Tag Archive for: Moral

By Luke Nix

Introduction

The Christian Church is no stranger to hypocrisy. The Church is made up of sinners who do not always practice what they preach, and sometimes that practice is in stark contradiction to what we preach. Some of the most heinous acts have been committed by Christians while speaking the truth. It seems that sexual misconduct within the Church is always in the spotlight. For as long as I can remember, I have been aware of numerous sexual scandals within the Church. Like anyone, some have hit close to home and others from afar. The ones that hit close to home tend to be particularly devastating, both physically and emotionally, as well as spiritually and intellectually.

It is important for those affected to hold on to a worldview that can objectively condemn such actions and provide healing for the victims. In these emotionally difficult situations, it is easy to doubt the truth of Christianity. Today, I want to take a few moments to show how such hypocrisy actually reveals the truth of the Christian worldview and how the Christian worldview in turn offers the only possible answer to hypocrisy.

The objectivity of evil

First, the actions of a sexual predator must be qualified as objectively evil, not simply something that a group of people dislike or prefer. The claim that what they did was evil is not just an opinion that can be dismissed by those who see nothing wrong with the actions. That such actions are objectively evil is a feature of reality that must be confronted, explained, and responded to by any worldview.

No worldview can escape this obligation. No worldview that lacks an anchor for objective morality can provide a meaningful judgment about “evil”; those who hold these worldviews can only issue opinions, which are no more valid or true than the person who may also hold the same worldview and say the actions were “good.” Any worldview that lacks such an anchor is defeated by the actions of any sexual predator (whether church members or not).

The scars of sin and the cost of agnosticism and moral relativism

Every victim of sexual misconduct, sexual abuse, rape, etc., is created in the image of God, and is therefore intrinsically valuable. Their rape is objectively wrong, and justice must be served. The devastation of these types of rapes takes years and even decades to heal, if at all. These men, women, boys, and girls will carry the scars for the rest of their lives. These scars will stand as a testament to the truth that objective evil exists.

Any worldview that remains agnostic or ambivalent about the moral status of these actions turns victims into victims again and again. Worldviews without an anchor for objective morality devalue violations and elevate them to moral equivalence with love, honesty, and integrity. Worldviews that cannot call evil “evil” in any meaningful sense of the word (or for that matter, cannot call good “good” either) foster the creation of more victims and compound the suffering of those already victimized.

Such sins in the life of a Christian demonstrate conclusively that no morally relativistic or agnostic worldview deserves a place in a culture, a government, or even at the table of intellectual inquiry, because it perpetually violates reality by violating its victims over and over again.

What if God doesn’t exist?

Sexual sin is detestable, contemptible, and heinous, and we all know this intuitively. The person who commits evil is ultimately eternally damnable because he has violated the intrinsic worth of a human being created in the image of God, and in doing so, he has violated the eternally and morally perfect God. God is the only source of morality that is independent of each and every human being. He alone is the anchor that allows anyone to objectively identify such actions as morally “evil.”

Simply put, if God does not exist, then nothing these Christians did is wrong. Nothing they do is worthy of condemnation or even discussion, as they are simply dancing around with their DNA – the victims will still be victims because they are not really “victims” of anything good or bad. This is not to say that someone has to believe that God exists in order to condemn a Christian’s sexual violations; rather it is to say that just because God exists, even an atheist can accurately condemn such actions as objectively wrong. If God does not exist, then not even the theist can condemn sexual abuse as objectively wrong.

The cognitive and emotional dissonance of evil

When stories of a perpetrator’s heinous acts are told, the moral law that is written in all of our hearts will surface emotionally and powerfully. The emotions we feel are not there simply because we feel these actions are wrong, but because they are objectively wrong, and our outrage is a very appropriate reaction to such violations. Head and heart, logic and emotion, converge in perfect harmony to reveal the truth of reality and the truth of God’s existence. Unless God exists, a person’s “evil” acts bring nothing but cognitive and emotional dissonance.

