Enjoy;
Anchor Audio Link = https://anchor.fm/skeptics-and-seekers/episodes/Moral-Epistemology–The-Issue-Christians-Dont-Want-to-Talk-About-e9d4q9
Moral Epistemology, the One Christians Don’t Want to Talk About (Skeptics View)
The internet is flooded with debates on moral ontology. For Christians, it is what they call the moral argument. But it is a very limited and misleading discussion on morality. I would also say that moral ontology is the most irrelevant aspect of any discussion about morality. Most people don’t even know what it is. Yet Christians present their view as the only option, doing their best to shortcut any meaningful presentation of alternative views.
Well, not this time, not this week, not this discussion. We are going to have a real conversation about morality that includes the stuff Christians like WLC never want to talk about. There is a reason they don’t. I’m going to provide you with the keys to having a real moral argument, and why the Christian version is a cheat:
The Nature of Good
Ontology speaks to the nature of a thing. Moral ontology is the nature of morality, or the nature of good. But listen to the Christian talk about morality and you will notice that they never actually get around to defining what they mean by morality. They pretend they mean the same thing the skeptic means, but with a better foundation. That is simply not the case.
The closest the Christian comes to talking about the nature of morality is their endless rambling on objectivity. Morality must be objective as opposed to subjective. But why do they think so? It is an example of question-begging that starts with the conclusion that there must be a moral law-giver.
That is where the conversation about the nature of morals veers into the question of the origin of morals, which for the Christian amounts to the same thing. They say that there can’t be an objective moral law without there being an objective moral law-giver. Right away, we can see that this is not an honest discussion about morals, but just a delivery system for their god hypothesis. Morality is the Trojan horse for smuggling god into a conversation where he is not needed.
Definitionally, when a secularist talks about morality, they are talking about prosocial behavior. When a Christian talks about morality, they are talking about whatever god finds pleasing. These are very different things that have very few points of contact. It can be oversimplified in the following way:
- For the Christian, morality is the behavioral mandate that comes from god for god.
- For the secularist, morality is the behavioral mandate that comes from humans for humans.
If you can get a Christian to be honest about their thoughts on the nature of morality, you will find that they simply do not care about prosocial behavior that is beneficial to secular humanity. This is why some religionists can justify smashing into buildings with planes, bombing abortion clinics, and killing their kids for Jesus. They can engage in racist, homophobic, and misogynistic behavior with impunity because the good they care about is that which is from and for god. They can cheer orders to annihilate the Canaanites as long as god prevails.
When you have a conversation about morality with a Christian, be sure you are using the same definition. Hint: you’re not. They almost never actually get around to talking about the nature of good. Next time, hold their feet to the fire.
Moral Foundations
Beyond the nature of good is the foundation, the platform on which good rests. This is the heart of what the Christian wants to say when addressing the moral argument. You might simulate the good in your behavior. But you don’t actually have a philosophical underpinning for the good you perform. Obviously, this is bunk.
First, you don’t need to know anything about your moral foundation to live a prosocial life. An orangutan has no concept of philosophical foundations. But it is still a highly social creature. You no more need a philosophical basis for anything you do than does a centipede need to understand the science of moving 100 legs to get around.
The second thing Christians attempt to do is establish that morality is objective and god is the only way to ground it. In other words, if you agree that there are objective moral duties, then your only option is god as your moral foundation. Even if you don’t believe in god, he is the only game in town for morality. This is a damned lie! And you should stop falling for it like suckers at a Christian carnival. You should know by now that all of their games are rigged!
Understand that there is not a single prosocial behavior demonstrated by man that is not demonstrated by other beasts. And every such behavior can be explained naturalistically. Prosocial behavior is easy to understand. Antisocial behavior is where things get harry for the Christian. There are all manner of naturalistic explanations for behavioral anomalies. However, the Christian has to invent more magical answers to explain antisocial behavior.
There is never any need to appeal to the supernatural to understand why we do what we do. A reasonably straight line can be drawn from the beginnings of humanity through the biological and social evolution that brings us to where and who we are today. Positing gods and trans-dimensional souls and sin diseases as the foundation is unnecessary. Better explanations are closer at hand.
The Ontological Sleight of Hand
Here is the last I will say about moral ontology, and the last you should think about it. Moral ontology is a cheat. It can’t even get off the ground without borrowing from moral epistemology, the only moral argument that matters. It goes something like this:
The Christian will make a claim that there are objective moral truths. Then they make an emotional appeal. While they are tugging at your heartstrings with one hand, they are cutting your purse with the other to steel your moral epistemology, the thing they say they are not there to talk about.
Their appeal will be an attempt to shame you into granting something like, rape is wrong, or torturing babies for fun is bad. What kind of monster would dare deny these obvious moral truths? But you need not fall for this ruse. Rather, you should go on the offensive as they are using moral epistemology to make their case. You should demand they tell you why rape is wrong, or why killing babies is wrong.
Moral epistemology speaks to moral knowledge. What things are right and wrong, and how do we know it. The Christian is making an epistemological claim that we know certain things are wrong without saying how, or establishing that it is wrong by any metric other than your emotional tolerance.
Conflating Agreement and Intuition with Objectivity
Don’t take your eye off the ball just yet. Christians are not done with their bait and switch routine. They next try to convince you that shared moral intuition is the same as moral objectivity. If everyone agrees that torturing babies for fun is wrong, then it must be wrong. But this appeal to prosocial ethics has nothing to do with a god-centric morality. Agreement does not point to truth. It merely points to consensus. Christians don’t actually believe in moral consensus. So don’t let them get away with it here.
The fact that we might all agree on something does not mean that we are right in the grand scheme of things. We can all agree that 1 + 1 = 3. But our agreement would not make it true. So push back when the Christian implies that agreement on certain moral intuitions is indicative of deeper truth generated by some magical spirit substance.
Here’s the key: If you don’t know why we have certain agreement on some moral intuitions, it is okay to say you don’t know. I think we can do better than I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. The Christian is the one making the argument that morality points to god. If they have a theory for why some moral intuitions are more or less universal, make them offer a claim. Then require them to justify it. Watch how quickly it devolves into an appeal to magic. Your “I don’t know” is better than their “because magic.”
The Forbidden Fruit
Test question for useless bonus points: Does any Christian out there know what the forbidden fruit was? One of the more monstrous elements of the Eden story is that god diabolically withheld the knowledge of good and evil from the first humans, while at the same time, locking them in a garden cage with the most evil creature ever made. The name of the forbidden tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Let that sink in for a moment. The one thing god could not countenance was that humans might know good from evil. This was a quality he reserved for himself. Part of the story from chapter 3 reads like this:
And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil…
Moral judgement is all about the ability to navigate the difference between right and wrong. God does not actually call for moral creatures. He calls for obedient creatures. Christians don’t love one another because it is prosocial. They love one another because god told them to do so. Obedience is not morality. It is only acquiescence to authority. We are actually forbidden to use our own judgement to determine what is right and wrong. One of the most scathing social commentaries in the Bible is that at one point, every man was doing what was right in his own eyes. How dare us exhibit moral autonomy.
Remember the story of the Tower ob Babel? It is one of my favorites in the Bible. Did you ever ask yourself why building the tower was wrong? The story really doesn’t say. It just makes some indefinite noises about the people building a tower to heaven, or perhaps just a skyscraper. Who knows? What we do know is that the people had learned to cooperate well enough to form large cities. They were able to get along, learn from one another, and develop a highly functional society. God didn’t like it because he wasn’t the center of of it, or something like that. Threatened by humans navigating right and wrong for themselves (and being highly successful at it), god destroyed it and made sure they couldn’t have peaceful and productive communication. That’s the god of the Bible.
God does not care about your moral efforts even when they’re good. He cares about your obedience and sycophantic worship. This digression into the forbidden fruit was necessary because it is important to know who the god of the Bible is as opposed to the modern god of the academics. Now that the table is set, we can have a real moral argument, one that actually includes morals:
Know Good
Moral epistemology is all about knowing the good. While I do not believe in objective goodness, I do believe we can know what is right and wrong in most situations. To say that something is objectively good would be to say that it obtains even if there were no people in social relationship with one another.
An example would be saying a swear word. My interlocutor would say that uttering such a word would be wrong even if there were no one to hear it. And I would say it is only wrong or right depending on a careful evaluation of the social situation. It is not an objectively true proposition that one should never utter swear words. But it might be socially proper to refrain from doing so in some situations.
How do we know the good in any situation? First, we can dismiss the Christian claims out of hand. The only means by which they can claim to know the good is knowing the god. They will never be able to offer a satisfactory explanation for how they know the god of their good. With Plantinga, they can babble on about properly basic beliefs. Or they can appeal to the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. Or they might even try suggesting that they get their marching orders from the Bible. But all such explanations fail to the simple reality that Christians who share all these things do not agree on matters of right and wrong with regard to very important issues.
This lack of agreement is only one reason you can dismiss any attempt at moral epistemology from the Christian. They also are inconsistent from one moment in their lives to another. One moment, they are convinced that their warranted properly basic belief is that homosexuality in all its forms is wrong and should be vigorously opposed. Given a little time, maturity, and a change of circumstances, they come to the opposite conclusion. They don’t know what they are talking about, and are just doing their best to figure it out like the rest of us. God offers them no advantage when it comes to knowing good.
But it is not enough to dismiss the Christian’s pathetic attempt at moral epistemology. What about the secularist? How do we know good? It isn’t any easier for us. In fact, it’s tougher. Here’s why:
Moral Goals
There are no moral truths without moral goals. The answer to the Christian’s insincere question about why we seem to have so much moral agreement is that we largely share the same moral goals as humans. If the whole family shares the goal of going to Disneyland, they have to agree upon certain prerequisites. One minor example is that they all will have to agree to get in the car and go to the airport assuming that is the only way for them to get there. One member of the family can’t just sit stubbornly in the house and refuse to leave and expect to share in the same outcome of arriving at the destination with the family.
Therefore, it is not a mystery that at some point, everyone has their bags packed and find themselves in the car together headed for the airport. One would not seek a supernatural explanation for that because shared goals are explanation enough.
The reason we can mostly determine the right thing to do in a given situation is that we have a shared set of mostly compatible, human goals. Society breaks down when those goals diverge too much. We all want our kids to get a good education and do well in life. So it makes sense that we develop similar ideas about the best kinds of schools for them that are in keeping with our budget and other factors.
There is no objective right way to vote on a ballot measure about local schools. Two Christians can pray all they like. They are not necessarily going to come up with the same answer. We are navigating hard choices based on similar goals and starting points. But neither is exactly the same. Still, we mostly agree on the kind of society we want to have. So that makes the negotiation possible. We will try it your way today. And if that doesn’t produce good results, we will try it my way tomorrow. That is how we figure out the good.
The Christian will try to disrupt the flow by bringing up social anomalies. What about the person who finds it satisfying to defy the social good? This is not a difficult question. It is just that the answer is unpleasant. It is never a mystery why a person would want to behave selfishly to satisfy the desires of her own lusts. That is the easiest thing in the world to explain. It is more a wonder that so many of us have come to agreement on the kind of society we want to have. And that didn’t happen overnight.
Social evolution has been happening over millions of years, as long as there have been hominids. We did try less prosocial behaviors. Those people died out. Those animals did not survive. That is the ugly truth. We didn’t get here because there was a set of right ways of thinking written on our hearts. We got here because the less successful ways of being proved to be, well, less successful. We have the moral goals we have because those are the goals that worked to get us here. Mystery solved.
Getting It Wrong
I don’t believe in good and evil as formulated by Christians. By definition, that form of good is following the will of god. And evil and disobeying the will of god. Since I do not believe in god, I don’t believe in those concepts. So when a person behaves in a antisocial way, I don’t tend to think of them as evil. Again, don’t let the Christian try to confuse you with emotional games involving Hitler and the like.
Even so, a good society has to do something with antisocial people who do it real damage. While I do not believe people are evil, I do believe there are plenty of people who are not right for society. A person with the type of mental illness that makes them want to indiscriminately kill innocent people cannot be allowed to run free in a good society. Such a place would quickly devolve into a form of hell.
Dale talks about the quarantine theory of dealing with people not fit for Heaven. I have similar thoughts on the secular end about what to do with people who for whatever reason, cannot fit into our society. The difference being that god could fix the sin-sick and make them fit for heaven. We don’t have any such magic available to us. As an organism, humanity has to decide that it cannot allow its Hitlers to remain in power. If we want to survive, we will and mostly do agree on that.
Getting it wrong does not mean you have violated some objectively right standard. It just means that you violated the norms of your chosen society. You can always choose a different society that is more in line with the way you think. We can continue to run the social experiment of what kind of society has the better survival value. Some cultures die out. Choose wisely.
