This was a paper I wrote some time ago, and I thought I would post it; I apologize for the spacing.
Recently,
an article about a very candid interview of the investor Bernard
Madoff was published by New
York magazine.
This
article was intended to give a portrait Mr. Madoff from his own
perspective after spending roughly the last two years of a 150 year
sentence in federal prison. Mr. Madoff was sentenced thus for a $65
billion Ponzi scheme that had repercussions over five continents and
affected thousands of investors (Fishman, 2011). However, according
to his own words, he feels “misunderstood,” and that he is “…a
good person,” (Ibid). On the opening page of the aforementioned
article, Mr. Fishman writes:
“And
so, sitting with his therapist, in prison khakis he irons himself, he
seeks assurance. ‘Everybody on the outside kept claiming I was a
sociopath,’ Madoff told her one day. ‘I asked her [the
therapist], “Am I a sociopath?”’ He waited expectantly, his
eyelids squeezing open and shut, that famous tic. ‘She said,
“You’re absolutely not a sociopath. You have morals. You have
remorse.” Madoff paused as he related this. His voice settled. He
said to me, “I am a good person.”” (Ibid)
These
statements by Mr. Madoff and his therapist are charged with the
slipshod, relativist morality of contemporary thought and will be the
main focus of this discourse heretofore.
How
does one define goodness, morality, or ethics? These terms come with
a surfeit of philosophical and pseudo-intellectual baggage, but is
there a way of knowing, beyond a doubt what these expressions truly
mean? Contemporarily many have embraced the philosophy of moral
relativism wholesale; that is, one’s ethical system and morality is
dictated and judged by them, and is ultimately true for them
and
is not affected by any transcendent reality or standard because,
according to this philosophy, there is no such thing. Logic, however,
would disagree; for Plato, a master logician and philosopher, taught
that the material or human concepts which would
be called “good, right, just, et al.,” are merely imperfect
examples of a perfect exemplar who is the very source of such
qualities (Nash, 1999). To wit, one cannot conceive of something as
good without having a canon, a measure, by which to compare that
which is called “good.” For example, if I call a man “good” I
must therefore have something by which to measure that standard of
“goodness” because the definition of a “good” meal and a
“good” man are, to be sure, not one and the same. How then would
one who, by their own worldview, is the final judge upon any issue of
“goodness” define such a thing? Is one who has never seen a horse
able to define that animal? Is “horse-ness” relative to the
observer? Absolutely not, a horse is a tangible thing, an animal that
is defined by a clearly perceived reality.
Furthermore, Mr. Madoff said that he was a “good man,” but Mr.
Madoff has made his assertion on biased and false information, as
will be shown below. If he is “good,” then by whose standard is
he so: the psychiatrist, the prison warden or his fellow inmates?
Clearly, none of these are the perfect canon by which Mr. Madoff can
compare himself, yet in the quote above, Mr. Madoff clearly believes
that the counterfeit absolution he received from the prison
psychiatrist based upon the grounds of his alleged “morality” and
“remorse,” makes him a “good” man. Mr. Madoff has shown some
of the qualities of contrition, but this does not make him a good
man, and the absurdity of such an assertion of “goodness”
therefore begs the question, what then is goodness and how does one
define it?
As
stated above, there must be a canon of a virtue to define what that
virtue truly is and then measure a subject based upon that canon. In
nature, there is not one specific thing that can be pointed to that
perfectly embodies a virtue. There are men who do “good” (in some
sense) but all men have their faults; animals surely do not embody
any virtue for they have not the
capacity to understand or act in a moral fashion. However, there is a
way of seeing the perfect by viewing the imperfect.
