Stand to Reason Blog

Will Right and Wrong Always Be Obvious?

A person doesn’t have to know the Bible in order to know right and wrong, right? Well, yes and no. It all depends on what value system is being fed to that person by society. A society saturated in a Christian understanding of morality will reinforce that understanding, even among its atheists. A society without the background of Christianity behind it will enforce a different understanding of morality. Atheists have the mistaken idea that objective morality is simply obvious to everyone, but the truth is, it’s not. All one has to do is look back through history (and in other cultures today) to see that this is so. Our damaged consciences are malleable.

Is murdering your child right or wrong? Ask these mothers in India, where it’s commonplace in some areas to let your girl die if you prefer a boy. Ask pre-Christian cultures. This is why I think atheists are being far too hasty when they argue that Christianity is expendable—unnecessary for a good society. If we see atrocious moral crimes in cultures not influenced by Christianity, we have no reason to think our current standards will continue in a culture that rejects Christianity.

Case in point:

You might recall that British politician, Colin Brewer, who last year said that disabled children should be killed to save taxpayer money. You might recall that at the time he apologized and stepped down in disgrace. But you probably didn't know that he was re-elected to his old seat this year. And he's at it again.

This time, he reportedly compared disabled children to deformed lambs that need to be culled. In an interview with none other than the Disability News Service, Councillor (yeah, they spell it that way) Brewer said that perhaps we should be treating disabled children like the runt of a litter of lambs which are often disposed of by smashing them against the wall.

‘If they have a misshapen lamb, they get rid of it," he said. "They get rid of it. Bang."

Bang? That's sound fiscal policy, huh? And that's what it is, according to Brewer. He said that disabled people are just too expensive to care for so some may just have to go.

"We are just animals," Brewer continued. "You can’t have lambs running around with five legs and two heads. It would be put down, smashed against the wall and be dealt with."

As I’ve written before, intrinsic human value has to be taught. A society’s view of the human person and its value will affect what that society views as being moral: We are just animals. Imperfect animals aren’t worth the trouble. Therefore, there’s a case to be made for killing them rather than caring for them. That conclusion reasonably follows from the non-Christian premise. As Christianity fades in influence and a different view of the human person gains acceptance, don't expect that our society will continue to recognize that conclusion to be immoral. At that point, people will still consider themselves to be perfectly moral…but only because they’re judging themselves by a different standard of morality.

It’s difficult for us to recognize the depth our depravity when “everyone else is doing it.” Ask Gosnell’s nurses. Only the truth can awaken and sharpen our consciences, and for that to happen, the truth has to be heard and esteemed.

For now, there’s an outcry brewing against this politician in the UK, and that’s a good sign. But it’s not as if he’s a lone voice out there (see Peter Singer). As our belief in intrinsic human value wears away, we should expect to see more like him. Just consider this:

But here's the thing – [Brewer] was just re-elected earlier this month to his old seat. That means that being pro-infanticide and culling the disabled is no longer a deal breaker in European politics.

Now We Wait for the Ruling

If you’d like a quick primer on what the Supreme Court will be deciding in the next few months, this New York Times chart on how the justices could rule on Prop 8 and DOMA is clear and helpful.

Over at First Things, Glenn Stanton comments on some good questions the Justices asked. I tracked down one of the quotes he cited from Justice Sotomayor to get more of the context:

SOTOMAYOR: Mr. Olson, the bottom line that you're being asked—and it is one that I'm interested in the answer: If you say that marriage is a fundamental right, what state restrictions could ever exist? Meaning, what state restrictions with respect to the number of people…the incest laws, the mother and child…I can accept that the state has probably an overbearing interest on protecting a child until they're of age to marry, but what's left?

OLSON: Well, you've said in the cases decided by this court that the polygamy issue, multiple marriages, raises questions about exploitation, abuse, patriarchy, issues with respect to taxes, inheritance, child custody, it is an entirely different thing. And if you—if a state prohibits polygamy, it's prohibiting conduct. If it prohibits gay and lesbian citizens from getting married, it is prohibiting their exercise of a right based upon their status.

The first mistake Olson makes here is that he thinks people are being denied marriage because of their sexual orientation (i.e., “their status”). This has never happened. There is no test whatsoever for sexual orientation when a person applies for a marriage license. There is no class of people being told they’re not eligible for marriage. In fact, the exclusion of same-sex couples (that’s same-sex couples, not homosexual citizens) from marriage isn’t about prohibiting something on the basis of bad conduct or the status of a group, it’s about the definition of marriage.

