The Paradox of Moral Tolerance: Exposing Normative Relativism's Blind Spot

One does not have to look far to notice that the moral beliefs of individuals vary widely. For some, abortion is a morally thoughtful venture on the part of the mother. For others, it is regarded as the abhorrent murder of a human being. For some, homosexuality and transgenderism are beautiful expressions of one’s authentic self. For others, these practices are considered defamatory to the body and disrespectful to human dignity. Of course, there are many intricacies to these moral considerations, but ultimately, these views and many others seem to stand in stark contrast to one another.

How do we best handle this disparity of moral viewpoints? A common way is to adopt the universal principle of moral tolerance. Moral tolerance refers to the capacity or willingness of one to respect and coexist with the moral beliefs, values, and practices of others which one personally disagrees with or finds objectionable without interfering with the beliefs, values, or practices themselves. The principle of moral tolerance, in this way, is rooted in open-mindedness, empathy, and respect for individual autonomy, allowing for a peaceful coexistence of diverse moral viewpoints within a pluralistic society. Its aim is to foster social harmony and cooperation by promoting a moral climate of understanding and courteous dialogue rather than contemptuous condemnation.

Adopting the universal principle of moral tolerance seems like a reasonable way to handle the diversity of views we encounter. Even though some of our moral beliefs conflict, we should nonetheless respect the autonomy of one another to hold such beliefs. The desire for social cohesion through moral tolerance is one of the most prominent motivations for adopting the moral theory known as normative relativism (NR).

NR holds that the truth of a moral proposition is relative to the belief of a given individual.[1] What makes a moral proposition (i.e., that “homosexuality is good” or “homosexuality is bad”) true is whether one believes it to be so. The belief in these moral propositions, then, makes them substantively true for that individual, and the individual therefore has an obligation to act in accord with them.

Prima facie, NR appears to provide an ideal basis for moral tolerance by justifying each individual’s moral beliefs in virtue of the beliefs themselves. After all, given the disparity of moral viewpoints, who’s to say one individual’s moral beliefs are more valid than another’s? NR validates the moral beliefs of each individual and thus creates a level ground, ripe for moral tolerance. This serves as a prominent motivator for adopting such a theory. Upon closer examination, however, this motive seems built on a fractured relationship between moral tolerance and NR. This deep-rooted incoherence is what I will call the paradox of moral tolerance.

The paradox of moral tolerance: Moral tolerance is a prominent motivator for adopting NR but is ultimately unaccounted for by the theory.

Despite its apparent merits, moral tolerance—properly understood—is logically impossible on NR. For if Agent 1’s moral belief is not morally false or opposed to Agent 2’s moral belief in a substantive way, then there is nothing for Agent 1 to tolerate. Furthermore, for moral tolerance to be successful in handling the disparity of moral viewpoints peacefully, we would need to universalize the principle, allowing individuals to hold one another accountable to it. However, universal moral tolerance would imply an objective exception to NR which falsely elevates the principle of tolerance above that which is accounted for by the theory.[2]

The argument from the paradox of moral tolerance can be hashed out in the following way:

1.     NR cannot account for objective moral obligations.

2.     The notion of universal moral tolerance implies an objective moral obligation.

3.     Therefore, NR cannot account for universal moral tolerance.

 What might the proponent of NR say in response to this argument?

 One could imagine the normative relativist attempting to sidestep the argument by replying that, even if the principle of moral tolerance is not universal, one ought to be tolerant of the moral beliefs of other individuals if their own moral code accounts for it. However, we might respond by asking what it is they are tolerating. Tolerance, in this sense, requires that one’s views are opposed by their counterpart in a substantive way. If each individual defines morality for himself, as NR affirms, then what exactly is one tolerating? We might run the argument as follows:

1.     Moral tolerance requires the moral beliefs of individuals to conflict in some substantive way.

2.     On NR, the moral beliefs of individuals might be different, but do not conflict in some substantive way.

3.     Therefore, moral tolerance is not possible on NR.

But can't the normative relativist simply say that some moral truths, even if they are not objective, must be obeyed to allow for social cohesion? That is, tolerance towards other individuals’ moral beliefs is not an objective moral principle but must be adhered to in order to maintain some form of a social contract which keeps us from chaos. It seems this, again, holds tolerance as the tacit exception to the theory itself. The language of “must be obeyed” in this context would imply an objective moral obligation. However, on NR, according to what basis must these moral beliefs be respected, and on what basis is social cohesion more morally desirable than chaos?

Another reply the proponent of NR might give to the argument from the paradox of moral tolerance is one based on the nature of the justification of moral beliefs on NR. Because Agent 2’s moral beliefs are often different from Agent 1’s moral beliefs—at least to some extent—yet are justified in virtue of Agent 2’s beliefs in and of themselves, these differing principles are necessarily tolerated. In other words, we recognize that those who hold beliefs which differ from our own are justified in doing so, and thus we exercise moral tolerance necessarily. However, there is a distinction to be made between what is different and what conflicts in some substantive way. Just because a belief is different does not mean it conflicts in this manner. For example, if I believe that I have brown hair and my friend believes he has blonde hair, I do not have grounds to “tolerate” his belief, for our beliefs do not conflict in a substantive way—tolerance would seem to require this sort of conflict. To elucidate this concept, moral tolerance would require that Agent 1’s moral belief, “A is good” conflict Agent 2’s moral belief, “A is bad” in some substantive way. But on NR, Agent 1 would define what is good in virtue of his own belief, so even though Agent 1’s belief might be different than Agent 2’s, it would not conflict with Agent 2’s belief in some substantive way, and thus tolerance would not be possible.

One last objection we might consider from the normative relativist is that the assertion of relative morality does not imply that there are no moral obligations. Furthermore, there is no need for the proponent of NR to affirm tolerance as a universal principle to hold others accountable for tolerance, for it is possible that all individuals could independently assert tolerance as a moral principle regardless. But the argument from the paradox of moral tolerance does not claim that normative relativists have no moral principles to abide by. In fact, according to NR, one ought to act in accordance with their own individual code. And it is logically possible that all individuals could affirm the same moral code, which happens to promote the principle of moral tolerance, but do so relatively. We might imagine, however, a possible world where one individual deviates from this code by revoking tolerance as a moral principle without violating the code itself, for their beliefs determine it. Moral progress or regress would not be made by the individual in this possible world, just a change in their moral landscape. The mere potentiality for intolerance to become morally permissible in a possible world where everyone believes tolerance to be a moral principle reveals the inability for NR to account for the universal obligation of such a principle, or any moral principle for that matter.

