Taking the World Personally

Most people think of the Ten Commandments in religious terms. They have to do with “church,” but not the “real world.” This reflects a misunderstanding of the life of ancient Israel.

The Ten Commandments provide the foundation of the religion of ancient Israel, true. But they also provide the foundation for its' political and economic life. They are the basis of education.

To appreciate this more comprehensive role it helps to get behind contemporary misunderstandings of the Ten Commandments and hear them in their Hebraic context.

John Macmurray, a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh from 1944, provides insight into how the Ten Commandments work to constitute a covenant community.

Macmurray said that modern western philosophy and culture misrepresents the true nature of human life. The modern philosophical tradition defines a human being as one who thinks. In this view “critical objectivity” gives a person control over the world. But it can also result in the loss of a person's sense of humanity. Other people lose their personal identity and become just another object.

Macmurray rejects the modern philosophical tradition and it dehumanizing tendency. He argued the better aim is not to control other people, but to share life with them.

When he rejected the modern philosophical tradition he recreated philosophy on a new foundation. He turned to a biblical conception of personhood. The whole person is constituted by and through relationships.

The world of human experience is a personal world. What is most important in the human experience is not the materiality of life. The air we breathe and the food we eat is important. But it is not all-important. More important than the stuff are the relationships. The physical environment exists to makes the social environment possible. We are most healthy when the physical serves the social, not the other way around.

One hears echoes of Martin Buber here. Buber characterizes the self as living in one of two modes of existence, I-It or I-Thou. In the I-It mode the self maintains objective distance from things. In the I-You mode a person encounters another person.

In the I-You relation the self sees the world through interaction with others. The only genuine knowledge of other people comes not through objective analysis, but through involvement, and through sharing experiences together.

A mother doesn't study her baby. She hugs him.

The Ten Commandments do not address the way a person thinks. Rather, they are concerned about how a person behaves. But they do not address specific behaviors. If they did, then they would truly be a set of rules. They go much deeper than a simple rule book. They challenge the root values that motivate behavior. They orient the human heart to the importance of people.