1. Argument from Morality
Summary:
A. True objective moral obligation exists.
B. Either god exists or god does not exist.
C. Objective morality requires an ultimate being to create it. Otherwise morality would be subjective.
D. Therefore, god exists.
B. Either god exists or god does not exist.
C. Objective morality requires an ultimate being to create it. Otherwise morality would be subjective.
D. Therefore, god exists.
Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, American physician-geneticist, NIH Director, 1950-
“At this point, godless materialists might be cheering. If humans evolved strictly by mutation and natural selection, who needs God to explain us? To this, I reply: I do. The comparison of chimp and human sequences, interesting as it is, does not tell us what it means to be human. In my views, DNA sequence alone, even if accompanied by a vast trove of data on biological function, will never explain certain special human attributes, such as the knowledge of the Moral Law and the universal search for God. Freeing God from the burden of special acts of creation does not remove Him as the source of the things that make humanity special, and of the universe itself. It merely shows us something of how He operates.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, New York, 2006
“It is the awareness of right and wrong, along with the development of language, awareness of self, and the ability to imagine the future, to which scientists generally refer when trying to enumerate the special qualities of Homo sapiens.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, New York, 2006
“At this point, godless materialists might be cheering. If humans evolved strictly by mutation and natural selection, who needs God to explain us? To this, I reply: I do. The comparison of chimp and human sequences, interesting as it is, does not tell us what it means to be human. In my views, DNA sequence alone, even if accompanied by a vast trove of data on biological function, will never explain certain special human attributes, such as the knowledge of the Moral Law and the universal search for God. Freeing God from the burden of special acts of creation does not remove Him as the source of the things that make humanity special, and of the universe itself. It merely shows us something of how He operates.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, New York, 2006
“It is the awareness of right and wrong, along with the development of language, awareness of self, and the ability to imagine the future, to which scientists generally refer when trying to enumerate the special qualities of Homo sapiens.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, New York, 2006
C.S. Lewis, British writer and lay-theologian, 1898-1963
“...[Moral] Dualism means the belief that there are two equal and independent powers at the back of everything, one of them good and the other bad, and that this universe is the battlefield in which they fight out an endless war...
“The two powers, or spirits, or gods–the good one and the bad one–are supposed to be quite independent. They both existed from all eternity. Neither of them made the other, neither of them has any more right than the other to call itself God. Each presumably thinks it is good and thinks the other bad. One of them likes hatred and cruelty, the other likes love and mercy, and each backs its own view. Now what do we mean when we call one of them the Good Power and the other the Bad Power? Either we are merely saying that we happen to prefer the one to the other–like preferring beer to cider–or else we are saying that, whatever the two powers think about it, and whichever we humans, at the moment, happen to like, one of them is actually wrong, actually mistaken, it regarding itself as good. Now if we mean merely that we happen to prefer the first, then we must give up talking about good evil at all. For good means what you ought to prefer quite regardless of what you happen to like at any given moment. If ’being good’ meant simply joining the side you happened to fancy, for no real reason, then good would not deserve to be called good. So we must mean that one of the two powers is actually wrong and the other actually right.
“But the moment you say that, you are putting into the universe a third thing in addition to the two Powers: some law or standard or rule of good which one of the powers conforms to and the other fails to conform to. But since the two powers are judged by this standard, then this standard, or the Being who made this standard, is farther back and higher up than either of them, and He will be the real God...
“...If Dualism is true, then the bad Power must be a being who likes badness for its own sake. But in reality we have no experience of anyone liking badness just because it is bad. The nearest we can get to it is in cruelty. But in real life people are cruel for one of two reasons–either because they are sadists, that is, because they have a sexual perversion which makes cruelty a cause of sensual pleasure to them, or else for the sake of something they are going to get out of it–money, or power, or safety. But pleasure, money, power, and safety are all, as far as they go, good things. The badness consists in pursuing them by the wrong method, or in the wrong way, or too much... I do mean that wickedness, when you examine it, turns out to be the pursuit of some good in the wrong way. You can be good for the mere sake of goodness; you cannot be bad for the mere sake of badness. You can do a kind action when you are not feeling kind and when it gives you no pleasure, simply because kindness is right; but no one ever did a cruel action simply because cruelty is wrong–only because cruelty was pleasant or useful to him. In other words badness cannot succeed even in being bad in the same way in which goodness is good. Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled... In order to be bad he must have good things to want and then to pursue in the wrong way: he must have impulses which were originally good in order to be able to pervert them. But if he is bad he cannot supply himself either with good things to desire or with good impulses to pervert. He must be getting both from the Good Power. And if so, then he is not independent. He is part of the Good Power’s world: he was made either by the Good Power or by some power above them both.
“...And do you now begin to see why Christianity has always said that the devil is a fallen angel? That is not a mere story for the children. It is a real recognition of the fact that evil is a parasite, not an original thing. The powers which enable evil to carry on are powers given it by goodness. All the things which enable a bad man to be effectively bad are in themselves good things–resolution, cleverness, good looks, existence itself. That is why [Moral] Dualism, in a strict sense, will not work.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p43-45
“You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the universe in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built. Now, from this second bit of evidence we conclude that the Being behind the universe is intensely interested in right conduct–in fair play, unselfishness, courage, good faith, honesty and truthfulness. In that sense we should agree with the account given by Christianity and some other religions, that God is ’good.’ But do not let us go too fast here. The Moral Law does not give us any grounds for thinking that God is ’good’ in the sense of being indulgent, or soft, or sympathetic. There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails. It tells you to do the straight thing and it does not seem to care how painful, or dangerous, or difficult it is to do... This is the terrible fix we are in. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again. We cannot do without it, and we cannot do with it. God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion. Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger–according to the way you react to it...
“It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power–it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. When you have realised that our position is nearly desperate you will begin to understand what the Christians are talking about. They offer an explanation of how we got into our present state of both hating goodness and loving it. They offer an explanation of how God can be this impersonal mind at the back of the Moral Law and yet also a Person.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p34-35
“...[Moral] Dualism means the belief that there are two equal and independent powers at the back of everything, one of them good and the other bad, and that this universe is the battlefield in which they fight out an endless war...
“The two powers, or spirits, or gods–the good one and the bad one–are supposed to be quite independent. They both existed from all eternity. Neither of them made the other, neither of them has any more right than the other to call itself God. Each presumably thinks it is good and thinks the other bad. One of them likes hatred and cruelty, the other likes love and mercy, and each backs its own view. Now what do we mean when we call one of them the Good Power and the other the Bad Power? Either we are merely saying that we happen to prefer the one to the other–like preferring beer to cider–or else we are saying that, whatever the two powers think about it, and whichever we humans, at the moment, happen to like, one of them is actually wrong, actually mistaken, it regarding itself as good. Now if we mean merely that we happen to prefer the first, then we must give up talking about good evil at all. For good means what you ought to prefer quite regardless of what you happen to like at any given moment. If ’being good’ meant simply joining the side you happened to fancy, for no real reason, then good would not deserve to be called good. So we must mean that one of the two powers is actually wrong and the other actually right.
“But the moment you say that, you are putting into the universe a third thing in addition to the two Powers: some law or standard or rule of good which one of the powers conforms to and the other fails to conform to. But since the two powers are judged by this standard, then this standard, or the Being who made this standard, is farther back and higher up than either of them, and He will be the real God...
“...If Dualism is true, then the bad Power must be a being who likes badness for its own sake. But in reality we have no experience of anyone liking badness just because it is bad. The nearest we can get to it is in cruelty. But in real life people are cruel for one of two reasons–either because they are sadists, that is, because they have a sexual perversion which makes cruelty a cause of sensual pleasure to them, or else for the sake of something they are going to get out of it–money, or power, or safety. But pleasure, money, power, and safety are all, as far as they go, good things. The badness consists in pursuing them by the wrong method, or in the wrong way, or too much... I do mean that wickedness, when you examine it, turns out to be the pursuit of some good in the wrong way. You can be good for the mere sake of goodness; you cannot be bad for the mere sake of badness. You can do a kind action when you are not feeling kind and when it gives you no pleasure, simply because kindness is right; but no one ever did a cruel action simply because cruelty is wrong–only because cruelty was pleasant or useful to him. In other words badness cannot succeed even in being bad in the same way in which goodness is good. Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled... In order to be bad he must have good things to want and then to pursue in the wrong way: he must have impulses which were originally good in order to be able to pervert them. But if he is bad he cannot supply himself either with good things to desire or with good impulses to pervert. He must be getting both from the Good Power. And if so, then he is not independent. He is part of the Good Power’s world: he was made either by the Good Power or by some power above them both.
