God and Objective Morality

Introduction

One of the most important concepts to be comprehended by we humans is morality. This importance derives not only from the fact that we are intelligent beings, but also from the fact that we are social beings. And although there is perhaps universal agreement on its practical value, there is substantial disagreement with respect to its theoretical nature.
For instance, one of the hallmarks of Christian thought is absolute objective morality. That is to say that there are certain moral "laws", which are unchanging with respect to situational variance and are universally applicable. This is a comforting position, since it reflects our social need for safety, security, accountability and justice. And because humans and therefore the constructs created thereby are imperfect it is desirable to hold some notion of ultimate and final justice, which is inescapable. Understandably, then, it is a common complaint of the religiously minded that if one gives up any notion of the supernatural, then one must also give up this view of morality. But this is undesirable because it leaves us with moral relativism. In Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov Ivan Karamazov laments:

"If God does not exist, then everything is permitted."

For the purposes of this post, let us forget that this is an argument from consequences and therefore fails as an argument for the existence of God. Instead, let us consider whether the accusation is even true. More specifically, it will be useful to consider the more legitimate argument from morality. The question at hand, therefore, will be: Can morality be absolute and objective in any meaningful sense if God does not exist?

The Moral Argument

One of the more common arguments employed for the existence of God is the Moral Argument. It's basic form is usually stated as follows:

(i) If God did not exist, then objective moral values and duties would not exist.

(ii) Objective moral values and duties do exist.

(iii) Therefore, God exists.
(Moreland J.P., Craig William Lane. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. p 495)
Again, I am going to assume that (ii) is true, but question the truth of (i).

Observe that (i) is logically equivalent to (i'): If Morality exists, then God exists. (Here I shall use Morality as an abbreviation for objective moral values and duties). So, the first premise states that the existence of God is a necessary condition for Morality. If this is false, then it must be shown that (Morality exists) and (God does not exist) is consistent and does not produce a contradiction.

In defense of (i) it is often phrased in terms of "laws" and argued that laws require a Lawgiver. One site puts the matter this way:

"There is nothing out there in the physical world that makes moral facts true.

This is because moral facts aren’t descriptive, they’re prescriptive; moral facts have the form of commands...

There are some things that can’t exist unless something else exists along with them. There can’t be something that is being carried unless there is something else that is carrying it. There can’t be something that is popular unless there are lots of people that like it.

Commands are like this; commands can’t exist without something else existing that commanded them.

The moral argument seeks to exploit this fact; If moral facts are a kind a command, the moral argument asks, then who commanded morality? "
(http://www.existence-of-god.com/moral-argument.html)

The obvious question is: Must Morality be thought of in terms of commands? It seems quite obvious that this is not necessary, since the maxim, You should not murder can always be stated instead as It is not good to murder. At this point, however, we need an understanding of the word "good". Furthermore, even if we can conclude that Morality need not inherently exist in the form of commands, this would not prove God does not exist. But remember, the objective here is to explore whether or not (i) is a true implication.

The Euthyphro Dilemma

Now, from the Christian perspective "goodness" must be identified with God's nature. The necessity of this position arises from the well known Euthyphro Dilemma, which asks:

Is something good/Moral because God commands it or does God command said something because it is good/Moral?

The dilemma comes from the fact that if the first disjunct is the case, then Morality is arbitrary and reduces to might makes right. Presumably, then, God could have commanded that, say, men shall be permitted to rape a woman from 6pm to 7pm every weekday with amnesty. Thus, since this is clearly an untenable position one might opt for the second disjunct. But should this be the case, then our work here is done, since it admits to an objective standard apart from God and then one may easily ask why God is necessary at all.

