Tag Archive for: objective morality

Can Atheism Account for Objective Morality?

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By Ryan Leasure 

Do objective morals exist? That is to say, are certain actions right or wrong irrespective of what people think? Philosphers and moral scientists have wrestled over the question of objective morality for centuries. Prior to the Enlightenment, objective morality was a given. The foundation for which was the nature of God himself.

Since the Enlightenment, however, brilliant minds have sought to find other explanations for objective morals using only the natural world, and this pursuit has proven to be quite difficult. As a result, naturalism — the belief which denies any supernatural or spiritual realities — has bred scores of moral nihilists. Contemporary atheist Richard Dawkins sums up this view nicely when he writes, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”[i]

Many skeptics, on the other hand, wish to avoid such a depressing outlook. After all, human experience seems to suggest that some actions are objectively good or evil. Therefore, instead of adopting moral nihilism, other naturalists adopt the view known as moral realism seeking to maintain objective moral values and duties.[ii] But can this view hold up to scrutiny? Have philosophers and scientists been able to ground morality in some place other than God?

In this article, I will demonstrate that theism provides the only basis for objective morality. I will support this thesis in two ways. First, I will evaluate the different explanations naturalists have used to ground morality and show them to be wanting. Second, I will substantiate the claim that theism accounts for objective morals despite skeptics’ objections.

Naturalism and Morality

In Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris remarks, “Questions of morality are questions about happiness and suffering… To the degree that our actions can affect the experience of other creatures positively or negatively, questions of morality apply.”[iii] A self-described atheist, Harris adopts a totalitarian approach which argues that we can ground morality in the pleasure or misery of individuals.

In his more critiqued book, The Moral Landscape, he defines the “good” as that which supports the well-being of “conscious creatures.”[iv] But why, given atheism, should we think that the flourishing of human beings is objectively good? Where, exactly, in the natural world do we learn this objective truth? Harris fails to provide an explanation for this assertion. He simply equates “good” with “human flourishing” without any justification in what amounts to equivocation and circular reasoning.

Is/Ought Fallacy

Harris’s attempt to ground morality in human flourishing fails on at least two additional fronts. First, Harris is guilty of committing the is/ought fallacy. Generally speaking, someone commits the is/ought fallacy when they attempt to make value judgments using science.[v] Science, after all, only explains what “is,” not how things “ought” to be. For example, science tells us how us how to make an atomic bomb. It cannot, however, tell us whether we ought to use it. Harris believes he can prove his point by demonstrating that science tells us how to make life more conducive. But what exactly does this prove?

Of course advancements in science have aided in human flourishing. Science also tells us how to make life more conducive for corn and rabbits. But that does not mean it is morally evil to prohibit the flourishing of corn. Because Harris cannot ground objective morality as the term is philosophically understood, his only recourse is a semantic sleight of hand in which he redifines the word “good” to mean human flourishing. Even still, though science tells us how to promote human flourishing, it does not tell us that we “ought” to promote human flourishing.

Naturalistic Determinism

The second fatal error to Harris’s argument is his commitment to naturalistic determinism. As someone who affirms objective morality, Harris affirms that we “ought” to act a certain way. Yet he rejects the notion of free will at the same time.[vi] He goes so far as to state that free will is merely an “illusion.”[vii] As a naturalistic determinist, Harris holds to the view that every event is the result of a chain reaction which has been causally determined by the laws of physics and chemistry. In essense, humans act in robotic fashion and possess no volitional control over of their actions.

This position is paramount to agreeing with Richard Dawkins when he states, “DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.”[viii]  We expect Dawkins to make a statement like this since he denies objective morality. We would not, however, expect Harris to affirm determinism since it undercuts his moral argument. After all, he notoriously condemns religious people for their agregious actions. But given Harris’s determinism, can he really blame them? Does he not believe that their actions were spring loaded at the Big Bang and carried out by the inflexible laws of physics and chemistry?

Naturalistic Reasoning?

The problem for Harris’s determinism runs even deeper. For if naturalism is correct, and human beings are mere matter and nothing else, then rational thought becomes impossible. Rationality is, after all, the ability to adjudicate between arguments and evidence. But how do atoms, molecules, and physical laws make concious decisions? Years ago, C. S. Lewis recoginzed this fatal flaw. He remarks, “A theory which explained everything else in the whole universe but which made it impossible to believe our thinking was valid, would be utterly out of court. For that theory would itself have been reached by thinking, and if thinking is not valid, that theory would, of course, be itself demolished.”[ix] In other words, if Harris is right on naturalistic determinism, it follows that we have no grounds for even knowing if naturalism is true.[x]

In the end, while Harris’s desire to affirm objective morality is commendable, he simply has no rational basis for his claims. He not only commits the is/out fallacy, he also undercuts his position by categorically denying free will of any kind. For these reasons, Harris’s view has failed to attract many suitors. Naturalists, though, have not bailed on the enterprise altogether. Most naturalists aim to ground morality another way — through evolutionary biology.

Morality from Evolution?

Standard Darwinian evolution asserts descent with modification. This process of natural selection acting on random mutations has been the standard view among naturalists for quite some time. And on the surface, this model seems to contradict our modern understanding of morality. For if Darwin was right, then for millions of years, creatures scratched and clawed their way to the top, sometimes killing and eating each other. We can understand, then, how natural selection explains features such as sexual drive, hunger, and fear since these qualities aided in preservation. But how does natural selection explain the phenomenon of altruism? How does sacrificing one’s self for the good of others aid in survival?

Naturalists typically offer two explanations — kin selection and reciprocal altruism. Kin selection theory suggests that species behave altruistically in ways that benefit the rest of their families at their own expense. For example, a monkey might cry out a warning to her relatives if she sees a leapord coming. This cry results in the leapord focusing its attention on her, decreasing her survivability. This sacrifice, however, ensures that the family genes — the same genes shared by the altruistic monkey — will survive and pass on to the next generation.[xi]

Naturalists also argue that altruism arose through reciprical relationships. In what amounts to “you scratch my back and I will scratch yours,” reciprical altruism is similar to bartering where assymetrical species help each other out by providing services that the other cannot provide for themselves. Bees need nectar and flowers need polinating. Or in some cases, animals need bugs and dirt removed from their fur, so another animal will do it for them when they could be out searching for food or a mate. Natural selection, therefore, favors the species that provide services for other species.

Evolution’s Failure

Even if we granted that evolution explains the rise of altruism, that does not solve the naturalist’s problem for a few reasons. First, as one considers the evolutionary rise of altruism, it becomes clear that altruism — especially on the reciprical model — is performed for selfish reasons. In other words, the theory suggests that species do “nice” things for other creatures only because it benefits them in the long run. But now we are talking about self-centeredness — the exact opposite of altruism.

A second critique of the evolutionary model is that it makes morality arbitrary. That is to say, it reaches ad hoc conclusions about the value of human beings. For if Darwin’s theory is correct, all living species descended from a single-celled organism and now form the different branches on Darwin’s tree of life. With this model in mind, who is to say that humans should be treated differently than crickets, rats, or cows? William Lane Craig refers to this inconsistency as “specie-ism,” in that people are showing unjustified bias towards their own species.[xii]  Craig is right on this. Given naturalism and the Darwinian model, humans are just one branch of many. Nothing about Darwinism tells us that we ought to act differently from the other species in the animal kindgom.

Take the black widow, for example, who often eats her male counterpart during the mating process. Or consider male sharks who forcibly copulate with female sharks. Do either of these creatures commit moral evils? If not, why would these same actions be wrong for humans since we all belong to the same tree of life? We can certainly appreciate the secular humanists who wish to maintain that humans are intrinsically valuable, but they have no way of grounding this position given their naturalism. Atheist philosopher Michael Ruse admits as much when he writes, “I appreciate that when somebody says, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves… Nevertheless… such reference is truly without foundation.”[xiii]

Evolutionary morality is on even shakier ground when we consider that evolution is, by definition, the unguided process of natural selection. Meaning, if we were to rewind back the time to the very beginning and start over, morality could have evolved quite differently. Human morality could have evolved like black widows and sharks and we would not know any difference.

A third and most damning critique of the evolutiony model is that it cannot even begin to explain why anything is objectively right or wrong. Even if we granted that evolution adaquately explains how species began to act morally, it does not begin to explain why acting in those ways is objectively good. Similarly, naturalists also think that because they can discern morality means that they have solved the problem. Again, William Lane Craig points out this fatal flaw when he exclaims, “I have been astonished at the confusion of moral ontology with moral epistemology on the part of prominent moral philosophers.”[xiv]

In the end, naturalists who attempt to ground objective morals in the natural world fail in their attempt. They might be able to explain the origins of altruism. And they might even know objective morals. But they cannot account for the existence of the moral standard itself and why humans ought to follow it.

