1

Hi Joe

Good post as usual. Great to see Trueblood headlined, as he is a much neglected thinker: i have come to greatly respect his General Philosophy, for instance. Lewis of course is an old favourite.

I see that you have jumped over a couple of strands in the rope, going for not the teleological but the moral argument. Surprise is always a winner!

But also, you have a telling implicit reference to Design: (a) A law has no meaning unless it comes from a mind; only minds emit meaning. So, again, we see how the different strands of the rope interact. (It is unsurprising to see your invitation to engage at this point.)

I further note a key point that your readers will also need to think seriously and soberly about:

The main premise -- objective moral values exist -- is almost always conceded in practice, even when it is denied in theory. A budding moral relativist may confidently claim in philosophy class that all morality is subjective. But let the professor flunk her based on that opinion and she will cry that she has been treated “unfairly” (and not just unfairly in a subjective sense either).

Moral arguments, therefore, have an intrinsic and intuitive appeal. Once we concede that morality is, in some sense, objective, we have to ponder where this objective standard emanates from.

If we cannot live consistent with the premise that morality is a mere matter of perceptions and tastes, then why?

Keep up the good work

GEM

2

Addeendum:

I observe in a trackback: H: Even if there are “objective� moral facts, your apprehension of them is subjective (and, thus, prone to error).

Razorfish takes him on directly, http://razorskiss.net/wp/?p=214 , but there is an interesting little subtlety there. For, it is Trueblood who first drew my attention to Josiah Royce's point that "Error exists" is undeniably true and a point of universal agreement.

That is, it is a point where all acknowledge that we do know the truth, i.e. the possibility of error.

Consequently, we should not allow the possibility of error to distract us from the fact that we may objectively know the truth about many things, including morality. (One moral truth we agree on is that one who clings to error because it suits him/her, is in the wrong.)

Epistemic humility follows from the possibility of error, not relativism about truth and morality. (And, here, Kant may be understood as implying that we cannot know things in themselves, only as they appear to us. Indeed, he has remarks to that effect. But, then, how does he know that things in themselves are just that way? Is that not self-referentially inconsistent?)

There is much to chew on here.

Grace

GEM

3

I find this 'proof' must more satisfying than the circular reasoning of the previous holodeck proof (if we can imagine a pretend world with God in it, he will step off the holodeck and be real in our world!).

It doesn't follow though that a moral order means a lawgiver in the sense of an anthropomorphized character behind it. (an old man with white beard debating with Mohammod how many times his followers had to prey each day or figuring out that cows were ok to eat but not pigs).

The 'order' or 'lawgiver' could be much less an intelligence than a force or 'order' or 'balance'. Buddahist ideas might be worth considering at this point, if for no other reason than they may break the mind from a fixation on a 'Santa Claus' type of God.

4

Boonton, you're right that it doesn't take the God of theism to justify something recognizably like morality. But the question then becomes, what *kind* of morality does pantheism (or Insert Your System Here) justify? The argument so far proves that something above the material world must exist or we would have no standard by which to judge the rightness or wrongness of things in the material world. Further argument is needed to establish what kinds of judgments you can make based on what you think exists beyond the material world by which these judgments are made. And the kind of judgments we actually make really require a personal God.

Sorry, no time for the full argument; just thought I'd lay down a marker indicating the direction in which the theistic response would run.

5

Great post Joe, I immediately threw up a quick comment post and linked to yours - including the original one in the series. Great stuff.

Be strong, be couragous, blog often, and serve God

Frank

http://www.team-swap.com/wordpress/2005/07/26/dismantling-implausibility-structures-morality/

6

Boonton,
Do you really think Christians view God as an old man in the sky or Santa Claus? I have no image in my mind for God, but I see Him in Ex. 33 where Moses asks to see His glory and must be hidden in the cleft of a rock as no one could look directly on God's glory and winds up glowing from looking where God had been. I see Him in Ex. 24 where the seventy elders had a covenant meal with God and all they could say about it was what the ground looked like under His feet. I see Him in Isaih vision of God in the temple Who's holiness causes him to be acutely aware of the sinfulness of himself and his people. My picture of my God is a lot bigger than your picture of my God.

7

From Summa Theologiae, Question 2, Article 3:

The fourth way is based on the gradations found in things. We find that things are more or less good, true, noble, etc.; yet when we apply terms like "more" and "less" to things we imply that they are closer to or farther from some maximum. For example, a thing is said to be hotter than something else because it comes closer to that which is hottest. Therefore something exists which is truest, greatest, noblest, and consequently most fully in being; for, as Aristotle says, the truest things are most fully in being. That which is considered greatest in any genus is the cause of everything is that genus, just as fire, the hottest thing, is the cause of all hot things, as Aristotle says. Thus there is something which is the cause of being, goodness, and every other perfection in all things, and we call that something "God."

Compressed, yes. But it does contain the essentials of at least one version of the moral argument; and of course Thomas' argument bears a strong resemblence to arguments of Aristotle. The argument isn't an invention of the modern era.

8

"A budding moral relativist may confidently claim in philosophy class that all morality is subjective. But let the professor flunk her based on that opinion and she will cry that she has been treated “unfairly” (and not just unfairly in a subjective sense either)."

Were I in the class where such an exchange took place, I would probably raise my hand and then say something like this:

"I'm sorry, professor, but what we just saw here was perfectly consistent with the idea that morality is subjective and in the objective reality, power determines whose subjective view prevails. Were you to fail that student, you would demonstrate this in practice, since you two had conflicting ideas, and you used your power to enforce yours. Your actions speak louder than your words."

9

Mike,
Thank you for the pointer to Exodus 24. I hadn't caught that before.

10

Boonton, you're right that it doesn't take the God of theism to justify something recognizably like morality. But the question then becomes, what *kind* of morality does pantheism (or Insert Your System Here) justify?

We're getting a little too far afield here. The argument here seems to run along the lines of:

1. Statements of morality are assumed to have meaning beyond the individual perspective of any particular person.

2. Therefore the source of morality must be beyond relative perspectives.

Before we jump to #3, "God must therefore exist" we should try to imagine all the possible solutions to #2. One is that the source of morality is human nature (or if you want to be less species centric the nature of sentient beings). Another source could be a higher force in the universe. However this higher force is not necessarily a personalized God as imagined by many Christians. It could be more of a universal force such as gravity.

Let's say, just for the sake of the argument, that the source of morality is some type of impersonal force like gravity. It would be silly to ask 'what type of morality would that produce?'. Let's say the question we were examining in caveman times was 'what causes everything to be pulled down to the surface of the earth?'. I could say there are invisible ghosts pushing on everything. You could say there is some type of force pulling matter towards the largest object in the area (that being the Earth). It wouldn't make sense to try to guess all the implications of your statement on the spot. Newton (who deserves credit for this insight) probably would have been shocked at the implications gravity has on time and the shape of space. Even Einstein would have been surprised to have learned that black holes were a reality and not just a mathematical curiousity of his work.

