RESPONDblogs: A Morality I Don’t Understand

Human morality makes no sense to me if atheism is true – and there is no God.

 

Some of my best and longest friends are atheists. And sometimes they will tell me what morality is all about. But my problem is…I just don’t think it holds together.

 

1. Often I hear that we are genetically programmed to care for those most likely to be genetically similar to us. Morality is genetic programming.
2. Then there is the “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” theory. Society is really just all about supporting each other to achieve a good end.
3. And thirdly – reputation. We want to be seen to be doing the right and good thing.

 

But who defines what the right and good thing is? Is it you? Is it me? Is it the one with the most control in society – might makes right?

 

There are so many problems with this Godless understanding of morality. Here are a few big ones.

 

PROBLEM ONE  – it’s not much of a moral framework because it’s focussed squarely on ME. It is a theory that is happy to encourage selfishness. Yet I would suggest that human selfishness is at the root of our problem, it’s not supposed to be the best foundation of society at all.

Moral reformers from the past stood out amongst their peers for the precise reason that – they thought more of others than about themselves. A moral framework can’t be built on selfishness.

 

PROBLEM TWO – it’s a deterministic view of humanity. In other words – it completely denies human free will. We are nothing but genetic machines dancing to the tune written out in our cells. But this is a dangerous theory because it legitimises all sorts of behaviour that we know to be wrong.

We cannot prosecute the rapist anymore, because he is simply doing what he’s programmed to do.

The alcoholic or drug user has no hope because their addiction is predetermined.

To that, we should all say no. There is hope! A crucial part of being human is that we all intuitively know – that we have the ability to choose. Genetic factors do affect us – but at the core we are creatures that can and do make free will choices.

 

PROBLEM THREE – there is no absolute morality. No overall moral code. I know people who would cheer and say – that’s right, Stuart! Welcome to the party at last. But I don’t want to come to this party – it doesn’t sound much fun at all. Because if there’s no absolute morality, there are no standards to judge anything by. And so we are left with – anything goes. Whatever you want to do – have fun with that. As I said before – this leads to “might is right”. And we live at the whim of the most powerful people who, as we have already established, are self-centred and do not respect our free will. Sound familiar? Horrific regimes were run that way by powerful dictators in the 20^th century and millions of people died as a result. Welcome to the party? No thanks!

 

PROBLEM FOUR – there is no good or evil. It doesn’t exist, according to a Godless materialistic view of morality. You know that notion inside of you about what the right and good thing to do? You know your conscience? You know all the stories that have been written down thru human history to help people grasp a transcendent moral code? It’s all nonsense. Just stick to personal preference. There is no absolute good or absolute evil. Just choose what you like and go with that.

As Richard Dawkins describes it –

“In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”[1]

 

 

 

And my atheist friends cheer. Now you are getting it, Stuart! And I reply – no I’m not. I am not getting it. Not because I don’t want to get it – but because from what I can see – no one lives this way! No-one is able to live as if these 4 tenants of atheistic morality were true! This is all simply a grim fantasy.

 

For example, take atheist Sam Harris. He like to take the opportunity to point of God’s abject failure to protect humanity. Why doesn’t God intervene and stop the rape, torture and murder of children? Where was God in 2005 when the city of New Orleans was destroyed by a hurricane? Didn’t God hear the prayers of its victims, hiding in their attics, trying to escape the rising water level? Many of these people died talking to an imaginary friend, according to Harris.[2]

 

So as Sam Harris rails at God – what is he saying? Is he saying that such suffering is evil and should not be allowed by God? But I thought we had established that there is no good and evil?

 

Now I would understand it if Sam Harris is just expressing his feelings on the matter. I agree with him – the suffering he points to is truly horrible. But he doesn’t just tell us how he feels. He goes beyond that. And according to his atheistic worldview, he is making assumptions that he simply cannot make.

• He cannot assume the intrinsic value of every human life. From the perspective of matter…of chemistry and biology, he has no reason to do so.
• He cannot move on from expressing his feelings and climb upon a moral high ground. Because there isn’t any!