As Justice Roberts pointed out:

When the institution of marriage developed historically, people didn’t get around and say let’s have this institution, but let’s keep out homosexuals. The institution developed to serve purposes that, by their nature, didn’t include homosexual couples.

If marriage is a particular thing, then everyone has a right to take part in that institution as it stands, regardless of their personal characteristics. But to be part of the institution, they must be part of the institution. They don’t have a right to change that institution into something different simply because they don’t want to be part of it the way it is.

Imagine a public park builds a tennis court so that people can come to play tennis. Nobody should be denied the right to play tennis games there. Period. It’s a public park, open to all. One day, a group of basketball players comes to the park, wanting to play a game, but they find they can’t play basketball on a tennis court. They immediately go to City Hall to complain: “Everyone has the right to competitive exercise with a ball on that court! We’re being denied our rights based on our status as basketball players!” Can you see the problem? The fact that they don’t want to play tennis doesn’t give them the right to demand that the government build a different court at the park. Their right isn’t to “competitive exercise with a ball” (tennis shares that in common with basketball, but it can’t be reduced to that), their right is to play tennis on that court, just like everybody else.

Please don’t take that illustration farther than it’s intended to go. I’m merely trying to show that rights aren’t being denied simply because a person (or group of people) doesn’t want to take part in something. The park promises the same thing to all. It doesn’t promise “competitive exercise with a ball,” it promises tennis. And tennis excludes basketball—not out of prejudice, but by nature. One could certainly argue over whether the park ought to change that court into something different, but as things stand, no rights are being violated. Neither justice nor equality demands that the park change its court to accommodate the desires of the basketball players to play a different game in that space. The same is true for marriage.

Secondly, even if it were legitimate for Olson to make the argument that homosexuals are being denied the right to marry “based upon their status,” I don’t see why one couldn’t equally say that polygamists are being denied their rights based upon their status as people who prefer to have many marriages. Isn’t that class of people being denied their right to define marriage for themselves, if Olson’s way of looking at this is correct?

Another problem: Olson says polygamy is an “entirely different thing” from same-sex marriage because it “raises questions” about legal, social, and moral harms, and that’s what prevents it from being a right. But in making this distinction, he’s merely assuming what he needs to prove. Those defending traditional marriage also have arguments explaining the harm that will be caused by removing the core principle of sexual complementarity from the definition of marriage (including the legal difficulties resulting from surrogacy, sperm and egg donors, etc.—difficulties that will inevitably result because a third person outside the family must always be involved in the creation of a child for same-sex parents).

If Olson is correct that the harm that would result to society from changing the definition of marriage is grounds for not changing the definition to accommodate a particular group’s desires, then same-sex marriage can be disallowed if it causes harm.

But if Olson is correct that same-sex marriage is not merely a desire, but actually a right that can’t be disallowed, even if it raises questions of harm, then Sotomayor’s question stands: If defining marriage for yourself is a fundamental right, what state restrictions could ever exist?

Olson can’t have it both ways.

You can read more quotes from the proceedings in Stanton's article, “Supreme Court Finally Asks the Tough Questions on Same-Sex Marriage,” and on the Huffington Post.

It's Not About Equality

The term “marriage equality,” if it means “the right to marry whomever you want,” is simply not an accurate term for what same-sex marriage supporters are advocating—not if they favor any restrictions whatsoever (age, number of people, incest, etc.). The truth is that nearly everyone does favor a definition of marriage that has boundaries and thereby denies “marriage equality” to some category of couple (or group).

As you’re likely to hear this term often this week while the Supreme Court is reviewing Prop 8, below is a reposting of “We’re Arguing Definitions, Not Rights” that can help you move your conversations past the charge that you want to deny people equal rights to the real question: What is marriage?

And for a collection of links to more posts and resources discussing this issue, see “Three-Judge Panel Strikes Down Prop 8.”

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We're Arguing Definitions, Not Rights

One common misconception in the same-sex marriage debate is the idea that the traditional legal definition of marriage is a violation of equal rights. Since this is an extremely emotionally charged accusation, it's difficult to get past it into a real discussion of the issue.

