Volu m e I - Purdue University Calumet

looked for in actions, attitudes, and beliefs. For Steffen, “goodness provides the normative concept against
which moral meaning is discerned and evaluated” (65). Religion, therefore, is not necessarily a basis for
good actions and moral judgments, as “religion can motivate people to violence and destruction; it can even
inspire murder and suicide, or endorse torture and slavery” (63). By no means are acts like murder, suicide,
torture, and slavery practiced widely by the majority of religious followers. Yet, history shows that all of
these acts, and more, have been authorized and encouraged by religious institutions. Steffen contends that
arriving at the conclusions that these acts are heinous and ought to be condemned “arises not from religious
assessment—[as] religion may have actually instructed such actions—but from moral assessment, moral
evaluation, and moral critique” (63).
But what about those groups who believe that their notions of God and ultimacy necessarily embody
goodness? Many religious believers are conscious of the moral consequences of their decisions and the fact
that those actions are not always good or the best course of action to take; however, moral consciousness is
not automatically an innate feature of all religions and religious believers. Kimball claims that when a
religion lacks this type of awareness, it risks becoming corrupted (Kimball 49). Yet Steffen disagrees with
Kimball‟s claim that a religion can become corrupted, and argues that the absence of life-affirmation and
moral awareness is merely reflective of a misguided way to express religious beliefs. He states that
“affirming the value of life „as good‟ arises from a moral understanding,” and not just through religion by
itself (Steffen 61). In this context, moral understanding refers to the ability to know when one‟s religious
beliefs do not exemplify goodness. In the context of the creation myth from the Hebrew Bible—a story
with which most non-Christians are often familiar—Steffen points out that the creation of the Earth was not
inherently good or meaningful. He supposes that “what God created had no meaning until God interpreted
what had been done and evaluated it as good” (61). This type of evaluation displayed by the God of the
Hebrew Bible is an example of what it takes for a religion and religious believers to illuminate and conform
to a moral vision of goodness.
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