Because of this, the theist is forced to either accept one of these undesirable positions or to find a way out of the dilemma. This is precisely what most theists attempt by arguing that there is a third option. They claim that God's very nature supplies the absolute standard and that any and every command issued by God must/will be consistent with "His" immutable and necessary nature. Presumably, then, something like murder is wrong not so much because it results in a dead human (since that happens in many other ways), but because the act of murdering arises from hatred and a destruction, which are qualities that conflict with those found in God. Of course one could also argue that God values human life and so taking it "without just cause" is wrong. So, objective good is synonymous with God's nature and any value humans have is derivative in nature. That is, X has value if and only if God values X. But God values X if and only if X exemplifies qualities consistent with "His" nature. Therefore, X has value if and only if X exemplifies qualities consistent with God's nature.

Similarly, the theist must argue that Y is good/Moral if and only if Y exhibits qualities which coincide with God's nature. But does this really solve the problem? After all, how does one understand the nature of God? Any sophisticated theist will agree that this nature must be necessary, since if not, then it just so happens that God is the way "He" is and so could have been different. In other words, God's nature is accidental and one might rightly wonder how an accidental objective standard is an improvement on God arbitrarily deciding what is moral. In fact, the generally accepted definition of God as the being than which no greater can be conceived rules out this possibility unless we permit that there could be various variations on God's nature but that no one of these is "greater" than any other. But this (possibility?) is inconsequential to our investigations.

A Shot to the Foot?

So the theist concedes that there are ways of conceiving God and "His" nature which are "greater" than others, that God necessarily has the greatest possible nature. Now admittedly, we need not be able (and perhaps are not able) to fully formulate what this nature would be, but we are able to reason about certain qualities that definitely do belong to this nature. We say that this nature is perfect, since, again, it would not be appropriate to define the notion of God any other way. But if we can understand the nature of God, then we can understand morality. In going about this theory we implicitly recognize a set of values and characteristics we recognize as necessarily good and that God, should "He" exist, must possess these necessarily. But then it is really these values that are the standard and one has to wonder why they need to be made into characteristics of personal being? That is, how does evoking the existence of a personal being whose nature is characterized by these values make Morality any more real or substantiated? It seems that the theist is multiplying entities beyond necessity to account for morality in defiance of Ockham's razor.

Conclusion

Therefore, since the set of values and/or properties that describe God's nature can be understood independently of their being instantiated in a person it seems that there can indeed be Morality in the absence of God. We then recognize that if a person can exemplify these qualities, then that person will be a "good" person. Again, this does not mean that God does not exist, but it does mean that the moral argument fails as a proof. More than that, it shows that theism is not even necessarily the best way to account for Morality and so cannot be turned into a strong inductive argument or probabilistic argument.

What's the Real Issue?

Despite the inadequacies of the moral argument, it nevertheless continues to be a very persuasive argument. This is most likely due to strong psychological factors, which appeal to the strong desire for justice found in nearly all humans. It is very difficult for us to accept that some fiend could "get away with murder" or some other terrible crime and not be held accountable. This naturally leads to desire and hence posit the existence of a divine arbiter of justice whose judgment cannot be averted or escaped. And if there is no such being, then one understandably wonders what is the motivation for being good! This is a complicated issue to be sure, but a few reasons are
(1) We need others as social beings.

(2) We may be punished by our peers.

(3) We have the ability to empathize with others.

(4) Humans rightly seek what has value and being good has value.

There are certainly more reasons, but I think this is a decent list. The real issue then seems to be the potential consequences of not believing in God. But as mentioned above, this is a fallacious way to argue for the actual existence of God. At the very least we should be good because we understand what "goodness" is and we desire to bring that into existence. Should we all decide that it is not worth it, then nature will eliminate us and something else will take our place.

On the Accuracy of the Bible

It is often declared in support of the Christian faith that the Bible has never been proven wrong and that it contains no inconsistency. Given the origins of the Bible, this certainly would be remarkable, though I am not wholly convinced it necessitates divine inspiration. Nevertheless, should any book be divinely inspired, we would expect that these conditions be met. That is

If text X is God inspired, then text X must be without error and completely consistent.

