Loki and the Locus of Identity

Warning: This article contains spoilers of the Disney+ series “Loki.”

 Loki is a television series found on Disney’s streaming service called Disney+. It follows the life of Loki after he swiped the tesseract and was swept into another dimension. He is captured for crimes against time by the TVA (Time Variance Authority). As the series progresses, Loki introspectively reviews his life, his multiple failures, and what makes a Loki a Loki. He encounters other variations of himself by the integration of beings across multiple dimensional timelines. He comes to meet a female version of himself who calls herself Sylvie. Oddly, he finds that he finds the love of his life in a deviation of himself. That is to say, the only love of his life is himself.

            Loki’s quest to find his identity reminds me of an episode of the television series The Big Bang Theory. In one episode, the gregariously free-spirited Penny meets the hyper-analytical Dr. Beverly Hofstader who is mother to Dr. Leonard Hofstader, Penny’s next-door neighbor and future husband. Beverly uses her psychoanalytical skills to inquire into the life of the vivacious young Penny. At one point, Penny notes that she is an aspiring actress. Beverly coldly retorts, “Why?” She goes on to pinpoint that Penny suffers from an external locus of identity. That is, Penny finds her sense of identity in what others think of her. Likewise, it may be said of Loki that he found his value of identity by what others thought of him. Perhaps Loki desired to rule the world because of his deep insecurities about what others thought of him. If he ruled the world, then everyone must appreciate him. Yet as one evaluates three loci of identity, one begins to find one option is much better than the other two.

The External Locus of Identity: To Find One’s Value in What Others Think

            Every person likes to be liked. As the saying goes, people will buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, to impress people they don’t even like. For this reason, individuals will spend exorbitant amounts of money for the latest and hippest clothing, the fanciest cars, and the most luxurious homes to stand out as an impressive person. Others will spend countless hours in the gym to chisel themselves into the image of a Grecian god or goddess so as to receive the approval of individuals in their community. An invisible form of competition emanates in the mental state of a person to see if they can outdo everyone else around them. The problem with the external locus of identity is twofold. First, the internal competition against all others is doomed for failure because somewhere and somehow, someone is always better than you in some capacity. The Westernized conception of competitiveness has its setbacks particularly when a person sets oneself against all others. Additionally, the person will never rest and appreciate what one possesses because he or she is always seeing to best their adversaries. In contrast, the apostle Paul noted that he had “learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself” (Phil. 4:11, CSB). Second, the internal competition is impossible to win because not even Jesus himself could please everyone. The early church taught that Jesus was sinless (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 3:25-26; Gal. 3:13). As such, Jesus always said the right things, always thought the right things, and always behaved appropriately. Yet he still managed to find himself on a Roman cross condemned with criminals, betrayed by a close compatriot, and buried in a borrowed tomb. If Jesus, the exemplification of perfection, could not please everyone, what makes us think that we can?

The Internal Locus of Identity: To Find One’s Value by How One Sees Oneself

            Some might say that the better option of identity is found by looking within oneself to find one’s identity. While a better alternative than the former, it still elicits problems. John Hare wrote a book entitled The Moral Gap where he identifies a gap between the moral demands placed upon us, both internally and externally, and our ability to meet them. Sagely, Hare denotes that “we see people constantly failing by the moral standards they and we uphold at least verbally, and we want to hold them accountable for each failure.”[1] In response, the church has taken two attitudes to the problem: 1) moral idealism, which holds that people are capable of living good lives and holds them accountable for such, 2) cynical realism, holding that no one can live a virtuous life, thereby removing all blame upon a person for an indiscretion committed.[2] The apostle Paul lamented, “For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate” (Rom. 7:15, CSB). If a person finds one’s sense of identity only within oneself, the person’s inability to live perfectly could cause great stress and strain on one’s mental and emotional faculties. Not to mention, the mind plays horrid tricks on a person much like a funhouse mirror, leading to false notions of oneself (i.e., he/she is not worthy of love, he/she will never do better in life, and so on). Is there not a better way?

The Upward Locus of Identity: Seeing Oneself through the Lens of God

            Thankfully, a better choice is found in possessing an upward locus of identity. By this, it is meant that a person finds one’s worth and value in God’s love and value for the person. This perspective is not unique in Christian thinking. In his eighth book on The Trinity, Augustine argued that God is the good and that human beings find ultimate happiness and value when they enter into a loving relationship with a good God.[3] By this union, God’s righteousness unites with the receptive person and guides the person to live ethically and morally. Hare states, “The emphasis is not on Christ’s righteousness being external to us, but on the unity he establishes between himself and us.”[4] Granted, professing Christians do not always act ethically. However, it can be said that moral transformation can only come about by the unity with the good God and continued dependence on his moral empowerment. Ultimately, a person’s sense of worth, value, and ethics is vastly intensified and expanded when a person sees oneself through the lens of God. Romans 8:31-39 becomes an integral aspect of one’s sense of worth as it is realized that nothing can separate him or her from the awe-inspiring love of God.

Conclusion

            Much, much more could be said about this topic. But to conclude, think of the following scenario. How would the fictional Loki’s character have changed had he been able to view himself through the Creator’s lens? Would he have sought a better relationship with his brother Thor? Would he have resolved the conflicts he had with his father Odin? What about Penny of the Big Bang Theory? Would she still have desired to be an actress if she was not as concerned with how other people viewed her? While Loki and Penny are fictional characters, their internal conflicts and sense of self-worth are far from make-believe. Real-life people deal with these issues every day. Loki and Penny can serve as parables for us to exemplify the need to view ourselves not as others see us or even how we see ourselves, but rather to see ourselves by the divine viewpoint of God. Experiencing the love and moral transformation that comes from a real-life omnibenevolent God is much better than what any writer of fiction could ever muster.