I believe there is potential for the argument from the paradox of moral tolerance to be extended beyond the scope of NR to other moral anti-realist theories. When I consider anti-realist theories here, I mean any theory which does not identify goodness even minimally with nonmoral properties, such as in weaker forms of moral realism. Anti-realist theories, then, would refer to only those theories which use goodness in a predicative sense to refer to that which is true about an individual’s own dispositions or the dispositions of the culture in which they abide. It is also worth noting that the argument from the paradox of moral tolerance seems to have utility for both cognitivist and non-cognitivist theories, as I say, IFF they don’t affirm an identity relation between goodness and a nonmoral property or affirm goodness as a mind-independent property. Lastly, the purpose of this argument is not meant to undercut anti-realist theories entirely or even NR but is rather meant to reveal how one of the more attractive underlying motivations for adopting such theories—namely, moral tolerance—is unaccounted for by previous anti-realist commitments, with particular attention drawn to NR.

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[1] “Individual” could also be considered a culture or society, as with normative cultural relativism. For the sake of simplicity, however, I use the term “individual” throughout this article.

[2] On NR there is also no inherent basis for equality (which seems to undergird the principle of tolerance) other than that which we have constructed on our own, though this is a separate—yet related—discussion.

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Hunter Kallay is a Ph.D. student at the University of Tennessee and holds a MA in Apologetics from Houston Christian University. His primary interests include moral epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion. In his spare time, he enjoys fitness, sports, and exploring new restaurants.

The Inherent Disorder of Social Media Friendships

Editor’s note: This article is republished with permission of the author. The original article is available here.

I want you to think back to childhood and remember when you met one of your best friends. You may not remember all the exact words, but you might be able to recall the situation. Maybe you were in the same classroom and got partnered up for some activity. Maybe you were at recess and were part of the same kickball game. Perhaps your parents were friends already, so you met at some party or event.

Your first interaction was very surface-level. I do not mean that in a derogatory fashion. That is how most relationships start. It is a low-stakes situation; you talked about drawing a picture, playing a game, or what was for dinner when you were a kid. Even as an adult, when someone new starts to work in your office, you ask about their last job, their family, or talk about the weather. You do not dive right into their hopes, dreams, fears, and vulnerabilities. That would be incredibly awkward and would be considered prying by most people.

Now I would like you to consider a conversation you may have had with your best friend or inner circle of friends recently. Perhaps you started talking about things that were much more personal or even controversial. You might have talked about political or religious matters. You might have talked about problems you are having with your job or family. You may have disclosed an area in which you are struggling. Because these people have proven themselves to be your closest friends and you have a relationship already built, you probably felt comfortable opening up without fear of ridicule or antipathy. A more developed relationship allows for a greater level of emotional intimacy.

Many of my close friends have very different political and religious beliefs than I do. We talk about these things from time to time, and we disagree, but we have a friendship already built. We already like each other, so our relationship is resilient enough to handle the disagreement. It is almost like a pyramid; we have a base of things that we enjoy doing together, so the structure survives.

However, when I think about these friends with whom I have substantial disagreements, none of our friendships really started talking about these areas of disagreement. I don’t know what would have happened if we had jumped right into a debate the first time we met. Maybe we would have gotten sick of each other and never talked again. Maybe we would have gotten extremely frustrated and just decided to go our separate ways rather than finding time to find other areas of common interest. Perhaps you are different from me, but I don’t tend to run headfirst into conflict if I can help it. I’m not afraid of conflict, but I would rather sit around and laugh and enjoy people’s company than always fight with them. I am willing to have good-natured conflicts with people I like because I understand that, at the end of the day, despite our disagreements, we can still be friends.

I think that we all understand that this is the natural way relationships ought to develop. It feels right to us intuitively. Even in a romantic relationship, you begin by casually going out with someone, and ideally, that relationship develops more and more intimacy until it becomes a lifelong marriage. Although there are reality shows that have people get married in thirty days, most of us would be uncomfortable with becoming that close to someone so quickly.

“Whether the relationship is platonic or romantic, there are levels of disclosure depending on the proximity of that relationship.”

Social media turns this dynamic upside down, and I believe that this is one of the reasons why social media tends to become so toxic.

Many of us view social media as an outlet for our thoughts and opinions. Because we view our walls as a place for self-expression, we tend to share things that are important to us. We don’t normally talk about the boring things that begin relationships. Although I have posted about extreme weather conditions before, I rarely post about something like that. I am much more likely to post about something I feel is really important and want other people to know about. In other words, I tend to post about things much closer to the deeper parts of my being, the things that are much more personally significant.

The people who see my Facebook posts range from my best friends to people I hardly know. Perhaps you could criticize my tendency to accept Facebook friendships from people I do not know, and there is a case to be made for not doing that. However, I have been involved in public ministry projects like An Unexpected Journal. If people want to connect with me and if it helps spread the word about good projects, I don’t like to turn people away very often.

You can see the problem with this dynamic almost immediately. I sometimes share very personal thoughts and core beliefs with a group of people who hardly know me. To use the imagery from the beginning of this piece, I am having a conversation with a bunch of new acquaintances that I should be having with my close friends.

When one of these people I barely know takes issue with one of my closely held beliefs that I have decided to share because I believe it is important, I have very little investment in wanting to maintain that friendship. After all, this is not one of my close friends that I am going to want to hold onto, despite my disagreement. If we picture a scale, there is nothing on the side of good times and good memories to offset the frustration that comes with conflict and ideological contradiction. Therefore, I might tend to lash out. I might tend to want to slam that ridiculous belief. After all, that person came after my beliefs on my wall; I have to show my friends that my way is the right way.

Escalation is inevitable in this situation. The conflict escalates until we have toxicity. We are quick to blame so many different things, but I hope you understand that the model of social media friendship is disordered.

“We live in a world that ought to be ordered, and with disorder ultimately comes chaos. Social media brings our acquaintances to a level of relational intimacy that ought to be reserved for our closest friends. ”

No wonder we get so frustrated with people and talk about other people trolling our page. I don’t know anyone who calls their friend a troll, but I know many people who accuse their Facebook “friends” of trolling them. Would your friend troll you? Not one of your best friends, even if you disagree with them, because you know them on a deeper level than just as an Internet provocateur.

You might be wondering how to handle this problem. You might be wondering what we can do to reorder friendships appropriately in the social media age.

First, I think private messages are great. Yes, I still post things publicly, but a great deal of my social media activity takes place on Facebook Messenger. I talk to people about all kinds of things. Some are serious; some are not. Some are controversial, while some are bland. Having this kind of correspondence friendship is superior to debating on public walls. I find there is less grandstanding. I also find that I can approach my friendships in the proper order. Am I talking to someone I barely know? I talk about surface-level things. I get to know them and develop a friendship that might develop into a closer friendship. Am I talking to someone I have known for several years? We can talk about heavier things, understanding that our friendship will survive even if we disagree. Rather than broadcasting our every thought, private messages are a great way of utilizing social media to associate with people on the appropriate relational level.