The argument so far proves that something above the material world must exist or we would have no standard by which to judge the rightness or wrongness of things in the material world.

Do we just the rightness of the material world or the rightness of certain decisions? Most of what happens in the material world is not based on decisions and many decisions are made by agents that we all agree are not capable of moral judgement (such as by animals, very small children, etc.) Both atheists and theists can agree that morality is a debate about a very small slice of the material world.

Do you really think Christians view God as an old man in the sky or Santa Claus? I have no image in my mind for God, but I see Him in Ex. 33 where Moses asks to see His glory and must be hidden in the cleft of a rock as no one could look directly on God's glory and winds up glowing from looking where God had been. I see Him in Ex. 24 where the seventy elders had a covenant meal with God and all they could say about it was what the ground looked like under His feet. I see Him in Isaih vision of God in the temple Who's holiness causes him to be acutely aware of the sinfulness of himself and his people. My picture of my God is a lot bigger than your picture of my God.

I do think that the Santa Claus analogy is quite common with most Christians. Yes when pressed they will acknowledge God must be much more than that however I think you have to agree that many people personify God. The passages you cite certainly indicate scriptual support for an image of God beyond the personal and more 'beyond words'. In our self-help society, though, I think the most common image of God depicted is of the extreme personal God with whom you can have a conversation and even a drink at the bar!

From Summa Theologiae, Question 2, Article 3:

Let's apply this to a circle. When we say something is in the more or less circular we mean it is closer or further away from Euclid's strict definition of a circle (a set of points equidistant from a point called the center....or the set of points swept out by a line segment as it is rotated in a plane).

Yet it is clear that not only do perfect Euclidian circles not exist in the universe they cannot exist in the universe. It's something of an open issue whether the 'imaginary' universe of points, lines and planes really exists or whether they are an idealized tool for helping us work with our universe. I'm not sure we would be comfortable with using the above as 'proof' that a perfect circle, square, line etc. exist.

11

Ilkka, maybe you would have said that, but it isn't the point. The point is she would have thought it was wrong for her, and wishing to justify herself better, believe that it was wrong for that to happen to anyone in that position. Inconsistent with the theory, yes, but that was the point.

12

brandon: "The point is she would have thought it was wrong for her, and wishing to justify herself better, believe that it was wrong for that to happen to anyone in that position. Inconsistent with the theory, yes, but that was the point."

Student was inconsistent, yes, but so was the professor. The professor did not prove the existence of objective morality any more than making a student admit that 2+2=5 or otherwise fail the course somehow proves that 2+2=5. The professor's "agree with me or I'll use my power to fail you on a whim" threat is perfectly consistent with and even in line with the subjective morality worldview, so to see it as somehow proving the existence of objective morality is rather strange.

Now that I think of this issue more, another funny response for the failed student would have been to stand up, say "Yes, I can see now that I was wrong and morality is objective and universal, so please don't give me a failing grade Sir" while keeping his fingers crossed behind his back so that the other students could see them but the professor doesn't. This trick would show the other students the "useful fiction" nature of morality.

13

Mike O: "Do you really think Christians view God as an old man in the sky or Santa Claus? "

Yes. The Christian thinkers might not, but the average Christian (you know, the one who believes that Noah's wife was Joan of Arc) most certainly does.

14

Ikka, you certainly do seem to know from the inside an awful lot about what other people think. And not just about an individual, you know with certainty what "average Christians" think.

15

Joe,

Thank you for sharing Elton Trueblood's vision of a moral order with us.

I myself agree with Trueblood that there is an objective moral law to guide us. But I have somewhat different views and beliefs about the nature of that law.

I believe that the source of the moral law is the nature of the world we live in, the nature of humanity, and our own personal experience.

When faced with a moral decision, there is an objective reality that guides our choosing, and it is up to us to figure out what that reality is and what is the best way to react to it. Any principles that we end up using to make our moral decision are part of the objective moral law.

Here's where I specifically agree or disagree with Trueblood's outline of the situation:

1. There must be an objective moral law; otherwise: (a) There would not be such great agreement on its meaning. (b) No real moral disagreements would ever have occurred, each person being right from his own moral perspective. (c) No moral judgment would ever have been wrong, each being subjectively right. (d) No ethical question could ever be discussed, there being no objective meaning to any ethical terms. (e) Contradictory views would both be right, since opposites could be equally correct.

I believe in objective moral law... but not for any of the reasons a) through e) listed above!

Reason a) is an interesting bit of evidence of some weight, but it is not dispositive.

Reason b) describes an unfortunate consequence of not having an objective moral law -- but it is not evidence for it. Reason b) is merely a reason to be grateful for the moral law.

Reason c) is also a consequence and not a piece of evidence.

Reason d), I think I understand the point, but it again seems to be another consequence as opposed to evidence.

Reason e) just seems wrong: if opposites are both right, then they must each be right by some objective measure. If there is no such measure, then they are both wrong, for then nothing would be right.

2. This moral law is beyond individual persons and beyond humanity as a whole: (a) It is beyond individual persons, since they often sense a conflict with it. (b) It is beyond humanity as a whole, for they collectively fall short of it and even measure the progress of the whole race by it.

I agree with this, up to a point. I would say the objective moral law is beyond individual persons and beyond humanity as a whole because our understanding of the objective moral law is still a work in progress, and it will likely always be a work in progress.

3. This moral law must come from a moral Legislator because: (a) A law has no meaning unless it comes from a mind; only minds emit meaning. (b) Disloyalty makes no sense unless it is to a person, yet people die in loyalty to what is morally right. (c) Truth is meaningless unless it is a meeting of mind with mind, yet people die for the truth. (d) Hence, discovery of and duty to the moral law make sense only if there is a Mind or Person behind it.

I disagree, if by "moral legislator" you mean some personal agent independent of all the people of the world.

For example, consider the legal system of the United States. It is not the work of any one person. It is the product of centuries of law-making. Centuries of thought, conflict, compromise, wheeling and dealing, growth and decay, trial and error. Despite the lack of an over-arching exogenous intelligence, or divine "legal legislator", the resulting corpus of law has a solid objective reality, not unlike the reality of the objective moral law under discussion in this post.

4. Therefore, there must be a moral, personal Mind behind this moral law.

Well, it takes at least one mind, and preferably many more than one, to attempt to puzzle out what the objective moral law actually is, or what the objective moral law might be.