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About the Author

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com, the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast, the author of the Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics, and a Ph.D. Candidate of the Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has served in pastoral ministry for nearly 20 years and currently serves as a clinical chaplain, an editor for the Eleutheria Journal, and an Associate Editor for MoralApologetics.com.

https://www.amazon.com/Laymans-Manual-Christian-Apologetics-Essentials/dp/1532697104

© 2021. BellatorChristi.com.

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[1] John E. Hare, The Moral Gap: Kantian Ethics, Human Limits, and God’s Assistance, Oliver O’Donovan, ed (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1996), 140.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Augustine of Hippo, On the Trinity, in St. Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises, Philip Schaff, ed, Arthur West Haddan, trans, vol. 3 of A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, first series (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1887), 244; David Baggett and Marybeth Baggett, The Morals of the Story: Good News about a Good God (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2018), 66.

[4] Hare, The Moral Gap, 263.

One Good Reason to Believe in God: The Intrinsic Value of His Image (and Man’s Attempt to Escape It)

Editor’s note: Good Reasons Apologetics has graciously allowed us to republish their series, “One Good Reason” You can find the original post here.

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“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.’” (Gen. 1:26)

Of the 10.7 million Africans who were taken captive and brought to the new world, it is believed about 388,000 ended up in what is now the United States. Congress outlawed bringing slaves into the U.S. in 1808, and yet the population of Africans in the U.S. by 1860 was 4.4 million, 3.9 million of which were slaves, and it was almost entirely the result of natural growth (i.e., babies born into slavery generation after generation).     

According to the Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, almost 6 million Jews were killed in Europe and Russia in just a few years during World War II. This represented about 55% of the population of Jews in the regions. At least 50 million people lost their lives as a direct result of the fighting in World War II, with as many as 85 million who lost their lives in total when things like war related famine and disease are included.

Today in the US, according to the conservative numbers we have, it appears we abort about 850,000 unborn children a year. This has been occurring legally since 1973 thanks to a Supreme Court decision that birthed the idea of the “right” to abort a child. It is now estimated that there have been approximately 42 million unborn Americans aborted.

Many who championed chattel slavery did not view Africans as fully human. The idea of evolution provided racists and eugenicists a way to claim that Africans, Aborigines and other people groups were less evolved, and thus less deserving of life than their more evolved counterparts. Nazi propaganda called Jews “rats” and referred to their homes as “nests.” They systematically exterminated Jews, “invalids” and other groups they called “life unworthy of life.” The most common defense of abortion is that it is not a person, but rather a “clump of cells,” or a “choice.”

The cycle of dehumanizing other humans, followed by murder and genocide and eventually negative historical judgement through time is evidence that man still intuitively recognizes the implicit value in other men, and must overcome the idea his target is fully human before taking life in cold blood.

One might argue that humans enslaving and killing other humans on a large scale is just evolution’s “red in tooth and claw” history playing out as always. However, the overwhelming historical tendency for man’s need to dehumanize other men before enslaving or murdering others seems counter to evolution’s “survival of the fittest.” Shouldn’t it be easier to kill with all this practice?

Anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one or cried out at the senseless loss of a stranger’s life knows the unexplainable angst that comes from the unjustified or systematic taking of a human life. Does this come from blind, purposeless accidents through time that create the psychological illusion of value in one another based only on mutual advantage as is suggested by some?

It seems far more likely to be the residue of his Creator’s imprint of the value of fellow image bearers on every man’s soul. We dare not kill the King’s sons and daughters, and we know it. 

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Tony Williams is currently serving in his 20th year as a police officer in a city in Southern Illinois. He has been studying apologetics in his spare time for two decades, since a crisis of faith led him to the discovery of vast and ever-increasing evidence for his faith. Tony received a bachelor's degree in University Studies from Southern Illinois University in 2019. His career in law enforcement has provided valuable insight into the concepts of truth, evidence, confession, testimony, cultural competency, morality, and most of all, the compelling need for Christ in the lives of the lost. Tony plans to pursue postgraduate studies in apologetics in the near future to sharpen his understanding of the various facets of Christian apologetics. Tony has been married for 9 years and has two sons. He and his family currently reside in Southern Illinois.

Recent Work on the Moral Argument, Part II

In this second installment of exciting recent work in moral apologetics, we asked Dr. Mark Linville to offer a quick summary of what he’s been up to. He does really excellent work, and MoralApologetics.com is always happy to direct people to his substantive contributions. In his own words here is that summary:

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Essay in Craig-Wielenberg Book

I titled my essay, “Darwin, Duties, and the Demiurge.”  I begin by comparing the “evolutionary debunking arguments” of C. S. Lewis and Alex Rosenberg.  No two thinkers could be further apart in their views of the nature of the universe, but they agree on two fundamental points: A consistent naturalism entails either moral subjectivism or nihilism, and most naturalists are not consistent, as they seek ways of avoiding the full--and repugnant--implications of their worldview.  Rosenberg embraces both naturalism and its repugnant implications. Lewis rejects both.