Conclusion: Role Models
None of us are perfect. And we all look to others for examples of the best way to navigate the moral landscape. Christians use the gods of the Bible as role models. Since I have actually read the Bible, I find this to be a nonstarter.
If you wake up one day and discover that you are a god with a hankering to create a lesser world with lesser beings and you have the ability to do so without including a forbidden tree and an evil snake, be sure to leave those things off. If you have the ability to end slavery for all time by clearly telling your people not to own other people as slaves, do that.
If your chosen people (and why on earth are you choosing a people) find themselves enslaved, and you can free them without killing any innocent children in the process, do that. If you can protect the genome from disease, do that. If you can make a law that says not to kill homosexuals and people who commit adultery, do that.
If you can forgive people by means other than blood, do that. If you can redeem all people without a human sacrifice, do that. If you can come up with some sort of endgame for the people who don’t fit well into your society besides shoving them into the same pit as demons, do that. Do almost anything other than what these gods did time and time again.
Pick better role models. Really, pick me. I didn’t have to change my mind. There was never a time I thought slavery was good. I never thought testing a person by telling him to kill his kid was okay. And I will never condemn you to any form of hell that could be avoided by me just doing a better job of putting you together in the first place.
I’m a better role model you have in the Bible. And I’m not even a good one. Pick your neighbor who works hard to keep their family from knowing anything other than a good life. Choose the person who entered politics so they could make the world a slightly better place. Choose the janitor of your kid’s school who may not be able to pass the tests in that building, but knows the value of providing a clean environment for learning.
Choose anybody, any role model other than someone who worships a god who didn’t want them to know the difference between good and evil or how to navigate it. Choose someone who takes moral responsibility and who makes the tough decisions. They will occasionally get it wrong. And so will you. But at least they are making the hard choices as fully realized adults rather than punting the decision to their sky daddy who will punish them for thinking for themselves.
By all means, do what is right in your own eyes, your human eyes that see your human future in terms of human limits and human goals. I will take the morality produced by the social evolution of your humanity over that of a god any day.
And that’s the view from the skeptic.
David Johnson
Christian Response (by Jayman777)
One of our Christian listeners and fellow blogger (who I, Dale really find to be informed on the substantive issues) wrote a blog response to David. Please everyone check out his blog as Jayman777 is someone who’s opinion is worthy of consideration, see his blog artile here = https://biblicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2019/12/06/re-moral-epistemology-the-issue-christians-dont-want-to-talk-about/
Pasted Below (with permission);
Upon seeing the title Moral Epistemology, the One Christians Don’t Want to Talk About at the Skeptics and Seekers blog I knew I had to talk about it. While an audio file will apparently be posted, I am responding to the text. I’ll follow his headings to aid in following along.
The Nature of the Good
The skeptic, David Johnson, gets off on the wrong foot immediately by characterizing Christians as holding to a simple divine command theory of ethics, as if other positions are not held. In what he admits is an oversimplification he writes:
- For the Christian, morality is the behavioral mandate that comes from god for god.
- For the secularist, morality is the behavioral mandate that comes from humans for humans.
This omits natural law moral theory from the discussion. This theory claims “that standards of morality are in some sense derived from, or entailed by, the nature of the world and the nature of human beings.”
Johnson claims that Christians “almost never actually get around to talking about the nature of good.” What kind of good do I have in mind?
This position stands apart from theories that define the good (1) in relation to the desires of God or (2) in relation to the desires of humans.
Moral Foundations
Johnson goes on to claim that it is bunk when Christians say atheists lack a philosophical underpinning to explain the nature of the good. He appears to define the good as prosocial behavior. Unfortunately he does not elaborate. What makes prosocial behavior good? I might say prosocial behavior is good because it perfects or completes the social nature of human beings. Johnson offers no comparable statement. This response is off the mark:
[Y]ou don’t need to know anything about your moral foundation to live a prosocial life. An orangutan has no concept of philosophical foundations. But it is still a highly social creature.
But I need a philosophical foundation to identify good and evil and to distinguish good from evil. How do I know whether my behavior is prosocial or antisocial? These are the questions humans ask and orangutans don’t.
The Ontological Sleight of Hand
Johnson continues:
Here is the last I will say about moral ontology, and the last you should think about it. Moral ontology is a cheat. It can’t even get off the ground without borrowing from moral epistemology. . . . Moral epistemology speaks to moral knowledge. What things are right and wrong, and how do we know it. The Christian is making an epistemological claim that we know certain things are wrong without saying how, or establishing that it is wrong by any metric other than your emotional tolerance.
It is not clear why moral ontology and moral epistemology are played off against each other. Are they not closely related? The SEP entry on “Moral Epistemology” states that the question, How is moral knowledge possible?, marks a cluster of problems, including ontological problems. What is striking is that Johnson offers no defense of his own moral epistemology or moral ontology.
Conflating Agreement and Intuition with Objectivity
Here’s the key: If you don’t know why we have certain agreement on some moral intuitions, it is okay to say you don’t know. I think we can do better than I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter.
But it does matter when the skeptic has given it a lot of thought and found no answers consistent with an atheistic worldview. At some point the atheist may have to decide whether (1) morality is as non-existent as he believes God to be or (2) that theists have a superior worldview that can explain things like morality.
The Forbidden Fruit
In this section our author interprets the accounts in Genesis poorly. In an earlier post, I explain why I believe eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is best understood as an act of moral autonomy rather than the means by which Adam and Eve gained moral knowledge.
Johnson says the story of the Tower of Babel does not say why the building of the tower was wrong. Yet that doesn’t stop him from providing his own unflattering reasons why God destroyed the tower. If interested, see my earlier commentary on the passage.
Know Good
In this section Johnson again assumes Christians will all appeal to the Bible, the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, and the like. No awareness of a natural law position is evident. He also says you can dismiss the moral epistemology of Christians because they disagree with each other. No explanation is given for why we should not dismiss his own secular moral epistemology because secularists disagree with each other.
Moral Goals
There are no moral truths without moral goals. The answer to the Christian’s insincere question about why we seem to have so much moral agreement is that we largely share the same moral goals as humans.
My position is that all humans share a human nature.
The reason we can mostly determine the right thing to do in a given situation is that we have a shared set of mostly compatible, human goals.
This answer does not explain how we can determine the right thing to do. What is the right thing to do when we have conflicting goals? I take it that by “goals” he means something like “desires.” How can a desire or the object of desire be good or bad? As usual when discussing morality with everyday atheists, I get the impression that morality comes down to the strongest or most numerous are right because they are the strongest or most numerous.
There is no objective right way to vote on a ballot measure about local schools. . . . We are navigating hard choices based on similar goals and starting points. But neither is exactly the same. Still, we mostly agree on the kind of society we want to have. So that makes the negotiation possible. We will try it your way today. And if that doesn’t produce good results, we will try it my way tomorrow. That is how we figure out the good.
This merely raises the question of how we know whether the results are good? We can imagine the majority wanting to dumb down the children and successfully doing so. Is that result good or bad? Why? I would say it’s bad because knowledge perfects and completes are rational nature, regardless of how many people vote otherwise.
The Christian will try to disrupt the flow by bringing up social anomalies. What about the person who finds it satisfying to defy the social good? This is not a difficult question. It is just that the answer is unpleasant. It is never a mystery why a person would want to behave selfishly to satisfy the desires of her own lusts.
Johnson answers a question the Christian is not asking. We are not asking why a person may behave selfishly. We are asking why selfishness is wrong. How do you even know what the social good is that is being defied?
Social evolution has been happening over millions of years. . .. We did try less prosocial behaviors. Those people died out. . . . We didn’t get here because there was a set of right ways of thinking written on our hearts. We got here because the less successful ways of being proved to be, well, less successful. We have the moral goals we have because those are the goals that worked to get us here. Mystery solved.
This still doesn’t explain what makes survival good and death bad.
In the end we are left with what sounds like moral relativism:
Getting it wrong does not mean you have violated some objectively right standard. It just means that you violated the norms of your chosen society. You can always choose a different society that is more in line with the way you think. We can continue to run the social experiment of what kind of society has the better survival value. Some cultures die out. Choose wisely.
This plays right into the hands of Christians who argue atheists can’t ground objective morality. We appear to have a morality grounded in the subjective desires of human beings.
Conclusion: Role Models
Despite what sounded like moral relativism above, Johnson appears to think slavery is a moral evil. But how can this be when it’s possible a culture that practices slavery may survive while a culture that does not practice slavery may perish? This sounds like a man trying to have it both ways.
Speaking of adopting role models, he writes:
Choose someone who takes moral responsibility and who makes the tough decisions. They will occasionally get it wrong.
This clashes with his earlier statement, “While I do not believe people are evil, I do believe there are plenty of people who are not right for society.” Someone who takes moral responsibility doesn’t just get credit for the good. They get credit for the bad too.
Skeptics and Seekers 
Since WLC is the one that feels the soldiers were the real victims when god commanded them to kill all the men, women, children and babies, I’m pretty sure you just lost the argument this week by posting something he wrote.
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Darren,
Well WLC has his opinion and I mine, I’m not bound to him just cause I post him up to save me time. In fact, tomorrow, I will be introducing people to Dale the lay Christian in responding to David’s claims. Dale the Scholar is taking a break this week. Dale the Seeker might make an appearance 😛
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Hi, Dale,
I think we might have to start referring to you as “Triune Dale.”🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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Lol Dale the Scholar, Dale the Seeker and Dale the Lay Christian, just don’t baptize anybody under those names and I think we got a deal. The only problem is my multiple roles advance modalism- the “Triune Dale” is literally a walking heresy lol 😛
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Well, Dale, I guess birds of a feather . . . Lol!!!!!
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Well for the third week in a row, I’ll give my 2c.
Some time ago, I was on the radio show Unbelievable?, and I challenged Justin Brierley and Randal Rauser with the following question. Can you look at a person and tell him or her the you would not rape them because it violated his or her bodily autonomy. Sadly, neither Justin or Randal could answer yes to that very simple question. Also sadly, the version of the podcast that is now available has that direct question edited out by the folks at Premier Christian Radio. Nevertheless, you can hear Randal Rouser’s reply, and while couched in some philosophy, the answer for Randal and not rejoined by Justin was no. The show will be in your favorite pod catcher dated Aug. 24, 2018. To hear that segment, you should start ~00:25:00.
I’ll simply say this. If you are speaking to someone who can’t say to you that he or she will not harm you because you have value in yourself and they would not violate your bodily autonomy, you should make sure that while you are in their presence their hands are always in clear view. You see, if that person cannot, they are not thinking about you, and in the Christian case, there is probably some view of substitutionary atonement that gives that person a get out of jail free card, despite what might happen to you at his or her hands.
He or she can go on and on about being as wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove, but when that person exercises the instincts of a serpent, he or she needs not work overly hard to repair the insult to you because they don’t necessarily want or need you. He or she is always seeking the favor of the version of god held between the ears.
On to grounding, humans are social creatures, and it is written into our DNA. While it is true that not all individuals feel equally compelled, due to differences in individual makeup, each of us has brain structures responsible for management of empathy, as well as that of ego. These brain centers are well studied and documented, and we can describe with great precision the change in behavior a person will experience when one or more of these centers is injured, diseased, or poorly developed due to environmental conditions.
Keep this in mind because the usual Christian ploy regarding ethics is smoke and mirrors. It goes something like this. What if we all suddenly agreed that boiling children was acceptable? Would it suddenly be acceptable or is there something that makes it wrong? Well yes, there is something that makes it wrong — those social instincts. And, they are much les unpredictable than the ethics of the supposed Christian god. It, that god, might through a great misunderstanding write something on your heart. But your social drive is written in every cell and normal broad development made sure you have empathy.
However, we do have outliers who are willing to cast fellow humans aside for hope at a fictional eternal life. So, I’ll say again, keep their hands in sight because it is possible that he or she will want something from their notion of god much more than he or she values the idea of your wellbeing. At its core, this is Christian selfishness written indelibly of the fabric of our shared society. You have been warned.
I’ll close with an acerbic note this time around. How many failed Christians do we need? How often does this idea of a god need to sit in the corner while children pay the price? How many third world countries need to remain in poverty? How long will we go on chasing a phantom god when the best grounding of ethics is one we all share — humanity.
— Andrew Knight
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Andrew,
Are you saying Justin edited the show after it aired to remove bits that made him look bad or he did the editing prior to airing the show altogether?
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It’s great when the comments precede the show. I don’t want to tip my hand. But I will just offer one little nugget for conversation before we record:
I didn’t know Dale would be dropping in Craig’s article until just a moment ago. And already, I have a challenge: Craig says “First, if God exists, objective moral values exist.” Really? How do we know that? How did we come to the conclusion that if a god exists, then objective moral values must follow?
