The Problems with Moral Relativism

Moral relativism is a philosophy that asserts there is no global, absolute moral law that applies to all people, for all time, and in all places. Instead of an objective moral law, it espouses a qualified view where morals are concerned, especially in the areas of individual moral practice where personal and situational encounters supposedly dictate the correct moral position.

Summing up the relative moral philosophy, Frederick Nietzsche wrote, “You have your way, I have my way. As for the right way, it does not exist.”

In modern times, the espousal of moral relativism has been closely linked to the theory of evolution. The argument is, in the same way that humanity has evolved from lesser to greater biological organisms, the same process is in play in the area of morals and ethics. Therefore, all that can be ascertained at present (and forever) is that there is no absolute or fixed certainty in the area of morality.

Following this argument to its logical end conclusion, however, causes consternation among many, even those who espouse moral relativism. Paul Kurtz, in the book The Humanist Alternative, sums up the end result this way: “If man is a product of evolution, one species among others, in a universe without purpose, then man’s option is to live for himself”.

A grand example of this philosophy in action can be seen in the 2007-2008 meltdown that occurred in the American financial and banking industry. Those taught relative morality in their philosophy and business ethics college courses proceeded to live out those teachings on Wall Street and in other corporate avenues, with the outcome being devastating for those who were on the receiving end of their relative morality.  

Oddly enough, many who believed in relative morality at that time were outraged and absolutely sure that those who engaged in deceptive business practices ought to be punished for their unethical moral behavior. This type of reaction speaks loudly to an important truth: moral relativists have a rather dim view of moral relativism when it negatively impacts them.

Let the moral relativist be lied to, be the victim of false advertising, uncover the fact that their spouse has been relatively faithful to them, and they instantly become a moral absolutist. A person’s reaction to what they consider unfair ethical treatment always betrays their true feelings on the matter of relative vs. objective moral laws.

The problem for the moral relativist (who is most times a secular humanist that rejects God) is they have no good answer to the two-part question: Is there anything wrong with anything, and why? A proper answer to the question necessitates that an individual have: (1) an unchanging standard they can turn to, and (2) an absolute authority that has the right to impose moral obligation. Absent these two things, morals/ethics simply becomes emotive. Rape, for example, can never be deemed wrong; the strongest statement that can be made about rape is “I don’t like it.”

The only options available to the secular humanist where a standard and authority are concerned are: (1) the natural universe; (2) culture; (3) the individual.

The natural universe isn’t an option as amoral matter cannot produce moral beings nor prescribe moral behavior. Culture cannot be appealed to as there are many cultures throughout the world, all with different moral standards and practices; there is no way to ascertain which culture is ‘correct’. Culture merely displays what “is” with respect to morality, and even the famous skeptic and antagonist of religion David Hume stated that humanity cannot derive an “ought” from an “is” where morals are concerned.

Lastly, if each individual is used as a standard/authority for morals, the problem seen in using cultures as a moral compass is suddenly compounded exponentially.

Seeing this dilemma, some moral relativists try to say that science can be used to dictate ethics, but even secular scientists admit that science is a descriptive discipline and not a prescriptive one. In addition, its empirical methods are impotent to answer such moral questions such as if the Nazi’s were evil. Einstein sums up the correct position in this matter when he said, “You are right in speaking of the moral foundations of science, but you cannot turn round and speak of the scientific foundations of morality.”

In the end, the moral relativist has no satisfying answer in his/her attempt to respond to the question of if there is anything wrong with anything, and why. There is no standard to turn to and no authority to recognize and respect.

In contrast to the moral relativist whose worldview is secular humanism, the Christian worldview provides a solid standard and authority that can be confidently referenced and followed. The Creator God, Who has revealed Himself in His Word is both the standard and authority for morals. From God’s nature comes pure good that serves as the straight line by which all crooked lines can be measured.

God’s image has been impressed upon humanity (cf. Gen. 1:26-27) so that human beings instinctively know God’s moral law and what is right and wrong (cf. Rom. 2:14-15). People don’t have to believe in God to know His moral law, but in denying Him, they lose the ability to ground an objective moral law in something than transcends the physical universe. Without that transcendent God, as Dostoevsky famously observed, everything is permissible.  

Oddly enough, Dostoevsky’s statement was chosen by the existentialist Jean Paul Sartre as the beginning of his existentialist philosophy: “Nowhere is it written that the Good exists, that we must be honest, that we must not lie; because the fact is we are on a plain where there are only men. Dostoevsky said if God didn’t exist, everything would be possible. That is the very starting point of existentialism. Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist”.