Actions speak louder than words

If the grotesque moral failings of gospel ministers are to serve any purpose, it is to try to shake our culture out of its moral and intellectual stupor and remind us of the contradiction of every Christian life. But, in stark contrast to every Christian, there is no contradiction in God —not in his actions, not in his words. We all long for someone to be totally consistent in what he says and what he does. But this simply won’t happen when we look at man, even Christian leaders. We should not be surprised when gospel ministers fail morally. We should be surprised that, despite the evidence all around us of humanity’s fallenness, we still try to look at humanity for perfect consistency.

Instead, we must look to the morally perfect Creator, against whom all humans have sinned. This God loves us and desires an infinite, personal relationship with us—so much so that He became one of us to take upon Himself our sins and the wrath we deserve because of them. Justice was served for every sin we could ever commit when Jesus Christ died on the cross. And in His bodily resurrection from the dead, we have forgiveness (1 Cor 15). Jesus’ resurrection provides us with proof of the truth of His claim to be the Creator God of the universe, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, without whom no one can come to the Father (John 14:6).

Conclusion – My two sentences

Sin, hypocrisy, and betrayal in the life of any Christian minister does not prove, or even indicate, that Christianity is false. Quite the opposite: it provides stark evidence of a worldview versus reality that only Christianity surpasses. Christianity never claims that Christians are perfect; in fact, it makes the opposite claim: that Christians can and do do egregiously evil things. This is the reality in which we live, of which we are a part, and which Christianity, uniquely among all worldviews in history, accurately describes. Only through Christ is the sinner healed, the victim healed, and both reconciled to God.

It is my prayer that all victims will find sympathetic ears in today’s culture, people who will recognize, validate and anchor the objectivity of the evil and suffering they endure, people who will recognize that full healing can only be found at the Cross.

I also pray that as more revelations of moral failings within the Church occur, this will cause unbelievers to consider the grounds for their moral outrage, investigate the evidence, and realize that they too are in need of Christ’s atonement, forgiveness, and resurrection.

Finally, remember that it is not Christ who has failed us; it is the members of His Church who have failed us. It is time for us to stop placing our trust in people and start placing it properly where the evidence tells us it should have been in the first place: in Christ. I implore you to follow the moral, philosophical, historical, and scientific evidence where it leads you: to give your life fully and completely to Christ to find both healing and forgiveness.

Recommended resources in Spanish: 

Stealing from God ( Paperback ), ( Teacher Study Guide ), and ( Student Study Guide ) by Dr. Frank Turek

Why I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist ( Complete DVD Series ), ( Teacher’s Workbook ), and ( Student’s Handbook ) by Dr. Frank Turek  

 

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Luke Nix holds a degree in Computer Science and works as an IT Help Desk and Technical Support Manager at a local precious metals exchange in Oklahoma.

Original Source of the Blog: https://bit.ly/35Zh3OS

Translated by Yatniel Vega Garcia

Edited by Monica Pirateque

 

 

By Wintery Knight

From the New York Daily News. (Printable version linked)

Excerpt:

Little Zhuangzhuang, a newborn elephant at a wildlife refuge in China, was inconsolable after his mother rejected him and then tried to stomp him to death.

Tears streamed down his gray trunk for five hours as zookeepers struggled to comfort the baby elephant.

They initially thought it was an accident when the mom stepped on him after giving birth, according to the Central European News agency.

Employees removed him, cleaned him up and treated his injuries, then reunited the baby with his momma.

But she was having none of it, and began stomping him again.

So the game keepers stepped in once more and permanently separated the two.

“We don’t know why the mother turned on her calf but we couldn’t take a chance,” an employee told CEN.

“The calf was very upset and he was crying for five hours before he could be consoled,” he said.

“He couldn’t bear to be parted from his mother and it was his mother who was trying to kill him.”

The petite pachyderm, born in August, is now doing well. The zookeeper who rescued him from his violent mother adopted him and helped him thrive at the Shendiaoshan wild animal reserve in Rong-cheng, China.

