The causes are complex. Damaged personalities? Upbringing and life experiences? Recent research at Edinburgh University reinforced the link between crime on the one hand and poverty and maltreatment in childhood on the other, sometimes aggravated later by trauma and drug misuse and breakdown in relationships.
But what about Vladimir Putin? What on earth is driving him? We can only speculate. But, despite his despicable and criminal behaviour, there must be some reasoning behind it. However perverted, it must seem cogent to him and his colleagues, and even, tragically, to some in the wider Russian population. It may be partly cultural, based on a kind of sanctity for a former Russian empire, with a sense of duty to restore it on Putin’s part. And, appallingly, this is being reinforced by the Russian Orthodox Church. But partly, as with domestic criminals, it may relate to upbringing and later experiences.
Another thing the Edinburgh University report found was a correlation between criminality and obsessive personality. I’ve just been reading about a chemical called dopamine. Dopamine relays signals of pleasure in the brain, and conveys messages that cause someone to repeat pleasurable experiences. This can sometimes lead to obsession. And obsession can contribute to deviant and criminal activity.
Is this another factor in Putin’s case, I wonder, adding an obsessive drive to restore the empire? And to what extent is it someone’s fault if they find themselves with an obsessive personality, or with any other mental aberration?
This afternoon’s Evensong readings record two cases of merciless behaviour, in one case within a nation with a religious tradition, and in the other case within a supposedly pious community.
Amos was writing about 750 years BC, in a time of great social inequality. He accuses his hearers of selling the poor and innocent for silver, selling the needy for sandals, trampling the poor. And this, Amos says, is after all God has done for them, bringing them safely out of Egypt and settling them in the Promised Land – choosing them as his special people.
About 800 years later, in the second half of the first century AD, St Paul, or perhaps one of his disciples, wrote a letter to the Christians in Ephesus. He accuses some actually within this Christian community of gross immorality, with greed and licentiousness and lies and stealing. ‘Licentiousness’: what an evocative word; I leave you to conjure what it meant in practice.
Amos and Paul both condemn. But both of them also appeal to their hearers’ and readers’ better nature. They are God’s people. They should be living up to their calling.
St Paul was conscious of his own sinfulness, and struggled with tension in himself, In the immortal words of the Authorised Version of his letter to the Roman Christians, he wrote:
The good that I would I do not:
but the evil which I would not, that I do.
It’s the perennial conflict in all of us: our better nature, versus temptation and selfish sin. The conflict symbolised by the mythical story of Adam and Eve, with their idyllic life, then temptation, disobedience and subsequent misery.
So what is it that propels us, like some of the Jews and early Christians, to act against our consciences and forsake our better nature? What is it that causes some people not to experience conscience at all, and in some cases with no sense of guilt or remorse? What is it that propels psychopaths into unfeeling cruelty? What is it that drives some people into incessant crime? And again we have to ask: what is it, internal to Vladimir Putin, that is driving him and his team into the ridiculous, illogical and horrific violence against Ukraine?
And what of all of us? We’re probably aware of parental influences and past experiences that affect us today. Some of it may even be genetic. So can we help it? To some extent at least, it’s the way we are made. So can we help it? Could the Jews and the Christians of old help it? Can criminals help it? Can Putin help it? Is it just a matter of will-power, like – to be topical – deciding whether to eat cake at the office and risk obesity?
The good that I would I do not:
but the evil which I would not, that I do.
There is a tension even in the Bible between freewill and determinism. It seems we may not be completely mistresses and masters of our own destinies. St Paul was clear that God himself predestined and called certain people to follow Jesus and become the Church. This followed naturally from the constant theme in Jewish scriptures, the Old Testament, that the Jewish people were God’s chosen people. We’re supposed to live up to our calling as God’s special people. But the initiative was definitely God’s, and God has done the selecting and choosing. God called, but we follow.
So where does that leave us over freewill and determinism? It is a difficult issue, philosophically and practically. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the philosopher who asked a colleague: ‘Do we have free will?’ To which the other one replied: ‘We do, but only because we have no choice!’
Perhaps, one day, advances in genetics and social psychology may prove that our individual paths and behaviour are totally determined for us by genetics and circumstance. Where would that leave us? Would we be just puppets? Would morality fly out of the window? Would conscience be no more? I don’t think so. Because even if it were proven that everything was determined, life would be the same as now. We’d still have to make decisions, every moment of our lives – trivial decisions and momentous decisions. And these decisions would not be illusory, but very real decisions, based on real conscience.
‘You were taught to put away your former way of life’, Paul wrote to the Ephesians. ‘And to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God . . . . Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.’
So where are we now? Freewill certainly exists, as we make our day-to-day decisions. And, on that basis, justice must be served: Putin should ideally be tried, and criminals should be punished. But, recognising what drives people will change our approach and moderate the way society responds to deviance and crime. The best punishment is corrective, and based on a grasp of underlying factors and inadequacies – which may not be someone’s fault.
And what of us? Underlying factors undoubtedly play a part in our lives too. Sometimes we beat ourselves up for things we have done and said that actually reflect how we are made. Sometimes we need God’s forgiveness in order to forgive ourselves. And forgiving ourselves is important. But God has called us, and our gratitude for God’s love and forgiveness will be exercising our freewill to try and live up to our calling as God’s people. God help us in that.
