Moderation as a Moral Value

 

Friend Xerxes has his own definition of sin: “I define sin as taking something good, beneficial, healthy, and pushing it to an extreme. Too much, or too little.” Life, then, is a matter of balancing opposites. 

Carl Jung believed in something similar. He credited the concept to Gnosticism. It is also perhaps reflected in the yin-yang symbol familiar in the Far East.

This is not the Christian idea, and it does not work.

For balance itself, being a value, must be balanced by its opposite. Moderation must not be pushed to an extreme, or one is immoderate. One must be only half-balanced. And “the good” must not be pursued, but must be balanced by evil, or – or evil happens? Too much good is not good?

In other words, the concept produces immediate self-contradictions.

And can we hold that there is such a thing as too little rape and murder? What amount of each would be just enough? By what standard can we judge this, or anything, if there are no absolute values?

Christianity holds, instead, along with ancient Greek thought, that there are absolute values: one cannot have too much good, too much truth, or too much beauty.