Second, we need to decide if we want to be public figures. Some people are called to be public intellectuals. They want to put their ideas out there. If you want to do that, you need to be comfortable with the fact that some people will not agree with you. You can’t be offended that people decide to troll you. Being a public intellectual is not for you if your skin is thin. If you are actively trying to promote ideas, then on some level, you are working as a public intellectual (insert joke about a lot of us being more or less intellectual than others, which is true).

That being said, being a public intellectual is also different than developing friendships. If you are a public intellectual, you develop a following. Your followers are not the same as your friends. I would argue that public intellectuals still need to develop friendships in the same order as I have outlined above. I have a feeling that if you went out to dinner with Patrick Deneen, you might not dive into a deep political debate the first time you met. You would probably get to know each other and might become friends. You might ideologically disagree with him and enjoy his company as a friend. Robert George and Cornel West are rather famous for this, as were Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Even public intellectuals make friends in the order I suggested, even though because of their platforms, many people just yell about them.

As a result, if you want to be a public figure, recognize that you still need to follow the formula to make friends. Your friends are going to be those you build a relationship with, not those who idolize or despise you.

Finally, treat social media for what it is. With its fundamentally flawed friendship order, it cannot do the job of making friends for you. It is not well suited for that. However, I have developed some amazing friendships with people I have never met in person. Social media has helped me facilitate that. I am not going to sit here and say that you cannot make friends on social media. That would be demonstrably false in my life and probably in yours. Nevertheless, we became friends in the proper order. We chatted about basic things, realized we had areas of common interest, developed our friendship more deeply, and became great friends in the process who were able to talk about all kinds of things without threatening the existence of that friendship.

We live in a world that is desperate for friendship, and we look for it on social media. However, suppose we do that without considering the true development of friendships. In that case, we will be frustrated when they continually burn out due to getting too deep too fast.

*NOTE*

I have been wrestling with this conception of social media friendship for some time and would love to hear your experiences and stories. I am considering expanding this theory into a book-length treatment, but that is in a very early stage. If you think it would be interesting, I would love to hear some encouragement to motivate me to start working.

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About Dr. Schmoll

Dr. Zachary D. Schmoll earned his Ph.D. in Humanities from Faulkner University after defending his dissertation entitled, Great Men? Considering Chesterton and Belloc’s Role in the History of the Distributist Movement. He also earned his M.A. in Apologetics at Houston Baptist University and was an Honors College Scholar while double majoring in Business Administration and Statistics at the University of Vermont.

Schmoll is honored to have served as the Managing Editor of An Unexpected Journal from its inception until the end of 2022. An Unexpected Journal is a quarterly publication that seeks to demonstrate the truth of Christianity through both reason and the imagination to engage the culture from a Christian worldview. What began as an informal discussion among friends about the need for a journal of cultural apologetics has developed into a respected publication that has received contributions from some of the most important scholars in the field.

Within the field of cultural apologetics, Schmoll's main research interest is the work of J.R.R. Tolkien. Specifically, he is interested in studying Samwise Gamgee as Tolkien's "chief hero," the role of the supernatural in Tolkien's legendarium, and the importance of community chiefly in the Shire but also throughout Middle-earth. Some of his other research interests include the work of G.K. Chesterton, the role of Christianity in the public square, and the development of Western Civilization from Athens and Jerusalem.

Schmoll lives in rural Vermont where he enjoys power soccer, bonfires, and, sadly, the Philadelphia Phillies.

He Appeared to Me

Who saw what? How did the sight change their lives? On the third day after His burial in a garden tomb in Jerusalem, Jesus began appearing to numerous people. Consider His appearances to just three persons: the betraying disciple Peter, the skeptic James, and the unbelieving rabbi Saul. How were each of these lives radically altered?

Around 30 A.D., Jesus Christ died in Jerusalem and three days after His burial people report seeing Him alive! The first century historian Josephus says, “He appeared to them alive again the third day.” The apostle Paul collects these appearances and reports them in his 1 Corinthians letter. Paul concludes Jesus “was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.…” The apostle lists some of those who saw Him. Let me note just three of them.

The apostle Paul says Jesus “appeared to Cephas” (Peter). The actual word “appeared” means “catch sight of” and “see with one’s eyes.” The text makes clear Peter saw Jesus with his own two eyes. This makes Peter an eyewitness. Eyewitnesses give direct, first-hand evidence. First-hand evidence demonstrates a fact by being involved personally in the event. Eyewitnesses witness what happens as it happens. Attorneys attest that a credible eyewitness testimony often wins the jury. Clint Eastwood’s film, The Gauntlet, dramatizes the magnitude of an eyewitness. The alcoholic police officer Ben Shockley, played by Clint Eastwood, goes through a death-defying maelstrom to deliver a material witness, Gus Mally (Sandra Locke), to the Phoenix courthouse alive. The report of Jesus’ resurrection is eyewitness testimony.

Eyewitness Peter is a “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” kind of person. Not subtle, but direct, transparent, open, and frank. Early on, he tells Jesus he’s not the kind of guy Jesus wants to hang with. “Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” says Peter. When Jesus is questioned by Caiaphas, Peter sits by the fire in earshot of the proceedings. Several servant-girls say to Peter, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” Peter curses and three times says, “I do not know the man!” Peter is afraid. If he acknowledges Jesus, the high priest will be after him. So, he denies the Messiah he once confessed. Then the rooster crows.

Sometime later, something happened to Peter. This once guilt-ridden Peter afraid to associate himself publicly with Jesus stands up at the festival of Pentecost before thousands of Jews and says, “Jesus of Nazareth ... you crucified and killed … but God raised him up…” (Acts 2:22-24). Luke and Paul solve the riddle: the living Jesus appeared to Peter. The early church father Clement knew Peter personally. Clement says after Jesus appeared to Peter, Peter’s confliction was gone. With the Holy Spirit’s empowerment, no longer was Peter the coward, but Peter the courageous! Our risen Lord appeared to Peter!

There is another eyewitness. In 2002 archaeologists discovered a first century ossuary box, a box containing a dead person’s bones. This first century limestone, bone box has an Aramaic inscription on it, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” Scholars debate its authenticity. No matter, Jesus of Nazareth had four brothers, one of whom was James. Early in His ministry, Jesus travels with his mother Mary and his brothers, including James. But Jesus does not win James over. Differences arise between Jesus and James. Anybody can get away with claiming to be a Messiah in rural Nazareth. “If you do mighty works, show yourself to the world,” they say mockingly to Jesus. Prove yourself in D.C., not Tight Squeeze, Virginia! His family seems almost embarrassed by Jesus as the word around Nazareth is that Jesus is unhinged, “gone out of his mind.” John’s Gospel comments, “Not even his brothers believed in him” (John 7: 6). Jesus goes to his grave with his hostile brother James a skeptic.