But the objective moral law is something that exists without any help from a personal intelligence. Just like "2+2 = 4", even if nobody is around to appreciate the fact, or "force = mass x acceleration".

I have a lot of respect for Trueblood's way of looking at morality and God. Elton Trueblood was a great leader of men, an inspiration to countless people, including one of my favorite presidents, Herbert Hoover.

And I suspect that Trueblood would have had respect for my beliefs as well. In the biographical summary that you provided a link to, Trueblood's attitudes towards philosophical and political creeds is characterized as follows:

Precise labeling of Elton Trueblood was difficult. He liked to say that the most important word in the language was "and." On many matters of controversy he would insist, "we have to say both - and - together, not either -or."

By word and action he demonstrated what some saw as contradictory beliefs and habits; liberal and conservative, traditional and innovative, compassionate and tough-minded, generous and demanding. He saw this as being human, trying to be realistic and honest.

Thanks again, Joe, for your post and for introducing us to Trueblood.

16

All

I find the back-forth interesting as usual, and very revealing.

Maybe, it would be useful to do a dual on the morality talk. The budding relativist in Joe's example thinks that she has a RIGHT to a fair grade, not an imposition of power. That is, she asserts that others have a binding ought to respect her rights.

Why is it that we find that pattern within us, and why is it that when we quarrel, what we are doing is we are appealing to an intuitive sense of such rights and concommittant duties? Why is it that we do not as a rule bat this aside and lash out with power, as a lion would dismiss the pleas of a Gazelle?

WE can play the game that of course our conscious lives are inescapably subjective, as some have, but then that gets into self-referential absurdity if pressed too far: can you empirically and beyond rational doubt distinguish this world from a collection of brains in vats being stimulated by electrodes? If "everything is subjective" means "everything is suspect," it ends up refuting itself. Nor can so-called evolutionary accounts of the origin of the feelings and perceptions of oughtness escape the implication that in such a world, since the game is survival and reproduction, oughtness is a useless illusion, except as a manipulative tool in the hands of the powerbrokers. Down that road lies more than oneholocaust over the past 100 years.

No, we subjectively experience what we have good reason to believe is an objective world, however prone to error we are on points. In that context, one of our key experiences is that oughtness is binging: it is NEVER right to toss live babies into a blazing furnace for fun.

WHY do we have that inescapable sense of oughtness? What sort of world view best makes sense of it?

I submit to you that we all know the answer.

Grace

Gordon

PS on the other arguments so far, in a context of explicit comparative difficulties, and inference to best explanation, the accusation, circular reasoning, is an unjustified rhetorical attack.

17

1. There must be an objective moral law; otherwise: (a) There would not be such great agreement on its meaning. (b) No real moral disagreements would ever have occurred, each person being right from his own moral perspective. (c) No moral judgment would ever have been wrong, each being subjectively right. (d) No ethical question could ever be discussed, there being no objective meaning to any ethical terms. (e) Contradictory views would both be right, since opposites could be equally correct.

A. Is there not 'great agreement' on subjective issues? There appears to be great agreement that soda is a nice drink, that ice cream tastes good, that Jar Jar was a horrible addition to the Star Wars movies (remember you said 'great agreement'...no 'universal agreement').

B. Don't disagreements occur over subjective matters?

C. True, however that contradicts B. You seem to be saying an objective moral law means there must both be agreement and disagreement over what it says.

D. That's just silly, we know people debate subjective questions endlessly.

E. True again.

3. This moral law must come from a moral Legislator because: (a) A law has no meaning unless it comes from a mind; only minds emit meaning. (b) Disloyalty makes no sense unless it is to a person, yet people die in loyalty to what is morally right. (c) Truth is meaningless unless it is a meeting of mind with mind, yet people die for the truth. (d) Hence, discovery of and duty to the moral law make sense only if there is a Mind or Person behind it.

A. Gravity has meaning although it's not at all clear it comes from a mind.

B. True it's a bit odd to talk about 'disloyalty to gravity'...nonetheless we can objectively say that people should respect gravity.

C. People whose minds fail to 'meet with' gravity will run a great risk of death as they walk off cliffs and roofs. Yet as far as we can tell gravity acts mindlessly.

This reasoning so far, IMO, does not preclude an objective moral order created by something other than a super powerful intelligence. It does not preclude morality as a force of nature...in fact we often speak of nature that way whether it be Pat Buchannan saying gays have made a war on nature and AIDS is nature fighting back or a leftist arguing that a hurricane is nature's way of punishing us for being shortsighted about pollution. Nor does it preclude objective morality as a consquence of sentience.

Maybe, it would be useful to do a dual on the morality talk. The budding relativist in Joe's example thinks that she has a RIGHT to a fair grade, not an imposition of power. That is, she asserts that others have a binding ought to respect her rights.

Or does she think she has the power to demand a fair grade? Does she think she has the power to call in the department head, the Dean of Students, lawyers her family can hire to prevent the professor from failing her arbitrarily?

18

Boonton & Iilka.
First let me say that it is impossible to have an adequately high opinion of God. He is to far above us for us to completely comprehend so no matter how lofty our view of Him it will come up short due to our postition relative to Him.
We are also invited to view Him as Daddy (not a bad translation for Abba) and love is certainly pointed to as an attribute of God above all others today. It leaves us vunerable to the Santa Claus view of God. Now let me rephrase the question. First let's toss out those claiming to be Christians because Grandma was one or someone sprinkled water on their heads as children and get down to Christians with whom you have some experience. Do you think Joe or the commentators on this blog who profess to be Christians have a Santa Claus view of God. I may think of Him as Daddy, He's been very good to me, but I also think of Him as One who caused everything we can see, touch, or feel to come into being in seven calendar days and that as a pattern for us not because He needed that much time.
Steve: Thank you. We can learn a lot about a proper respect for God from those Old Testament Jews. They knew He was a God of loving kindness but they also knew that He was holy and righteous. They had more opportunities to see Him in action and even though they had a special relationship with Him, His power terrified them. Kind of like witnessing an atomic test from a safe place. It's still scarey. Old man in the sky? Not to them and not to me.

19

Ikka:
Student was inconsistent, yes, but so was the professor. The professor did not prove the existence of objective morality any more than making a student admit that 2+2=5 or otherwise fail the course somehow proves that 2+2=5.

The professor wasn't trying to make an argument to prove the existence of objective morality, but show the shortcomings of relativistic morality. Yes, the powerful can take advantage of the weaker. And it is good, according to relativistic morality. At least for the professor. You mentioned that earlier.

But it would indeed show by experience, for most students, how incongrous and unlikely relativistic morality is. Most would not have the wherewithal like you to stick up for what they believe, but would reeximine their beliefs rather quickly, possibly coming to a new conclusion regarding relativism. And I suspect that is because most of them have weak beliefs about relativistic morality, informed more out of ignorance than introspection and understanding.