“...And do you now begin to see why Christianity has always said that the devil is a fallen angel? That is not a mere story for the children. It is a real recognition of the fact that evil is a parasite, not an original thing. The powers which enable evil to carry on are powers given it by goodness. All the things which enable a bad man to be effectively bad are in themselves good things–resolution, cleverness, good looks, existence itself. That is why [Moral] Dualism, in a strict sense, will not work.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p43-45
“You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the universe in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built. Now, from this second bit of evidence we conclude that the Being behind the universe is intensely interested in right conduct–in fair play, unselfishness, courage, good faith, honesty and truthfulness. In that sense we should agree with the account given by Christianity and some other religions, that God is ’good.’ But do not let us go too fast here. The Moral Law does not give us any grounds for thinking that God is ’good’ in the sense of being indulgent, or soft, or sympathetic. There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails. It tells you to do the straight thing and it does not seem to care how painful, or dangerous, or difficult it is to do... This is the terrible fix we are in. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again. We cannot do without it, and we cannot do with it. God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion. Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger–according to the way you react to it...
“It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power–it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. When you have realised that our position is nearly desperate you will begin to understand what the Christians are talking about. They offer an explanation of how we got into our present state of both hating goodness and loving it. They offer an explanation of how God can be this impersonal mind at the back of the Moral Law and yet also a Person.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p34-35
J.P. Moreland, American philosopher & theologian, 1948-
“Rationality has two basic functions in a naturalistic cognitivist theory of metaethics. Reason functions first and foremost in a means/ends way–that is, given that I desire or will certain ends, then reason can help me find the most efficient means to those ends. Second, reason can postulate certain ends as ‘rationally desirable’ in the sense that, given certain contingent facts about us as humans and given that we find ourselves working within a set of contingent moral traditions or versions of human goods and the good life (e.g., Rawlsian primary goods–natural desires and wants that are ‘reasonable’ to want whatever else one wants), these ends are desired by ‘normal’ (nonneurotic) people. Unfortunately, neither of these senses of rationality has any connection to moral truth. But rationality is an honorific notion precisely because we believe that by being rational one is in a better position to have the truth. Thus, these natural notions of rationality cannot answer the question, ’Why should I be moral?’ where the ‘should’ is a rational ‘should.’ For it would be possible that all ‘rational’ (nonneurotic, unemotional, cool headed) human beings to desire something that is inconsistent with true moral facts. If this happened, it would not be ’rational’ to be moral. But a nonnatural notion of rationality does not have this problem. Given moral realism (there are irreducibly moral facts and moral truths [that] correspond to these facts), one can have rational intuitive knowledge of synthetic a priori moral truths like ‘Mercy, as such, is a virtue.’ In this case, to adopt the moral point of view is to be rational, for it is to acknowledge the existence and knowability of true moral facts.”
— J.P. Moreland (footnotes), Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p44-45
“The real question I am trying to emphasize is this: How could there be such a thing as goodness and morality in the universe? In my opinion, a worldview is inadequate which implies that it is not irrational to be a moral monster or to be indifferent to the moral point of view by embracing, say, a rational life plan centered in some form of ethical egoism. What kind of universe makes most reasonable the existence of objective morality?
“Finally, if we step back from the issue of knowing the specific content of morality, and we consider the broader, transcendental question of how it could come about that human beings have normative, rational, truth-gathering faculties in general, as well as how humans came to have these faculties regarding moral knowledge in particular, then we have the makings of a design argument for God. It is this concept of rationality that, at once, justifies the claim that a moral egoist is irrational and provides an argument for God to ground the possibility or moral knowledge.”
— J.P. Moreland, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p132-133
“Rationality has two basic functions in a naturalistic cognitivist theory of metaethics. Reason functions first and foremost in a means/ends way–that is, given that I desire or will certain ends, then reason can help me find the most efficient means to those ends. Second, reason can postulate certain ends as ‘rationally desirable’ in the sense that, given certain contingent facts about us as humans and given that we find ourselves working within a set of contingent moral traditions or versions of human goods and the good life (e.g., Rawlsian primary goods–natural desires and wants that are ‘reasonable’ to want whatever else one wants), these ends are desired by ‘normal’ (nonneurotic) people. Unfortunately, neither of these senses of rationality has any connection to moral truth. But rationality is an honorific notion precisely because we believe that by being rational one is in a better position to have the truth. Thus, these natural notions of rationality cannot answer the question, ’Why should I be moral?’ where the ‘should’ is a rational ‘should.’ For it would be possible that all ‘rational’ (nonneurotic, unemotional, cool headed) human beings to desire something that is inconsistent with true moral facts. If this happened, it would not be ’rational’ to be moral. But a nonnatural notion of rationality does not have this problem. Given moral realism (there are irreducibly moral facts and moral truths [that] correspond to these facts), one can have rational intuitive knowledge of synthetic a priori moral truths like ‘Mercy, as such, is a virtue.’ In this case, to adopt the moral point of view is to be rational, for it is to acknowledge the existence and knowability of true moral facts.”
— J.P. Moreland (footnotes), Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p44-45
“The real question I am trying to emphasize is this: How could there be such a thing as goodness and morality in the universe? In my opinion, a worldview is inadequate which implies that it is not irrational to be a moral monster or to be indifferent to the moral point of view by embracing, say, a rational life plan centered in some form of ethical egoism. What kind of universe makes most reasonable the existence of objective morality?
“Finally, if we step back from the issue of knowing the specific content of morality, and we consider the broader, transcendental question of how it could come about that human beings have normative, rational, truth-gathering faculties in general, as well as how humans came to have these faculties regarding moral knowledge in particular, then we have the makings of a design argument for God. It is this concept of rationality that, at once, justifies the claim that a moral egoist is irrational and provides an argument for God to ground the possibility or moral knowledge.”
— J.P. Moreland, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p132-133
Elmer Leon Towns, American professor of theology & pastor, 1932-
“Laws imply the existence of a lawgiver. This aspect of the general revelation of God is debated by theologians. Some feel that the existence of laws in society or the existence of a moral law within the individual is evidence of God’s self-revelation. They argue that, since laws are an extension of the nature of God, the presence of laws in society are our evidence that God has made man a social creature and placed within man a desire for law and order. Obviously they do not say civil law is meritorious, but that its existence reveals God the lawgiver. Also, they imply that man’s inborn impulse to judge others who break the law is evidence of that law.
“How can we know that a straight line is straight and not crooked if there is not a standard somewhere to judge the ’Straightness’ of the line? Thus all desire for justice and for a perfect law that is based on a ‘perfectly straight line’ implies the existence of the perfect law.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p42
“Laws imply the existence of a lawgiver. This aspect of the general revelation of God is debated by theologians. Some feel that the existence of laws in society or the existence of a moral law within the individual is evidence of God’s self-revelation. They argue that, since laws are an extension of the nature of God, the presence of laws in society are our evidence that God has made man a social creature and placed within man a desire for law and order. Obviously they do not say civil law is meritorious, but that its existence reveals God the lawgiver. Also, they imply that man’s inborn impulse to judge others who break the law is evidence of that law.
“How can we know that a straight line is straight and not crooked if there is not a standard somewhere to judge the ’Straightness’ of the line? Thus all desire for justice and for a perfect law that is based on a ‘perfectly straight line’ implies the existence of the perfect law.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p42
2. Argument from Conscience
Summary:
A. Everyone in the world feels obligated to be good.
B. No obligation can come from something less than the self, like instinct.
C. Obligation cannot come from equals because they are not absolute either.
D. Only something greater, like God, can be the source of absolute moral obligation.
B. No obligation can come from something less than the self, like instinct.
C. Obligation cannot come from equals because they are not absolute either.
D. Only something greater, like God, can be the source of absolute moral obligation.
Peter John Kreeft, American professor of philosophy, 1937-
“To sum up the argument most simply and essentially, conscience has absolute, exceptionless, binding moral authority over us, demanding unqualified obedience. But only a perfectly good, righteous divine will has this authority and a right to absolute, exceptionless obedience. Therefore conscience is the voice of the will of God.”
— Peter Kreeft, “Reasons to Believe: The Argument from Conscience,” Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics, Ignatius Press, 1988
“The simple, intuitive point of the argument from conscience is that everyone in the world knows, deep down, that he is absolutely obligated to be and do good, and this absolute obligation could come only from God. Thus everyone knows God, however obscurely, by this moral intuition, which we usually call conscience. Conscience is the voice of God in the soul...