The tragic truth for existentialists like Sartre and all moral relativists is this: when you hold God’s funeral and bury His moral law along with Him, something will take His place. That something will be an individual or group of individuals who take power and, in authoritarian fashion, impose their own moral framework on everyone else. The world has already seen such things in the regimes of Stalin and Pol Pot.

The far better course of action is to thankfully acknowledge God as the true source of good and His objective moral law, which God established only for the well being of His creation.

What is Agnosticism?

I thought it would be good to follow up my recent post on atheism with one on a spiritual position many more seem to hold, which is agnosticism.

Thomas Henry Huxley was an English biologist who was nicknamed “Darwin’s Bulldog” for his staunch support of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Huxley is also credited with coining the term “agnostic”. Following in his footsteps, his grandson Julian Huxley wrote the following about when a person should assume a position of agnosticism:

“I believe that one should be agnostic when belief one way or the other is mere idle speculation, incapable of verification; when belief is held merely to gratify desires, however deep-seated, and not because it is forced on us by evidence; and when belief may be taken by others to be more firmly grounded than it really is, and so come to encourage false hopes or wrong attitudes of mind.”[1]

Huxley felt that, “All our life long we are oscillating between conviction and caution, faith and agnosticism, belief and suspension of belief.”

A formal definition of Huxley’s “agnostic” term today is: “a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.”

From this description, it can be said that an agnostic’s position is one where they say they do not know if God exists. Speaking more broadly, some agnostics state that it is difficult to hold any truth with certainty.

Agnosticism typically takes one of two forms – hard and soft. The hard agnostic says that a person can’t know anything for sure. However, this is a self-defeating position as the hard agnostic says that they know for sure that they can’t know anything for sure. Hard agnosticism simply has no container that can keep its universal solvent, and therefore it becomes an untenable position to hold and must be discarded.

In contrast to hard agnosticism, the soft agnostic says he/she doesn’t know anything for sure. At issue is not the lack of human ability for knowing a particular truth, but rather the agnostic struggles with how a truth claim can be verified or shown to be true. It is the ancient pursuit of what in philosophy is called epistemology – how do we know, and how do we know that we know? When the issue of determining the existence of the Christian God is added to the mix, things get even stickier.

But perhaps that doesn’t need to be the case. What if a person truly follows and applies Julian Huxley’s criteria for determining when to be agnostic about a particular truth claim? What would be the end result when Huxley’s measures are applied to the claims of the New Testament, and specifically its account of Jesus Christ?

Huxley’s first condition is that a belief cannot be mere idle speculation or be incapable of verification. This first standard seems reasonable as pure conjecture or hearsay should not be a basis for committing oneself to a belief. The second condition appears logical also and is sometimes termed the principle of falsification, which was used by philosophers such as Anthony Flew in his initial writings on religion.

How do the claims of the New Testament and Christianity hold up under Huxley’s first criterion? When the legal/historical methods for determining truth are applied to the New Testament, it stands very firm under Huxley’s standard.

The writers of the New Testament never state that their beliefs were based on hearsay or were events that could not be authenticated. Quite the opposite, apostles such as Peter say, “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). The disciples recorded occurrences that happened in actual space/time, saw these events with their own eyes, and recorded Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection so that others would know the truth of what happened.

In terms of falsification, the apostle Paul gave the enemies of Christianity a single truth claim that, if proven untrue, would crumble and destroy Christianity in an instant: “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain” (1 Corinthians 15:13–14). Paul says if the resurrection of Christ did not occur, then the Christian faith is literally “empty” (vain). That, Paul says, is how Christianity can be falsified: find the body of that Jewish carpenter, and the Christian faith is undone.

But earlier in that same chapter, Paul actually challenges his readers of that day to go check for themselves that the tomb of Jesus was truly empty: “He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also” (1 Corinthians 15:5–8). Paul is literally asking his readers to verify his claims with many others (over 500) alive at that time who saw Christ and could act as witnesses to validate the fact that Jesus’ resurrection actually occurred in space / time history.

But, given that we cannot do that today, how can modern day people know that Paul and the other apostles were telling the truth? The apostles answer that question through their grave markers. All except John were martyred for their testimony. People may be deceived and die for a lie, but no one dies for what they know is a lie. All the apostles had to do to save their lives was recant their testimony, and say they didn’t see Jesus alive, but none did. Greater evidence for believability cannot be had.