20

Gordon,

... we subjectively experience what we have good reason to believe is an objective world, however prone to error we are on points.

I agree 100% with you.

In that context, one of our key experiences is that oughtness is binding: it is NEVER right to toss live babies into a blazing furnace for fun.

I agree again.

Unfortunately, oughtness is not binding upon those who choose, for whatever reasons, not to follow the objective moral law.

And unfortunately, almost every moral decision that we face is much more complicated and intractable than deciding about incinerating babies for fun.

That's one of the reasons why Joe's blog, and his posts on morality, are valuable. They help us to puzzle out how to be moral and responsible agents.

21

But if the moral laws are instinctive, then their existence proves only the existence of instinct, not the existence of God. As Darwin pointed out (while not denying the existence of God), what we call morality is necessary for the survival of our species, and in fact confers survival advantage to those who practice what we call "higher" morality such as altruism.

Ben Franklin thought a deity who could create a system where morality itself was not dependent on revelation from the deity to be more powerful, in the end, than one who must reveal the laws in order to establish them. Which is why the Declaration of Independence says "laws of Nature and of Nature's God" rather than "the God of Abraham."

22

All:

I'm afraid today I will have to give more of a promissory note than a response [not least it's my parents' 49th wedding anniversary]. SO, I will be generic for the moment.

I see that the post-Kantian confusion between the subjective and the objective continues. WE have a lot of disagreements between credible persons in many fields, e.g. at yesterday's session of the volcanology conference here, held in thst of swirling ash from the 1:30 am explosion, it was all too painfully obvious that there were a lot of uncertainties and disagreements. But that does not prevcent the mountain from being real and having a real state, which we hope to accurately understand. ANd, of course, volcanology is a legitimate branch of the physical sciences.

Equally, one of the biggie issues with it, is that to access the mountains they study, the scientists need to be on good terms with governments; who sometimes have skeletons int he closet and agendas that too often run counter to the safety interests of the people. THis is after all 20 years since 20k plus died needlessly in COlumbia, and just over 100 years since 29,000 died equally needlessly in Martinique. And, June 25, 1997, officially 19 died needlessly here.

What I find interesting is that not one scientist or former or current official rejects the principle of moral responsibility over such disasters, where a great many innocent or naive people have died horribly and needlessly. Instead, they are trying to justify their actions, and sometimes resort to some pretty deceptive rhetoric to do so. That is trhe sort of agreement about basic principles of morality we are looking at.

In short, in praxis, people cannot live with the notion that it is just a subjective perception, it is just an instinct [where do instincts come from, and why do we feel we need to listen to this one?], etc.

If you care to look in C S Lewis' Mere Christianity, you will see an extensive review of actual principles of morality that turn out to be as universal as you care to see. For instance, can you cite a single culture that glorifies cowardice in battle? Or, that at its roots sees betrayal of trust as a virtue -- and here the Peace CHild case shows that even when an apparent exception was found, it was in fact not so.

SImilarly, observe quarrelling behaviour and see how we in praxis find ourselves morally obligated.

That is telling, and is strong evidence that moral obligation -- and that includes those whose consciences have been as it were seared with a hot iron -- is real and objective. THat seems to be the best explanation, at the very least.

FRom that, we need to look at the implications and associated questions.

Gotta run for now

GEM

23

ED

Couldn't resist: check Blackstone's COmmantaries on the LAws of England to see where the phrase Laws of nature and Nature's GOd comes from: REformation derived covenantal polity.

I think the history we have often been presented with in the pre internet era got away with a lot of mateial omissions that will need to be revisited now we can pull the original sources with a few web clicks.

Indeed, as I posted earlier the STRUCTURE of the main body of the US Constitution, makes that plain. The Lord who BLESSES with liberty is the one whose 1787th year was being celebrated as the document was written. No prizes for guessing whi that is.

Grace'

Gordon

24

If you care to look in C S Lewis' Mere Christianity, you will see an extensive review of actual principles of morality that turn out to be as universal as you care to see. For instance, can you cite a single culture that glorifies cowardice in battle? Or, that at its roots sees betrayal of trust as a virtue -- and here the Peace CHild case shows that even when an apparent exception was found, it was in fact not so.

A good point but where is this leading? Does the lack of a culture that treats cowardace in battle of a virtue indicate that being brave is part of an objective morality or is it simply objective utilitianism? Treating cowardace as a virtue is counter productive to any society...unless it is very rich and power and doesn't have to worry about being defeated in battle. While not quite the same thing one can look at how casuality adverse the US has become since Vietnam. Is this due to a lack of morality? Or is it due to the fact that we can afford to choose to minimize our casualities?

The 'might makes right' argument of the professor is simplistic. Yes sometimes we are more powerful than others but as Hobbes pointed out it is rarely the case we are more powerful than the combined strength of several men. If power is your only guage of morality then it makes sense to subject yourself to the 'rules of society'...to even advocate much of conventional morality. After all, no matter how beefed up you are from the gym it is unlikely that you're always on guard as you're walking down dark alleys.

Mike O

I appreciate your comments. I apologize if I was dismissing peoples' view of God too lightly. My intention was to try to illustrate that maybe we have moved towards a 'too human' view of God in some cases and would do better to appreciate an abstract view even though that is harder to visualize. The 'too human' view has dangers of its own. If you think God is just like you too much you may start thinking you are just like God. That the universe was created just for you and your small daily concerns. The 'abstract' view can be difficult but it can also help in keeping some humility.

25

Gordon,

...we in praxis find ourselves morally obligated.

That is telling, and is strong evidence that moral obligation -- and that includes those whose consciences have been as it were seared with a hot iron -- is real and objective.

We are morally obligated because we choose to be morally obligated.

A sociopath, or a sociopathic group or government, does not find himself acting with the same obligations as someone who chooses to follow the objective moral law.

26

Boonton,
Tozer said that no tribe or people will rise above their view of God.
I agree that we have made God too human and in thinking about it last night I realized that whenever I do something knowingly that God would not have me do I am in deed treating God like that old man in the sky who'll just wink at my sin.
Thank you for provoking that thought. God works in mysterious ways.

27

All

Again, had a crash this am plus ash fall plus a resurgent scientific and pulic policy controversy with lives potentially at stake.

I will have to be brief:

--> The general agreement on key points of morality is a strong evidence that such is objective, otherwise such an agreement on cowardice or on quarrelling would not hjappen. That we MAY err on principles of morality or volcanology says nothing to imply that we always do so or that any opinion is as good as any other. That reduces to self-referential inconsistency in short order.