Based on the above observations, naturalism cannot ground objective morality. At the same time, however, humans experience a certain “oughtness.” They feel like they ought to love rather than hate, and that they ought to show courage rather than cowardice. These “oughts” are epistemically surprising given naturalism. Yet, they correspond nicely with another worldview.

Theism and Morality

The “oughtness” humans experience fits nicely with a theistic worldview. And while the argument does not hinge on which theistic worldview one embraces, this section will approach the argument from a Christian worldview.

Christians maintain that objective morality is grounded in God himself. Seeing the failings of naturalists to ground morality in the natural world further substantiates the Christian’s claim that the moral law must derive from a different source — namely, a supernatural one.

Dealing with Euthyphro

One popular objection to the Christian position is commonly referred to as the Euthyphro Dilemma. This dilemma was first raised in Plato’s dialogue and goes like this: either something is good because God willed it or else God wills something because it is good.

Notice the dilemma these alternatives raise for the theistic view. For if something is good because God willed it, then it follows that the whatever is good is arbitrary. On the other hand, if God wills something because it is good, then the moral standard exists independent of God.

The problem with this objection, however, is that the skeptic presents the theist with a false dilemma. Meaning, a third option exists which asserts that God wills because he is good. This view argues that far from God’s commands being arbitrary, they are rooted in his perfectly good nature. Or to put it another way, God’s commands are “necessary expressions of his just and loving nature.”[xv] C. S. Lewis was also insightful in this regard. He declared, “God’s will is determined by His wisdom which always perceives, and His goodness which always embraces, the intrinsically good.”[xvi] In the end, the Euthyphro Dilemma is not much of a dilemma after all.

Relativism

Another popular objection to the theist view is that moral truths are relative. Relativists agree that naturalism cannot ground objective morality, but they go one step farther by suggesting that objective morality does not exist at all. To support this claim, relativists point to what they perceive as different moral standards in different cultures. Yet the relativist position fails on multiple fronts.

First, relativists often confuse objective morality with changing behavior. For example, they argue that since Western culture used to think slavery was acceptable, but now it does not, morality then must have changed. This argument, though, is not too different from the is/out fallacy Sam Harris committed. Merely describing the change in human behavior in no way demonstrates that objective morality changed. This view is tantamount to suggesting that the laws of physics changed after Newton because we now have a more enlightened view.

A second objection revolves around moral disagreements. As the argument goes, if there is such a thing as a moral law, why is there so much disagreement on moral issues? Again, the relativists objection is weak here.

Consider the modern debate over abortion. One view believes it is a moral crime since it believes aborition is the murder of an innocent child. On the other hand, those who are pro-choice think abortion is acceptable if that is what the mother chooses. The pro-choice tactic, however, is to redefine what exists in the mother’s womb. They use euphemistic phrases such as “clump of cells” rather than “baby” to justify killing it. What this change in terminology suggests is that both sides agree on the basic moral principle that murder is wrong. One position, though, has changed terminology to justify their view.

This change in terminology is not so different from how the Nazis justified the Holocaust or how Colonial Americans justified slavery. In both cases, they convinced themselves that they were not dealing with human beings of equal value in an attempt to assuage their consciences. So, while on the surface it appears that wide moral disagreements exist among people and cultures, a closer examination shows that root moral issues are pretty similar. Lewis remarks, “If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own.”[xvii] This common understood morality explains why legal codes and religious codes share much in common across all times and cultures.

Image Bearers and Free Will

Given the Christian position, how does one explain this common sense of morality? The answer is rooted in God’s creation of human beings. In the first chapter of the Bible, we read that God made human beings in his image as the peak of his creation (Gen 1:26-27). As image-bearers of God, humans share certain characteristics in common with the Divine. Since Classical Theism asserts that God is a maximally great being, and part of his maximal greatness is his perfect goodness, we are not surprised that humans desire to do good.

Additionally, the perpetual wrestling over ethical issues also coincides with theism. For example, if naturalism is true, humans would simply act upon their strongest impulse brought about by the laws of chemistry in their brain. But humans do not do act this way — or at least they know they should not. Even naturalists recognize we should not act on our strongest impulses when those impulses would lead us to murder, rape, or steal. Yet, this ability to refrain from acting on one’s strongest impulses would be impossible given naturalism. But if God made people as both material and immaterial, it follows that they could adjudicate between competing desires.

While contemplating this very issue, C. S. Lewis suggested, “If two instincts are in conflict, and there is nothing in a creature’s mind except those two instincts, obviously the stronger of the two must win. But at those moments when we are most conscious of the Moral Law, it usually seems to be telling us to side with the weaker of the two impulses. You probably want to be safe more than you want to help the man who is drowning: but the Moral Law tells you to help him all the same.”[xviii]

Lewis recognized that there is more to people than mere physical chemistry. People possess the ability to make volitional decisions contrary to their strongest impulses. And as Lewis suggests, people do so because they are inherantly aware of the moral law. For him, the feeling that we ought to behave a certain way along with the guilt that follows when we fail to meet that moral standard suggests that both a moral law exists, and we were hardwired to live in light of that law.[xix]

Moral Law

These feelings are shared by all people, because all people are made in the image of God, irrespective of their faith. The apostle Paul recognizes as much when he wrote, “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (Rom 2:14-15).

According to Paul, Gentiles — those without the written law — are still accountable for their sin for two distinct reasons. First, God has implanted his moral law within them. And second, he has given everyone a conscience by which they can discern if they are living in accordance with that moral law. It is crucial to distinguish between the two. With respect to the moral law, New Testament scholar Douglas Moo contends, “Paul is almost certainly pressing into service a widespread Greek tradition to the effect that all human beings possess an ‘unwritten’ or ‘natural’ law — an innate moral sense of ‘right and wrong.’”[xx] In other words, the moral law is not a Christian invention, but a concept that was easily discernable by Greek philosophers.

Moo goes on to argue that the conscience is the “a reflective mechanism by which people can measure their conformity to a norm.”[xxi] Thomas Schreiner agrees with this assessment. He argues that to “identify the conscience and law, so that both are understood as the source of moral norms, is mistaken. The conscience is not the origin of moral norms but passes judgement on whether one has abided by those norms.”[xxii] Therefore, the reason people experience “oughtness” is twofold. First, God has implanted his moral law within all people. And second, he has instilled in everyone a conscience which either accuses or excuses their actions.

Therefore, theism gives us a sound foundation for objective moral values. It explains the objective moral standard which exists in our universe — rape is evil — and it explains why people feel as if they ought to act a certain way.

Conclusion

As this article demonstrates, theism provides the only basis for objective morality. Since naturalism fails to provide an objective foundation for morality, the only options remaining are moral nihilism or belief that God grounds morality. Atheists who wish to deny God’s existence, therefore, must resort to radical nihilistic positions, even denying the objective evil of events such as the Holocaust.

Experience tells us, though, that this perspective is unliveable. For if those same relativists had been forced into those gas chambers, they would quickly embrace objective morality. In fact, people can usually discern objective morals based on how others treat them. If someone rapes their daughter or burns down their house, they will say things like, “that’s not right” or “that’s not fair” without thinking through the worldview implications of those statements. While many skeptics assert that our perception of reality is merely an illusion, the best recourse is to adopt the worldview that best explains our experiences.

Footnotes

[i] Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden (New York: Basic Boosk, 1995), 133.

[ii] J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Press, 2003), 492.

[iii] Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation (New York: Vintage Books, 2008), 8.

[iv] Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (New York: Free Press, 2010), 12.

[v] James Davison Hunter and Paul Nedelisky, Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018), 18.

[vi] Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape, 104.

[vii] Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape, 112.

[viii] Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden, 133

[ix] C. S. Lewis, Miracles (), 21-22.

[x] See a more recent development of this argument in Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 227-240.

[xi] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York: Mariner Books, 2008), 247.

[xii] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 175.

[xiii] Michael Ruse, “Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics,” in The Darwin Paradigm (London: Routledge, 1989), 268-269.

[xiv] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 176.

[xv] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 182.

[xvi] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 100.

[xvii] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 5-6.

[xviii] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Harper One, 1952), 10.

[xix] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 8.

[xx] Moo, Douglas, The Epistle to the Romans: The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 150.

[xxi] Moo, Douglas, The Epistle to the Romans, 152-153.

[xxii] Schreiner, Thomas R. Romans: Baker Exegetical Guide on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 123.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Frank Turek (DVD/ Mp3/ Mp4)

Was Jesus Intolerant? (DVD) and (Mp4 Download) by Dr. Frank Turek 

Jesus vs. The Culture by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp4 Download, and Mp3

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Ryan Leasure holds a Master of Arts from Furman University and a Masters of Divinity from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Currently, he’s a Doctor of Ministry candidate at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also serves as a pastor at Grace Bible Church in Moore, SC.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/3f7ToQE 

 

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Are Christians the New Extremists? Yes, and That’s Okay

Are Christians the New Extremists? Yes, and That’s Okay

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By Natasha Crain

My blog and podcast have been quiet since April because I was finishing writing my new book, Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture.

