Picture from: https://refreshingmanna.org/the-royal-law/
The Golden Rule of gregarious living is quoted on Wikipedia as:
The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as one's
self would wish to be treated. It is a maxim that is found in many religions
and cultures.
The Biblical version of the Golden Rule, The Royal Law, is in fact more general: "Love your neighbour as yourself". This more general form doesn't impose any interpretation on just how love is to be expressed; after all, there are often big cultural & understanding differences between people and this can render just how love is to be actioned problematical. But given these differences between people what common inter-human content can be conferred on the concept of "love"? It might seem that what is love to one culture is, in fact, not love to another culture and vice versa. So unless there is some kind of intercultural universal which we can identify as "love" then any claim to the universality of the concept of "love" would seem to be hopelessly lost in subjective and intercultural translation.
But there is such a thing as a common humanity, independent of culture. For me the universal concept of love must be based on the commonality of conscious cognition; that is, a recognition that human cognition is accompanied by conscious feelings; e.g. joys, pleasures, pains sufferings etc. Our common humanity gives us the potential to carry out an empathetic projection which provides insight into the feelings of other people and hopefully a deep care for them; that is what universal love means.
This realisation of the common human link of conscious sentience doesn't, however, remove the fraught practical question of how love is best actioned in a world of epistemic challenges, unpredictability, cultural differences and very partial understandings of what actions best serve the long terms interests of our fellow human beings. The Royal Law doesn't directly address these practical challenges it; it is a guide line rather than a tram line. But the Royal Law is the ultimate high level command to all humanity: Love one another as I have loved you, but it is your responsibility to work out in practice exactly what that means in a social context. This is a huge challenge for beings who have issues with selfishness and epistemology. We therefore thank God that a divine plan of salvation was rolled out! Don't we need it!
As is so obviously evidenced by the numerous contrarian Christian sects and divisions, all loudly accusing one another of not following the clear commands of the Word of God to the letter ("clear" only to them, of course), the Bible is not unambiguous. The Bible does not provide a full suite of rules and regulations covering all eventualities; instead we get guide lines rather than tram lines: That, I suspect, is exactly the challenge it puts before humanity. Epistemically insecure Christian sects seek an unambiguous and narrow deterministic shape to belief and practice. This determinism does not exist in Scripture.
In any case we must never forget that the Spirit of the Law is not to be found in codes, programs and rules - these are just the outward (often transient) expressions of something which goes much deeper (See the book of Galatians). In fact there are dangers in prioritising the rule of the law over the Spirit of the Law.
My Bible study on the Royal Law can be found here:
But there is such a thing as a common humanity, independent of culture. For me the universal concept of love must be based on the commonality of conscious cognition; that is, a recognition that human cognition is accompanied by conscious feelings; e.g. joys, pleasures, pains sufferings etc. Our common humanity gives us the potential to carry out an empathetic projection which provides insight into the feelings of other people and hopefully a deep care for them; that is what universal love means.
This realisation of the common human link of conscious sentience doesn't, however, remove the fraught practical question of how love is best actioned in a world of epistemic challenges, unpredictability, cultural differences and very partial understandings of what actions best serve the long terms interests of our fellow human beings. The Royal Law doesn't directly address these practical challenges it; it is a guide line rather than a tram line. But the Royal Law is the ultimate high level command to all humanity: Love one another as I have loved you, but it is your responsibility to work out in practice exactly what that means in a social context. This is a huge challenge for beings who have issues with selfishness and epistemology. We therefore thank God that a divine plan of salvation was rolled out! Don't we need it!
In any case we must never forget that the Spirit of the Law is not to be found in codes, programs and rules - these are just the outward (often transient) expressions of something which goes much deeper (See the book of Galatians). In fact there are dangers in prioritising the rule of the law over the Spirit of the Law.
My Bible study on the Royal Law can be found here:
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