A Standard For Knowledge and Morality

Note: This post began as a comment to respond to cyber kitten's comment to my last post. Due to the length I am posting it here. Please note that I am addressing the perspective shared as quoted and not suggesting it is representative of all atheists.

Cyber kitten: “I'm not sure if there is such a thing as a representative atheist just as there is no such thing as a representative theist. Personally I'm on the subjective end of the spectrum.”

I can certainly accept that there are differing perspectives within the broader atheists’ category. I try to address the main ones I have encountered. I was hoping to see what Kevin’s response was to your response before responding, but he has not weighed in yet. When I address subjectivism I am not saying that all atheists think this way, but I am addressing those who do. I am not trying to claim that all atheists think the same way. All theists are not the same. I hope everyone can understand that simply because I address a way of thinking that I am not trying to set up a straw man for all who claim to be atheists. Moreover as Quixote pointed out we may mean different things by our word choices and need to look at that before assuming what we mean.

Cyber Kitten: “I think he's right when he says that if you're not a Christian you can't really have Christian values - but of course many of the values claimed as Christian are pretty universal (the Golden rule for example).”

There are ethics that are specific to Christian teaching. I think though what I gathered from what Nietzsche was saying wasn’t simply a certain kind of morality, but the base for morality itself was nonexistent if there is no God. Again I am no authority on Nietzsche, so if anyone reading this is better acquainted with him please correct me if I err. I think he did indeed struggle with the conclusion for he saw that such a world without moral adherence would be unlivable. I think this bothered him greatly. I also see that “new atheists” do not agree with Nietzsche because morality is so widely adhered to regardless of belief in God. (see next paragraph for qualification)

However, I contend that it’s not ones belief in God or lack of belief in God which creates the need to be moral, but that we are designed by God with the moral knowledge irrespective of our environment or culture unless some stimuli robs us of our moral sense. Just the same, due to our fallen nature we often do the things we know we ought not to do even while we understand we “ought not to.” That moral awareness is a God given protection to keep us physically, emotionally, and spiritually from the consequences of living outside our created order and to draw us to Him who can supernaturally enable us to live life to the utmost – the fullest available to us which is beyond our imagination, but can be found in Him.

Cyber Kitten: “I think that largely Secular societies are 'going through the motions' where morality is concerned. Few people have any ethical training and I don't think that most people really give it much thought. Of course this doesn't mean that its either Christianity (or theism) or nothing (or nihilism). There's lots of ethical thinking out there that can be accessed by anyone with an interest in the subject.”

Small children know right from wrong even before they are taught. They will cry out “I had it first.” or “He can’t take it from me.” or “She shouldn’t hit me.” They know from a young age what’s right and wrong. All cultures have a sense of right and wrong even if they disagree on the code of ethics. Yes, much of the world simply goes through the motions. Even Christians in churches are merely trying to follow a moral code because they think they ought to, to earn favor with God. Jesus, however, came to change our nature to ones who live lives of love from a place of knowing Him and pouring out to others selflessly. Not because we follow a code of morality to earn righteousness, but because righteousness was given freely to us by God and it is He who enables us to love in a way that is impossible without being united with Him the way we were created to be. It is through that relationship with Him that we can become people who start to love like God does.

karla said: The only way to be certain is to find a stable eternal foundation for all knowledge/truth. If such a foundation doesn't exist there can be no certainty.

cyber kitten said: That pretty much is my position.

What is the point of knowing anything if it is all unknowable if there is no firm foundation? If all that you know is uncertainly known then it seems pointless to gain more knowledge. How can you trust anything you know even that there is no God? You may say given the lack of evidence it’s the surest place to be in, but if there was evidence you couldn’t trust it without believing He exist and is the eternal stable firm foundation of all truth.

Cyber Kitten said: But nothing is "wrong for all people in all times" is it?

I don’t see right and wrong as being solely culturally determined. Sure cultures create morality at times – certain dress codes or city laws etc. But over all things like child abuse, murder, rape, etc. are wrong for all times in all cultures and in all places. Even if we don’t talk specifics we know that all people (except a few with physiological disorders) have a sense of right and wrong even if the specifics are disagreed about. That knowledge of not living up to a standard of good is in all of us, we all fall short of it, every one of us.

cyber kitten said: I find it difficult to understand how anyone can say that morality is objective. There is nowhere outside of culture that we can stand to say such a thing.

