Bad Theology

Text for today: Matthew 5 xviii, xxxiii-xxxvii, 23 i-iii; John passim

Jesus orders His disciples not to take oaths. He gives a list of things by which people swear - Heaven, Earth, Jerusalem, and one's own head - and notes that each of them is the property not of humanity at large but of God or, in the case of Jerusalem, of His own claimed ancestor King David. Therefore, He adjures His disciples not to reinforce their words by swearing, but simply to say Yes or No.

This is sensible advice, since obviously a statement does not become less false if one swears to it; but these eminently rational grounds are not the grounds for the Saviour's prohibition. Rather, Jesus forbids swearing on oath because everything that can be sworn upon is private property, which belongs to His family and not to the swearer. The reason why one should not take oaths, therefore, is that nothing exists which is stable or permanent enough to be sworn upon: everything that exists does so purely by the grace of an arbitrary and wrathful tyrant who might easily decide to incinerate the lot on yet another punitive whim.

Since this is one of the rare occasions on which the Saviour's commandment is thoroughly reasonable, it should come as no surprise that the commandment is given in a spirit of the purest hypocrisy. Rather than simply saying what He has to say, Jesus repeatedly emphasises the truth of His own statements, although He does take the prudent precaution of not swearing by His Father's real estate. One can imagine the cynical smile with which He advised His disciples to follow the words of the Pharisees, but not their deeds.