Faithfully Different is about the fact that Christians with a biblical worldview are now a minority in America and how the secular worldview that surrounds us is putting significant pressure on what we believe, how we think, and how we live. I wrote it to help Christians more clearly understand the fundamental differences between the secular and biblical worldviews, both for the strength of our own faith and for our ability to be salt and light to others. I’m really excited to share it with you! Faithfully Different comes out in February and I’ll be posting pre-order details here in the next few weeks.

In reading that, you might wonder if Christians really are a “minority” in America. I discuss this at length in my first chapter, but here’s the bottom line. About 65 percent of Americans self-identify as Christians—certainly not a minority. But when researchers ask questions about specific beliefs and behaviors, only about 10 percent of Americans have what would be considered a “biblical worldview” (holding basic beliefs consistent with the historic Christian faith and exhibiting corresponding behaviors). Furthermore, researchers have found that not only are those with a biblical worldview now a small minority in America, they’re a small minority within the church.

Now, there are plenty of minority groups that people don’t care much about. I’m sure there are only a handful of people, for example, who eat pickles every morning for breakfast. No one cares. But it’s becoming clear to Christians with a biblical worldview that secular culture does care about our existence…because it hates all we represent.

In a very real sense, we’re increasingly being seen as a small and extreme faction of society.

Understanding Christian “Extremism”

Read or watch anything in mainstream media that mentions “conservative Christians” and you’ll immediately know from the tone that the term isn’t being used as a neutral descriptor. It’s now a pejorative that comes with a knowing nod and eye roll among the supposedly more enlightened culture. (Note that I’m not necessarily talking about conservative in a political sense; in secular usage, “conservative” is a blanket label to reference Christians who disagree with mainstream secular views. There’s often a correlation with politics, but it’s not exclusive to that.)

The implication is that we’re those people—the hold-outs who won’t get on board with where the rest of society wants to go. We’re seen as an impediment to culturally-defined progress because of how different our views are relative to today’s mainstream secularism.

The result is that secularists now see us with various degrees of indignation. As strange as it sounds to many Christians, we’re the new extremists—a minority group whose views are seen as 1) fundamentally different from the “average” view of secular culture and 2) concerning to the rest of society.

When you sense that this is how culture sees us, it can seem pretty bizarre. After all, Christianity has been the dominant religious influence in America for the last 400 years, but now it’s extreme (and concerning) to believe that the Bible is God’s Word?

While there’s no reason to agree with secularists that our views are concerning, there are many reasons to agree that our worldview is extremely different relative to the dominant secular worldview culture now holds. We’re certainly “extremists” in that sense—and should gladly embrace the fact if we fully understand the nature of a biblical worldview.

More specifically, we’re extreme in three major ways.

First, we’re extreme in our source of authority

The most foundational difference between those with a biblical worldview and those with a secular one is our source of authority. Every person, as part of their worldview, has an ultimate authority for what they believe to be true about the world and how they should function within it. For Christians with a biblical worldview, that source of authority is God, and we believe that He’s revealed those truths in the Bible.

In secularism, a person’s source of authority is the self. Secularism isn’t what you get when you simply subtract so-called religious beliefs from a person’s worldview. When you take away the authority of God, you aren’t left with no authority—you’re left with the authority of you.

This difference in authority is at the root of almost every difference between a biblical and secular worldview.

When the vast majority of people’s authority for truth is themselves, it shouldn’t be surprising that Christians are going to come to some very different conclusions about the nature of reality than culture. Even uttering the words “The Bible says…” with the assumption that what follows is objective truth that supersedes personal opinion is extreme relative to today’s average view that the individual reigns supreme.

And for those who assume the Bible is merely a written record of man’s thoughts about God (and nothing more), such extremity is concerning. How can Christians be compelled to follow new societal directions if they don’t view truth as something subject to change? With fellow secularists whose feelings determine truth, society can “progress” through the push and pull of changing popular consensus. But Christians who believe they have un unchanging authority for all time? That’s an infuriating barrier that secularists resent.

Second, we’re extreme in our understanding of morality.

It follows from the first point that Christians with a biblical worldview are going to be at great odds with secularists in matters of morality.

For those whose authority is God and who believe He’s revealed Himself and His will in the Bible, what the Bible says is right or wrong is going to be the final word…regardless of what we think, regardless of what any other individual thinks, and regardless of what society thinks. From a secular perspective, what a stubborn view!

When your authority is yourself, there’s no objective basis for defining morality for all people. In essence, each person is their own God. What’s right or wrong isn’t a matter of what someone else has said—God or not—it’s a matter of what you’ve said.

But wait! Wouldn’t that mean that secularists should accept the Christian view of morality as just one more valid view?

Absolutely.

But they don’t. And this is where secularists fail to live consistently within their own worldview rooted in the authority of the self.

If they were consistent, they’d say this: “Hey, we understand that your Christian view is just as valid as anyone else’s since every individual is their own authority and there’s no objective basis for claiming that anything is right or wrong for all people. But a bunch of us have (fill in the blank) view on (fill in the blank) issue, and we want to try to convince you to change your opinion! Yet even if you don’t change your mind, that’s OK, since everyone’s view is equally valid anyway. Have a great day.”

Instead, they’re saying this: “The (fill in the blank) view on (fill in the blank) issue is the objectively right view for all people, and if you disagree, you’re wrong…and evil.”

Without an objective basis for morality from a higher-than-human moral lawgiver, the closest thing secularists can have as a moral standard that applies to all people is popular consensus. That’s why it’s so important for secular culture to continually push their views of morality through every conceivable channel—education, media, entertainment, business, and more. The more people get on board with any given view of morality, the more the popular consensus is achieved, and the more secularists have a new supposed standard for what’s right.

But once again, Christians with a biblical worldview aren’t subject to that shift. No matter how prevalent any new idea of morality is, if it conflicts with what Christians believe God Himself has said, the popular consensus won’t become our new standard. And that “extreme” viewpoint relative to average culture is mind-numbingly frustrating to nonbelievers.

Third, we’re extreme in believing that judgment can be objectively valid.

This point follows from both of the prior points. Because Christians look to God and His word as the source of authority for our lives, and because views of morality are an outworking of those beliefs, Christians believe that judgment on matters of truth can be objectively valid—not just a matter of opinion.

In Faithfully Different, I describe the tenets of a secular worldview this way: Feelings are the ultimate guide, happiness is the ultimate goal, judging is the ultimate sin, and God is the ultimate guess. Judging is the greatest sin in secularism because when feelings are your guide and happiness is your goal, no one has the ability or right to tell you what only you can know (how you feel and what makes you happiest). From the worldview perspective that the authority is the self, it’s absurd and insulting for someone else to come along, look at a person’s life journey, and claim to know better than they do how they should or shouldn’t be living.

But that assumes there’s no God who has provided a reliable and authoritative source for that information.

From a biblical worldview perspective, God has provided that in the Bible. And if the God of the universe has told us what’s true about reality, it’s not absurd or insulting to share what He’s said—it’s literally the only reasonable thing to do given that the God who created everything would assuredly know more than any human.

Jesus never said that the world would understand us. To a large degree, secular culture’s views here are to be expected. What concerns me far more is when Christians don’t understand how extremely different a biblical worldview should be from a secular one. In many ways, secularists who think those with a biblical worldview are extreme relative to average society understand this more than self-professed Christians who see only marginal differences.

When we truly have a biblical worldview, we should understand that we really are “extremists” in today’s culture…and embrace it. Not only is it okay to be extreme in this way, it’s beautiful—because it’s what God Himself calls us to.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

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

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)      

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Frank Turek (DVD/ Mp3/ Mp4)

Was Jesus Intolerant? (DVD) and (Mp4 Download) by Dr. Frank Turek 

 

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Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: https://cutt.ly/2QJ0e0X

 

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Why People Hate Being Judged

Why People Hate Being Judged

By Al Serrato

“Don’t judge me” seems to be an increasingly uttered, and accepted, refrain in our society, reflecting what appears to be a universal and deep-seated human tendency. Even Christians, who should know better, seem to be jumping on board, believing somehow that Christian compassion requires us to be more understanding and more accepting of bad behavior.

But when you think about it, the phrase is not quite apt. Most people don’t really mean that they don’t want to be judged. In fact, they do. What they mean is that they want others to approve of their conduct or behavior. What they don’t want is to be judged and found wanting. Whether its sports or academics or work, again and again we see that people want to compete, want to be praised for their performance, and want to come out on top. It is losing – being told that they didn’t measure up or that they did something wrong, or bad – that they seek to avoid.

