The Neophyte Asks . . .

“In your world-view, are certain acts immoral because your god says they are?”

My answer was, “No.”

That is correct but not for the reasons this person thinks. Actually the whole issue of objective morality is, for me at least, one of the most compelling evidences for the existence of God. Like the Laws of Logic and the Laws of Mathematics, Objective Morality is not invented, it is discovered. But where did these things come from? The formal argument goes like this:

. If God does not exist, then objective morals, values and obligations (def. below) do not exist

. But we know from our interactions with other people that objective morals, values and obligations DO exist. We know, and we know absolutely when someone does “wrong” to us.

. Because the above premises are true and coherent, the following conclusion is also true: God Exists.

Just as physical laws are fully realised in the physical world, objective moral laws are fully realised in Jesus and Father God. As I stated above, our daily interactions with others shows we believe without doubt that objective moral order is as real and independent of our recognition as is the natural order of things. Our perceptions of natural and moral laws are givens of our experience.

People who are God’s enemies and who therefore can’t possibly understand the Bible, claim that God acts in a capricious and arbitrary manner. That is simply not true. The order of things to which this neophyte alludes would be something like, “If God said (as do those atheists who favour eugenics) that saving the lives of disabled children is wrong, then it would be wrong.”

Here is where she is wrong but not for the reasons she imagines.

. What God commands or permits is good and what He forbids is wrong, bad, evil, self-destructive. Why? Because:

. Objective moral Goodness and Obligation are based on God’s character.
Therefore, God’s commands are not arbitrary, for they are the inescapable expression of His Just and Loving nature.

. And, since our moral obligations are grounded in the Divine commands, moral values and duties do not exist independent of God.

This is what it means for morality to be objective vs. subjective, selective or relative to the situation. Morality is not based on the individual’s character or personality or level of empathy, or that person’s likes or dislikes, sanity or insanity. Nor is morality based on community standards. Community standards may or may not cohere with what is objectively morally right or wrong. The killing of 6,000,000 Jews, Gypsies and Homosexuals was right by the community standards of Germany in the 1940's but it was objectively wrong. American Style Slavery was right by the community standards in the 19th century but it as objectively wrong.

Some might ask, “Why pick God’s nature as definitive of the Good?” That’s easy.

God, by definition, is the Greatest Conceivable Being. A Being which is the paradigm of goodness is greater than one which merely exemplifies goodness. Almost everyone recognises that for morals to be objective there must be some ultimate standard of value.
God is simply the least arbitrary stopping point.

The Problem with Intellect

Ah dogmatism. What are we going to do with it? Our nature seems to long for dogmatic creedal statements regardless of whether they’re scientific or religious. Examples you say? How about,

“There is absolutely no evidence for the existence of God.” Or,

“A loving God would never allow pain and suffering.” Or a long-time favourite,

“God helps those who help themselves.”

Simple. Easy to remember. All of them wrong.

Our nature also longs to dwell in the realm of the intellect. Why? Because the goal of our unredeemed intellect is to avoid our ultimate reality. The reality that drives us lies in the area of morality. That is where we find our true selves, and what we find there isn’t pretty.

Now of course, anyone who challenges the intellect will be met with mockery and derision by atheists. After all, questioning the intellect is holding to account one aspect of the triune god of atheism, with Science, Pride and Intellect making up the whole.

You doubt what I say? If your receptors aren’t already dulled with scar tissue, try listening to your conscience, and I mean really listen to it. You’ll be appalled at what you find. Listening to our conscience isn’t easy to do because our intellect is forever rationalising and making excuses so we can deny, discount or downplay what our conscience is telling us. “Something that feels this right could never be wrong.” Our intellect tries to give us logical reasons for why we do the wrong that we do. The problem with that is, the bedrock of human problems isn’t reasonable, rational or logical. That is why reason and logic will never be able to solve our problems, our hatreds, our bitterness, pettiness and corrupted self-love.
Atheists are infamous for saying:

“I don’t need God in order to be a good person.”

The path of “logic” that follows that belief is:

a) “I don’t need God.”

b) “Therefore I must see myself as a good person.”

The obvious question that comes from the statement, “I don’t need God in order to be a good person,” is, “So why aren’t you a good person? Why don’t you even live up to your own standards of conduct? Why do you judge others by what they do while judging yourself by your intentions?”

I believe that the bedrock, fundamental flaw in human beings is tragic to the core. Our tolerance for the state of our world is empirical proof positive of our skewed sense of morality. Denying that flaw is dangerous to ourselves and to those closest to us. Sadly, the very aspect of ourselves that atheists worship most highly, the intellect, is the part of our corrupt self that tries with all its ability to avoid what is most human about us. The intellect, by denying our true nature, makes us observers of ourselves instead of participants. Intellect in the service of itself, cuts us off from not just others but from ourselves as well. As the saying goes, “The reason we cannot communicate with others is because our lives are so full of contradictions that we can’t even communicate with ourselves.”

Is intellect foul and putrid through and through? Of course not. It’s just that, to be trustworthy and worthwhile, the intellect must be in the service of our conscience, not the other way around. Our intellect needs to submit to objective morality, not create a morality based on the ebb and flow of unregenerate human reason. Reason and intellect can be our guides regarding things as they are, but reason and intellect are totally incapable of explaining why things are the way they are. Only the conscience can give us a hint to the direction where we’ll find the solution to that problem.

The good news is, it doesn’t matter what a person’s moral heredity is, or what tendencies toward evil there are in a person. Because of what Jesus did at the cross for you and for me, we can become all that God says we should be. Our intellect can be brought into the service of self in a manner that is life-giving rather than life-destroying.

Moral Struggle

After working with thousands and thousands and thousands of clients, it's become obvious that when you find a Christian who is focussed on the negative behaviours of others, you will also find that there is a huge moral struggle going on inside that Christian. I can think of no exceptions.