In contrast to both Lewis and Rosenberg, I argue not that naturalism entails or requires some variety of moral non-realism, but that moral realism--the idea that some acts really are right or wrong--does not find a good “fit” on that worldview.  And where they argue that the consistent naturalist would embrace some variety of moral non-realism, I instead advance an epistemological argument to the effect that the consistent naturalist is a moral skeptic. Where a naturalist of Rosenberg’s stripe will reject any teleological explanation for what Rosenberg calls “core morality”--basically, the common sense moral beliefs that are widely distributed--the theist thinks that human moral faculties are designed for the purpose of discerning moral truth.  “Theism thus provides underpinnings for the expectation that the human moral sense is capable of discerning moral truth.”

After recounting a general Darwinian “genealogy of morals,” I consider some objections to the sort of argument that I advance.  I assess Louise Antony’s direct replies to my earlier work. Perhaps the heart of her critique is that despite the origins of our moral faculties, we are still in a position to evaluate moral claims and beliefs by appeal to “reason and evidence.”  And she cites an important recent article by Roger White (“You Just Believe That Because….”) in support of her argument. The heart of my reply is that certain of our most basic moral convictions, such as Chesterton’s example that “Babies should not be strangled,” is not had by any inference of reason.  We do not reason to this as a conclusion, but we reason with it as we evaluate other moral claims.  And it is not as though babies have the empirically discernible property of not-to-be-strangledness stamped under their bonnets, giving us empirical evidence for the belief.  Rather, the best evidence for that conviction is it seeming to us to be true, and self-evidently so.  And it is this very seeming that is undercut on Antony’s naturalism.

I then turn to Erik Wielenberg’s interesting and ingenious attempt at avoiding evolutionary debunking arguments by appeal to a “third factor” involved in the explanation of human moral beliefs.  His aim is to challenge the debunker’s claim that even if there were objective values the naturalist would not be in a position to know them.  The core of his argument, I think, is that if there are rights, and if such rights supervene upon the possession of reason, and if believing that there are rights requires the possession of reason, then it would appear that our evolution, aiming only at fitness, has also guided us to truth.  My main reply to Wielenberg invokes George Santayana’s critique of the young Bertrand Russell’s early embrace of both moral realism--a Moral Platonism similar to Wielenberg’s--and naturalism.  The heart of Santayana’s argument--what one commentator on Santayana calls his “most telling criticism”--is what might be dubbed the demiurge argument.  Santayana argued that, unlike Plato’s scheme, Russell’s Platonic Good “is not a power,” and so cannot be thought to influence the course of nature. And so there is a great gulf fixed between those Platonic precepts and whatever shape the world takes, with the result of a Platonism “stultified and eviscerated.”  In a world in which “man is a product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving,” there is no reason to expect that the moral convictions of evolved rational creatures would be informed in any way by the moral declarations in the Platonic Empyrean.  What is missing, then, is someone or something that can fill the role of Plato’s demiurge, and the theist has the perfect candidate.

Other Relevant Recent Work

“God is Necessary for Morality” is my main essay in my printed “debate” with Louise Antony in Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, 2nd edition, eds., Michael Peterson and Raymond VanArragon (Blackwell, 2019).  Antony and I also exchange brief replies to each other’s main essays.

Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion

Wiley-Blackwell

“Moral Argument” in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion eds., Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro (Wiley-Blackwell).  I believe this comes out this year.

“Respect for Persons Makes Right Acts Right” is my main essay in my printed “debate” with Alastair Norcross (who defends Act Utilitarianism) in Steven B. Cowan, Problems in Value Theory (Bloomsbury, 2020).  I offer a brief critique of Divine Command Theory here along the same lines as my critiques of several other ethical theories (along the way to defending a Kantian respect for persons principle). Perhaps of at least indirect relevance is my fairly extensive ("Chestertonian") critique of Alex Rosenberg's Scientism in "A Defence of Armchair Philosophy: G. K. Chesterton and the Pretensions of Scientism" in An Unexpected Journal (December, 2019)--online and Amazon hard copy.  (This journal is put together by several graduates of the HBU apologetics program.)

Problems in Value Theory: An Introduction to Contemporary Debates

Bloomsbury Academic

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We appreciate Dr. Linville doing that for us! Be on the lookout for all those exciting essays to come. In our next installment we’ll take a look at two younger scholars doing exciting work on aspects of moral apologetics, namely, Suan Sonna and Adam Johnson.

Hold Fast to the Good: Fahrenheit 451, the Love of Books, and the Value of People

Photo by Paul Bulai on Unsplash

The recent HBO adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 attempts to update the classic story of censorship and entertainment run amok in light of new technology and our ubiquitous social media culture. It’s a laudable effort, and Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon put a memorable twist on Guy Montag and Captain John Beatty. I’ve always been a bit skeptical, however, about the wisdom of adapting this particular book to film, given its overt critiques on the logic and deficiencies of a spectacle-driven society. There’s just something odd about using a screen—big or small—to bemoan the decline of the written word’s cultural primacy of place. Even still, Bradbury himself approved of François Truffaut’s 1966 version, and critics have made a compelling case that the film’s visuals pay homage to the book’s role in shaping an inviting and hospitable world, one much more attractive and life-giving than the mechanical world of the firemen charged with burning them.

My reservations about the film versions notwithstanding, I have to admit that one scene, powerful in the book and brilliantly captured by each adaptation, dramatically and memorably depicts the central conflict of the story. It is a scene that has stuck with me from my first encounter with Bradbury’s story and that readily comes to mind when I think of what it means to take one’s commitments seriously. When one has recognized the value of a thing or person, what obligations does that recognition entail? As Bradbury’s story suggests, the greater the value, the higher the price.

