MASONIC MORALITY
A VERY SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY
by Howard Z. Kanowitz
THE PROBLEM
AMasonry is a system of morality...@,
but what do we mean by Masonic morality, and if we can define it, how do we
apply it. It was one thing for Max Plank, Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein to give
us the theories about the atom; it was quite another for Enrico Fermi to split
it.
In order to gain an understanding of
AMasonic Morality@
we must first reach an understanding of
Amorality@.
MORALITY IN GENERAL
Morality is a set of values. For most of us Masons raised
in the United States, our values, and therefore our morality is written out for
us in a book we keep open on the altar. We are self satisfied that all the
morality we or anyone else could ever need is contained in that book we call a
Bible.
Since morality reflects our values, we believe that there
is but one morality and we see this morality as absolute. The very concept of
morality demands that it be monolithic. After all, it is in the nature of any
people to believe that their morality is what morality should be, because
anything that does not reflect one's
values is regarded as immoral.
The problem we sometimes fail to grasp is that not everyone
subscribes to the Bible. Fully 2/3 or more of the world's
population do not have Bibles, and how many who do really believe in them!
Consequently, not everyone shares our concept of morality.
As an example of how easily morality can change, consider: amongst those who
do have Bibles, there are Jews and Christians. We are all satisfied that the
book we call Bible is morality. But beginning with the most
elementary expression of belief, what happens when a Jew and a Christian enter
a Synagogue or a Church? The Jew covers his head; the Christian uncovers his.
Both act to show reverence for Deity. Both are saying the same thing, but while
the value they are expressing - belief in omnipresence - is the same, their
morality causes them to act in ways opposite to one another. This was just a
simple example. We need not go into more complex problems of how men of good
spiritual belief can differ in their means of expressing that belief.
On a quite different level, consider the moralities of
nations. Some prize militarism, while other prize peace. Some are obedient to a
single voice; in others each citizen is given a voice.
The point is that morality is not an absolute. It will vary
with economics, politics, religion, social standing., geography and an host of
other factors, too numerous to mention. Sometimes morality simply reflects
expediency. If you live in a jungle, you have to kill to live. What is murder in
times of peace may be heroism in times of war.
A MORE DEFINED PROBLEM
If then morality is not an absolute, is
Masonic morality absolute? If two masons are given the same moral question, will
they arrive at the same answer? If we are taught the same morality; if masonic
morality is absolute, then the answer should be
Ayes@.
Let us first define Masonic morality, if that is possible.
We sometimes see the term AMoral
Law@ crop up in our
various writings and ritual. The duty to
Aobey the Moral Law@
is the first landmark of a Worshipful Master. It is probably based on the
assumption that Moral Law comes from the Bible. However, can we really expect
the idea of a Moral Law to be viewed in the same way by all of masonry. If one
mason believes that salvation is based on good deeds, and another believes it is
based on belief in a savior, can we say that both men accept the same moral law,
even if they share the same bible?. What if a mason reads only the Old
Testament. Is he privy to the Moral Law? What is the Moral law to a Muslim?
As this writer sees it, and I can hardly claim to be the
last word on the subject, Masonic Morality is the sum of all we we are taught
in our ritual. If that definition makes sense, we had still better reconcile
ourselves to recognizing that within our ritual there are direct quotes and
borrowed concepts from both Jewish and Christian doctrine, and even writings by
pagan authors.
Interestingly, some of what we take for granted to be
Masonic morality is universal in origin and application, having no basis in
Masonry. Before each obligation, we are told by the Master that there is no
point in the obligation that will conflict with our duty to God, our Country,
our Neighbor, or Ourselves. While Jefferson wrote of inalienable rights, Masonry
recognizes these as universal duties, duties which are incorporated into Masonic
morality.
If there is nothing in our obligations which will conflict
with a man's duty to God
(as he perceives that duty through his chosen religion) then are all the
precepts of masonry expected to be adopted by all men of all monotheistic
religions? Does masonry admit that some of what it has to say will not sit well
with all men? Is this introduction before each obligation a disclaimer, a red
flag, that while we all go the same way as all others before us, yet we can take
from Masonry what we will and disregard what our own philosophies of God,
Country, Neighbor and Self do not adopt? Is Masonic Morality a personal
morality or as an absolute, is it uniform?
Having now given a definition (however brief, broad and
probably controversial) of what constitutes Masonic morality, we need next to
play it out in order to see whether it will resolve all moral questions in the
same way.