I found another photo of the baby elephant here:

A baby elephant’s birthday is supposed to be happy

So, in this post, I wanted to take about the duty that parents have to their children.

I guess a lot of my views on ethics are rooted in the obvious needs that children have. When I look at an unborn baby, I can tell what it needs. So, I am careful not to cause a pregnancy before I can supply its needs. The needs of the little unborn creature are driving these moral boundaries on me. And the same with born children. I oppose gay marriage because when I look at little children, I want them to have a stable environment to grow up in with a mother and father who are biologically related to them (in the best case). I permit lots of arrangements, but I promote one arrangement over the others because that’s what’s best for children. Anyone can look at unborn and born children and see that just like anyone can look at a crying baby elephant and understand – “I have to govern my behavior so that I don’t hurt you”. If that means cutting off the premarital sex and making decisions that are likely to produce a stable marriage, then that’s what we should do.

Children cry too, you know. They cry when we hurt them. They cry when we make bad decisions and when we don’t provide them with what they need. Children need mothers and fathers who care about them. Making a safe environment for a child isn’t an accident. It isn’t random and unpredictable. We have to control our desires before we have children so that we provide children with what they need. It would be nice if men and women were more thoughtful and unselfish about children and marriage before they started in with sex.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

The Case for Christian Activism (MP3 Set), (DVD Set), and (mp4 Download Set) by Frank Turek 

Legislating Morality (mp4 download),  (DVD Set), (MP3 Set), (PowerPoint download), and (PowerPoint CD) by Frank Turek

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book)

 


Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/3mRHTMe

By Erik Manning

I recently came across this article “10 Things You Should Know About Scientism” by Christian philosopher JP Moreland, and he dropped a truth-bomb that is too good to not share. But let me give you a trigger-warning. This is sure to rankle a lot of atheists who seem to unquestionably accept the philosophy of scientism.

Contrary to scientism, there are things we know with greater certainty in theology or ethics than certain claims in science. Consider these two claims:

1. Electrons exist.

2. It is wrong to torture babies for the fun of it.

Which do we know with greater certainty? The second claim is the correct answer. Why? The history of the electron has gone through various changes in what an electron is supposed to be. No one today believes that Thompsonian electrons (J. J. Thompson was the discoverer of electrons) exist because our views have changed so much. It is not unreasonable to believe that in fifty to one hundred years, scientific depictions of the electron will change so much that scientists will no longer believe in electrons as we depict them today.

Regarding the second claim, someone may not know how they know it is true, but nevertheless, we all, in fact, know it is true. If someone denies that, he needs therapy, not an argument. Now it is not hard to believe that in fifty to one hundred years, most people will no longer believe the second claim. But it is hard to see what kind of rational considerations could be discovered that would render the second claim an irrational belief. Thus, we have more certainty in the second claim than in the first. And the same is true for certain theological assertions—like that God exists.

When I shared this quote on social media immediately, I was met with a lot of guffawing from certain atheists. I have to wonder if it’s’s because it strikes a nerve against one of their most dearly held doctrines — that science can answer everything.

The Virtues Of Science?

If you think about it for a minute, what Moreland is saying is hardly controversial. One of the things that skeptics will often say is that one of the differences between science and faith is that science is humble. This is because science is provisional – it’s constantly willing to be wrong and revise its theories in the face of new evidence.  Popular astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson speaks of the virtues in the scientific method:

“This adventure is made possible by generations of searchers strictly adhering to a simple set of rules: Test ideas by experiment and observation, build on those ideas that pass the test, reject the ones that fail, follow the evidence wherever it leads, and question everything.”

Faith, or so the argument goes, is the opposite. It’s often dogmatic in its assertions and not willing to change its stance in the teeth of evidence. It’s more of a “because I said so” vs. a “let me show you” type of thing. All of its arguments are appeals to authority, according to some skeptics.

So it should not be arguable that science, with all of its promises to give us knowledge, is something that should be held with a certain degree of tentativeness and a willingness to change its mind. The existence of gravity or the truth of quantum mechanics are empirical facts, but our understanding of the theories behind them is subject to change.