This inclination to seek praise and to avoid condemnation is apparent from a child’s earliest days: praise him and he smiles, admonish or scold him and he cries. He doesn’t need to be taught how to react; he simply knows it. And when he learns to express himself, one of the first things he will intuitively grasp is that there is this thing called “fairness” by which all behavior is judged. He will make use of this early and often, as he condemns actions that do not meet his expectations. “That’s not fair!” he will exclaim, without fully understanding the power of that phrase to influence others. And when he himself is accused of being unfair, he will not respond by saying that it’s okay to be unfair; instead, he will say that he is being fair, as he attempts to justify his conduct. It’s only as he gets older that he will learn the clever parry that is so popular today of claiming that judging itself is wrong.

What explanation does atheism have for this obvious human condition? Since the vast majority of people seem inclined to want to shake off judgment and be free to do what they wish, wouldn’t natural selection have eliminated this condition of feeling constrained to act a certain way long ago? In other words, when we seek to avoid judgment, what we are really saying is that we do not want to feel guilt. We don’t want that nagging sense that, as CS Lewis put it, we are aware of a law that is pressing down upon us, a law that we did not create and that we cannot evade, for it resides within our minds. But if there is no God, what evolutionary benefit would possibly derive from feeling guilty about not acting as we should? Would this not inhibit us from future acts that might benefit us in a direct and personal way at the expense of others? If natural selection operates as Darwinists suggest, then those early humans who lacked a sense of guilt would have been free to vigorously pursue their self-interest – to enhance their ability to survive and to procreate – as contrasted with their fellows who were inhibited because they did not want to feel the guilt that comes from hurting other people. With survival of the fittest as the rule, behaviors that limit our choices and prevent us from putting ourselves first make us weaker, not stronger. In a universe in which we are simply an accident of evolution, pursuit of self-interest would be the default setting.

The Christian worldview, by contrast, can and does make sense of guilt. We intuitively know that there is a right and wrong, that there is good and evil and fairness and unfairness, because the absolute standard for goodness made us in His image. He left within us – written upon our heart as it were – intuitive access to this standard and a desire – a need – to conform to it. Our fallen nature prevents us from ever fully achieving this, but the knowledge of this law, and of our need to yield to it, is part of the very fabric of our minds.

God left within us the desire to find our way back to Him, and an innate fear of condemnation for failing to meet His standard. Though we may not realize it, we long to hear Him welcome us home with words of praise, a hearty “well done my good and faithful servant.”

What we seem to have forgotten, however, is that we need not fear ultimate condemnation, for He also sent His Son to provide us the way home, the path to redemption. But we cannot make it there on our own and pretending otherwise by trying to avoid feelings of guilt does no one any good.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

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

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Frank Turek (DVD/ Mp3/ Mp4)

Was Jesus Intolerant? (DVD) and (Mp4 Download) by Dr. Frank Turek 

 

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Al Serrato earned his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1985. He began his career as an FBI special agent before becoming a prosecutor in California, where he continues to work. An introduction to CS Lewis’ works sparked his interest in Apologetics, which he has pursued for the past three decades. He got his start writing Apologetics with J. Warner Wallace and Pleaseconvinceme.com.

 

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The Redefinition of Love—Resulting From the Loss of Truth

By Rich Hoyer

Most people agree that we should love one another. But what does it mean to love others?

Love can’t mean what our culture says it means.  It can’t be untethered from a transcendent moral standard (i.e., God’s word and natural Law) and left to be defined subjectively by our feelings, to be molded and fashioned into whatever shape current societal trends bend it. The average person in the US today is a Popular Secularist[1] and has accepted the Popular Secularist definition of love. When most people speak of love today, to speak of “loving others” means something like, “I want you to have whatever you want; to exist in whatever state you think will make you happy.” Love is now defined in terms of the core Popular Secularist values of comfort and happiness rather than by the traditional values of goodness and truth. Thus, in today’s culture, to be unloving or hateful is to stand in the way of a lifestyle choice of another which that person thinks will bring him happiness and satisfaction, even to tell someone that what they want is “wrong” in some way and to suggest that they should deny themselves of certain wants and desires. That’s what it means to be “unloving” in our Popular Secularist culture today.

When the concept of knowable moral Truth (a standard of right/wrong and good/evil which originates from beyond mankind and beyond societal opinion) is rejected by a culture, there is nothing by which to authoritatively measure our wants and desires. It becomes impossible to say, “My desire for this person is wrong,” or “My desire to do this is bad for me and for society.” All that is left is for people and society to voice their opinions. Yet, many in our society don’t act like their definition of love is opinion. Some even seek to impose their opinion on those who disagree with the dominant societal view even though there is no solid philosophical foundation to justify such action. Society is still left to talk about concepts like love, but the traditional definition of love which joins love tightly to Truth is lost.

Thus, love becomes like a boat that is untethered from its moorings, left to drift here and thereby the wind and waves of societal fads.

Yet love and Truth go hand-in-hand. Without Truth, that which is claimed to be love is a counterfeit—much like what happens when a person mistakes infatuation for love. Love for another must include a desire for that which is good in the life of the other. More specifically, to love someone is to work to bring about that which is good in the life of another. Yet the only way to measure “the good” is to have a standard that originates from a source beyond society’s opinion by which we can examine the choices put forward. Thankfully, we do have a true measuring stick to measure the good in the form of God’s revelation given to us through the Bible and through natural Law.

Christians should know what love is and what it looks like. We shouldn’t be deceived into accepting the cultural definition of love that is grounded in feelings rather than Truth. In fact, we can learn a lot about love simply by looking at the assumptions at play in the conversation when Jesus answered a Pharisee’s question in Matthew 22:36, “What is the greatest commandment in the Law?”  Jesus’ answer is found in verse 37-40:

Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV)
37  Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
38  This is the first and greatest commandment.
39  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
40  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Jesus said that to love God and to love others as yourself are the greatest commandments, the highest responsibility of man. It’s at this point that the Popular Secularist might agree to say, “Yes, LOVE is the greatest value! See, even Jesus said so. You Christians should be more loving of people. You should affirm them and not criticize their lifestyle choices and beliefs just because they are different than yours.” Sadly, we are seeing more and more Christians affirming immoral lifestyle choices in the name of being more inclusive, affirming, and loving—even in the spirit of the Love of Christ Himself!

Yet those who adopt such a stance fail to consider the context as well as WHAT WAS ASSUMED by the Pharisee’s question and by Jesus’ answer. Both assumed that moral truth CAN BE KNOWN. Both were basing their definition of love, not on subjective feelings, but on the clear revelation of moral Truth originating from God Himself. After all, the question was, “What is the greatest commandment in the Law?” We must ask the question, “To which Law are they both referring?” The answer, of course, is the Law that was given by God to the people of Israel! And from where did that Law originate? From God! In other words, if you want to love God and love others, you must do the things detailed in God’s Law given to Israel.[2] As Jesus said in verse 40, “All of God’s law is designed to help you love God and love others” (my paraphrase).  This is not a subjective concept of love, but one that is based on the clear ability to access and to know God’s revelation to man.  In short to love God and to love man is to obey the Law of God.

That very revelation to man is what the now dominant Popular Secularist worldview denies. According to Popular Secularism, God may or may not exist, but we certainly can’t definitively say “who” God is, much less what God wants. Thus, the concept of love is left to float about and be defined by whatever wind and wave of doctrine the current version of society pushes. Love becomes like a boat detached from its moorings floating aimlessly this way and that.

While it may not surprise us when non-Christians such as Popular Secularists adopt this viewpoint, it should surprise us when professing Christians adopt this viewpoint. It is partially because many Christians don’t know the Scriptures because they don’t read the Bible, that they are easily led astray by this “wind and wave” of false doctrine that is born from the Popular Secularist worldview. Some professing Christians, I would dare say, are really Popular Secularists at heart even though they profess to believe in Jesus. Their actions and attitudes, just like those of everyone else, flow out of their deepest convictions, which align more closely to the culture at large rather than Christianity.

Yet as Christians, if we truly are Christians, we must accept the teachings of the Bible, the words of Jesus Christ Himself, rather than the convictions of our current culture. We must measure everything we see and hear by the measuring stick of God’s revelation to us. If we fail to do so, we will not be transformed into the image of Christ and will instead conform to false notions of all sorts of things—including distortions of fundamental concepts, even love.