Here's the approach I usually take:

1. Nearly everyone who thinks the government ought to issue marriage licenses favors defining marriage in some way. That is, they favor excluding some combinations of people (polygamy, incest, etc.), not individuals, from the definition. Even judges. Even you!

2. You can't consistently argue that by excluding certain combinations of people, traditional marriage violates equal rights—unless you also argue to remove every single boundary from the definition of marriage and say anyone can marry anyone, in whatever combination of numbers they like.

3. If you're not willing to argue this, then you're for having a definition with boundaries, which puts you on equal footing with the traditional marriage supporters.

4. So the question is, which definition should we use? It's fine for you to argue that your definition of "two people who love each other" is better than my definition of "one man, one woman," or someone else's definition of "one man, multiple women," but we need to start off by understanding that we're arguing definitions, not rights.

It's not unconstitutional to adopt either my or your definition, as long as it's applied equally to every individual. Remember that the Constitution doesn't recognize rights for combinations of people; rights only belong to individuals. So one can't say that a man and five women have a right to get married; one can only say that each individual man or woman has the right to enter into marriage (no individual is excluded). This right is then acted upon according to the boundaries set by the state's definition of what marriage is—boundaries which are equally applied to every individual. You would like to equally apply the boundary of "two people who love each other" (excluding some other combinations), and I would like to apply the boundary of "one man, one woman" to each individual equally.

But I agree that the boundaries we place on marriage need to be relevant to the institution of marriage in order to be legitimate, so why don't we sit down and talk about the reasons why we each think the country should use our definition?

This definition-vs.-rights issue needs to be clarified. Otherwise, if you're arguing for the boundaries of traditional marriage, you'll enter the argument having already been unfairly declared an unconstitutional bigot before any of your reasons are explained (despite the fact that your opponent also favors certain boundaries), and anyone would be unlikely to listen to the reasons why you're an unconstitutional bigot. We have to get past this first barrier if we want to be given the chance to make our case.

Embracing the Absurd

About a year ago, the Journal of Medical Ethics published an article arguing that “what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.”

Instead of reasoning, “A) It’s wrong to kill a newborn, B) there are no significant differences between a newborn and a preborn, C) therefore it’s wrong to kill a preborn,” they followed the logic in the opposite direction: “A) It isn’t wrong to kill a preborn, B) there are no significant differences between a newborn and a preborn, C) therefore it isn’t wrong to kill a newborn.”

When their view that it’s okay to kill a preborn child forced them into the absurd (the nicest word I can put to it) conclusion that it’s okay to kill a newborn, instead of recognizing the mistake that led them there, they merely embraced the absurdity in order to consistently maintain their first premise.

Now I’m seeing this kind of opposite-direction logic play out in the area of same-sex marriage. I’ve often used the fact that our society has separate bathrooms for men and women to illustrate the idea that it’s appropriate to discriminate on the basis of sex when sex is relevant to the situation.

But now it seems that may not be a useful illustration for long:

British Council Rules Toilets Gender Neutral

LONDON: The council in Brighton, England, is scrapping male and female public toilets in favour of "gender neutral" facilities so as not to "alienate the transgender community".

Facilities are to be built that are designed to be shared by adults and children and that do not feature the words "Men" or "Ladies" but instead will show symbols indicating they can be used by people of any sex or age….

Brighton and Hove city council disclosed in emails that it wished to promote the term "gender neutral" and build facilities that were open to all, regardless of sex. It believes such facilities will be more accessible for those who do not identify with the "male-female binary".

And there are other recent stories of gender-neutral bathrooms from the University of Central Florida, from Massachusetts, and from Colorado where the parents of a six-year-old boy (who feels he is a girl) are suing the school for discrimination because he’s being denied the use of the girls’ bathroom:

"For many transgender people, discrimination is a daily part of life. Unfortunately for Coy, it has started very early," lawyer Michael Silverman said.

"The world is going to be looking at the school [to] send a message to the world and teach tolerance, fair play and equal rights."

In other words, in order to be non-discriminatory, we should no longer separate people into bathrooms according to sex. Instead, our choice of bathroom ought to depend on what we feel—or better yet, we should move to gender-neutral bathrooms altogether.