But something happens to brother James. The next thing we hear James is on his knees praying. Ancient testimony says James is so frequently found in the temple on his knees begging forgiveness for people that his knees are as hard as a camel’s. James’s new name is “James the Just,” the recognized head of the Jerusalem church. Even Paul reports to him. How does skeptical brother James become a believer? The apostle Paul clues us in: Christ “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures … and then he … appeared to James…” (1 Corinthians 15: 7). Our risen Lord appears to His own brother!

Why is James called upon by the scribes and priests? The priests ask him to persuade the Jewish people not to follow to Jesus. Tradition is that James stands at the top of the temple, and proclaims instead, “Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior.” Rushing upon him the priests push him off the temple tower. The fall does not kill him. So, they finish him off by stoning him to death. Eyewitness appearances of our risen Lord Jesus are the game changers! James the skeptic becomes James the Just.

Paul mentions one last appearance of the risen Jesus. A Jerusalem rabbi, Saul, leads the charge to bring upstart Jews enamored with Jesus back into the fold. Saul is a single-minded, driven, high achiever. A contemporary of Jesus’ apostles, at an early age he is steeped in Old Testament law. By age thirteen, the Jewish scholar Gamaliel tutors Saul. Gamaliel is the Alan Dershowitz, Harvard law professor of the day. Saul’s zeal surpasses his peers. He kills for the Law.

Taking a leading role in bullying the church, Saul goes to Christian homes and hauls disciples – even women – to prison. Saul admits, “I was violently persecuting the church of God.” I “was trying to destroy it” (Galatians 1: 13). He takes satisfaction in preacher Stephen’s stoning, holding others’ coats, so they could throw stones (Acts 8:1).

Suddenly, something happens to Saul. People say, “He who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy” (Galatians 1:23). “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem…?” (Act 9:21). Now called “Paul,” he argues that Jesus “is the Savior, the Son of God,” the crucified Messiah who was raised on the third day (Acts 9:22). Though beaten with rods, stoned, shipwrecked, in dangers from rivers, robbers, rioting mobs, Roman governors, tribunals, and even Caesar himself, he continues to testify Jesus “appeared to me.”

What happened to Paul? Paul answers in his testimony. At midday as he travels to Damascus, a brilliant light, brighter than the sun, surrounds him. A Voice speaks to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 26: 14). Paul asks, “Who are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9: 5). Seeing and hearing the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, Saul becomes Paul.

After his burial, the risen Jesus appeared to … Peter … James … Saul and hundreds more. This first-hand, eyewitness evidence is conclusive. Fiction did not transform Peter; legend did not change James; and myth could not convince Saul; only, “he appeared to me.”

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Summary of John Hare’s God's Call (Part 1)

John Hare’s God’s Call: Moral Realism, God’s Commands, & Human Autonomy (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001): Part I, Introduction

David Baggett

In the introduction of this book, Hare points out that there will be three chapters, corresponding to the three lectures he gave at Calvin College in 1999. Taken together, the chapters are after an account of God’s authority in human morality.

In this book Hare will defend what he calls “prescriptive realism,” which is the view that when a person judges that something is good, he is endorsing (from inside) an attraction (from outside) which he feels towards it. But even if there is some call from outside, why bring God into it? Is the appeal to God redundant, or worse (corrupting our notions of morality by tying it to self-interest in a problematic way)? Finally, does this talk of God threaten our autonomy—turning us into children trying to please our father? Hare will undertake addressing these questions.

In the first chapter Hare gives a selective history of a sustained debate within Anglo-American philosophy over the last century between moral realists and moral expressivists. Moral realism is the view that moral properties such as moral goodness are real. Moral expressivism is the view that moral judgments are orectic. This is a Greek term that covers the whole family of emotion, desire, and will. Expressivism locates the role of moral judgment as expressing some act or disposition that belongs within this family.

Hare thinks that theists in particular have good reason to consider these questions that pertain to how objectivity and subjectivity are related in value judgment. For they want to say that value is created by God and is there whether we realize it or not. In that sense value is objective, and we feel pulled towards some form of realism. But we also want to say that when we value something, our hearts’ fundamental commitments are involved. In that sense our valuation is subjective, and we feel pulled towards some kind of expressivism. We have to find a way of saying both of these things together, and Hare is going to try to suggest a way. [Hare’s project bears a resemblance to Dooyeweerd’s view that for every modality there is a law side and a subject side—but he was approaching things from the vantage point of German idealism. Hare’s will be a different philosophical tradition.]

God's Call: Moral Realism, God's Commands, and Human Autonomy

By Hare, John E.

The second chapter harkens back to the Middle Ages and in particular to the divine command theory of John Duns Scotus. Hare’s interested in the connections Scotus forged between God’s commands, human nature, and human will. Hare will try to show that a Reformed version of a DCT of moral obligation can be defended via Scotus against natural law theory as well as contemporary challenges. He thinks it will become apparent how such a theory fits the account he gives in the first chapter. One theme will be that after the Fall our natural inclinations are disordered, and we can’t use them as an authoritative source of guidance for how we must and must not live.

In the third chapter, Hare moves to what he sees as a key juncture between the medieval discussion and our own times, namely, the moral theory of Immanuel Kant in the late eighteenth century. Kant has given us a central text that’s been taken in modern moral philosophy to refute divine command theory. It’s a text about human autonomy. Hare will attempt to show that Kant is not in fact arguing against the kind of divine command theory Hare wants to support. Hare will discuss what Kant means by saying that we should recognize our duties as God’s commands, and he will defend a notion of human autonomy as appropriation.

Throughout the book Hare will be trying to do philosophy through its history. He thinks just doing the history ends up being unfaithful to what makes the history important in the first place. And just doing the philosophy ends up making half-baked references to the history in which the topic is in fact embedded. Somehow we have to do both at the same time, and Hare will attempt to do that here, despite the limitations of a short book—by plucking what he considers are three moments from a larger history and three thoughts abstracted from a larger framework.