Notes

[1] Popular Secularism is the dominant worldview in the West today. Popular Secularism holds the following assumptions about reality:

  1. God may or may not exist.
    1. If God does exist, no one knows which God is true.
    2. No one can rightly say one religion is right and another wrong.
    3. To make such claims is intolerant.
  2. As such, no one can claim to know what God wants mankind to do to the exclusion of the claims of others.
    1. Thus no religious book (the Bible, the Koran, etc…) can rightly claim to be the word of God.
    2. Each book carries the same weight, but less weight than the wisdom of elite educational progressive knowledge today.
  3. Morality is probably real but has more to do with the survival of society rather than the pleasure of God.
    1. It’s undeniable that “evil” is real.
    2. Yet since we don’t know if God is real or who he is, no one can rightly say that someone’s actions are objectively wrong unless the majority of society agrees.
    3. Thus, morality is a construction of society rather than a product of God’s revelation to us.
  4. Comfort and happiness are the highest human considerations.
    1. Humans should work to make sure that everyone is comfortable and happy.
    2. Anything that denies comfort and happiness should be avoided and possibly forbidden.
  5. Economic considerations should always be held in higher regard than religious claims.
    1. Public policy/laws should be decided by considering whether something will provide more money for society rather than based upon “religious” claims about morality.
    2. As a contemporary example: If legalized gaming with bring added revenue to a city to alleviate budget shortages, that knowledge should be considered more important than religious claims that added gambling opportunities are not “good” for society.
    3. “The good” is defined in economic, sexual, and environmental terms.
  6. (Near) total sexual freedom is something to which everyone is entitled.
    1. Homosexuality, Transgenderism, sex outside of marriage, are all legitimate lifestyle choices as people should have the right to do what they want.
    2. Only those sexual activities that “harm” others are wrong.
    3. A growing number of Popular Secularists believe that each person should be entitled to freedom from being offended, including silencing dissenting voices.
  7. Ignorance and the abuse caused by “the rich” are mankind’s two main problems.
    1. If we educate people, many of the world’s evils and inequities will disappear.
    2. Governments also need to pursue income redistribution to bring about economic justice.
    3. If all would cooperate, we could usher in near utopian conditions, and life would improve for everyone.
  8. No one knows what happens when we die.
    1. If there is no God, there is no Judgment Day to worry about.
    2. On the other hand, some believe that just about everyone goes to heaven.
    3. In the minds of those, only the really bad people go to hell, if there is such a place.

[2] Today, one must not immediately institute all the Old Testament laws willy-nilly.  One must recognize that God’s revelation is progressive in nature.  The Moral Code is repeated in the New Testament and is still valid, while the Ceremonial and Civil laws are obsolete, having been fulfilled by Christ.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

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

Right From Wrong by Josh McDowell Mp3

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

Deconstructing Liberal Tolerance: Relativism as Orthodoxy (Mp3) by Francis Beckwith

Defending Absolutes in a Relativistic World (Mp3) by Frank Turek

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? (Mp3), (Mp4), and (DVD) by Frank Turek

 

Rich Hoyer is the Senior Minister of Lyndon Christian Church in Louisville, KY. He is also the Chairman of the Board for the Reveal Conference, which seeks to educate people in the Louisville area regarding the evidence for the truth of Christianity. Rich received his Master’s in Religion from Cincinnati Christian University. Christian Apologetics is one of Rich’s greatest passions.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/2YgPiuM

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Can We Be Good Without God?

Can We Be Good Without God?

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By Ryan Leasure

This past weekend, two mass-scaled shootings transpired on American soil. El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio experienced unspeakable carnage. Two men, fueled by hatred for mankind, slaughtered dozens of innocent people in cold blood.

In response, people of all stripes spoke out against these atrocities. Men and women, democrat and republican, Christian and atheist, all condemned these crimes. In other words, the denunciation of these senseless and cowardly acts has been universal.

But doesn’t this universal agreement fly in the face of our relativistic cultural values? “Don’t force your morality on others” suddenly doesn’t sound so appealing in situations like this. Don’t we all want everyone else to adopt our same moral position on murder?

This, of course, raises important questions. Does objective morality exist? That is, were those two men objectively wrong in what they did over the weekend? And if so, where does this agreed-upon morality come from?

Objective Morality?

Relativists argue that there is no such thing as objective morality. Rather, morality is subjective — dependent on individual opinions. So in situations like these mass shootings, the relativist cannot say that the shooters were wrong. If so, that would imply that an objective standard exists that these two individuals missed.

Rather, the relativist can only say they didn’t care for these events. They found them distasteful. “Murder is wrong,” and “rape is evil” are just opinions on par with “pepperoni is better than sausage.”

But isn’t it self-evident that mass murder is in a different category than pizza toppings? The very fact that society has universally condemned these acts ought to tip us off that something more than mere opinion is at work here. When we all cry “foul” in unison, we’re implicitly affirming that “fair” exists.

C. S. Lewis made this argument years ago. He wrote:

[As an atheist] my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe to when I called it unjust?1

What Lewis and so many others have argued is that objective morality exists, and this is most evident when people don’t live up to that moral standard.

If we learn, for example, that a man raped a little girl, brutally murdered her, and dismembered her body, would we say that he committed evil? If yes, then we recognize an objective moral standard exists that was not met. Our senses tell us that acts such as abuse, rape, theft, deceit, murder, etc., all fail to measure up to a standard of some sort.

This moral standard seems so patently obvious; it’s odd when people try to deny it. A quick rule of thumb is that when a certain group can’t condemn the Holocaust as evil, we conclude that their views are absurd. Of course, if those same relativists had been in those concentration camps, they’d drop their relativism and recognize evil for what it is.

Even the most committed relativist will come around if you steal his wallet or spread false rumors about him. Phrases like “that’s not right” or “that’s not fair” will come spewing out faster than you can blink your eye.

Where Does Objective Morality Come from?

The reality of objective morality raises a significant question. Where does it come from? For the naturalists (those that believe only the natural world exists), these objective morals are mere illusory by-products of evolution and social conditioning.

For most naturalists, science is the only begetter of knowledge. But science itself is amoral. Science cannot tell us how things ought to be. It can only tell us how things are. That is, science can tell us how to make chemical weapons, but it cannot tell us whether we should use them.

Objective morals simply cannot derive from something morally neutral like science. And they certainly don’t arise from Darwinian evolution. According to Darwinists, people only do good because it aids in their survival. But if that’s the case, can we really call their actions morally good? Fundamentally, the motivation behind “good” acts is self-serving, and thus not worthy of praise.

Also, doesn’t Darwinism, on the whole, make morality arbitrary? Couldn’t the human race have found rape or killing each other for food acceptable if it would have evolved like other species from the animal kingdom? Sharks do this all the time, but are they immoral?

Darwinists who find this notion uncomfortable typically adopt humanism — the belief that humans are the center of the universe and morality is based on what helps them flourish. But again, isn’t humanism purely arbitrary in a Darwinian world?

Darwin, after all, taught that every living species descended from the same common ancestor in the primordial soup. Thus, humans are simply one small branch on his tree of life. Other branches include crickets, lions, fungus, and every other living species. Why should we think the human branch is the most valuable? Why are we more important than crickets? Doesn’t this make us guilty of speciesism?

Ultimately, atheism’s understanding of morality is purely arbitrary. It simply cannot account for objective morality.

In the end, God is the best explanation for objective morality. God’s very nature grounds morality so that anything done that goes against his character is wrong and/or evil. Furthermore, because God made humans in his image, each person possesses intrinsic value.

Answering the Skeptics’ Objections

Without a doubt, the first objection raised to the claim that objective morality doesn’t exist without God is that atheists do good without believing in God. But this misses the point. Of course, people can still do good things without believing in God. The question is not: do we have to believe in God to do good? Rather, the question is: if God doesn’t exist, is anything objectively good at all? As I’ve argued, moral categories are arbitrary in an atheistic world.

If we acknowledge, however, that the two mass-shooters committed evil, then objective moral categories exist. And if objective moral categories exist, then a transcendental lawgiver is the best explanation.

Which leads to the second objection — the Euthyphro Dilemma. The dilemma goes like this: Is something good because God wills it? Or does God will something because it is good? Skeptics raise this objection to put the theist between a rock and a hard place.

For if we say something is good because God wills it, then good is ultimately arbitrary. But if we say God wills something because it’s good, then the objective standard exists beyond God. But the skeptic presents us with a false dilemma here. A third option exists which states God wills something because he is good. That is to say; he is the standard by which we get all moral categories.

Another frequent objection is that we don’t need the Bible to know that we shouldn’t murder or steal. After all, other religious books tell us the same as do most legal codes. But again, this is not the argument theists make.

Nobody’s arguing you need to read the Bible to know right from wrong. Rather, we’re arguing that objective right and wrong don’t exist in a world without a transcendent moral law. But the very fact that every world religion and legal code agree on basic fundamental morals suggests that a moral law exists that transcends the human race.

The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 2:14-15. He writes, “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.”

That is to say; people don’t need the Bible to know right from wrong. God has instilled this moral code in the hearts of all people.