“Nearly everyone will admit the premise, though. They will often explain it differently, interpret it differently, insist it has nothing to do with God. But that is exactly what the argument tries to show: that once you admit the premise of the authority of conscience, you must admit the conclusion of God...
“Nearly everyone will admit not only the existence of conscience but also its authority. In this age of rebellion against and doubt about nearly every authority, in this age in which the very word authority has changed from a word of respect to a word of scorn, one authority remains: an individual's conscience. Almost no one will say that one ought to sin against one's conscience, disobey one's conscience. Disobey the church, the state, parents, authority figures, but do not disobey your conscience. Thus people usually admit, though not usually in these words, the absolute moral authority and binding obligation of conscience.
“...The second premise is that the only possible source of absolute authority is an absolute perfect will, a divine being. The conclusion follows that such a being exists.”
— Peter Kreeft, “Reasons to Believe: The Argument from Conscience,” Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics, Ignatius Press, 1988
“To sum up the argument most simply and essentially, conscience has absolute, exceptionless, binding moral authority over us, demanding unqualified obedience. But only a perfectly good, righteous divine will has this authority and a right to absolute, exceptionless obedience. Therefore conscience is the voice of the will of God.”
— Peter Kreeft, “Reasons to Believe: The Argument from Conscience,” Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics, Ignatius Press, 1988
“The simple, intuitive point of the argument from conscience is that everyone in the world knows, deep down, that he is absolutely obligated to be and do good, and this absolute obligation could come only from God. Thus everyone knows God, however obscurely, by this moral intuition, which we usually call conscience. Conscience is the voice of God in the soul...
“Nearly everyone will admit the premise, though. They will often explain it differently, interpret it differently, insist it has nothing to do with God. But that is exactly what the argument tries to show: that once you admit the premise of the authority of conscience, you must admit the conclusion of God...
“Nearly everyone will admit not only the existence of conscience but also its authority. In this age of rebellion against and doubt about nearly every authority, in this age in which the very word authority has changed from a word of respect to a word of scorn, one authority remains: an individual's conscience. Almost no one will say that one ought to sin against one's conscience, disobey one's conscience. Disobey the church, the state, parents, authority figures, but do not disobey your conscience. Thus people usually admit, though not usually in these words, the absolute moral authority and binding obligation of conscience.
“...The second premise is that the only possible source of absolute authority is an absolute perfect will, a divine being. The conclusion follows that such a being exists.”
— Peter Kreeft, “Reasons to Believe: The Argument from Conscience,” Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics, Ignatius Press, 1988
J.P. Moreland, American philosopher & theologian, 1948-
“Or consider the arguments for God from the existence of moral value and meaning in life. If God does not exist, it is hard to see how there could be any such thing as prescriptive, nonnatural morality. It just doesn’t seem that the Big Bang could spit out moral values, at least not at the rate it spit out hydrogen atoms.
“As one philosopher [William Lane Craig] put it: ‘In a world without God, mankind could not be more significant than a swarm of mosquitoes or a barnyard of pigs, for the same cosmic process that coughed them both up in the first place will eventually swallow them all up again.’ Even the late J.L. Mackie, perhaps the greatest atheist of our century, said, ‘Moral properties constitute so odd a cluster of qualities and relations that they are most unlikely to have arisen in the ordinary course of events without an all-powerful god to create them.’”
— J.P. Moreland, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p36
“Or consider the arguments for God from the existence of moral value and meaning in life. If God does not exist, it is hard to see how there could be any such thing as prescriptive, nonnatural morality. It just doesn’t seem that the Big Bang could spit out moral values, at least not at the rate it spit out hydrogen atoms.
“As one philosopher [William Lane Craig] put it: ‘In a world without God, mankind could not be more significant than a swarm of mosquitoes or a barnyard of pigs, for the same cosmic process that coughed them both up in the first place will eventually swallow them all up again.’ Even the late J.L. Mackie, perhaps the greatest atheist of our century, said, ‘Moral properties constitute so odd a cluster of qualities and relations that they are most unlikely to have arisen in the ordinary course of events without an all-powerful god to create them.’”
— J.P. Moreland, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p36
C.S. Lewis, British writer and lay-theologian, 1898-1963
“For example, some people wrote to me saying, ‘Isn’t what you call the Moral Law simply our herd instinct and hasn’t it been developed just like all our other instincts?’ Now I do not deny that we may have a herd instinct; but that is not what I mean by the Moral Law. We all know what it feels like to be prompted by instinct–by mother love, or sexual instinct, or the instinct for food. It means that you feel a strong want or desire to act in a certain way. And, of course, we sometimes do feel just that sort of desire to help another person: and no doubt that desire is due to the herd instinct. But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not. Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires–one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p19-20
“The first is, as I said in the first chapter, that though there are differences between the moral ideas of one time or country and those of another, the differences are not really very great–not nearly so great as most people imagine–and you can recognise the same law running through them all: whereas mere conventions, like the rule of the road or the kind of clothes people wear, may differ to any extent... When you think about these differences between the morality of one people and another, do you think that the morality of one people is ever better or worse than that of another? Have any of the changes been improvements? If not, then of course there could never be any moral progress. Progress means not just changing, but changing for the better. If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilised morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality. In fact, of course, we all do believe that some moralities are better than others. We do believe that some of the people who tried to change the moral ideas of their own age were what we could call Reformers or Pioneers–people who understood morality better than their neighbours did. Very well then. The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other. But the standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as a real Right, independent of what people think, and that some people’s ideas get nearer to that real Right than others. Or put it this way. If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something–some Real Morality–for them to be true about. ...In the same way, if the Rule of Decent Behaviour meant simply, ‘whatever each nation happens to approve,’ there would be no sense in saying that any one nation had ever been more correct in its approval than any other; no sense in saying that the world could ever grow morally better or morally worse.
“I conclude then, that though the difference between people’s ideas of Decent Behaviour often make you suspect that there is no real natural Law of Behaviour at all, yet the things we are bound to think about these differences really prove just the opposite...”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p21-22
“Men ought to be unselfish, ought to be fair. Not that men are unselfish, not that they like being unselfish, but that they ought to be. The Moral Law, or Law of Human Nature, is not simply a fact about human behaviour in the same way as the Law of Gravitation is, or may be, simply a fact about how heavy objects behave. On the other hand, it is not a mere fancy, for we cannot get rid of the idea, and most of the things we say and think about men would be reduced to nonsense if we did. And it is not simply a statement about how we should like men to behave for our own convenience, for the behaviour we call bad or unfair is not exactly the same as the behaviour we find inconvenient, and may even be the opposite. Consequently, this Rule of Right and Wrong, or Law of Human Nature, or whatever you call it, must somehow or other be a real thing–a thing that is really there, not made up by ourselves. And yet it is not a fact in the ordinary sense, in the same way as our actual behaviour is a fact. It begins to look as if we shall have to admit that there is more than one kind of reality; that, in this particular case, there is something above and beyond the ordinary facts of men’s behaviour, and yet quite definitely real–a real law, which none of us made, but which we find pressing us on.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p27
“...In the case of stones and trees and things of that sort, what we call the Laws of Nature may not be anything except a way of speaking. When you say that nature is governed by certain laws, this may only mean that nature does, in fact, behave in a certain way. The so-called laws may not be anything real–anything above and beyond the actual facts which we observe. But in the case of Man, we saw that this will not do. The Law of Human Nature, or of Right and Wrong, must be something above and beyond the actual facts of human behaviour. In this case, besides the actual facts, you have something else–a real law which we did not invent and which we know we ought to obey.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p28
“For example, some people wrote to me saying, ‘Isn’t what you call the Moral Law simply our herd instinct and hasn’t it been developed just like all our other instincts?’ Now I do not deny that we may have a herd instinct; but that is not what I mean by the Moral Law. We all know what it feels like to be prompted by instinct–by mother love, or sexual instinct, or the instinct for food. It means that you feel a strong want or desire to act in a certain way. And, of course, we sometimes do feel just that sort of desire to help another person: and no doubt that desire is due to the herd instinct. But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not. Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires–one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p19-20
“The first is, as I said in the first chapter, that though there are differences between the moral ideas of one time or country and those of another, the differences are not really very great–not nearly so great as most people imagine–and you can recognise the same law running through them all: whereas mere conventions, like the rule of the road or the kind of clothes people wear, may differ to any extent... When you think about these differences between the morality of one people and another, do you think that the morality of one people is ever better or worse than that of another? Have any of the changes been improvements? If not, then of course there could never be any moral progress. Progress means not just changing, but changing for the better. If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilised morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality. In fact, of course, we all do believe that some moralities are better than others. We do believe that some of the people who tried to change the moral ideas of their own age were what we could call Reformers or Pioneers–people who understood morality better than their neighbours did. Very well then. The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other. But the standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as a real Right, independent of what people think, and that some people’s ideas get nearer to that real Right than others. Or put it this way. If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something–some Real Morality–for them to be true about. ...In the same way, if the Rule of Decent Behaviour meant simply, ‘whatever each nation happens to approve,’ there would be no sense in saying that any one nation had ever been more correct in its approval than any other; no sense in saying that the world could ever grow morally better or morally worse.