YET – and this is my point – this is EXACTLY what he and many like him do. Why? Because atheistic morality is a grim fantasy that no one can honestly live with. And so we naturally go with the moral framework we’ve been given….by the God that so many deny.

I agree with Ravi Zacharias who sums up what Sam Harris is doing like this:

“he is selectively borrowing from the biblical revelation of justice and retribution while ignoring the big story into which it fits and by which it gains its purpose. His moral argument distorts the Bible’s finer points while denying its big picture.”[3]

 

 

I don’t understand the explanation for morality that my atheist friends give me. It just doesn’t hold together for me. What does make sense…is the possibility that God himself has written the moral law on each and every one of our hearts. After all…

 

• When I say there’s such a thing as evil, I assume there’s such a thing as good.
• When I say there’s such a thing as good, I assume there’s a moral law that helps me distinguish between good and evil.
• When I say there’s a moral law, I must posit a moral lawgiver who give us the moral law in the first place.
• And that moral lawgiver…sounds a lot like God. [4]

 

 

 

…who does not exist. According to my friends.

[1] David Robertson, The Dawkins Letters, quoting Dawkins The Blind Watchmaker.

[2] Ravi Zacharias, Why I am Not an Atheist, quoting Sam Harris Letter to a Christian Nation.

[3] Zacharias, Why I Am Not An Atheist.

[4] Ibid.

RESPONDblogs: How Cultural Differences Point TO Absolute Morality – Not Away From It

I think there are many strong arguments that point to the existence of the God who is presented to us by the Bible. And one of those arguments is – the human moral code.

 

I suggest that human morality points to God. And human morality is all about how people SHOULD behave.

 

Yet one of the common responses I get – is that morality is not about how people should behave. Morality is just how people DO behave. And that has changed over time. Further, just look at people in the world today. Moral values are clearly different between (for example) the members of the ISIS terror organization, and the average British person who looks on in horror at what they are doing to innocent people.

 

Each people group appears to have its own set of moral laws. These laws guide each people group as they seek to satisfy their wants and desires. And most compelling of all – each group thinks they are right! One group feels morally justified in its terror tactics – another group disagrees. In the face of this – to claim that a single, absolute moral code exists seems unlikely at best!

 

My response to this is – really? Are you sure about that? Perhaps you share this opinion that – morals are just what society does. Ok – let’s look at this claim closely.

 

FIRST – the person who says that morality is just what society does – is making a self-refuting claim. It is a claim that cancels itself out. Why?

They are saying that everyone is basically imprisoned in their own culture – we all have cultural biases – we all think we are right. We cannot see beyond our cultural biases. So it is just meaningless to claim that an objective moral standard exists.

Why does this claim cancel itself out? Well – because the person who makes this claim must have escaped his own culture, he must have somehow arrived at an objective perspective himself to have discovered that fact. So they can look down objectively on all the different cultures around them, who are locked in to their own way of doing morality. They see clearly, while the rest of us mere mortals are slaves to our individual societies.

So why is this a self-refuting claim? On the one hand – you are saying that no objective morals exist. And to prove it – you are making an objectively moral claim and expecting to make it stick. This is contradictory – you are denying the very thing to make your argument work.

It’s a bit like the story about the elephant surrounded by a bunch of blind men. You’ve heard this one, right? One can feel the trunk, another the ears, still others the legs. And they each think an elephant looks like the single bit that they can feel. And so they each have a very different idea of what an elephant looks like. But to truly understand what an elephant looks like, it takes a guy above them in a balcony – who is not blind and can see the elephant – to shout out, “The elephant is a big animal. Each man touched only one part. You must put all the parts together to find out what an elephant is like.”[1]

In order to assert that culture and morality are the same thing – you need to be the guy in the balcony looking down on the elephant. Yet that’s the very position that you deny – God’s absolute moral position.

 

SECOND – just because cultures disagree on moral viewpoints doesn’t mean there are no objective morals. It just means some societies differ on some moral viewpoints!