The above conditional is most certainly reasonably true. The problem I have found is that many people confuse the truth of the implication with the affirmation of the antecedent and therefore the consequent. In other words, many, say Christians, assume that the Bible IS, in fact, God inspired. But how do they know this? Well, despite claims to the contrary, they don't. It is (usually) an assumption made based on personal and subjective factors. While this seems of little consequence, the problem is that it creates a confirmation bias. Studying the Bible, then, is no longer about truth, but about supporting the assumption. It therefore cannot be falsified because any difficulty will simply be viewed as a lack of understanding or something that is wrong with our interpretation. And while these are certainly possibilities and indeed probable culprits in many instances, it is terribly misguided to prescribe these as the reasons at the outset.

One common example of this error is the claim that "Scripture must interpret Scripture". Now certainly, when seeking to properly understand and interpret any written text, it is essential that context, culture, history, language, etc. be taken into account. But the above prescription requires more. Implicitly it says that Scripture must be understood circularly, by the assumption that it is already self-contained and wholly consistent. If you read one book of the Bible and your understanding of it conflicts with another part, then your understanding is mistaken. You must factor in what the other part says into your interpretation and do whatever it takes, no matter how difficult, to reconcile each part together. This, however, ignores the fact that each book was written independently of the others and does not assume that the reader has access to any complete collection of Scripture on which the writing in question may depend. And since the goal of any writing (at least in most cases) is to communicate ideas, it seems reasonable that we should not have to venture far outside of the text in consideration to ascertain what it is communicating.

Therefore, should one book of the Bible be found to be possibly inconsistent with another, this possibility should be taken seriously and not immediately written off as a defect in ourselves. We should always be open to new evidence, which may, at times, demand a critical reevaluation of our beliefs. Note that this does not require that one always be changing his/her mind, but it does perhaps recommend that we avoid being overly dogmatic about things we might like to be true even if it is much easier to live that way.

A Critique of Jeff Kennedy's (EastPoint Church) Sermon: Is there a conflict between science and Christianity?

Among the myriad sermons I have listened to as of late, this one by Jeff Kennedy was one of the more sophisticated. And while I appreciated the ambition of delivering a more technical sermon in a venue not generally geared toward such things, I nevertheless felt that many of the arguments were merely recycled rudiments of the same ol' hackneyed "value packs" typically thrown at a congregation to assuage any concerns or fears about the status of religious faith. Of course, given the nature of the venue, it is forgivable that such a cursory analysis of the controversy between religion and science be given. The more pressing question is whether the arguments presented are sound, even if presented cursorily. Before I get to this matter, however, I'd like to make a few observations about the set up for this sermon.

Psychological Prepping of the Audience

Being fairly impressed with Jeff himself, the most irritating part of the whole thing actually came just prior to Jeff's talk. The online audio begins with what appears to be a skit acted out in front of the congregation, meant to parody the target position of atheism. While this may seem harmless, it actually has far reaching psychological consequences.

From a logical standpoint, the use of such a skit is nothing but an Appeal to Ridicule, a logical fallacy, which mocks and opponent's argument, attempting to inspire an emotional reaction (making it a type of appeal to emotion) in the audience and to highlight the counter-intuitive aspects of that arguments making it appear foolish and contrary to common sense (wickipedia).

Rather than think critically, then, the audience is psychologically primed for agreeing with the speaker's obviously more sophisticated view. To make matters worse, Jeff is already "preaching to the choir", so to speak, which means that glib remarks concerning the opposing position largely go unnoticed and simplified arguments are taken as impregnable. The whole point seems, not to actually address the issue at hand, but rather to hand wave the "solution" just enough so that those who already accept the conclusion of Jeff's message can return, reassured, to the comfort of their "faith bubble" with the certitude that the issue has been settled.

But despite starting off with a fallacy, effectively solidifying the bias of the audience, Jeff did present a decent summary of some of the major arguments within the Christian arsenal. That said, however, I'd like to analyze the overall success of Jeff's presentation. I'll take on this challenge in my next post.

Is the world what we should expect if God is real?

Although I am a Christian (at least I think I am... some might disagree), religion in the broad sense has become something of a paradox to me. For one, it appears to suffer from a double standard. Another way of putting this is that religion often falls victim to the fallacy of special pleading. It is perhaps the only class of beliefs that makes astounding truth claims, yet refuses the accountability of falsification.