“I conclude then, that though the difference between people’s ideas of Decent Behaviour often make you suspect that there is no real natural Law of Behaviour at all, yet the things we are bound to think about these differences really prove just the opposite...”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p21-22
“Men ought to be unselfish, ought to be fair. Not that men are unselfish, not that they like being unselfish, but that they ought to be. The Moral Law, or Law of Human Nature, is not simply a fact about human behaviour in the same way as the Law of Gravitation is, or may be, simply a fact about how heavy objects behave. On the other hand, it is not a mere fancy, for we cannot get rid of the idea, and most of the things we say and think about men would be reduced to nonsense if we did. And it is not simply a statement about how we should like men to behave for our own convenience, for the behaviour we call bad or unfair is not exactly the same as the behaviour we find inconvenient, and may even be the opposite. Consequently, this Rule of Right and Wrong, or Law of Human Nature, or whatever you call it, must somehow or other be a real thing–a thing that is really there, not made up by ourselves. And yet it is not a fact in the ordinary sense, in the same way as our actual behaviour is a fact. It begins to look as if we shall have to admit that there is more than one kind of reality; that, in this particular case, there is something above and beyond the ordinary facts of men’s behaviour, and yet quite definitely real–a real law, which none of us made, but which we find pressing us on.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p27
“...In the case of stones and trees and things of that sort, what we call the Laws of Nature may not be anything except a way of speaking. When you say that nature is governed by certain laws, this may only mean that nature does, in fact, behave in a certain way. The so-called laws may not be anything real–anything above and beyond the actual facts which we observe. But in the case of Man, we saw that this will not do. The Law of Human Nature, or of Right and Wrong, must be something above and beyond the actual facts of human behaviour. In this case, besides the actual facts, you have something else–a real law which we did not invent and which we know we ought to obey.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p28
C.H. Douglas Clark, British inorganic & structural chemistry professor, 1890-19??
“...If we take a moral idea such as [Bertrand Russell’s] condemnation of cruelty, where does it arise? Does the moral imperative emanate from God? The philosophers say that there is no proof that it does: they argue that, before we ask these questions, there is another which must be settled. Are moral values, such as dislike of cruelty, independent entities; in other words, have they absolute qualities? They claim that whichever way we answer this question, yes or no, we have no evidence for God. If we say that hatred of cruelty is absolute, then it can exist independently of God; if we say it is not absolute, we lose the argument for God as necessary to explain where the absolute comes from. So it is: heads they win, tails we lose. Moreover, the agnostic philosophers have found other possible causes than God for the moral sense: that it depends on feeling or on taste, that it promotes the greatest happiness of the greatest number, that it is what we were taught to believe as children, or that it has arisen in us through fear of disapproval or of punishment...
“...Now from our point of view, if God exists, there must be a difference between His absolute Self and His attributes; from His standpoint, we presume the difference would be non-existent, if He has no parts, and is ONE God. When we tried to account for the world’s existence we found it necessary, or at least helpful, to suppose that it and all it contains might be explained as an Idea in the mind of God. When we come to moral values, so far as we can see, this explanation does not work in the same way. The reason for this becomes clear if we make one simple proposition: that the highest moral values do not simply emanate from God, but that they are God, an identification which seems to solve the problem. It is a truly Christian concept embodied, for example, in the statement that God is Love (1 John 4:8, 16). With God, Being and character are one. In this way, the Christian religion seems the only one to which the philosophic objection is inapplicable. We do not know of any similar identification in any other system: if some Eastern or other religion has made it, the same justification could be claimed. Otherwise, we must contend that [Russell] has been singularly unfortunate in selecting for attack the only religion which can successfully defend itself against it.”
— C.H. Douglas Clark, Christianity and Bertrand Russell: A Critique of the Essay: ‘Why I Am Not a Christian,’ Lutterworth Press, 1958 p34-36
“...If we take a moral idea such as [Bertrand Russell’s] condemnation of cruelty, where does it arise? Does the moral imperative emanate from God? The philosophers say that there is no proof that it does: they argue that, before we ask these questions, there is another which must be settled. Are moral values, such as dislike of cruelty, independent entities; in other words, have they absolute qualities? They claim that whichever way we answer this question, yes or no, we have no evidence for God. If we say that hatred of cruelty is absolute, then it can exist independently of God; if we say it is not absolute, we lose the argument for God as necessary to explain where the absolute comes from. So it is: heads they win, tails we lose. Moreover, the agnostic philosophers have found other possible causes than God for the moral sense: that it depends on feeling or on taste, that it promotes the greatest happiness of the greatest number, that it is what we were taught to believe as children, or that it has arisen in us through fear of disapproval or of punishment...
“...Now from our point of view, if God exists, there must be a difference between His absolute Self and His attributes; from His standpoint, we presume the difference would be non-existent, if He has no parts, and is ONE God. When we tried to account for the world’s existence we found it necessary, or at least helpful, to suppose that it and all it contains might be explained as an Idea in the mind of God. When we come to moral values, so far as we can see, this explanation does not work in the same way. The reason for this becomes clear if we make one simple proposition: that the highest moral values do not simply emanate from God, but that they are God, an identification which seems to solve the problem. It is a truly Christian concept embodied, for example, in the statement that God is Love (1 John 4:8, 16). With God, Being and character are one. In this way, the Christian religion seems the only one to which the philosophic objection is inapplicable. We do not know of any similar identification in any other system: if some Eastern or other religion has made it, the same justification could be claimed. Otherwise, we must contend that [Russell] has been singularly unfortunate in selecting for attack the only religion which can successfully defend itself against it.”
— C.H. Douglas Clark, Christianity and Bertrand Russell: A Critique of the Essay: ‘Why I Am Not a Christian,’ Lutterworth Press, 1958 p34-36
3. Divine Command Theory
Summary:
Anything God commands is good. Anything that is good is because God commanded it.
St. Augustine (Augustine of Hippo), Berber theologian and philosopher, 345-430
“If we ask the cause of the misery of the bad angels it occurs to us, and not unreasonably, that they are miserable because they have forsaken Him who supremely is, and have turned to themselves who have no such essence... If the further question be asked, What was the efficient cause of the evil will? There is none. For what is it which makes the will bad, when it is the will itself which makes the action bad? And consequently the bad will is the cause of the bad action, but nothing is the efficient cause of the bad will... When the will abandons what is above itself, and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil, not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked. Therefore, it is not an inferior thing which has made the will evil, but it is itself which has become so by wickedly desiring an inferior thing.”
— St. Augustine, City of God, Book XII, vi. (quoted by Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p366)
“If we ask the cause of the misery of the bad angels it occurs to us, and not unreasonably, that they are miserable because they have forsaken Him who supremely is, and have turned to themselves who have no such essence... If the further question be asked, What was the efficient cause of the evil will? There is none. For what is it which makes the will bad, when it is the will itself which makes the action bad? And consequently the bad will is the cause of the bad action, but nothing is the efficient cause of the bad will... When the will abandons what is above itself, and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil, not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked. Therefore, it is not an inferior thing which has made the will evil, but it is itself which has become so by wickedly desiring an inferior thing.”
— St. Augustine, City of God, Book XII, vi. (quoted by Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p366)
J.P. Moreland, American philosopher & theologian, 1948-
“I’m not a divine command theorist, so I don’t hold the view like [Kai] Nielsen correctly imputed to [Karl] Barth and certain strong Calvinists who hold to rather extreme forms of voluntarism. This view implies that morality is merely grounded in God’s will as opposed to His nature. You can see this in Descartes and others, that God could have made seven times seventy equal to twenty if He’d wanted to, and He could have made mercy as such a vice. That’s not my view.