 Part 2

Saving Moral Knowledge: A Debunking Argument and Theistic Alternative

Immanuel Kant famously said, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe … the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”[1] Regardless of one’s religious background or political standing, there are some fundamental acts which seem inherently wrong, independent of human opinion. We might imagine the murder of nineteen innocent school students in Uvalde or the kidnapping and raping of two teenage girls at knifepoint in the Bronx. It seems quite difficult to avoid our conviction that such acts are wrong. The underlying concern, however, is whether we can trust these moral convictions to be accurate and thus be counted as genuine knowledge. For if we cannot possess moral knowledge, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain moral realism. For to save moral realism, one must first save moral knowledge

Let’s begin with defining what moral knowledge is. Knowledge exists in a variety of forms. We might consider competence or know-how knowledge, such as how to juggle, or acquaintance knowledge, such as knowledge of a person, like Adam knowing Eve. However, these forms of knowledge are not of core relevance to the discussion of moral knowledge. Rather, the focus here is on propositional knowledge; for example, our knowledge that one added to one is two or that the United States of America is a country. More specifically, the relevant concern is with moral propositions. These would be statements such as, “Torturing children for the fun of it is morally bad,” or “Helping those in need is morally good.” Moral realism affirms that such moral propositions are objectively true or false in the same way that the statement, “one added to one is two” is objectively true or false. The question is, if these moral facts exist, how might we know them? There are two criteria necessary for any account of moral knowledge to fulfill:

1.     Objective moral truth exists.

2.     Humans have the capacity to acquire moral truths to some extent.

Regarding C1, if we are to have moral knowledge—knowledge of true mind-independent moral propositions—objective moral truth must exist. If we forfeit moral realism, then moral knowledge of this sort is rendered irrational and this discussion need not be had. Yet, a contribution to the debate over moral realism is not my prerogative here, as I am most concerned with the reliability of our moral convictions for knowledge given the affirmation of C1. On C2, granted that we might not all agree on what moral truth is, we must believe that our epistemic capacities provide room for improvement over time (e.g. through rational argument or through the refinement of our sensibilities). For this reason, it seems only fair that an account of moral knowledge does not require a full acquisition of moral truths, but rather a tracking which to some extent reflects the moral order. In other words, we might not know all moral truths that exist, but we can agree and track some of them—those which are more obvious, like, “torturing children for fun is morally bad.” Given these criteria for moral knowledge, it becomes clear that to possess knowledge of this sort, we need an explanation for why we have the capacity to acquire mind-independent moral truths, at least to some extent.

We might consider two possible explanatory accounts for this asymmetric dependence relation between our moral convictions and mind-independent moral truths:

1.     Natural explanation

2.     Supernatural explanation

On one hand, we might consider a natural explanation. As I use the term “natural,” I mean it in the way Democritus understood it—simply all that exists are “atoms in the void.” Natural explanations of moral knowledge are explanations which attempt to fulfill or deny the criteria for moral knowledge using purely natural, nonpurposive theories. I will consider evolutionary naturalism (EN) as the belief-producing method here, which is widely accepted by prominent naturalistic philosophers.[2] On the other hand, we might consider supernatural explanations of moral knowledge which attempt to fulfill the criteria for moral knowledge by appealing to a purposive story via a supernatural agent or abstract entities. Here, I will discuss how asserting the existence of a supernatural agent might explain our moral knowledge. As Mark Linville says, “Both the evolutionary naturalist and the theist may be found saying that certain of our moral beliefs are by-products of the human constitution: we think as we do largely as a result of our programming. Whether such beliefs are warranted would seem to depend upon who or what is responsible for the program.”[3]

To begin, let’s turn to a natural explanation. The first thing to consider when assessing a natural explanation is that when I use the term “evolutionary naturalism,” I am not addressing evolution as a scientific theory but rather the idea that evolution was a natural, non-purposive process consisting of purely natural events. When discussing EN, it is important to understand the driving force of belief-development: natural selection. Natural selection is rooted in the concept of random mutation. The idea here is that if we assume the genes of a species undergo “random”[4] mutations, selective pressures will ensure that, in the long run, those mutations which are conducive to the survival and replication of the species will prevail. Here comes the kicker … according to evolutionary biology, the fact that moral beliefs are correct has no influence on their selective potential. The determining factor, rather, is their conduciveness to the flourishing of the species. This sets the stage for my debunking argument against evolutionary naturalism as an explanation for moral knowledge. The debunking argument can be formulated as follows:

Premise 1:       Our moral convictions were naturally selected for via their adaptiveness, not their truth value.

Premise 2:       If (1), we don’t hold our moral convictions because they are true, but because they are adaptive

Conclusion:     Therefore, we cannot trust our moral convictions to be true.

The idea here is that even if our moral convictions about mind-independent moral facts are accurate, these beliefs cannot be counted as knowledge in virtue of the undercutting, potentially misleading nature of EN. It seems the most plausible alternative, given this debunking argument, is to abandon EN as an explanation for moral knowledge and accept the necessary conclusion that knowledge of such moral truths, if they exist, is rendered impossible. Sharon Street concludes, “If the fund of evaluative judgments with which human reflection began was thoroughly contaminated with illegitimate influence … then the tools of rational reflection were equally contaminated, for the latter are always just a subset of the former.”[5] This seems to be the case on EN, for the proponent of such an alternative is left concluding that even if some act is objectively wrong, such as the torturing of innocent children, we would never be able to know!

Now, let’s turn to the alternative explanation. Is the supernatural, agent explanation (AE) any better at accounting for moral knowledge? Upon reflection of the debunking argument, it seems so. The proponent of AE might avoid the assertion of P1 of the debunking argument by appealing to a purposive evolutionary story or avoid the implications of the debunking argument by proposing some version of agent revelation.

P1 asserts that our moral beliefs were selected for via their adaptiveness, not their truth value. But given a purposive evolutionary story, we might imagine that the agent in question would have guided us towards true moral convictions so that our convictions would not be aimed merely at adaptiveness, but at truth. Therefore, P1 would be inaccurate. Even if it is granted that our moral beliefs were aimed merely at adaptiveness and not truth, however, it would seem the proponent of AE could avoid the inference from P1 to P2 by inserting some theory of agent revelation—the idea that the agent in question communicated to us directly via our conscience or used special revelation to allow us to apprehend these moral facts—to avoid debunking concerns. Therefore, the proponent of AE can pick his avenue to avoid these debunking challenges in a way the naturalist cannot. Thus, given the debunking argument I have laid out, it seems AE provides a firmer foundation for moral knowledge than EN.

This conclusion has not meant to prove the existence of God, let alone the Christian God. Rather, my conclusion is meant to show that knowledge of mind-independent moral facts is better explained by a supernatural explanation, AE, than by a natural explanation, EN.  My hope is that this abductive analysis will serve as a firm foundation for the moral argument for God’s existence and reveal the shortcomings of naturalism to the willing and searching so they might discover a worldview consistent with their moral convictions. For the theist, I hope this argument strengthens their intellect and broadens their concept of our good God.

Notes:

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956 [1788]), 166.

Linville, Mark. “The Moral Argument,” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing, 2012) 415.

Street, Sharon. “A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value,” Philosophical Studies 127 (2006): 125.

[1] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956 [1788]), 166.

[2] Proponents include Michael Ruse, Sharon Street, Richard Dawkins, Alexander Rosenburg, Richard Joyce, Daniel Dennett, among others.

[3] Mark Linville, “The Moral Argument,” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing, 2012) 415.

