The Wrong Piece of the Puzzle

People are trying to put together the jigsaw-puzzle fragments of their lives. What they don’t know is that someone has switched the tops of the puzzle box. In order to assemble the puzzle, we should be looking at the picture of our Creator and the Word of God that points to significance, individual worth, truth, meaning—all the things that give us the dignity God designed us to have. But the pieces given us by our culture—materialism, drugs, and sex—are so dehumanizing and degrading that we eventually quit trying to figure out the puzzle. We lose ourselves even further in temporal pleasures.

Young people looking on feel this confusion acutely. They need role models at home to teach them right and wrong. If they are instructed in the ways of right and wrong but do not see the parents living this way, they will reject their parents’ words as hypocrisy. They need the anchor of God’s truth to make sense out of the mayhem confronting them. They need a basis, a standard by which to make decisions. They need a world view they can put into words.

The Modern Dilemma

Throughout most of history, man has had only one question to answer: “What am I going to do?” Modern society is unique in history because of its enormous affluence. No longer faced with mere survival, hundreds of millions of people now have time to ask, “Who am I?” before deciding what their actions will be.

But modern men and women are faced with a dilemma. Unwilling to accept God’s truth, they turn to dozens of other concepts now on the market. Overwhelmed and disillusioned, they come to the conclusion that they are nothing more than a fluke of chemical happenstance. Whether they recognize such a conclusion or not does not matter; their acceptance of it is played out in their actions.

Those actions reflect a lack of form in their individual world. Without recognition of right and wrong or good and bad, without a structure by which to measure themselves and their actions, they are left in despair. To placate the despair, they look to entertain themselves. They look to amusement (which literally means “without thinking”), which always leads to seeking pleasure in temporal, sensory ways: materialism, drugs, sex.

The Nature of God

Why do you feel a stab of conscience when you lie to your spouse, parent, child or boss? Because deceit and distrust erode relationships, while honesty and truthfulness bond people together with trust. You feel good about telling the truth and uncomfortable about lying, because truth reflects the nature of God, after whose nature the rules for right are patterned. Truthfulness is loving because it protects you from the pain of damaged relationships that results from duplicity and distrust.

Morality defines the properly functioning person and keeps him or her from clashing with neighbors, thus enabling relationships to flourish. God desires that we live not in lonely isolation but in joyful, satisfying relationships. Morality flows to us from God’s own nature as our guide to maintaining and nurturing these relationships.

Morality from God

Why would God burden us with a morality that doesn’t seem to fit us and so rudely intrudes on our wants and urges? The short answer is relationships. Morality keeps us fit for relationships and guides us in interpersonal conduct. The absolutes of right and wrong provide a template to guide you in loving your neighbor and relating to God. Morality is all about how to love effectively.

Why is it right to stop and help stranded motorists but wrong to veer over and run them down? The moral code dictates that it is right to stop, because that code came from God and reflects His nature. His nature is love, and it is right to render help because such an act is the loving thing to do. The loving helpfulness that morality encourages is healthy for society. The objective standard is the ancient but timeless Golden Rule: “Do for others as you would like them to do for you.”

The True Meaning of Morality

All of the unbelievers’ explanations for morality overlook the same essential difficulty: Morality simply does not align well with human nature. If morality were an instinct that evolved with the human race, right behavior would be as natural for us as it is for salmon to swim upstream to spawn and for geese to fly south for the winter. But it is neither natural nor easy for us to do what we call right. We find ourselves in continual conflict with morality, yet it’s like a catchy tune we keep on humming long after we’re sick of hearing it.

The choice comes down to only two real possibilities: Either morality came from God, or it is an inexplicable illusion with no meaning. Of those two options, it is totally rational to accept the idea that God is the absolute for morality and that He wired us with this moral sense in order to keep our natural urges from leading us to disaster.

The Instinct Theory of Morality

Some unbelievers assert that the universal moral code (see blog #22, The Universal Nature of Morality) is instinctual. According to the instinct theory, we humans have a concept of right and wrong because nature gave it to us. The moral urges we all experience are simply nature’s spurring us toward self-preserving behavior.

But we often have conflicting urges. For example, the urge to sacrifice personally for the sake of others runs utterly against the urge of self-preservation, yet it is considered the highest of virtues by unbelievers and believers alike. Then along comes another mysterious urge that we call conscience. It tells us not to do that thing we really want to do, simply because it isn’t right to do it.

If all urges come from nature, the standard that judges between them cannot also be from nature. Morality is not natural. It is too much at odds with our natural desires to share kinship with them. Morality obviously is an intruder from somewhere outside nature.

