Nugent has declared that he does not intend to draw legalistic lines on this issue or accuse anyone of anything. I suppose his continued accusations of idolatry, far greater and more detailed in his latest post than in any previous one in this series, depend upon a murkier definition or no definition at all, and he merely believes he is being helpful to his fellow Christians by warning them of possible danger. How thoughtful of him. I intend to build on his rock solid foundation by examining the sin of idolatry in further detail. Perhaps these details are "boring" to some, but I have personally found an exploration of details to be absolutely necessary in answering difficult questions. Hopefully this exercise will be helpful to Christians genuinely concerned about the issue. I decided the best way would be to run through a series of examples where we can come to intuitive conclusions and try to build a method which matches our intuition to reasoning.
Example 1: A person says he worships Satan.
Intuition: Yes, obviously this is idolatry. But why?
Question 1: Is this person putting something else in God's rightful position?
Answer: Yes. God is the rightful Lord of mankind and the rightful object of worship, and worshiping Satan artificially displaces Him from that position. From this example perhaps we may tentatively come to the conclusion that idolatry is an artificial displacement of God from his rightful position.
Question 2: Is this true?
Answer: Yes. In one sense we can assume the claim is true because the person is simply acting as a witness to his own action. But in another sense, we know that God is the rightful object of worship and that He cannot be moved. All glory and honor are His. So can a person really worship Satan? I suppose they can, but it will not change the fact that God is who He is. So in one sense the claim is true, but in another sense the claim is false in that the attempt to displace God from His position is futile. However this question reduces to the first question. Therefore whether a statement is true or not seems to have less bearing on whether or not something is idolatrous than Question 1 does.
Question 3: Is this person removing His allegiance from God?
Answer: No. Perhaps this person is a Hindu or believes in yin and yang. He sees Satan and God as equal and opposite forces, but there is no need to declare allegiance to one over the other. One could conceivably have allegiance to one, both or neither. So until we ask the person directly whether they have removed their allegiance from God we won't know the answer.
Question: Is this person giving his allegiance to something other than God?
Answer: Yes. Allegiance is identifying oneself with another thing, and we can probably assume that worship of Satan constitutes allegiance to Satan.
Conclusion: We answered "yes" to Question 1 and 4, but the answers to Questions 2 and 3 were either ambiguous or undetermined. From this example we can say that perhaps Questions 1 and 4 are more pertinent to our purpose. We can tentatively conclude that answering "yes" to both questions may constitute idolatry.
Example 2: A man marries a woman.
Intuition: No, this is obviously not idolatry, but why?
Question 1: Is this person putting something else in God's rightful position?
Answer: No. God's rightful position is not to be anyone's spouse.
Question 2: Is this true?
Answer: Yes. The question is somewhat meaningless in this context, but in general marriage is an institution established by God as a legitimate one.
Question 3: Is this person removing his allegiance from God?
Answer: No, obviously not.
Question 4: Is this person giving his allegiance to something other than God?
Answer: Yes. Allegiance is identifying oneself with another thing, and getting married most certainly means the man is identifying himself with his new wife. We know that getting married is not idolatry, therefore a positive result on this question is not the determining factor in whether something counts as idolatry or not.
Conclusion: We answered "no" to Question 1, "yes" to Question 4 and Questions 2 and 3 were again ambiguous or unknown. The conclusion we came to in Example 1 stands. A positive answer to both Question 1 and 4 is required to determine idolatry. However there is another possible conclusion. Since Question 1 corresponded exactly to the conclusion in each Example and Question 4 did not, we could theorize that Question 1 is sufficient by itself. Now we have two competing hypotheses, but it is quite clear that Question 4 by itself cannot determine a positive or negative result. Question 1 must be included or our method could generate false positives. Let's examine some more diverse types of questions to make sure the method holds true. We might perhaps think of dropping Questions 2 and 3, but I will continue to ask them because I consider at least Question 2 to be important for other examples.
