Morality: Who Needs God?

God's existence has direct bearing on how we view morality. As Dostoyevsky so famously put it, "Without God, everything is permitted."

At first glance, this statement may not make sense. Everything is permitted? Can't there be a morality without an infinite God?

Perhaps some of the confusion is due to a murky definition of morality we owe to moral relativism. Moral relativism maintains that there is no objective standard of right and wrong existing separate and independent from humanity. The creation of moral principles stems only from within a person, not as a distinct, detached reality. Each person is the source and definer of his or her subjective ethical code, and each has equal power and authority to define morality the way he or she sees fit.

The consequences of moral relativism are far-reaching. Since all moral issues are subjective, right and wrong are reduced to matters of opinion and personal taste. Without a binding, objective standard of morality that sticks whether one likes it or not, a person can do whatever he feels like by choosing to label any behavior he personally enjoys as "good." Adultery, embezzlement, and random acts of cruelty may not be your cup of tea -- but why should that stop someone from taking pleasure in them if that is what they enjoy.

Is having an intimate relationship with a 12-year-old objectively wrong just because you don't like it?

Perhaps murder makes a serial killer feel powerful and alive. A moral relativist can say he finds murder disgusting, but that does not make it wrong -- only distasteful. Hannibal, the Cannibal, is entitled to his own preferences even if they are unusual and repugnant to most.

Popularity has nothing to do with determining absolute morality; it just makes it commonplace, like the color navy.

"But this killer is hurting others!" True. But in a world where everything is subjective, hurting an innocent person is merely distasteful to some, like eating chocolate ice cream with lasagna. Just because we may not like it doesn't make it evil. Evil? By whose standard? No one's subjective opinion is more authoritative than another's.

Although many people may profess to subscribe to moral relativism, it is very rare to find a consistent moral relativist. Just about everyone believes in some absolute truths. That absolute truth may only be that it is wrong to hurt others, or that there are no absolutes. The point is that just about everyone is convinced that there is some form of absolute truth, whatever that truth may be. Most of us, it seems, are not moral relativists.

Not too many of us believe that killing an innocent person is just a matter of taste that can change according to whim. Most of us think it is an act that is intrinsically wrong, regardless of what anyone thinks. According to this view, the standard of morality is an unchangeable reality that transcends humanity, not subject to our approval.

An absolute standard of morality can only stem from an infinite source. Why is that?

When we describe murder as being immoral, we do not mean it is wrong just for now, with the possibility of it becoming "right" some time in the future. Absolute means unchangeable, not unchanging.

My dislike for olives is unchanging. I'll never start liking them. That doesn't mean it is impossible for my taste to change, even though it's highly unlikely. Since it could change, it is not absolute. It is changeable.

The term "absolute" means without the ability to change. It is utterly permanent, unchangeable.

Think of something absolute. Take for example an icon of permanence and stability -- the Rock of Gibraltar. "Get a piece of the rock" -- it lasts forever!

The nature of absolute is a bit tricky to grasp because we find ourselves running into the same problem of our finite selves attempting to perceive the infinite, a topic we have discussed in a previous article in this series. Everything that exists within time undergoes change. That's what time is -- a measurement of change. In Hebrew, shanah means "year," sharing the same root shinah, "change."

If everything in the finite universe is undergoing change -- since it exists within time -- where can we find the quality of absolute?

Its source cannot be in time, which is constantly undergoing change. It must be beyond time, in the infinite dimension. Only God, the infinite being that exists beyond time, is absolute and unchangeable.

Therefore an absolute standard of morality can exist only if it stems from an infinite dimension -- a realm that is eternal, beyond time, with no beginning and no end.

In addition to the demise of morality, moral relativism inevitably leads to the death of education and genuine open-mindedness. The thirst for real learning comes from the recognition that the truth is out there waiting to be discovered -- and I am all the more impoverished with its absence.

If everything is relative, then it makes no difference what anyone thinks. Ideas no longer matter. With no absolute standard of right and wrong or truth and falsehood, the pursuit of wisdom becomes nonsensical. What are we searching for? If no idea is more valid than another, there is no purpose in re-evaluating one's belief system and being open to exploring new concepts -- since there is no possibility of ever being wrong.

A common argument often heard for supporting relativism is that in the world at large we see a plethora of differing positions on a wide range of moral issues. Try to find one issue all cultures universally agree to!

Only the unhistorical and inhuman belief that opinions are held for no reason would prevent the undertaking of such an exciting activity.

The plethora of disagreements demonstrates exactly the opposite point. If everything is relative, what on earth are we arguing about?

Imagine walking down the street and you hear a ferocious argument taking place behind a door. People are yelling at each other in a fit of rage. You ask a bystander what the commotion is all about. He tells you this is a Ben & Jerry's ice cream store and they're fighting over what is the best flavor of ice cream.