Right now, science doesn’t have a strong and confident answer for why there is consciousness or how life originated. And the answers in science regarding how human beings and animals evolved is constantly being revised in light of new discoveries.  There are things that are unknown or are held with a lesser degree of certainty.

Moral Values: Not Scientifically Discovered And Not Created By Man

The statement “there is a vast moral difference between protecting the lives of defenseless, orphans, and using them for target practice” is not something that is going to ever be subject to revision. And here’s the kicker — science can’t begin to tell us why we should value one over the other, at best it can tell us about the brain states of the tortured versus the nurtured. It can’t tell us why we ought to care for the orphan and why we ought not torture them.

Ironically, science also can’t tell us why the humility of the scientific method is more virtuous than the dogmatism and exclusivism of religion! These are moral conclusions, not conclusions of science.

“If It Can’t Be Verified By My Physical Senses, I Can’t Know It.”

Some might argue that science gives us empirical knowledge — that which we can actually verify with our five physical senses. For example, we can verify with our eyes that spiders start having eight legs unless they lose a leg. That’s a scientific fact. But moral statements can’t be verified that way, so they’re not actually factual. We need to keep our moral jelly away from their scientific peanut butter.

But this is just the old, debunked philosophy of verificationism rearing it’s ugly head again. Verificationism had it’s heyday nearly a hundred years ago in philosophy departments, but it died out shortly after critics pointed out a fatal flaw: We can’t actually verify verificationism with our five physical senses. There’s no scientific experiment that you can run that shows that factual statements can’t be moral. Therefore, verificationism is self-defeating. And to say that there’s a difference between empirical facts and moral opinions just begs the question for verificationism. Somehow this flawed epistemology lives on among many modern skeptics.

But What About Moral Diversity?

Some might argue that morality is different in other cultures, and so, therefore, it’s’s relative and makes no truth claims. Science can at least tell us the facts eventually, while morality is just emotive. So, for example, in India, cows roam free because they’re considered to be sacred. But here in America, there’s a hamburger spot within driving distance for almost everyone.

But both cultures agree that it is wrong to eat other human beings. In America, when Grandma dies, we don’t eat her; we bury her. Hindus don’t eat beef because they think the cow could be Grandma reincarnated! So the moral difference doesn’t arise because of conflicting values but facts related to common values.

Every culture that has devalued innocent, human life has done so by dehumanizing the other side. Just look at our modern abortion debate — one side stridently says that the unborn are not human, so it’s’s permissible to kill them. The other side holds that life begins at conception and will argue from science, theology, and philosophy for their position. But neither side will explicitly say it’s’s morally permissible to murder babies because they’re inconvenient to us, because both camps consider them to be human.

On the subject of moral disagreement, C.S. Lewis wrote: “Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to—whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.”

Just because some objects in the moral landscape are harder to see than others, it doesn’t mean that we don’t see many moral facts very clearly. We clearly see that justice is to be preferred to injustice, kindness is to be preferred to cruelty, courage is better than cowardice, and that intellectual dishonesty is never going to be a virtue.

Ethical Truths Are More Certain Than Many Scientific Claims

If morality is just a matter of preference or expressions of our emotions, it becomes unclear why we should work to solve any moral “problems.” We could simply say, “Hey, this sense of distaste you have for genocide, kidnapping, sexually abusing children, rape, murder is just that — distaste. Let’s just agree that no moral problems exist and move on!” Obviously, that’s crazy.

The point is that there are universal moral values; they’re often glaringly self-evident and need no argument to support them any more than we need to argue for the laws of mathematics or logic. And science will never be able to tell us what they are.

Peter Singer, an atheist philosopher, says, “No science is ever going to discover ethical premises inherent in our biological nature, because ethical premises are not the kind of thing discovered by human investigation. We do not find our ethical premises in our biological nature, or under cabbages either.” 