Example 3: A person drops a ball off the leaning tower of Pisa and it falls to the ground. The person declares that the law of gravity is the reason the ball fell to the ground.
Intuition: No, this is not idolatry, but why?
Question 1: Is this person putting something else in God's rightful position?
Answer: No. Christianity does not teach that God's rightful position is to be a "force directed toward centers of mass" or however one wishes to describe gravity.
Question 2: Is this true?
Answer: Yes...or is it? Suppose for purposes of discussion that the law of gravity is not self-existent. Suppose that what we call a law of physics is actually God's direct action upon the ball, and upon all other things which fit certain criteria. Scientists have correctly identified the criteria, but they still do not know what generates this force. What if there is no law of gravity and it is merely God's direct action and looks like a law? Would we then say that this claim is false? I submit that no, we wouldn't. A law may be something that is directly enforced by an authority. It may also be something which has been given force of its own and acts on its own. Either way, even if we believe God to be either directly, indirectly or even not responsible for the law of gravity, in no way is this claim false. We could make a further claim that God is behind the law of gravity, or that God has created the law of gravity, but neither of these claims negate the first claim that the law is responsible for the ball falling to the ground.
Question 3: Is this person removing his allegiance from God?
Answer: No, obviously.
Question 4: Is this person giving his allegiance to something other than God?
Answer: No. He is merely stating something he believes to be a fact, and it is a fact which does not require the giving of any allegiances. But suppose this person did declare his allegiance to the law of gravity. What then? Doubtless such a person would be considered quite strange, but it seems unlikely to be the cause for any moral concern. After all, he is merely acknowledging what all men must acknowledge. We are under the law of gravity whether we like it or not.
Conclusion: Here we have an example of "no" answers to Questions 1, 3 and 4 but a "yes" answer to Question 2. Our conclusion is that this is not idolatry just because the claim is true. Thank goodness! We are not put in the position of being called idolaters simply by making claims which are true. Ascribing actions to lesser powers than God is not automatically idolatry. We must ask the question: does this giving of credit remove God from His rightful position? Let's examine another claim about the law of gravity which appears to do just that.
Example 4: A person declares that the law of gravity created the universe.
Intuition: Yes. If I had to go in a particular direction here, I would say that this does indeed to be an idolatrous claim. But let's see what our method comes up with.
Question 1: Is this person putting something else in God's rightful position?
Answer: Yes, at first glance. God is the creator of the universe, not gravity, and therefore this claim puts the law of gravity in God's rightful place. Stephen Hawking intends just that. But supposing this person believed that God created the law of gravity first, and then the law of gravity created the rest of the universe on its own. What then? Is this belief still idolatrous even if we submit that God created the law of gravity? I would say no with some qualification. Supposing this person is a Deist and believes God had no care or concern for what happened after he created the law of gravity. Supposing he is a theistic evolutionist who believes that God did not really create life on earth, rather it just happened through blind chance and God is responsible to some degree because he created the universe in which life arose randomly? Such a case is more ambiguous. Yes, God is still the Creator, but He is not credited with the creation of life, which the Bible clearly gives Him credit for whatever one may think about the interpretation of Genesis. But a theistic evolutionist who says that God included His plan for all creation in the law of gravity, such that the law of gravity had no creative power except that which was given to it by God and merely was the vehicle of God's plan, a carrier of information that originated with God, than this is not in the least objectionable or idolatrous. It would be a bit dim, like saying a hammer created a house without reference to the carpenter, but with further qualification we would know what the person meant. However without such qualifications we can say that this statement by itself removes God from His position as Creator of the universe.
Question 2: Is this true?
