The Root Values

The Book of Exodus identifies the Ten Commandments as consisting of “two tablets.” Is this because Moses ran out of room on one stone tablet and had to find a second to finish the job? Of course not.

This refers to two tables, or sections. The first has to do with one’s relationship to God, the second with one’s relationship to one’s neighbor.

Place the two tablets side by side. Each tablet corresponds to the other at the level of a value expressed. Here are five values oriented to two subjects: God and Neighbor. The value becomes one commandment when addressed to God, a different but related commandment when addressed to the Neighbor. Five Root Values emerge out of each paired commandment.

Remember Macmurray’s insight into the nature of the individual as one constituted as a person in relation. The Bible conceives of the universe as the act of a personal God. God acts as the intentional agent of creation. This requires that God be addressed in personal terms. To speak of the divine source of the creation as a “force” or “power” misrepresents the nature of God.

The Ten Commandments provide consistent principles of relation to both the personal God and other persons who are created in God’s image.

What then are the root values expressed in the Ten Commandments that make possible the formation of a covenant community, a community of genuine mutuality and support?