For a more coherent thought, Craig could say that if a god exists that embodies objective morals, then objective moral values exist. You see how much the Christian just presupposes? To get his argument off the ground, Craig needs to presume not just a god, but his particular, unprovable formulation of a god. I could easily say that if fairies exist, then no objective moral values exist because in my formulation, fairies are the ground of all emotional truth. And they are quite precocious. So because fairies are precocious, we all are.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to see what happens. I honestly have no idea how it is going to go.
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I’m always amused by “If god exists…” We don’t talk about air pollution in the same way. We don’t run around saying “If fossil fuel combustion engines exist then air pollution exists.” We simply take samples of air and compare the to the exhaust of fossil fuel combustion engines — all done.
I don’t argue with my friends that if my girlfriend exists my child exists. I just introduce them.
I guess god is not particularly interested in buying tickets to W. L. Craig events. But, I think I understand that one. 🙂
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David: “Craig says ‘First, if God exists, objective moral values exist.'”
Hi David,
In reading the Bible, it appears that the moral values sometimes change. At one point God seems to say “don’t shed human blood (kill)” and at other points God seems to say “kill these people.” Hard to see that these are objective values if they change.
Brian
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I just read the blog David. Very well said and laid out. And then Dale was kind enough to include the perfect example of what you are talking about. So it ended up being a win-win for you. 🙂
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Hey everyone,
One of our Christian listeners and fellow blogger (who I, Dale really find to be informed on the substantive issues) named Jayman777 wrote a blog response to David. We are asking him if we can remove the WLC and use his blog instead as he directly refutes David’s skeptical nonsense (lol jk) above. Just in case, we can’t do so, please everyone check out his blog as he is someone who’s opinion is worthy of consideration, see his blog artile here = https://biblicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2019/12/06/re-moral-epistemology-the-issue-christians-dont-want-to-talk-about/
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An interesting blog post. Thanks for sharing it.
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2 things:
The show is posted. Dale had to cut out early. But Andrew filled in at the last minute with no heads-up and gave us another hour and a half of discussion. No one saw it coming. No one asked for it. Yet we delivered it anyway. Enjoy.
The second thing is that we have the text for the guest post and it will be replacing the WLC doggerel soon. 🙂
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I already took it out for you David, so everything is now good to go blog/Podcast wise- curious were you or Andrew the Christian side? Anyways, back to fun studying 😦
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I have always contended that the god of the Bible does not call on people to be moral, but obedient. Any Christians want to comment on the following bit from the article?
Test question for useless bonus points: Does any Christian out there know what the forbidden fruit was? One of the more monstrous elements of the Eden story is that god diabolically withheld the knowledge of good and evil from the first humans, while at the same time, locking them in a garden cage with the most evil creature ever made. The name of the forbidden tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Let that sink in for a moment. The one thing god could not countenance was that humans might know good from evil. This was a quality he reserved for himself. Part of the story from chapter 3 reads like this:
And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil…
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Hi David and Dale,
I’m only part-way through listening but was really surprised that David said he didn’t believe in moral duties or obligations. And that he didn’t believe in “oughts.” (Please correct me if I’m wrong about what David said.) This really surprised me in that I had read one of David’s blogs (BSC Weekly) where he seemed to feel it was wrong for Catholic priests not to turn criminals who went to Confession into the police. To me, David seemed to be saying that the Catholic priests “ought” to turn criminals into the police. That Catholic priests had a moral duty or obligation to turn criminals into the police. So, clearly I’ve either misunderstood David’s point in either his BSC Weekly blog or in this podcast.
David, do you feel Catholic priests have a moral duty to turn criminals into the police?
David, do you feel Catholic priests ought to turn criminals into the police?
Thanks and looking forward to having some misconceptions cleared up,
Brian
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First, I’m not going to get in the habit of addressing comments on one podcast concerning what I said on another. So please direct those questions to the proper comment section. Thanks.
I don’t believe in moral oughts. That only sounds shocking because you are bought into Christian language patterns. I also don’t believe in morality as Christians formulate it. Remember that for them, all morality comes from god. And I don’t believe in god. So that pretty much makes it impossible to believe in moral oughts as the Christian formulates the concept.
But I do believe in prosocial behavior as opposed to antisocial and socially detrimental behavior. Concealing and protecting dangerous criminals who hurt people is about as antisocial as it gets. Please explain in secular terms why you would be confused or scandalized by that. Thanks.
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Hi David,
My apologies if I crossed a line by referencing another podcast. I had thought I’d seen posts referencing other podcasts (such as “Unbelievable”) and didn’t realize it was a breach of etiquette. I’ll try to do better in the future.
So, am I correct that you do believe in “oughts” and just not “moral oughts?” Or do you not believe in any “oughts”? I’m not sure that I understand the difference between an “ought” and a “moral ought.”
So, do you believe people have a duty to turn criminals into the police – just not a moral duty?
And, do you believe people ought to turn criminals into the police – but that this wouldn’t be a “moral ought?”
David, you say you believe in prosocial behavior – do you feel people “ought” to engage in prosocial behavior?
Do you believe people have a duty to not engage in antisocial and socially detrimental behavior?
Wanting to make sure that I accurately understand your position,
Brian
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You are still thinking like a Christian stuck in the mindset of objective morality. What is an ought? You are suggesting that in every situation, there is a right thing to do as determined by… Who, exactly? So in that regard, there are no oughts.
I don’t need to talk about objective oughts to say that a Catholic priest should not conceal criminals. We have the goal of a good society where kids are kept safe from predators. That simply cannot be accomplished if active predators are given safe harbor. I know what kind of world I want. And if you want the same kind of world, it is hard to imagine that you disagree. The rest is Christian semantics.
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David: “I don’t need to talk about objective oughts to say that a Catholic priest should not conceal criminals.”
Hi David,
I never used the adjective “objective.”
What is the difference between saying “a person ought not conceal criminals” and “a person should not conceal criminals?”
I thought they meant the same thing.
Showing my ignorance,
Brian
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It is all about intent and subtext. The Christian subtext is that there is an objective out because morality is objective. So I don’t like to use that language in discussions like this. All a secularist is saying is that in the kind of society we want to have, then there are best practices to get there.
There are things we can do for the best outcome, and things we can do for the worst outcome. And if we want the best society, then we need to maximize that which produces the best outcomes and minimize those things which produce the worst.
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David: “It is all about intent and subtext. The Christian subtext is that there is an objective out because morality is objective. So I don’t like to use that language in discussions like this. All a secularist is saying is that in the kind of society we want to have, then there are best practices to get there.
There are things we can do for the best outcome, and things we can do for the worst outcome. And if we want the best society, then we need to maximize that which produces the best outcomes and minimize those things which produce the worst.”
Hi David,
So, are you saying there are certain words you don’t like to use because you feel they have been coopted by Christians and their meanings changed, or subtext added? Words like “moral” and “objective” and “ought?”
When I look at a thesaurus for “ought” I see “should” and “need.” Would words like “should” or “need” be more comfortable for you to use? I ask, in part, because in the earlier post you did use the word “should.”
I see in the above you use the word “need” in “we need to”. To me that is pretty much the same as saying “we ought to” or “we should”. Is there a difference in your mind (other than “ought” has might have some Christian intent and subtext)?
Wanting to understand your position,
Brian
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I have no problem with those words as long as they are understood in a secular, non-philosophical context. I do not exactly abandon words like ought to Christians. I am just careful about how I use them in a Christian audience where someone is always looking for a gotcha.
I tend to prefer ethics to morals because there is simply too much religious baggage with a word like morals. So I have to parse carefully to avoid misunderstanding, like the one you are having now. Many people would like to take me out of context and catch me in a verbal trap. It is not going to happen today. 🙂 I don’t know where you are in the podcast, but much of this is explained throughout the course of the discussion.
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Hey Brian,
You are entirely correct about there not being anything wrong with citing other Podcasts, that said under the new rules David is in charge of his own blogs on his week to pick out a topic and I’m in charge of my weeks topics blogs/comments.
So as this is David’s playground I back him up with whatever rules he has, but just be aware that on my weeks I have no such restrictions, your free to reference any and all Podcasts or blogs or whatever- I like the interconnetivity and sharing of knowledge, so feel free to continue to do so on my weeks 🙂
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Well spotted Brian, I love the inter-connectivity of consistency. I agree with you that skeptics can pay lip service to there not being any moral duties or objective “oughts” but when push comes to shove they reveal the truth of their thinking in other contexts 🙂
Edit- Sorry I wrote this prior to seeing David’s objection to discussing other Podcasts on his week’s topi blogs.
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Dale, you are trying to create a difference that doesn’t exist. I didn’t cite any rule or protocol. I said I will not be in the habit of answering to one podcast on another. That will be true no matter whose week it is. I write thousands of words a week that end up in different places and will not be chasing down what the context was on one site while dealing with a discussion on another. That’s me.
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David,
OK great, I’m not trying to create a difference, I’m just trying to respect your authority on your boards and clarify for the sake of our listeners so they understand why they saw Unbelievable stuff on my blogs.
But yeah, fine there is no rule, but David simply won’t respond personally if I reference another blog/Podcast- OK fine, that’s cool, whatever you want.
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David: “Dale, you are trying to create a difference that doesn’t exist. I didn’t cite any rule or protocol. I said I will not be in the habit of answering to one podcast on another. That will be true no matter whose week it is. I write thousands of words a week that end up in different places and will not be chasing down what the context was on one site while dealing with a discussion on another. That’s me.”
Hi David,
I know that I’m a guest here – and I appreciate the blogs and podcasts done by you and Dale. I’m happy with any of the rules or customs that you and Dale have in place. I seek to learn and not cause disharmony or breach any customs of etiquette.
Thanks again for letting me participate,
Brian
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Dale is the one concerned about rules, not me. You can worry about them on his weeks. Between Dale and me, I am the only one who has never banned anyone, blocked or deleted a person’s comments, or anything of the sort. I did temporarily lock a thread to get the excessive shroud talk relocated to the appropriate shroud forums. But those posts are still up there for all to see. And the thread was quickly reopened with no editing. You don’t have to worry about running afoul of my rules. I don’t really have any. Again, Dale is the one who cares about that.
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David,
Lol, I love how immature you are to try and turn this into a competition or something- what a bizarre reaction to someone catering to whatever you want or don’t want on your blogs in terms of the new policy we came too. I have rules related to bad conduct or behaviour- no threats, no swearing, no doxing, no sexually explicit words or images, etc. Its pretty standard stuff- I blocked Tara with your agreement b/c she threatened people for sharing their opinions on the Boards and I’m about free speech on the substantive issues without repercussion, threatening people leads to fear of free expression which is against the purpose of having discussion Boards in the first place.
You on the other hand are the only one who has ever quarantined and threatened people for the substantive content they post and thereby censored their freedom of expression on the actual issues themselves. For example David is the one who tells Teddi what she can and can’t talk about on his Boards and shuts them down for everyone arbitrarily (in violation of the agreed upon policy at the Season 2 premiere) when he doesn’t get his way, scolds Brian for asking about the Trinity under his topic’s Boards despite that being the topic one week earlier and there never having been an issue of continuing convos from week to week before and now he scolds Brian for comparing his contradictory statements on the BSC podcast compared to this show. Everyone saw how I ran my Boards last week, it was the best commenting session we ever had according to David, multiple skeptics called me dishonest and said things I took issue with, no complaint on my end as a moderator (except for one minor warning to Andrew not to swear)- I ran that Board like a boss, but the kind of boss everyone likes cause they do it fairly and openly fostering people’s desire to discuss any and all substantive issues that get started up on them.
I know who I’d trust to be fair in terms of commenting policy- its the guy who likes to have a set of fair rules posted up front for everyone in advance and which are consistent with other bloggers and Podcast sites limiting only bad behaviour not the substantive content of what people are allowed to discuss and the guy who sticks to those rules once in place as agreed for the sake of the audience and doesn’t arbitrarily change the rules in the middle of the season to suit their own purposes when things aren’t going the way they like it.
David says has no rules according to him, OK great, let’s test that out by posting blatantly racist neo-Nazi material, let’s see how quickly he will clamp down on that (and rightly so by the way but please don’t pretend you don’t have rules)- this pretending he is better than me as though its a competition as to runs their Boards the best is truly odd and bizarre to me. But hey, he says no rules, OK Teddi pepper him with Shroud comments on his week and ignore his topics altogether, let’s see if he steps in to do something about it.
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Hi, Dale,
You don’t have to ask me twice to talk about the Shroud! 😉 I just got finished listening to both halves of the podcast –another great one (part 1 & 2), indeed!!
Atheists just don’t get that if there is no supreme moral law giver, everybody is free to do whatever they want to whomever they want. Just because some people won’t rape and pillage doesn’t mean other people won’t. Then, the only thing to settle who gets to do whatever is which side is the strongest and/or survives a fight.