As in the case of “after-birth abortions,” people are following the logic of the arguments in the wrong direction. Instead of saying, “A) It’s okay to discriminate on the basis of sex when sex is relevant to the situation (as is the case with bathrooms), no matter what a person feels, B) sex is relevant to marriage, C) therefore it’s okay to discriminate on the basis of sex when it comes to marriage,” they follow the logic this way: “A) It’s wrong to discriminate on the basis of sex, including in the case of marriage B) sex-specific bathrooms discriminate against people—excluding and including them—on the basis of sex, C) therefore it’s wrong to have sex-specific bathrooms.

Both lines of reasoning follow logical paths to internally consistent positions. Unfortunately, a growing number of people can no longer recognize which of these paths leads to an absurd conclusion.

Ryan Anderson: What Is Marriage?

The book What Is Marriage? argues that only if marriage is defined as a conjugal union between sexually complementary spouses is there a reason for the monogamy, sexual exclusivity, and permanence that marriage entails. When we remove the key component of sexual complementarity from the definition, none of these other aspects will logically hold. And weakening marriage in this way will cause much harm to our society.

In a recent radio interview with Dennis Prager, Ryan Anderson (one of the authors, along with Robert George and Sherif Girgis) summed up the four main points covered in his book:

1. What is marriage? “You have to answer [this question] before you can say whether or not a marriage policy is just or unjust and is treating citizens equally or inequally. The problem has been that a lot of the rhetoric is ‘we’re for marriage equality,’ but they don’t say what marriage is. The reason that we title the book (and the [Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy] article that the book really grows out of) ‘What Is Marriage’ is that that’s the central question.”

2. Why does marriage matter for policy? “Why is the government in the marriage business? The government’s not in the business of promoting my romantic life just for the sake of romance; the government’s in the marriage business because the sexual act that unites a man and a woman also creates new life, and the government needs to make sure that that new life is reared to maturity responsibly.”

3. What would be the harms of redefining marriage? “If you redefine marriage to exclude the norm of sexual complementarity, all of the other traditional norms associated with marriage—monogamy, sexual exclusivity, and the pledge of permanency—they don’t make any sense.”

Monogamy: “There’s nothing magical or special about the number two. The reason we got to monogamy was that it was one man and one woman [that complete the union].”

Sexual Exclusivity: “There’s no reason that if marriage is just an intense emotional relationship for spouses to pledge sexual exclusivity. But marriage isn’t just an emotional relationship if you understand it as a conjugal union between sexually complementary spouses [i.e., the kind of union that unites mind, heart, and body, creating new life].”

Permanency: “If marriage [as an institution] isn’t a fruitful union…if it’s not meant to result in kids, there’s no reason beyond just sheer preference for why it should entail a pledge of permanency.”

The Harm: “The harm of redefining marriage isn’t so much that this or that lesbian or gay couple is going to do something that causes harm, it’s that it’s going to redefine, in the public understanding, what marriage is, and that law shapes culture, culture shapes belief, and belief shapes practice.”

4. What would be the consequences for the least of those among us? “As the marriage culture has collapsed, we’ve seen a host of social ills: increases in crime, decreases in graduation rates, increases in poverty, decreases in social mobility, increase in the growth of the welfare state, increase in the growth of the judicial system, prison system. So anything that you would care about—if you care about limited government and if you care about social justice—depends on a strong marriage culture. But if the government redefines marriage and it brands people like you and me bigots because we hold on to an “unfair, unjust” vision of marriage because you and I think kids need moms and dads, then it’s going to be really hard for marriage to do the work that the government needs marriage to do.” 

For the detailed arguments, purchase Anderson’s book here.

Abortion and Slavery: The Same Old Arguments

In an article on Slate, pro-choicer Mary Elizabeth Williams argues that the unborn are living human beings:

I know women who have been relieved at their abortions and grieved over their miscarriages. Why can’t we agree that how they felt about their pregnancies was vastly different, but that it’s pretty silly to pretend that what was growing inside of them wasn’t the same? Fetuses aren’t selective like that. They don’t qualify as human life only if they’re intended to be born.

When we try to act like a pregnancy doesn’t involve human life, we wind up drawing stupid semantic lines in the sand: first trimester abortion vs. second trimester vs. late term, dancing around the issue trying to decide if there’s a single magic moment when a fetus becomes a person. Are you human only when you’re born? Only when you’re viable outside of the womb? Are you less of a human life when you look like a tadpole than when you can suck on your thumb?

But then she says, “So what?”

Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.

Yesterday I wrote about how our worldview affects our view of human beings, which affects the way we treat human beings. For Williams, the live, unborn human being is, as she says, “a life worth sacrificing”—worth sacrificing if “the boss” wants to get rid of him for the sake of the life she would rather have.