Montag’s crew raid a house on an anonymous tip. There they find it overflowing with books—illegal all. As they enter the house, they find one lone woman sitting at a desk; in the recent version she reads John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, unmoved by her unexpected visitors. The firemen search the house, and room after room is overrun with books. They are stacked floor to ceiling in piles that crowd tables, bookshelves, and chairs. This “regular Tower of Babel”—as Beatty calls it—is so jam-packed that the banned materials leave only a small path for the men to walk through.

These books—any books—are an offense to the futuristic America Bradbury has imagined. They require too much time, provoke too much thought, and unsettle easy answers. True-believer Beatty expounds on the dangers inherent in making these writings freely available: “Do you want to know what’s inside all these books? Insanity. . . . One expert screaming down another expert’s throat. . . . Each one says the opposite, and a man comes away lost, feeling more bestial and lonely than before.” This forbidden fruit—Beatty suggests—dazzles with promises to unlock the secrets of the universe but leaves readers more disoriented and confused than before. Happiness, on this worldview, comes from being spoon-fed the knowledge needed to get along: “If you don’t want a person unhappy, you don’t give them two sides of a question.” In fact, you don’t give them a question at all.  

The stronger Beatty makes his case against books, the more intrigued about them Montag becomes; he snags one and tucks it into his coat before the others are doused with kerosene. As the house is readied to burn, Montag tries to get the occupant to leave. But she remains steadfast, defiant in the face of the firemen’s destruction. Montag’s conscience has been pricked: “Are we just going to leave her?” he asks as Beatty says to let her be. Coldly, the captain gives her one last chance to avoid the fate destined for her books: “Look, miss, do what you like, but you know as well as I do that these books are gonna burn.”

And then comes one of the most memorable scenes of the story: the woman stands atop a pile of kerosene-soaked books, opens her jacket to reveal additional books strapped to her waist, pulls out a single match, which she strikes and drops to the floor. She has done the firemen’s job for them, willing to die for the books she cherishes. Bradbury elevates this sacrifice, making it akin to religious devotion, by having her allude to the apocryphal last words of Protestant martyr Hugh Latimer (Oxford, 1563): “Play the man,” she says, a line concluded by Latimer with the hope that his present suffering will one day be rewarded: “We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

What makes this scene so memorable is the deep conviction readers and viewers sense in the woman’s commitment to her books. She values them so highly that, for her, they are worth her very life. Coming after Beatty’s denigration of books as societal troublemakers, responsible for all manner of unrest, the woman’s sacrifice is all the more poignant; clearly she thinks otherwise and hopes her immolation will convince viewers of the raid’s livestream to challenge the status quo, to give books a chance. And of course if someone is willing to give her life for the cause, anything so intuitively significant and sacrificial certainly merits close attention. Even if her strategy doesn’t seal the deal for those watching the fire, it might at least give them pause to reconsider the party line. It does just that for Montag and sets him on a rebellious course.  

But as memorable as the scene is, the question of the source of the value of these books remains unanswered—at least in this latest adaptation of Fahrenheit 451. It’s clear that the filmmakers (and characters like this woman) highly prize the written word, but it’s not clear why—what confers on them their worth? Unmoored from any such anchor, the books take on an almost fetishistic role. In a sharp departure from Bradbury’s original story, director and writer Ramin Bahrani introduces an electronic component to the preservation of literature; while the original story relies on an exiled community to memorialize the words behind the written texts, the HBO film entrusts it to technology—a database called OMNIS encoded in a DNA strand and stored inside a bird. Presumably, no matter what human beings do to each other, this literature will live on; the final scene of the film suggests as much, with the bird soaring high above the embattled city. These precious books have left humanity behind and are no longer subjected to their depraved machinations.

In Bradbury’s version, the opposite is true: the written word itself falls away, and is now imprinted in the memories of the “book people” who have each undertaken to memorize whole books in a throwback to the world of oral culture. The books have been more deeply internalized than before, and community is essential to their survival. While Bradbury never explores any locus of value beyond this human community, he seems to recognize what the filmmakers do not: that these texts cannot stand on their own and absorb any significant amount of devotion without something inherently valuable to underwrite them. For Bradbury, books themselves are primarily a vehicle for human creativity and an extension of the mind of the creator him or herself.

To censor or otherwise destroy them means more than physical annihilation of the material text: it’s to dishonor and degrade the people behind the writings. It’s also to stamp out the good these reflections on the human condition and our world can offer readers now. The figure of Faber, who is notably absent in the newest version, beautifully articulates the connection: “It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books. . . . The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. . . . This book has pores. It has features. This book can go under the microscope. You'd find life under the glass, streaming past in infinite profusion.” Admittedly, Bradbury’s framework needs expanding a bit, undergirding the temporal human community with an eternal source of ultimate value—something that classical theism readily provides I should note, but he at least gestures in that direction.

God and Cosmos, Chapter 4, Part II (Moral Value)

Baggett and Walls next consider a more Platonic effort to account for intrinsic human value. Such a view is advanced by those like David Enoch and Erik Wielenberg. They focus on Wielenberg's book, Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism. Wielenberg's view (known as robust normative realism) is that there are response-independent, non-natural, irreducibly normative truths, objective ones, that when successful in our normative inquiries we discover rather than create or construct. He thinks moral properties supervene on nonmoral properties. Because of issues over supervenience, he distinguishes three types of supervenience.