“I think God’s will is ultimately expressed in keeping with His nature. Morality is ultimately grounded in the nature of God, not independently of God. There is a Euthypro-type [sic] argument that Bertrand Russell raised against theism–namely, that for the theist, morality is either arbitrarily grounded in God’s will or it’s grounded in something outside of God. But this is a false disjunction. I think the tertium quid is that morality can be grounded in God’s own nature. We obey God because He is good and loving. Now, when I say that God is good, I’m not stating a tautology. Further, I would agree with Nielsen that you have to understand the meaning of ’good’ before you can ascribe it to God.
“But so what? That only grants there is a certain epistemological or conceptual order to moral knowledge that’s different from the metaphysical order regarding the existence of goodness itself. I might have to look at a road map of Chicago before I can know where Chicago is, so the road map might be first in the order of epistemology, but Chicago has to exist prior to the fact of the road map. Similarly, God’s goodness would exist prior to the existence if finite, derived goodnesses, though conceptually or epistemologically, I might have to understand what ‘goodness’ means before I would be able to make a judgment that God is good.”
— J.P. Moreland, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p130-131
“I’m not a divine command theorist, so I don’t hold the view like [Kai] Nielsen correctly imputed to [Karl] Barth and certain strong Calvinists who hold to rather extreme forms of voluntarism. This view implies that morality is merely grounded in God’s will as opposed to His nature. You can see this in Descartes and others, that God could have made seven times seventy equal to twenty if He’d wanted to, and He could have made mercy as such a vice. That’s not my view.
“I think God’s will is ultimately expressed in keeping with His nature. Morality is ultimately grounded in the nature of God, not independently of God. There is a Euthypro-type [sic] argument that Bertrand Russell raised against theism–namely, that for the theist, morality is either arbitrarily grounded in God’s will or it’s grounded in something outside of God. But this is a false disjunction. I think the tertium quid is that morality can be grounded in God’s own nature. We obey God because He is good and loving. Now, when I say that God is good, I’m not stating a tautology. Further, I would agree with Nielsen that you have to understand the meaning of ’good’ before you can ascribe it to God.
“But so what? That only grants there is a certain epistemological or conceptual order to moral knowledge that’s different from the metaphysical order regarding the existence of goodness itself. I might have to look at a road map of Chicago before I can know where Chicago is, so the road map might be first in the order of epistemology, but Chicago has to exist prior to the fact of the road map. Similarly, God’s goodness would exist prior to the existence if finite, derived goodnesses, though conceptually or epistemologically, I might have to understand what ‘goodness’ means before I would be able to make a judgment that God is good.”
— J.P. Moreland, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p130-131
C.S. Lewis, British writer and lay-theologian, 1898-1963
“...We are now getting to the point at which different beliefs about the universe lead to different behaviour. And it would seem, at first sight, very sensible to stop before we got there, and just carry on with those parts of morality that all sensible people agree about. But can we? Remember that religion involves a series of statements about facts, which must be either true or false. If they are true, one set of conclusions will follow about the right sailing of the human fleet: if they are false, quite a different set. For example, let us go back to the man who says that a thing cannot be wrong unless it hurts some other human being. He quite understands that he must not damage the other ships in the convoy, but he honestly thinks that what he does to his own ship is simply his own business. But does it not make a great difference whether his ship is his own property or not? Does it not make a great difference whether I am, so to speak, the landlord of my own mind and body, or only a tenant, responsible to the real landlord? If somebody else made me, for his own purposes, then I shall have a lot of duties which I should not have if I simply belonged to myself.
“Again, Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse–so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be. And immortality makes this other difference, which, by the by, has a connection with the difference between totalitarianism and democracy. If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilisation is only a moment.
“It seems, then, that if we are to think about morality, we must think of all three departments: relationships between man and man: things inside each man: and relationships between man and the power that made him. We can all co-operate in the first one. Disagreements begin with the second and become more serious with the third. It is dealing with the third that the main differences between Christian and non-Christian morality come out...”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p68-69
“...We are now getting to the point at which different beliefs about the universe lead to different behaviour. And it would seem, at first sight, very sensible to stop before we got there, and just carry on with those parts of morality that all sensible people agree about. But can we? Remember that religion involves a series of statements about facts, which must be either true or false. If they are true, one set of conclusions will follow about the right sailing of the human fleet: if they are false, quite a different set. For example, let us go back to the man who says that a thing cannot be wrong unless it hurts some other human being. He quite understands that he must not damage the other ships in the convoy, but he honestly thinks that what he does to his own ship is simply his own business. But does it not make a great difference whether his ship is his own property or not? Does it not make a great difference whether I am, so to speak, the landlord of my own mind and body, or only a tenant, responsible to the real landlord? If somebody else made me, for his own purposes, then I shall have a lot of duties which I should not have if I simply belonged to myself.
“Again, Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse–so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be. And immortality makes this other difference, which, by the by, has a connection with the difference between totalitarianism and democracy. If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilisation is only a moment.
“It seems, then, that if we are to think about morality, we must think of all three departments: relationships between man and man: things inside each man: and relationships between man and the power that made him. We can all co-operate in the first one. Disagreements begin with the second and become more serious with the third. It is dealing with the third that the main differences between Christian and non-Christian morality come out...”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p68-69
Elmer Leon Towns, American professor of theology & pastor, 1932-
“Although Webster’s dictionary does not have the final or full definition, it defines sin as: ‘a transgression of divine law.’ This is a jumping-off point to examine sin, for it positions sin as the opposite of God, or a breaking of God’s law, or God’s standard. Earlier the law was defined as ‘the reflection of God and an extension of His nature into His creation.’ But, sin is more than breaking the law, for that only involves a volitional act against a standard. Since the law is an extension of God, and sin is in juxtaposition to it then sin is anything that is opposed to, or is not in keeping with the nature or will of God.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p485
“The law is the extension of God’s nature into His creation. Everything God makes is the offspring of His mind and bears the impression of His determinate nature. He created man an intelligent being. Because man was made in God’s image, he has God’s nature with certain limitations and modifications. He was not made in the exact image of God, but after His likeness. As such, man was created as an independent being with freedom and opportunity. Yet man’s freedom introduced a moral problem into God’s economy. How could man be independent yet accountable to his Creator? How could an omnipotent God control His universe, yet allow freedom in His creatures? The answer is in the law. All of God’s created beings are unalterably related to their Creator by law. And by law men relate one to another and to God who is their Creator. There was no other way for God to create a moral being who would be accountable to his Creator.
“1. The law of God is an expression of the will of God, which is an extension of His nature. Therefore, the law and God’s nature are similar to the sun and its rays. The law of God is not arbitrary, for it arises out of a divine Person who is perfect in intellect, emotion, and will. God understands all He does, and He created the law out of His goodness. Also, God is the source of all wisdom and knowledge, and from Him comes the eternal understanding of His decree. The source of the law is the nature of God. Therefore, the law of God reflects the wisdom and understanding of God.
“2. The law must also be the extension of truth, which is a reflection of the nature of God. The moral law of God is a representation of the moral nature of God, for truth is that which corresponds to itself. The law corresponds to the nature of God and is the moral veracity of His being. The law must be truth, for it must be an exact representation of the nature of God and must be consistent in its application to men. The law must be consistent in the nature of punishments upon the disobedient, and consistent in rewarding happiness for the obedient.
“3. The law is a unity, since God is One. This means the law is always consistent in itself and its application. It never differs for individuals – it is universal in its application and it is perpetual in its obligation. Every person is obligated to the law of God. for everyone that is accountable to God – and that is everyone – the law reaches to that limit.
“The whole system of law involving God, man, and creation is symmetrically magnificent. There are no anomalies in the plan of God. Every law or principle is constitutionally adjusted and adapted to every other principle or law and fits perfectly into one giant unifying plan over which God is the supreme governing, sustaining, sovereign head. Man is a part of that system, being made by God, fitting into the Unity of God, and answerable to God...