With the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible, we, as humans, are endowed by God with unalienable rights –just like Thomas Jefferson referenced in the Declaration of Independence. God gives us the right to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We, as humans, have value, because we are made in the image of God. As such, we are to respect our fellow man, and God gives us our laws by way of the Bible. What the Bible doesn’t guide us on, we use the good judgment that we have acquired from what we have learned from the Bible to make the best decisions that we can that fit within the spirit of how God wants us to behave.
I’m going to try and check in as much as I can while you’re studying for finals, although the next two weeks I’m going to be a bit slammed, myself. But, I will hold down the fort as best I can –although, it usually feels like I’m playing a game of whack-a-mole! 😉
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You said:
Atheists just don’t get that if there is no supreme moral law giver, everybody is free to do whatever they want to whomever they want. Just because some people won’t rape and pillage doesn’t mean other people won’t. Then, the only thing to settle who gets to do whatever is which side is the strongest and/or survives a fight.
A supreme moral law giver does not solve that problem. The head of state could be a moral law giver. So what? We, the people can be the moral law givers? It doesn’t matter. You still have the same problems. So let’s just agree for the sake of this argument that god and the Bible are the supreme moral law givers. Progress that thought a few steps.
People who want to rape and pillage will still rape and pillage. Your law says that it is wrong. But you are dealing with people who do not bow down to that law or its law-giver. You are still left with enforcement. And if you have something like democracy (a thing Christians seem to enjoy), then you will also have to have something like pluralism. So not everyone in your citizenry will accept your god or your bible as supreme. And they can vote for what they want. Do you propose we abolish democracy and pluralism? How exactly would that work? The founders you like to cite didn’t think that was a good idea.
You complain that the side that wins is the strongest side in a fight. How is that different with god as supreme law-giver? Have you not counted all the holy wars in the Bible? War was such a way of life that David’s little incident with the married woman starts off with the observation that it was during the time when the kings were usually off to war. The chant was that Saul killed his thousands and David his ten thousands. Success was measured by body count.
How did god handle enforcement? He would either allow his people to win wars when they were righteous, or cause them to lose by way of punishment. God imposed his will by strength not reason. So how exactly did you imagine things would be different under god as supreme law-giver? And since secular law is perfectly able to outlaw rape, plunder, and pillage, you are still not engaging with the topic of moral epistemology. No insult intended when I say that you just don’t seem to be tracking with the argument.
The closes you come to addressing the argument is when you said the following:
God gives us our laws by way of the Bible. What the Bible doesn’t guide us on, we use the good judgment that we have acquired from what we have learned from the Bible to make the best decisions that we can that fit within the spirit of how God wants us to behave.
Did you mean this bible?
Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
I wouldn’t want to get my laws about rape and right conduct of war from that bible. In today’s courts, Moses would be guilty of war crimes. If your bible leads us to believe that the war doctrine of Moses was any part of the good, then a lot of people besides me are going to oppose it.
Now you say we should get our moral marching orders from this book both implicitly and explicitly. We then have to challenge of figuring out what it means and how god wants us to live. We would still have to put together laws based on our understanding of what the Bible says. This will involve some negotiation. Hermeneutics is not a simple matter. So how do you propose we determine what the moral laws of the Bible are supposed to be? What do we do with something as basic as homosexuality if our marching orders come only from the Bible?
By suggesting that the Bible and our understanding of the Bible is the ground of our moral knowledge, you have said nothing useful in a practical sense because we are still left with the same negotiations to figure out what the laws should be, just as we do today. In such a system, who gets to decide the right biblical interpretation? The strongest faction, that’s who.
Now you are also presuming a protestant Christian theocracy as opposed to a Catholic one with a slightly different bible. How, exactly did the abrahamic religions settle on which of them gets to interpret the Bible in your scenario? Why are you favoring your idea of god and your idea of the Bible? There are lots of religions who might also want a piece of that. Again, we settle it by strength. Or do you propose something more civilized like drawing straws? No, you, like most Christians, just presuppose that yours is the only religion that matters.
Your “let’s just follow the Bible” brand of moral epistemology does not bring us a better society. It just brings us more wars and less plurality.
There are other aspects of moral epistemology that I didn’t have time for in the podcast that I will try to bring up in this blog as the week progresses.
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David: “A supreme moral law giver does not solve that problem. …”
Hi David,
Well said! I should have read ahead before responding to Teddi. You articulated many of my thoughts far better than I was able to.
Thank you,
Brian
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On the contrary, your statement included material that I didn’t have time to cover. There was the part about inalienable rights given by god. What does it even mean that god gives us rights? What good are those rights if he does not magically enforce them? If we have the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, why did we have to put them in a human constitution? Why didn’t we have those rights already in Christian Europe before coming here?
Saying that god gives us rights is pure sophistry since it is we humans who have to realize those rights, figure them out, convince other people that we have them, negotiate their meanings and limits, and enforce them. I hardly see the difference between god-given rights and human-given rights from a practical perspective.
As always, thanks for adding your point of view.
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Hey Teddi,
Cool, you are doing well holding down the fort, I think we invented a new game; the “whack-a-skeptic” game, the only problem is it seems to be never-ending, no matter how many times you whack em over the head with commonsense logic, they keep drudging up some more skeptical nonsense that needs to be whacked out of em lol 😛
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Triune Dale, it’s the nature of the game!
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Teddi: “Atheists just don’t get that if there is no supreme moral law giver, everybody is free to do whatever they want to whomever they want. Just because some people won’t rape and pillage doesn’t mean other people won’t. Then, the only thing to settle who gets to do whatever is which side is the strongest and/or survives a fight.
With the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible, we, as humans, are endowed by God with unalienable rights –just like Thomas Jefferson referenced in the Declaration of Independence. God gives us the right to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. …”
Hi Teddi,
I might be missing some of your points here.
Let’s assume there is a God who is the supreme moral law giver. Looking over the history of the human race there has been plenty of people who have pillaged and raped. So, there have been plenty of times when these moral laws have been broken – and, on the surface, without penalty. So, the supreme moral law giver has endowed all people through history with unalienable rights to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yet, these rights have frequently been denied many, many people (possibly most people?) throughout history. For example, slavery in the Americas – seems that it was believed to be right and OK by the supreme law giver for many, many years because the strongest side (pro-slavery) won.
Teddi, does it matter if there is a supreme law giver if the laws are not enforced and are so frequently broken? And, if people don’t all know what those laws are?
Let’s now assume there is no supreme moral law giver. People get together and decide what rules people are to live by and set-up some enforcement mechanisms (usually not all that efficient). At different times and in different places the rules may differ. At different times and in different places the people put in laws against rape and pillage – and sometimes they are enforced and sometimes avoided. The rules are put into place because those in power either agree with or yield to what most of the people want. Sometimes, but not always, the majority of people are the strongest. So, everybody is NOT free to do whatever they want to whomever they want.
Teddi, I’m missing the essential way in which having a supreme law giver is different from not. Would you elaborate for me?
Thanks,
Brian
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Hi, Brian,
I’m so glad you asked that question, because, in my haste to write a quick comment and get to bed, I failed to get to the ultimate point (which happens to be your very question.). Thanks for raising it, so that I can elaborate.
As history shows us, there will always be people who do evil things no matter what —whether they believe in God or not.
However, when people believe that there is a supreme moral law giver that has the power to punish or greatly reward us for eternity in the afterlife, many will —to one extent or another— control or try to control their desire to do wrong evil —so that it doesn’t move from desire in the heart and mind to actual action.
There are many times when people —like our brave Founding Fathers (of America)— are far more willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of others on Earth, because they believe that there is more life to be had on the other side. (I don’t doubt, however, that there are some amazing individuals who will sacrifice themselves for others even if they don’t believe in the afterlife.).
I think that there are a great many evil things that many or most of us would do IF (1) we thought that we could do it and not get caught by civil law enforcement, (2) we weren’t afraid of judgment/punishment from God in this life and the afterlife.
If the aforementioned conditions (1) and (2) were in play, how many mothers and fathers would ruthlessly torture and/or kill anybody who (with malice) severely hurt or killed their child? Most, and I would be one of them. Why not, if one’s hands are not being tied by a command to forgive ones enemies, and if one is not being commanded to leave vengeance to the Lord?
As such unethical violence would, naturally, increase, but what I (and many others) would view as ethical violence (in the form of vengeance/vigilantism) would SKYROCKET.
Many atheists and agnostics with a deep sense of ethics forget that many of them had their morals ingrained in their psyche from their religious upbringing. They didn’t just develop them on their own. That tends to stay with a person —although it didn’t work so well with Stalin and Hitler. Sociopaths, however, are going to be the exception to the rule.
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When I initially read this, I think I misunderstood what you were saying. To be clear, you are saying we would seek revenge on people who harm our children. Correct?
If the aforementioned conditions (1) and (2) were in play, how many mothers and fathers would ruthlessly torture and/or kill anybody who (with malice) severely hurt or killed their child? Most, and I would be one of them. Why not, if one’s hands are not being tied by a command to forgive ones enemies, and if one is not being commanded to leave vengeance to the Lord?
While they are not my children, I feel anger toward the priests who harm children. And I suspect I could go all vigilante on them If I wanted to do so. But that has never been my way.. As angry as injustice makes me, I tend to think it is better to let the legal system work, albeit, imperfectly at times. I’m glad to know you have something restraining you from your worst impulses. And if that happens to be a useful fiction, so be it. I require no such belief system to keep me in check. So much for your theory.
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Teddi: “However, when people believe that there is a supreme moral law giver that has the power to punish or greatly reward us for eternity in the afterlife, many will —to one extent or another— control or try to control their desire to do wrong evil —so that it doesn’t move from desire in the heart and mind to actual action. …”
Hi Teddi,
Thanks for going into more detail. That helps.
If (and I know this is a big if), you were to find out there was no God, would you still think it would be worthwhile to try to get people to believe in God so as to keep their behaviors in check?
Appreciating your insights,
Brian
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Hi, Brian,
If I were to come to the conclusion that there was no God, while I could, certainly, see the advantage of perpetrating a fraud on others to encourage them to “behave,” that wouldn’t fit with my own ideas –whether there is a God or not– of what is right. I would just do whatever every atheist does and create my own rules any time I think I can get away with it without punishment. After all, who we really are is what we would do when no one is looking.
I, actually, agree with the distinction that David makes between “ethics” and “morals.” (David was being very calculated in his avoiding stepping on a landmine by trying to argue that evil can exist with no God. He knows [from the mistakes of others who have tried to go down that line of argumentation] that Christians will tear it to shreds.
Objective evil cannot exist unless there is objective good; objective good cannot exist unless there is a supreme moral law giver. If there is no supreme moral law giver, good and evil is, merely, subjective. When there is a clash between two viewpoints regarding what is good and evil, might will make right.
For me, “morals” come from God alone, the man-made stuff is ethics. It’s not uncommon for what is “ethical” to be immoral.
Is it moral for a priest to preserve the seal of the confessional if the person doing the confessing is talking about how they have murdered one or many people, and if they are still an active threat to others?
I value protecting one “good” person’s life over anyone’s having confidence in their confession remaining secret. I’d break that seal immediately, and I’d let the chips fall where they may. I’d do that as an attorney, as well under such a situation –but, attorneys, psychiatrists, etc. are (probably depending upon the state) permitted to break client confidences (if the client poses an active threat to others.) The degree of an active threat a client must pose would vary among the various ethical laws in the state the professional lives.
(By the way, an interesting FYI, with criminal defendants, if they file a petition for post-conviction relief in order to claim that they received ineffective assistance of counsel, (depending upon the state), that can bust open the attorney client privilege. The attorney can defend themselves (only if they need to) by revealing privileged information.)
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Hi Teddi,
Wow! You sure can pack a lot into a post!
You say: “Objective evil cannot exist unless there is objective good; objective good cannot exist unless there is a supreme moral law giver. If there is no supreme moral law giver, good and evil is, merely, subjective.” As I’ve mentioned before, I think it depends on how one defines “evil” and “good.” If it is defined like St. Augustine did – then evil as any damage/harm to that which is whole. And that which is whole/healthy is the good. So, a shirt that has no defects/damage is a good shirt. If we damage/harm a person then we are doing evil to that person. If we help heal/protect a person then we are doing good to that person. But, that is just me. I think I might be a lone voice on this board for this theory.
Teddi, what is an active threat to others? If a teenager steals from a store and plans to continue to do so, would that be an active threat to the financial well-being of the store owner? Should the priest/attorney/psychiatrist/parent/friend turn the kid into the police? You say it depends on the various laws – but if this is coming from the supreme moral law giver, shouldn’t it be the same in every city/state/country throughout all time?
