In most social systems obedience is the supreme virtue, disobedience the supreme sin. In fact, in our culture when most people feel “guilty,” they are actually feeling afraid because they have been disobedient. They are not really troubled by a moral issue, as they think they are, but by the fact of having disobeyed a command. This is not surprising; after all, Christian teaching has interpreted Adam’s disobedience as a deed which corrupted him and his seed so fundamentally that only the special act of God’s grace could save man from this corruption. This idea was, of course, in accord with
...more