Answer: No, I do not believe so. Even supposing Hawking is entirely correct in the scientific particulars, but one adds on that God created the law of gravity which did everything else, there are many reasons to believe that the law of gravity simply does not contain all the information necessary to create all of life, much less immaterial realities such as morality. I am not a physicist, so I won't comment on the possibility that he could be correct on other things like planets and galaxies, but there is simply no possibility that all of the information necessary for the generation of life can be carried by the relatively simple law of gravity. In biology we are talking about billions of DNA nucleotides arranged in precise order. Forget physics, even chemistry cannot explain how they simply self-organized into correct sequences. And if there was a particular sequence favored by chemistry and physics, why do we have so many different sequences instead of just one? (The Darwinist would answer that random chance has provided the variation, but this falls under removing God as the Creator in my book.) And why has it proved impossible to throw the ingredients together in a soup and produce a working sequence? Why have we been unable to observe and record, many times, the supposed universal common ancestor rising from the primordial soup? If the laws of physics and chemistry favored such a thing, we would know it by now. Some would say that we simply need more time, and arguing that such a thing is impossible is merely an argument from ignorance. They say we will find out in the future. That's certainly possible. It's also possible we will find out in the future that pigs fly. But according to our current knowledge they don't. Indeed, our current knowledge is enough to suggest that they never will for various reasons.
Question 3: Is this person removing his allegiance from God?
Answer: No.
Question 4: Is this person giving his allegiance to something other than God?
Answer: No. There are no questions of allegiance in sight. The person is merely stating what he believes to be a fact.
Conclusion: This statement taken by itself is idolatrous, but we must admit that qualifications exist and are made by some that would remove concern. This sort of thing sounds like a bit of a gray area, but I can still offer a clear guideline: Do not remove God from His rightful place as Creator. And I would be extremely careful speaking of Jesus and Darwin as if they were equal authorities. God is God. Jesus Christ is God. They are at the top of the heap. All other authorities are intermediate. The conclusion we can draw from the two examples involving gravity is that sometimes there are intermediate authorities between God and man, or between God and His Creation. To recognize these authorities is not idolatrous. To put them in God's position or set them against God is idolatrous, and this can serve as another good guideline we can draw from this exercise. We should also remember that single sentence statements often do not contain all the information necessary to answer these questions. Let's examine some other possible intermediate authorities.
Example 5: A person prays to the angel Michael.
Intuition: Ambiguous. Some Christians feel this is idolatrous. Others feel it is not. At this point we are examining issues without a clear or obvious answer. We are getting real.
Question 1: Is this person putting something else in God's rightful position?
Answer: No. The Bible contains several examples of the angel Michael fighting spiritual battles. There is no attempt to remove God from His position, to set any intermediate power against Him or to recognize any power outside God's chain of command. Michael is one of God's angels. He is clearly under God's authority, just like the law of gravity, and is capable of action under that authority. It is not idolatrous to recognize that and place hope in it.
Question 2: Is this true?
Answer: No. While it is true that Michael exists and apparently his purpose is to fight spiritual battles, the Bible offers no evidence that human beings can pray to him or any other angels. We are told to pray directly to God, who controls His angels. We are also informed that the Holy Spirit is a sort of intermediary between us and God the Father, bringing our requests to Him using "groans that words cannot express". However there is no evidence that Michael, Gabriel, the Virgin Mary or any spirits of dead Christians are in any position similar to the Holy Spirit. In fact when one such scenario is presented in Luke 16, Abraham is asked to do something which he refuses to do. Also when King Saul of Israel summons the ghost of the dead prophet Samuel he is harshly rebuked. The Bible does say that humans are greater than the angels, and that we will rule over them in heaven, but there's nothing to suggest that we can call upon them at will now. Jesus Christ could have called upon angels to help him, but He did not do so, and anyway He was God incarnate.
Question 3: Is this person removing his allegiance from God?
Answer: No.
Question 4: Is this person giving his allegiance to something other than God?
Answer: No. This person is asking a being to do something. There is no question of allegiance involved.
