Or, if the stranger said, “Well, that’s the way Beethoven believed it ought to be,” we’d likewise be ok with that. Therefore, when contemplating the good life, it is probably worth going to the Composer of life to obtain the ought. For any human, who, from his or her own perspective, states the good life ought to be such and such, is akin to the stranger above. Zero credibility. But, if the human appeals to the Composer and says, “Well, that’s the way He said it ought to be,” now he’s on to something. So let’s examine this.
The life is the life that the Composer of life determined that it ought to be. God designed human life, in essence and purpose, to be lived in a distinct and defined manner. In other words, what human life is and why human life is was spoken into existence by God Himself. You might recall what He said about His design: “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). Because God, by definition, is perfect, His design is perfect. Life is a product (forgive the term) of His design; therefore, as previously stated, its essence and purpose was designed perfectly. This life, according to its Composer, is the way it ought to be.
One would hypothesize that if the Composer of life came to this earth to live, he would live the life that ought to be lived. As the Composer of life, He must be life. Life cannot come from non-life (spontaneous generation was indeed debunked), therefore, He must be the first life. First, here, does not mean first “in order,” but supreme, or first in importance, as we understand the preeminence of Christ in Colossians 1:18.
It is necessary, but not sufficient to say that God is alive. We must say that He is life. “I AM” holds more weight than the human mind can begin to fathom! So, if Life Himself came to Earth, Life Himself would live the life. Christ, as the second Person of the Godhead, is the Composer of Life. Christ, as truly God and truly Man, came to this earth to live. Therefore, His life is the life that ought to be lived by men.
But there is one more significant piece of the puzzle here. Life Himself also has to be good. Remember how Plato described the good: that which “exists itself by itself.” In other words, the good exists by itself without a cause. It simply is. Nothing birthed goodness. But, for the one who wants to think something did, we could then ask that person, Wouldn’t that thing have to be Goodness itself? And now we’re back to our infinite regress.
By definition, Life Himself must exist without a cause. If Life Himself exists independent of any cause, and the good exists independent of any cause, the good and Life must coexist. They must be together. They must have always been together. Thus, Life Himself has to be Good Himself. If He is the life, He must be the eternal life in which there is only good. The eternal life of Christ can only be good because any deviation from good (bad, or evil) brings death (Gen 3). In speaking about the Logos, classical Christian thinker Andrew Kern said the following: “He [God] is thinking of Himself as the highest and supreme good, and is all joy. And that thought about Himself is Jesus” (emphasis added).
So, if Life and Good (or Goodness) Himself came to this Earth to live, and the life that He came to live is the life that ought to be lived (the life designed by The Designer), might we call this life, the good life? As God incarnate, Christ is the only one of whom we could say the following: He is good and Good is He. We can say that virtue is good; we can say that pleasure, and power, and happiness, and fulfillment of potential are each good, but the good are not these. Christ is good, and the second transcendental, Goodness, is Christ, for He is divine.
Thus, to conclude the matter, why is the Christ life the good life? Because His life is the life that ought to be. Any human conceived version of the good life—and oh, there are many—necessarily falls short of the standard of Life and Goodness Himself. The persistent human asks, “But why does that have to be the good life?” Well, this Father alone, as perfectly just and true, has the final authority to say, “Because I said so.” No further questions.