--> In fact, the very relativistr protests loudly that s/he has rights, which are binding moral obligations we exert on one another.

--> THe protests and objections in short are more of I do not like the implications and wish to conveneiently shift the burden of proof than anything else.

--> Remember, if you live like something is true, it is a strong proof that to deny it is to lie by what one does and says.

--> Besides in an IBE context, all that is needed is that objective morality is probably the best explanation, and it is.

--> IN short, I am entirely reasonable to infer from morality to the One who gave it. THose who object but live like such morality exoists, seem to me to be selectively hyprskeptical.

Grace

GEM

Okay more later.

GEM

28

Gordon,

I agree with you that morality is an objective thing, that there is an objective moral law.

However, there is no divine lawmaker who tells us what is right and what is wrong, or what is permitted and what is forbidden. There is no personal monitor keeping track of our moral hygience and deciding whether we end up in heaven or in hell.

Moreover, there is no obligation for anyone to follow the objective moral law. It is, rather, a matter of choice (and instinct, and culture, and other things, but not any kind of divine mandate).

Of course, what morality we live by or refuse to live by has tremendous consequences for ourselves and for others. But that is not what I think you are referring to when you say we have an obligation to follow the objective moral law.

29

Matthew

You are free to make up any creed you want. But, kindly explain how you came to those conclusions on the non-existence of God?

In particular, how are you, as a finite, fallible human whose mind at best provisionally knows a microscopic fraction of what is known or knowable, able to establish such a universal negative?

And, in that context, why would morality in the sense of OUGHTNESS, exist in an atheistic world? WOuld not rather such a view imply that morality is a dysfunctional emotional impulse of dubious evolutionary origin that spoils our fun?

Grace

Gordon

30

Gordon,

You are free to make up any creed you want.

And you are free to disparage my creed by implying that it's made up!

But, kindly explain how you came to those conclusions on the non-existence of God?

The same way people reach conclusions about all kinds of important matters. A combination of personal experience, weighing evidence, logical analysis, and so on.

I don't have time right now to answer your questions properly, but I'll get back to you when I do. For now, let me point out that each of us follows his individual conscience, and that is the best we can do.

31

Matthew

I see I miscommunicated: I did not intend to disparage your right to hold certain views, but to point out that you are making creedal statements; i.e. beyongd what you can know in the sense of demonstration or empitrical inference beyond reasonable dispute. (I am well aware that atheism is a common enough worldview. Over the past several centuries, it certainly has a very well known history.)

Second, I think in your further comments you need to carefully examine the limitations of your ability to assert beyond as a faith claim the sort of knowledge claim on the existence of GOd you have asserted; as you are finite and fallible to the extent that such a universal negative is beyond your ability to demonstrate, however confident you may be about the underlying belief.

Grace

Gordon

32

Gordon,

It is clear to me, and has been clear to me for a very long time, that there is no supernatural influence working in the world, either in the affairs of men, or in the fields of biology, physics, cosmology, and morality.

I could explain to you why I believe that, and indeed I have been explaining bits and pieces of that to you in a few different comment threads. But that does not mean I will ever be able to establish my belief "as a demonstration or empirical inference beyond reasonable dispute."

My goal in leaving comments has almost always been much more modest: to share my own perspective, both when it agrees and disagrees with Joe's; to establish that there are other reasonable perspectives besides those of orthodox Christianity; and to point out weaknesses in Joe's and others' arguments when I think Joe and others might be willing to concede the point.

... explain how you came to those conclusions on the non-existence of God

I learned the teachings of orthodox Christianity from my family and my schools. I was skeptical of those teachings from as far back as I can remember, but certainly by the time I was eight years old. Out of respect for my elders and for tradition, I did not push Christianity and theism aside until I was done with high school.

By that time I had discovered the main concepts of naturalistic materialism. I found that materialistic ideas formed a more accurate and coherent worldview than any other belief system with which I was familiar.

In particular, how are you, as a finite, fallible human whose mind at best provisionally knows a microscopic fraction of what is known or knowable, able to establish such a universal negative?

It is true that atheism puts forward a universal negative: there is no God. But I don't really think of it in those terms.

The way I think about it is that there is no evidence for any supernatural influence on our world. One can reject supernatural influences and still be a deist, of course. But I never had an inclination to believe in a deist God.

While I can't establish or prove to anyone else that a deist God does not exist, I judge the deist hypothesis to have no explanatory value. In fact, the deist hypothesis seems to create a series of intractable issues while resolving none.

So, to answer your question, I cannot establish, or persuasively demonstrate to any religious person, that I am correct. In fact, as you point out, I am a finite, fallible human with a very limited grasp of the world and of the cosmos in general. So I willingly acknowledge that I could be wrong about many different things.

But on a confidence scale of 1 to 100, I would rate my belief in naturalistic materialism at about 99.8, give or take about 0.1 .

So you can see I am pretty indoctrinated in my own beliefs. Nonetheless, I do not think they are a complete, fixed system that is closed to amendment and modification.

I try to be always open to new ideas.

I am especially open to new ideas that would fill out the huge gaps in my understanding of life, or in those areas of life where my understanding is very partial.

And I am always open to adjusting ideas I already have in the light of contradictory evidence, or in light of evidence pointing in a somewhat different direction.

... why would morality in the sense of OUGHTNESS, exist in an atheistic world?

If by "oughtness" you mean the subjective sense most of us have that what we think is right really is right, then the answer is simple. It is human nature, a psychological fact, that most of us are usually convinced that what we think/believe is true. There is no reason why our thought/beliefs about morality should be an exception to that fact.

If by "oughtness" you mean the correctness of the objective moral law, than my answer is that theism has little (actually almost nothing) to do with what is moral and what is not.

Here is a link to a very good short essay by blogger Steven Den Beste:

Ethics can't be based on belief in God

Den Beste lays out a very simple, yet very compelling case for why atheism does not affect the "oughtness" status of any morality that we believe to be true.

Here's the main part of his argument:

... most Christians believe that those following the teachings [of the Bible] will end up in Heaven and those who seriously violate them will end up in Hell.

But long before Jesus walked the earth, the Greek philosophers had already demonstrated logically that an ethical system could not be based on received wisdom from a deity.

They asked an interesting question: Does an act have an inherent ethical value?

Is an act right because God says it is right, or does God say it is right because it is right? In other words, either (1) the act has no inherent ethical value, but is assigned a value of "right" or "wrong" solely based on an arbitrary edict from God, or (2) God recognizes the inherent value of the act and then passes this on to us as received wisdom.