Which raises a final objection. If a moral law exists, why is there so much disagreement on morality? Disagreements certainly exists around issues like abortion and sexuality. But does that imply no right view exists? Of course not. Which is why we strive to make our views the accepted ones. In fact, if culture adopts our views, we’ll say things like our culture is progressing. Progressing toward what? The moral standard we believe to be right.

Be that as it may, the human race generally agrees on several basic points. People have certain rights. We should treat others with respect. Love is better than hate. Honesty is better than deceit. Courage is better than cowardice. And so forth. As C. S. Lewis aptly states:

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.2

The universal agreement on the most basic moral categories suggests a transcendent moral law.

The Moral Argument for God

I believe that objective morality is one of the strongest arguments for God’s existence. Perhaps a more helpful way of looking at it would be this syllogism:

  1. If God does not exist, objective morality does not exist.
  2. Objective morality does exist.
  3. Therefore, God exists.

This argument is logically air tight. If premises 1 and 2 are true, then 3 necessarily follows. I’ve made a case for 1 and 2 in this article. It concludes then that God exists.

So can we be good without God? No, because if he doesn’t exist, nothing objectively good exists either.

 

Ryan Leasure Holds a Master of Arts from Furman University and a Masters of Divinity from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He currently serves as a pastor at Grace Bible Church in Moore, SC.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2KJFXnY

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Objections Objective Morality

Objections to Objective Morality

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By Cole James

I took a philosophy class while I was in college. The topic of this class was on contemporary moral issues, so you know we got into some heated topics. I heard every objection under the sun to objective morality. Everything from it was not very “tolerant,” to different cultures act differently so therefore there cannot be objective morality. I was the minority in this class to say the least!

Objective morality means that moral statements like “murder is bad” is independent of the person saying it. Objective morality means that there is a standard of morality that transcends human opinions and judgements. Morals are not invented, they are discovered. Now that our society has seemingly transformed into a “post-truth” society, objective morals have come under attack. A “post-truth” society is a society which is not concerned with objective facts, but rather, right and wrong are based on personal subjective feelings, tastes, and personal belief.

As Christians, one of the best arguments we have for God is the moral argument. Of all the attacks on Christianity and God, a Christian will most likely hear the most attacks on this subject. Why? Because everyone can relate to this topic. Each one of us every day makes moral judgements and decisions every day, ranging from opening the door for someone to helping someone who just got in a car wreck. Just so we can have a basis for what the argument actually is, it goes as follows:

Premise 1: If objective moral values and duties exist then God exists
Premise 2: Objective morals values and duties do exist
Conclusion: Therefore, God exits

With the argument in mind, consider four objections:

  1. There are so many different cultures with different values, there can’t be objective morals! Look how different we are!

Off the bat, I agree with this objection. There are many different cultures appearing to be morally different on the surface. However, as one reads between the lines it becomes apparent that these different cultures are not really that different. It is important as we read between the lines to keep in mind that when looking at cultural diversity we need to determine whether differences are really about core morals or instead about application of that core moral truth. For example, what constitutes murder?

What my classmates did not realize is that these difference were in how morals were applied, not a difference in morals. Peter Kreeft says this,

“No culture has ever existed which believed and taught what Nietzsche called for: a transvaluation of all values. There have been differences in emphasis, for instance, our ancestors valued courage more than we do, while we value compassion more than they did. But there has never been anything like the relativism of opinions about values that the relativist teaches as factual history. Just imagine what that would be like. Try to imagine a society where justice, honesty, courage, wisdom, hope, and self-control were deemed morally evil. And unrestricted selfishness, cowardice, lying, betrayal, addiction, and despair were deemed morally good. Such a society is never found on Earth. If it exists anywhere, it is only in Hell and its colonies. Only Satan and his worshippers say ‘evil be thou my good.’”

It really comes down to a case-by-case basis. For instance, in the Hindu religion, they believe in reincarnation. Some of these people will starve themselves because they will not eat a cow. Why? Because they believe their great uncle died and reincarnated into a cow. Looking on the surface at this, it may look like there are differences in morals, but we need to read between the lines. As we read between the lines we see that the morals of our culture and their culture are the same. They think it is wrong to eat the cow because they believe that is their great uncle, we also believe it is wrong to eat our great uncle. As we can see, this really is not an objection, it is just a matter of not digging deeper.

  1. Objective morality is not very tolerant! Relativism is much more tolerant of people’s opinions and beliefs.

This objection is entirely problematic. First, it is a self-refuting statement! By someone telling a person that his/her beliefs are not very tolerant, they in turn are being intolerant of the other person’s views. Moreover, this objection assumes that tolerance is really objectively good.

A second answer to this objection is, if relativism were true, why not be intolerant? Why should I be tolerant? Do you see where I am going with this?

Relativism is the view that morality is culturally based, therefore being subject to a person’s individual choice. With this view, there is no objective standard that a relativist can point to, to say that someone should be tolerant.

At root, this is merely an emotional objection. The person who puts out this objection probably does not want objective morality to be true because it will change their lifestyle. So called, “tolerance” feels better to them, and indeed it is a good quality (Paul thought so), but again, just because it feels good does not mean I ought to be that way.

  1. There are so many different understanding of morals, there cannot be objective morality.

Just because there is widespread disagreement about a particular moral issue, does not mean that truth does not exist. Think of it this way, just because eight students have different answers to a math problem does not mean that a right answer does not exist. Philosopher Dave DeSonier says it best,

“Finally, even if one believes that morals (not just facts or practices) do actually differ between cultures, it does not logically follow that there must be no absolute, objective moral standards that transcend cultures. Just because five independent observers of an automobile accident give very different accounts of the event, it would be false to conclude that there is not an accurate, objective, and true description of what actually occurred.”

Even the skeptic David Hume understood this much. He points out,

“the fact that different cultures have different practices no more refutes ethical objectivism than the fact that water flows in different directions in different places refutes the law of gravity.”

So we can see, that even though common objective morals might sometimes be hard to find or discover, it does not logically follow that therefore, there are no common objective moral values and duties.

  1. I do not believe in God and I am a moral person. So you are saying that atheists cannot be moral people?

This is NOT at all what objective morality means! Of course, an atheist can be a good moral person. What’s ironic is that I know some atheists who are actually more moral than many Christians! A person does not have to believe in God to be a good person. This is more of an objection of epistemology, or how we know something. The atheist can know morality, but they cannot justify or provide logical grounds for it.

From the Christian worldview, we believe God fabricated a moral code into our DNA (Romans 2:15), other people think we know morality because of evolution. Again, this is a question of how we know something, notwhy I ought to do something. This objection confuses ontology (is there a moral reality) with epistemology (how do we know morality). On the naturalistic atheist worldview, they cannot justify why someone ought to be moral. There is no objective standard for the naturalistic atheist to point to. This objection is just a common misunderstanding of the argument. A simple clarification of what you mean by the moral argument will handle this objection.

As I mentioned earlier, in our “post-truth” society it is inevitable that a Christian will run into one of these objections. As Christians, we have to be prepared to answer these objections and to show that belief in God is rational and reasoned (1 Peter 3:15). What I have seen in dealing with the students in my class who opposed objective morality is that it is more of an emotional problem. As I mentioned in objection three, the students in my class did not want objective morality to exist because it would have to demand a change in their way if living. Hopefully, after reading this, you will be prepared to give a defense of one of the most relatable and fundamental arguments for the existence of God.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2tLqhF5

 

 

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Is Spiritual Truth a Matter of Opinion? An Open Letter to a Relativist

Objective Morality: Much Ado About Nothing?

Earlier this year, an early-morning storm passed through our area, causing schools to open late. Some counties announced they would open schools one hour late. Others announced that school would begin at 9:30 am.

Our county? Officials announced that school would begin “after the storms were over.”

Imagine the confusion this created, as the storms dissipated in some areas, and continued in others! Parents and students wondered exactly when school would start. Instead of providing a definite starting time for county students, the officials based the starting time on, at a minimum, two variable factors: the weather conditions at the student’s home, and each person’s idea of what it means for a storm to be “over”. This, of course, varies widely; In my opinion, a storm is “over” when it no longer poses a serious threat of damage. My aunt, who was terrified of storms, would insist that a storm isn’t “over” until the sky is clear for at least an hour!

Imagine what would happen if our government wrote our laws like this! If tomorrow, our legislators declared that all speed limits were repealed, and law enforcement officers were empowered to arrest those who were driving “too fast”, chaos would reign! How fast is “too fast”? It’s a safe bet that your idea of “too fast” is not the same as mine… and neither of us are likely to agree with the cop that has just pulled us over! Without a legal fact… a clearly-written and duly-established law, all legal opinions are equally valid… and thus are completely useless for governing anyone other than the holder of that opinion!

