The barrier of limited moral judgment

God’s judgment is among his most important qualities. To judge correctly means to have an accurate idea of what is possible and what it is worth, which is necessary to ascertain what brings the greatest joy for the longest duration. Your value appraisal differs from God’s in many ways. In every instance, differences between what options you see and what options God sees, and how you value something and how God values it present a situation where you would judge God as less than ideal were he to show you that difference.¹

Every time God reveals more of himself to you, he will reveal differences between how you thought he was and how he actually is. Each revelation of God provides you with the opportunity to either upgrade your own idea of righteousness by replacing it with what God shows you, or insist that somehow your preconceived notion of righteousness is more righteous than God.

Your ability to judge others correctly is bounded by the limits of your own righteousness.² Human detectors of moral judgment are limited to discerning the next increment of their progress towards God. The more like God someone is than you, the more likely you are to misjudge them and what they do as evil. This is why it is so crucial to judge others by comparing your weaknesses to their strengths (how are they better than you?), and not your strengths to their weaknesses (how are you better than them?).

God reveals himself incrementally to prevent your condemnation.³ As hard as it may be to believe, his character is so far from how you are that to show us it entirely all at once would guarantee your rejection of him. You would not presently value the aspects of God that you do not presently know. God will not reveal to you more about himself than what you can recognize as righteous. He won’t reveal himself so sufficiently that you will hate him. If he revealed himself fully, you would assuredly reject him, and rebellion against such great demonstration of his goodness would so significantly damage your ability to make moral judgments that it would be very difficult for you to obtain forgiveness.⁴

The natural man does not value what God values. Many Jews in Jesus’ day misjudged him as unrighteous in response to his teachings and works. Some were being dishonest, but many genuinely believed he was wicked. For some, limits in their intelligence prevented their ability to correctly judge him. For others, closed-mindedness prevented them from detaching from their prior beliefs of what was right when he contradicted them.

Different approaches exist for moral judgment. A common method is to use static rules that define what is good. While rules can describe what is good in a specific situation, they can be misapplied and will not likely continue to indicate what is good under different situations. A much better way—God’s way—is to calculate what is good based on the calculation of net benefit across available choices.

Those who operate on a rules-based morality are assured to see morality differently than God does, as his morality is based on the calculation of net benefit,⁵ and rules cannot accurately replicate what principles describe. Those whose morality is based on net benefit across available options will deviate from God’s morality only when there are limits in their understanding of the set of available options or the cost and benefit of each.

Holy means that which is different and better. You can’t correctly judge what is better beyond the limits of your appraisal of value. In order to recognize God’s holiness, you need to correctly perceive available options and the long-term net benefit of each. The less you know about reality and the less correctly you assess value, the less prepared you are to recognize the holiness of God.

You mitigate the barrier of misjudging God by developing your intrinsic trust in him and learning more about reality. If you truly believe he is wiser and more knowledgeable than you, and you truly believe that he loves you more than you love yourself, you must assume that anything he shows you about himself is more righteous than anything else. In this manner, you can turn revelations from God from an opportunity to be offended⁶ into an opportunity to learn more about reality. The more you know about God and live as you believe God would in your place, the more you will see and value what is from, by, or like God.