Let M stand for a moral property. The first variant of supervenience he calls R-supervenience (R for reductive). The way M supervenes on the base properties here is by being reduced to them. Here, M is identical or entirely constituted by the base properties. The second form is A-supervenience (A for Adams). The instantiation of M might be entailed by the instantiation of the base properties together with the instantiation of certain non-base but necessarily instantiated properties. This comes from Robert Adams’ view of finite goodness. His view is that the property of being finitely good is the property of faithfully resembling God's nature. The third variety is called D-supervenience (D for DePaul). M is not identical, or reducible to, or entirely constituted by the base properties, on this view. Rather, the instantiation of the base properties makes (or explains) the instantiation of M. He thinks the most plausible of these is D-supervenience.

He offers a few ways of construing such a making relation. The first is a grounding relation. Morality on this view concerns a sui generis domain (its own unique domain) that can be reduced to, or consist in, facts that might be formulated in other terms. Wielenberg worries that there isn't a well-understood and useful grounding relation that is distinct from other metaphysical relations like identity and constitution.

The second way, which Wielenberg favors, is construing making as causation. He acknowledges various worries. One concern is that causation requires the existence of laws of nature connecting causes and effects, but it seems implausible to suppose there are laws of nature that connect nonmoral and moral properties. Another concern is that causal connections are usually thought to be contingent, but Wielenberg posits a necessary casual connection. Lastly, it is sometimes thought that causes must precede their effects. Wielenberg thinks the answer to these objections is by understanding causation in a particularly robust fashion, the same causal relation many theists take to hold between a state of affairs being divinely willed and the obtaining of that state of affairs. So, when asked why does being an instance of torturing someone just for fun entail moral wrongness, he says it is because being an instance of torturing someone just for fun makes an act wrong. He thinks no further explanation is available (since all explanations must stop somewhere).

Frank Jackson objects that there is always a purely descriptive claim that is necessarily coextensive with an ethical predicate, so there are no sui generis ethical properties. Using his making relation, Wielenberg argues that moral properties have a feature natural properties lack, namely, the former are resultant. Tristram McPherson objects to Wielenberg's account by saying that commitment to brute necessary connections between discontinuous properties counts significantly against a view. Wielenberg admits there is some intuitive force to this objection, but argues that such a principle is self-undermining. Lastly, Wielenberg shows that both theists and his own view are committed to metaphysically necessary brute facts. They come from nowhere and nothing external to them grounds their existence. He thinks ethical facts are such facts.

What about the narrower issue of the intrinsic value of human beings? Wielenberg thinks that his account better explains such value than at least certain theistic explanations. He insists that makes something good must lie entirely within its own nature. It is good in and of itself. He strikes off Mark Murphy's, Adams', Linda Zagzebski's, and Mark Linville's accounts because he thinks that human value is extrinsic on such views. Baggett and Walls will address such concerns in a later chapter.

They now turn their attention to reservations they have about Wielenberg’s account. First, Wielenberg thinks human dignity and worth D-supervene on the property of being human (or some specific features of being human). Baggett and Walls think that such a making relation underdetermines why this causation relation holds. Second, it is question-begging to assume that this supervenience story is consistent with secularism because, if humans are created in the image of God, then being human would have for one of its essential features a relational property of which God is a part. Third, Wielenberg is committed to the causal closure of the physical. This limits him to material and efficient causes, leaving little to no room for formal or final causes. The first person needs to be left out in any final theory. There is no room for mental causation in the context of casual closure. This arguably eliminates the means of treating persons as ends-in-themselves because the attitude of respect for a person presupposes mental causation. Fourth, there is a huge qualitative gap between natural and non-natural, between fact and value, between value and disvalue. Fifth, Wielenberg seems to dismiss the historical relevance of theism to the conviction about intrinsic human value, yet it is not clear that his worldview has the metaphysical resources to ground such truths. Sixth, it is not obvious that his explanatory stopping point is a good one. It is not clear what explanatory work is done by saying that an act of deliberate cruelty simply makes something wrong. He seems to be simply stating a moral fact that is in need of explanation. His explanatory stopping point amounts more to an assertion than argument. So, with these worries, Baggett and Walls do not think that Wielenberg's account sufficiently accounts for intrinsic human dignity and value.

Summary of Chapter 4 of God and Cosmos: “Moral Value,” Part I

In chapter 4, Baggett and Walls focus specifically on intrinsic human value. Historically, religious perspectives played a role in forming convictions about human rights. On the Judeo-Christian view, human beings are not only creatures of God, but are made in the image of God. Nicholas Wolterstorff claims that there is no plausible alternative to this religious framework to ground natural human rights. For example, some ground human rights in capacities like the power of reason, but this ends up excluding infants and those with mental disabilities who are often thought of as also having the same rights. Baggett and Walls do not want to say that respect-for-persons is supportable only on religious grounds. They make a more modest claim that respect-for-persons is best explained by theism compared to competing theories.

First they consider egoism. Kai Nielsen's proposal is that a respect-for-persons may be derivable from egoism (the view that one ought to act in one's own self-interest). Based on this, he thinks that one ought to treat others well in order to be treated well himself. The first problem is that this fails to account for the moral standing of others; it is just a strategy to be treated well. As Baggett and Walls put it, "What does my acting in my interest have to do with you possessing intrinsic worth?" A second problem is that this fails to account for cases where not respecting others does not affect one's self-interests. For example, one may be powerful and need not fear repercussions for treating people poorly. This results in having no reason for respecting others since it does not affect one's self-interests. Hence egoism by itself cannot account for intrinsic human value.

