The Grey Area

A number of people criticise those who say that there is only black and white, a statement I would agree with. There is this idea that there is something such as the grey area, where morals can be diluted and we are not sure whether it is right or whether it is wrong.

However, naturally I disagree, as I said earlier, I definitely side on the side of only ever being black and white. There is one reason for this, and you have probably guessed it by now if you are following this blog - God. To God, I do not believe that there is such a thing as a grey area, where people might be pardoned or might not - why? because God is a God of justice - it is his ultimate decision to determine what is sin and what is not.

But today I thought about why we keep a "grey area" - why do we say something is morally grey and are prepared to live with it?

I think there are two reasons: the first is that law is a much more complex thing nowadays. The classic example can be taken in streaming videos off the Internet - is this piracy, is it wrong, should it be illegal or not? and I think that because we don't have a modern day "ten commandments" to deal with downloads, intellectual property, and therefore what is defined as stealing, under which this may or may not fall - the introduction of technology and the more ready availability of information, and the willingness of musicians, film-makers and TV-corporations to make money from their creations, yet with the ability to make an exact copy so easy (the only art that used to be sold for a living tended to be paintings and sculptures, which is a lot more difficult to make a forgery of than it is to say, copy a DVD).

And therefore the law needs to be more soundproof for people to determine what is right and what is wrong - the vast number of downloads per day can be argued to benefit the industries, as it gets artists work out into the public domain and people then buy the records if they want to hear the real thing with more improved sound quality, picture quality in films, etc. However, on the other side, there are the people who are making money from the download sites. it is so easy to make a quick buck from the Internet by the use of advertising. I could make money from this blog by allowing people to advertise on it, but I have chosen not to since I do not wish to make money from my wisdom (or lack thereof, I leave you to make your own conclusion...) - especially as this is not costing me any money in the first place - unless you count my Internet subscription fee - and the making of money would be at the cost of the reader getting annoying sidebar adverts which may not actually be beneficial to the values that I promote on this site.

Therefore, to answer point one, the laws need to be made clearer, and definite - and wishfully, by God - perhaps we ought to study his word to see if there is anything that may relate to this topic, for example, to give us guidance. Save that, Paul said that those who do not have the law are guided by their conscience, and convicted as such - Maybe our lawmakers should take a look back, see the whole picture, and decide what is right.

The second reason why we have a moral grey area is because we do not want to try and justify what we are doing, or for the matter, we are using it to justify something that is wrong. we keep a grey area because we know that if we had to place it in black or white, it would go in the side of black. In other words, we know that we are sinning. if you are in a situation such as this, unable to decide if it is right or wrong, stop trying to justify why it is right, take a step back, and look at the bigger picture. This I speak for from experience:

I am battling an addiction to something that has plagued me for around 6 years. Constantly I would try and justify it, putting it in a morally grey area. 6 months ago I realised this was wrong. a few weeks ago, after using it as a form of self-flagellation because of a period of depression I went through, I started trying to beat it, knowing full well that it was wrong and trying to beat it. That was the best 9 days of my life. I felt so free, so happy, so full of Joy in the Lord that I was on top of the world. Then I took a knock and I went back down, falling down a slippery slope. A week ago I pulled myself out again, and I now know how far I can go before I am on the slippery slope. I know that I am so close to that edge, because the slope leads straight up to my position on this matter of righteousness. There is a black and white. I am now, for the second time in 6 years, standing in the white. But the white square is so small and so close to the edge of the black. If you think you are in morally grey, it is because the black and white is blurring together - with morally grey, there is always a shade of black - you cannot get away from black until you are in a zone of pure white.