Whichever of these a Christian (or any other believer in a religion based on deities) chooses leaves him in a bind. If "wrong" acts are not inherently wrong, but only wrong because of God's arbitrary edicts, then the Christian must face the possibility that God could change His mind. God could appear tomorrow, ten miles high, astride Jerusalem and announce in a booming voice that henceforth only murderers and torturers would be permitted into heaven, that slavery was a good thing, that genocide was noble and that anyone who helped a neighbor in need would burn in Hell for all eternity.

It does no good to argue that God would not actually do this; who are you to say what God will do? If acts have no inherent ethical value, God could do this, and instantly turn every concept of right and wrong upside down.

Most Christians reject this possibility prima facie. But that leaves them with the other alternative, which is that the ethical value of the act exists independently of God's declaration of it. God is not the source of the ethical value of the act, but only a convenient conduit by which we learn of that ethical value.

This gives us the ethical permanence we desire, but at the expense of removing God's role in it. For since the ethical value of the act exists independent of God's declaration, then it would exist even if there were no God at all.

Now, is Den Beste's argument going to convince an orthodox Christian that God is not the source of all morality?

I don't think so.

In particular, a Christian could deny that he "must face the possibility that God could change His mind." A Christian could respond that it is impossible for God to change his mind, for God's good nature and the nature of goodness itself are immutable.

And the Christian would be right to point that out. But he would also be missing Den Beste's point.

Den Beste is not saying that God would actually change his own mind. He is merely saying that if God exists, he can't change his mind, because good things have inherent ethical value that is independent of God's will.

Den Beste's argument is obviously a lot easier to accept if you are an atheist or an agnostic. But I think an open-minded religious person should also be able to get his point, and at least accept that it is a reasonable position for someone to hold.

... [doesn't an atheistic] view imply that morality is a disfunctional emotional impulse of dubious evolutionary origin that spoils our fun?

Well, sometimes morality is a disfunctional, emotional influence.

Consider the morality of violent jihad, or the morality of repressive puritanism. Or at the other end of the spectrum, consider the morality of a hippie counter-culture, with its values of free-love, drugs, and whatever feels good.

Whenever a morality becauses obsessed with a few ideas to the exclusion of other very important ideas, it becomes out of sync with reality and it becomes disfunctional and destructive.

I see I miscommunicated: I did not intend to disparage your right to hold certain views, but to point out that you are making creedal statements...

Confession: I actually suspected that that was what you were trying to say, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to tease you a little bit. You have already amply demonstrated your good faith and tolerance -- sorry for making you doubt your powers of communication.

Thanks for your cogent questions. I hope you find my remarks as worthwhile as I find yours.

Until next time, cheers!

33

Matthew:

THanks for a thoughtful comment. I will respond on points:

1] It is clear to me, and has been clear to me for a very long time, that there is no supernatural influence working in the world, either in the affairs of men, or in the fields of biology, physics, cosmology, and morality.

--> I am happy to note that you have distinguished the gap between perception and reality. It has been equally clear to me, from my own studies, observations and experience that such influences are quite evident, but that if one has certain controlling assumptions about what is possible/ knowable/ real, one may be blind to what would otherwise be evident.

--> FOr instance, we live in a cosmos that shows strong evidence of fine-tuning and origin at a finite remove in time, and indeed, as is now being discussed in another thread, finite in extent. That is, observationally controlled reasoning would infer to the best current explanation, that the cosmos is contingent, designed and so ordered as to facilitate life, mind and morality.

--> Further, at the molecular level, life is based on informational macromolecules, e.g. DNA-RNA-enzymes-ribosomes etc. These molecules are so complex and information-rich that it is highly implausible indeed that they emerged by random chance in a cosmos of 13.7 BY and ~ 10 E 80 atoms, the scale which can be EMPIRICALLY substantiated. But, one may speculate ad hocly beyond or even in the teeth of evidence, that it is infinitely old and large so that even remote chances become in effect inevitable.

--> SImilarly, naturalistic schemes of thought over the past 150 years, as documented copiously, repeatedly run into self-referential inconsistencies, not least they imply that our minds are largely delusional. [E.g. our observation that we are morally obligated has no firm naturalistic foundation, AS TRUEBLOOD ET AL DISCUSS.]

--> INdeed, I am led to focus our minds for the moment on an apt saying of Jesus, on endarkenment in the name of enlightenment:

MT 6:22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

2] My goal in leaving comments has almost always been much more modest: to share my own perspective, both when it agrees and disagrees with Joe's; to establish that there are other reasonable perspectives besides those of orthodox Christianity; and to point out weaknesses in Joe's and others' arguments when I think Joe and others might be willing to concede the point.

--> A fair-minded aim, and indeed, I notice that your tone is an irenic and positive one; an example that should be followed.

--> My own contribution on these lines, is to observe that the notion of rational demonstration embeds first plausibles, i.e. we have core faith-commitments in our thought. WE assert A, but why should that be accepted? Becausew of B. Why accept B? Because of C, etc. Thus, we have the options: (1) infinite regress, (2) circularity, (3) starting at alternate faith-points F1, F2, F3 etc, and comparing the difficulties.

--> Of these three, only the third is sensible. SO, we need to look at the alternate first plausibles, and assess the resulting worldviews comparatively against factual adequacy, logical [and dynamical] coherence, and elegance/ad hocness. That way we make informed, responsible choices as educated thinkers.

--> But the temptation is to slip from dialectic into rhetoric, where we pretend that points-scoring is enough to make the comparison, and dismiss alternatives we do not wish to follow. SO we need to beware ofthe fact that arguments appeal to emotions, authority/credibility/character and facts and logic.

--> But, our emotions provide no proof [though they may be based on accurate perceptions]. Equally, no authotrity is better than his facts and reasoning, starting with his assumptions. So, it is only when "facts" are true and represent the truth, and are bridged to good reasoning, that conclusions and proposals are properly warranted. [Cf. my discussion: http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/straight_or_spin.htm and http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/Straight_Thinking.pps]

3] Out of respect for my elders and for tradition, I did not push Christianity and theism aside until I was done with high school. By that time I had discovered the main concepts of naturalistic materialism. I found that materialistic ideas formed a more accurate and coherent worldview than any other belief system with which I was familiar.

--> I think it can in fact be cogently argued that just the opposite is a more warranted conclusion. Cf. for instance, my simple summary at: http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/Mars_Hill_Web/evolutionism.htm

--> I also refer you to Plantinga's comments at http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/plantinga_alvin/naturalism_defeated.pdf .

--> These will show that there is a serious challenge for naturalism to account on evolutionary materialist grounds for the emergence and reliability of ourminds. Indeed, this incoherence keeps on cropping up in such thought over the years; excerpting my recent summary in a public lecture:

Often, however, the intellectual power of the underlying Naturalistic worldview makes many relativists and secularists more than willing to live with the logical and moral inconsistencies and destructive consequences of their core beliefs. So, if we are to unleash the full force of the church’s prophetic voice in the Caribbean, we must also respond to the intellectual challenge posed by the underlying philosophical Naturalism.

