Or doesn’t Romans 1 imply that we are judged according to our lights? I really like the C S Lewis chapter in Aslan’s country in the Last Battle, where Emeth (“truth” or “faithfulness,”) the Calormene, who had thought he was doing right by serving Tash all his life, found that Aslan accepted his heart and intent–not because Aslan (who was good) and Tash (who was bad) were one, but because they were so different.
Well, at some point knowing the truth matters, and people are saved by Christ alone. I don’t know all it all works.
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I don’t either. I do think that just knowing and accepting God’s truth in Christ is important for our spiritual health and happiness. As NT Wright wrote, Christ came to bring the kingdom of Heaven on Earth, more than salvation for the hereafter…
Denis Lamoureux wrote that taken in extremes, Christianity (and all religions, by extension, that are exclusive) can be very Darwinian. It is helpful to me to remember that God is just and loves those of us who have not heard (or understood; it’s somewhat hard to understand and accept the gospel, too, sometimes) as those who have not.
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Whoa, I’ve been away too long. I think you’re on to something. I also think the essence of morality is far more naturalistic. Adherence to a moral code is better than nothing but far from the best we can do.
If I was Christian I would still prefer to think that the ten commandments were a good faith attempt to provide guidance at a level accessible to His audience. Or maybe, like so much of the O.T., it is just good general life advice, like what to eat or wear and so on.
But morality reduced to rule following is beneath the dignity of men, and far far beneath the dignity of His image carriers. To hear you bring this up is very uplifting for me. Sorry about being so late in responding. Sadly I’ll need to knock off and get to sleep before I catch up in the thread and I’m not sure when I’ll have time this weekend. (Family first, and my brother is bringing my niece, nephew and his wife over Monday.)
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Greetings @MarkD. Enjoy your time with your family!
Having said that about the awareness of morality, though, don’t we all have a need for something greater than us? The video @Reggie_O_Donoghue posted at “Science and the benefits of morality” was very interesting–where working for a religious good was more than just breaking things down to its parts. Matt Dillahunty vs. Science - YouTube. It could reflect simply our drive to survive.
While I’m not really confident of the Eden story’s historicity, the concept that God would give a rule (not to eat of a certain fruit) implies that the moral code is not just about us, but about willingness to subjugate our personal wills to someone else’s, regardless of whether we understand or see the reasoning behind it.
While one could still argue that the ability to deny ourselves and follow a rule, no matter what its reason, is part of our evolved social consciousness for the better good (and thus, reflected in the video’s example of the improved self control achieved by those who are religious), it doesn’t rule out that there is a reason for it (God).
Having mused in that direction, one can’t just take a rule at face value without questioning it, either. I think that may be where you’re coming from. What frightens me about absolutism is if we take it to extremes, “The Qur’an says so, so it is right”–or “the Old Testament says so, so Numbers 31 is right”–. It can (and does) lead to religious fanaticism.
I’m not sure yet of the answer to this–certainly, there are dangers. I have a deep need for God, and the thought that only a belief in Someone greater than ourselves fills a void made by Him, as Constantine said, is reasonable. However, the fact that it works in practice doesn’t make it true… Thanks for your thoughts… I look forward to more.
So I’m not clear on whether the discussion has moved to the issue of whether a universal moral code exists or whether a sense of morality could have evolved naturalistically.
I recall conversations back in med school when “materialist” friends were arguing for moral relativism on the basis of cultural conditioning. To them, nothing was absolute, even our outrage at the most seemingly egregious act of abuse on a child could be explained naturalistically.
I explained that the bigger issue isn’t whether a universal moral code exists, but rather whether absolute truth exists (which my friends wanted to deny). I argued that naturalism (as a materialistic philosophy, not evolutionary process) is logically inconsistent. It claims that everything can be explained by natural processes and that nothing exists beyond the material world. But what about the rules of logic (among other things)? Naturalists take these for granted (e.g. non-contradiction) as a priori truths essential to proving anything. When they realized they were using the laws of logic (absolutely) to deny the absolute existence of the laws of logic, and that they could not disprove anything I was saying apart from logic, they ordered another round of beers.
The issue of whether absolute truth exists is more fundamental than whether there is a universal moral code. Naturalism is either too naive or too dishonest to concede the existence of the absolute truths of the rules of logic that it takes for granted a priori in attempting to prove anything.
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Very well put. I wish I had more training in this area. Thanks.
Sorry that I wasn’t clear. I was more interested in why you were resistant to the general idea of interpreting Genesis 2-3 in an ancient context, not why you were resistant to my thoughts in particular. (I just assume you will be resistant to those. Haha.) By “the implications for the genealogies,” I simply meant the fact that you mentioned, which is the impossibility of being passed down orally for tens of thousands of years. For some people, that is the main problem. For others, the main problem is Romans 5. I was just curious about the main reason that you favored a more recent interpretation of “the man.”
I think it is a Hebrew origin story. Since the Hebrews are a relatively recent people group and probably had no concept of deep time or the evolution of humanity, I don’t think that is what the text is referring to. I don’t see any realistic oral history connection between the Hebrew people group and events that happened in Africa tens or hundreds of thousands of years prior. I am resistant to interpretations that impose our modern notions of humanity and knowledge of natural history on to the text. I don’t think it has to be describing THE fall. It is describing the fall of their ancestors, which is framed in archetypical terms, because all humans fall. Don’t most ancient cultures tell origin stories where their ancestors are the first people?