Conclusion: Praying to Michael or the Virgin Mary may be wrong-headed, but it is not idolatrous unless one is placing these intermediate authorities in God's position or setting them against God. If for instance, one were to ascribe to Michael or Mary powers that only God has, such as the forgiveness of sins or the creation of the world, then we would have to answer "yes" to Question 1 and such an act would be idolatrous. But merely recognizing these beings as intermediary authorities within God's legitimate chain of command, whether the person has understood that chain of command rightly or not, does not by itself constitute idolatry. Perhaps their prayers are futile. Perhaps the Holy Spirit brings them to God in the spirit in which they were intended. Perhaps the Virgin Mary becomes slightly vexed at being asked to do a job she has not even applied for, preferring to remain at rest, but such things do not constitute idolatry.
Example 6: A person erects an Asherah pole.
Intuition: Yes, but why?
Question 1: Is this person putting something else in God's rightful position?
Answer: Yes. Asherah was an ancient fertility goddess outside Yahweh's chain of command. An appeal to her was an appeal to powers not beholden to God in a world where all power and authority belongs to Him. This is similar to Example 1 in that respect.
Question 2: Is this true?
Answer: No. Asherah does not exist. Fertility is a teleological quality determined by a large range of physical forces and factors that were created by God and exist like the law of gravity as intermediate authorities between God and His Creation.
Question 3: Is this person removing his allegiance from God?
Answer: No.
Question 4: Is this person giving his allegiance to something other than God?
Answer: Yes, perhaps. By erecting an Asherah pole we could say this person is declaring some affinity with Asherah.
Conclusion: While an appeal to Asherah to increase one's fertility is idolatrous because Asherah is a power outside God's chain of command, a similar attempt to increase one's fertility by scientific means is not idolatrous because the physical laws surrounding fertility are within God's chain of command. God created fertility as a biological phenomenon. Is it not wrong to appeal to biology to recreate fertility where it has been broken or gone wrong somehow. It would be idolatrous to appeal to Asherah, Athena or any other false fertility goddess because this is not part of God's structure of authority in the world. Now I sense that perhaps we should have been asking a fifth question all along. We should also ask the question: Does this action, belief or saying attribute authority to something outside God's chain of command or not under His authority? For purposes of continuity, I will not openly ask the question, but it will be a part of my analysis as we continue.
Example 7: A person declares allegiance to the United States of America.
Intuition: No. The vast majority of Christians have never viewed this as an idolatrous act, however some do, creating a small window of ambiguity.
Question 1: Is this person putting something else in God's rightful position?
Answer: No. God's rightful position is the master of nations and states. A person declaring allegiance to a nation or state is placing himself under an intermediate authority that God has legitimized within His chain of command and within His structure of authority in the world. Declaring allegiance has nothing to do with placing God in this or that position. Declaring allegiance to a nation or state under God's authority does nothing to displace Him from that authority.
Question 2: Is this true?
Answer: Yes. Nations and states do exist, and they are a part of God's structure of authority in the world.
Question 3: Is this person removing his allegiance from God?
Answer: No.
Question 4: Is this person giving his allegiance to something other than God?
Answer: Yes, obviously. This is similar to Example 2, and I will discuss the issue of allegiance further after we are done with these examples.
Conclusion: This I believe is the real point of contention between myself and Nugent, and so I will withhold further discussion until the end. Nugent does not say so in his posts, but I have sufficient experience with his point of view to know that his definition of idolatry depends upon questions of allegiance. The purpose of this exercise is to put questions of idolatry on their proper footing. Obviously I do not consider placing allegiance in a particular nation or state to be any more idolatrous than a marriage vow, church membership or being a fan of a particular sports team. The real question has nothing to do with allegiance. The real question is where is God in the equation? Is He still God? Does He still have all authority and power? Are we attributing power and authority that only God has and has not delegated into the hands of other authorities outside His proper chain of command? It is quite possible that some attempt to do just that with nations or states, just as it is possible to do with the law of gravity or the Virgin Mary.