Only if an eternal good God exists do we have a place to stand to know that there is objective morality and at the same time love those who fall short of the standard (which is all of us). If there is no objective standard, there is no wrong doing that means anything beyond the cultural level. Yet we all have this feeling of failure to live as “good” as we feel we ought to and yet we have no foundation to posit an “ought” without an objective standard. Otherwise we have no reason to feel we have missed the mark or to see anything another does as wrong no matter who is harmed. We have no call to claim an “ought:” without the firm foundation of an eternal good God.

If you have a piece of cloth that appears to be white and you place it up next to a piece of paper that is perfectly white you will see that the cloth looks rather dirty in contrast. The only way one could say that cloth isn’t white is in comparison to a greater standard than itself. If we look at ourselves in light of the rest of humanity we can say we are doing pretty well. We haven’t killed anyone or hurt anybody and we try to treat people well. Then we look at ourselves compared to a perfect standard, the living God, who created us and we see we aren’t so clean after all and yet there is hope for He offers to freely clean us from all unrighteousness and to show us how to live in a way that frees us from all bondages of sin. He can show us this because He sent Jesus to live the life of a man stripped of His divinity yet still being God to show us how to live a life rightly related to God. Moreover, He doesn’t ask us to live that life on our own strength, but by His strength which enables us to live like never before. Jesus took upon himself our debt to sin so that we could live a heavenly reality.

I think atheists want a solution to the evil in the world just as much as everyone else. However, if God is denied, not only is the solution denied, but also the problem. For if there is no standard then all the “evil” in the world isn’t really evil for there is no standard to judge between good and evil.

Also I have heard some say that if God exist, He is to blame for the evil because He is all powerful and hasn’t ended it. G.K. Chesterton once responded to an editorial question “What is wrong with the world?” with two words, “I am.” He knew the evil starts in our hearts and minds before it is actualized in the world. If God eradicated evil from the planet, who would be left standing? Is any heart perfectly free from evil? Is any mind perfectly good? Is any person perfectly good? God doesn’t end evil the way we want Him to because He loves us and has a better way of bringing about our redemption. The Bible says that God isn’t slow in keeping his promises as some understand slowness, but he is patient wanting none to perish. He is working in this world through those who have joined Him in Christ and through His Holy Spirit. He doesn’t force us by His omnipotence to come to Him, but He does pursue us with His love.

Justice of God

I have posited that there can be no justice without the existence of a Just God. To provide argument to support this claim let us look at what “justice” means. According to the American Heritage Dictionary:

Justice (n.)

1. The quality of being just; fairness
1. The principle of moral rightness; equity.
2. Conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude; righteousness.
3. The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.
4. Law The administration and procedure of law.
5. A judge.
6. A justice of the peace.
1. The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.
2. Law The administration and procedure of law.
3. A judge.
4. A justice of the peace.
3. Conformity to truth, fact, or sound reason: The overcharged customer was angry, and with justice.
4. Abbr. J. Law
1. A judge. A justice of the peace.

The very employment of justice presumes a standard of rightness to which governs the actions of humanity. If justice is a “conformity to moral rightness” or “righteousness” there must be a standard by which conformity is judged.

If there is no objective righteousness there is no justice. There is no judgment of actions to a standard of righteousness. There is no upholding of a law any higher than man’s subjective laws of society. There is nothing concrete to justice. A victim is no longer a victim because there is no standard to determine violation of personal value or rights. The victimizer is off the hook for there is no standard. The only way that both the victim and the victimizer are brought justice is for there to be an objective moral standard.

The only way there can be an objective moral standard, is if there is an objective moral law giver who is in His character by His nature the self-existing standard of righteousness. Righteousness equates to goodness. If this righteous good God meets out justice according to the holy righteous standard of His character which results in punishment for some and mercy for others. God has decreed that He provided the sacrifice to enable Justice to justify us in Christ. If we are not under the grace of the gift of Christ blood, we are under Justice with no grace. This does not make God less good. We only find goodness in Him; apart from Him we are not good. His character is the standard of goodness and no one gains righteousness apart from His deeming us righteous through Christ.

We cannot judge Him as not good for we have no standard of goodness outside of Him by which to cast judgment upon Him. He gives meaning to the victim that would be lost without Him. He became a victim for us, experiencing our life on earth, experiencing human suffering first hand, and giving His own blood for our sins. What greater goodness could there be than Jesus sacrificing Himself for finite immoral man who rejected Him and rejects Him still? Christ didn’t die for good people; He died for unworthy sinners to make us worthy. He doesn’t ask for us to be good to earn salvation. He asks us to receive salvation from the only one who can give us eternal life.

