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absolute morality, Bible, David Hume, evolutionism, God, harm, law giver, moral laws, moral standard, moral standards, morality, right and wrong, right morality, society, theology
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
In previous articles, I have made the case that the Laws of Science and the Laws of Mathematics all demand the truth of Scripture as a necessary precondition for logic and knowledge. Today, my aim in like fashion, is to demonstrate that the Bible possesses the only grounding for Morality.
Where did morality come from? Have you ever stopped and asked yourself that?
If there are absolute moral laws, there must be an absolute moral law giver; as in, “Thus saith the Lord.” Therefore, the basis for morality must be from the God of Scripture.
Evolution Theory attempts to explain morality as a by-product of evolution. On more than one occasion, I’ve had a theorist try to explain that we invented morality to ease and lessen suffering.
The problem with this explanation, is that evolutionism is “descriptive.” That means that evolutionism attempts to explain why things are the way that they are. In order for that answer to make sense, evolutionism would instead need to be”prescriptive”, defining how something ought to be.
Therefore, even if evolutionism were true, and it is not, it could never illuminate for us the way things ought to be. You can never get an “ought” from an “is”.
In other words, it does not provide us with the “Why?”
Why is something right?
or
Why is something wrong?
The “is-ought” problem was first articulated by David Hume, 1711-1776.
If all we are is the sum and by-product of chemical reactions, there cannot be wrong or right, much less a wrong or right morality. After all, what makes one weed growing right and another wrong or one idea right while another is wrong?
At this point, the evolutionists have attempted to counter this by stating that causing harm to themselves is wrong and that they do not want to be hurt. They also submit that harm is bad for society and should therefore be avoided. But what they are really doing, is trying to fly another absolute morality (not causing harm), under the radar, without the worldview justification for doing so. They are saying that what is bad for society is absolutely morally wrong. But the problem is, they have no basis for saying that because they have no absolute moral law giver that says that that is wrong.
My question is, ‘Why is something that is bad for society, wrong in the first place?”
I can come along and say that, “I don’t care about not causing harm. I think its right to harm others and in fact, you are wrong to even resist my attacks.” Without an absolute standard of morality by which to compare them both, you have no basis whatsoever to declare one standard of morality better than any other standard.
For instance, if I asked a room full of people what 5 + 5 =?
If one answer came back 11 and another answer came back 11,000, we can only know that 11, though incorrect, is the better answer because we already have the correct standard by which to measure the results. However, if we did not already know that 5 + 5 = 10, we would have no way of evaluating which was closer to the correct answer.
The same holds true for morality. Atheist’s and evolutionist’s are constantly arguing that they have a better set of morality and that their proof is that they are not motivated by rewards or fear.
Kurt Vonnegut said that, “Humanists try to behave decently and honorably without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. If he thinks God is going to be impressed with that excuse someday, he’s in for a big surprise.
My questions to Mr. Vonnegut are the following:
1) Where did you read that behaving decently and honorably is the highest morality?
2) By what basis are you evaluating decent and honorable behavior?
3) How are you judging moralities without an absolute standard by which to compare them?
4) “Humanists try” — Why do they try and what is the consequence for not succeeding?
However, without an absolute standard of morality, the comparison between two standards of morality is entirely baseless. Therefore, when a humanist says that their morality is better than “x”, they are admitting that they do believe in an absolute standard of morality which could only come from the God of the Bible.