jazzin'

This is a little bit of what I'm currently working on. Think it works?

An excellent performance of one’s life requires a unity of preparation and performance, and a unity within the performer. An excellent performance requires, as well, both the performers and the audience to understand the nature of the particular performance, of everything from the rituals and etiquette of the performance (what clothes are appropriate for the performance, when to applaud, where to sit, whether one must silence or turn off one’s cellphone?—Yes!!— etc.) to an appreciation for the setting or context of the performance (a small jazz club or a large public auditorium) and an understanding of the aim of the performance (to provide background music while people eat, or to present an excellent musical work worthy of one’s attention, etc.) Audiences and performers alike bring a lot of essential background knowledge and studied expectations to the performance.

This is true for the Christian moral life and the study of Christian ethics, as well. The discipline of Christian ethics is the investigation of the nature and setting of a life performance and an exploration and identification of the norms for excellent performers and for an excellent performance of a Christian life, in particular of being for the good in that area of life we call morality. This performance is not unlike the excellent performance, say, of a symphony, or a jazz-set. As the musician performs something—a piece of music composed by an author—so the Christian life is preparation for and performance of the music of goodness, rightness, and fittingness.

Christians think of God as the author of this music we are to perform. God composes the song of life, a song that includes morality, although God does not compose this song in the way songs are typically composed. God not only composes, but also envisions, and brings about the conditions for the appropriate performance of this song. The song of the good and the right and the fitting and excellent is composed both by God merely being God and being for the good and by God’s commanding us to do or not do something, by the being and the command of a perfect being. Reality is what it is by virtue of God’s existence or being, and, thus, the good and the right and the worthy exist because God exists. And God commands, thereby creating duties and obligations for those to whom God issues the commands. That which is good or right, and that which is excellent, thus, have their origin in God’s being, in God’s nature and in God’s actions.