Just because societies disagree on what is morally acceptable does not lead us to the inescapable conclusion that there is no objective morality. Not at all!

“Currently there are conflicting views on many things…Is there life after death, or do we perish with our bodies? Does the disappearance of equatorial rain forests pose a threat to civilisation? Is the protective ozone layer that covers the earth being destroyed? Opinions on each of these issues vary. The fact that there is disagreement, however, does not mean that no view can be correct. The same is true with differences of opinion on morality.”[2]

Anthropology allows us to conclude that different people have different views about right and wrong. It does not let us conclude that there is no objective morality.

 

 

 

THIRD – differences in cultural moral practice POINT TO objective morality. These difference do not point away from objective morality.

This seems an odd thing to say – so let me explain what I mean. What might look like moral differences – often turn out to simply be a difference in perception of the circumstances, not a conflict in the core underlying values. There can be a difference in the facts…but the values stay the same.

• A fact is – a fetus has developed for 16 weeks and has toes, fingers, a nose, eyes and a mouth.
• A value is – a fetus is a human being.

Facts answer the question – what IS the case? Values answer the question – what OUGHT to be the case.

Killing human beings for no reason is and has been wrong in every culture at every time in history. It is an absolute moral value. What changes – is the justification for the killing. The abortion debate does not turn out to be a conflict about facts at all – rather, it’s a conflict on values.

Pro-life people think abortion wrong in 99.9% of the time because it involves taking the life of an innocent human being without proper justification.

Those favouring abortion agree completely that human beings – particularly the mother involved here – is a valuable human person! They disagree though on whether or not the unborn child qualifies to be seen as a human person.

But this debate points to a single, absolute human moral requirement – human beings are always of value and must be respected at all times. On both sides of the debate, we share a point of morality.

Here’s another example. In India cows roam free because they are considered sacred. Yet people in Britain eat beef burgers. This would seem to show a conflicting moral value between our cultures on the treatment of cattle.  Yet BOTH our cultures would agree that it is wrong to kill and eat human beings. So what has that to do with anything?

“In (Britain) when Grandma dies, we don’t eat her, we bury her. In India, Hindus don’t eat cattle because they believe the cow MAY BE grandma reincarnated in another form.”[3]

In other words – we share the absolute moral value of each human life. We just express that moral value differently.

There are many different examples of this. Recently someone pointed me to the ancient Roman Coliseum and said, “Morals have evolved since the barbaric Roman times. We don’t have a Coliseum any more. We don’t watch slaves being torn apart by wild animals and soldiers”. And my response is precisely this point. No – we don’t. But we kill our unborn children on an industrial scale. Is that any more or less barbaric? The Romans justified the killing of slaves as sport…by dehumanising them. They wouldn’t have treated Roman citizens that way – proper human beings. They would only treat sub humans to the horrors of the Coliseum. The Romans agreed with us that human life is precious. They shared this absolute human moral requirement. Yet they justified the killing by lowering their assessment of the value of their victims to subhuman levels. We do the same with the unborn child.

 

And ISIS? Well – I wouldn’t claim to understand their motivations. But I will say this. Their killing is not indiscriminate. You don’t see ISIS members randomly killing each other. They value friendship and human relationship and common purpose. Just like us. They are particular about who they murder. What you see is ISIS killing specific Christians and Muslims…and anyone else who they devalue to such an extent – that immediate death is our only option.

 

 

 

Is there evidence of absolute morality amidst the confusing mess of different cultures and peoples? Yes I think so. When you look beneath the surface – it is there at the centre. We all just cover it over with a different cultural coat of paint. It’s a common code of conduction that presses in on us…and that sounds very much like a pointer to God himself.

 

The God who cares about you and me so much…that he wants us to live a safe and productive life together. So he coded it into each one of us…

 

[1] Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl, Relativism Feet Planted in Mid-Air, (BakerBooks, 2011), 45.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

RESPONDblogs: Pulled Towards the Light

What does it mean to be a moral person?