Next, they consider utilitarianism/consequentialism. On this view, one ought to maximize utility. For example, some utilitarians say that one ought to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Jeremy Bentham, a proponent of utilitarianism, infamously said that the notion of intrinsic natural rights is nonsensical. Rights exist based on what is advantageous to society. Whether rights are protected or not is determined by social utility.

John Stuart Mill, another proponent of utilitarianism, likewise thinks that the sole reason for according rights to people is based on social utility. As Mark Linville notes, there is no necessary connection between an action's maximizing utility and its being fair or just. On utilitarianism, in a case where someone is raped, the wrongness of rape is not because their right is violated, but is because of the generally injurious consequences for the community. So utilitarianism fails to safeguard individual human dignity and worth.

Utilitarians offer many responses. One reply is that we tend to be unreliable calculators of consequences, so it is better to always safeguard individual rights than not to. Still, the problem persists that no individual's rights or dignity is beyond sacrificing if, by doing so, utility is maximized. A rule-utilitarian may say that one should follow the rules which maximizes utility. But still, this is far from saying that certain acts are categorically wrong. All that can be said regarding an act is that it is at most merely consequentially wrong. Angus Menuge has said that on utilitarianism, if a tyrant was more effective in brainwashing people or slaughtering those who disagreed, genocide would have been right. Hence utilitarianism has problems accounting for human value.

Next, Baggett and Walls consider Philippa Foot's virtue ethics that is based on a natural law theory. Foot's book called Natural Goodness is an account of virtues based on how human beings are normatively structured, how we typically behave when it comes to those teleological aspects of our human functioning. Her book has three distinct parts. First is her argument against non-cognitivism (the view that moral statements do not express propositions that can be true or false). Second is her defense of naturalistic moral objectivity. Last, she handles objections from utilitarians and from Nietzschian nihilists.

Baggett and Walls focus on the second section. Foot argues that we make judgments of goodness and defect of living things by reference to a teleological account of the life form based on its species. Her account covers evaluative judgments of the characteristics and operations of other living things. What an animal should do depends on the kind of animal it is. Likewise, what we (humans) should do depends on our being humans. This means that moral defect is really just a form of natural defect. Vice is a form of natural defect while virtue is a form of natural goodness, rooted in patterns of natural normativity. Based on the kind of species one is, some behaviors simply conduce better to one's flourishing than others.

Take for example the virtue of promise keeping. In giving a promise one makes use of a special kind of tool invented by humans for the better conduct of their lives, creating an obligation that contains in its nature a prescription that harmlessness in neglecting does not annul. Some accuse her account of being utilitarian. She however says that utilitarianism (and other forms of consequentialism) has its foundation in a proposition linking goodness of action to the goodness of state of affairs. Her theory of natural normativity has no such foundational proposition.

While Baggett and Walls agree with many aspects of Foot's work, such as moral cognitivism and moral realism, they have some significant reservations with her main account. The most significant is that her account does not answer whether human flourishing is of intrinsic value. While she affirms it, her account does not provide a foundation for it. First, Foot has to account for differences between pestilential creatures, animals, and human beings. If she wants to say that biologically adaptive patterns of behavior in cancer cells or tigers do not entail objective moral facts, then how does she go from natural normativity to objective morality in the case of human beings?

Second, there is a problem of smart free riders. Why should one keep their promise if no damage is done? Foot says that there is still a moral duty to keep it to cultivate the sort of character of being trustworthy. But her reply still cannot account for a really smart promise breaker who is able and willing to get over her aversion to breaking promises when doing so is unlikely to detract from optimal species-flourishing.

Third is the problem of a deflationary analysis. Foot's account is characterized as neo-Aristotelian, but Aristotle's worldview was far from naturalistic. While Aristotle placed great emphasize on being human, his view wasn't content with our being merely human.

Fourth is a transition problem. While she affirms good and noble human characteristics, she departs from a naturalistic, biologically grounded account of moral virtues. Furthermore, by limiting her resources to human flourishing, it seems unlikely she will have enough for the sort of thick account that virtue approaches to ethics tend to have as their distinctive strength.

Fifth, Baggett and Walls raise a normativity challenge. While they agree she is right, in one sense, to say that morality depends on our natures, this still leaves out an analysis of what that nature is exactly. Talk of telos (purpose) and human nature in a Godless world is difficult to sustain. Foot thinks that the designs of a Divine Mind are irrelevant to the natural-teleological descriptions of human beings. But if we have been created by God in His image, with his intentions in mind, then this is a relevant consideration.

Sixth is an epistemic challenge. Foot's work does not address the contemporary challenge (in regards to moral knowledge) posed by evolutionary moral psychology.

Attending to the Least of These in the Age of Trump

Editor’s Note: This essay was originally posted at Christ and Pop Culture. 

"Even if you have this baby, I’m not going to love you.”

Nearly twenty-four years later, despite my having faced and overcome many challenges since that time and finally feeling secure in God’s faithfulness and his plan for me, memory of these words can still easily unsettle me. The cold indifference with which they were spoken, how they foretold the lonely and grueling road ahead, the grievous recognition that I had cast my pearls before this swine who was content to leave them in the mud—all of these hard truths surface in this short statement.