We come to science with this background belief as a properly basic foundation. And importantly, science depends on people acting ethically – like conducting their investigations safely and honestly. We take this for granted, just as much as take for granted the existence of the external world that we study in science. And ethics and science often intersect, like in questions about gene editing, population control, animal rights, and so forth.

To doubt the existence of the moral world is no more justifiable than to doubt the existence of the physical world. Many atheist philosophers agree with this — for example, Michael Martin, Russ Schafer-Landau, Erik Weilenberg, Louise Antony, GE Moore, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, and many more, even if I and many philosophers think they run into a “grounding” problem. And because of that, Moreland is absolutely correct. The notion that the assertions of the hard sciences are greatly superior to claims outside science is false.

“A wise man scales the city of the mighty and brings down the stronghold in which they trust.” (Proverbs 21:22)

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp3 and Mp4

Counter Culture Christian: Is There Truth in Religion? (DVD) by Frank Turek

Why Science Needs God by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)

Science Doesn’t Say Anything, Scientists Do by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3, and Mp4)

 


Erik Manning is a Reasonable Faith Chapter Director located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He’s’s a former freelance baseball writer and the co-owner of a vintage and handmade decor business with his wife, Dawn. He is passionate about the intersection of apologetics and evangelism.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/3gHOJAf 

Por Chris Du-pond

Frecuentemente tengo conversaciones con personas que afirman que la ciencia es el único medio razonable para obtener conocimiento y llegar a la verdad. Esta posición se denomina cientificismo y, mientras es cierto que la ciencia es maravillosa y nos puede proveer de todo tipo de información valiosa, también creo que la mayor parte de nuestro conocimiento relevante no puede ser obtenido por la ciencia o el método científico. Veamos; ¿Cuáles son algunas de las cosas que no se pueden demostrar con la ciencia pero que los científicos consideran como ciertos?

  1. Lógica. Verdades lógicas no se pueden probar con la ciencia. La ciencia tiene que asumir y presuponer que la lógica funciona para así poder hacer ciencia dado que la ciencia es una empresa lógica. Bien se dice que la ciencia es esclava de la filosofía por esto mismo. El tratar de probar las leyes de la lógica con ciencia es cometer la falacia de “petición de principio” o argumentar en círculo.
  2. Matemática. La ciencia tiene que asumir que los números y las ecuaciones matemáticas describen correctamente el funcionamiento interno del universo. Es impresionante como algunas abstracciones matemáticas describen perfectamente el movimiento de fluidos, movimientos de partículas o trayectorias de cuerpos celestes.
  3. Lenguaje. La ciencia asume que el lenguaje hablado y escrito es adecuado para describir el cosmos. Cuando un científico reporta teorías y teoremas, tiene que usar lenguaje que otros puedan comprender. Es así que la ciencia presupone que el lenguaje puede expresar verdades.
  4. Verdades Metafísicas. Los científicos tienen que asumir que existen mentes, aparte de las suyas propias, con inteligencia y capacidad de discernimiento. Que sus propias mentes no son una masa deterministica de químicos en movimiento, sino un instrumento capaz de obtener verdad por medio de la abstracción, el cálculo y el descubrimiento.
  5. Realidad. El científico asume que el mundo externo es real e inteligible, que el pasado no fue creado hace algunos minutos con apariencia de antigüedad y que el observador existe aparte de lo observado.
  6. Confiabilidad de los Sentidos. El conocimiento científico presupone que los sentidos y la mente son herramientas confiables para la observación.
  7. Verdad. El proceso de la ciencia asume que existe la verdad es objetiva y que se puede conocer. Un sistema epistemológico es necesario para hacer ciencia.
  8. Orden y Uniformidad. Para poder postular un experimento o teoría, los científicos asumen que el universo opera de manera uniforme y bajo ciertas leyes. La ciencia requiere que el mismo experimento—conducido bajo circunstancias similares—produzca los mismos resultados.
  9. Valores Éticos y Morales. Estatutos de moralidad y deber ético no son accesibles al método científico. No se puede demostrar que el holocausto o el genocidio de Ruanda fueron perversos; y aun así los científicos asumen de manera racional que estos eventos fueron profundamente malévolos. De hecho, los que practican las ciencias tienen que adherirse a códigos de ética incluyendo honestidad y objetividad al reportar datos y escritos científicos.
  10. Juicios Estéticos. La belleza no se puede probar científicamente. La ciencia es agnóstica a un hermoso atardecer, a un poema o una composición musical, y aun así los científicos se refieren a sus teorías como “elegantes” o “bellas”.
  11. El Método científico. Finalmente y muy notablemente, la misma ciencia no puede ser justificada o probada por el método científico. La ciencia esta permeada con presuposiciones que no se pueden probar. Por ejemplo, la teoría especial de relatividad depende de la presuposición que la velocidad de la luz es constante entre dos puntos.