How is this complete power of one human being over another not slavery? For Williams, this isn’t a problem, because in her view, “all life is not equal.” She’s bought the idea of instrumental human value—that is, the idea that human beings are on a scale of worth, according to their characteristics and abilities. And apparently, if you’re higher up on that scale, then your desires trump the natural rights of someone who is lower.

Abraham Lincoln commented on the absurdity and danger of citing instrumental value to justify the use of power to impose one’s will on other human beings (thanks to Scott Klusendorf for pointing to this):

You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.

You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.

But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest; you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.

The arguments for slavery were the same as the arguments now for abortion: Human beings are only instrumentally valuable. Some people are worth less than others because they lack particular qualities that I have. Therefore, my desires trump their rights.

The arguments against slavery were the same as the arguments now against abortion: All human beings are intrinsically valuable and have equal natural rights, regardless of their characteristics.

The arguments are the same then and now because the two options presenting themselves to us haven’t changed and won’t ever change. Slavery and abortion aren’t just random, unconnected controversial issues, they’re rooted in our view of human beings, and they illustrate the two possible directions in which our country can go as we move forward. Will we embrace intrinsic human value or instrumental human value?

Whatever we decide as a nation, don’t think for a moment that the principle we settle on will only be applied to abortion.

Why Not Use Ridicule?

Should we use ridicule as a tool of persuasion? Atheist John Loftus says yes.

Christopher Hitchens famously used to ask Christians to “name one moral action performed by a believer that could not have been done by a nonbeliever.” One of the problems with answering Hitchens’s challenge (see a more detailed discussion here) is that a person who has a naturalistic worldview is unlikely to have exactly the same understanding of right and wrong as that of a Christian. Of course an atheist can act within his moral framework and do what he considers to be good, but if his ideas about what is moral are incorrect, then his actions will follow. And there are too many questions about who we are as human beings, the purpose of life, the diagnosis of what’s gone wrong and the prescription for fixing it, etc., etc. that we answer differently for us to come to the exact same conclusions about what is right and what is wrong.

For this reason, Hitchens’s charge is logically unanswerable. It’s simply the case that if there truly exists something moral a believer can do that a nonbeliever can’t, it’s because the believer sees it as moral because he’s a believer while the nonbeliever fails to see it as moral because he’s a nonbeliever (worshiping God would be one example of this). And if the atheist fails to see that action as moral, he won’t accept it as an example of a moral action he can’t (or won’t) perform. Therefore, no answer will ever satisfy him, even if it’s true.

So I don’t expect atheists to see this post as a challenge to their morality either. They reject the idea that we’re made in the image of God, so they reject the morality that flows from that idea. That’s to be expected. Proving to atheists that their morality is faulty is not my purpose in writing this (though I’d be happy for their moral intuition to be stirred). Instead, what I hope this will do is shed some light on how our different worldviews affect our understanding of what is moral. We live in a society that’s been soaked in the Christian worldview for centuries, and we’ve come to think that what we believe to be moral is just “obvious.” People haven’t thought about how their understanding of morality has been shaped by Christianity, nor have they considered the consequences of stripping it away (though a look through past cultures would reveal that not everything is obvious).

Atheists don’t need to believe in God to do good—that is, they can follow moral precepts, informed by their moral intuition, which is capable of apprehending real moral truths. But what happens when their moral precepts (and malleable consciences) are wrongly shaped by their idea that there is no God?

Consider how John Loftus of Debunking Christianity reasons to the conclusion that one ought to use ridicule as a method of persuasion:

The use of ridicule can be justified pragmatically. It works well under the right circumstances, depending on the issue and the potential effectiveness of using it. It is best used when the arguments are there to back it up, and when more people agree against the ideas that are being ridiculed…. That is, because we know Christianity is a delusion, and since deluded people cannot usually be argued out of their faith because they were never argued into it in the first place, the use of persuasion techniques like ridicule are rationally justifiable. So satire, ridicule and mockery are weapons that should be in our arsenal in this important cultural war of ideas.

He explains how ridicule works:

These people cannot be convinced by satire, so satire is not written to change their minds. It's written to marginalize them by laughing at them. It persuades people who don't yet have a settled opinion on the issue, in part by using social pressure. No one wants to be a laughingstock. No one wants to be the butt of a joke. If people are laughing at a particular view it pressures the undecided to distance themselves from it. It draws a line in the sand, so to speak. It can also silence people who think otherwise, for they won't want to speak up in a class on behalf of something most others will laugh at….