For this reason, modern legislators and lawyers spend enormous amounts of time fretting over the exact phrasing of a document. Companies spend huge amounts of money to remove as much opinion as possible from the wording of a contract.  And even after adding all of the “legalese”, litigants still debate the meaning of even the smallest words. (After all, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is“!)  Our laws and regulations must be objective, based in external facts independent of any one person’s opinions, in order to be meaningful.

In the same way, subjective moral opinion, in the absence of objective moral facts, is effectively no morality at all!

Often at this point, the subjective moralist objects, saying “I can be just as moral as anyone who believes in objective morality.” However, this objection is illogical… if moral facts do not exist, then why would it be “better” or “worse” (which are themselves, morally-charged words) to be called immoral rather than moral? Why does it matter whether one breaks a non-existent standard of behavior?

Can a subjective moralist be a moral person? Well, yes…they can be moral and wrong about the existence of objective moral facts. Or they can be right in their belief, but neither moral nor immoral. What they cannot be is both right and moral. (Or, to be fair, right and immoral!)

To clarify,  consider this question: does a unicorn’s horn glow in the dark? The answer doesn’t really matter. Because the topic of the question doesn’t exist, no answer has any meaning in the real world. In the same way, one’s opinion of how we should treat others is meaningless… unless there actually exists a way that we should treat others! Subjective moral opinion with no undergirding objective moral fact is an opinion about something that does not exist. It has no more relevance to our lives than the destruction of Krypton. (That’s the homeworld of Superman and Supergirl, for those under 30!)

Subjective Moral Opinion Isn’t Sufficient

Moral opinion alone lacks the necessary scope of influence required of morality. An opinion is, by its nature, limited to one person. No two persons can share an opinion. You might describe your opinion to me, and we might hold similar opinions, but I cannot hold your opinion! Nor can you hold mine!

This means that the scope of influence of any opinion is exactly one person; but a standard of morality deals largely with relationships between two or more persons. Opinions simply have insufficient scope to address relational behavior. For this reason, the argument that morality is a product of people in society fails. Moral opinion can provide no binding reason that men should seek the good of others.

Indeed, we instinctively resist the moral opinions of others, often with the common objection, “who are you to force YOUR morality on me!” At best, subjective morality informs a person of how they believe people should treat others, but it cannot inform a person of how they actually should treat others!

Subjective Moral Opinion Cannot Explain Guilt

How often we make excuses for our actions!  The same actions that the subjective moralist claims cannot be objectively wrong, he attempts to justify to themselves and to others. This strongly indicates that at least some form of guilt is felt; one does not justify moral actions.

Subjective morality cannot provide a sound explanation for guilt. Occasionally, when my oldest daughter was a toddler, she would put herself in timeout when she felt that she had done something wrong. She tearfully walked to the corner, although she had broken no rule, and neither my wife nor I had any intention of disciplining her.

One day when this had happened, she looked over at me and asked, “May I get out of timeout now?”

I replied, “Honey… I didn’t put you there! YOU put yourself there.”

In a world where morality is not objective, subjective moral opinion is a lot like my daughter’s self-imposed timeout. With no higher authority to tell us to behave, or else “sit in the corner”, and no moral facts by which to judge our actions, we make up our own rules. Then we behave as if they were binding. (Even more illogically, we act as if our moral opinions should be binding on others!) When we fail to live up to the rules we’ve created, we “put ourselves in timeout” with feelings of guilt and shame. And then we turn and ask “can we get out of timeout now”… and are answered with silence.

The Problem that Should Not Exist

Dealing with guilt should be simple in such a world. Just as my daughter chose to put herself into timeout, she could also choose to leave her self-imposed punishment at any time. She had no obligation to stay there. Similarly, guilt for breaking a subjective moral code can only result in self-inflicted guilt. We are “free to leave” at any time. Yet, this doesn’t reflect our experience.

Every mentally-healthy person at one time or another feels guilty. Subjective moralists attempt to explain this away by asserting that the crushing weight of guilt is just an illusion. Yet these “illusions” lead some to spend thousands of dollars on counseling. Others resort to alcohol or drug abuse, and some to self-destruction. This “illusion” has a huge impact in the real world!

It is more intuitively obvious that feelings of guilt are real. We stand guilty of breaking objective moral facts, and we need a way to “get out of the corner”. Repeated insistence that guilt is an illusion cannot soothe the nagging misery. All of our own efforts to remove ourselves from the corner fail. We crave forgiveness for our offenses… forgiveness that is neither necessary nor available if no law has been broken. Our conscience knows the truth that we often suppress.

Subjective Moral Opinion Cannot Secure Rights

Rejection of an objective moral standard claims to bring freedom. Instead it brings slavery. The cost is simply too high. Freedom from a moral law may seem to allow one to live as they desire, but it also requires the forfeiture of any protections and rights provided by that law. Appeals to subjective morality as a replacement only provides an illusion with no substance. Claims that men should submit to such a code “for the sake of society”. But this begs the question; you cannot argue for subjective morality by appealing to subjective morality. Either denying oneself for the good of the group is an objective moral principle, or it is a subjective opinion with no authority.

Objective morality exists, and this fact is implicitly affirmed by the subjective moralist, many of whom live highly moral lives in spite of their denial of the standard that makes them moral.  Does our society oppress certain groups of people? Should we change some of our laws to be more “fair”? Are discrimination and intolerance wrong? All of these require an objective moral standard to be meaningful… and practically no one these days, regardless of political leanings, religion (or lack thereof), creed, or color would not agree with at least one of these statements. Similar to logic itself, the more someone argues against objective morality, the more they show that they actually believe in it! The inability to reason without it is strong evidence for both its reality and its importance.

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Moral Argument Objections

5 Common Objections to the Moral Argument

By Paul Rezkalla

The Moral Argument for the existence of God has been graced with a long tradition of defense from theistic (and atheistic!) philosophers and thinkers throughout the history of Western thought…and a long tradition of misunderstandings and objections by even some of the most brilliant minds. To be fair, the argument is not always as intuitive as theists like to think it is. Essentially, the moral argument seeks to infer God as the best explanation for the objective moral facts about the universe. One of the most popular formulations is as follows:

1. Objective morality cannot exist unless God exists.

2. Objective morality exists.

3. Therefore, God exists.

There are a host of common objections that are usually blown in the direction of this argument, but for the sake of brevity, I will only deal with five. 

1. “But I’m a moral person and I don’t believe in God. Are you saying that atheists can’t be moral?”

The moral argument has nothing to do with belief in God. No proponent of the moral argument has ever argued that an individual cannot be moral unless they hold belief in God. Rather, the argument deals with grounding, or substantiating, objective morality. If God does not exist, then there can be no basis for objective morality. Sure, atheists can be moral. In fact, I know several atheists who are more moral than some theists! The issue of belief is not pertinent to the argument. The argument simply highlights the fact that there must be a basis– some kind of standard–that is outside of ourselves, in order for there to be objective morality. This objection makes a category error of confusing a question of moral ontology (Is there a moral reality?) with moral epistemology (How do we come to know or believe in the moral reality?).

2. “But what if you needed to lie in order to save someone’s life? It seems that morality is not absolute as you say it is.”

We’re not talking about absolute morality here. There is an important difference between absolute and objective. Absolutism requires that something will, or must, always be the case. Objectivity simply means ‘mind-independent’ or ‘judgement-independent’. When I argue for objective morality, I’m not arguing that it is always the case that lying or killing are wrong; the moral argument does not defend absolute morality. Rather, it contends that there is a standard of morality that transcends human opinions, judgments, biases, and proclivities. Let’s suppose that some nation today decreed that everyone of its homosexual citizens would be tortured to death simply for being homosexual; it would still be the case that, ‘It is wrong to torture homosexuals to death simply for being homosexual’.

The statement, ‘It is wrong to torture homosexuals to death simply for being homosexual’ is true, regardless of whether or not anyone believes it to be true. This is what is meant by objective.

3. ‘Where’s your evidence for objective morality? I won’t believe in anything unless I have evidence for it.’

Well, in that case, you shouldn’t believe that I exist. You shouldn’t believe that your parents gave birth to you. You shouldn’t believe that your closest loved ones are real, actual persons who matter and have feelings. You shouldn’t believe that the external world around you is actually there. After all, how do you know that you are not a brain in a vat being electrically stimulated by a crazy scientist who wants you to think that all of this is real? You could be in the matrix, for all you know (take the blue pill)! How do you know that you weren’t created a couple minutes ago and implanted with memories of your entire past life? How could you possibly prove otherwise?