[4] “Random” in such a context can be traditionally defined as: without special interest towards the benefit of the host organism.

[5] Sharon Street, “A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value,” Philosophical Studies 127 (2006): 125.

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Hunter Kallay is a Ph.D. student at the University of Tennessee and holds a MA in Apologetics from Houston Christian University. His primary interests include moral epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion. In his spare time, he enjoys fitness, sports, and exploring new restaurants.

The Beauty of Creation

The other day on Facebook I saw a meme featuring an expositor preacher, on Mother’s Day, ignoring that it was Mother’s Day and proceeding to the next biblical passage on the docket. It was interesting because this past Sunday, by coincidence, I was asked to speak on a passage from Genesis at a church here in Houston, and it was Mother’s Day.

I started by mentioning Mother’s Day, told some stories about my own mother, pointed out that there are some passages, especially in Isaiah, that offer images of God as a mother and not just a father, and, after discussing the Genesis excerpt, ended by reading Billy Collins’ poem “The Lanyard.” It was easy to carve out a few minutes to honor mothers.

Anyway, the passage from Genesis was from chapter 2, verses 8-17. It begins with God planting a garden in Eden, where he put Adam. God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees pleasing to the eye and good for food. And in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Near the end of the passage we’re told that God charged Adam to work the garden and take care of it, and then told Adam that he was free to eat from any tree in the garden save for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

I spoke about three things: (1) the garden, (2) the work of tending the garden, and then (3) this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In this post I’m going to talk about the garden, and in the next two posts I’ll talk about tending the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, respectively. I do this without taking any position on the literalness of these chapters. Such questions are notoriously vexed when it comes to the early chapters of Genesis, but I take it that, however literally or figuratively we are to take some of these matters, the passages are rife with substantive theological insight.

The garden of Eden represents the world prior to the fall. It’s unspoiled, creation as it was intended to be. And we all know that Adam and Eve will soon disobey God, and the horrible fall will ensue. But sometimes Christians get accused, and properly so, of starting with the fall and paying short shrift to the preceding creation narrative. The flow of salvation history in the Bible goes like this: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation (or Restoration). Whereas Adam is responsible for our expulsion from the Garden, Jesus makes possible life once more at it was intended be.

We shouldn’t start with the fall. We should start with the creation narrative. God created this world, and he made us, and in fact made us in his image and after his likeness. That’s an even more central aspect of who we are than our fallenness. Our fallenness is a contingent feature that we have—like where we live. It can change; likewise, our sin problem can be fixed, and for those who follow Christ it has been fixed and it will be fixed. But our having been made in God’s image is an essential feature of ours—a feature that, if we were to lose it, would prevent us from being us. It’s not an accidental feature, but a necessary feature. It’s central to our identity. This is one among other aspects of this all-important creation narrative that predated the fall.

The creation narrative also reminds us that there really is a way the world ought to be, and the world as it currently is isn’t it. We as Christians have an account for why this world falls short of what it should be. When it comes to something like the problem of evil, therefore, its whole force comes from the sense that the world is somehow broken, not what it ought to be. And that’s true, and something that Christianity itself acknowledges and explains. In contrast, a wholly secular or naturalistic understanding of the world doesn’t leave much if any room for the world not matching up to a higher ideal. It is what it is; why expect anything different? It’s all an inevitable byproduct of the laws at work in the world and atoms in motion. Christians in strong contrast have a principled and grounded hope for the world’s redemption, the closing of the awful gap between is and ought. This is part of the good news of the gospel.

Another reminder the creation story offers us is the goodness with which God imbued the world. Think about the garden, filled with delightful fruit and stunning beauty. God wants us to enjoy life and the goodness of the world he created. He imposes some limits on our behavior, it’s true, but the freedoms far exceed the limitations. And what limitations he imposes are for our own good. He wants us to taste and see his goodness in a plethora or resplendent ways. There are so many wonderful things this world contains—meaningful work, rich friendships, faithful marriages, rearing children, beautiful art, transformative conversations, music and literature, food and sport, worship and love The world contains great goodness, enough to break our hearts with joy.

Yet still it isn’t what it was originally intended, and for some their lives are filled with sadness and pain. In fact, the world wasn’t perfect even in Eden, was it? Temptation comes to Adam and Eve—in the form of the serpent. If the world were perfect, that wouldn’t be the case. Plausibly this points to something like a fall before the fall. Tradition has it that Satan was an angel who fell. So the world, even in Adam’s time, was already in need of fixing, even prior to the fall.

There are thus at least two ways that the ultimate redemption of the world will make for a world even better than Eden: (1) Satan will eventually be utterly defeated and silenced. And (2) we won’t be vulnerable and susceptible to sin in our glorified state.

The latter point raise in the minds of some the issue of freedom. If we can’t fall in our beatified state, does that mean we lose our free will in heaven? I don’t think so. I think we’ll lose a vulnerability to sin that they had (and we still retain for now). In that sense our glorified state isn’t simply a return to Eden. It’s better. The picture is one of complete victory over sin—not just forgiveness for our sins, but the defeat of sin itself—understood in a broader way than just individual sins. Whatever is wrong with the world—and clearly the world isn’t the way it ought to be—will be wholly fixed.

Biblically speaking, the deepest sense of freedom is freedom from sin. Sin binds us, holds us in bondage. This is why those who think they’ve broken free from God’s constraints are often those most held in the grip of sin.

One more thing about the creation narrative for now—notice that the creation is described as good—and the notion there is interchangeable with the notion of beautiful. Christianity has always taught there’s a close connection between the good and the beautiful, so that makes sense. Kant thought of the beautiful as a symbol of morality, and of course the history of philosophy is replete with those who have thought of the transcendentals of the beautiful and goodness as flip sides of the same proverbial coin, in some ultimate sense ontologically inseparable, even if they remain conceptually distinct.

Hans Urs von Balthasar famously argued that Kant’s arrival at beauty only in his 3rd Critique (after truth in the 1st and goodness in the 2nd) represents the way philosophers tend to privilege truth and goodness over beauty. Balthasar actually argued that this is a mistake. He thought that beauty paves the way to thinking of goodness and finally of truth in the right sort of way, making beauty the appropriate place to begin. It can offer an enrapturing vision of how the world ought to be, something that includes our will within God’s animating providence. This is one reason among others why, though I’ve devoted most of my professional energies to work on the moral argument(s), I have a growing desire to extend my work to an aesthetic argument for God’s existence. If goodness and beauty are in fact inseparable, perhaps I’ve been doing so all along.

On Good and Evil: Discussing the Nature and Morality of God (from the Veritas Forum)

C. Stephen Evans (Baylor) and Gideon Rosen (Princeton) discuss the nature of morality and God in “On Good & Evil: Discussing the Nature of Morality and God.”