When something cannot be taken seriously it deserves our laughter…. It's a way to "come out of the closet," so to speak, to let others know they will be laughed at if they espouse certain ideas with a straight face. There is power in social pressure. There is power in numbers.

Ridicule is an effective tool, so why not use it? Why not use power to move people over to your side, if it “works”? There’s only one reason, and it’s a reason from the Christian worldview: human dignity.

For Loftus and others who do not believe in the sacred intrinsic value of every individual, the greater goal outweighs the damage to individual human persons—the simple moral precept of maintaining another’s dignity crumbles before a lofty cause. The morality of Christianity, on the other hand, offers no such exemption, as Jordan Ballor explains in his excellent post “The Mundane Morality of Les Misérables.” In Christianity, because of who God is and who we are as human beings under God, no one is excused from the everyday morality of treating people well, regardless of his goal, or his power, or whether or not doing otherwise would “work”:

We find that the obligations of the moral order fall equally upon all human beings; we are all, regardless of our wealth, power, or fame, moral agents responsible for our actions before God and toward others….

It is tempting to think sometimes that the basic rules of morality do not apply to us, that we are somehow above or beyond the law. But the reality is that there is no special morality for those who exercise greater responsibilities, whether in familial, economic, ecclesiastical, or political contexts. It is true that there is often in such cases greater moral complexity, but there is no dispensation for those in places of authority [or influence] from mundane moral obligations.

One of those mundane moral obligations is the obligation to respect the dignity of human beings because they are made in the image of God. God values individuals, not movements, so our actions had better reflect that. We’re commanded to reflect God—His undeserved grace and love—through the means of our persuasion as well as the ends (as I wrote about here).

Why does Loftus reach such a different conclusion about how to treat his ideological enemies? Why is his determining question, “What works to achieve the desired goal?” rather than, “What would be in keeping with the dignity of human persons?” In an article titled “Why I Raise My Children Without God,” another atheist gives us a clue:

When we raise kids without God, we tell them the truth—we are no more special than the next creature. We are just a very, very small part of a big, big machine….

And Loftus’s approach is the result of that “truth.”

Challenge: God Doesn't Teach Children to Be Good

A CNN iReport titled "Why I Raise My Children Without God" has been making some waves, so I thought I'd choose a portion of it for this week's challenge. We've already covered some of the objections in the article about evil (most of the objections in the article come down to the problem of evil) and prayer, so I went with the one on morality: 

God Does Not Teach Children to Be Good: A child should make moral choices for the right reasons. Telling him that he must behave because God is watching means that his morality will be externally focused rather than internally structured. It’s like telling a child to behave or Santa won’t bring presents. When we take God out of the picture, we place responsibility of doing the right thing onto the shoulders of our children. No, they won’t go to heaven or rule their own planets when they die, but they can sleep better at night. They will make their family proud. They will feel better about who they are. They will be decent people.

Does an "internally focused" morality create better people than one that's enforced by God? What do you think? Respond to this objection in the comments below, and then we'll hear Brett's response on Thursday.

[View Brett's video response.]

The New Atheists and the Old Testament

I came across a lecture by Peter J. Williams that I found to be an excellent complement to this month’s Solid Ground (if you haven’t yet read Greg’s “The Canaanites: Genocide or Judgment?” you should download it here). The lecture is worth taking the time to watch (see below) or download as an MP3.

Williams points out that the New Atheists often make a very elementary mistake in the way they critique the morality of stories like the judgment of the Canaanites in the Old Testament: They don’t evaluate the whole story as it is, they critique a naturalistic story of their own making—a story where God doesn’t really exist and men are evilly using the idea of God to achieve their own nefarious ends (for example, as an excuse to commit genocide). When they examine the Bible this way, surprise! They find evil.

I’ve encountered this many times before (read these comments to see one of these conversations in action), so it’s something you need to be aware of and know how to counteract. Here’s how Williams responds to this move by the New Atheists:

If we’re going to look at the fairness of something, it doesn’t matter whether it happened or not. We look at the fairness of the story. We could look at that in Tom and Jerry’s world, we could look at it in any story, whether something is fair or not. But if I’m going to judge the fairness of the story, I think it’s only fair to look at the story world that I’m looking at. I can’t judge the morality of Jerry’s actions against Tom, thinking of our physical laws. That’s not actually entering properly into understanding the story.