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Yes, I agree with all of that. You’re trying to read between the lines, but I haven’t given an interpretation of the text. I’ve only described certain correspondences to history. There are many more, but there are just as many “discords” as there are “concords.” My actual view, just in case you wondered, is similar to Middleton’s Reading Genesis 3 Attentive to Human Evolution: Beyond Concordism and Non-Overlapping Magisteria
I have it on my computer. One of these rainy days…
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Maybe on the second go-round. Revisions are ongoing as we speak … when I’m not “speaking” here and elsewhere, that is.
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That is intriguing. I’d like to see how you develop that. It sounds good.
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I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. I only said this because I think life and moral situations are so often too complex to resolve through the application of any system of rules. Very often we must make moral decisions by choosing between the lesser of two regrettable choices or else to do one good at the cost of foregoing another. No decision tree will substitute for having clarified one’s values and preferences in myriad circumstances.
I think I hold two unpopular positions in regards to morality. First I think the only time it is productive to dwell on moral systems is for the sake of child development, extending as far undergraduate courses in college. Rules and hierarchies make good sense for teaching young people though, no way around that. But as kids transition to adulthood they’ll need to do way more than follow rules.
My other unpopular view is especially unpopular in Christian circles. It involves moral exceptionalism. I find it unseemly past a certain age to dwell on doing the right thing. At some point that should be taken for granted so that a person can focus on their life’s work, passion, family and friends. Of course one’s passion can revolve around nurturing, helping and caring, but it need not. But then, not being a Christian, I don’t think God is obsessed with any moral accounting, nor any reward or punishment beyond the grave for that matter.
As you know, Randy, the only God I can conceive of is an entirely natural one that arises with us as a co-product of consciousness. I think moral concern in our species probably predates our modern conscious minds. That is why our conscience can seem almost independent when we make a choice that doesn’t go down well.
I have to stop here as I’m wanted for dinner, but if you have any reaction I could pick it up there when I can.
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Mark,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Maybe we can have a thread on moral definition and basis sometime. It’s intriguing because I really never had much study in that.
Lamoureux posts a paper above on evolutionary psychology, which I have been looking forward to reading (I have some time off today so may do that). I think that speaks a lot to this question. Sometimes Christians do make an icon out of absolute truth, not realizing exactly what they are defining. James K A Smith is a philosopher in Calvin College who wrote a text called “Who’s Afraid of Relativism?” which is another of my “want to reads.”
I think maybe @jasonbourne4 would be a better moderator for that sort of discussion, as I’ve had no real formal studying in that area. Randal Rauser also has several blog posts on this.
I find it interesting to read books from World War I which remind me of how strongly people react to their environment in deciding what is “evil” and “good.” L M Montgomery, in her books on Anne from Canada, wrote strongly of good triumphing over evil, and of visions of bloody soldiers holding back the darkness.Sometimes I think that JRR Tolkien absorbed that with his very strong images of “all good” and “all bad” creatures, (eg Elves and Orcs; Sauron and the Darkness coming over Middle Earth). Americans even lynched a German immigrant or two in fear of sympathies with the opposing side; and in "Surprised by Joy,"C S Lewis mentioned that the fervor for war that swept Britain at the onset of the war seemed insanely driven to fight. In contrast to the above, my family, which was 1/8 German, has a story that at the end of World War I, my great-great grandmother in Wisconsin wept for relief at the end of the War because of the family they still had in Germany.
Randal Rauser notes about ethics in stress vs ordinary situations:
"At this point, we move from metaethical questions (e.g. the truth-conditions of moral statements) and into normative ethical questions. Much ethical debate in the last two hundred years has been based on act-based moral theories, primarily deontology and utilitarianism. On these theories, ethics largely focuses on identifying particular rules or ends that will guide our action in liminal cases like the Ebola crisis.
“But in the last 30-40 years there is a growing recognition that these act-based theories are critically limited. Instead, many ethicists are proposing a return to a virtue-based approach to ethics in which we focus not on liminal cases of moral crisis but rather focus on inculcating particular virtues such as courage, selflessness, and compassion. As we inculcate these virtues, we become people of virtue and we naturally develop the wisdom to know how to act in liminal cases.”
Does that relate? Thanks.
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Randy you’ve inspired me to find that article whose link you provided above. So far, this bit early on seems promising.
“In other words, this Darwinian insight assists Christian theists to understand that the Lord creates life through natural processes, and that there is no need to posit a tinkering and micro- managing god-of-the-gaps.”
As for your modesty regarding morality, I’m not buying it. I think morality is like language in that one can be an expert user with or without formal training. You are at least that.
I look forward to returning to the article soon. Just to be clear I refer to the one titled Darwinian Theological Insights: Toward an Intellectually Fulfilled Christian Theim - Part II.
https://sites.ualberta.ca/~dlamoure/p_darwin_2.pdf
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Yes, it’s a good article.I have to read it all yet, too, but I really learned a lot from his online course (free at Coursera) in evolution last year. I’m hoping he will do a question and answer sometime soon, either on this discourse or through Biologos. He has a PhD in evolutionary biology, theology, and a doctorate in dentistry (so he can strap you down and indoctrinate you while you can’t talk in the dentist’s chair!). Actually, he’s incredibly smart. If you can keep a list of questions for him, I think he will interact. @DOL
“To be sure, human evolution is the “highest & most
interesting problem” not only for the scientist, but also
for the theologian. The implications of evolutionary
psychology for Christian theology are substantial”
These questions are addressed by a number of scholars in a recent collection of essays entitled “Finding Ourselves after Darwin: Conversations on the Image of God, Original Sin, and the Problem of Evil.” I have a superficial review of it on Amazon: Amazon.com
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