 

This question comes up a lot whenever I talk about morality. Now – I’m not bringing up this subject to put a heavy weight of judgement on anyone else’s shoulders. I’m way too aware of my own moral failings to want to do that! And I’m not some moral crusader arguing for change. Society does need to change. But I don’t think our morals need to change.

 

I talk about morality because it is part of the body of evidence suggesting human beings are more than just a collection of atoms and molecules. We are much more than just that.

 

Now often when this comes up, we get into a discussion about what people do in society today…and sometimes we will compare that with what people did in society in the past. And the point will be made to me that – society is different now in comparison to ages past. Therefore morality must be different too. It has evolved with us. Therefore morals must also have changed.

 

But I think this is to mistake what it means to be a moral person. You cannot understand morality in terms of what people do and why they might do it. To understand what morality is – we need to look at why people SHOULD do something. It’s a discussion about obligations that press in on human beings, not how human beings behave.

The law of gravity is actually very mysterious. Scientists still have a lot to learn about what it is. But we can very easily measure the force and the effect that it has on objects in our Universe. Human morality works a similar way on the human heart. It is a force that we might not like very much – but it is there all the same.

To suggest that a human being or human society is a source or an explanation of morality is to miss the mark. Morality isn’t how people behave…rather it is how people are required TO behave. It’s the moral force that pushes in on each of us.

 

And what is fascinating is…when you study a variety of ancient cultures (Chinese, Babylonian, Hindu, Egyptian and Jewish) and compare them to 21^st century society, you find common expectations and obligations that press in on the people who have lived at these different times in these very different cultures[1]. This is a clue to the scope of the moral law that imposes itself on us.

• It is generally always right for one human being to show kindness to another.
• It is generally always right to help and provide for another human being who is suffering or in need.
• It is especially important to love and respect members of your own family. Whether its your parents, or your siblings or your own children. These people deserve special respect and care from you.
• Talking of children, it is always important to look after children.

By implication, anyone who does the reverse…is behaving in an immoral way. Notice something. We don’t need to have this explained to us. We just kind of know.

• It’s always wrong to commit adultery with someone else’s partner.
• It’s always wrong to steal, to benefit from stolen goods and to treat other people’s goods as my own.
• You must render justice towards an individual in court.
• It is always wrong to be a double minded person, to misrepresent oneself. It is better to be a person of integrity and good faith.
• People who are poor or sick require mercy from us.
• It is important to forgive people who have wronged us.

 

There is evidence of an absolute moral law that presses in on each of us…and it has done so down thru the ages past. What can we infer from this evidence? Well – the existence of a moral law allows us to infer the existence of a moral lawgiver.

 

If an archaeologist digs in the sand and finds the ruined foundations of a great city, then it is reasonable to infer a civilisation of people who built that city and lived there at some time.

 

If a philosopher or theologian digs into mankind’s nature and finds the traces of an ethical framework that is common to each person…then he is right to infer a source to that ethical framework that is located outside of these people and these different cultures. And that sounds very much like God.

 

But more than all that…look at people’s ability to talk in terms of good and evil, right and wrong. Stories and tales have been passed down thru the generations in the great myths. Here we talk in terms of what is good…and should be encouraged in people…and what is evil and should be resisted. And these great, ancient stories never go out of date! They might be updated for a modern audience and a different mindset (which is precisely what George Lucas did when he started the Star Wars saga in the 1970s…at what Lucasfilm continue to do to this day) but the core of what is good and what is evil has remained the same for millennia.

 

Moral values and obligations exist as a first principle of civilisation. You can’t deconstruct them…and like the force of gravity, it is always pressing upon us whether we like it or not.

“It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent…To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”[2]

 

[1] C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man.

[2] Ibid.

RESPONDblogs: Does Society Decide What Is Moral?

In my previous blog I talked about why I thought that a relativistic, “Who are you to judge?” culture was so dangerous.

RESPONDblogs: Who are We to Judge?