Como podemos apreciar, hay muchas cosas que una persona sobria o el científico pueden creer con perfecta justificación independientemente de la ciencia o el método científico. Esto no es una crítica a la ciencia; al contrario: el hacer ciencia es una ocupación noble y maravillosa. Los científicos han contribuido grandemente al avance de la sociedad, pero el afirmar que la ciencia o el método científico es el único método valido para obtener verdad y conocimiento es ir más allá de los límites de la ciencia. De hecho, la frase “solamente podemos obtener verdades por medio del método científico” no es una afirmación que se pueda verificar por el método científico y por lo tanto ¡deberíamos rechazarla como falsa bajo esa premisa! La frase comete harakiri tan pronto como abandona los labios de donde salió. Es por eso que el cientificismo es irracional, se auto-refuta y debe ser rechazado por toda persona razonable.

Escucha este Podcast sobre el tema: ¿Qué es el cientificismo?

 


Chris Du-Pond es Ingeniero en Sistemas Computacionales graduado del Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, especialista en Bases de Datos relacionales. Chris se graduó de la Maestría en Apologética Cristiana de la Universidad de Biola con los más altos honores y estudió bajo la tutela de apologistas como William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, Sean McDowell, Clay Jones, y J.P. Moreland entre otros. Es miembro de la Sociedad Filosófica Evangélica, la Sociedad Teológica Evangélica y la Alianza de Apologética Cristiana. Actualmente asiste a la Iglesia “Champion Forest Baptist Church” en Houston, TX, junto con su esposa Katya y sus dos hijas, Juliette y Giselle donde enseña una clase de teología avanzada.

Blog Original: http://bit.ly/2DxA9fP

Por Chris Du-Pond

Diariamente se toman decisiones—de vida o muerte—en referencia a nuestros conceptos de bondad y maldad en las cortes de todo el mundo. La mayoría de la gente percibe que algo está bien o mal como una “corazonada” pero cuando se les pide que expliquen el origen de la moralidad frecuentemente se refieren a experiencias personales, la sociedad, o simplemente fallan en proveer una base lógica para su sistema moral. Consecuentemente la moralidad es tomada como una construcción humana, relativa a cada persona, y sujeta a cambios. Esto es comúnmente llamado relativismo moral. Pero como veremos, el relativismo moral es insostenible y se auto-refuta.

Si la moralidad se fundamenta en la sociedad o en individuos, entonces se torna imposible condenar, por ejemplo, la proclamación de los edictos de Núremberg que privaron a los judíos de su ciudadanía y les dio el estatus de “sujetos”; el abuso de judíos—niños, mujeres y ancianos—a condiciones inhumanas y frecuentemente obligados a participar en trabajos forzados hasta morir en campos de concentración y ultimadamente el genocidio metódico de seis millones de ellos. Si la moralidad es relativa, entonces solo nos queda expresar una opinión acerca de estas atrocidades, y la opinión de Hitler—o la opinión del régimen Nazi en conjunto—se vuelve simplemente una cuestión de gusto o desacuerdo al igual que nuestra propia opinión.