The religious adherent is more than happy to take advantage of this or that apologetic, but in the midst of scrutiny and criticism promptly retreats to his/her impervious fortress of faith. This suggests to me that most religious adherents are not concerned with truth, despite claims to the contrary, but instead are slaves to their respective confirmation biases.

This leads me to the crux of my complaint: Everyone seems to have THE truth. In fact, several religions advance what might be deemed serious truth claims. Such a claim carries significant consequences for an individual such that if true, said person cannot "afford" to be wrong with respect to the truth claim.

For instance, let us consider Christianity, since it is the faith of which I am most familiar. The Christian worldview includes the following propositions:

(i) God* exists (God* is a very specific definition that includes being a person and being perfect)

(ii) There exist actual (quasi-physical) "places" called Heaven and Hell.
(a) Heaven is a "place" of unimaginable, eternal bliss.
(b) Hell is a "place" of unimaginable, eternal anguish and torment.

(iii) There is a set of conditions S such that if person X satisfies S, then X will go to Heaven and if person X fails to satisfy S, then X will go to Hell.

To a significant degree (ii) and (iii) depend on the truth of (i), however, it is questionable whether (i) implies (ii) and (iii). Conversely, it seems reasonable to suggest that (ii) and (iii) imply (i). And it is (ii) and (iii) that are superb examples of serious truth claims such that person X cannot afford to go wrong with respect to (iii), which entails (ii).

Now, the God of Christendom is essentially Anselm's greatest possible being who most notably, perhaps, possesses the properties/qualities of omnibenevolence and love. Assuming (i), (ii) and (iii), it would stand to reason that God would ensure that (i), (ii) and (iii) are unequivocally clear and undeniable. This is supported by notable scripture, namely:

John 3:16 and 2 Peter 3:9

Furthermore, Romans 1:20 seems to indicate that this is indeed the case. Men are supposedly without excuse with respect to (i), but as suggested above, this does not necessarily lead one to accept (iii), which is the very proposition with respect to which X cannot afford to go wrong. Nevertheless, let us concede the point to Paul and see where that leads (later we will examine Paul's claim in more detail).

Given (i), the general consensus of Christendom (save various minority sects) is that God loves X and according to the aforementioned verses, (a) offers eternal life (i.e. Heaven) to X (John 3:16) and (b) desires X to obtain said eternal life or Heaven (2 Peter 3:9). A further proposition that is commonly asserted is:

(iv) God has endowed humans with free-will.

and is usually conjoined with:

(v) God does not and will not override any individual's free-will.

This implies that X is responsible for satisfying S in order to obtain the Heaven that God desires for him/her. This does not preclude, however, God acting in X's favor so that X is more likely to satisfy S than not. In fact, this would be the loving thing to do. In other words, if I know that the well being of my son critically depends on certain key information, my love for him will compel me to make that information known in the most straightforward and obvious way! And because humans are very much driven by self-preservation and personal well-being, it seems reasonable that God could nearly guarantee that the majority of individuals satisfy S without having to violate their freedom.

The question, though, is whether or not reality reflects what a reasonable person might expect if, what I will call, the Christian's theological set T holds. To us humans, although we are conceding to (i), it is not at all obvious that (ii) and (iii) are true, at least, based on (i). But even by their very nature, (ii) and (iii) are very specific propositions not obvious to physical beings in a physical reality. Thus, X may not (in fact, probably will not) come to (ii) or (iii) independently and, further still, X may not ever be introduced to (ii) and (iii) (the classic remote/isolation problem). It would seem, then, that given the nature of the propositions in question, God would make their truth overtly obvious to human beings so as to guarantee maximal realization of "His" suggested will (2 Peter 3:9).

Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case, for even if X is fortunate enough to know about (ii) and (iii), their respective truth values are by no means clear. For if Heaven and Hell do exist, we humans have no means of verifying such existence, since allegedly Heaven and Hell are located in some other dimension or are states of being. Conveniently (or rather inconveniently), X can only "physically" verify the reality of (ii) upon death, which, as it so happens, is too late to form an opinion about the matter. This implies that X's fate will be Hell, since going wrong with respect to (ii) entails going wrong with respect to (iii). So, according to Christianity, (ii) is not subject to empirical verification, which obscures the truth of (iii) thereby increasing the odds that more people will go wrong with respect to (iii).

But perhaps we are too hasty. Perhaps empirical verification is not necessary. After all, God could simply inform humans about the consequences of going wrong with respect to (iii) in an undeniable manner so as to guarantee the maximal realization of "His" will. This is exactly what Christianity claims God has done in the form of the Bible and the events described therein. But is this what we would expect given our assumptions?

First, although the Bible speaks of origins and man's early history (in Genesis), it is so radically different from what we observe scientifically that there is an instant division amongst Christians about how to understand the book of Genesis. Some insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that Genesis provides a literal account of creation. Others, seeking to reconcile belief with science, suggest that Genesis is a mythopoetic writing, not meant to be read literally. Admittedly, though, this weakens the authoritative status of the Bible, since it is, so far, indistinguishable from a typical work of humans given the context and time.

Second, the Bible records that God selected a single individual to reveal "Himself" to (Abraham) for the purpose of creating a "chosen people". To my mind, this seems rather curious, since a significant amount of people are being deprived of the fact that they are "playing for the wrong team". The natural question, then, is would not God reveal "Himself" to everyone so as to avoid any confusion? Why have one chosen people that form a small subset of the entire population rather than choosing everyone?

At least part of the Christian response is that God was selecting a lineage from which the messiah would be produced. The task, if you will, of the messiah was to bring about reconciliation between God and humanity by dieing in their stead. But unless such a sacrifice were retroactive, it appears that a good majority of the human population over a span of thousands of years has ended up in Hell. To overcome this problem, one might give recourse to obscure verses in Peter's epistles about Jesus preaching to the captives, but any argument based on such verses is immediately "infected" by their inherently vague meaning.

But I am getting off topic. The question is whether or not the Bible acts as a good medium of communication from God to man. More and more I cannot help but suspect that it is not. The reason for this suspicion is that it is bound up in the uncertainties of history. Our "durational" distance from the events makes it nearly impossible to verify and given that our current world seems to operate very differently from the "biblical age", it would seem rather natural to feel inclined to sweep such ideas away with all the other superstitions we disregard from the same times and cultures. And if this is true, then would it not seem reasonable for God to continue interacting with humans (from every part of the world) in an unambiguous way? Many rightly point out, though, that we are finite beings and so cannot understand everything or know everything and so it is no surprise that God seems mysterious to us. But is this a good approach? I find that it makes matters worse. For, if we are so fragile, then it seems that God (in "His" love) has an even greater responsibility to make "His" truth unambiguously clear and accessible to the lot of "His" creation. After all, why let our relative stupidity consign our eternal souls to Hell? And if God is content to remain hidden to a substantial degree, why not make us smarter in order that we might not get side tracked by competing theories that seem reasonable, but which ultimately lead us to Hell?...... To be continued.

Is religious belief formed backwards?

Make no mistake... I want God to exist. Specifically, I want Christianity to be true! But one of the more troubling aspect of religion in general is the seemingly backward way its adherents come to their respective beliefs. It has been my nearly homogeneous experience that the religiously minded form this particular class of beliefs almost exclusively from feelings, perceived need and authority. I cannot deny that this is true of myself and in some sense still is true.

Now, although the tone of my writing (at least how it appears in my mind) is of a critical nature, this is not to say that Christianity is false or even that I am renouncing my faith as a Christian. My only point, really, is to express a deep seated frustration about the nature of religious belief. More explicitly, this frustration can be expressed by the fact that once a person concludes that he/she is in need of religion X and thence experiences religion X's deity, it is only after a most ardent devotion that he/she looks for a rational foundation on which to place his/her newly revered faith. Of course, under such circumstances, a confirmation bias is certainly bound to develop, which makes objective investigation nearly impossible.