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless--I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning. - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The Christian Worldview

It has come to my attention that I have failed to properly define what I mean when I use the term “Christian Worldview.” Let me try and see if I can unpack that term. First of all a worldview is a simple to complex system of belief by which we see the world. Everybody thinks with their worldview. A worldview builds from the general foundational to the particularities which rest upon the foundation. For example for the Christian it starts with the existence of God. In this sense I am not talking about presuppositions, but merely a general framework regardless of how that framework first developed. Likewise, the atheist worldview is tied closely to the idea that there is no God and it builds from there. The Christian the worldview then encompasses that there is a Triune God who created the world and reveled himself to the world through Jesus Christ who lived, died, and rose again providing the way for man to know God. For the atheist it goes into the uncreated evolutionary development of the world and from there it can go into a humanist or postmodernist view of truth or other various options.

Both Christians and Atheists have different respective specifics to their worldviews. Neither group develops cookie cutter specifics with regard to various views about the world. Therefore, typically I try to stay to the general foundation worldview matters instead of the specific details of life views because if the foundational isn’t established then it’s putting the cart before the horse to establish specifics. However, I will answer questions about specifics when asked to the best of my knowledge.

Thus, when I use the word “standard” in context of the Christian worldview, I mean the foundational self-existent standard of God on which the existence and knowability of truth rest. I am not referring to specific details of what that truth looks like. I am not saying that the Christian church’s historical or modern teaching is the truth about all matters. I am saying that the very construct of truth must rest in the self-existing God for if there is no self-existing constant on which to know factual or moral truth then there is no truth to be known. However, I have never met or read of anyone who can live out the idea that there is no truth.

Normal Christianity

I work on the fourth floor of an office building with old elevators in continual need of repair. The elevator doors rush open with a loud bang and one of them closes extremely slowly while the other has a tendency to close on you as you enter. As it passes each floor there you feel a disconcerting lurch of sorts and when you reach your floor there is a sudden jolt and grind. For years this has been a daily experience.

Several weeks ago, my husband and I stayed at a newly remodeled hotel and our room was on the tenth floor. We entered the elevator and selected floor 10. About 60 seconds passed in quiet stillness and I told my husband that the elevator must not be working as we weren’t moving yet. He pointed out the counter at the top of the doors to show me we were indeed traveling upwards and were nearing our exit. I was amazed.

I was using the nearly broken elevators as a standard instead of an elevator in working order. Therefore, I was amazed by something that should be normal.

Does this not happen with the Christian life? Do we not take what we have always known as a standard instead of using Christ as our standard?

I’ve observed that the common response regarding leading a supernatural life to be that it is something that’s not for everybody – it’s not normal Christianity. People see it as a lifestyle that is amazing, but not the standard. The standard has become what we see everyday and not what Jesus modeled it to be. We are to be imitators of Christ, are we not?

When I first starting learning about healings, miracles, and the like as being a part of normal Christianity, I resisted the idea because I thought those who lived that way had something special – something abnormal and I took aversion to being told that it should be normal in my life. I had grown up in the church; I knew what normal Christianity was all about. Or did I? Could it be that my standard was my experiences and not Jesus?

Just like the elevator story, I was measuring normalcy by the wrong standard. The standard should have been an elevator in good working order and not one that is constantly inept.

Jesus said to heal the sick, raise the dead, and cleanse lepers. Does that mean that He isn’t pleased with me because I don’t do that? No, absolutely not. I am made righteous by Him, not by the works that I do. But if I readjust my standard to be Him, He can enable me to do these and greater things because it is He that does them through me. If my eyes are on Him and I am seeking His Kingdom, I will begin to see the things He spoke of happening in my life. I will then be about my Father’s business. I will hear and see what He wants to do in people for my eyes are set on Him.

When Jesus approached the disciples’ boat walking on the water he called Peter to walk out to Him. Peter fixed his eyes on Christ and walked upon the water for His standard was not that everyone knows this is impossible, but His eyes were joined with Christ’s eyes. However, when he took His eyes off Christ he began to falter and sink, but he quickly fixed them back on Jesus.

Jesus has to be our standard. We can’t look at what everyone says is possible or impossible. It is written in Philippians 3:16 that, “I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength.”