“5. The law is immutable. Because the law is an extension of the nature of God, it is as immutable as His divine nature. It could not change unless God’s nature can change. The idea of change with reference to God would destroy His perfection, and therefore destroy His existence.“God cannot repeal His law, nor can He give another system of law different from the present law without contradicting His own nature. As a result, if God repealed His law he would destroy Himself. But God ‘who cannot lie’ affirms the law and every relationship it touches. The law prescribes duty for all of its subjects, hence everyone must obey the law.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p130-131
“The law is a reflection of God’s attributes. Every quality including the law comes from the nature of God which is the source of all things. But the law also personifies the attributes of God. Since attributes radiate from God’s nature to magnify the Person, then each of those perfections logically requires the other, and combined together they form the infinite majesty of God. To understand God’s moral law, we must see it in symmetrical relationship to God’s attributes. The law for God’s creatures is a moral law and of necessity is a picture of God’s moral nature.“1. The law is holy. Since God is holy, it follows that His law must be holy. This means it must not require anything contradictory to the nature of God. The law must be in conformity to the holiness of the divine Person who created it.
“2. The law must be just. As such, it must be an extension of God’s impartiality. Justice is the negative side of God’s positive holiness. The law must treat all beings as equal, demanding conformity by every person. Nonconformity to the law will bring punishment. Obedience will produce happiness. The attributes and law of God are a symmetrical embodiment of His infinite nature, holiness without a spot, justice without partiality, and infinite goodness without compromise.
“3. The law is also the embodiment of God’s benevolence and kindness. Where the law is kept, it elevates man – God’s created beings – to the level of God’s expectation. The man who keeps God’s law is good and he is happy. therefore, obedience to the law leads to happiness. God, in love, has given to His creatures the ability to be happy and enjoy life given to them by God.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p131
“Although Webster’s dictionary does not have the final or full definition, it defines sin as: ‘a transgression of divine law.’ This is a jumping-off point to examine sin, for it positions sin as the opposite of God, or a breaking of God’s law, or God’s standard. Earlier the law was defined as ‘the reflection of God and an extension of His nature into His creation.’ But, sin is more than breaking the law, for that only involves a volitional act against a standard. Since the law is an extension of God, and sin is in juxtaposition to it then sin is anything that is opposed to, or is not in keeping with the nature or will of God.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p485
“The law is the extension of God’s nature into His creation. Everything God makes is the offspring of His mind and bears the impression of His determinate nature. He created man an intelligent being. Because man was made in God’s image, he has God’s nature with certain limitations and modifications. He was not made in the exact image of God, but after His likeness. As such, man was created as an independent being with freedom and opportunity. Yet man’s freedom introduced a moral problem into God’s economy. How could man be independent yet accountable to his Creator? How could an omnipotent God control His universe, yet allow freedom in His creatures? The answer is in the law. All of God’s created beings are unalterably related to their Creator by law. And by law men relate one to another and to God who is their Creator. There was no other way for God to create a moral being who would be accountable to his Creator.
“1. The law of God is an expression of the will of God, which is an extension of His nature. Therefore, the law and God’s nature are similar to the sun and its rays. The law of God is not arbitrary, for it arises out of a divine Person who is perfect in intellect, emotion, and will. God understands all He does, and He created the law out of His goodness. Also, God is the source of all wisdom and knowledge, and from Him comes the eternal understanding of His decree. The source of the law is the nature of God. Therefore, the law of God reflects the wisdom and understanding of God.
“2. The law must also be the extension of truth, which is a reflection of the nature of God. The moral law of God is a representation of the moral nature of God, for truth is that which corresponds to itself. The law corresponds to the nature of God and is the moral veracity of His being. The law must be truth, for it must be an exact representation of the nature of God and must be consistent in its application to men. The law must be consistent in the nature of punishments upon the disobedient, and consistent in rewarding happiness for the obedient.
“3. The law is a unity, since God is One. This means the law is always consistent in itself and its application. It never differs for individuals – it is universal in its application and it is perpetual in its obligation. Every person is obligated to the law of God. for everyone that is accountable to God – and that is everyone – the law reaches to that limit.
“The whole system of law involving God, man, and creation is symmetrically magnificent. There are no anomalies in the plan of God. Every law or principle is constitutionally adjusted and adapted to every other principle or law and fits perfectly into one giant unifying plan over which God is the supreme governing, sustaining, sovereign head. Man is a part of that system, being made by God, fitting into the Unity of God, and answerable to God...
“5. The law is immutable. Because the law is an extension of the nature of God, it is as immutable as His divine nature. It could not change unless God’s nature can change. The idea of change with reference to God would destroy His perfection, and therefore destroy His existence.“God cannot repeal His law, nor can He give another system of law different from the present law without contradicting His own nature. As a result, if God repealed His law he would destroy Himself. But God ‘who cannot lie’ affirms the law and every relationship it touches. The law prescribes duty for all of its subjects, hence everyone must obey the law.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p130-131
“The law is a reflection of God’s attributes. Every quality including the law comes from the nature of God which is the source of all things. But the law also personifies the attributes of God. Since attributes radiate from God’s nature to magnify the Person, then each of those perfections logically requires the other, and combined together they form the infinite majesty of God. To understand God’s moral law, we must see it in symmetrical relationship to God’s attributes. The law for God’s creatures is a moral law and of necessity is a picture of God’s moral nature.“1. The law is holy. Since God is holy, it follows that His law must be holy. This means it must not require anything contradictory to the nature of God. The law must be in conformity to the holiness of the divine Person who created it.
“2. The law must be just. As such, it must be an extension of God’s impartiality. Justice is the negative side of God’s positive holiness. The law must treat all beings as equal, demanding conformity by every person. Nonconformity to the law will bring punishment. Obedience will produce happiness. The attributes and law of God are a symmetrical embodiment of His infinite nature, holiness without a spot, justice without partiality, and infinite goodness without compromise.
“3. The law is also the embodiment of God’s benevolence and kindness. Where the law is kept, it elevates man – God’s created beings – to the level of God’s expectation. The man who keeps God’s law is good and he is happy. therefore, obedience to the law leads to happiness. God, in love, has given to His creatures the ability to be happy and enjoy life given to them by God.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p131
4. Moral Argument from the Consequences of Atheism
Summary:
God is the source of objective morality. Without God, people will be driven by their most base instincts.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist & Journalist, 1821-1881
“If God does not exist, everything is permissible.”
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky (via a character, Ivan), “The Grand Inquisitor,” The Brothers Karamazov, 1880
“If God does not exist, everything is permissible.”
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky (via a character, Ivan), “The Grand Inquisitor,” The Brothers Karamazov, 1880
Elmer Leon Towns, American professor of theology & pastor, 1932-
“Early manifestation of sin within all men. As soon as a child is capable of moral discernment, he reveals his inherent moral character to rebel against standards. Those early innate desires of anger, pride, and selfishness all give evidence of an internal sin nature. The aforementioned desires, when permitted to exercise themselves, serve to motivate the child into a worldly disposition of corruption and evil. Scripture also attests to this claim. Psalm 58:3 states, ‘The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.’ To counter this influence, many have sought to raise their children in a favorable atmosphere with positive examples. Yet the parents’ expectations were thwarted when their child naturally demonstrates responses contrary to his home environment.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p500
“Early manifestation of sin within all men. As soon as a child is capable of moral discernment, he reveals his inherent moral character to rebel against standards. Those early innate desires of anger, pride, and selfishness all give evidence of an internal sin nature. The aforementioned desires, when permitted to exercise themselves, serve to motivate the child into a worldly disposition of corruption and evil. Scripture also attests to this claim. Psalm 58:3 states, ‘The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.’ To counter this influence, many have sought to raise their children in a favorable atmosphere with positive examples. Yet the parents’ expectations were thwarted when their child naturally demonstrates responses contrary to his home environment.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p500
5. Belief in God makes people behave better
Summary:
People are inspired by a belief in God to improve the lives of themselves and others.
Abhijit Naskar, Indian neuroscientist, 1991-
“Quite surprisingly the majority of religious and spiritual practices actually diminishes your brain’s ability to act out of rage and fear.”
― Abhijit Naskar (source unknown)
“Quite surprisingly the majority of religious and spiritual practices actually diminishes your brain’s ability to act out of rage and fear.”
― Abhijit Naskar (source unknown)
C.S. Lewis, British writer and lay-theologian, 1898-1963
“...I said just now that the question of Faith in this [higher] sense arises after a man has tried his level best to practise the Christian virtues, and found that he fails, and seen that even if he could he would only be giving back to God what was already God’s own. In other words, he discovers his bankruptcy. Now, once again, what God cares about is not exactly our actions. What he cares about is that we should be creatures of a certain kind of quality–the kind of creatures He intended us to be–creatures related to Himself in a certain way. I do not add ‘and related to one another in a certain way,’ because that is included: if you are right with Him you will inevitably be right with all your fellow-creatures, just as if all the spokes of a wheel are fitted rightly into the hub and the rim they are bound to be in the right positions to one another. And as long as a man is thinking of God as an examiner who has set him a sort of paper to do, or as the opposite party in a sort of bargain–as long as he is thinking of claims and counter-claims between himself and God–he is not yet in the right relation to Him. He is misunderstanding what he is and what God is. And he cannot get into the right relation until he has discovered the fact of our bankruptcy...