As always, I find your point-of-view to be valuable,
Brian
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Hi, Brian,
You should know by now that I tend to be a wee bit long-winded.😆😆😆
When I refer to an “active threat” I should have been more specific. I ONLY mean situations where someone is posing an active threat of substantial bodily harm or reasonably certain death to others.
Depending upon the code of ethics for attorneys in a particular jurisdiction, attorneys can (and, sometimes, must) speak up if their client is going to try and defraud others.
In the jurisdiction that I live in, for example, EVERY adult has a duty to report child abuse and/or neglect. I can’t remember off-hand if it’s a felony or a misdemeanor to fail to report abuse to the authorities.
Priests/preachers should have the same duty. I don’t think there’s anything in the Bible requiring confessions to be kept confidential.
I always value your perspective as well! Now, how ‘bout you come up with that book I mentioned? 😊
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Hi Teddi,
I am missing how the laws given by the supreme lawgiver works in these situations.
You seem to be saying that when a person commits a crime and shares that information with a spouse/parent/friend/priest/lawyer/psychiatrist, then if the crime is:
1. child abuse or neglect, then the criminal should be turned in as per requirements by the supreme lawgiver;
2. If the criminal is posing an active threat of substantial bodily harm or reasonably certain death to others, then the supreme lawgiver orders that the criminal be turned over to the police.
3. However, is the criminal is NOT posing an active threat of substantial bodily harm or reasonably certain death to others, then the supreme lawgiver orders that the criminal NOT be turned over to the police.
4. So, if the criminal Is posing an active threat of psychological, emotional or financial harm – but not physical -then the supreme lawgiver orders that the criminal NOT be turned over to the police.
Teddi, am I to understand that since the supreme lawgiver’s laws are objective that these rules apply in all places (all countries) and have for all time since the beginning of history? This would be true regardless as to what the laws of the specific place are?
What does the supreme lawgiver say should happen to the spouse/parent/friend/priest/lawyer/psychiatrist who either turns into the police a criminal that they weren’t supposed to – or doesn’t turn into the police a criminal they were supposed to?
Teddi, I’m really struggling to understand how humans were informed of these laws by the supreme lawgiver and whether there are ever to be any exceptions.
Thanks,
Brian
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Hi, Brian,
I was, initially, just making the point that what is “ethical” —secular laws on conduct—isn’t necessarily “moral” (God’s law.) The two laws can conflict with one another.
For example if a priest knows that someone who just confessed to him, also, said that they were about to kill somebody else, I’m saying that as a priest, I’d toss my professional ethics (and, obviously, career aside since this would be career suicide) aside, and I would do what I could to save someone’s life —whether it be warning the person, alerting the authorities, etc, Obviously, the priest would try to talk sense into the murderer, but that’s not enough to allow one’s conscience to rest easy. One always needs to be mindful that one needs to be able to live with oneself.
God teaches us about the sanctity of life, and he commands us to treat life with the dignity that it deserves —since we are made in His image. Without that directive from God, we design our own ideas of right and wrong as we think of ourselves as God.
Quite frankly, I’m very fond of the idea of controlling my own destiny and doing whatever I think is right. The only “problem” with that is that I believe that God exists, and that this goes directly against what he commands. So, I obey His rules to the best of my abilities. That’s really all He expects for us to do.
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Hi Teddi,
Thanks for responding. But, I have to say, I don’t really feel that this post answered the questions I raised in the previous one. But that might just be me.
This series of posts started with my surprise that David didn’t feel people had obligations or moral duties – that I had thought (from a different podcast) that he felt priests should (ought) turn in criminals to the police. My impression was that you felt the supreme lawgiver had given people rules about when to turn criminals into the police and when not to. Even after this post, I’m still confused about when the supreme lawgiver has ordered us to turn people into the police and when not to.
But, again, maybe I am not understanding the responses very well – I’ll go back and try to re-read them.
As an aside, I don’t know what the Catholic rules are for Confession – I do know that the person has to be sorry for their sins and have a firm resolution not to repeat the sins. If the person doesn’t, then my impression is the priest doesn’t give absolution. If the priest is told the person is going to go kill someone (other than maybe at war, etc.) then I suspect that might not be considered a valid Confession. I also know that the person going to Confession is supposed to make restitution for the damage they did – and also to do a penance. I’ve heard that sometimes the person has been told to get psychological help or even to turn themselves in to the police as part of their restitution and/or penance. However, I don’t know how common that is.
Teddi, you say that you obey God’s rules to the best of your ability and that is all God expects. Yet we do read in the Bible the command to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)
As always, thanks for the feedback,
Brian
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Hi, Brian,
While God sets the goal of perfection for us, He knows that we are, inherently, incapable of it —that’s why He sent Jesus to redeem us from the sins that He knew (through his omniscience) that we will commit.
You’ve probably heard this popular saying that goes something like this, “Shoot for the moon, and even if you fail, you will be landing among the stars.”
When God tells us to be perfect, that is Him telling us to “shoot for the moon.” He knows that if He sets the bar (impossibly) high, that, in our efforts to reach that goal, we will, most likely, come much closer to achieving it than if he set the bar a lot lower.
If a parent tells her child she wants him to have mediocre behavior at some function, not only will this make it extremely unlikely that the child will have better than mediocre behavior, but it will, probably, result in the child, at the very best, having mediocre behavior; the greater probability is that the child will have mediocre behavior or lower (my bet would be on lower than mediocre behavior for most kids who aren’t the “people pleasing” type.
When I mentioned how morals are, in the greater scheme of things, more important than ethics, (and I brought up the need for a priest/preacher to break the priest-penitent privilege in situations where someone might be in grave danger from the “penitent”), I think that there is, generally, a moral obligation to do what we can to preserve life. I think that obligation stems from the sanctity of life, and it stems from Jesus’ commanded that we love our neighbor as ourself.
Who among us wouldn’t want to be warned about and/or protected from someone who has told someone else about his intent to do us great harm?
If there is anything else that I can try to clarify please let me know.
I’m curious as to your take on this (and everything else for that matter): do you think that God is EXPECTING perfection from us in light of his commanding/requiring it? If so, what do you think the reason was for sending Jesus to help out all of us sinners?
Also, are angels free of sin? Are they perfect?” And, does “perfect” go beyond being just free of sin? I’ve never heard this discussed, so I am a blank slate. This entered my mind because I wanted to say that only God is free from sin and perfect. If I had to bet, I’d say that being free from sin is not nearly as broad as being “perfect.” Thoughts? Thanks!
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Teddi: “While God sets the goal of perfection for us, He knows that we are, inherently, incapable of it —that’s why He sent Jesus to redeem us from the sins that He knew (through his omniscience) that we will commit.
You’ve probably heard this popular saying that goes something like this, ‘Shoot for the moon, and even if you fail, you will be landing among the stars.’
When God tells us to be perfect, that is Him telling us to ‘shoot for the moon.’ He knows that if He sets the bar (impossibly) high, that, in our efforts to reach that goal, we will, most likely, come much closer to achieving it than if he set the bar a lot lower.
If a parent tells her child she wants him to have mediocre behavior at some function, not only will this make it extremely unlikely that the child will have better than mediocre behavior, but it will, probably, result in the child, at the very best, having mediocre behavior; the greater probability is that the child will have mediocre behavior or lower (my bet would be on lower than mediocre behavior for most kids who aren’t the ‘people pleasing’ type.”
Hi Teddi,
I appreciate what you are saying. But…
Jesus doesn’t say he “wants” us to be perfect – nor does He say to “try” and be perfect or “shoot” for perfection. He says “be perfect” – He demands perfection – He is giving a law from the supreme lawgiver. It sure seems that if we don’t do what Jesus demands/orders then we are in disobedience. If God commands something must that something not be possible? When Jesus told the water to turn into wine did the water try but fail? When God told Moses to part the Red Sea was failure an option? When Jesus ordered the blind person to see – did the blind person “shoot for the moon” but fall short? Or did the blind person obey and see?
You seem to be saying that God orders us to do that which is impossible. It will take me a bit to reflect on that. Teddi, would you demand and order your child to do something that was impossible?
Teddi, if God does not expect us to obey when He says “be perfect” then would God expect us to obey when He says “don’t kill” or “don’t steal” or “don’t sexually abuse”? How do we know which commands God expects us to really obey?
You’ve given me much to reflect upon here.
Many thanks,
Brian
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Hi, Brian,
When Jesus tells us to be perfect, I equate that, in spirit, to the following: (1) Nike’s motto of, “Just do it.” and (2) Yoda telling Luke, “Do or do not. There is no try.”
If Jesus merely tells us, “Do your best to be perfect.” or “Try really hard to be good to your fellow man.” this leaves such a big opening for people to give less than their all-time best effort.
Jesus knows that when you open up the door to the possibility of failure [in achieving a goal], you are, in reality, giving failure an invitation to come in.
Jesus wants us to try as best we can to keep that door shut. My interpretation of Jesus’ command that we be perfect is that He’s trying to instill in us a mindset for success. He wants us to believe –down to our core– that failure is not an option. Such a mindset is more likely to lead to success –or at least far more “wins” than a mindset that provides a soft landing spot for failure.
Remember, with Christianity, (unlike Judaism), we are not judged by our acts but by our faith.
I think that God does expect us to all “really” obey all of his commandments/laws. But, this same God knows that we are all imperfect and sinful by nature. That’s why he sent Jesus to Earth to redeem us from our sin.
Since we know that God has given us Jesus as our “Get our of jail free” card, God has to balance this out with a command for us to be perfect. Otherwise, why would anybody bother?
We cannot earn our way into Heaven with perfect behavior on Earth. The closer to perfect that our behavior gets (when doing so is to honor God), this is the hard evidence of the degree of faith that we have in God.
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Teddi: “Also, are angels free of sin? Are they perfect? And, does perfect’ go beyond being just free of sin? I’ve never heard this discussed, so I am a blank slate. This entered my mind because I wanted to say that only God is free from sin and perfect. If I had to bet, I’d say that being free from sin is not nearly as broad as being ‘perfect.’ Thoughts? Thanks!”
Hi Teddi,
The way I’ve heard it explained (and that doesn’t mean it was correct) is that the “fallen” angels sinned and the unfallen angels in heaven have not.
Sin is a defect – damage to someone or something. So it is making that which is without damage/defect (perfect) to be less than perfect. But, again, that is just my limited understanding of the theory. And, of course, people are said to be affected by original sin – so they may have imperfections (health issues, etc.) that were from sin even though it wasn’t their own personal sin. Again, just what I’ve heard – I don’t claim that it is true.
Brian
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Hi, Brian,
Hmmmm, that’s interesting. So, if some angels were able to sin, that implies that the angels were given free-will. This is interesting, because it implies that one can have free-will and be CAPABLE of being PERFECT if one chooses to be. While anything’s possible, 🙂 I think it’s safe to say that even the best humans are incapable of being 100% free from sin for their entire life. I was raised believing that one can even commit sin with a sinful thought that is not followed up with action. I don’t think that we can control our thoughts for the most part. I think that the only way we can, somewhat, control our thoughts is by staying away from temptation.
Did angels exist before humans? Look, Brian, you’re rubbing off on me!
😉 I’m guessing that the thoughts that we humans have of people becoming angels in Heaven is false? I have no idea. As always, thanks for the insight!
-Teddi
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Teddi: “Hmmmm, that’s interesting. So, if some angels were able to sin, that implies that the angels were given free-will. This is interesting, because it implies that one can have free-will and be CAPABLE of being PERFECT if one chooses to be. While anything’s possible, 🙂 I think it’s safe to say that even the best humans are incapable of being 100% free from sin for their entire life.”
Hi Teddi,
Myself, I do believe that many children, infants, and those in the womb who die have lived their limited lives without ever committing actual sins. So, I’d say they were perfect with the exception of being impacted by the effects of original sin, if that exists.
I don’t know what the theory is about when angels were created. The Bible doesn’t seem to be very clear on that. There are hints that it was before humans. Some believe the story of the “sons of God” in Genesis 6:1-4 was about fallen angels who had sex with humans – I don’t know how widely accepted that concept is.
If you find out about angels – please let us know,
Brian
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teddi
“Hmmmm, that’s interesting. So, if some angels were able to sin, that implies that the angels were given free-will. This is interesting, because it implies that one can have free-will and be CAPABLE of being PERFECT if one chooses to be. “
Yes, atheists have been pointing out this problem for a long time.
You should consider the consequences of this for the free will defense of suffering/evil.
If a being, like an angel in heaven, is both sinless and has free will, think about what would explain that being’s never having sinned.
Was it that the free-willed being did not have the choice to sin? Then God could have created us without the choice to sin while we still had free will, avoiding much suffering and evil.
