By Joe Carter @ http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/003384.html#more
Each week my neighbors and I engage in a curious ethical ritual. On Wednesday morning before we leave for work we set outside our doors an artifact which expresses our obligation to the welfare of future generations. We call these objects “recycling bins.”
Recycling is one example of an action that we take in the present to benefit a group in the future. The earth has enough space and resources that all current generations could be extremely wasteful without having a detrimental effect on the global population. Future generations, however, would likely suffer if we were careless in our use of resources. For this reason the recycling of waste products is viewed as an important, albeit minor, act of virtue.
Although reasonable people do not need to be persuaded that we have moral obligations to future generations, it would be useful to examine what form the argument would take. Philosopher Jim Nolt outlines the argument as follows:
1. We have obligations to all currently living people.
2 . Future people are in no morally relevant respect different from currently living people.
3. We have obligations to all future people.
Nolt believes the argument is sound and adds:
The moral irrelevance of time of birth is perhaps best understood by the realization that we are future people—to our predecessors. The distinction between past and future is, after all, not ultimate and absolute, but relative to temporal perspective. In that respect, it is like the designation, “foreigner,” which is relative to geographical perspective. Who counts as a foreigner depends on the country we inhabit. Likewise, who counts as a future person depends on the time we inhabit. All people are foreigners to people of countries other than their own. Likewise, all people belong to the future generations of their predecessors. [emphasis in original]
Obviously we have generic obligations (i.e., don’t despoil the planet) to future generic groups (e.g., people living in 2056 A.D.). However, I contend that we also have specific obligations to specific individuals in the future. For example, I believe that Christian men and women who are unmarried (and are not called to a life of chastity) have certain present obligations to their future spouse.
Regardless of whether they come from a secular or religious worldview, people in the West generally share the idea that there is one specific person—the “true love”, soul mate, etc.,-- for each of us. Whether chosen by God or fate, this is the person we are supposed to share the rest of our lives with in a state of marital bliss.
If there truly is one person, one true love, for each of us then there is much that we owe this person. When we find and recognize them as our “soul mate” our obligations become quite obvious. But what about before then, before they come into our lives?
I contend that certain obligations that are recognized after we marry are binding on us even before we meet our future spouses. Although we are separated “relative to temporal perspective” this person exists now and is not in any morally relevant respect different from the person we will wed. The duties of a husband, therefore, would extend not just from the present (when we marry our spouse) and future (throughout our marriage) but also backward into the past (the time prior to our marriage, or even before we meet).
Of the specific obligations that spouses owe, some are shared by other people (e.g., parents) throughout a person’s life while others are unique to the matrimonial bond. For example, a husband has the obligations to financially support and to remain sexually faithful to his wife. The financial obligation is one that is first met by the parents, and perhaps later by the woman herself. The future husband is not expected to provide for her materially before they have even met. The fidelity obligation, however, is a unique duty that is not shared by any other person. It is specific to the marital relationship and is therefore binding even before the two “soul mates” have found each other.
Consider this thought experiment. Imagine a man is to be married on February 14th and has sexual relations with a woman who is not his fiancé on:
(a) The night before his wedding.
(b) The day of his wedding.
(c) The day after his wedding.
The action in each instance is the same but the term we’d use to describe the man would depend on when the event occurred: (a) would make the man a cheating cad, (c) and adulterer, and (b) either a cheating cad or an adulterer, depending on the time of day. Regardless of what we choose to call it, the consequence of the action is the same – the man has been unfaithful to the woman. Notice that though the “temporal perspective” changes the semantics, it doesn’t change the morality of the action.
Under this view, pre-marital sexual relations become a form of “pre-marital adultery.” We are, in essence, being unfaithful to the one we will eventually pledge emotional and sexual allegiance. Why then do we not honor this obligation? As with most things in life, what we claim to believe is betrayed by our actions. Although unmarried people often claim to believe that they are waiting for their “soul mate” their actions show that they don’t really believe that to be true. If they truly believed that their true love existed then how could they be sexually unfaithful to the one person who God has chosen for them?
My recycling bin is a symbol of the obligation I feel I owe future generations. Unfortunately, I have no such token to give my wife that shows the obligation I owed her. Instead, I had only a string of sexual sins that showed that before we met I treated the concept of “soul mate” as a useful fiction. I offer this confession to young people who have not yet lost one of the most valuable gifts God gives man: the ability to give oneself completely to the person you love. If you want to show true love to your future spouse, then start now by keeping the Seventh Commandment.
Note: I address this post to Christians because non-believers would not share my understanding of the role and nature of sex. While there may be some overlap of agreement, the presuppositional attitude of most non-Christians would be so foreign to my view (that God created sexual relations with a specific form and for a particular range of purposes) it would be impossible to offer suggestions for a general audience, though I believe this post is as relevant and true for non-believers as it is for Christians.
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