So I believe that in order for an atheist to critique the morality of the story in the Old Testament, they have to enter into that story…. If we’re going to consider the story, we have to consider all of the details in the story, including all of the characters in the story—and one of them, by the way, is called “God.” He’s a character in the story, and I can’t just say, “Well I don’t believe in God, so as I’m judging the story, I’ll sort of omit Him from the story.” That’s not fair….

When Dawkins tells the story [of the Old Testament], it goes like this: God doesn’t speak to anyone, no miracles are performed, there's no massive exodus. But then, I can judge all of the characters as if God hadn’t actually told them to do anything.

So in other words, he’s got his own naturalistic, watered-down version of Exodus, and that’s the thing that he attacks.

What’s the reality? When we look at the story in the Old Testament, firstly we have to go back to the beginning. And to understand God, we have to understand what He set up in the beginning. In the beginning God gave everyone life. That’s part of the story. I can’t just miss that out—it’s actually there. I could also say that God clearly doesn’t think violence is good, because in the beginning there was none. When I look at the end of His story in the Old Testament, as outlined in the prophets, I can see again His vision of peace—that the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and so on.

So that gives me some guidance as to how to understand the story. Trying to understand a bit of a story without reading the beginning and the end usually isn’t the best way before you write your literary criticism.

When you’re having a conversation about the morality of the Bible, be sure that you’re actually discussing the story in the Bible, not a blend of the Bible’s story about God and the atheist’s naturalistic story without God. You need to hold the atheist to the idea that in order to judge the morality of a story (not its truthfulness, but its morality) and the characters in that story, one must take the story as it is and look at what it portrays from within that story.

Williams goes on in the lecture to evaluate the story of the judgment of the Canaanites in its own context and then concludes by noting how their destruction clarifies the gospel:

Arguably, we could say that if the destruction of the Canaanites is the punishment for their sins, then that’s what sin deserved. And if Christ on the cross took our sins on Himself, then what happened to the Canaanites becomes [in] some way a picture for us of how awful sin is and how much Jesus Christ did on the cross for us, taking on Himself—that one person—the punishment for so many.

That’s truly a staggering thought, when you consider it.

 

(HT: Apologetics 315)

See also:

The Judgment that Led to Salvation
Not Genocide, but Capital Punishment
Israel’s Failure Led to Evil and Suffering

Marriage Law

Ryan T. Anderson (an author of the paper “What Is Marriage,” published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy) is one of the clearest writers on the issue of marriage that I know of, and I’m looking forward to the release of the book What Is Marriage next month.

Today, I came across this concise summary by Anderson of why we ought not to change our legal definition of marriage from the “conjugal” view to the “emotional bond” view:

Our marriage law should reflect the truth about what marriage is: a pre-political institution springing from human nature itself. Government should not redefine or recreate marriage, nor should it obscure the truth about what marriage is. Recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages would weaken marriage as a social institution. It would redefine marriage as essentially an emotional bond, thus rendering marital norms arbitrary and less intelligible. It would further delink childbearing from marriage and deny, as a matter of law, the importance of a mother or a father in a child’s life. The outcomes associated with such absence are far from promising.

While this brief statement obviously doesn’t explain the full argument for each of these points, it’s helpful to have a list of the categories of arguments that need to be considered before we take the drastic measure of fundamentally changing marriage as a culture. To research more detail on each of these points, you can start by searching our website or scanning the ethics category on this blog. A few examples:

The Competing Views of Marriage
Inconsistent Same-Sex Marriage Advocates
Same-Sex Marriage Won’t Be Enough

This is the most difficult subject to discuss with people. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a friend or loved one who thinks changing the definition of marriage will be in his or her best interest, and nobody enjoys saying no to them. But there are serious consequences to tampering with a naturally occurring institution like marriage. The view that we can endlessly remake ourselves into whatever we like is false. Male and female are real categories. The differences—biological, emotional, psychological—are real. The need for both is real. The union of the two, complementary sexes is unique, with unique public consequences.

Civilization is much more fragile than we realize, and marriage—the male–female union that builds our society—is much more central to civilization than people understand. If we decide to thumb our nose at reality, reality will not be forgiving.