Example 8: A person declares that the United States of America is the hope of the earth.
Intuition: Yes, with some ambiguity. This sort of statement ought to raise warning bells in the conscience of any Christian.
Question 1: Is this person putting something else in God's rightful position?
Answer: Yes. I am not familiar with the phrase "hope of the earth". I do not believe it occurs in the Bible, however it is reasonable to believe that the ultimate "hope of the earth" is Jesus Christ and not a particular nation or state, and therefore this statement is idolatrous because it puts the USA in the place of Jesus Christ. However, like Example 4 we should be aware that many, if not most, people who have said this or similar things would offer qualifications upon further questioning. For instance, supposing that the ultimate "hope" or "destiny" of all things was not what was intended by the phrase. Supposing for instance the phrase merely refers to the hope that Kuwaitis had that the United States would rescue them from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein? I have personally met a Kuwaiti who was, to say the least, thankful that the United States intervened in 1991 to prevent his country from being taken over by the tyrant. Would it be idolatrous to suggest that other nations may look to that instance and hope that the United States would intervene on their behalf if something similar happened to them? I do not think so. Nations and states are, as I said before, a legitimate part of God's chain of command. It is not inappropriate to ask them to act in matters that are under their limited measure of authority, delegated to them by God. It is not inappropriate to "hope" that they will act rightly and with justice in the exercise of that authority on the earth. However the statement taken by itself with no further qualification must be taken as idolatrous, just like the statement in Example 4.
Question 2: Is this true?
Answer: No. If we are taking the statement with no further qualification than it is not true. The United States will one day fall as all other states have, and the earth will be just fine.
Question 3: Is this person removing his allegiance from God?
Answer: No.
Question 4: Is this person giving his allegiance to something other than God?
Answer: No. The statement does not imply any sort of allegiance. The Kuwaiti in the answer to Question 1 may say and believe such a thing without placing his allegiance in the United States. One may place his allegiance in Kuwait or France or Zimbabwe and still be able to make this statement without any contradictions.
Conclusion: The statement is idolatrous. However we recognize that it's meaning could be limited in such a way that it would no longer be idolatrous, similar to the statement that gravity created the universe. We also have a clear example of an idolatrous statement that is not a statement of allegiance. Once again allegiance seems to have nothing to do with whether or not something is idolatrous. I chose this statement because Mitt Romney made it in the third presidential debate this year, and Nugent specifically referred to it in his posts as an idolatrous statement. I am in agreement with Nugent on this, but I do not think he has sufficiently explained why and is therefore extending his suspect reasoning to other things which are not idolatrous.
Example 9: Manifest Destiny
Intuition: Ambiguous. Some might consider this idolatrous and others might not. It probably depends on a thorough definition. For simplicity's sake I will use the following definition: A belief that the United States is destined by God to physically expand its borders to include all of North America. It should be noted that this belief did not survive the passing of the 19th century. Some have suggested in a pejorative fashion that the belief still exists as the idea that the United States is destined to expand democracy and freedom in the world. I believe that is mostly hogwash, but let's just take the original definition and go with that.
Question 1: Is this person putting something else in God's rightful position?
Answer: No. In fact the belief affirms God's place as the authority over the United States.
Question 2: Is this true?
Answer: No. The United States is done expanding and neither Canada nor Mexico are part of it. Furthermore there is no evidence from any credible source whatsoever that God intended any state except Israel to have any specific borders.
Question 3: Is this person removing his allegiance from God?
Answer: No. This belief specifically affirms a nation's allegiance to God.
Question 4: Is this person giving his allegiance to something other than God?
Answer: No. The belief sort of implies allegiance to the United States, but it is not by itself a statement of allegiance. A French or British scholar may, and some probably did, ascribe to this view without declaring allegiance to the United States.