MASONRY'S DILEMMA
One of the first lessons we learn in Masonry is that the
institution appeals to men of every country, sect and opinion. We also know that
Masonry is not a political institution. This second premise flows from the
first. Masonry cannot be political because its constituency is too broadly based
to be expected to follow any single ideology. If Masonry took a stand on any
given issue, it would necessarily be in conflict with a part of its membership -
every time. The institution could never survive. Every Grand Lodge election
would have it party slogans and platforms on a scale that would dwarf the
politics which we all know does not exist in Masonry!
Obviously Masonry does take a stand on some things. But
when it does, it chooses problems of no political consequence. For instance, how
controversial is Masonry when it supports
AJust say no to drugs!@.
The drug dealers have no lobby. But what would happen within Masonry if its
policy were AJust say no
to tobacco!@ It would
split the organization.
Now here is where the dilemma comes in . What is politics?
Politics is the machinery through which we decide questions of morality as a
matter of public policy. For instance, adultery has been decriminalized in any
number of states. It is still grounds for divorce, but it is no longer a crime.
Adultery is certainly a moral issue. It goes to the sanctity of the family
structure. Its prohibition protects the blood line. What we are seeing is that
legislatures have decided that adultery is an offense against marriage, an
offense at the level of the individual, and therefore it passed a law that gives
the offended partner the right to terminate the marriage. However, the
legislatures have also determined that, in light of the general decline in
morality and prevalence of extramarital sexuality, adultery is no longer a crime
against society. In short, the legislatures have made value judgments which they
have reduced to the form of laws through the political process.
The have expressed moral values in a blend of prohibition
at the individual level and license at the societal level.
On a more familiar vein, the Commandment
AThou shalt not kill@
is the law in every state of the Union, but it was a moral concept before it
became a law.
So here is the dilemma. Masonry advocates morality, but
lacks any form of political machinery to determine issues of morality. It is in
this respect paralyzed by its inability to make decisions. It can only preach
morality in the broadest sense, painting with the panoramic brush of the Bible,
the Cecil B. DeMille Bible, without getting too specific. The following
illustrates the dilemma in its practical consequences.
THE DILEMMA AT WORK
Two men kneel at the altar to become Entered Apprentice
Masons. The man on the left is an MD with a specialty in OBGYN. He is a
registered Democrat, a man of wealth, a man of some influence. The lodge is
proud to have him as a member. This man holds to a political philosophy which in
our Abuzzword@
culture is called Athe
right of a woman to choose@.
In short, he runs an abortion clinic.
Next to him is an ordained minister; a registered
Republican. He is not a man of means, but is highly respected in the community,
and again the lodge is proud to have him as a member. He subscribes to both a
political and religious philosophy which without any
Abuzzwords@
we understand as Aabortion
is murder.@ He sits on
the board of directors of an adoption agency tied to his ministry.
Within five minutes these two prominent men will become
masons. How, then, can Masonry accept them both? How can Masonry allow men of
opposite moral beliefs to sit in the same lodge room. In short; how can
Masonry tell us to be moral, when Masonry cannot tell us what is moral!
So Much for Absolutism
The answer is that Masonic morality is not an absolute.
Both of the men in the example given above are moralists, in their own right. If
the problem were simplified, if there were only one issue, the fetus, then both
men would necessarily arrive at the same moral value. However, life does not
present one dimensional problems. There is a second consideration in the
problem, and that is the competing interests of the mother. Her interests
include the economics of being a single parent, of the prospects of never
attracting another mate when tied down with a child, or the risks to her health
or even her life that carrying the fetus presents.
Moral values usually arise through the resolution of
competing interests. As the strengths of those interests differ from person to
person, so the resolution of those factors results differently from person to
person. It is easier for a man to oppose abortion than for a woman.
In physics we calculate the trajectory of an object by the
resolution of the forces exerted upon it; the direction of the object in a
linear path as pushed by the propellant as against the downward force
perpendicular to the center of the earth which we know of as the force of
gravity. The resolution of those forces usually produces an arc that follows
neither of the paths exerted directly upon it. Politics as the means of
determining morality works in much the same way. The resolution of political
forces is called compromise.
Masonry, likewise, is composed of men of different values,
because we are men of different experiences. If masonry wanted its morality to
be an absolute, it could not accommodate
Amen of every country,
sect and opinion@. It
could not accommodate speculative masons, because the presence of freethinking
is always a challenge to absolutism. If anything, Masonry's
invitation to men difference creates the expectation that Masonry is a forum for
conflicting values.
Masonic Morality is Relative to the Individual
The title of this paper is MASONIC MORALITY, A VERY SPECIAL
THEORY OF RELATIVITY. Einstein taught us that the only absolute in the physical
universe is the speed of light. In Masonry the only absolute is One God. From
there on all of Masonic Morality depends on the individual or group interpreter.