“...Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p119-121
“It is quite true that if we took Christ’s advice we should soon be living in a happier world. You need not even go as far as Christ. If we did all that Plato or Aristotle or Confucius told us, we should get on a great deal better than we do. And so what? We never have followed the advice of the great teachers. Why are we likely to begin now? Why are we more likely to follow Christ than any of the others? Because He is the best moral teacher? But that makes it even less likely that we shall follow Him. If we cannot take the elementary lessons, is it likely we are going to take the most advanced one? If Christianity only means one more bit of good advice, then Christianity is of no importance. There has been no lack of good advice for the last four thousand years. A bit more makes no difference.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p129
“...I said just now that the question of Faith in this [higher] sense arises after a man has tried his level best to practise the Christian virtues, and found that he fails, and seen that even if he could he would only be giving back to God what was already God’s own. In other words, he discovers his bankruptcy. Now, once again, what God cares about is not exactly our actions. What he cares about is that we should be creatures of a certain kind of quality–the kind of creatures He intended us to be–creatures related to Himself in a certain way. I do not add ‘and related to one another in a certain way,’ because that is included: if you are right with Him you will inevitably be right with all your fellow-creatures, just as if all the spokes of a wheel are fitted rightly into the hub and the rim they are bound to be in the right positions to one another. And as long as a man is thinking of God as an examiner who has set him a sort of paper to do, or as the opposite party in a sort of bargain–as long as he is thinking of claims and counter-claims between himself and God–he is not yet in the right relation to Him. He is misunderstanding what he is and what God is. And he cannot get into the right relation until he has discovered the fact of our bankruptcy...
“...Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p119-121
“It is quite true that if we took Christ’s advice we should soon be living in a happier world. You need not even go as far as Christ. If we did all that Plato or Aristotle or Confucius told us, we should get on a great deal better than we do. And so what? We never have followed the advice of the great teachers. Why are we likely to begin now? Why are we more likely to follow Christ than any of the others? Because He is the best moral teacher? But that makes it even less likely that we shall follow Him. If we cannot take the elementary lessons, is it likely we are going to take the most advanced one? If Christianity only means one more bit of good advice, then Christianity is of no importance. There has been no lack of good advice for the last four thousand years. A bit more makes no difference.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p129
J.P. Moreland, American philosopher & theologian, 1948-
“I’ve offered two solutions. I don’t have much time, so let me say a brief word about Christian theism. Christian theism is a background theory that makes the existence and knowability of morality more likely than does the background theory of atheism. Morality is more at home and less ad hoc in a theistic universe than in an atheistic universe. This is because God is a postulated entity who is Himself good. He has the property of goodness. Men are made in His image and to be a human being is to be a member of a natural kind that is not merely defined biologically, but is also defined in terms of moral properties. I have intrinsic value or worth as I reflect the intrinsic value of God and His worth.
“Second, I believe that Christian theism helps explain the knowability of morality in a number of ways. I can’t get into this much, perhaps in the question and answer period we can, but Christian theism helps make sense out of how my moral faculties could have come about in the first place. How is it that humans can have intuitional insight into the nature of morality? God has created us to know moral values.”
— J.P. Moreland, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p119
“I’ve offered two solutions. I don’t have much time, so let me say a brief word about Christian theism. Christian theism is a background theory that makes the existence and knowability of morality more likely than does the background theory of atheism. Morality is more at home and less ad hoc in a theistic universe than in an atheistic universe. This is because God is a postulated entity who is Himself good. He has the property of goodness. Men are made in His image and to be a human being is to be a member of a natural kind that is not merely defined biologically, but is also defined in terms of moral properties. I have intrinsic value or worth as I reflect the intrinsic value of God and His worth.
“Second, I believe that Christian theism helps explain the knowability of morality in a number of ways. I can’t get into this much, perhaps in the question and answer period we can, but Christian theism helps make sense out of how my moral faculties could have come about in the first place. How is it that humans can have intuitional insight into the nature of morality? God has created us to know moral values.”
— J.P. Moreland, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p119
Augustus Hopkins Strong, British minister & theologian, 1836-1921
“Regeneration is not a physical change. There is no physical seed or germ implanted in a man’s nature. Regeneration does not add to, or subtract from, the number of man’s intellectual, emotional or voluntary faculties. But regeneration is the giving of a new direction or tendency to powers of affection which man possessed before. Man had the faculty of love before, but his love was supremely set on self. In regeneration the direction of that faculty is changed, and his love is now set supremely upon God.”
— Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology: A Compendium Designed for the Use of Theological Students, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1970 p779 (quoted by Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p461)
“Regeneration is not a physical change. There is no physical seed or germ implanted in a man’s nature. Regeneration does not add to, or subtract from, the number of man’s intellectual, emotional or voluntary faculties. But regeneration is the giving of a new direction or tendency to powers of affection which man possessed before. Man had the faculty of love before, but his love was supremely set on self. In regeneration the direction of that faculty is changed, and his love is now set supremely upon God.”
— Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology: A Compendium Designed for the Use of Theological Students, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1970 p779 (quoted by Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p461)
6. Pascal’s Wager
Summary:
A. God either exists or does not exist.
B. God punishes those who do not do God’s will.
C. If God does not exist, death is the end, and one can live freely for a lifetime. If God does exist, then not following God’s laws means eternal suffering.
D. Therefore, it is better to wager on God’s existence, and live accordingly.
B. God punishes those who do not do God’s will.
C. If God does not exist, death is the end, and one can live freely for a lifetime. If God does exist, then not following God’s laws means eternal suffering.
D. Therefore, it is better to wager on God’s existence, and live accordingly.
Blaise Pascal, French philosopher, mathematician, physicist, Catholic theologian, 1623-1662
“If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. This being so, who will dare to undertake the decision of the question? Not we, who have no affinity to Him.
“Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give a reason for their belief, since they profess a religion for which they cannot give a reason? They declare, in expounding it to the world, that it is a foolishness, stultitiam [Latin: foolish, silly]; and then you complain that they do not prove it! If they proved it, they would not keep their word; it is in lacking proofs, that they are not lacking in sense. ‘Yes, but although this excuses those who offer it as such, and takes away from them the blame of putting it forward without reason, it does not excuse those who receive it.’ Let us then examine this point, and say, ‘God is, or He is not.’ But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
“Do not then reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. ‘No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all.’
“Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.—‘That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much.’—Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. It is all divided; wherever the infinite is and there is not an infinity of chances of loss against that of gain, there is no time to hesitate, you must give all. And thus, when one is forced to play, he must renounce reason to preserve his life, rather than risk it for infinite gain, as likely to happen as the loss of nothingness.”
— Blaise Pascal (translated by W. F. Trotter), Pascal's Pensées (1670), E. P. Dutton, 1958 p66-68
“If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. This being so, who will dare to undertake the decision of the question? Not we, who have no affinity to Him.
“Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give a reason for their belief, since they profess a religion for which they cannot give a reason? They declare, in expounding it to the world, that it is a foolishness, stultitiam [Latin: foolish, silly]; and then you complain that they do not prove it! If they proved it, they would not keep their word; it is in lacking proofs, that they are not lacking in sense. ‘Yes, but although this excuses those who offer it as such, and takes away from them the blame of putting it forward without reason, it does not excuse those who receive it.’ Let us then examine this point, and say, ‘God is, or He is not.’ But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
“Do not then reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. ‘No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all.’
“Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.—‘That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much.’—Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. It is all divided; wherever the infinite is and there is not an infinity of chances of loss against that of gain, there is no time to hesitate, you must give all. And thus, when one is forced to play, he must renounce reason to preserve his life, rather than risk it for infinite gain, as likely to happen as the loss of nothingness.”
— Blaise Pascal (translated by W. F. Trotter), Pascal's Pensées (1670), E. P. Dutton, 1958 p66-68
Peter John Kreeft, American professor of philosophy, 1937-
“As originally proposed by Pascal, the Wager assumes that logical reasoning by itself cannot decide for or against the existence of God; there seem to be good reasons on both sides. Now since reason cannot decide for sure, and since the question is of such importance that we must decide somehow, then we must ‘wager’ if we cannot prove. And so we are asked: Where are you going to place your bet?
