“No
system of formal ethics can properly account for the range of human
experience.”
–Maxim
3
This is an interesting
one to approach, because one has to understand the phrase “system
of formal ethics”. I assume, as the ministry came through me, that
it should be understood through the lens of my own understanding at
the time. After all, I do not get the sense that ministry is
literally words being put in our mouths (or at our hands); it is,
rather, a sense of knowledge or the shape of an idea that makes use
of our own faculties to be recorded. It is in this way that ministry
also comes in the form of verse or visual artwork. This does not mean
that the person through whom the ministry is delivered understands it
fully, of course – rather that they have better context than
others, perhaps, for discerning the meaning of specific terms. It’s
important to know that sometimes that context gives little overall
insight, but when it comes to what a phrase means, there are
certainly times that it is helpful.
(There are also times
when ministry comes in a way that adamantly insists on certain words
being used without conscious understanding of why on the part of the
person through which it comes. That is not the usual situation, in my
experience, but it is not uncommon.)