Moving on from Huxley’s first criterion brings the discussion to his second and third standards, which are nearly identical in nature. Huxley says that a belief should be discarded if the sole purpose is to satisfy some psychological desire, and if the belief is not well-grounded from a reality perspective, and thus produces false hopes in its target. This benchmark measure for a belief is certainly rational as the only reason to believe anything is because that particular ‘thing’ (truth claim) is true.

Oftentimes, the psychiatrist Sigmund Freud is quoted to show how religion fails such a test. Speaking of religious beliefs, Freud said: “They are illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest, and most urgent wishes of mankind. We call belief an illusion when a wish-fulfillment is a prominent factor in its motivation, and in doing so we disregard its relation to reality, just as the illusion itself sets no store by verification.”  

However, Freud’s criteria do nothing to prove or disprove God as Freud’s sword cuts in both directions. Could it not be true that the atheist has wishes and urges of their own? Perhaps a wish that a God does not exist who will call them to account one day for their actions? Such a desire can be very motivating and drive a person to hold an atheistic position. So in reality, Freud’s words have no power whatsoever to determine if the truth claims of Christianity are valid or not.

Freud’ thoughts aside, how does the New Testament stand up against Huxley’s second and third standards? As it does with Huxley’s first measure, the New Testament does extremely well.

First, from a legal/historical perspective, no document from antiquity comes even close to the New Testament where passing the general criteria for judging the validity of a historical work is concerned. The New Testament passes the bibliographical test (manuscript reliability and early dating), internal evidence test (multiple key testimonies all of which match), and the external evidence test (outside evidence that corroborates the document’s testimony) with flying colors.

Second, as many have said, the New Testament is not written like a lie. The New Testament writers would not have invented accounts such as Jesus being buried by a member of the Sanhedrin, women being the first witnesses of Christ’s resurrection, and other such things.

Rather, what is found is a strong commitment to accuracy no matter where the evidence led them. Such dedication is seen in the pen of Luke: “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:1–4).

Lastly, as has already been pointed out, the New Testament writers died for their testimony. As theologian and professor Peter Kreeft points out: “Why would the apostles lie? . . . If they lied, what was their motive . . .? What they got out of it was misunderstanding, rejection, persecution, torture, and martyrdom. Hardly a list of perks!”

The treatment Kreeft lists certainly is not desirable from a psychological perspective, and would produce no false hopes in the disciples as they would obviously know their claims were false if they were lying. Adding this to arguments above, we see that the New Testament accounts overcome Huxley’s second and third hurdles for being agnostic.  

In the end, a person who claims to be agnostic about Christianity, but uses Julian Huxley’s own criteria for determining whether one should be agnostic, will have to seriously reconsider their position. With the hard agnostic position being ruled out as self-defeating, and the soft agnostic position being challenged by the compelling evidence of the New Testament, the more reasonable conclusion for the agnostic to reach once everything has been examined seems to be that Christianity is true.

---

[1] Julian Huxley, Religion Without Revelation. (New York,NY: Mentor Books, l957) p.l7. 

A Few Reminders about “Evolution”

Somebody sent me this news story from MSNBC on a type of shark recently discovered off the coast of Australia, which was found to be the offspring of two different types of sharks. The person who emailed me was concerned this find backed the theory of evolution, and ergo, disproved the need for God and threatened the credibility of the Bible.

I think a few reminders about “evolution” are in order.

In a debate William Lane Craig had with the evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala, Ayala was upfront about the term “evolution” and how it is an accordion style word. Ayala states that evolution can typically mean three different things:

1. Present day organisms are descendents (with modifications) from organisms that lived earlier.
2. Explanatory mechanisms that supposedly account for the specified complexity found in biological organisms.
3. The reconstruction of the evolutionary tree of life that show all branches going back to one ancestor in the past.

Ayala candidly admits that while the first is true, the second two are matters of tremendous dispute among all scientists (religious or non), and there is much that is not known in these areas.

When intellectually honest biologists say, “evolution is a fact”, they refer to the first point. And, in truth, I don’t have any Christian acquaintances that deny that either.

But the second and third points are what intelligent design calls into question. DNA coming into existence from a purely natural, unguided, non-intelligent source? Not a chance.

As to the third assertion, some studies show that humans and chimps have DNA similarities approaching 90-95%, and the similarities between humans and mice is 90%. Does this prove a common ancestor? Not at all. Instead, it points to possible common material composition and a common Designer, which is in keeping with the first chapter of Genesis.

Let’s also not forget, that while philosophical naturalists act as reductionists and say humans are nothing more than their material composition, deep down we really know different. The imago dei is there. Human beings were a distinctive creative act, again, as stated in Genesis 1.

