Liberties There's nothing Artificial about our Intelligence

What blurt is this about virtue and about vice? Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent, My gait is no fault-finder’s or rejecter’s gait, I moisten the roots of all that has grown. WALT WHITMAN The Olympian gods are not our friends. Zeus would have destroyed us long ago had Prometheus not brought fire and other useful things down to us. Prometheus was not being benevolent, though. He was angry at Zeus for having locked away the Titans and then for turning on him after Prometheus helped secure his rule. We humans were just pawns in their game. The myths teach that we are here on sufferance, and that the best fate is to be ignored by these poor excuses for divinities. On their indifference depends our happiness. Fortunately we have only minimal duties towards them, so once the ashes from the sacrifices are swept away, the libations mopped up, the festival garlands recycled, we are free to set sail. The Biblical God requires more attention. Though he is sometimes petulant, his providential hand is always at work for those who choose to be chosen. Providence comes at a price, though. We are obliged to fear the Lord, to obey his commandments, and to internalize the moral code he has blessed us with. For purists, this can mean that virtually every hour of every day is regulated. But that is not how the Bible’s protagonists seem to live. They love, they fight, they rule kingdoms, they play the lyre, and only when they lust after a subject’s wife and arrange for his death in battle does God stop the music and call them to account. And repentance done, the band strikes up again. The covenant limits human freedom, but it also self-limits God’s. Our to-do list is not infinite. Once we have fulfilled our duties, we are left to explore the world. We good here? Yeah, we’re good. Tut, tut child! Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it. THE DUCHESS, ALICE IN WONDERLAND But as a Christian my work is never done. I must have the vague imitatio Christi ideal before my eyes at all times and must try to answer the riddle, what would Jesus do?, in every situation — and bear the guilt of possibly getting the answer wrong. Kierkegaard was not exaggerating when he said that the task of becoming a Christian is endless. It can be brutal, too. Jesus told his disciples they must be ready at any moment to drop every-thing if the call comes, adding, if any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Saint Paul’s God has boundary issues. More busybody than Pied Piper, he is always looking into our hearts, parsing our intentions, and demanding we love him more than we love ourselves. That master of metaphor Augustine found a powerful one to describe the new regime: Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God, the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far as contempt of self. He hastened to add that the earthly city plays a necessary role in mortal life, offering peace and comfort in the best of times. But over the millennia — such is the power of metaphor over reason — zealots hedging their bets have concluded that if we are to err, it is better to fall into self-loathing than discover any trace of pride within. A moral scan will always turn up something. And so they lock themselves into panopticons where they serve as their own wardens and where nothing is a matter of spiritual indifference. Subsequent Christian theologians raised doubts about this rigorist picture of the Christian moral life. In the Middle Ages they debated whether there might be such things as “indifferent acts,” that is, acts that have no moral or spiritual significance. Scratching one’s beard was a common example used by the laxists. Aquinas conceded the point concerning beards, but otherwise declared that if an