I’m going to claim that human beings aren’t actually wired up to live this way anyway. And we can see that when we look at people and how we function as part of society. We might live in a culture that is becoming increasingly relativistic, but our intuitive reactions actually rail against the very relativism we are living within.

 

What do I mean?

 

Well – very often, I hear the claim from people that moral absolutes don’t exist. Rather, society itself just evolves …and our moral sensibilities evolve with it. Really? I would suggest that…while a nice theory…that this is patently false when we look at how human beings operate in the real world.

 

First – if it was true that human society decided human ethics, then we would intuitively know that no other society would be at liberty to criticise our society. We would know that…when it came to ethics…we could only act as passive observers of another society’s ethical system. Yet this is clearly not the case. Human history is stuffed full of commentary and judgement on past cultures and societies from ancient Rome to modern day Northern Korea and everything in between. We aren’t passive – we are quick to judge the choices people make, whatever their culture or society.

The hilarious irony here for me is that – usually when this comes up in discussion – the person proposing relativistic, societal ethics will often do so with an air of judgement on my own absolute moral position…thus underlining the brokenness of their own theory. I’m not saying I’ve got a perfect understanding of ethics and morality…but eyes, specks and planks spring to mind (if you get my meaning!)

 

Second – if it is society’s job to decide what is morally right and wrong, then our laws would be unassailable by definition. They would be right by default. Yet this is clearly not the case! There’s a very BIG difference between something being legal, and something being morally permissible. We see this played out in the abortion debate. Yes – it’s legal to terminate a pregnancy during the first 24 weeks in the UK[1]. But is it ethical? There are people on both sides of that debate.

And this issue gets thornier as technology evolves. Recently in the US, the Planned Parenthood organization has been faced with moral outrage over their harvesting of aborted foetal tissue; of going to market with valuable body parts gleaned from the aborted foetus. They are arguing that they are not operating outside the law. And they have a strong legal case.[2]  After all…this is a lucrative business for them. But surely the bigger question has got nothing to do with the legality of their business. The bigger question is this. Is their business morally permissible…or completely morally bankrupt and reprehensible? I know where I stand on that.

My point is – just because something is legal does NOT automatically make it moral. Ethics are not legislated for. Society’s laws are measured by a higher law. Human beings intuitively know this is how it works, and are quick to exercise their right as a moral human being to do so.

If it is right that an evolving society defines its own ethical system – then we have only one option in the face of Planned Parenthood. Or indeed any other atrocity that is committed within the bounds of the law. Our only option is – silence and acceptance. Is that what we see in society? Not at all! We don’t have to go far before we find someone with a moral opinion that they loudly express…I might not even have to go beyond myself. Moral reformers in society act out of a sense that there is a higher moral order that exists…a measuring line. And when we look at the moral reformers of the past, this gives us the third problem with the theory that says, “society defines an evolving morality.”

 

Third – this theory forces us to view moral reformers as the worst kind of immoral reprobate possible, because they are seeking to reform society and society defines what is moral and what isn’t. Consider Corrie Ten Boom who worked to reform Germany under the Nazi Party. She opposed her society’s moral system and, if moral relativism is true, she should be viewed as a highly immoral person. Yet history does not view her as a criminal. Quite the opposite – she is held up as someone who worked to make a positive difference in people’s lives. She rejected Nazi Germany’s ethnic cleansing laws because she was a human being. It had nothing to do with her German nationality.

Social reformers are heroes to us, not villains. And this shows up moral relativism as an incoherent theory.

 

 

Human beings are moral beings by definition; we exercise it. We do not like to keep quiet about it. Silence and acceptance is probably not the pattern in the comment section of a blog discussing moral relativism! And so – Society Says types of moral theories are incoherent.  We don’t sit back and accept every law as right. We don’t hold up moral reformers as evil; very often it is quite the opposite. Ethics is a measuring line that we intuitively appeal to when measuring human society. Therefore, the measuring line exists somewhere else…it is beyond society.