So is the shark finding in Australia “evolution in action” as the MSNBC article claims? Sure. Two sharks got together and made another, modified shark. Does this threaten the claims of Christianity or the Bible?

Hardly…

What is atheism?

I was recently asked by gotquestions.org to write an updated article on atheism, which is below. I thought I'd share it here as well. It's a little long so be forewarned, but the goal was to examine the basic claims and positions the faith of atheism takes, which I attempted to do.

Atheism is a faith / worldview that denies the existence of any supernatural deity. The Oxford English Dictionary provides the following definition: “To believe nothing of a designing Principle or Mind, nor any Cause, Measure, or Rule of things, but Chance . . . is to be a perfect atheist.”

Broken down, “A” (no) “theism” (god), means simply “no god”. Although the word itself and its meaning is certainly straightforward, there are a wide range of philosophical complications and issues that must be addressed, and clarifications that need to be made where atheism is concerned.

The first and foremost problem that arises from the word “atheist” is the type of truth claim being made. Dr. Mortimer Adler describes the difficulty in this manner: “An affirmative existential proposition can be proved, but a negative existential proposition – one that denies the existence of some thing – cannot be proved.”

When a negative existential truth claim is put forward, the one making the claim has shot themselves not in the foot, but in the head. Unless the person can be in all places of the entire universe at the same time, they have no way of confirming that whatever they claim does not exist, in fact, does not exist. This is conundrum the atheist finds him/herself in.

Recognizing their predicament, atheists like Richard Dawkins counter such an argument by saying that, while they cannot prove a flying spaghetti monster does not exist, it is highly improbable such a thing actually exists, so the wiser intellectual position to hold is one that says such a thing does not exist.

However, such an argument commits two errors. First, comparing God with a flying spaghetti monster commits the logical error of faulty analogy. Second, just because something is improbable does not rule out its existence. For example, all scientists admit that humanity’s very existence is inordinately improbable. Scientific scholars acknowledge that it is against all mathematical odds that all of the universe’s cosmic constants and biological mechanisms necessary for life would come to be. And yet, they have and humanity does exist.

The question is not whether the existence of God is improbable, but rather is there logical, reasonable evidence that moves one toward a conclusion that God exists.

Atheists answer that question negatively, so the next move they make is to say that God “probably” does not exist. A recent example of this stance has been the advertorial bus signs that have appeared in various countries the past few years stating: “God probably does not exist”.

This claim, however, is flawed for two reasons. First, it is not the way human beings live most every other area of their life they consider important. Few would eat a meal labeled “Probably not poison” and less would board a plane marked “Probably safe to fly”.

But secondly, it ignores the fact that the seriousness of a truth claim dictates the amount of evidence necessary to support it. The atheist truth claim carries with it enormous, irreparable and eternal consequences if it is wrong. That being the case, it is intellectually and morally incumbent upon the atheist to produce weighty and overriding evidence to support his/her position, but they provide nothing to substantiate their limp assertion that God “probably” does not exist.

Atheism simply cannot meet the test for evidence for the seriousness of the truth claim it makes. Instead, using a supposed argument from silence, the atheist and those whom he/she convinces of their position slide into death with their fingers crossed hoping they do not face the unpleasant reality that eternity is an awfully long time to be wrong.

Some atheists recognize the gravity of this situation, and therefore when pressed for evidence, they take a stand that can be boiled down to “Science has disproven God”. However, there are several reasons that show this claim to be both enormously brittle and not well thought out. But first, to understand the rationale behind the position, a little history is necessary.  

After the events of 9/11, a branch of atheism – militant atheism (sometimes referred to as hatetheism) – aggressively rose up and demanded that society must get rid of all religion. Rather than focusing on religious extremists who use religion to justify violent and murderous actions, the militant atheists lumped all peoples of faith into the same basic bucket and labeled religion as a whole dangerous.

But the question facing the militant atheists was, “How will we get rid of religion?” The apparent agreement was to use science as its bedrock and tool to replace the need for religion. This tactic is nothing new and was the same position put forward by Thomas Huxley in the 1800’s when he sought to install scientists as the new priests for humankind. This “faith” in science is not science at all, but scientism, which says that science and science alone is the singular way to discover truth.  

While science has indeed delivered many great gifts to humankind, the hopes atheism has for scientism replacing religion are ill founded. First, scientism is self-refuting. The statement “we should only believe what can be scientifically proven” itself cannot be scientifically proven (because it is a philosophical statement), and so based on its own criteria, it should be rejected.