What is “Right”?

The second flaw of the Social Contract theory of morality (see blogs #31 thru #33) is this: A disintegrating society adrift with no bedrock of morality will be at the mercy of those in power, who, with no true guide to right and wrong, will impose their own will on the rest. Right will be solely what those who wield the power want it to be. When people ignore traditional morality and seize power to serve their own ends, the results can be hideous. Adolph Hitler’s demonic rule over Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s is a sobering example.

We see something similar happening in America today as the concept of an overarching, true morality begins to crumble. In the name of personal freedom, those in power have legislated the right to kill the unborn simply because having a child would inconvenience the lifestyle of the parents.

The strong victimizing the weak is the ultimate result when society thinks it can legislate morality to fit its own whims. But when the power shifts again, today’s benefactor may be tomorrow’s victim.

I Pledge Allegiance to God or Me

The refusal to recognize God as the absolute authority behind right and wrong will eventually cause society to destroy itself. We can see the beginnings of such disintegration in the United States as the recognition of God is increasingly pushed out of public life. The Declaration of Independence explicitly recognized God as the absolute behind law when it proposed separation from England in order to assume “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.”

With no allegiance to God, people will increasingly chip away at the restriction of law in order to gain more and more personal freedom to follow their wants and urges. The ability of law to restrain these urges will wear down, and individuals will come to have little or no allegiance to society as a whole. All their attention will be focused on themselves—their own rights, wants, and pleasures. Without the pressure of a true and absolute morality, people will lose all motivation to sacrifice personal satisfaction for duty to others.

The Morality of the Minority

The first flaw of the Social Contract theory of morality (see previous blog) is this: If morality is simply what the majority of society legislates and nothing more, why should the minority follow it? We can find no rational basis for asking the minority to accept the social contract—to give up its wants and bend to the will of the majority.

As a member of the minority, I may follow the will of the majority as long as I find it convenient. I may follow it generally because I realize the value of it. I may even sacrifice some of my personal wants to preserve social stability, because I see that I benefit in the long run. But I will follow the law only to the extent that it does benefit me or up to the limits the government can enforce.

People who believe law to be without absolute moral authority will not take obedience seriously. They will obey it only when it is personally advantageous or when the risk of getting caught is too great. (To be continued).

The Social Contract Theory of Morality

Some unbelievers may say: “We agree that life in society would be disastrous without laws. We need laws to put reasonable limits on the potentially intrusive behavior of others so we can get on with the business of doing our own thing. But these laws need not be based on the authority of God or an external absolute. Law works just fine as a social contract among individuals in society. We all mutually agree to give up a little freedom so that all can enjoy a reasonable amount of freedom. We determine our morality not by some overarching absolute standard of right and wrong but by the consensus of society. By common agreement, everyone accepts the morality expressed by the will of the majority.” This theory, the social contract theory, contains two flaws, both deadly. (To be continued).

When Belief in God Dies

If there is no God to give mankind a hope for life after death, you may as well ignore any notions of rightness that self-appointed moralists shove at you and get on with the business of doing only what you want. Let’s be up front and admit it: we all hide within us an impulse to ignore the expectations of the law and do just what we want to do. But it won’t work.

When we remove the restriction of law, we also remove its protection. Without law we can never expect to be treated fairly or safely because society’s capacity to protect life and property evaporates. Families disintegrate. Murder, rape, and theft become rampant. Order decays into anarchy, and life must be lived in the unstable, uncertain environment of the lawless jungle.

When belief in God wanes and dies, society loses its stable underpinnings and spins downward into a maelstrom of fragmented individualism with each person out for his or her own gain and each of us the potential victim of all the others.

If There Is No God

If there is no transcendent God, there can be no such thing as truth and absolute right. If there is no God, we cannot condemn people for dedicating their lives to their own pleasure and we cannot demand that they place society above themselves. We have no standard by which we can prove that doing good to others is any better than ignoring the needs of others and doing good only for oneself.

In a world without God to underscore absolutes, we can’t expect anyone to live according to any standard society chooses to set up. If there is no God, all rules are mere opinion and none have authority.

The Dilemma of Unbelievers

Here is the dilemma of unbelievers: Since they cannot prove by reason that society ought to be preserved, they must choose between two alternatives: They must either accept the idea as an absolute (see Blog #10, Absolutely) or reject it as an outrageous demand in a godless universe where self is on its own.