Real debates and disagreements occur only because we believe there are right and wrong positions, not mere preferences of flavors. Think of a time you experienced moral outrage. The force behind that anger is the conviction that your position is the correct one. Matters of preference, like music and interior design, do not provoke moral outrage.

What provokes our moral outrage? Injustice? Cruelty? Oppression? There is the sense that an absolute standard of morality is being violated, an objective standard that transcends humanity, that stems from an infinite and absolute Being.

Ok, fine.

Because of the 'ought-is' perplex, atheistic libertarians cannot hold that their belief system is the 'most rational' or 'logical'; so, the claim that Objectivists have 'objective' ethics is spurious. They are relativists, just like secular humanists.

Now, you object to the appeal to G-d (I suppose I should start doing that):

My claim is that regardless of the source of ethics, there must be a rational way to decide among multiple incompatible ethical systems.

And this is reasonable. As I noted in an earlier post, John Paul II passionately believes that faith and reason are eminently compatible (JPII is a former philosophy professor himself).

First of all, no other major world religion has been subjected to the same kind of philosophical rigor that Christianity has. Certainly not Islam (unless you want to end up beheaded). But let's take two issues, abortion and homosexuality.

Abortion is condemned in the earliest Christian writings. In the Didache it is condemned, which is about 100AD, right at the beginning of the Church. Now, at that time the physiology of Galen wasn't even available, and people really had no idea how a child was conceived. In addition, abortion was widely practiced and accepted, as was infanticide. Christians objected to this on what they believed (and I believe) to be the will of G-d and refused to practice infanticide or abortion and condemned it. Many Christian martyrs died for their practice of adopting children that had been exposed to the elements to die.

Medical science has now confirmed that a human being is a unique human being from the moment of conception--possesses a unique genetic code and is a unique person. In George's Clash of Orthodoxies (mentioned above), George quotes one doctor who concedes that medical science proves that the uniqueness of the individual starts at conception and ends at natural death. Finally, many pro-choice philosophers are now having to argue that abortion is "justifiable homicide" because they've lost the larger argument as to when life begins. Thus, reason and science confirm faith and tradition on abortion.

Same thing with homosexuality. Homosexuality was widely practiced in Rome. Christians rejected it and steadily marginalized it, based upon Judeo-Christian teaching. Today, leftists and libertarians have have "no problem" with it. Well, now we know that the average male homosexual lives almost half as long as a married heterosexual man (41 years), have higher rates of drug abuse and alcohol abuse, die of horrific diseases (AIDS, etc) and have a ten times greater likelihood of molesting young boys as heterosexual men have as molesting young girls.

Homosexuality is a grave danger to those who practice it, and to broader society in terms of both corrupting the youth of a society, and in term of softer issues like raising health insurance rates for non-homosexuals. Again, this is another confirmation of Judeo-Christian tradition and teaching, broadly defined.

Now, you could say that there are all kinds of things in the Bible (stories) that you find non-credible, but that's not the point. We're talking about ethical systems here, and I'm saying that reason and empirical observation confirms the Judeo-Christian moral teachings over and over again.

Also, I noted above that much of the ethical system of today's skeptics was formed by...Christianity. The reason that you find the idea of walking into the Superbowl to watch a bunch of gladiators impale and hack each other to pieces with tridents and broadaxes repulsive is that Christians put an end to gladiatorial shows seventeen hundred years ago. That kind of spectacle used to be the most popular thing in the Roman Empire. The Emporers used the shows to keep people happy. If you were a Roman citizen at the time of Christ you'd see nothing wrong with the Arena; it had been around for hundreds of years. You grew up going to it like kids today go to baseball games.

Many Christian martyrs went to their deaths because they would not attend the shows. Eventually Christian Emporers, at the urging of Bishops, ended the shows.I think most people would agree--and you would agree--that stopping this was a good idea. People are the same--physically--today as they were then. But the Christian faith elevated the conciousness of the West to the point that such things are now unthinkable.

Martyrs also went to their deaths standing up against infanticide, abortion, homosexuality, pornography (yes, it was around then), and so on not because they believed life would be better for people seventeen hundred years later, but because they were commanded to do so by G-d.

You say that there needs to be a rational way to decide between multiple ethical systems. Ok...would the world be better off right now if we still had infanticide, gladiatorial shows, rampant homosexuality, and so on and so forth?

So much of this stuff is just right before our eyes.

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*Random acts of cruelty may not be your* cup of tea, but who says your standards are for everyone?**


If everything in the finite universe is undergoing change, where can we find the quality of absolute?


Heated debates occur only because we believe there are right and wrong positions.