“If you place it with God, you lose nothing, even if it turns out that God does not exist. But if you place it against God, and you are wrong and God does exist, you lose everything: God, eternity, heaven, infinite gain. ‘Let us assess the two cases: if you win, you win everything, if you lose, you lose nothing.’...
“The Wager can seem offensively venal and purely selfish. But it can be reformulated to appeal to a higher moral motive: If there is a God of infinite goodness, and he justly deserves my allegiance and faith, I risk doing the greatest injustice by not acknowledging him.
“The Wager cannot—or should not—coerce belief. But it can be an incentive for us to search for God, to study and restudy the arguments that seek to show that there is Something — or Someone — who is the ultimate explanation of the universe and of my life. It could at least motivate ‘The Prayer of the Skeptic’: ‘God, I don't know whether you exist or not, but if you do, please show me who you are.’”
— Peter Kreeft, “Pascal’s Wager,” 20 Arguments for God’s Existence (website)
“As originally proposed by Pascal, the Wager assumes that logical reasoning by itself cannot decide for or against the existence of God; there seem to be good reasons on both sides. Now since reason cannot decide for sure, and since the question is of such importance that we must decide somehow, then we must ‘wager’ if we cannot prove. And so we are asked: Where are you going to place your bet?
“If you place it with God, you lose nothing, even if it turns out that God does not exist. But if you place it against God, and you are wrong and God does exist, you lose everything: God, eternity, heaven, infinite gain. ‘Let us assess the two cases: if you win, you win everything, if you lose, you lose nothing.’...
“The Wager can seem offensively venal and purely selfish. But it can be reformulated to appeal to a higher moral motive: If there is a God of infinite goodness, and he justly deserves my allegiance and faith, I risk doing the greatest injustice by not acknowledging him.
“The Wager cannot—or should not—coerce belief. But it can be an incentive for us to search for God, to study and restudy the arguments that seek to show that there is Something — or Someone — who is the ultimate explanation of the universe and of my life. It could at least motivate ‘The Prayer of the Skeptic’: ‘God, I don't know whether you exist or not, but if you do, please show me who you are.’”
— Peter Kreeft, “Pascal’s Wager,” 20 Arguments for God’s Existence (website)
7. Argument for the Remedying of Injustice
Summary:
A supreme being is required to bring eternal justice to an unjust temporal existence. The scales will be balanced in the end.
C.H. Douglas Clark, British inorganic & structural chemistry professor
“The answer is that eternal injustice would be unthinkable in a moral system. Right-thinking people feel anger and horror when they see a child or an animal brutally treated, and sometimes they write to the papers demanding that something be done about it. Man revolts against cruelty, and urges that the offender be suitably corrected. Why? The reason must be that this is a moral world. Brutality to a child demands punishment for the offender, and love and care bestowed on the victim. There are also more refined forms of mental cruelty which require redress. Moreover, it is very difficult, as the Gilbertian Mikado knew, to let the punishment fit the crime. Sometimes offenders escape retribution on earth. The unavoidable imperfection of earthly justice requires a tribunal where the demands of remedy shall be met. Therefore, we need an all-wise God.”
— C.H. Douglas Clark, Christianity and Bertrand Russell: A Critique of the Essay: ‘Why I Am Not a Christian,’ Lutterworth Press, 1958, p37
“There is a strong movement of thought today in the direction of sympathy with the criminal. This may be a good thing in many ways, but it should not lead us to a wrong sense of values. We must be careful not to forget all those innocent people who may have been ruthlessly swept aside from the criminal’s path. Christ had a right sense of mercy in pitying those who suffered unjustly as well as those who bear the due outcome of their deeds. Even we feel anger when we witness ill-treatment of a child. We demand that the perpetrator be suitably restrained. Our pity is directed towards the victim, who deserves an extra share of love and care. No doubt these feelings are Christlike. In somewhat similar fashion, we may think of heaven and hell as existing in conformity with the fact that God administers justice, and that this is a moral world.”
— C.H. Douglas Clark, Christianity and Bertrand Russell: A Critique of the Essay: ‘Why I Am Not a Christian,’ Lutterworth Press, 1958 p53
“...If there is a heaven where no one any longer suffers for the sins of others or in any other way, and the evil and proud are humiliated and brought to see the folly of their ways through a kind of conditioning process, involving suffering only for the sins they themselves have committed, the demands of remedy are met...”
— C.H. Douglas Clark, Christianity and Bertrand Russell: A Critique of the Essay: ‘Why I Am Not a Christian,’ Lutterworth Press, 1958 p40
“The answer is that eternal injustice would be unthinkable in a moral system. Right-thinking people feel anger and horror when they see a child or an animal brutally treated, and sometimes they write to the papers demanding that something be done about it. Man revolts against cruelty, and urges that the offender be suitably corrected. Why? The reason must be that this is a moral world. Brutality to a child demands punishment for the offender, and love and care bestowed on the victim. There are also more refined forms of mental cruelty which require redress. Moreover, it is very difficult, as the Gilbertian Mikado knew, to let the punishment fit the crime. Sometimes offenders escape retribution on earth. The unavoidable imperfection of earthly justice requires a tribunal where the demands of remedy shall be met. Therefore, we need an all-wise God.”
— C.H. Douglas Clark, Christianity and Bertrand Russell: A Critique of the Essay: ‘Why I Am Not a Christian,’ Lutterworth Press, 1958, p37
“There is a strong movement of thought today in the direction of sympathy with the criminal. This may be a good thing in many ways, but it should not lead us to a wrong sense of values. We must be careful not to forget all those innocent people who may have been ruthlessly swept aside from the criminal’s path. Christ had a right sense of mercy in pitying those who suffered unjustly as well as those who bear the due outcome of their deeds. Even we feel anger when we witness ill-treatment of a child. We demand that the perpetrator be suitably restrained. Our pity is directed towards the victim, who deserves an extra share of love and care. No doubt these feelings are Christlike. In somewhat similar fashion, we may think of heaven and hell as existing in conformity with the fact that God administers justice, and that this is a moral world.”
— C.H. Douglas Clark, Christianity and Bertrand Russell: A Critique of the Essay: ‘Why I Am Not a Christian,’ Lutterworth Press, 1958 p53
“...If there is a heaven where no one any longer suffers for the sins of others or in any other way, and the evil and proud are humiliated and brought to see the folly of their ways through a kind of conditioning process, involving suffering only for the sins they themselves have committed, the demands of remedy are met...”
— C.H. Douglas Clark, Christianity and Bertrand Russell: A Critique of the Essay: ‘Why I Am Not a Christian,’ Lutterworth Press, 1958 p40
Elmer Leon Towns, American professor of theology & pastor, 1932-
“...The nature of law implies a penalty for the violation of that law. That is the foundation of all government. As a matter of fact, the certainty of the penalty for violating any law depends upon the credibility of the one who enacts the law. Since there is a God, and He rules by His laws, He will penalize those who break His law. This is another way of saying that one has no power to rule unless he has power to enforce penalties.
“The justice of God requires that He judge those who violate His law. God’s justice also requires that He equally assign the appropriate criminality to the nature of the violation. Since God’s rule is universal, (He knows all things and is everywhere at the same time), those who violate His law cannot escape judgment. Every person who has broken God’s law and those who have not lived up to the standards of God’s law will be weighed in God’s scale of justice and will be punished according to the degree of criminality. This means that a degree of guilt will be attached to every sin or violation of God’s law.
“Judgment cannot be carried out during life because sin cannot be correctly estimated until the entire intention, violation, and influence of the violation are evaluated...”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p133-134
“...The nature of law implies a penalty for the violation of that law. That is the foundation of all government. As a matter of fact, the certainty of the penalty for violating any law depends upon the credibility of the one who enacts the law. Since there is a God, and He rules by His laws, He will penalize those who break His law. This is another way of saying that one has no power to rule unless he has power to enforce penalties.
“The justice of God requires that He judge those who violate His law. God’s justice also requires that He equally assign the appropriate criminality to the nature of the violation. Since God’s rule is universal, (He knows all things and is everywhere at the same time), those who violate His law cannot escape judgment. Every person who has broken God’s law and those who have not lived up to the standards of God’s law will be weighed in God’s scale of justice and will be punished according to the degree of criminality. This means that a degree of guilt will be attached to every sin or violation of God’s law.
“Judgment cannot be carried out during life because sin cannot be correctly estimated until the entire intention, violation, and influence of the violation are evaluated...”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p133-134