TUESDAY
This week we are beginning to explore the beauty of the gospel story through the lens of morality. Most humans and most civilizations have this innate sense of how we ought to live. Ought is an interesting word that implies a standard that we as humans should uphold both individually and communally.
Animals don’t operate on the same principles. There is no sense of ought-ness in the animal kingdom, as far as I am aware. If my dog eats my sandwich off the counter, it is because of his instincts and desire for food. I don’t feel as if he has violated an assumed moral standard between us. He has not wronged me. I see no need to forgive my dog. He is simply acting in line with his nature. The only thing restraining him from doing so on other occasions is his fear of punishment from me. This is different than ought.
There is, of course, much to be said about morality in the Christian faith. Remember, my purpose in this campaign is to help you see that the story of the gospel is truly irresistible. So to do that I have two primary objectives this week:
- That you would accept one of the most obvious truths in the universe: there is a moral law and you regularly break it.
- That you would not just believe the moral law exists but that you would cherish it.
You may be thinking, “John, those two objectives don’t sound very winsome or make the gospel sound irresistible. I’m pretty sure this is actually what pushes so many people away.”
This of course is true. This part of the story is not super winsome and “feel-good”. Yet, feeling good is not the only aspect of making something irresistible. It must also be true. It may feel good for me to think of myself as the best basketball player in the world but, alas, it is not true. That good feeling will be demolished if I were to play a marginally good division II college player! It most certainly would be better for me to accept the obvious truth rather than fight against it. So for something to be irresistible it must not just make me feel good but also make sense of the things that I know deep down to be true, even if I don’t like it.
It is the same for the moral law. It does nobody any good to deny it and act as if it is not true. Yet, people do all the time, to the detriment of their own soul. The general consensus in the last century or so in western culture has been to point the finger at the moral law as the problem, not humans for failing to live up to it. The thinking goes, “If we could only do away with this pesky idea of a moral law and the institutions that impose the moral law on people and society, in the name of progress, then we could free ourselves from the guilt and shame of failing to live up to the moral law.” This has only led to more and more depravity, sin and, ironically, bondage to that sin along with the guilt and shame that comes with sin. We think casting off the shackles of the moral law will lead to greater freedom. However, as Jesus reminds us:
John 8:31–32 “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Freedom is found in the truth, not a stubborn resistance to the truth. Resistance only furthers our bondage no matter how much we call it “freedom.” In the end, reality proves difficult to resist. As Lewis writes in response to his critics who said his view was regressing society back to theological views: “If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”
A common approach in apologetics (the field of study that argues for the truth of the Christian faith through logic and reason) is to begin with the moral law as a proof for God. C.S. Lewis takes this approach in his wonderful book Mere Christianity. He begins by describing the language people tend to use when they are quarreling. They usually say things like, “What you did to me is not fair.” “I was here first.” “Why did you shove him? He didn’t do you any harm.” In all of these statements, people are appealing to a generally agreed upon moral standard. “The other man very seldom replies, ‘To hell with your standard.’” Instead, the other man will try to argue why their case doesn’t meet the criteria of that rule or why they have an exceptional circumstance that excuses them of moral culpability.
“Quarreling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer (soccer player) had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football (soccer).” - C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity
These moral standards, though they differ in part from civilization to civilization throughout human history, are remarkably similar. Of course this is because God has written his law on the hearts of humanity.
Romans 2:14–15 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)
The reality of the moral law is one of the most obvious conclusions to anyone who has paused to think about it for more than 10 min. Yet in our depravity, it is often denied because, as we will see, it is easier to deceive ourselves and rationalize it into something else rather than deal with the reality of our sinfulness and innate failure to live up to it.
To rationalize it, we humans have created a couple of other potential foundations for the moral law. Moral absolutism or absolute ethics is the belief that there is a universal standard that all humans are held to.
- Utilitarianism
- Autonomy
The greatest good for the greatest number. Often you’ll hear it rooted in human flourishing.
The individual is the locus of authority on morality. Each person is free to choose what is right for herself while others are free to choose what is right and wrong for themselves.
These two views have rather obvious problems. Who decides what is good? What group of people is the “greatest number”? Are we talking one community, one state, one country, the entire current human population or the entire future population of humanity? The Nazi’s were utilitarian. They defined the greatest number as the whole of Germany, and so eliminating the relative few who were a drain on society (the disabled) was better for the greater number of Germans when resources were limited. They also viewed the Arian race as the next stage of human evolution, so to spur on human evolution they eliminated those who didn’t meet that criteria. This would be better for countless numbers of humans in the coming eras of human history, in their view.
Autonomy fails with the same example. Who are we to say the Nazis were wrong when they so adamantly believed they were right?
If you listen carefully to popular media, you will hear these as the basis for morality everywhere in our culture.