Conclusion: Here we have another example of a clearly false belief that is not automatically made idolatrous by virtue of its being untrue. This is similar to Example 5. Thus we can conclude that beliefs are not idolatrous simply by being false. Thank goodness! Otherwise every theologian who was wrong about something would be committing idolatry.
Example 10: American exceptionalism
Intuition: No. But again we have a question of definition, and here we run into the unfortunate habit of publicly educated Americans forgetting the meaning of words and substituting simplistic value judgments. Thus "exceptional" no longer means "an exception to a general rule or tendency" and now means "AWESOME! HUR!!! GOD THINKS WE ARE SO COOL!!!" American exceptionalism neither means nor even implies any such thing. It means there are certain general truths about nations that the United States has in some way avoided. It is the exception to the rules, or stating another way, exceptional. There is much more to say here that will be said in the next post.
Question 1: Is this person putting something else in God's rightful position?
Answer: No. Claiming that a nation-state has not followed the general trend most other nation-states follow says absolutely nothing whatsoever about God's position.
Question 2: Is this true?
Answer: Yes. We are getting into the subject of the next post, but it certainly seems to be the case that in the history of nations the United States of America exhibits several unique features. One of the biggest features is its lack of any ethnic identity. We don't think twice of identifying people of any race as Americans. Go visit France sometime and see how the French people view French citizens and immigrants who are not ethnically French. The general rule among nations is to identify a nation by ethnicity, and perhaps to build a state upon that identity. The national identity of Americans is dependent upon a particular political ideology, and it was this way from the beginning, even before the actual governing institutions were created after the American Revolution. One can question this ideology if one wants, but it still makes America an exception to the general rule.
Question 3: Is this person removing his allegiance from God?
Answer: No. Once again this point of view has no particular bearing on allegiance or lack thereof.
Question 4: Is this person giving his allegiance to something other than God?
Answer: No. See above.
Final Conclusion:
Question 1 is clearly the question a Christian ought to be asking himself if he is worried he might be committing idolatry. Idolatry is above all a position taken on the question of God: who He is and where and how His authority extends. The question of secondary causality and intermediate authorities quickly comes to the fore. In such cases it seems reasonable to ask first whether one is denying God's authority, then to ask whether or not these secondary causes and intermediate authorities have been appointed by God or not. Here the Bible is an invaluable guide. It seems that the book of Genesis, as well as some esoteric statements in the New Testament support the notion that God has created the universe and established constraints upon it that we call "laws". It also seems to be the case that God has delegated authority to human institutions that we may call "governments" or perhaps "states". To recognize such authority is not in the least idolatrous, it is merely acknowledging God's established chain of command and delegation of authority. It is certainly possible to become idolatrous by placing in these entities powers which are not theirs, but no adult can reject these authorities and remain a sane person. God has established them. They exist. To deny their authority is folly.
Questions of Allegiance
The question of allegiance has little bearing on the question of idolatry in my opinion. Nugent did not even address allegiance in his posts, but I brought it up because I know it is an issue for those of his position. Their problem seems to be the question of multiple allegiances. How can one person have multiple allegiances? In reality, all of these people are adults and do in fact maintain multiple allegiances in their own lives. They have already resolved these difficulties. For some reason they have failed to consider the same solution in their theology, which is why I call their position childish.
The obvious resolution to questions of multiple allegiances is to prioritize them properly. Once one has prioritized their allegiances than any conflict which arises is instantly resolved. Indeed, since allegiance to God includes all of God's creation, including a large number of possibilities for our lives, then living in allegiance to God should not present a great deal of difficulty to a person living in a world He created and exercises authority over. Any adult Christian in possession of the Holy Spirit is capable of recognizing genuine conflict where it exists. I think in his latest post Nugent has acknowledged as much, saying that he does not believe voting or other political activity is always idolatrous in every situation. If I read him right, he is a pacifist. This is the primary issue he and others seem to have with acknowledging the authority of earthly human governments within God's legitimate chain of command. They believe that the use of force and coercion by earthly governments is in conflict with their allegiance to God. I find this view ridiculous on the face of it, since the very passage suggesting God's delegation of authority to earthly governments specifically delegates the use of force, but that is a subject for another post. Here I only wished to address the question of idolatry, an accusation thrown out half-heartedly because of an entirely different issue. The use of force is clearly permitted for governments. But there are other things that do go against God's will. What does that imply about allegiances?
