The Bible's Gospel of John, which records the story of Jesus and an adulterous woman, is well worth pondering and playing with. This story tells us a very simple truth: when there is a conflict between human nature and social rules, moral judgment seems to be the most effective way to resolve the conflict.
One day, Jesus was preaching in the temple when several scripture teachers and Pharisees who had tried to frame him brought a woman and asked him, "This woman was caught for adultery. Moses law stipulates that such a woman should be stoned to death. What do you think? Jesus bent down and drew words on the ground with his fingers. When the men kept asking, Jesus stood up and said, "Whoever among you has not sinned can be stoned first." After saying these words, Jesus bent down and drew on the ground. Those who tried to frame Jesus slipped away quietly, and in the end, only Jesus and the woman remained. Then Jesus stood up and asked her, "Woman, where have they all gone?" Did no one stay to condemn you? The woman said, "Sir, no. Then Jesus said, "Well, I will not condemn you either." Go ahead and stop sinning. ”
There is a very frightening hypothetical premise in this story, that if you have committed a crime, you cannot hold others accountable, or if you have made the same mistake, you cannot hold others accountable under the established rules. On this premise, Jesus carried out the moral judgment, and He used the moral power within people to change people's own behavior and motivations. The scriptural teachers and Molisees in the story who tried to frame Jesus set a dilemma for Jesus, if Jesus approved of the law of Moses, the woman who committed adultery could lose her life because Jesus approved of the law of Moses, and Jesus would have to bear the notoriety of lack of compassion and disregard for human life; if Jesus did not approve of the law of Moses, they would say that Jesus himself did not obey the rules, and Jesus naturally could not ask others to obey the rules, thus forming a dilemma between human nature and rules. In the dilemma, moral judgment is the best way to solve the dilemma. Jesus used the hypothetical premise that "whoever among you has not sinned will first stone her" to transform the dilemma created by others into a moral judgment against others, and to transfer the dilemma to the other party by moral judgment. The scriptural lecturers and morisees fled in ashes out of fear of their own sin.
Jesus judged several bible teachers and Pharisees who tried to frame him in a moral judgment. Jesus in the story made this judgment on the assumption that everyone is guilty. In essence, he pursues the sin of people's thoughts, and from the point of view of the human mind, everyone is a criminal of adultery. Thought is premeditated, behavior is present, and treating the fault of thought and the fault of action as the same thing is the theoretical basis for the moral judgment of human society.
However, when some people interpret this story to the chinese people, they not only swallow the dates and eat them alive, but also deliberately conceal the true message of this story, and under the premise that Jesus assumes that everyone is guilty, they also assume a probabilistic premise, that only in an authoritarian society can people organize moral courts and conduct moral judgments, as if moral judgments did not exist since ancient times, nor were they invented by the people of the earth. In a blog post, they put it this way: "In any authoritarian system, there is bound to be a harsh moral court whose duty is to judge human nature as a sin in the name of morality." In fact, by this measure, everyone is guilty, at least a potential sinner. But perhaps because of this, moral judgment is more capable of arousing crazy enthusiasm. This is the conclusion that the owner of the blog post came to after reading the story of Jesus and the woman who committed adultery, and such a conclusion is either misleading or has ulterior motives. If human nature is not measured by human morality, what is used to judge the good and evil of human nature, is not the social manifestation of the evil of human nature by the scriptural lecturers and the Morisai people in framing Jesus? What really needs to be vigilant is the evil deeds committed in the name of moral judgment.
Moral judgment does not exist only in authoritarian societies, it exists in every corner of human society. We cannot deny the existential value of moral judgment by opposing the brutal struggle between people. From the above story, it can be seen that if there is a conflict between the existing rules and human nature, only moral judgment can avoid the intensification of contradictions and resolve contradictions and conflicts. People are against moral teachers rather than human morality. Morality is the common basis of human social existence, and a society without morality is unimaginable.
We must not lose sight of the existential value of moral judgment by opposing moral kidnapping.