Forum hosted by The Veritas Forum at Princeton University (11/18/2021).

Speakers: C. Stephen Evans - Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University

Gideon Rosen - Stuart Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Princeton University

LINK

"Divine Command: Religion and Morality." John Hare, Yale Divinity School

From the University of Chicago’s Youtube page:

Questions about the relationship between God and the good and the right remain as urgent today as they did in ancient times. For example, what is the relationship between claims about the nature or character of God and the moral actions motivated by those claims? What is the relationship between moral codes underwritten by claims about God and the ethics espoused by the (ideally agnostic) civic sphere? Are beliefs about God open to moral critique by others who espouse different beliefs or no beliefs at all? Today answers to these questions must take into account factors such as cultural and religious pluralism, hybrid theologies that incorporate teachings and beliefs from a variety of religious traditions, and religiously motivated violence around the world.

This conference invites philosophers, theologians and religious ethicists to offer accounts of God relevant to the current state of affairs in the West while taking seriously the possibility of a relationship between God and ethics. This conference was supported by grants from the University of Chicago Divinity School, the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, the University of Chicago Franke Institute for the Humanities, the Norman Wait Harris Fund of the University of Chicago Center for International Studies, and the Aronberg Fund of the University of Chicago Center for Jewish Studies.

Recorded in Swift Hall on April 9-11, 2014.

LINK

Robert Adams: Perfection, Justice, and Love in Leibniz's Theodicy

Robert Adams' talk "Perfection, Justice, and Love in Leibniz's Theodicy," delivered at the Leibniz's Theodicy: Context and Content Conference at the University of Notre Dame, September 16-18, 2010

Drs. David and Marybeth Baggett on 'Think About It' (an HCU Podcast)

In this video podcast from Think About It, the Baggetts discuss the moral argument, their work together on The Morals of the Story, the Gifford Lectures, the exciting projects ongoing at HCU, and more.

From ‘Think About It’

Dr. David Baggett is a professor of Philosophy in HBU's School of Christian Thought and director of the Center for Moral Apologetics. After teaching college for 18 years elsewhere, he, along with his wife Marybeth, begin teaching at HBU in the fall of 2020. Dr. Baggett is the author or editor of 15 books and is a two-time Christianity Today book award winner, most recently, “The Morals of the Story” (IVP Academic, 2018, written with his wife). He has cowritten three Oxford University Press books on the moral argument with HBU philosophy professor Jerry Walls, and his specializations include philosophical theology, philosophy of religion, religious ethics, philosophy and popular culture, and moral apologetics.

Dr. Marybeth Baggett is a professor of English in the HBU School of Humanities. She has 17 years’ experience teaching composition, literature and literary criticism, and, along with her husband David, is excited to join the faculty of HBU in the fall of 2020. Dr. Baggett is coauthor of “The Morals of the Story” and “At the Bend of the River Grand.” She has written articles on modern and contemporary American literature, utopian literature, and science fiction for both academic and popular publications. Her research interests include literary apologetics, critical theory, and cultural engagement.

J.P. Moreland: Finding Quiet: Learning to Handle Anxiety [Talbot Chapel]

A key part of moral apologetics is the notion of moral transformation. Moral transformation has to do with how we can be genuinely made good people and how we can live successfully according to the moral law. It also has to do with how we can be made to relate to the good and love rightly. In this chapel service from Biola University, Dr. J.P. Moreland explains a Christian approach to dealing with one part of moral transformation: overcoming anxiety and depression.

From Reasons to Believe: The Moral Argument: An Interview with Dr. David Baggett

In 2018, Dr. David Baggett had a great interview with the team over at “Reasons to Believe.” In this interview, Dr. Baggett and RTB discuss the nature of the moral argument, its history, and how to use it. Follow the link to listen.

Straight Thinking - The Moral Argument: An Interview with Dr. David Baggett - Reasons to Believe

Good God, Moral Choice, and the Presence of Evil - Panel Discussion

From the Lanier Theological Library:

A conversation about evil must begin with discussion of what is good and ultimately who is good. As Christians, this starts with identifying the character and person of God as the source and measure of goodness. If humanity is created in God’s image as his representatives in the physical world, it should follow that we are made “for good works” (Ephesians 2:10). Does this undermine the belief by some that God causally determines all human thoughts, actions, events, and therefore evil?

Panel members:

David Baggett (Professor of Philosophy, Director, Center for Moral Apologetics, Houston Christian University)

Ingrid Faro (Coordinator of MA in Old Testament–Jerusalem University College Program, Northern Seminary, Lisle, IL)

Catherine L. McDowell (Associate Professor of Old Testament, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Charlotte, NC)

John H. Walton (Professor of Old Testament, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL)

Jonathan Walton (PhD Candidate, University of St. Andrews, Scotland)

Mark Lanier (Moderator - J.D. Trial Attorney, Bible Teacher, Author, and Founder of Lanier Law Firm & Lanier Theological Library, Houston, TX)

Full of Grace and Truth

A lie is the truth! So seems postmodernist verbal sleight-of-hand. Postmodernism can be tied to a number of intellectual trends, from a denial of any normative overarching metanarrative to the relativity of truth, but most postmodernists assume with ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras that “Man is the measure of all things” and that we humans are the sole source of meaning, morality, and “truth.”[1] Postmodern philosophy constructs “truth” unconnected to any referent in objective reality “out there.” As the godfather of postmodernism, Friedrich Nietzsche, said, we create truth from out of the perspective of our perceived need, in our contemporary world, out of marginalization, powerlessness, racial, gender, or sexual oppression.[2]

The unfitness and insufficiency of the postmodern rhetoric to account satisfactorily and do justice to the way things are was vividly lit up for me in the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard defamation trial last spring 2022. The celebrity trial fascinated millions of people worldwide. Depp contended that Heard damaged his reputation by declaring through various public media sources that he had committed domestic violence against her and physically and sexually abused her. Amber’s statements under oath highlight for me the postmodern proclivity to use objectively false “true-for-me” statements as authentic, legitimate, moral speech protesting exploitation and abuse of an oppressed class—in this case, a woman Amber Heard.

Ms. Heard spoke as a vulnerable woman oppressed by a rich, violent man. In the Virginia court of law, she accused Johnny Depp of beating her up and breaking her nose. Photos of her face the next night after a gala showed no signs of being beaten—no marring, no swelling or bruising, and no crooked nose. There were no doctor visits. When confronted with her speech and the lack of correspondence to actual outside reality, she defended her speech saying it certainly “felt broken”!

