Saint Paul believes that 'law brings only the consciousness of sin'; but it brings this consciousness only if we think it demands a degree of perfection that we cannot achieve. Greek moralists agree that the standards followed by the virtuous person are too demanding for ordinary people; but, in their view, a person who acquires the appropriate knowledge and character becomes capable of following the most demanding moral standard that it is reasonable to accept. Christianity stands against this Greek philosophical tradition, in so far as it denies any ordinary human capacity for the sort of virtue that is demanded by the moral law.

Paul's estimate of human capacity results partly from his view that the moral law necessarily encourages the very desires that reject it. Law gives sin its opportunity, because it is an external requirement imposed by authority; in rejecting it we assert ourselves and our independent will. According to Paul, human beings facing the demands of the law take the attitude that is most vividly expressed by Milton's Satan; they value the self-assertion and freedom that result from deliberate rejection of moral authority. Admittedly, Greek moralists recognize some apparent conflicts of motives. But from the Christian point of view, their accounts of the sources of conflict are rather superficial, since they do not recognize the reasonableness and inevitability of our self-assertion against morality.

If morality only intensifies the conflict between the law and human self-assertion, the Christian attitude may seem intolerably pessimistic. Our pessimism will increase if we take the moral law to be as demanding as Jesus thinks it is. We might not rebel at a moderate degree of self-sacrifice; but when Jesus asks us to go the second mile, turn the other cheek, give to anyone who asks us, love our enemies, and so on, we may object that he goes far beyond any reasonable degree of self-sacrifice. If these are genuine moral ideals with some claim to our acceptance, we may well despair at our inability to follow them. But perhaps we should repudiate them completely, and deny that they are reasonable moral ideals at all.

Jesus argues that his demands express genuine moral ideals with some claim on our acceptance. Despair would be warranted if we had to rely completely on our own ordinary human resources in trying to meet these moral demands; but we are not left to our own resources. . .