Christian Pragmatism: Speeding and Intentional Fouls

When Joseph Fletcher’s book Situation Ethics hit the market, Bible believers everywhere decried its frontal attack on the biblical teaching that there are moral absolutes. Several years later, Values Clarification by Sidney Simon brought a similar outcry, particularly from Christian educators. They correctly recognized it as a tool for pressuring children who held strong beliefs into a philosophically heterogeneous middle ground. Faithful servants of the Lord have preached and taught against the evils of the philosophy of pragmatism promoted by these books and others like them. In spite of that fact, many Christians are now applying the basic philosophical tenet that underlies these notorious attacks on the Christian faith to the decisions they make in their everyday lives.

Philosophy in a Nutshell

To better understand the nature of the problem, it is necessary to take a brief excursion into the history of philosophy. Until relatively recent times, three philosophical schools of thought prevailed–idealism, realism and neo-Thomism. Although different from each other in many ways, all three schools of thought agreed that there must be moral absolutes. They differed in the source to which they attributed the absolutes rather than in the question of their existence.

In the last century this long-standing acceptance of absolutes was rejected by two upstart philosophies–pragmatism and existentialism. These modern schools of thought differed significantly from each other. However, they agreed on one highly significant point–that moral absolutes do not exist and should not fetter human judgments. In stark contrast, the Bible clearly teaches that man is not able, in terms of either will or capacity, to guide himself by his own reasoning apart from the fixed reference points of moral absolutes (Proverbs 20:24, 28:26; Jeremiah 10:23).

Applied Philosophy

An individual’s beliefs regarding the existence of moral absolutes have a strong effect on his actions. A person who does not believe in absolutes does not believe that any action is inherently right or wrong. Instead, he judges the moral value of his actions in terms of the value of the outcomes of those actions. His attention is focused almost exclusively on the nature of the outcomes and only minimally, if at all, on the moral nature of the actions precipitating those outcomes. The practical outworking of this approach is obedience to laws only when an individual believes that it is personally beneficial to obey or that he will get caught if he violates the laws and will have to pay too stiff a penalty for the benefits he anticipates.

A person who believes in absolutes accepts the proposition that there are things that are inherently "right," and he "does right until the stars fall." In other words, he does what he believes is right and is willing to accept the consequences of his actions, even if he anticipates that they will be undesirable. His concern is focused primarily on the correctness of his actions and only secondarily on the anticipated benefits of the outcomes. Although human ordinances do not rise to the level of moral absolutes stated in God’s Word, the Bible teaches that it is right to obey human laws and regulations (Romans 13:1-5). Therefore, Christians should voluntarily obey laws simply because it is right to obey them, even though it may not be personally beneficial to do so.

Pragmatism and Rationalization

Human ordinances are subject to legitimate exceptions bounded by the commands and precepts taught in God’s Word. However, a major problem develops when rational thinking guided by the whole counsel of God degenerates into rationalization guided by personal desires or prejudices. Rationalization can become a handy method for justifying actions a person intends to take regardless of moral reservations he may have. Some Christians utilize this process when they use less-than-clear Bible passages to attempt to justify violating other clear commands in God’s Word.

Most fundamental Christians do not engage in such blatant rationalization. The trap in which they become entangled is much more insidious: they accept the pragmatic position that actions are acceptable if the benefits of the outcome outweigh the questionable nature of the means.

An experience from my teen years illustrates this thinking. Our church was having special evangelistic services. On the first night, the evangelist was not there by the time the service was to begin. He arrived in time to preach, and he began his sermon with tales of how fast he had driven to get there. After the service, my best friend’s mother shook his hand at the door and told him she was quite disappointed with his comments about speeding. She reminded him that her teenage son and the many other young boys in the congregation could not have avoided the conclusion that it is all right to speed if you are going somewhere to do good. He got rather angry, but he could do little else. All of us young lads with fresh driver’s licenses in our pockets had gotten the message.