Afortunadamente, la mayoría de la gente está de acuerdo en que las acciones de Hitler fueron inmorales, pero la cuestión del origen de la moralidad no se puede decidir por decreto, sino que requiere una explicación objetiva. Analicemos algunas opciones que se han postulado en un esfuerzo de explicar el origen de la moralidad:

  1. La Moralidad se define como aquello que contribuye al florecimiento de la sociedad. Si este es el caso, entonces el avance de la evolución humana por medio de la sobrevivencia de los organismos mejor adaptados resultaría en el máximo beneficio para la sociedad. Esta ideología—de donde nace el Darwinismo social—se conforma perfectamente con las ideas nazis del tercer Reich y puede ser utilizada para justificar genocidios masivos por medio de la eliminación sistemática de los elementos más débiles de la sociedad; un tipo de aceleración o ayuda artificial del proceso de selección natural.
  2. La Moralidad es definida por cada individuo. Pero aquí, de nuevo, la moralidad simplemente se reduce a una mera opinión y cualquier desacuerdo debe decidirse por la mayoría. Este método es también inadecuado para determinar si las atrocidades de los alemanes nazis fueron inmorales porque la opinión de Hitler sería tan válida como la de cualquier otro. Después de todo, Hitler tenía el apoyo de la mayoría de los ciudadanos alemanes y del parlamento alemán (Hitler fue elegido democráticamente).
  3. La Moralidad simplemente existe como una verdad metafísica necesaria. En esta posición, la moralidad es un concepto abstracto que existe como una verdad metafísica necesaria como la lógica, los números, o las matemáticas. Pero el juicio de valor de la moralidad sigue siendo una cuestión de opinión ya que no existe una regla o inferencia lógica que nos diga que matar judíos es inmoral de la misma manera que 2+2=4.
  4. La Moralidad es definida por Dios. Cualquier cosa que Dios ordene es buena. Pero bajo este concepto, “bueno” y “malo” se convierten en mandatos arbitrarios dictados por Dios. ¿Qué tal si Dios ordenase torturar bebés por diversión? ¿Sería tal mandato bueno solamente porque Dios lo ordena? ¡Claro que no! Una punta opuesta de este dilema vería a la moralidad como algo que existe fuera de Dios, de tal forma que Dios se encuentra restringido a ordenar solamente aquellas órdenes que sean buenas (haciendo de la moralidad algo externo a la naturaleza de Dios. Dios cesaría de ser el dador de la ley para convertirse en un mero transmisor de la ley). 1

Desafortunadamente, ninguna de estas opciones nos permite condenar las mayores atrocidades en la historia de la humanidad: no podemos decir realmente que el holocausto fue objetivamente perverso, o la esclavitud, o la opresión a la mujer.

Bajo el relativismo moral, cualquier intento de mejora moral no tiene sentido porque no hay una regla estándar de medida para comparar los diferentes actos y sistemas morales.

¿Cuál sería entonces la base para afirmar objetivamente que el holocausto fue objetivamente perverso? ¿O que torturar bebés por diversión es moralmente torcido? De manera claramente objetiva, nuestra experiencia moral nos dicta que hay verdaderamente valores y deberes morales objetivos.

Que robar y asesinar están mal independientemente de lo que piensen individuos y sociedades y en ese sentido, aunque los nazis hubiesen ganado la guerra y hubieran aniquilado o convencido al resto del mundo de que lo que hicieron tuvo una buena justificación, seria aun objetivamente incorrecto y perverso. El hecho de que nuestra experiencia moral apunta hacia una moral objetiva (no confundir con ontología moral) indica que la moralidad debe estar fundamentada en algo mas allá de la sociedad o de los individuos y de hecho apunta hacia la existencia de Dios; porque si Dios no existe entonces los humanos son simplemente bolsas gigantes de químicos en movimiento en una licuadora cósmica de átomos.

Es imposible deducir, a partir de químicos, que matar a un bebé por diversión es perverso. Esto toca el núcleo del argumento moral a favor de la existencia de Dios:

  1. Si Dios no existe, los valores y deberes morales objetivos no existen.
  2. Los valores morales objetivos sí existen.
  3. Por lo tanto, Dios existe.

