Mat 5:3 In the Gospel of Matthew a string of sayings called "The Beatitudes" praise lowly and afflicted persons for no reason but being lowly and afflicted. Like "How blest are the poor in spirit: the reign of God is theirs." The sorrowing are blest, for they shall be consoled. The lowly shall inherit the land. The single hearted shall see God.

The usual assumption is that some persons bleed for the lowly trying to widen God's tent to include as many persons as possible. That's not what Christ was saying with the beatitudes. He was saying that there is a greater virtue in lowliness. The reason is because it takes power to sin, and power is the positive reinforcement for sin. The lowly do not have the corruptive influences of power acting upon them, and they attempt to solve problems, which is the essence of morality. Then there are secondary cycles, where corrupt persons hate their victims, who are lowly and vulnerable persons, while the victims need truth and justice to survive by. Therefore, this situation puts the lowly in the position of promoting morality, truth and justice.

It's important to realize that this message is not promoted in Paul's version of Christianity. Conservatives and fundamentalists use Paul's theology to justify their selfishness, power mongering, exploitation, etc., while they fight a war against the lower classes. This is why promoting Paul's theology is an extremely serious corruption. It contradicts the moral truth which Christ taught and promotes corruption.

The beatitudes are part of a larger sermon which Christ delivered on a mountain; and this discourse is called "the sermon on the mount." Here are some elements of the sermon on the mount:

Sermon on the Mount

Mat 5:13 Christ said to his disciples, "You are the salt of the earth. But what if the salt goes flat? How can you restore its flavor? Then it is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot." He said his disciples are supposed to be salt. But what is salt? It is criticism. Christians are supposed to criticize corruption, because truth evolves forward through all interactions of realities, and truth ends sin.

It's important to realize that corrupt persons do the opposite. They cannot tolerate the negativism of criticism, because it would apply to themselves. This creates one of the motives for positivism. By seeing nothing but positivism, people are supposed to be unconcerned about corruption. A closely related tendency is for corrupt persons to create an image which is the opposite of their corruption in an attempt to conceal their corruption.

Notice that Paul did not criticize or explain the corruptions of sin. Certainly, he did a small amount of complaining; and he listed a few moral rules. But criticism is much more than that. It is developing surrounding realities, so the logic is the primary evidence. The correctness of relationships between realities determine truth in abstract areas such as morality.

Teaching Morality

Mat 5:14 In the same vein, Christ said, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden." This means moral persons are not supposed to disappear into the background but need to be teaching morality and correcting corruptions, because the whole purpose of material life is to end sin.

Mat 5:17-21 Then Christ said that he did not come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them, because not the smallest letter of the law shall be done away with until heaven and earth pass away. This means Christ builds upon the progress of earlier prophets in teaching morality to society. But it does not say that every crony of satan's who puts on a robe and claims to be a prophet is telling the truth. So how does a person know what is the law and what is not? This question is another matter which requires study. All Christ is saying at this point is that there are laws in the universe which determine morality, and he works with earlier prophets in attempting to clarify those laws.

Mat 5:38-42 Then Christ describes some of the requirements for morality, which are far more complex that the Ten Commandments might seem to indicate. He mentions anger and abusive language, lustful thoughts, divorce, oaths and nonretaliation. He said, "You have heard the commandment, 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.' But what I say to you is: offer no resistance to injury. When a person strikes you on the right cheek, turn and offer him the other. If anyone wants to go to law over your shirt, hand him your coat as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the man who begs from you. Do not turn you back on the borrower." This means tolerance and subservience are part of the moral path.

It's important to realize that this ethic is not taught anywhere else. However, it is learned in the lessons of life. Revenge creates problems, it doesn't solve them. Secular authorities and atheists gradually learn this lesson in an orderly society. But Paul did not teach this. He rationalized away sin saying it was taken care of on the cross instead of teaching people how to be moral. He dutifully listed a few moral requirements, but a machine can do that. Teaching requires a lot more than listing.

Even though worldly persons can sometimes see that revenge is not constructive, they usually cannot see the value of subservience. Since this ethic is less visible, there is a counter-ethic which moves around under the radar of open discourse. It says do unto others before they do unto you, and there is no free lunch. But more than slogans, corruption is taught by example. Corrupters teach each other not to be subservient by demonstrating belligerence.

Subservience

So what is the significance of subservience? At the personal level, a person defines and creates his worth through his results in solving problems for others. At the broader social level, life is created by solving problems, and the problems which are not solved, or are created, compound themselves as great expense for everyone. Creating and sustaining life is the essence of morality.