Just Go with the Flow

I believe that Christians should not speed; exceeding the speed limit is breaking the law. To rationalize speeding, some driving enthusiasts use arguments about the design of the roads, the design of cars, the quality of modern tires, the stopping power of all-wheel disc brakes, and so on. I have personally owned GM F-cars for almost a decade, am aware of these technical considerations, and am familiar with the joys of driving a performance car. But I obey the speed limit because I believe that it is right to obey any law that does not force me to violate God’s Law. Speed limits certainly are not moral absolutes, and civil authorities make exceptions to them when appropriate (e.g., provisions for emergency vehicles and medical emergencies). However, it is hard to make a case that speed limits violate God’s Law and may be disregarded at will–particularly a case based on the mere existence of potential to safely exceed the limits.

Most Christians who speed do not justify their actions by using engineering arguments. Instead, they rationalize their speeding in terms of "going with the flow." Some claim that they speed in the interest of traffic safety. Traffic safety experts generally establish a range of speed they consider safe, reflected in minimum and maximum speed limits differing by 20-25 miles per hour. Therefore, arguing that all traffic must move at the same speed for safety reasons is at odds with the judgment of professionals. Other Christians go with the flow of traffic because they do not anticipate any adverse consequences as long as they stay with the crowd. In choosing to follow the crowd rather than obey the law, they have adopted the pragmatic philosophy and practice which pervades our society. Going with the flow regardless of its moral nature is an appropriate mode of action for a pragmatist, but it is not an approach advocated by God’s Word for believers to follow.

Just Part of the Game

"So," you may say, "why discuss intentional fouls in this philosophical context? They are just part of the game." In the first place, I have never had anyone satisfactorily demonstrate to me that intentional fouls are an intended part of any game. Fouls are included in game rules to accommodate the reality that almost no one can play perfectly; therefore, some allowance must be made for failures. The foul allows for ineptness, but it carries a penalty with the intent of compensating the offended and motivating less-skilled players and teams to improve.

Secondly, intentional fouls are typically committed for the most pragmatic of reasons. That is, they are usually carried out in the hope that the benefits of the foul (e.g., getting possession of the ball or preventing a score) will outweigh the disadvantages (e.g., advantage or scoring opportunity for the other team). This comparison of benefits and consequences lies at the very heart of pragmatic decision making and should be avoided by principled Christians.

The third problem with intentional fouls occurs when coaches encourage their players to commit such fouls. When that happens, those who are supposed to be teaching right thinking and behavior (at least in Christian settings) are actually teaching wrong thinking and behavior. If mature Christians advocate wrong thinking and behavior, spiritual disaster is in the making. As a Christian school administrator, I was able to make this point very clearly with one of my coaches. One day he came into my office quite upset with a team member who had violated one of his classroom rules. I asked him to explain the situation to me. His explanation made it very clear that the student had gained much more than he had lost by breaking the rule. I asked the coach to explain the difference between the student’s actions in the classroom and the student’s actions when committing intentional fouls at his coach’s instruction during a game. The essence of the answer was that a coach should be able to choose to break rules in a basketball game, but a student should not be allowed to choose to break rules in the classroom. That day I had a unique opportunity to deal with the coach about his wrong thinking as well as deal with the student for his wrong behavior.

A Final Note

Anyone serving in a Christian school ministry should be ever mindful of the things that he is teaching both explicitly and implicitly. If Christian school staff members choose to obey or violate laws or rules based on their determination of which action is most personally beneficial, they should not be surprised if their students emulate their behavior. However, the students may get into serious trouble because immaturity and lack of worldly wisdom prevent them from accurately judging the consequences of their choices. Would it not be much better if students were taught to make all decisions based on principles rather than pragmatics, leaving the outcomes in the hands of our omniscient God?

Reprinted from Balance, a publication of the School of Education, Bob Jones University. Used with permission of Bob Jones University. Please write BJU Press, for permission to reproduce this article.