To Amber, “felt broken” is the same as being broken. No, they are not the same. Neither does “felt broken” describe the fact he had not struck her at all! A claim must correlate with the facts it describes. Rather than creating a harmony of justice in which right is restored and the injured party and the malefactor get what each deserves, Amber Heard’s speech created injustice she sought to right. Amber Heard was not the injured party. Heard’s claim, “I spoke up against sexual violence,” justified as authentic testimony of an oppressed woman, carries significance only if it is connected with actual oppression. If she was not an offended party against whom sexual violence had been committed, words to that effect are simply untrue.

In fact, Johnny Depp proved to be the injured party because the public prior to the trial considered Amber Heard’s words to be connected to actual reality and acted accordingly. Movie studios did not renew Depp’s contracts for leading roles such as iconic pirate “Jack Sparrow” in Pirates of the Caribbean and villain “Gellert Grindelwald” in Fantastic Beasts. Depp was deemed an abuser of women. His reputation suffered and he lost employment.[3] Of course, in recent days our society has done at least a marginally better job taking the claims of real victims seriously, but if claims of abuse are demonstrably manufactured, investing them with authority will not advance the cause of justice, but subvert it.

With postmodernism denying truth as objective and considering only personal perspective authentic, the Depp/Heard trial claims drew me this Advent season to juxtapose it with the Word become flesh “full of grace and truth.” The Incarnate Word’s claims of deity were and have been received or rejected since based on whether they correspond to objective, existent reality. In Acts 2:17 and following, Jesus’ disciple Peter told the Jewish crowd on Pentecost that the Lord’s display of deity by acts of power and might was visible to them as eyewitnesses. Though defying human explanation, His words and wondrous acts connected with this real, corporeal world.

The truth embodied in Jesus is not rhetoric originating from Jesus’ particular perspective as a minority Jew subjugated by an imperial Roman power. It was and remains words and acts corresponding with reality they describe and to which they were directed. The Word become flesh has abided with this vulnerability for millennia. Christian teaching has from the very first century rejected Gnostic tendencies to separate the Word from His incarnation in this sensual, material world. The Word become flesh full “of truth” in correspondence to this world is a fascinating contrast to postmodernism’s refusal to be evaluated by the truth and falsity of the existent, objective world. The Word become flesh “full of grace and truth” connected to this objective world beckons all to view Him in accordance with it.

In postscript, the Word become flesh is judged against the objective world, but the objective world is also judged against Him. He the Truth came “to testify to the truth” that the way things are inhere in Him. His Advent promises “the glories of his righteousness.” He reveals Himself the universal scale by which all things are weighed, including oppressor, and oppressed; and all, both oppressor and oppressed, are found wanting; neither is the way they’re supposed to be.

Certainly, though Johnny Depp had not physically or sexually abused Amber Heard, the trial testimony disclosed that before God there was sin and offense enough on both sides. The Word become flesh full of truth reveals that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”; yet the Advent season points to the Word become flesh who is not only full of truth but also full of grace. The Gospel John says, “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Indeed, His truth promises the oppressed and the oppressor justice! But better yet, His grace promises each undeserved grace more than either deserves, more than either you or I deserve. Truly good tidings of great joy and good news indeed. Merry Christmas!

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[1] I have referred to Douglas Groothuis’s book in writing this piece.  See, Douglas Groothuis, Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism  (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2000).

[2] This has resulted in a transition from what Charles Taylor calls a “mimetic view,” according to which the world has objective order and meaning, to a “poietic” view that sees the world as so much raw material out of which meaning and purpose can be cranked by the individual. 

[3] Abby Gorzlancyk, “The Defamed Explained: Depp v. Heard,” Syracuse Law Review, Syracuse University/College of Law, June 9, 2022.

John Oswalt - The Centrality of Holiness

From the Henry Center:

In many views of salvation, especially Protestant ones, holiness is often marginalized. It is seen as a desideratum, but only as a somewhat incidental state procured by the Cross, to be realized as a reality at death. This view is the result of an inadequate understanding of the relation of the Testaments to each other. It is clear in the Old Testament that the achievement of holiness as a replication of the character of Yahweh in this life is the fundamental issue. The writers of the New Testament assume that this is still the issue, so do not restate it. Rather, they move on to consider the ways in which the Incarnation and the Atonement of Christ address it. This is especially clear in the Gospels and the Epistles. The failure to recognize these truths is one reason for the observed lack of distinctly Christian character in our contemporary society.

Diving Deep into the Moral Argument with Dr. David Baggett

From Free Thinking Ministries:

Dr. David Baggett is often considered the world's foremost expert on the Moral Argument for God's Existence. Dr. Baggett sits down with Tim to discuss the philosophy, history, and theology of the Moral Argument.

Singer and Hare - What is the Source of Morality? - The Veritas Forum

What is the foundation for morality? Two philosophers, atheist Peter Singer and Christian John Hare, discuss where we must look to find a coherent ethical system.

Peter Singer, world-famous Princeton philosopher, ethicist, and atheist, discusses with John Hare, Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology at Yale. Watch the full recording at veritas.org: ‪http://www.veritas.org/Media.aspx#/v/10

Over the past two decades, The Veritas Forum has been hosting vibrant discussions on life's hardest questions and engaging the world's leading colleges and universities with Christian perspectives and the relevance of Jesus. Learn more at http://www.veritas.org, with upcoming events and over 600 pieces of media on topics including science, philosophy, music, business, medicine, and more!

Darwinism Can’t Account for Objective Morality

From Stand to Reason:

“Greg explains why Darwinism can’t account for objective morality, then he answers a question about whether our sins are covered or washed away and takes a follow-up call from a caller about the origin and development of the cosmos.”

Can God Ground Necessary Moral Truths?

Robert from Canada wrote to Reasonable Faith:
Dear Dr. Craig,

There have been a lot questions recently asked about grounding the existence of morality in God, and I have one as well. The Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne rejects the Moral Argument for God because, he thinks, moral truths are necessarily true, and so the existence of God cannot have an effect on their truth.

He comes to the conclusion that moral truths are necessary because certain events are thought to be morally good or bad; more than that, the moral goodness or badness of an event is inseparable from the state of affairs itself. So, Swinburne claims, there is no possible world in which the exact same things occur as occurred during the holocaust, and in which the holocaust is not morally abominable. It is the same with other events that are considered morally good or bad. There is no possible world in which the event is the same as in the actual world and in which the moral judgement of the event is different than in the actual world. Thus Swinburne concludes that the moral judgement of an event is necessary to the event itself. And this leads naturally to his conclusion that the existence or non-existence of God is irrelevant to the existence of the moral judgement since the moral judgement is necessary given the event.

Swinburne's argument would thus undercut one of the premises to your moral argument. I am a Christian philosophy student at a secular university where many of my professors take a view similar to Swinburne, holding that the objectivity of moral values does not depend on God's existence. I have read and heard your arguments about the absurdity of life without God, and I am currently undecided. What would be your response to Swinburne's argument?

Robert