Second, it ignores other much-respected and used methods for obtaining knowledge. For example, the legal/forensic/historical method of discovering truth is used every day and is very well respected. The legal method does not ignore testimony or facts because they are not empirically reproducible or testable. By a process of elimination and corroboration, the legal method allows history and testimony to speak for itself until a verdict is reached beyond a reasonable doubt and the balance of probability is achieved.

Third, scientism has proven disastrous from a moral perspective. Militant atheism asserts that if religion can be banished, then humankind will have peace and harmony. But even a cursory look backwards at history since the Enlightenment says otherwise. Instead of resulting in peace, the Enlightenment ushered in one secular bloody revolution after another climaxing in the twentieth century, which produced the largest mass grave in history. Ironically, one of atheism’s chief heralds – Nietzsche – predicted (correctly) that, because he and others had supposedly killed God in the nineteenth century, the twentieth century would be the bloodiest ever. 

Lastly, rather pointing away from a transcendent Creator, advances in science have – more than ever – confirmed the existence of a theistic God. The death of the steady state theory and the current understanding that the universe as we know it exploded out of nothing into existence, the incredible fine tuning of the universe for human life, the confirmation of specified complexity like DNA that in a single strand contains digital information equivalent to 600,000 pages of intelligence and is mathematically identical to a language, all act as pointers to an intelligent source that is behind it all.

In truth, atheism’s position on science commits the logical fallacy of the false dilemma. Atheism demands that a person choose between science and God, where in fact, no such division need occur. Such a requirement can be likened to a person being forced to choose between (1) the laws of internal combustion and (2) Henry Ford, as to why a car exists. The fact is the two choices are not contradictory, but complementary. The atheist misses the important difference between agency (Henry Ford) and mechanism (internal combustion). In the same way, God is the intelligent agency and efficient cause behind everything, with his natural laws and mechanisms carrying out His intentions to produce His desired end result.

In the end, the atheist cannot rely on science to disprove the existence of a transcendent Creator and is forced into the admission that atheism itself is not a fact, but instead a belief system that relies on faith. The real clash is not between science and religion but between the atheistic/naturalistic and the theistic worldviews.

This being the case, the atheistic worldview must address two fatal mistakes it makes regarding the concept of faith: (1) that faith is only a religious concept; (2) that faith means believing in something where there is no evidence. Neither is true.

In terms of the first point, some honest atheists will admit that atheism is a worldview and faith. One example is atheistic scientist George Klein who wrote: “I am an atheist. My attitude is not based on science, but rather on faith. . . . The absence of a Creator, the non-existence of God is my childhood faith, my adult belief, unshakable and holy.”

As to faith being defined as a belief that lacks evidence, nothing could be further from the truth. Science has faith in logic, mathematics, natural laws, and the intelligibility of the universe and believes all such things are firm and will never change. People also act on faith every day from meals they eat in restaurants, medicine they take from doctors, and marriages they participate in with their spouse.

In the Bible’s New Testament, the word “pistis” is used for “faith”. It is a noun that comes from the verb “peitho”, which means “to be persuaded”. The best lexicons (e.g. BDAG) show the meaning of “pistis”, to be: “a state of believing on the basis of the reliability of the one trusted, “trust, confidence”, “that which evokes trust”, “reliability, fidelity pertaining to being worthy of belief or trust”. In other words, the idea that faith means blind belief in the face of opposing evidence is foreign in Scripture.

In conclusion, then, both atheism and theism make statements on faith that concern ultimate reality. Both must refer back to something that is eternal because each recognizes that everything that exists depends upon and owes its existence ultimately to something other than itself.

To the atheist, that ultimate reality is an eternal universe where only physical matter exists. Atheism’s struggle is to explain how the universe is eternal when all scientific discovery shows it had a beginning, and how – since an effect always resembles its cause in essence – an impersonal, non-conscious, meaningless, purposeless, and amoral universe accidentally created personal, conscious, moral beings who are obsessed with meaning and purpose.

The theist has no such problem because it holds that a personal, conscious, purposeful, intelligent, moral, eternal God created beings in His likeness and established the universe and its laws to govern their existence.

Far from atheism which one of its chief spokesmen - Jean Paul Sartre – described as “A long, hard, cruel business”, the Bible says that God created a meaningful and rewarding existence where, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard” (Psalm 19:1–3).

In the end, Dr. John Lennox makes the choices between atheism and theism clear: “There are not many options – essentially just two. Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.”