Antinomianism (Ancient Greek: ἀντί [anti] ‘against’ and νόμος [nomos] ‘law’) is any view which rejects laws or legalism and argues against moral, religious or social norms (Latin: mores), or is at least considered to do so. The term has both religious and secular meanings…

The distinction between antinomian and other Christian takes on moral law is that antinomians believe that obedience to the law is motivated by an internal principle flowing from belief rather than from any external compulsion, devotion, or need.

Wikipedia

All human beings have a constitution which suffers when it sees the suffering of others . . . If people catch sight suddenly of a child about to fall into a well, they will all experience a feeling of alarm and distress . . . Because we all have these feelings in ourselves, let us develop them, and the result will be like the blaze that is kindled from a small flame, or the spring in full spate that starts with a trickle. Let these feelings have a free rein, and they will be enough to give shelter and love to us all.

Mengzhi (c. 371 – c. 289 BC)

A commenter on a recent post of mine suggested that membership of some kind of religious organisation (albeit a non-dogmatic one like The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)) might be a necessary defence against “isolation, individualism, even a form of antinomianism.”

This set me thinking. As I have said often enough on this blog, I am more than happy with what some might feel to be isolation; I am, I suppose, some sort of individualist, and always have been; but antinomian? Well, yes, perhaps – guilty as charged, I guess. One of the problems I have had all my life with religious systems and their organisations has been their insistence on adherence to some kind of law, some sort of list of dos and don’ts, of things to believe and beliefs to assent to, rather than reliance upon inner transformation, or simply upon straightforward ethical thinking.

Alice Roberts and Andrew Copson, in The Little Book of Humanism, p. 94:

Considering others is fundamental to our biology. But there’s always room for improvement. We can get better at being good people by thinking about what being good really means, reflecting on the needs of others and ourselves.

Humanists don’t believe in any supernatural source of commands or rules for being good. Instead, humanists hold that we need to think for ourselves about what sort of person we want to be and about the consequences of our actions.

Even people who say they’re taking their morals from religious authority, sacred doctrines or holy books mostly have a very selective approach to this – carefully choosing parts that chime with what they already believe to be moral and ignoring other parts. So, they’re not really learning moral lessons from scripture – rather, imposing their own morals on those archaic texts.

And this seems to me the key point: however much we may ascribe our being good to evolutionary biology’s drive to intraspecific cooperation, to what I called “inner transformation” (really, just the inevitable effect of mindfulness on one’s own unthinking selfishness), or to Scripture, it is actually no more than common sense: thinking through the consequences of our own actions in the light of the needs of others and of ourselves, and doing it thoroughly enough that it becomes second nature.

If this is antinomianism, and it rather looks as though by any accepted definition it is, then sign me up! The contemplative path cannot but be pathless; in itself it is a deeply moral thing to realise our intrinsic emptiness of a separated self; to add to it a layer of doctrines and strictures, from whatever source, seems to me like the gilding of lilies. Leave me the open ground, and the loveliness of the wild flowers, and I will take the risk – if risk it be – of wandering where there is no circumscription, no metalled road.