Mat 5:43-49 Then Christ carried this ethic even farther saying that a person should love his enemies. To worldly persons, loving enemies would be self-destruction. Why give enemies any advantage? Notice the starting point of the worldly logic. A worldly person assumes that life is a conflict with other persons, and defeating others makes him a winner. One of the main purposes of morality is to eliminate the conflicts with other persons. Loving enemies is how the conflicts are eliminated. It first removes the conflicts from one's own mind, and then it reduces conflicts in society.

Notice that this does not say that loving someone is to promote their corruptions. Christ described totally objective criteria for love saying God's sun rises on the bad and the good, he rains on the just and the unjust. Love is promoting the objective realities which solve peoples problems, not supporting someone's corruption.

Hypocrisy

Mat 6:5,6 Christ then gets into hypocrisy in Chapter 6. He said to keep deeds of mercy secret instead of trying to be seen as a do-gooder. He said to pray in private instead of public. Notice how often Christians want to pray openly. This includes an attempt by fundamentalists to instill prayer in the schools and government. What do they accomplish with it? It's not real prayer; its propaganda. And propaganda for what? For power mongering, which is a corruption.

Mat 6:19-21 Christ said not to store up material treasures but heavenly treasures. Following this he said a person cannot serve God and money (Mat 6:24). There is more than one important principle to notice in this. Obviously, he is saying power and money corrupt. Less visibly, there is also an indication of the purpose of life. Material life is not an end in itself, and God's work is not materialistic. The goal is spiritual life, and material life must be subservient to that purpose.

A good definition of materialism is putting material concerns above spiritual concerns. This teaching is very obviously defied by fundamentalists who seek power and wealth very materialistically and at the expense of the lowly. Paul does not teach them properly. A critic could argue that Christ did not teach them properly, but they quote Paul exclusively and teach his theology, not Christ's. When Christians attempt to produce social justice at the bottom of society, they quote Christ, not Paul.

Judging

Mat 7:1-5 What Christ said about judgment in Chapter 7 almost always gets applied wrong. He said, "If you want to avoid judgment, stop passing judgment. Your verdict on others will be the verdict passed on you." First, this is more a description of a mechanism than a moral requirement. Notice the word "if." You have an option. You can judge and pay the consequences. Christ judged and was crucified. Straightening this subject out takes some doing.

We need to break this subject up into its elements. One major element is the subject of criticism. Moral and responsible persons must criticize major problems. But they must be large problems, not small ones. This assures that the purposes and concerns are self-evident, and bickering is not creating more problems than it solves.

Proper criticism is an objective task. This means objective evidence is shown, with specifics and explanations. Doing this is not a subjective judgmental process. But of course, the result is the same as judging. However, in an objective process, it is the universe that judges. Truth has the judgment of the universe behind it.

Corrupt persons can't stand such a process; and they subjectively attack the critic. Their subjectivity is not valid. They assume it is, but they are willfully ignorant and wrong. Subjective attack is not valid, because it does not show objective evidence which allows truth to be produced.

Corrupt persons assume they are justified in attacking the critic, who supposedly attacked them. Their error is in making no distinction between an objective process, which allows truth to determine the result, and a subjective process, which degrades someone through lies.

Now getting back to the starting point, when Christ said not to judge, it means not to be subjective or nit picking. It does not mean one should avoid criticism of significant problems which need to be corrected.

Consider Christ's own example. He called the religious authorities of his time a brood of vipers (Mat 23:1:39)(Mark 7:6)(Luke 11:37). Mindless persons would assume he judged his enemies in defiance of his own advice. But he listed many examples which were obvious to everyone showing objective evidence of extreme corruption which needed to be criticized. The word viper properly represents such a degree of corruption.

Golden Rule

Mat 7:12 This instruction is followed by the golden rule. Christ said, "Treat others the way you would have them treat you: this sums up the law and the prophets." This simple rule has a huge amount of moral philosophy behind it. It would have to to be a summary of the law and the prophets.

It takes a very disciplined and intellectual analysis to apply the golden rule to life. Sin always has strong motives and a degree of self-righteousness with it. What anyone would want done to themselves gets totally lost in those forces.

But philosophically, the golden rule is definitive of morality or justice. (Morality and justice are the same at the most basic level, but the words are applied to somewhat different circumstances.) Here's why: Sin is a destruction of life. No one can be totally destroying life and living. Those are contradictions. Corrupters require others to relate to themselves in certain ways, and then they defy those standards in attacking enemies. They rationalize their corruptions. But there is an obvious justice in using their own standards as their measure of justice. What they require for themselves should be the same for others, and what they do to others is what should be done to them.

It's important to realize that humans cannot be creators of justice. If it does not come out of the objective universe, it is not justice. Attempts to prevent extreme injustices are certainly needed, which is police work. But it cannot produce perfect justice. Humans are so far removed from creating justice that it is arrogant to refer to government activities as justice.

Morality is that which sustains life. But what is it that sustains life? What people demand of others define the requirements for life.

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