Canter Bridge

Caution and precaution are not the central virtue. Yet they are necessary. Without them the life-giving properties of community drain away before time. In their absence, chaos thrives on a rich diet of naiveté, credulity, and unbridled risk.

Several of the example-casting treatises called ‘case law’ that we find in the book of Exodus illustrate the moral shape of caution. The intent of Israel’s legislators is not to lay down a comprehensive code of conduct but rather to employ hypothetical situations that might be found in real life to build a nation’s soul around preferences that are both joyful and responsible.

Take a bull, for example, a giant beast capable of many good things but also of ending life or maiming it with a single thrust of his horns:

When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall not be liable. If the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not restrained it, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.

Cautious people are meant to discern risk levels and act accordingly. It’s not about actuarial accuracy, but rather about the cultivation of a community where people are free to plow, to dance, and to love without constantly looking over their shoulder.

The apocalyptic words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew’s twenty-fourth chapter could hardly belong to a more different set of circumstances than do the stability-mongering legal instructions of Exodus. Yet here too precaution is taken to preempt damaging innocence:

Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look! Here is the Messiah!’ or ‘There he is!’—do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Take note, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, ‘Look! He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look! He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Whether near Israel’s genesis or the last words of Jesus before his ascension to his Father, precaution stands in as a necessary virtue. Noble in its own way, it must not be allowed the kind of self-importance that would raise its stature above that of, say, faith, hope, or love. Yet without it faith becomes vacuous and thin. Hope becomes an evasive tool that allows reality to trundle on un-addressed. Love becomes willing immolation at the hands of dangerous men and women who delight in lighting fires.

Joy, that improbable virtue of rooted people, becomes impossible.