Like dogmatics and theology in general, theological ethics can never give a theoretical answer to this question. It can answer only by doing, by doing as basically and carefully as possible, yet aware also that it has no guarantee but the reality of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. It can answer, then, only with the counterquestion whether the one who asks should not know this reality.
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The command that is given to us becomes our judge by showing us totally and irrefutably that our decision is as such transgression. By the law—this is the first concrete element in sanctification—is the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20). We shall try to clarify this in three complementary discussions.
a. We begin with the fact that we have found the reality of the command in the concrete and specific command. As such the command is that which necessarily and unconditionally condemns us as we act and decide. If instead the command were to be understood as a general idea of what is commanded, which we have to fill out concretely for ourselves, then it would be easy, and fundamentally it would always be possible, to view our decision as in conformity with the command and to regard ourselves as justified. For if the filling out and the fulfilling of the command were in our own hands, would it not be simply unavoidable that we should fill it out from the very first in such a way that we would and could later fulfill it, or that having fulfilled [it] as we would and could we should later correct the filling out in accordance with the fulfillment? The imperative falsely substituted for the command, general moral truths taken from the Bible, formal and material general truths of morality, always constitute a focal point for the righteous who need no repentance [cf. Luke 15:7] because they are at peace with the law. They are at peace with the law because they mean by it a general truth that one can accept as one accepts the truth that two and two make four, and when the point is reached where there must be concrete action instead of theoretical acceptance, they are their own lawgivers who do not act according to the law, but like the scribes and Pharisees act according to their exposition of the law, which at its most concrete means according to their own caprice. Is it any surprise that with this identifying of the legislative and the executive they did not see themselves as transgressors? One can here be at peace with oneself and it can even be an unnecessary whimsicality not to try to do so. They correctly appeal to their good conscience. A good conscience is possible so long as it is not concerned about the self, so long as it is not smitten by the real command that is not set up by ourselves but established over against us. This real command, as we have seen, is not a general framework of demand but the most concrete and specific command. The concreteness of the real command spoils our little game of filling out and fulfilling in which we are on our own. It also pitilessly ruins our good conscience. Obviously, in face of it our acts are always deviation, addition, or subtraction. They are always different from the acts that are commanded us. They are thus a nondoing of what is commanded us. We may in good faith regard what we do as commanded, for we may perhaps do it in truly well-intentioned exposition of a general moral truth. We may perhaps think that it was commanded once before or might be later on. We may believe that even now it is commanded of others, perhaps of all others. These possibilities, however, do not alter the fact that we certainly do not act as those who are really commanded now. In this connection, in relation to the question how we stand before the command that is issued to us now, it makes no difference whether in our acts we are far or less far from what is commanded. If sometimes we are far from it, this should make it clear to us that we do deviate from it, which is not perhaps so clear when without being any the better for it we are not so far. It is a dreadful thing to wake up with the discovery that we have wandered far from the command, but what we then realize is truer than what we may perhaps dream to be our harmony with the command when we are less far from it. If we measure our decision by the real command that is given to us, then we see that it is not imperfect obedience but real disobedience. For our acts are really decision when placed under the command. Decision, however, is a matter of either/or, all or nothing, not more or less. Björnson’s mountain parson rightly saw and said this.3 We constantly find ourselves to be those who, in greater or smaller distance from what is commanded, do not do what they should, so that even though they are at great peace with themselves and their conscience is ever so good, they are in conflict with the law, i.e., with God. Our decision always means that we are disobedient.
b. We begin also with the fact that the command that is given to us is God’s command. As such it condemns us. This would not be so if we could think of it as a law of the natural or spiritual world, as the power of our destiny, written perhaps in our stars, or as the power of the historical situation or process in which we have a part. We might clash with these powers too. We could suffer under them. We could be broken on them. They might crush us. But they could not put us in the wrong. They could not condemn us. For in the last resort we owe them no obedience. Even in the event of the severest collision with them we could still be deeply at peace with ourselves and with them too, even confronting them as superior forces. None of them can indeed demand of us that we recognize it as lord over us, that we cease to be our own, that we really place ourselves under its direction. They want to be respected, but only as powerful, even overwhelmingly powerful partners in the game of life. We ourselves can always be the other partner. No matter how badly we have played, why should we not be finally peaceful, secure, and cheerful? The strange thing about human creatureliness is that according to Psalm 8:5 man is made so “little less than God” that, even though he is the weaker partner who yields and falls and submits in the game of life, he can still defy the gods and assert himself, so that come what may he does not have to fear anything in the whole world, not even fate or death itself. “If the vault of heaven broke and fell on him, the ruins would smite him undismayed.”4 He can stand erect against all things and everything, even though he has become guilty before all in everything. The tragic hero finally triumphs, defying the world, or even blessing it in spite of everything, even in his downfall. He is a type, a respectable type, of man’s own upstanding righteousness. The Zarathustra of Nietzsche and the Prometheus of Goethe and Spitteler,5 like the Prometheus of the ancient Greek story, are figures that have the fear of death and fate behind them, figures that obviously do not stand under accusation, and we must be clear that real life stands behind them. Why are they not accused even though they are so assaulted? Because there is for them no command, no command of God that cannot be escaped, as one can escape even the sharpest accusation of the world of nature and spirit or as even on the ruins one can escape the attack of the whole cosmos. There is no true assault where there is no sin. But there is no sin where there is no command of God beyond the command of powers and forces and the law of gods and demons. God’s command reveals sin. God’s command condemns man. It does so because it smites man at the very point where the tragic hero is strong and good, because it constantly surprises man in his act with the demand that instead of asserting himself he must surrender himself. The command of God wills that we regard God as an unconditioned Lord. We do not want to do this. We do not do it. Whatever our decision may be, finally it is always self-assertion. Our sensuality and spirituality, our love and hate, our prayer and cursing—they are all self-assertion. We want to live. We want to be ourselves. Always, perhaps even with God’s help, we want to thrust ourselves forward. It is with this true and deepest program of ours that in each of our decisions we stand even against God and precisely against God, as though God were one of the gods whom it is a laudable thing for the tragic hero to encounter. We always deal with God on the basis of a supposed credit. Even when we decide for the ostensible good we always decide as our own masters. We never act as those that are truly bound. This is transgression, sin. The Pharisee in the temple, who unlike the publican has put everything straight and thanks God that he is himself and not like these others [cf. Luke 18:11], is the true sinner. Again there are distinctions. It is one thing to assert oneself so wildly and defiantly, to play the superman, the god-man, as directly as Nietzsche did.6 It is another to rebel in so moderate and perhaps so highly Christian a form as did that good-natured model child, the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son [cf. Luke 15:25–32]. Yet we must not deceive ourselves. The distinction is irrelevant in this context, namely, in the question how we stand before God. We must see that whether crude or refined it is the same revolt: disobedience. The one is not disobedience and the other imperfect obedience. Both are disobedience. Our action is decision and decision is either/or. Our decision as