Or is it that the free willed being had a choice, could have sinned, but chose not to sin? If so, what explains that being choosing not to sin? Especially if other beings were sinning? The only way to explain it is to point to something about the character, the nature of that being that determined it would not choose to sin (otherwise you are left with sheer random luck, which couldn’t be a basis for moral responsibility).
In other words: you can have free willed beings who had the power to do something sinful, but whose character/nature entails they will choose good over evil.
Notice this description would not fit only “good” angels, but Jesus and God himself, who are said to have free will but who do not, or “can not” sin, or choose to do evil, by nature.
The logical consequences of this is that God could have created free willed beings whose nature is good, and not sinful. Avoiding all the harm and evil born of bad choices. But God didn’t do this: he created beings with the nature to often choose evil/sin. In other words, God would have created vast amounts of gratuitous, unnecessary suffering in doing so, and it makes no sense to depict a Being who knowingly creates gratuitous evil and suffering “Good.”
The usual response to this from Christians is a non-response. A punt to faith and question-begging: “Well, God IS Good, so I’m sure His plan was GOOD in creating sinning creatures like us. I can’t explain it, but I’m sure He has it all worked out.”
Which is more along the lines of a personal cognitive dissonance strategy, a way to put contradictions and problems up on a shelf away from view, rather than actually having good reasons or arguments for a position.
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Hi, Vaal,
Here goes some possible explanations that I can think of to the questions that you have asked here.
You asked me if beings, like angels, in Heaven are both sinless and have free-will, what would explain their never having sinned (assuming, of course, that this is the case.)
I would argue that in a “perfect world” —as Heaven is supposed to be— ones basic needs are met, one is in the presence (presumably) of the Almighty [so, the cat’s not away, so the mice will, probably not want to play😆], and one is surrounded by love and happiness (presumably.) I don’t know if angels have a different form and internal makeup than humans will when they get to Heaven.
So, this is not exactly an environment that is ripe with temptation. That might be one way it is easier to stay sin-free despite having the free-will to do so.
I agree that personality and character factor a lot into sin —so does self-control and impulse control (two things that are almost the same but not exactly.) Of course, tough circumstances/hardships can turn some once stellar people into not-sostellar people.
Some people tend to derive enjoyment from pleasing others, some people enjoy angering others. This tends to manifest itself in one’s personality.
I wonder if angels might be designed differently than humans (my bet is that they are.) God may have created angels to serve as part of a certain living infrastructure in Heaven —maybe they serve as bureaucrats or something. Who knows —I sure don’t. Just throwing out guesses. Maybe they don’t have free-will, and God have us free-will to enjoy a more substantial and valuable type of love from humans. Have a happy and healthy new year!
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Hi David and Dale,
Still working my way through the podcast. I am once again in awe that the two of you can put on these podcasts – and then have the mental ability to respond to these posts. I would be so brain dead…. Wow! Truly amazing!
David said that he didn’t like Dale using the word “evil” because that implies God. I don’t think it has to. As I said in a previous post, Saint Augustine, in his book “The Enchiridion: On Faith, Hope and Love”, in Chapter 11 (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1302.htm ), defined evil as the absence of something good. He gives the example of a wound or disease being the absence of health or damage to health. (Health being the good; the wound being the evil or damage.) Another analogy that I’ve heard is that of a hole in a shirt. The hole is merely the absence of the shirt – or damage to the shirt. (I suppose one could quibble over what “good” means – perhaps a working definition would be that which is undamaged or whole?)
So, it would seem to me that if evil means the damage to something then there is no need to take it to the next step of God. It would seem that using Occam’s Razor one would stop at evil being damage (or harm or absence) rather than going the extra step of involving God.
Heck, if David doesn’t like the word “evil” why not just use the word “damage” or “harm” or “destroy” or “was detrimental” or some similar word?
So, if one doesn’t want to say: “Hitler did evil” – why not say “Hitler damaged” or “Hitler harmed” or “Hitler destroyed?” Seems to me they all mean much the same. No reason to invoke God that I can see.
David mentioned he doesn’t like to use the word “morality” but would rather use the word “ethics.” If these are loaded terms with subtext, then why use either? Why not just use words like “harm” or “damage” or “detrimental” or “whole”, etc.?
Perhaps I’m missing things here but it sometimes seems people are talking past one-another when they don’t have to.
Just some out-of-left-field thoughts,
Brian
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I think you are being a bit naive if you think we can use words like “evil” in a theological debate and carry that over on a theological blog without some thinking it has a typical religious connotation. Like it or not, these words are religiously loaded, and cannot be unloaded just because one participant in a conversation says so. You have to understand that a lot of people read this from a lot of places around the world with various cultural, theological and educational backgrounds. It is important to eliminate as many loaded words as possible.
I would be more than happy to only speak in terms of secular ethics and social harm and good. But the Christian would not. I said many times that the Christian has something different in mind than the atheist when talking about good and evil, morality and immorality. So I am being extra clear about what I mean, and am purposely distancing myself from words that are typically understood with loaded meanings.
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David: “I think you are being a bit naive if you think we can use words like ‘evil’ in a theological debate and carry that over on a theological blog without some thinking it has a typical religious connotation.”
Hi David,
I think you either misunderstood me or I wasn’t very clear. What I was trying to say was to NOT use “evil” since that had implications you didn’t like, and, instead, use words like “damage” or “harm” or “detrimental.”
Brian
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It is not possible to have this conversation with Christians and not use such terms. They just have to be used carefully and deliberately. I can talk all day long about social harm. And the Christian would wonder what that has to do with evil. I am deconstructing the moral argument which is a particular Christian formulation. A variation of the argument is sometimes called the argument from evil which points out that since evil exists, then good exists. Thus, god exists.
I have no choice but to put these things in terms that Christians can understand. From there, I can try to transpose words like good and evil into prosocial and antisocial. I did my best to make all this clear in the podcast. This is why it is so tough to have this conversation with Christians as there is a language barrier. We have to bridge that barrier, not by ignoring it, but by being very precise about what each side means when they say certain things.
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David: “… A variation of the argument is sometimes called the argument from evil which points out that since evil exists, then good exists. Thus, god exists. …”
Hi David,
I hear and understand what you are saying. I will say that my experience with many Christians is a bit different from your experience.
I would think that the above argument from evil would depend a bit on how the words “evil” and “good” are defined.
I certainly think that for a fruitful conversation there needs to be a mutual understanding of the words being used,
Brian
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It is hard to tied down Christians to a single and consistent definition of any of their terms. Just as faith has many meanings, so does evil. It could mean that which humans do in defiance of god’s will. Or it could mean damage. Though I must say that is not a typical usage of the word. If I get a hole in my shirt, I wouldn’t say my shirt was evil, or had some aspect of evil. It is not really synonymous with damage as you seem to be suggesting. Then, there’s this:
(Isaiah 45:7, KJV) – “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.”
(Amos 3:6) – “Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?”
Obviously, Christians do not believe that god cause evil as we typically use the word. And it is not damage either. It is more like calamity. Though I hardly see how that is better. My point is that they have many options for loading the word. We can’t just agree on a definition up front because they can use it differently later. So the meaning has to be renegotiated with each usage.
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David: “Just as faith has many meanings, so does evil. It could mean that which humans do in defiance of god’s will. Or it could mean damage. Though I must say that is not a typical usage of the word. If I get a hole in my shirt, I wouldn’t say my shirt was evil, or had some aspect of evil. It is not really synonymous with damage as you seem to be suggesting.”
Hi David,
I would say that the hole in a shirt kept the shirt from being a fully good shirt. Of course there was that famous line from Lady Macbeth: “Out damn spot!” If a little spot can be damned (sent to Hell) what about an actual hole? <>
But, I do think that the concept of sin (acts of evil) are usually causing damage – maybe physical, as if a person is mugged – maybe psychological – maybe emotional – but damage all the same.
But, as I mentioned to Teddi, I think I might be alone with this theory – so you are in the company of skeptics and Christians in doubting it.
Appreciating the feedback that you give,
Brian
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David: “So I am being extra clear about what I mean, and am purposely distancing myself from words that are typically understood with loaded meanings.”
Hi David,
I respect and support that position. I think it is wise to avoid loaded terms that can cause confusion or misunderstanding.
Brian
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Hi, David and Andrew,
Regarding the gene editing discussion you and Andrew were having, I’m sorry to report that I don’t recall hearing anything that y’all said that I disagreed with. Bummer.😆
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That is rather disappointing as I was doing my best to court controversy. Oh, well. I will just have to try harder the next time. 🙂
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“This omits natural law moral theory from the discussion. This theory claims “that standards of morality are in some sense derived from, or entailed by, the nature of the world and the nature of human beings.”
Ah, Natural Law theory: the good old appeal to nature fallacy, given a philosophical spit and shine. It’s a subjective leap from “is” to “ought” masquerading as the discerning of an objective “ought.”
From the link:
“The second answer is Aristotelian. The idea here is to reject a subjectivism about the good, holding that what makes it true that something is good is not that it stands in some relation to desire but rather that it is somehow perfective or completing of a being, where what is perfective or completing of a being depends on that being’s nature. So what is good for an oak is what is completing or perfective of the oak, and this depends on the kind of thing that an oak is by nature; and what is good for a dog is what is completing or perfective of the dog, and this depends on the kind of thing that a dog is by nature; and what is good for a human depends on what is completing or perfective of a human, and this depends on the kind of thing a human is by nature.”
But what you find when you push folks pushing natural law and Aristotelian-Thomism is that they are engaging in a sleight of hand.
What’s good for a dog?
Well, something that is perfective of the dog!
But, what is perfective of a dog?
Well, it depends on the kind of thing a dog is by nature.
So..how do you discern the nature of a thing, like a dog?
Well, you can observe dogs and detail their nature.
Ok, but…I’ve observed that dogs can get rabies. So isn’t it part of a dog’s nature to be susceptible to rabies?
Is that “good?”
No…rabies is bad for dogs. It undermines the perfection of their nature.
Wait…so it seems you are being selective here. There are countless descriptive statements one can make about dogs – “IS” statements – from ” it IS the case that dogs tend to have four legs” and it “IS the case that dogs can get rabies” but you want to sift from them and move from some IS statements to certain OUGHT statements? How are you making this move from IS to OUGHT? What is your criteria that is not one of your own subjective evaluation as to which descriptions can be included as “in the nature of a dog” or not?
You won’t find a good answer.
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Makes me want to ask what philosophy is by nature. 😊😊😊
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Hey everyone,
It has come to my attention that I have let down one of our esteemed Christian listeners via forgetting to make an announcement for him, I will remember to do so this Saturday on the show but in the meantime here is his comment on the Unbelievable Boards, please go and like his comments (he’s in need of a little love).
“Robert Parr • 4 hours ago • edited
… And btw, I had a talk with Dale the other day (via email, so if you ears were burning that’s why) – but anyway I happened to mention that I don’t get as many thumbs-ups as I’d like. Dale said he couldn’t give me any thumbs-ups, because he couldn’t access the forum, for some reason; but he said he’d broadcast on S&S that ‘Robert is in desperate need of thumbs-ups’.
But the thing is I think he’s forgotten. At least no one’s given me any thumbs-ups. At all. So how about it? I mean I don’t mind even if they’re thumbs-downs. I don’t care. Any publicity is good publicity, they say.
Just remember when you’re sitting at home, comfortably gloating over the hundred or so thumbs-ups under your posts, that some of us out here aren’t so fortunate.”
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Hi,
I was checking out the Unbelievable site, went to the blog and community sections, but I didn’t see anything that looked like S&S’s —I found where 1 person was commenting, but it wasn’t Robert. I’m sure I’m not in the right spot. Any advice on where to find Robert’s comments?
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Hey Teddi,
The link is here = https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Tom-Holland-vs-AC-Grayling-Did-Christianity-give-us-our-human-values Robert’s post is near the top, if you post there, let him know I’d give him a like myself if I could 🙂
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It’s time to get ready for the big miracle show coming up 12/21. My blog post is 6,600 words long. So if you want to get a jump on it, you can grab the ebook. It should open on mobile devices like smartphones. I did not do a Kindle version. But it should open on just about everything else. It has an active table of contents so you can skip through it. Click on the link below and download from there. It takes about a second to download. Enjoy:
https://www.reasonpress.net/Home/MiracleBook
Edit: I understand it should work on modern Kindles, too.
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Boy, this comment section could use an “edit” function. (Especially for typos in the post I just submitted).
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After listening to much of this show, I propose a new Theory for Thunder:
Thunder is the sound of God banging his head on clouds in anguished embarrassment over the quality of arguments Christians offer on His behalf.
Especially “The Moral Argument.”
David’s idea for the show topic was excellent and the show played out in a way that supported his thesis (many of us, of course, have ripped Christian apologetics for the same thing).