Supposing the person or lesser authority in which I have placed my allegiance does something against God's will? Am I to immediately withdraw my allegiance? Am I to run around pointing fingers at every little offense and calling down fire from heaven? I shudder to think what sort of impact this sort of behavior would have on a marriage. Allegiance does not imply the automatic acceptance of anything the other party does or believes. It is merely an identification with them as a member of the same group. Certainly there may be extreme circumstances which may necessitate breaking the allegiance, but these are gray areas. In general though, adults accept the faults and mistakes of others, recognizing that they themselves would be in poor shape if everyone broke their ties to them for any minor offense they committed. We work within the group, within our circle of allegiances, to correct each others' faults. Without such allegiances there would be no correction. It is only those who break allegiances at the drop of a hat that threaten society and civilization and all the ties that bind humans together.
The Roles and Gifts of Christians in the World
There are three men. The first is a recovering alcoholic. The second a recovered alcoholic. The third a man who has never once in his life been drunk or even been tempted. These three men are friends. They come across a group of alcoholics and decide together they wish to take action to help these people end their addiction to alcohol. What is the best way to proceed? they ask. They go to a fourth man, a wise man, and ask him what to do.
The wise man asks, "Is it not a particular gifting of the one who has never been tempted to never be tempted?"
Yes, they reply.
"And is it not the particular gifting of the recovered alcoholic to have had the very same experience as current alcoholics, such that he knows the path which they might travel as one who has already traversed it himself?"
Of course, they reply.
"And is it not dangerous for a recovering alcoholic to be around alcohol, for he might be tempted beyond what he can bear?"
Quite so, say the men.
"Then I advise you as follows: The recovered alcoholic shall go to these alcoholics and become friends with them. He will talk to them about their problem and discuss the difficulties which he well knows. He will present to them the beginning of the path away from that life, and in so doing might convince many of them to enter upon that path and leave their alcoholism behind. The one who has never been tempted shall go with him to keep the recovered alcoholic accountable, for he may fall back into old habits without someone who is not himself in danger to remind him of his new path and hold him steady on it. But the recovering alcoholic shall stay away from these alcoholics, for he may not have the strength to resist these temptations. Let him not venture into their presence until he himself has fully recovered and gained enough strength and confidence in his new path that he will not be easily tempted."
The three friends acknowledge his good advice, but the one who has never been tempted was troubled. Sir, he asks of the wise man, what if none had ever recovered from alcoholism? What good would I be without a recovered alcoholic?
The wise man replied, "The one who has never been tempted may very well venture into the alcoholics' company without being tempted, but if he tries to preach to them the virtues of temperance he will be regarded with suspicion. The alcoholics will not believe his testimony, for it contains no knowledge of the challenges and failings common to them. They will recognize he is not like them. They may even recognize his way is better. But they will see no way out of their problem and will become bitter. The man will irritate them to no end, and the relationship will fail."
But sir, asked the one never had been tempted, how does anyone recover from alcoholism if what you say is true?
"Well," said the wise man, "that is the mystery. But perhaps when the man is gone some may on their own and in the quiet of their own mind recognize the wisdom of the other man and leave their alcoholic friends and attempt the journey on their own, unbeknownst to the man who was never tempted."
Then, said he, the question is of the recovered alcoholic finding the one who was never tempted and making common cause with him, even though he may have originally resented him and only later recognized his wisdom.
"Yes," said the wise man. "That is the question."