If they accept it as an absolute, they lose their rationale for being unbelievers, because such a counterintuitive moral concept can have force only if it has roots in an absolute God to whom we are responsible. But if unbelievers reject God as the authority behind morality, they must dismiss the tug of their hearts toward duty to others as an illusion. Of course, even if they dismiss it, they may still choose to give in to it merely because doing good to others makes them feel good.

If the preservation of society is an absolute truth from God, then the laws we pass to curb the impulses of individuals for the benefit of the whole have force. But if the preservation of society is merely a human concept, there is nothing absolute about these laws, and they are unfair because they contradict the rights of the individual.

We Ought To

In spite of what makes sense, all of us—believers and unbelievers alike—are saddled with the notion that there are certain things all humans ought to do. We ought to give aid to those in need. We ought to defend innocent children against abuse. We ought to be honest and truthful. No one, not even unbelievers, can break free from the tug of such “oughts.” They grip us like gravity.

When we look beneath these oughts, we find the assumed absolute: Society ought to be preserved. That idea should mean nothing to unbelievers, yet they can’t get rid of it. It’s like trying to throw away a boomerang—it keeps coming back. The concept is firmly entrenched in the mind of every sane human being, yet human reason did not produce it and cannot defend it.

No God, No Sense

People who do not believe in God may claim that they look out for others, because they think it is the unselfish, right and noble thing to do. They may even be sincere when they say this, because these innate feelings come from their hearts. But it makes no sense for such feelings to be in their hearts. The feelings are inconsistent with their denial of God.

Terms like unselfishness, sacrifice, nobility and concern for others have no real meaning without a solid absolute on which to base them. Without absolutes to prescribe such unselfish behavior, it makes perfect sense for unbelievers to spend every precious moment packing their own lives with all the pleasure and gratification they can grab, and let society take care of its own future.

The Invention Theory of Morality

The invention theory explains morality as a set of rules that humans have devised for self-preservation through trial and error over the millennia of history. Behavior that helped or strengthened society was encouraged and called “right.” Behavior that hurt or weakened it was prohibited and called “wrong.”

When people claim that morality is simply mankind’s invention to preserve society, they assume that society ought to be preserved. It is the assumed, unproven truth on which their morality rests. They may deny that absolutes for morality exist, but the moment they make any kind of moral claim—such as the proposition that society ought to be preserved—they have planted their feet on a moral absolute. They can’t help but do so because for any foundational assumption to be held as valid, it must be based on an absolute. Unbelievers may lock the door against absolutes of any kind, but the moment they claim any action to be right or wrong, some kind of absolute has sneaked in through the window.

The Innate Moral Code

How can we explain an innate moral code that is consistently present in all societies? How do we explain a sense of morality that gives virtually every sane person on the planet an innate sense of right and wrong? Believers explain it easily: God planted the standards of morality in the human conscience and stands as the ultimate absolute behind it. This explanation shows us why the moral code is universal and also gives it the weight of authority.

Unbelievers deny that morality must derive from God. But without God as the source, any rational explanation for morality collapses. Without God as the source and basis of morality, we cannot find an explanation for it that is consistent with reality. However, a number of alternative theories have been advanced.

The Universal Nature of Morality

We all take morality for granted. It is something that everyone assumes to be universally true. We treat it as an absolute. All societies have laws protecting human life, all have rules governing marriage and family relationships, all condemn stealing and all encourage doing good to others. This universal moral sense is a telling landmark in our search for certainty.

Some societies enforce morality strictly, while others are lax on one or more points. But within every society there are people who resist the imposition of morality on their behavior in an extreme manner. Examples include Hitler during the holocaust and the political figure-heads that accepted the killing of female babies in some Asian countries.

Usually these aberrations are short-lived, as elements within or outside a society will become outraged enough to rise up and stop the aberrant behavior. Some societies strongly emphasize some parts of the moral code while virtually ignoring others. But despite the variations and distortions, the same basic sense of morality appears wherever humans live together.

Who Decides What is Right?

People in general expect to be treated fairly and courteously. We assume that those around us know the basic common rules of right behavior, and we believe they should conform to them. Some people deny that such rules exist, and all of us occasionally ignore the rules or break them. But our behavior shows clearly that deep down inside, we all have an innate sense of morality. People would not yell at rude drivers unless they believed that rude driving is wrong. It makes no sense to express anger at bad behavior unless you believe there is a standard that defines good behavior. And you assume that everyone out there is aware of this standard. In fact, before you can disagree with anyone about anything, the two of you must agree on one thing: a standard of right and wrong. Adversaries in an argument must assume they share a common standard that defines right before either can expect to convince the other that a standard has been violated.