For, while such Naturalism claims for itself the prestige and authority of “Science,” in fact the underlying scientific and philosophical case is open to serious challenge. Thus, as C. S. Lewis and many others have pointed out, we may highlight the implications of materialists’ tendency to reduce all phenomena to the outworking of chance events and purposeless laws of nature acting on matter and energy across time. But, this “explanation” must therefore include our minds as well, and so we find a characteristic reduction of reasoning to the status of illusion: whether through Freud’s id-ego-superego conflicts, or Marx’s class conditioning, or B. F. Skinner’s operant conditioning, or Ayer’s logical positivism, or Crick’s reduction of personhood to nerve cell activity and associated molecular biology.

Now, as a rule, such materialists use these implications to attack those with whom they differ, but it is clear that the logical knife cuts both ways. In short, we may legitimately ask: “Sigmund, what about the impact of your potty training on your views on morality?” Or, “Karl, aren’t your theories on society simply the untrustworthy product of your Bourgeois morality and class conditioning?” Or, “But, Burrhus, aren’t you just another puzzled rat in the cosmic maze?” Or even, “Alfred, can you show us that the verification principle you use to dismiss the term “God” as meaningless is itself empirically falsifiable, thus meaningful, as it would beg the question to be proved if it were to be assumed ‘true by definition’?”

Philip Johnson’s rebuke to the Nobel Prize winning Biochemist Sir Francis Crick brings out the underlying self-referential inconsistency with great force. For, to be consistent, Crick should be willing to preface each of his writings: “I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”[30] Johnson then aptly comments that “[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.”

Arguably, then, Evolutionary Materialism is a philosophical position that easily falls into self-referential inconsistencies. So, whatever a Dingwall or a Spong, or even a Crick may think or say, the resulting logical confusion shreds Naturalism’s bold assertion that it is scientifically established “knowledge.” [URL: http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/Ethics_and_development.htm

4] It is true that atheism puts forward a universal negative: there is no God. But I don't really think of it in those terms.

The way I think about it is that there is no evidence for any supernatural influence on our world. One can reject supernatural influences and still be a deist, of course. But I never had an inclination to believe in a deist God.

--> THis is of course, an assertion driven by the prior assumption and how it has been used to filter evidence, for plainly, there is much evidence that speaks to the issue, starting with the millions over the ages who have testified to having a live relationship with the God you characterise as at least absent and probably non-existent.

--> But, I think it is fair comment to observe that selective hyperskepticism is typically used to dismiss the evidence, but at the cost of not using the same logic of skepticism on other similar matters one is inclined to accept.

--> I will not go into a long back-forth, I will just excerpt from Morison's WHo Moved the Stone, to illustrate the force of that evidence as a shaping factor in history:

[N]ow the peculiar thing . . . is that not only did [belief in Jesus' resurrection as in part testified to by the empty tomb] spread to every member of the Party of Jesus of whom we have any trace, but they brought it to Jerusalem and carried it with inconceivable audacity into the most keenly intellectual centre of Judaea . . . and in the face of every impediment which a brilliant and highly organised camarilla could devise. And they won. Within twenty years the claim of these Galilean peasants had disrupted the Jewish Church and impressed itself upon every town on the Eastern littoral of the Mediterranean from Caesarea to Troas. In less than fifty years it had began to threaten the peace of the Roman Empire . . . . Why did it win? . . . . We have to account not only for the enthusiasm of its friends, but for the paralysis of its enemies and for the ever growing stream of new converts . . . When we remember what certain highly placed personages would almost certainly have given to have strangled this movement at its birth but could not - how one desperate expedient after another was adopted to silence the apostles, until that veritable bow of Ulysses, the Great Persecution, was tried and broke in pieces in their hands [the chief persecuter became the leading C1 Missionary/Apostle!] - we begin to realise that behind all these subterfuges and makeshifts there must have been a silent, unanswerable fact. [Who Moved the Stone, (Faber, 1971; nb. orig. pub. 1930), pp. 114 - 115. discussed in http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/1st_Easter_Timeline.htm#quality .]

--> Of course, one may find excuses to dismiss this historical evidence and other similar evidence, as Hume question-beggingly did and as Kant self-referentially absurdly did [cf discussion in the link], but in fact it plainly exists. Secondly, the skeptical principles so used would erase our entire knowledge of historical matters -- which includes a great deal of scientific knowledge.

5] If by "oughtness" you mean the subjective sense most of us have that what we think is right really is right . . . most of us are usually convinced that what we think/believe is true. There is no reason why our thought/beliefs about morality should be an exception to that fact. If by "oughtness" you mean the correctness of the objective moral law, than my answer is that theism has little (actually almost nothing) to do with what is moral and what is not.

--> First, you implicitly infer that our thoughts/beliefs are materially erroneous as a body . . . another case of the self-referential absurdity challenge faced by naturalism: if our thoughts wholesale are suspect, so is naturalism.

--> But in fact, SOME of our thoughts and beliefs are plainly objectively true, including Josiah Royce's famous point that error exists as an undeniable truth.

--> Similarly, in morals, the fact that there is some diversity and disagreement no more entails wholesale error than in beliefs about other things. I think for instance that we are all agreed that insisting on obvious error in argument is wrong -- or, we would not be bothering to try to correct one another. SImilarly, it is plainly wrong to torture and kill infants for fun and profit. (The very choice of aseptic teminology and refusal to allow the public to see plainly what goes on in abortion clinics in your country is evidence enough on the point! TO quote a toddler on seeing a slide of a dismembered, D and C- aborted fetus -- LAtin for BABY -- "Who broke the baby?" THe public response to the partial-birth abortion procedure is similarly telling, as is the now admitted deception that it is justified by cases of medical necessity.)

--> IN short, there is good evidence that there is such a thing as objective morality, and that with the exception of those few monsters whose consciences have been seared with a hot iron, we acknowledge that we are bound by it.

--> IN an IBE context, that is all I need! FOr, if we acknowledge that we are morally bound by how we in praxis live and think, then we are probably morally bound. If we are objectively morally bound, then we are probably so because it is a part of the structure of the cosmos, which also shows signs of intelligence in its structure. SO, we have reason to infer to the best explanation: a Moral Creature makes moral creatures.

6] CIting Beste: the Greek philosophers had already demonstrated logically that an ethical system could not be based on received wisdom from a deity. They asked an interesting question: Does an act have an inherent ethical value? Is an act right because God says it is right, or does God say it is right because it is right? In other words, either (1) the act has no inherent ethical value, but is assigned a value of "right" or "wrong" solely based on an arbitrary edict from God, or (2) God recognizes the inherent value of the act and then passes this on to us as received wisdom.