I was twenty, living recklessly and trying desperately to make up for what my childhood had lacked—some affirmation that I was important, a little appreciation for my unique gifts and talents, even just a bit of recognition that I existed.

It’s natural to feel invisible in dysfunctional environments like the one in which I grew up.

So on the precipice of adulthood, quite unconsciously I’m sure, I was determined to get what I had been denied: self-actualization, consideration, admiration. But when you have no internal gauge for authenticity in these matters, anything bearing a superficial resemblance will do, even the paltriest of substitutes—like the attentions of my manager at the restaurant where I worked.

Although it’s difficult now for me to stand in the shoes of that fragile girl, I do remember how flattering it was to garner the interest of someone with a modicum of authority in a position of respectability. In retrospect his flirting sickens me, knowing the self-centered callousness behind it, but at the time it thrilled me to think that I might be special enough to merit his devotion, or at least what I mistook for devotion.

The ironic but simple truth is that those growing up without having their most basic emotional needs met will often debase themselves in their desperate attempts to meet them. So it was with me.

Another simple truth is that many will use their power to exploit these vulnerabilities. This dynamic has been on full display in recent weeks with the latest scandal in Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency. The most visceral reactions have been directed toward the leaked audio, and I have to admit, listening to Trump’s boasts gives me vivid flashbacks to the early days of my unmarried pregnancy.

To hear a rich and famous man speak with such casual pride on the license his power gives him to have his way with women—married or not—sparks shame deep within me. Shame because I know he’s right.

My story attests to this reality. Trump’s voice on that tape brings me face to face with the fact that the crisis point of my life, even the conception of my precious son, could so heartlessly be reduced to an emotionally stunted adolescent talking point.

What has been equally troubling is the political aftermath of the Trump tape, the way it has rallied his defenders and accusers alike. His advocates try threading the needle to denounce Trump’s past while embracing his future (Supreme Court in the balance, after all); others emphasize that these were words not deeds (though that’s become a vexed question) and establish a hierarchy of depravity with Trump on the acceptable side of the line. Still more adduce the philandering of Bill Clinton and Hillary’s enabling diatribes against his accusers.

Trump’s critics ostensibly inhabit the moral high ground. They rightly call Trump out for degrading women; they recognize the hostility and abuse of power. While some detractors, such as Beth Moore, predicate their critique on Christian conviction for the dignity and worth of all people and a concern for the vulnerable, others have leveraged their criticism to score political points. Because the tape discloses repulsive statements and attitudes about women, some seize the opportunity to offer Clinton’s platform as a corrective: complete with expansion of abortion access and an unseemly and sanguine acceptance of the practice as normative.

Michelle Obama’s moving speech delivered last week powerfully embodies the attractiveness of embracing a platform like this, one that is supposed to empower women. As many have reported, in that poignant speech Obama articulates the fear countless women have that they matter only as sexual objects and declares—with justification—that Trump’s nomination by a major political party has breathed new life into those fears, even inflamed them.

I hear her words and watch her passion, and they resonate, but I can join in Obama’s refrain for only so long. Her righteous indignation rings hollow in light of the suffocating internal and external pressure I felt to abort my child—pregnant, scared, and little-more-than-child myself.

The hideous refrain, “Even if you have this baby, I’m not going to love you,” echoes loudly in my ears these days.

This cruel declaration invokes my longing to be known and loved, reminding me how that deepest of human needs was wielded as a weapon. It crystallizes for me the enormous power men have when abortion becomes quotidian, effectively disempowering the women it purports to protect.

“My body, my choice” ultimately entailed that the child I was carrying was fully my responsibility. In the moment of this distancing and dispassionate declaration, I knew that—with conscience intact—my son’s father intended to leave me to bear the consequences alone.

This is the hard truth of our age. A people who pride themselves on “equality for all” has accepted unchecked power as a matter of course—wrongful dominion of men over women, of women over babies. A code of law crafted to defend the defenseless, in reality sacrifices the weakest of us all. And we turn a blind eye to exploited women who refuse the moral calculation of abortion that offers escape through passing on one’s victimhood to another.

Even now, those speaking loudest about the Trump tapes seem to overlook the exploited. They excuse, forgive, and change the subject. Or they condemn, scheme, and flaunt their moral superiority. Few have acknowledged the individual lives at stake. Grievously silent have been Christian voices calling on men and women alike to reject societal and legal allowances to exert illegitimate control over another.

For someone like me, the casualty of another’s entitlement, this silence is deafening.

God is good, and in recounting my experience, I don’t mean to imply that this desolate chapter is the end of my story. I have been blessed beyond measure, and God has indeed shown in and through me his delight in making beauty from ashes. I am no longer that abandoned, desperately needy new mother unprepared for what lay ahead. I am amazed, humbled, and overwhelmed by how far God has brought me, how he redeemed this turning point by transforming me and making me wiser and stronger.

Over the past week, with the two partisan camps warring over Trump’s latest scandal, I can’t help but think of my former self, ill-equipped for the crisis she faced. She would be able to find no refuge in either faction. And I can’t help but look at my female students at the university where I teach and wonder if any of them wrestle with the same inner and outer demons I faced at their age.

It’s to and for them I speak now. I want desperately for them to know that—no matter who has failed them, no matter what they have done, no matter who speaks lies to and about them—they are loved abundantly. They are created for a purpose they will find only in their Maker; they are unique and wonderful and valuable beyond measure. Exploitation of them is an offense to the God who formed us all.