 

But maybe morality works differently. Maybe it’s not the claims of society that define what is moral, maybe it’s just what we do? Or maybe it goes even further. Maybe at the end of the day it all just comes down to personal preference. My conscience is the only thing guiding my own personal morality. Could that be how ethics actually works? More to come in part 3.

[1] “Abortion,” NHS choices, July 18, 2014, accessed July 10, 2015, http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Abortion/Pages/Introduction.aspx.

 

[2] https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/health-and-human-services-planned-parenthood-not-breaking-the-law.

RESPONDblogs: Who are We to Judge?

There’s a growing sense in our society that…at the end of the day…relax! Everyone is entitled to their opinion. About everything. And on one level I completely agree and think that is quite right. I have opinions…and I blog about them. Others have opinions about what I say…and so they respond to me with questions. This is all good and right.

But a growing problem in our culture is that people are taking the right to opinion…and turning it into something else. Something that’s not relaxing at all…something downright dangerous.

Some years ago, Francis Beckwith participated in a panel discussion that looked at the possible dangers of violence and sexual content on broadcast media to children. This debate happened years before always on, instantly accessible torrent sites, Netflix accounts…and the shrinkage of traditional TV broadcasters. During the debate, Beckwith suggested that Government censorship was not the answer. Rather, the media outlets themselves had a responsibility to make moral judgements about how their programming may affect young people.

One woman in the audience bristled at that suggestion and raised her hand. “Who are you to judge?” she asked. She wasn’t expecting an answer. She was making the point that – no one has the right to make an absolute moral judgement about an individual or society in general.

This is the dangerous problem I’m talking about. We are taking everyone’s right to opinion – and we are using it in an unhelpful…and actually quite dangerous way. Beckwith’s answer explains why.

“I certainly do have a right to make moral judgements. I am a rational human person who is aware of certain fundamental principles of logical and moral reasoning. I think I’m qualified. Your claim that I have no right to make judgements is ITSELF a judgement about me. Your claim, therefore, is self-refuting.”[1]

 

“Who are you to judge?”

It’s a powerful rhetorical putdown, isn’t it? Yet it poses a great danger to our society. Why? Because it encourages and pushes us towards a place of moral vacuum. Where no one feels free to take responsibility to stand up for what is morally right. The long term effects of this on society are going to be felt as the years pass. But they won’t be good.

Why not? Well – when we are encouraged to deny moral absolutes, then that gives free reign for anyone to do whatever they feel like. Whether it is good and uplifting for society, or whether it wreaks horror and terror on people in society. Both are encouraged in a society where morals are relativized. Both are permissible in a “Who are you to judge?” society.

This society also just plainly doesn’t make any sense!! Beckwith described “Who are you to judge” as a self-refuting statement. What does that mean? Well – a self-refuting statement is one where the statement talks about itself and then makes the statement false. A part of the statement denies the whole. Here are some examples.

“No sentence is longer than 3 words.” Well – that sentence is 7 words long. Because this sentence exists, it denies the premise behind the statement itself. It is a self-refuting claim.

“There is no truth.” This is itself a statement OF truth. And so because this statement of truth exists…it denies the premise of the statement itself. It is a self-refuting claim.

“No one has the right to make a moral judgement about a person or society in general.” Do you see the problem? This statement is ITSELF a moral judgement. It is a heavy burden of judgement for moral human beings to bear. The person who fires this statement at us is themselves declaring a moral judgement. And so it is a self-refuting claim.

 

I think we live in an increasingly toxic culture where no one is allowed to express moral opinion. It’s often called Moral Relativism…its dangerous and illogical…

 

…and I think Moral Relativism flies in the face of how human beings are wired. Why do I say that? More to come in part 2!

[1] Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl, Relativism Feet Planted in Mid-Air, (BakerBooks, 2011), 12.

RESPONDblogs: Books that Inspired Me in 2015

Hey – would you mind if I share with you the 3 books that made a big impact on me in 2015?

 

FIRST – Shaped for Significance

Why do we do what we don’t want to do? How can I stop spending so much time regretting the habits which are pulling me downward in life? Is there any hope for experiencing freedom from this?

