Hypocrisy and Motive

When Jesus condemns hypocrisy, argues Oliver O’Donovan (Desire of Nations, 109–10), He is speaking of conformity to “public expectation.” O’Donovan suggests that the sense is captured by the word “performance.”

Jesus is not speaking of motives in the modern sense of the word: “A motive, as we use the term, is a reason for doing a particular act located within the purposes of the agent. To understand the inner purpose from which an act arose, it appears, is both to grasp the truest meaning of that act (what it ‘really’ intended) and to simplify the task of passing judgment upon it.” For us, “the goodness or badness of the motive,” which doesn’t necessarily correspond to the good or badness of the act itself, “always trumps [the act] in the final evaluation. An evil deed done from a good motive is, at worst, well meant; while a good deed done from a bad motive displays the worst of all evils, hypocrisy.”

Jesus does speak of hidden dimensions of our actions, but He doesn’t share our idea of motive. O’Donovan says that Jesus refers instead to the heart as “the ultimate disposition of the self, the attitude which finds expression in our acts. It is an attribute of the agent, not of particular acts; but it is known, over time, through the agents acts.” On the other hand, Jesus sometimes refer to “private acts that are not open to public inquiry and judgment: secrets which are whispered, angry words that are muttered. lies told when the speaker is not under oath.”

Neither of these corresponds to our idea of motive. Quite the opposite: Jesus “challenges any reading [of the law] which, expressly or by implication, excludes unjusticiable attitudes and acts from consideration.” For Jesus, good motives can’t excuse or soften evil acts, nor are the attitudes of the heart completely hidden from view, at least not in the long run. “By their fruits you shall know them.”