And to men who might be listening in, mistreatment of women degrades you as well. To quote James Baldwin, “It is a terrible, an inexorable law that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one’s own.” You are called to something higher, to reject the pervasive cultural message that permits casual objectification and consumption of another.

A corollary with that truth is this one: good and right will prevail; evil begets evil and, left unredeemed, will never participate in good. While we live in a world fraught with sin and temptation, counterfeit satisfactions and fear will lure us to abandon God’s wisdom for our own, to rationalize our rejection of his law, and to enact justice injudiciously. Through abortion and more, our culture offers encouragement and approval for such blameworthy self-reliance. Only a resolute trust in God’s abiding faithfulness delivers us from evil, both inward and outward. Such is the way of hope.

Hope rejects voices that justify, minimize, or turn away from abuses of power. Even still, hope recognizes that abuse of power is not a zero-sum game and that such abuse, if left unchecked by grace, can quickly turn victim into perpetrator, all in the name of empowerment. Faustian bargains net no profit, no matter whose dignity is used as collateral.

Hope speaks truth about injustice, holds the wicked to account, but resists the creed that all’s fair play for the wronged. Hope, instead, knows you can entrust yourself to the one who judges justly. Through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, hope proves that it need neither compromise nor collude with corruption to effect victory.

Do not be fooled by rhetoric that claims accumulation of power is our purpose, no matter the source of those claims. Embrace instead Christ’s heart for the “least of these,” even if you find yourself in that category.

Our fallen state may be homo incurvatus in se, humanity curved in on itself, but hope releases us from bondage to self-gratification and self-centeredness. Through hope, we can and should live differently. My life and the life of my son testify to this possibility and to this hope.

Image: "Good Samaritan"  by David Teniers the Younger. Wiki Commons. 

Morality and The Recalcitrant Imago Dei

The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism (Veritas)

By Moreland, J. P.

The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism (SCM Press, 2009) is a concise, deep, challenging, and wide-ranging critique of philosophical naturalism. In it, philosopher J.P. Moreland argues that there are several aspects of reality which naturalism is unable to account for, while theism can: consciousness, free will, rationality, morality, value, and a substantial human soul. The arguments are controversial and many will disagree, but I would urge anyone who has the time and inclination to read and think about this book, if you are interested in comparing the explanatory power of naturalism compared to theism with respect to these issues. If Moreland is right, and I think he is, theism has more explanatory power regarding many central aspects of human persons. I don't agree with everything in the book, of course, but the case is very well made.

Rather than summarizing the entire book, I will focus on the last chapter which is entitled "Naturalism, Objective Morality, Intrinsic Value and Human Persons." Moreland begins the chapter by noting three features of the moral order:

1. objective, intrinsic value and an objective moral law;

2. the reality of human moral action; and

3. intrinsic value and human rights.

His claim is that these features of moral reality fit very well within a theistic worldview. By contrast, some naturalist philosophers believe that naturalism yields defeaters for these aspects of moral reality. Moreland alludes to naturalists John Bishop and Michael Ruse as examples of such philosophers. (As a side note, other philosophical naturalists, such as Erik Wielenberg, disagree, and contend that the foregoing can fit within a naturalistic metaphysical framework. But Moreland's points count against a naturalist view which seeks to accommodate such non-natural properties within its ontology if he's right that these features have better metaphysical fit within a theistic framework.)

Moreland offers an argument that the following features are defeaters for a naturalistic worldview. To fully appreciate and evaluate his argument of course requires reading the chapter in the book, but I'll give a quick summary of his points.

1. The existence of objective moral value: If the universe starts with the Big Bang, and over its history we find the arrangement of microphysical entities into increasingly complex physical compounds, how does value arise? How can a naturalist, as a naturalist, embrace non-natural, objective values?

2. The nature of the moral law: The moral order presents itself imperatively, that is, as something which commands action. The sense of guilt one feels for falling short of the moral law is best explained if a good God is the source or ultimate exemplification of that law. As Moreland puts it, "One cannot sense shame and guilt towards a Platonic form" (p. 147).

3. The instantiation of morally relevant value properties: Even if a naturalist allows for the existence of some Platonic realm of the Forms, the naturalist has no explanation for why these universals were and are instantiated in the physical universe.

4. The intersection of intrinsic value and human persons: How is it that human beings are able to do as morality requires, and that such obedience to the moral law also happens to contribute to human flourishing? Theism has an obvious answer to such questions related to human nature and the intentions and design of God, but it is not clear, and is far from obvious, how naturalism would account for this.

5. Knowledge of intrinsic value and the moral law: Given that such values are not empirically detectable and cannot stand in physical causal relations with the brain, how is it that we could know such things? Evolutionary explanations fall short because of what is selected for in evolutionary processes on naturalistic versions of evolutionary theory.

6. An adequate answer to the question, "Why should I be moral?": Both naturalists and theists can respond, "Because it is the moral thing to do." But beyond this, when thinking about the question outside of the moral point of view, the issue becomes why is it rational to adopt the moral point of view rather than an egoistic one? According to Moreland, this is a problem for the naturalist. But the theist can offer a variety of reasons to adopt the moral point of view--the moral law is true; it is an expression of the non-arbitrary character of a good, loving, wise, and just God; and we were designed to function properly when living a moral life.

The rest of the chapter includes a discussion of the value of human beings and human rights, which I'll leave to the interested reader to explore. The book is worth the price, and I highly recommend it for those inclined to do the work of reading and considering the arguments it contains.