Black, White, and Grey
"Right and wrong seemed so clear to me when I was a kid. But as I grew up, I realized that life isn't so simple. There's two sides to every story, and I find this huge middle ground which can't just be categorized as 'right' or 'wrong'. I've outgrown the naive 'Black and White' world view, and learned to see things as a shade of grey..."
The above is a common sentiment in our world today.
What, exactly, is grey? What we often perceive as grey is actually a pattern of black and white which is so finely interlaced that it is impossible to distinguish the black from the white with the human eye. However, had our eyes a greater power of resolution, or if we are aided by magnification, we would see the true nature of the color called grey: That it is, in fact, just many small black specks on a white background, or vice versa. The reason that we see grey instead of this pattern is due to the weakness of our own eyes, not because there actually exists a color which is neither black nor white. In the most fundamental limit, there is no such thing as a grey photon; a photon is either detected, or it is not. *
Likewise, in morality, there is no such thing as a "grey area" in the most fundamental limit. What we perceive as a grey area is actually right and wrong interwoven in such complexity that it is impossible for us, as humans, to discern between them. However, were we to look more carefully, were we possessed of greater wisdom, were we not fallen creatures, we would be able to discern the right from the wrong in the so-called "grey areas" of morality.
Recognizing this allows us to draw several conclusions.
First, the "grey areas" view, expressed in the quote above, is too simple. Those who hold this view have done well to progress beyond the simplistic "nothing but black and white" view, but have stopped prematurely by halting upon seeing grey. I would urge these people to take the next step in recognizing the rich complexities of morality: See that the shade of grey is in fact made up of black and white, which we cannot distinguish due to our own limits. This step is probably as important as the initial step of learning to see grey areas.
Second, we should strive to increase our wisdom and discernment, and apply ourselves to a closer examination of complex moral problems, so that we may see black and white where we once saw grey. Not only does this help us to do the right thing here on earth, it is in fact part of our approach to heaven. In heaven, there will be no such thing as grey areas in morality. I expect that this will partially come about by the perfection of our wisdom and discernment.
Next, we should recognize that even if there is no "grey area" in the fundamental sense, they are very real in another sense. Grey areas really exist for us, because we on earth are far from the perfection of wisdom attained by those in heaven. If we deny this, we regress all the way back to the naive "nothing but black and white" view. Thus we need to prepare ourselves to deal with these grey areas. The Bible itself exhorts us to do so, (e.g. Paul writes about eating food sacrificed to idols) and believing in "black" and "white" does not excuse us from being blameless in the grey areas.
Lastly, we should champion the absoluteness of the elemental "black" and "white" of morality, especially against those who assert that the existence of "grey areas" indicates the nonexistence of a moral law. Allow me to take a lengthy illustration from science to clarify myself.
Introductory physics says that an object released from a height will fall due to gravity in such a way that its position is given by x = ½ gt2. However, when we actually try this in real life and measure the position and time with sufficient precision, we find that the above equation turns out to be wrong. A more advanced physics will tell us why; there are other factors to consider besides gravity, which we have neglected. What about air resistance, for instance? In fact, as we include progressively more advanced physics, the more such "other factors" come up. What about the Coriolis effect? Or relativistic effects? How about the variations in g due to latitude, variations in g due to the changing height, photons of the ambient light imparting momentum to the falling object, or the quantum probability of it tunneling through the earth?
A naive student would simply accept x = ½ gt2, just as a naive person would hold the "nothing but black and white" view. A skeptic of natural laws, who is more experienced than the student, may then come along and say that the student's belief in physical laws is flawed. After all, very precise experiments would show that falling objects actually do deviate from the above equation. He would claim that there are grey areas, where the laws of physics do not apply. He may even assert that such grey areas prove that the laws of physics are not real. However, a physicist would say this: That what initially appears as a failure of the laws of physics is actually the manifestation of its full complexity, which is beyond what is dreamt of by either the naive student or the skeptic. What appears as these "grey areas", where the laws of physics seems to blur, is in fact an interaction of the many aspect of physics in such a complicated manner that the complete problem is beyond what can be solved by human minds.
Now the student in the above example would be hard pressed to understand the physicist's complete explanation of a falling object, unless he understood and believed the elementary concepts in gravity, fictitious forces, relativity, light, and quantum mechanics. This is, in fact, why students learn the elementary concepts in each of the above topics one by one, rather than learning by trying to solve the problem of a falling object exhaustively with the complete laws of physics. When the student knows of and affirms the truth of each elemental aspect of physics, only then can he embrace the complexities of the law of physics and see the complete picture beyond the "grey area" of the skeptic. He will then know that grey areas are in fact caused by the complexity in the very laws which the skeptic thought refuted by those grey areas. The student will have then become a physicist.
Likewise, when we affirm the basics of morality, when we champion the absoluteness of the "white" and "black" in its elemental components, we can move from the naive "nothing but black and white" view, beyond the "grey areas" of the skeptics, on to embracing the full complexities of the moral law. While the skeptic who claims that there is no moral law will only see a confusing grey area, we will understand that this "grey area" is actually where the real and absolute moral law becomes so intricate and complicated as to be beyond human wisdom.
Thus when the Bible teaches, for example, that "thou shalt not murder", we acknowledge it as an elemental moral truth, and champion it against those who ask, "What about in a war? What about in self-defense? What about to save another life? Can we even call that a moral law in light of all these exceptions and grey areas?" In their confusion, they who ask these questions can only answer, "Well, that's a grey area. There's really no right or wrong choice." But we can go beyond that. We can start to try to discern which moral laws are operational in each of those complex scenarios, decide which ones are important, ask God for wisdom, and hope to begin to see a little more black and white where we once saw only grey.
The moral law is probably about as complex as the laws of nature, if not more so. Let us not be hasty in trying to understand it. Let us not judge it to be too simple, overestimate our comprehension of it, confuse the "grey areas" for its true form, or compromise its absolute nature.
* The part of me which wishes to be difficult retorts with two replies: The first is "There is no such thing as a white photon either!" This is certainly true, and there is probably much to be said about how what we perceive to be white is in fact the combination of countless colored photons in the right ratio. The second reply is to say that "grey" in this sense would be when and where the wavefunction of the photon is such that the probability of detecting the photon is 1/2. This would lead to such hairy questions as "what do we mean by 'measurement' in quantum mechanics?", and "which is truer, the measurement or the wavefunction?" With both replies, more discussion could follow about what this means in relation to right and wrong, but for now, let us leave a decent enough analogy alone. In reality, the most correct solution is probably to just say that this is where the analogy between "right/wrong" and "black/white" breaks down, as all analogies must at some point.
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