by CCW | 25 November 2021 14:00
The Ten Commandments read in Chapel this week present in a concise and clear way the universal moral code of our humanity and mark the climax of the Exodus, itself a journey of ethical education. They are the core teachings that underlie a multitude of laws and regulations that arise over time in various situations and circumstances. In this sense, the idea of the Law differs from regulations which bind and limit. The Law in contrast liberates. Regulations belong and apply to local conditions and are arbitrary and alterable, cultural and relative to context. The Law, on the other hand, transcends the cultural, ethnic, and linguistic, to speak to matters which are in principle universal.
Our reflection on the Ten Commandments follows logically upon the Revelation of God as “I AM WHO I AM” to Moses out of the burning bush and complements the idea of the interaction between the different forms of our knowing. Revelation engages our minds. Thus the Ten Commandments are grounded in the metaphysical revelation of God as the principle prior to all forms of knowing and being. They move us from that idea of God to the making known of the will of God for our humanity. They are revelation but they are equally a complete system of ethical thinking. They begin with the “I AM WHO I AM” who leads us out of what constrains and limits our humanity.
“I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage”. This is the preface to the giving of the Ten Commandments which are not numbered per se in the text (there are two different traditions about the way they are numbered – more about that later). “I am the Lord thy God” is a circumlocution for saying in effect, “I am the I AM WHO I AM, thy God”. This follows upon the story of the burning bush where God says to Moses say to the people of Israel “I AM has sent me to you”. And why? Because God has seen the affliction of his people and undertakes their deliverance, in this case from Egyptian slavery.
Even more, the Ten Commandments are about a greater liberation that counters the limits of cultural relativism which denies any abiding truth to any law – all laws become merely regulations, arbitrary and alterable and as such subject to the misuse and abuse of power. The Law is not only liberation from what limits and enslaves but a liberation to a principle in which our humanity finds its truest expression, its dignity and freedom. With the Ten Commandments, the ideas of freedom and dignity have real content and are not merely slogans bandied about under the guise of coercion and social conformity.
While the Ten Commandments are given in an authoritative form, as the Revelation of the will of God, they show the true authority of reason, our reason in engagement with divine reason. They provide a complete order of thought. As such they are not negotiable; it is not a matter of picking and choosing some and rejecting others according to our whims. They all go together to comprise a complete system of ethical teaching and, as teaching, they have to be taught. Ultimately, they underlie all of the particular forms of regulation and rules that arise in particular contexts and act as the true measure of what belongs to the common order of communities.
In the Christian context, Lutherans and Roman Catholics, following Augustine, regard the proscription against images as part of the first commandment – “thou shalt have none other gods but me” – and divide the last commandment, “thou shalt not covet” into two parts, coveting things and persons. Other reformed traditions such as Anglicans and Calvinists, along with the churches of Eastern Orthodoxy, regard the proscription against images as the second commandment and maintain the unity of the tenth commandment. There is no difference in terms of essential content only in emphasis within these different ways of numbering. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are united in the idea that God is God and therefore is not to be confused with any aspect of creation at all.
To do so would be a category mistake in reason, a confusion between cause and effect, which relates as well to the philosophical idea of one principle upon which the multiplicity of things depends as with Plato’s concept of the Good or Aristotle’s idea of God as the “Unmoved Mover.” Thus what is presented as Revelation in an authoritative way is given for thought. This way of thinking runs through the Ten Commandments and belongs to their integral unity. The idea of the name of God is not to be taken “in vain”, i.e. not made subject to human interests and uses, but to be respected and honoured just as the idea of the One, the Good, Being, and Truth, of God as intellectual principle, have a kind of force for thought. “Remember the sabbath” highlights the importance of contemplation and reflection as belonging to the created good of our humanity, a reflection upon what reason grasps as beyond itself, as for example, Anselm’s “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”.
The Ten Commandments admit of a primary distinction which is of the greatest ethical importance; our duty to God as an intellectual and spiritual principle and our duty to one another; in short, God and man. These are intimately connected. “Honour thy father and mother” extends beyond the experiential aspects of family relations to recall us to something universal. We are all the products of family in some way or another. It is about honouring our natural derivations regardless of how we might feel about our parents and siblings. The freedom is to honour the natural source of your life.
“Thou shalt not kill” or murder because God and not us is the Creator and author of life. Marriage as the rational basis of the family is to be honoured and respected; “thou shalt not commit adultery”. Property is to be respected; “thou shalt not steal”. Words matter; “thou shalt not bear false witness”, for that is to lie and as such to be caught in contradiction. Lies have no power apart from the truth which they presuppose. And finally, “thou shalt not covet” which shows how the law returns us to God in terms of heart and mind, conscience and desire. To covet is to want what another has and such puts ourselves at the center of everything, as if we were God. But we aren’t. It is in this sense that the Law liberates us from the tyranny of ourselves in the disorders of our desires. The Law frees us to God. In this sense, the Law as God’s Word and Will, “is a lantern unto my feet,/and a light unto my path” (Ps. 119. 107).
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, Head of English & ToK Teacher,
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2021/11/25/kes-chapel-reflection-week-of-25-november/
Copyright ©2026 Christ Church unless otherwise noted.