When it came to the Moral Argument, Dale played it just like David described Christians use this argument in debates: straight up mere assertions of “knowing” X was good and using the “shaming” move of “Well, if you fail to simply agree that X is bad, then most people will look at you as a deviant.”
David of course didn’t fall for it. Good for you David!
The Moral Argument is always a disaster for Christians given the actual Biblical God they believe in and find themselves having to defend.
First, Dale merely asserted that he “knows” X is good or bad. David pointed out this sat at the level of mere assertion, but that was fine with Dale. Hookay. Argument lost right there. Dale gave us no explanation of how
to discriminate the “real” good and bad when it comes to moral disagreements. Many people in the past had a moral conscience that told them slavery was good (esp for people not of their “tribe”). Now our moral intuitions are different. The Comanche Indians that it good to kidnap and rape women from tribes not their own, to plunder and scalp and torture and kill in the most horrendous ways possible men, women and children.
But that engenders primal moral horror in most of us today.
Who is apprehending the Objective Moral Truth? Dale doesn’t bother telling us. This very problem was raised to Justin in his recent debate, and Justin’s only reply was to flat out assert that his morel belief was the objectively true one, that if a Jeffrey Dahmer or Hitler has a contrasting moral intuition, well THEY are wrong. And…that was it! Argument-by-assertion. (And at the same time, the Christian, Dale, had the gall to demand David move beyond mere assertion to justifying his morality with argument/evidence/consistency. Yeesh, just as David and most of us point out, the Moral Argument is always an excuse for the Christian to avoid as much as possible making his epistemic case, and to put flip the burden instead on the Atheist).
Do you hear thunder again? Poor God.
The thing is, we are talking about the Moral Argument here, which argues from purportedly objective moral propositions TO the existence of a God. So you have to establish the soundness of those moral intuitions as “objective” to GET THE ARGUMENT OFF THE GROUND and even get to a God. Mere assertions won’t cut it in any argument, and not this one.
But then David asked for Dales’ moral epistemology and Dale then appealed to THE BIBLE, to revelation.
Dale used the example of how BEFORE accepting Biblical revelation his moral conscience thought things like homosexuality were odd, but morally ok. But then WITH REVELATION he finds out, oh no, our moral conscience is CORRUPTED BY SIN, and his moral conscience WAS IN ERROR: homosexuality is actually morally wrong!
And Christians don’t even notice when they have shot a torpedo in to their own hull! The Moral Argument is based on the RELIABILITY of our moral conscience/intuitions – we intuit Objective Moral Truths. The argument can only make sense if we can TRUST these moral intuitions so we can be sure in concluding “My intuitions point to objectively true right or wrong.”
But if you then turn around and say upon revelation “Oh, turns out our moral intuitions are corrupted, and we actually have to be straightened out by God as to which are true or false” then you have undermined the very thing you were building the Moral Argument upon. The atheist brings up forms of moral disagreement to show how pure appeal to moral intuition seems unreliable, the Christian waves this away and says “Nah, my moral intuition is true, don’t have to justify it beyond that” and then when they take on belief in the God of the bible, ESPECIALLY a God whose own behavior seems at odds with many of our moral intuitions, they use the excuse “Well, our moral conscience is corrupt and fallible, we need God to sort out which moral feelings were objectively true or false.”
This is the having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too move Christians avail themselves of all the time. The playing both sides of the net as they require.
Look, this isn’t church, where Christians look the other way at their mutual reasoning infractions, and when they run from one side of the net to the other. When you are presenting a case to a rational skeptic who isn’t Christian, this stuff won’t play. The ref isn’t looking the other way while you cheat, like at church. The ref is watching you. He’s flagging you for infractions. You’re losing the game when you play in the real world and only you don’t seem to notice it.
Listening to the show I imagined David sitting there the whole time with a big coconut cream pie in one hand, a spray-bottle of seltzer water in the other. And when it came time to ask the Christian to actually lay out his moral epistemology, David merely had to hand the pie and seltzer bottle to Dale “Here, you do it yourself.” And then Dale just plows the pie in to his face and sprays himself with the seltzer-water. Job done.
And somewhere in the world, people heard thunder.
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That was simply the best thing I have read in a long time. And I’ve read my own work. 🙂
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Vaal,
Again you give these long rambling skeptical assertions of your biased opinion. I was Dale the Lay Christian and thus don’t really care what you made of my reasoning, I was playing a role, later in 2020 I will be doing a solo show as Dale the Scholar on the Moral Argument proper so you can see what you make of that when I give the issue my full intellectual rigour.
That said, you mention an issue where I did reply to David as Dale the Scholar and so I will address that. You get that I never said I had moral knowledge that being homosexual was good, I’m just saying I previously lacked moral warrant via my moral conscience alone that it was bad and then the Bible supplemented that and allowed me to say yeah its bad. This is no different than a person who has no reason to think jamming a fork into someone is good or bad (their morality is flawed due to sin) but then when given info externally from the person that doing so hurts them, then they derive the conclusion, Oh OK now I know its bad to do this. This makes sense, our moral faculties are varying degrees of damage due to sin, somethings it works properly on for some but on others it malfunctions. Now, it may be that some are so defunct that they do indeed think its good as a positive claim (I suspect there is some kind of false derivative or propositional knowledge that is at fault there rather than a PBB from a corrupt moral conscience but you never know).
There would only be a problem in the way you describe (which again even if it did happen is not an issue for Christians anyways) and my moral intutional knowledge said being gay was good and then I learned the Bible says no- then yes that would be a clash. Sometimes that happens though, my moral conscience tells me Calvinism is evil (95% certain of it), but its possible that the Bible might provide me with knowledge in a degree that over-rides that and thus, I preference it over my own conscience and become a Calvinist. The only logically impossible scenario would be if my conscience provides me with 100% knowledge that something is good/bad and another source like the bible or God/H.S. reveals to me the opposite is true in the 1005 degree- that would violate the law of non-contradiction and thus will never happen.
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When you and Vaal get into it, I always suspect you are somewhat missing Vaal’s point. In this case, Vaal pointed out that your whole emotional appeal that some things are wrong is based on your moral faculties telling you they are wrong. But later, something in the Bible informs you that you were wrong, and that your moral faculties are unreliable. Cake, eat, have.
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It’s really something to see how the conversations play out when Christians are including the Moral Argument.
Christian: So Mr. Atheist, I ask you about how YOU know something is good or bad, or on what basis you decide, you give me some rubbish about pro-social behavior or whatever. Well, what if I don’t want to be pro-social? What about anyone who feels otherwise? How do you settle whose attitude is right or wrong? That’s a real problem you know, and the fact you can’t answer is such an obvious defect I can’t take your position seriously.
Atheist: So, Mr. Christian, you say you simply know X is bad and that’s that. But other people have thought X is good and that’s that. You haven’t given us anyway of discerning whose attitude is actually the objectively right one. That’s a problem you know, and it’s why I can’t take your position seriously.
Christian: Huh? Problem? What problem?
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David,
No, that is wrong, just because the faculties are wrong in some cases doesn’t mean they aren’t reliable in other cases, so I think you and Vaal are missing my point. One follows the evidence and anything less than 100% knowledge is possible to be in error, but one follows the probabilities and does the best they can. The moral consciences of true Christians is generally reliable (and even in many cases for non-believers as well). The issue that some people hallucinate at times does nothing to show that my sight faculties are not generally reliable and therefore to be trusted on a balance of probabilities in most instances.
You don’t deny that your sense of sight is useful just because they sometimes malfunction and Vaal is being just as illogical by pointing to instances when one’s moral faculties malfunctions as proof that I should deny they are useful as generally reliable as well- that is some totally irrational skepticism!
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I’ve been legally blind all my life. But I have had moments of perfect vision with things like corrective lenses and low-vision aids. Therefore, I know when my vision is reliable and when not to trust it.
The same cannot be said for your moral faculties. You can’t possibly know when they are operating correctly because you have never had perfect moral knowledge to compare your insights. When you do compare some of your strong moral intuitions to god’s law, you find that you are often wrong. Despite the fact that you wouldn’t normally think it OK, you would kill your kid if you had absolute knowledge that god told you to do it. You will accept some sexuality to be wrong despite your moral judgement that it is not.
You have no reason to trust your insight on other things as well, like, is it OK to molest a child. You strongly believe it is not. But why do you trust that moral knowledge?
Again, I know the limits of my sense of sight and when it is and isn’t useful. I have enough high-tech aids that I can augment my vision to perfect for a particular purpose at a given moment. Unless you can do the same with your moral vision, your analogy doesn’t work.
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Totally off base as usual David, my moral conscience also has corrective lenses as well in some respects via the H.S., plus even before being saved my morality sense worked perfectly in some respects and gave me knowledge, I know when I’m warranted immediately in a properly basic way- we’ve covered this before with the epistemic chain regress problem and you’ve heard how I rationally answer it and how you as a skeptic totally fall apart via the Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism.
One might have defective vision in terms of some aspects like reading and need the help of glasses (the H.S.) to correct for that but in other ways their vision is working fine and gives them sense data knowledge perfectly without need of help like when looking at a sunset without need of glasses. Its the same with the moral sense, I know without the help of the H.S. that raping a kid is evil and immoral- no aids needed my moral sense is not defunct like yours is where you think everything is A-moral. That said, obviously, in some other issues my moral sense doesn’t function properly else I would have strong knowledge independent of the help of the H.S. and the Bible that sex before marriage is wrong as well. Deficiency in one area does nothing to take away from my knowledge in the other and/or to undermine my confidence that I know some moral things- its not an all or nothing deal like lay skeptics want to pretend it has to be.
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” moral conscience also has corrective lenses as well in some respects via the H.S., plus even before being saved my morality sense worked perfectly in some respects and gave me knowledge, I know when I’m warranted immediately in a properly basic way- we’ve covered this before “
Yes, we’ve gone down the rabbit hole in excruciating detail, only to find what was obvious on the surface: it’s assertion and special pleading all the way down, as you are doing here yet again.
“I rationally answer it and how you as a skeptic totally fall apart via the Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism. “
You’ve never defended the EAAN against the critiques I have brought against it. I’ve shown how the EAAN relies simply on mere “possibility” but not “plausibility” where accounts for how cognitive faculties that track truths in the world, use memory to retain them, and accurate-enough-modelling from that, would be more likely to aid survival than that complete roll-of-the-dice alternative mess Plantinga weakly offers as a “defeater.”
“One might have defective vision in terms of some aspects like reading and need the help of glasses (the H.S.) to correct for that but in other ways their vision is working fine and gives them sense data knowledge perfectly without need of help like when looking at a sunset without need of glasses. “
Your failed analogy to david’s sight example only undersores the paucity of your claims.
The reason I can be confident in the thing I believe I CAN see is due to the incredibly strong intersubjective correlation, publicly available evidence, the fact other people can see what I can see and agree, and the fact we can test it.
If I claim I can see X and you disagree, I can demonstrate that I can see X.
For instance, if I claim to be able to have sight, identify things at a distance using only my “eyes, this can be tested. You hold up cards with numbers, photos etc, and I correctly identify and describe everything you show me. The proposition that I have reliable sight in most instances is tested and corroborated all day long in how I manage to navigate the world. And we can know when someone can not see certain things (from color blindness to absolute blindness) via testing. Further, when it comes to the unreliability of certain aspects of sight – e.g. optical illusions – we have knowledge – publicly testable, verifiable knowledge – as to under what conditions those errors tend to occur and why. And if I claim to see, say, a colour difference between A and B that you claim is not there because you don’t see it, I can gather evidence for my claim by for instance showing how a spectroradiometer registers different readings which would be expected if my claim is correct and yours were not. There are other tests we could do which would support that I can discern between A and B only via the color I claim to see, where you could not if you are color blind in that regard.
You DO NOT have this type of discernment for your mere claims of “I JUST KNOW IT” moral claims.
You give NO argument aside from mere assertion that looks no different than personal conviction, that you have “moral knowledge.” Nothing verifiable. Nothing that can show one person right, the other person wrong.
(Again…this is without appeal to revelation at this point, as we are talking about the claim, usually used in the moral argument, that moral facts can be directly apprehended).
Even in your go-to of child-rape, there have been societies that felt otherwise. They regularly gang-raped young women and minors. The regularly took whole families and gang-raped parents in front of their children, butcher children in front of their parents, etc. When displeased with a captive female, they would do things like take her baby and drag it behind horses along the ground until torn apart in front of it’s mother.
Does your moral conscience tell you quite strongly that is objectively morally wrong? Well, the Camanche’s moral conscience disagrees. You give me no reason other than your sheer assertion, your personal conviction, to discern who is actually perceiving an objective morality. All you have is a shaming move “well, if YOU can’t just declare this stuff wrong like I do, others will see you as scary.”