For example, belief in One God is fundamentally an agnostic idea. When we give
God a name, ascribe attributes and Worship him, we have crossed over to the
realm of religion, which is beyond the scope of Masonry's
dictates. Therefore, the name of any man's
Deity, the powers and manifestations that man perceives in Deity, and the way
he worships, all are based on the individual's
view of Deity. Just like time, speed and distance in Einstein's
universe, all these properties of Deity are relative.
We all believe there is only one God, so we are all praying
to the same God. Every man believes his own religion to be divinely inspired,
through the medium of his prophet (which in the case of the big three
monotheistic religion is Moses, Jesus or Mohammed). Every man believes he has
received the true message from the true prophet, which goes to the heart of why
we all believe that morality is absolute, as long as it is our version of
morality. But when we see the forest for the trees, we tend to realize that if
all religions cannot be correct in their description of Deity, then at least one
of us has created Deity to suit his own definition. We do all pray to the same
Deity. It is only our definition of Deity that may be wrong.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if when the Messiah arrives, men
were judged by the sincerity of their beliefs rather than their blind adherence
to the practices of their religion. Then the true believers in all religions
rather than the hangers on to a
Atrue religion@
could find salvation. That would be a divine joke on all of us; if morality as
applied to Deity were infinitely variable, rather than obsessed with the
rigidity that has promoted so much slaughter in the name of God. What if we
really were all His children, rather than having the vast majority of human life
since the creation condemned to hell for not adopting the true religion. In
short, Masonry affords each of us the right to view Deity and his relation to
Him from his own position in the spiritual universe.
Now I do not want to sound like some new wave preacher. I
am of course trained in the orthodoxy of my chosen religion. But then that is my
point. It is after all, my chosen religion, and being from a minority, my
views are not necessarily that of anyone else who may be reading this. When I
sit in lodge with brothers who do not subscribe to my point of religious view,
that view still exits, as does theirs. When lodge is open, we meet on the level
and are not concerned with our differences. But when lodge closes and we again
clothe ourselves with our differing views, we are each left with the question
of religion as to who is the true believer and who is the heretic. Masonry does
not resolve that question.
The same idea prevails in any test of morality. Each of us
must be at least 21 years of age before becoming a mason. Why? So that we can
first develop as human beings; develop a concept of Deity; get a job to become
charitable; mature enough to appreciate what the degrees are talking about. But
we all grow up differently and view the world through different eyes, from
different points on the surface of the earth.
The abortionist is taken by the sufferings of his patient,
the woman. The minister is taken by the affects on the souls of both the woman
and the doctor, along with the deprivation of life to the fetus.
Somewhere along the line, enough people line up on one side of the problem or
the other to reflect society's
moral view. When the sides are evenly spaced, the value cannot be reduced to a
societal moral and conflict prevails.
So What is Masonic Morality?
Our ritual contains its own Commandments. Thou shall help aid and assist.
Thou shall not violate. However, such Commandments are very few. For the most
part we are expected to apply concepts rather than precepts in making moral
choices. In the end, with the exception of those few
ACommandments@
to be found in the obligations, Masonic Morality is not a set of preset laws,
but instead it is an approach to moral problem solving.
Masonry's use of tools as moral metaphors is closer to the
mark than we might realize. The lessons we are taught in Masonry are themselves
tools to be applied to each problem we encounter. If we can approach each moral
dilemma by asking whether it promotes or detracts from brotherly love, relief
and truth, with a mind that we all exist under the umbrella of our concept of
what Deity wants from us, then we have found Masonic Morality. The results from
individual to individual will ultimately differ, and conflict is inevitable, but
in the end Ato thine own
self be true@ is the
ultimate test of Masonic morality.
FOOTNOTES
Indeed we have for years been grappling with a
Abuzzword@
called prejudice. This word is tied to morality. Our current trend of humanistic
thinking, indeed our masonic character teaches us to steer clear of prejudice.
What we fail to realize is that no person can take pride in his own life style,
his own personal philosophy of life, his own values, without necessarily being
prejudiced; prejudiced in favor of what he believes and prejudiced against
anything that is not what he believes. It is no accident that Jane Austen titled
her book Pride and Prejudice. The concept of prejudice only becomes
harmful when it is directed against a class indiscriminently without distinction
as to what the class or the members of that class claim as its or their values.
The description of earth, to which our ashes return, as the
Akindest@
of the four elements, has its origins in the writings of Pliny the Elder, who
died while trying to escape Vesuvius in the year 79.
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