From
time immemorial, man has known at the very core of his being that
there is something greater than himself. One need only stand upon the
majestic peaks of a mountain or view the splendor of a night sky to
know that man in all his glory is an insignificant feature in a vast,
nearly immeasurable cosmos. Therefore man has, via the institution of
religion, worshiped a transcendent being who is often modeled after
the created order that they perceive (cf. animism, the Greek and
Roman Pantheon, et al.). In Paul’s letter to the Roman church, he
clearly speaks of this very reality by stating:
“For
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the
truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them [mankind],
because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes,
namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly
perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that
have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:18-20,
parentheses added)
Also:
“Claiming
to be wise, they [mankind] became fools and exchanged the glory of
the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and
animals and reptiles.” (Romans 1:22-23, parentheses added)
And
finally:
“The
LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there
are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned
aside;
together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not
even one. (Psalm 14:2-3; emphasis added)
These
verses of sacred Scripture drive right to the heart of the issue that
Mr. Madoff and a host of others patently deny and suppress; namely,
that man is by his very nature evil and corrupt and wants nothing
whatsoever to do with God or His Law. Man, rather than acknowledge
the revealed God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, would rather fashion
his own god to serve his own desires and therefore “suppresses the
truth.”
Therefore,
man by his very nature is not good, and by virtue of the fact that
Mr. Madoff is indeed a man, neither is he. It is this transcendent
reality that is fundamental to any reasonable understanding of man’s
true nature. Why then does man display what would be considered good
and virtuous behavior? Because man is made in the image of God
(Genesis 1:26) and conceives of all things by that very image. All
virtues, all knowledge (Colossians 2:3) issue from the fount of
wisdom that is God Himself, and man, even in his sin and corrupt
nature, reflects the image of his Creator, albeit in a drastically
distorted manner. Therefore, the perfect Exemplar for goodness is God
Himself and man would know nothing of what goodness looked like
without God’s revelation to him. God,
then, is the perfect embodiment of Goodness (Psalm 119:68), Truth
(John 17:17, 18:37), and Love (1 John 4:7, 8). This clearly shows
that when Mr. Madoff made the statement “I am a good person,” he
immensely exaggerates, and indeed deceives, himself of his true
nature. To be “good” Mr. Madoff must know from whence true,
perfect Goodness derives, namely God, and
as is the case for most who are not delusional narcissists or
schizophrenics, few mere men would dare say that they are God.
Mr.
Madoff accepted the empty platitudes of a psychiatrist as
confirmation of his “goodness” but has no true understanding of
what goodness actually is. This is the essence of understanding
ethics and morality: there must
be a canon. If one is to derive their morality or ethical system
based upon their own perceptions, fabrications, and inconsistent
understanding then one has no valid ethical system. Just as
“horse-ness” cannot be defined without knowing what constitutes a
horse, so ethics and morality cannot be defined without knowing their
ultimate origins. This is the fundamental flaw in the modern mind
that is so apparent in Mr. Madoff’s statement about himself. Simply
having what could be perceived as an ethical system or remorse for
some perceived wrong does not, in point of fact, show that a person
understands what is required to be good because that person must
measure themselves against the perfect Good.
To
conclude, when one honestly examines themselves before God and His
revealed Law, that person cannot help but to know that they are not
good, but God being rich in mercy has provided a means of
justification (i.e. being declared not guilty) by faith in the person
and work of His only Son, Jesus Christ, His shed blood on the cross
for sin, and His resurrection from the dead. This is not religion or
the fabrication of a deaf and dumb idol but recorded history of a God
who provides a means of redemption from the total inadequacies of our
“goodness,” for:
“And
you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your
flesh, God made alive together with Him (Christ Jesus), having
forgiven us all our trespasses by
canceling
the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This
He set aside nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-14;
parentheses added)
To
wit, one cannot construct their ethical or moral standards based on
their own perception because that perception is flawed and corrupt,
and neither for that matter can Mr. Madoff. Instead of looking for
pardon or confirmation from a prison psychiatrist or the institution
of man, Mr. Madoff and indeed all men should be looking to the Son of
God who has done all that God requires to become well and truly good
through faith in Him for the forgiveness of sins.