See where this is going? Denying the existence of something on the basis of, ‘I will not believe unless I have evidence for it’ leaves you with solipsism. We believe in the reality of the external world on the basis of our experience of the external world, and we are justified in believing that the external world is real unless we had good evidence to think otherwise. There is no way to prove (empirically or otherwise) that the external world is real, or that the past wasn’t created 2 minutes ago with the appearance of age, and yet we all believe these to be true and are justified in doing so. In the absence of defeating evidence, we are justified in trusting our experience of the external world. In the same way, I think we can know that objective morality exists on the basis of our moral experience. We have access to moral facts about the universe through our moral intuition. Unless we have good reason to distrust our moral experience, we are justified in accepting the reality of the objective moral framework that it presents us with.

4. ‘If morality is objective, then why do some cultures practice female genital mutilation, cannibalism, infanticide, and other atrocities which we, in the West, deem unacceptable?’

There can be two responses given here:

The first response is that even though not all cultures share the exact same moral facts, most embrace the same, underlying moral values. For example, there are certain tribes that practice senicide (authorized killing of the elderly) due to their belief that everyone in the afterlife will continue living on in the same body that they died with. Thus, in order to ensure that those in the afterlife are capable of hunting, swimming, building houses, etc., the elderly are killed before they become too old to take care of themselves. This act is done with the well-being of the elderly in mind. The moral value that we hold in the West- ”The elderly are valuable and must be taken care of”- is also accepted by these tribes, even though their facts are slightly (well, maybe more than slightly) off.

The second response is that some cultures do, in fact, practice certain things that are straight up morally abominable. Cultures that practice infanticide, female circumcision, widow burning, child prostitution, etc. are practicing acts that are repulsive and morally abhorrent. When a man decides to have his 6-year old daughter circumcised or sold into prostitution, that is not a cultural or traditional difference that we should respect and uphold, rather these are atrocities that need to be advocated against and ended. The existence of  multiple moral codes does not negate the existence of objective morality. Are we to condone slavery and segregation since they were once allowed under our country’s moral code? Of course not. We condemn those actions, and rightly so.

Take the example of Nazi Germany: the Nazi ideology consented to the slaughter of millions, but their actions were wrong despite them thinking that they were right. Tim Keller summarizes this point succinctly:

The Nazis who exterminated Jews may have claimed that they didn’t feel it was immoral at all. We don’t care. We don’t care if they sincerely felt they were doing a service to humanity. They ought not to have done it. We do not only have moral feelings, but we also have an ineradicable belief that moral standards exist, outside of us, by which our internal moral feelings are evaluated.

Simply because a society practices acts that are contrary to what is moral does not mean that all moral codes are equal. Moral disagreements do not nullify moral truths.

5. ‘But God carried out many atrocities in the Old Testament. He ordered the genocide of the Canaanites.’

For starters, this isn’t really an objection to the moral argument. It does not attack either premise of the argument. It is irrelevant, but let’s entertain this objection for a second. By making a judgment on God’s actions and deeming them immoral, the objector is appealing to a standard of morality that holds true outside of him/herself and transcends barriers of culture, context, time period, and social norms. By doing this, he/she affirms the existence of objective morality! But if the skeptic wants to affirm objective morality after throwing God out the window, then there needs to be an alternate explanation for its basis. If not God, then what is it? The burden is now on the skeptic to provide a naturalistic explanation for the objective moral framework.

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The 5 Views of Morality1

The 5 Views of Morality

By Brian Chilton

I recently read Gregory E. Ganssle’s book Thinking about God: First Steps in Philosophy. In his book, Ganssle provides 5 particular views pertaining to morality. As one examine these views, it becomes clear that one view of morality stands above and beyond the value of the other moral opinions. Many of these lesser viewpoints have invaded the mindset of many modern individuals. However, it becomes clear that only one is valid. So, what are the five views of morality?

The Error Theory

Ganssle describes the error theory as one that “holds that there are no moral facts. This theory denies them altogether.”[1] This theory holds that it is factually wrong to claim any form of morality. Thus, one could not say whether it is wrong or not to torture an animal or person. The error theory, while held by some philosophers, could be attributed to some Eastern religions which claim that good and evil are just illusions and not real.

From the outset, one should be able to deduce the great problems found in the error theory. For instance, the one who claims that the error theory is correct will dismiss such a theory the moment the advocate claims some form of an act (i.e. racial discrimination, the Holocaust, terrorist acts, etc.) as wrong. Thus, the error theory collapses upon itself as most everyone will acknowledge the existence of good and bad behaviors.

Individual Relativism

Individual relativism is best explained by the classic phrase, “What’s good for you may not be good for me.” That is, individual relativism is the belief that the individual sets forth his or her own morality. Thus, one person cannot tell another person what is right or wrong according to this theory as each person must decide good from bad themselves.

Upon careful examination, anyone can see the great problem with this theory. For example, if person A (we’ll call him Adam) is driving along and person B (we’ll call him Bob) steals Adam’s car, Adam may say, “Hey, that’s not right.” But according to individual relativism, Bob would be justified in saying, “Hey man, it’s not right for you but it is for me!” However, we all know that it is morally wrong for anyone to steal another person’s car. A judge in a court of law will let Bob know quickly about the failures of his philosophy when sentencing him to jail time.

Why do so many jump on board with this philosophy? I think Ganssle is correct in saying that “I…think that people do not want other people to tell them what to do and that people do not want to tell others what to do. If morals are individually relative, then no one can tell you that something is wrong.”[2] Passivity, however, do not justify wrong thinking. Neither does a prideful heart. Individual relativism implodes the moment the individual relativist is a victim to an immoral act.

Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativists try to correct the problems of individual relativism while maintaining to the idea of moral relativism. The cultural relativist does so by claiming that morality is set by the cultural mores of an area. That is, “What is right or wrong is determined by one’s culture or society.”[3] While cultural relativism holds more of a base than does individual relativism, the theory still holds a major flaw.

Most people are horrified by the ruthless brutality of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, and extremist terror groups. However, if one accepts cultural relativism, then there is no basis for condemning such actions. For Hitler, he felt that he was doing the right thing according to his flawed moral viewpoint. Yet, cultural relativists hold no ground to condemn beheadings, gas chambers, and mass bombings if each culture establishes their own moral code. The cultural relativist begins to think more objectively than relative in such cases, as they should.

The Evolutionary Theory of Morality

The fourth theory is called the evolutionary theory of morality. According to this theory, it is held that treating other people in good ways rather than bad helped the human species to survive. Thus, the theory holds that morality falls in line with Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” philosophy. However, it is apparent that the theory holds some flaws.

Ganssle rightly notes that the evolutionary theory of morality “does not explain morality.”[4] Setting aside one’s acceptance or rejection of the evolutionary theory, this moral theory does nothing to define morality. For the evolutionary theorist, morality coincides with a survival of the human species. This brings us to another flaw. Many societies have sought to destroy other groups of human beings. Catastrophic wars do not seem to help the human race survive. Rather than helping the species survive, war often threatens human existence. Wars are fought with both sides thinking they are correct. Therefore this theory tends to find itself in a form of cultural relativism which we have already denounced.

So where does this leave us? It leaves us with the final theory of morality which appears to be the clear choice.

Objective Morality

Thankfully with the failures of the first four models, a fifth option exists. There is the objective morality theory. Norman Geisler defines objective morality as the following:

“Morality deals with what is right, as opposed to wrong. It is an obligation, that for which a person is accountable.

An absolute moral obligation is:

an objective (not subjective) moral duty—a duty for all persons.

an eternal (not temporal) obligation—a duty at all times.

a universal (not local) obligation—a duty for all places.

An absolute duty is one that is binding on all persons at all times in all places.”[5]

Thus, objective moralists view morality as a transcendent reality which applies to all individuals and societies. An objective moral is held by all people. This seems to be the case. While different tribes and societies hold different outlooks on peripheral matters of morality, the core morals are the same especially among those of their own tribe. It is wrong to murder. It is wrong to steal. It is wrong to commit adultery. And so on. Even so, we can conclude that objective morality is the correct viewpoint. Furthermore, we can deduce as did Norman Geisler in that

“Moral absolutes are unavoidable. Even those who deny them use them. The reasons for rejecting them are often based on a misunderstanding or misapplication of the moral absolute, not on a real rejection of it. That is, moral values are absolute, even if our understanding of them or the circumstances in which they should be applied are not.”[6]

Objective morals, thus, point towards the necessity of an objective law (or moral) giver. That objective lawgiver is none other than God.

 Sources Cited

 Ganssle, Gregory E. Thinking about God: First Steps in Philosophy. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

Geisler, Norman L. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Baker Reference Library. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999.

Notes 

 [1] Gregory E. Ganssle, Thinking about God: First Steps in Philosophy (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 90.

[2] Ibid., 92.

[3] Ibid., 92.

[4] Ibid., 95.

[5] Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 501.

[6] Ibid., 502.

 

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com and is the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University. Brian has been in the ministry for over 15 years and serves as a pastor in northwestern North Carolina.

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