Este argumento es lógicamente valido y si las premisas 1 y 2 son verdad, entonces la conclusión (3) se deriva necesariamente. Más aún, el hecho de que nuestra experiencia moral fuertemente testifica que la moralidad objetiva existe, combinada con la deficiencia que tienen los químicos, las sociedades, y los individuos a explicar tal experiencia indica que hay en cada persona una moralidad implantada que es reflejo de la buena naturaleza de Dios, a pesar de que esta experiencia sea difícil de explicar o definir. “Bueno” y “Malo” no son mandatos que Dios dicta caprichosamente o que existen independientemente, sino que la bondad es parte de la naturaleza intrínseca de Dios y el estándar absoluto de moralidad y justicia.

Esta es la razón por la que C. S. Lewis abandonó el ateísmo y escribió posteriormente:

“Mi argumento en contra de Dios era que el universo parecía tan cruel e injusto. ¿Pero de donde había sacado yo esta idea de justo e injusto? Un hombre no le llama a una línea ‘torcida’ al menos que tenga alguna idea de lo que es una línea ‘recta’. ¿Con que estaba yo comparando este universo cuando le llamaba injusto?”2

Llevado hasta sus últimas consecuencias, el relativista moral afirma que debemos de “tolerar” a todos los demás sistemas morales pues también son válidos. Pero esta es una posición que se auto-refuta y moralmente indefendible porque si tenemos dos sistemas morales en conflicto (supongamos que una cultura juzga que la discriminación a la mujer merece tiempo en la cárcel mientras que otra afirma que la mujer no tiene mucho más valor que el ganado); ¿Qué versión de moralidad utilizaríamos para resolver el conflicto? La misma creencia del relativista le prohíbe el juzgar a otro sistema moral, sino que debe “tolerarlo”. No puede culpar a otra cultura. Esta posición falla su propia prueba de aplicación y vence el propósito inicial que buscaba promover terminando en un nudo gordiano moral. El estandarte de la “tolerancia” se convierte en una excusa para aceptar todo tipo de inmoralidad e indirectamente ¡promueve la inmoralidad! Ahora, si la “tolerancia” es un valor moral absoluto que el relativista quiera forzar a los demás, entonces los valores morales objetivos existen (Dios existe) y el relativismo cae sobre su propia espada auto-refutándose. De cualquier forma el relativismo falla y la moralidad apunta a la existencia de Dios.

¿Alguna vez has sido parte de una conversación donde los participantes han tomado una posición de relativismo moral? ¿Cómo te has manejado en tal situación?

Dinos qué piensas de nuestro artículo “Con los pies bien plantados en el aire: relativismo y el argumento moral”. 

Aquí te dejamos el enlace para un vídeo que trata sobre la objeción del Mal contra la existencia de Dios que toca un brevemente el tema del Relativismo Moral. ¿Puede el mal refutar a Dios?

Notas

  1. Esto se conoce también como el “Dilema de Eutifrón”. Para una explicación detallada, ver, “Euthyphro’s Dilemma”, Stand to Reason, http://www.str.org/articles/euthyphro-s-dilemma#.VLgGGyvF9WU (accesado Enero 15, 2015).
  2. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2009), 38.

 


Chris Du-Pond es Ingeniero en Sistemas Computacionales graduado del Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, especialista en Bases de Datos relacionales. Chris se graduó de la Maestría en Apologética Cristiana de la Universidad de Biola con los más altos honores y estudió bajo la tutela de apologistas como William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, Sean McDowell, Clay Jones, y J.P. Moreland entre otros. Es miembro de la Sociedad Filosófica Evangélica, la Sociedad Teológica Evangélica y la Alianza de Apologética Cristiana. Actualmente asiste a la Iglesia “Champion Forest Baptist Church” en Houston, TX, junto con su esposa Katya y sus dos hijas, Juliette y Giselle donde enseña una clase de teología avanzada.

Blog Original: http://bit.ly/2ObuZao