--> The very fact that this line of reasoining predates the CHristian faith in Greek culture is itself evidence that the Greeks, that most intellectual of people, in the end found the argument fallacious. For, they became CHristians, as Acts 17 hints at.

--> The main gap in the argument is, that it fails to reckon with the CHARACTER of the Creator. A moral creator makes a moral cosmos. So, right/wrong both reflects the structure of the cosmos and the mind of its author. THat is, the fallacy is to infer that the creation is ontologically prior to its Creator. GOd's decrees are not arbitrary, but issue from his ultimately rational mind, the same source for the structure and operations of the world in which we make moral decisions.

--> Further to this, the claim that " an ethical system could not be based on received wisdom from a deity" is also a separately fallacious claim, for, the ultimate source of the system: the order of the cosmos or the mind of GOd, is irrelevant to whether it can be communicated to us by Deity. That is, in either case, GOd could serve as a perfectly knowledgeable teacher of what is good/evil right/wrong, true/false. So, an ethical system could in fact be based on the received wisdom from a Deity!

7] further excerpt: Whichever of these a Christian (or any other believer in a religion based on deities) chooses leaves him in a bind. If "wrong" acts are not inherently wrong, but only wrong because of God's arbitrary edicts, then the Christian must face the possibility that God could change His mind.

--> The wrong acts are both inherently wrong and are wrong because God tells us so, as a perfectly knowledgeable teacher. So, right will not become wrong in an arbitrary fashion.

--> Of course there is a subtlety. The moral structure in the situation ties precepts to principles to the underlying issue of right/love-driven relationships with GOd and man:

MT 22:34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

MT 22:37 Jesus replied: " `Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

--> THus, specific rules, rituals and applications of underlying principles may vary, but are anchored to the dual principle and praxis of love to God and to our fellow humans who are made in his image. SO, as Paul notes in ROm 13:8 - 10:

RO 13:8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." 10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

--> Is it any great surprise then, that the principle so expressed, the Golden Rule, crops up in so many ethical systems across time and culture, and indeed, is the root of Kant's Categorical Imperative, in turn the foundationstone of truly sustainable society and development. [CF my notes: http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/SD_concept.htm , which summarise my basic thought for my current main area of professional praxis.]

--> THus, the underlying OUGHT is objectively established by both reason and revelation, is a part of living a coherent life and building a sustainable and desirable society! But, those who turn their backs on GOd have a considerable struggle to establish a coherent, objectively defensible moral order. No more is this more evident than in the subject of another thread, on the HIV/AIDS crisis. Museveni's remarks at the 2004 International conference are ever so cutting here:

"I look at the condom as an improvisation -- not a solution -- an improvisation" . . . . "[In the first instance, practice] abstinence, be faithful to each other...but if you can't, use the condom," . . . "[AIDS is mainly a] moral, social and economic problem." . . . . "[It is ] Obviously a moral problem when one has sexual intercourse before marriage or outside marriage." . . . . "[we must strive for] optimal relationships based on love and trust instead of institutionalized mistrust which is what the condom is all about." [ http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/jul/04071201.html ]

--> The moral incoherence of a naturalistic approach that cannot accept the evidence of the success of the AB-stressed ABC strategy in Uganda, is telling.

8] Most Christians reject this possibility prima facie. But that leaves them with the other alternative, which is that the ethical value of the act exists independently of God's declaration of it. God is not the source of the ethical value of the act, but only a convenient conduit by which we learn of that ethical value. This gives us the ethical permanence we desire, but at the expense of removing God's role in it. For since the ethical value of the act exists independent of God's declaration, then it would exist even if there were no God at all.

--> The second horn of the dilemma is even worse. For it implicitly assumes that the cosmos does not or cannot reflect the mind of its Creator! (Of course, there was a worldview issue in Greek thoght, where the Demiurge was viewed as creator of the material world, and this has nothing to do with the "real" GOd. Down that road lies Gnosticism, not CHristianity.]

--> INstead, of course the creation reflects the principles of morality: it ie made by a Moral Creator! So, the heavens declare the glory of GOd, and the conscience of man is the candle of the Lord, flickering as it gives light within!

-> ROmans 1 is classic on this:

RO 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

RO 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools . . . . RO 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised . . . . RO 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity . . . 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

--> REsemblance to the moral chaos of the modern, secularised West is not coincidental.

9] Well, sometimes morality is a disfunctional, emotional influence. Consider the morality of violent jihad, or the morality of repressive puritanism . . . Whenever a morality becauses obsessed with a few ideas to the exclusion of other very important ideas, it becomes out of sync with reality and it becomes disfunctional and destructive.

--> THis is of course the gap between moraltity as a descriptive enterprise and ethical thought as a critical assessment of our moral thought and lives, which often are in a sorry state.

--> The violent terroristic of conquering jihadists [ on some readings jihad is inner struggle to purity] and [some of!] the puritans indeed took things out of proper order and did horrible things. But, that has little or nothing to do with the issue that morality is an objective process, other than the fact that our implicit condemnation admits that there is an objective moral order that rebukes our sin!

--> SImilarly, the free love/ gay marriage/ abortion on demand etc advocates etc fail to respect the principle that love does no harm so it fulfils the righteous requirements of GOd. The issue in short is that our hypocrisy and error have little or nothing to do with whether we can make out enough of the moral order of the cosmos to convict us when we stand before GOd. Here is Paul again , from Rom 2:

RO 2:1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. 2 Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. 3 So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? 4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? . . . . 6 God "will give to each person according to what he has done." 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.

--> And that is all too telling! Persistence in doing well shows that the good life is a moral struggle, as the greatest saints uniformly tell us.

Grace to all

Gordon

34

CORRECTION: Josiah Royce observed that "error exists" IS an undeniably true claim, exemplifying his negative approach. (Trueblood has a nice discussion in his General Philosophy.]

From that we may infer that reality exists as what is there to be in error about, and at least one truth exists, i.e. truth exists: that which says or what is, that it is; and of what is not, that it is not, in Aristotle's classic words.

But, since we can be mistaken about the truth, it is wise and indeed it is our epistemic duty [cf. http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/Intro_phil/Ethics.htm ] to be aware of and cautious about the possibility of error.

Thus, objective -- as opposed to absolute and also as opposed to subjective -- truths are truth claims that have passed reasonable tests of credibility and accuracy: so we are warranted to hold that we know them to be true, but they are open to correction and clarification.

Of course as Plantinga points out in his magisterial trilogy on the subject, warrant comes in degrees.

GEM