You also in the show claimed your “properly basic” knowledge of what is objectively good or bad is like our properly basic knowledge of numbers. This analogy doesn’t work for you. To the degree we would accept that everyone intuits 2+2=4, this is disanalagous to your moral claims, where much disagreement can be found.
Further, IF someone disagrees with 2+2=4 and claims 2+2=5, we can at the very least give an argument justifying adopting the axiom of “normal” mathematics in terms of it’s utility in mapping to and predicting the world. So we can show how the regularly accepted math can be used to build houses, working computers, etc. So there are ways to argue for certain mathematical axioms in a way you can not for your mere moral assertions.
Again, Dale, this isn’t church. People here aren’t hungry for any bad-old-non-argument to bolster faith. You have to actually give good arguments, which you routinely fail to provide.
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Vaal,
Yeah, we have the external means already in place via the notion of warrant, Plantinga refutes your nonsense decisively but I’m asking you to answer How do you answer the epistemic chain regress problem? I know you said you are not a proponent of coherentism, so what do you go for foundationalism, brute facts or infinite regress- what one do you go for?
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Dale…again…missing the point!!!
In making the Moral Argument you are arguing from the reliable perception of moral truths to the existence of a God.
Then when you turn to revelation you want to say “oh, well it TURNS OUT when we receive information from God, that *some* of our intuitions were true, others were not. And that our moral conscience is currupted.”
That MEANS that they are unreliable! Particularly in the case of the Moral Argument!
You can’t appeal to revelation during the moral argument – that of course would just be cheating and begging the question, assuming God has been revealed when the moral argument is supposed to be simply starting from intuited moral facts to the existence of a God.
So it doesn’t matter if AFTER revelation you can say “YES our moral conscience is corrupted and so we can be in error. But…gee…now I know which moral intuitions were correct, which were wrong” to settle that problem for the moral argument. Revelation tells us our moral sense is corrupted and it’s only by God’s revelation we now WHICH of our moral intuitions were correct.
When making the moral argument you CAN’T TELL US, WITHOUT CHEATING APPEAL TO REVELATION, WHICH MORAL INTUITIONS ARE OBJECTIVELY CORRECT.
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Vaal,
I love the hypocrisy of skeptics pretending I’m the one missing their point when you have blatantly misunderstood David’s point, this wasn’t about the Moral Argument or Moral Ontology at all according to David but moral epistemology. If your confused its because David was confused himself and most of his writing related to moral ontology.
Anyways, where in the show did I even attempt to make the moral argument, that simply didn’t happen? You need to pay attention better instead of assuming things. David asked me a question of “how” I know things and I answered it. David is right when we talk there is always misunderstanding but that is because its you not listening to me and instead making up your own strawmen to attack.
David proves that he “knows” when his sight is working and when it is not but then denies me the same right on morals. Nope, its exactly the same, when I got knowledge, I know it, period- its the old epistemic chain regress issue again that I’ve covered a million times now.
By the way, you’ve never told me how you solve the epistemic regress problem yourself, I remember thinking you were a coherentist at one point but you turned that down. So do you think we have knowledge of anything? How do you know? How do you solve the regress problem (infinite regress, brute facts, coherentism, or foundationalism like me and other rational people believe?
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Anyways, where in the show did I even attempt to make the moral argument, that simply didn’t happen?
The motivation for David’s post and the show was clearly driven by the popularity of Christians using the Moral Argument to keep the discussion to ontology, use it as a cheap shaming tactic in debates “what you actually disagree torturing children is bad???” to avoid the problems of morel epistemology for Christians.
In the show at 15:00 YOU even brought up the scenario of watching a William L Craig debate (‘in the bar”) , saying Craig does avoid moral epistemology (which is in the context of the Moral Argument). You said you remember Craig’s answer for why this is so, and his answer was “that was the proper thing to do (avoid epistemology) because usually in debates it’s about the Moral Argument for God’s existence and that just is the proper domain of moral ontology.”
David clearly had the Moral Argument in mind with his critique and YOU brought it up, and then David replied essentially that’s exactly what we are going to disagree about!
So, Dale, please don’t claim I need to pay attention better, when it seems you have amnesia about the very show under question.
Do you disavow the Moral Argument (as typically proposed by Craig and other apologists in debates?). If so, state this please. If not, and it’s pretty clear you condone it, the problems we have cited remain:
The Moral Argument MUST WORK ON IT’S OWN, without revelation to “help out.” That’s the point of the Moral Argument For God – that one can reason to the existence of God based on moral intuitions alone. So you have the problems laid out:
1. When using the moral argument itself, the Christian gives no good reason to think he is directly perceiving objective moral truths. When faced, for instance, with the problem this raises for moral disagreement, the Christian doesn’t present argument or evidence beyond: “those who disagree with my moral intuition are wrong, I am right.” So the Christian fails to support the premises of the argument.
2. Christian theology undermines the moral argument by positing that it has been revealed to us our moral conscience is fallible and corrupt, and God reveals which moral propositions were were right about, which ones we were wrong about.
So #2 entails that our moral conscience was corrupt and unreliable, so that without revelation we are left believing both right and wrong moral propositions. So the trustworthiness of our moral intuitions used for the Moral Argument are undermined and the argument can be thrown out. Combine the fact with #1 and the Moral Argument is dead.
Another problem being that if one accepts the moral argument, it can be used to argue the character “God” depicted in the Bible can not be the God established in the Moral Argument. Because that God continually violates standard moral intuitions. (And the only way out of this is to start bringing back the fallibility of our moral intuitions relative to that of God’s, which only then undermines the basis of the moral argument again).
For Christians, the Moral Argument and their belief in revelation are Oil and Water.
It doesn’t matter if it were true or not that revelation tells you which moral intuitions were tracking truth or not; you don’t GET to use revelation for the moral argument. The moral argument suggests that we can KNOW moral truths by direct apprehension. But this is not distinguished from mere psychological conviction, and you can not provide any argument/evidence to establish which convictions are “true” and which are “false,” without appeal to revelation. And revelation just makes things worse because it includes the proposition that your moral conscience was fallibly corrupted!
Christians are stuck in quicksand here, but they imagine themselves as being on the sunny beach with a mixed drink in hand.
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Vaal, listen again instead of inventing strawmen argument all the time, yes I brought it up in response to David’s complaint that he avoids moral epistemology issues, I didn’t bring up the moral argument at all except to say the reason Bill doesn’t get into moral epistemology in his online debates is the subject is the moral argument- part of moral ontology so it would be a red herring to address it there. But I assure on his website and in his books he talks about when appropriate to do so- he has entire chapters on moral epistemology in some of his books.
So the skeptical complaint is as foolish as saying I listen to Bill Craig debates on the moral argument and he never talks about oranges- yeah, its not relevant to the issue of debate and neither is moral epistemology, that’s why he points it out as a red herring, just like its a red herring to bring up the Moral Argument in this debate between me and David on moral epistemology and even if moral ontology was discussed even that still doesn’t entail the moral argument for God.
So yeah, you need to do better Vaal, you are horrible at staying focused on the actual topic of debate- TIME TO OPEN UP YOUR LISTENING EARS VAAL!
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Of course theists have epistemological claims too. They just conveniently try to keep those behind the curtain during debates with atheists, to put the atheist on the back foot with the Moral Argument.That’s why it came up in the show. And it is the use of the moral argument by Christians in lieu of debating their epistemology that inspires David’s (and my and other atheists) critique in this area.
The moral argument is ultimately an ontological argument (leading to a conclusion about what must exist, a God).
But the JUSTIFICATIONS for the premises in the moral argument include purported epistemological claims.
The claims for moral direct apprehension of moral knowledge you were making are the ones used in the Moral Argument.
I’ve been showing how the epistemic claims you made to direct moral knowledge on the show remain unjustified, and how this has consequences for the Moral Argument, as well as the consequences of accepting the Moral Argument (and the “direct moral knowledge” of the type you defended in the show) the for Christian claims of biblical revelation. If you don’t understand the relevance, I can’t help you, I guess.
We don’t even NEED to mention The Moral Argument specifically to point out the problem your epistemic claims for moral knowledge clash with Christian revelation. You can’t on one hand make an epistemic argument of directly moral knowledge…and THAT BASIS IS GOOD ENOUGH…while ALSO appealing to revelation that tells us our moral knowledge is corrupted by sin and that God reveals we are right sometimes, wrong other times. (But, again, since the Moral Argument is important in apologetics, and remains the subtext for the show – that’s why David said Christians are happy to talk moral ontology in debates, not epistemology – it’s obviously relevant to The Moral Argument).
Either direct moral knowledge is good enough (which are the premises of the Moral Argument) or IT ISN’T.
If it ISN’T then stop using the claim. If it IS, you have to show how it is WITHOUT bringing in a different argument from revelation. This you manifestly fail to do.
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Dale,
As David pointed out, you missed the point.
First of all, in the show you said:
“In revelation God corrects the corruption of sin in our moral conscience”
You said “my MORAL CONSCIENCE SAYS I don’t personally see anything wrong with having sex outside of marriage or even being homosexual….but there is nothing within my own conscience that would say it is wrong or immoral…two people love each other,,,whatever.”
That is clearly saying your moral conscience thought homosexuality was morally ok. You even provide some weak reasoning for it “two people love each other…”
But then you say you are “informed morally” by divine revelation and your “MIND WAS CHANGED” upon conversion – “well actually Dale your moral conscience was just corrupted by sin (homosexuality etc.) IS wrong.”
This is the having your cake and eat it too level of inconsistency. On one hand when making the moral argument, you stake the purportedly “objectivity” of moral propositions on your moral conscience.
And when you have to defend revelation, you tell us our moral conscience is NOT RELIABLE. Our moral conscience is corrupted by “sin.”
Sorry, you can’t have it both ways and have both those arguments. An infraction – inconsistency – has been cited.
When making the moral argument you can’t give us BEFORE-HAND a way to know which moral intuitions from our conscience has been “corrupted” or not, so you can’t rely on appealing to the reliability of our moral conscience. Take one argument and stick with it.
And you don’t show, while defending the Moral argument, how we can decide between contrasting moral intuitions. You simply assert your own as the default. This problem arises again for your answer:
“There would only be a problem in the way you describe (which again even if it did happen is not an issue for Christians anyways) and my moral intutional knowledge said being gay was good and then I learned the Bible says no- then yes that would be a clash.”
And that is what happens with other people, Dale. We look at the biblical God and that character’s actions and “morality” continually clash, brutally, with our moral intuitions. So…why should YOUR moral intuitions be the default upon which the moral argument stands, vs ours which would entail the Biblical God can not be the source of moral objectivity, given He contradicts our moral conscience?
“Sometimes that happens though, my moral conscience tells me Calvinism is evil (95% certain of it), but its possible that the Bible might provide me with knowledge in a degree that over-rides that and thus, I preference it over my own conscience and become a Calvinist. “
Which, again, undermines the whole project of the Moral Argument, where you claim to simply apprehend moral propositions you “know” to be true!
“The only logically impossible scenario would be if my conscience provides me with 100% knowledge that something is good/bad and another source like the bible or God/H.S. reveals to me the opposite is true “
That is incoherent taken together with your other claims as a Christian.
How in the world could you know you have “100% knowledge” about anything prior to revelation? First, your conscience is corrupted by sin. But even leaving that out, how in the world would you discern “100% moral knowledge?” The sheer level of feeling with which you believe it? But that again can’t tell us anything because in the competition-for-levels-of-conviction, you will find people with high levels of conviction that X is Good where you are convinced it is “bad.” So you can’t show us how that is settled, beyond your mere assertions.
The problem for you is exactly what David set out to show: that Christian moral epistemology really just can’t make a good account of itself and ends up turning back and puncturing the balloon of your moral ontology.
You try to make each argument support one another – Moral Argument (ontological argument) and Argument From Revelation (epistemological argument)- leaping from one to the other as you need to retreat. Where it turns out they actually defeat one another. The moral argument tells us our moral intuitions are reliable enough to be taken as objective truths, upon which we can know a God must exist. But revelation (Biblical) tells the story that our moral conscience is NOT reliable; it is corrupt. And every time the God of your holy book clashes with people’s moral intuitions – as He does often and for many people – it would follow from taking the Moral Argument seriously, that can’t be the real God who grounds our objective moral intuitions!
Again: Other Christians will let this stuff slide. You have to do better when making a case to people who don’t take their eyes off the ball.
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Ugh, obviously the first quote should have been bolded as it was Dales:
“Anyways, where in the show did I even attempt to make the moral argument, that simply didn’t happen? “
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The new BSC Weekly is out. I used the entire time to focus on one story. It was a blast. Really. You’ll see. 🙂 There is more content in the podcast than the writeup. So be sure to listen the next time you have 30 minutes.
https://bscweekly.home.blog/2019/12/13/holy-water-holy-smoke/
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