James Burn and Rachel Bennett give a roadmap through these difficulty and thorny issues that so many (honest) people will admit to. And they point us forward and give hope that…one day I WILL be all that God’s intended me to be.

It’s a great workbook – practical, but meaty too.

This book is published by Kingfisher Resources. It isn’t available on amazon right now…but it certainly should be!

 

SECOND – Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air

I’ve noticed that whenever the subject of morality comes up in conversations between atheists and Christians, battle lines get instantly drawn. Language turns very pointed. And people start to talk in terms of certainties and…ironically…moral outrage is never very far away. This is a powerful topic!

I believe the moral argument for the existence of God to be incredibly persuasive. But whenever I try to explain why I think that, I always feel like the person on the other side of the discussion has always got at least one pin to burst my bubble with. I’ve always felt like I am playing catchup on something that just makes intuitive sense. Humans appeal to something beyond ourselves and our culture when deciding when something is immoral.

Clearly this has been due to my own lack of understanding. Because Beckwith and Koukl’s  book has transformed my understanding of the issues. I’m clearer than ever that the moral argument for God is powerful. But I’m more studied now when it comes to the typical misunderstandings that seek to muddy the clear waters.

For example – Beckwith and Koukl spend time on a very commonly held belief within the atheist blogosphere. This idea that, human morality is something that has evolved as part of human culture…and it’s there to help our society grow and flourish.

And the authors ask:

• So are you saying then that people are MORALLY BOUND to follow the demands of society and its laws? What society are we talking about anyway?
• How many human societies today and from the past have placed highly immoral demands on their population? By your assessment, if anyone challenges society’s demands…or seeks to reform that society…then that person must be held up as the most immoral person imaginable! Yet clearly the opposite has been true. When we look at human rights reformers throughout history, we view them as heroes, not immoral villains. Why is this? Because human society is not the ultimate human moral standard – there is always a higher standard that human beings intuitively appeal to. And this sounds very much like God.
• If society determines human morality, then it is therefore impossible to reform that society because we are becoming immoral as we do. This is counter intuitive. No – to improve a society, we hold that society to an external moral standard…and we compare society with it as a measurement to see how we are doing.

This is such a brief snippet of their work here. It is brilliant. And I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a firmer grasp on a topic that sometimes feels like “a wet bar of soap in the bath”!

 

THIRD – Against the Flow by John Lennox.

If you are someone who crosses their arms and says, “Prove to me that the Bible has ANYTHING relevant to say in the 21^st century”, then my challenge to you is to read professor Lennox’s new book. It is such a scholarly look at the ancient Babylonian culture and background at the time of Daniel. You know…Old Testament Daniel…of “the lion’s den” fame.

Professor Lennox draws a striking parallel between that ancient culture…and our own in the West today. And he finds some great insight in the life of the man Daniel as he became someone of great prominence in that place at that time.

Babylon and Britain may seem far apart. Yet both are cultures where matters of faith are fine as long as they are kept private…and as long as no one is so ignorant to hold one faith system above any other. Yet in that toxic environment…Daniel lived and he worshipped God in a way that transformed that nation.

Daniel’s life and the choices he makes are a challenge to those of us today who are either

1. seeking to live as a Christian, or
2. seeking to undermine and side line Christianity entirely

 

I had the privilege of attending a lecture by Professor Lennox over the summer, and was struck again by his urge never to pitch REVELATION against REASON. Christianity is not irrational because it is built on the claim that God has acted and spoken in human history (Daniel’s story is part of that action). Rationalism is in a completely different category from God’s Revelation.

We use our reason when analysing and predicting the behaviour of the Universe God made.

But revelation does not come from the natural world – it originates beyond it.

 

Christianity is essentially a Super Natural worldview. And his revelation will often challenge our deeply held reasonable understanding of the Universe as we perceive it. That’s right – that’s what it’s supposed to do. Christianity is not anti-intellectual. It is simply a different, and Lennox argues, more logical worldview.