Moral Relativism vs. Religion

While researching something I wanted to write about, I came across a Christian website decrying "Moral Relativism". Their basic argument being, if there is no God, there is no morality.

From Craig Biddle's "Loving Life: The Morality of Self Interest and the Facts That Support It":

"If there is no God, anything goes." This popular claim is an eloquent distillation of a deep-rooted false alternative wreaking havoc on human life and happiness. The adage compresses into a few words the age-old debate over whether morality is a matter of "divine commandments" or "human sentiments." Whatever their disagreements, both sides of this argument accept the idea that your basic moral choice is to be guided either by faith or by feelings. In other words, both sides agree that your choice is: religion or subjectivism. But if you want to live and enjoy life, neither of these will do. Neither religion nor subjectivism provides proper guidance for human action; each calls for human sacrifice and leads to human suffering--both physical and spiritual. To see why, we will look first at the theoretical essence of each of these doctrines; then we will turn to the practical consequences--historical and personal--of accepting them.

Let us begin with religion.

Religion holds that there is a God who demands your faith and obedience. He is said to be an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good being who is the creator of the universe, the source of all truth, and the maker of moral law. Religion's basic moral tenet is: Don't place your self, your personal values, your own interests, your will, above those of God. Rather, you should live to glorify Him, to obey His commands, to fulfill His higher purpose. To do otherwise--to act on behalf of your own selfish concerns as if your life were an end in itself--is to "sin." As the religious scholar Reverend John Stott declares: "God's order is that we put him first, others next, self last. Sin is the reversal of the order."[1]

According to religion, being moral consists not in pursuing your own interests, but in self-sacrificially serving God. Theologian and rabbi Abraham Heschel expresses this tenet as follows: "The essence and greatness of man do not lie in his ability to please his ego, to satisfy his needs, but rather in his ability to stand above his ego, to ignore his own needs; to sacrifice his own interests for the sake of the holy."[2]

Now, you might argue that to ignore your own needs and sacrifice your own interests is contrary to the requirements of your life and happiness. But according to religion, that is no ground for complaint, because, as theologian Walter Kaiser puts it: "God has the right to require human sacrifice."[3]

Disturbed by such an assertion, you might ask: What about God's love for man? If God loves us, why would he call for us to sacrifice? To which Dr. Stott answers: "Self-sacrifice is what the Bible means by ‘love.'"[4]

Taking yet another angle, you might argue that self-sacrifice leads to suffering. But this fact is no ground for complaint either, because, according to the Bible, Adam disobeyed God by eating some forbidden fruit; therefore, you and I and all of Adam's descendents deserve to suffer.[5] As Saint Augustine put it: "We are suffering the just retribution of the omnipotent God. It is because it was to Him that we [by way of Adam] refused our obedience and our service that our body, which used to be obedient, now troubles us by its insubordination."[6]

The "insubordination" to which Augustine refers has to do with the aversion many people have to ignoring their own needs and sacrificing their own interests. After all, self-sacrifice can be extremely painful, both physically and spiritually. It can even be fatal. But, according to religion, if God tells a person to do something, the person is morally obligated to do it--regardless of the difficulties or consequences involved.

For a biblical example of what such obedience can mean in practice, consider the case of Abraham and Isaac. According to the story, God told Abraham: "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering."[7] Needless to say, it would be very painful for a man to kill his son, whom he loves. Nevertheless, because Abraham was faithfully committed to obeying the will of God, he set out to do just that.

Was Abraham's choice moral? Should he have done it? Would you do it? What do religionists say about this? According to Saint Augustine: "The obedience of Abraham is rightly regarded as magnificent precisely because the killing of his son was a command so difficult to obey…."[8]

Magnificent?

As shocking as Augustine's position may be, it is the only stance a dedicated religionist can take on the issue, because the only alternative is to challenge the alleged authority of God, and that is the cardinal religious no-no. "Above all," writes the devoutly religious René Descartes, reminding us of the applicable tenet, "we ought to submit to the Divine authority rather than to our own judgment even though the light of reason may seem to us to suggest, with the utmost clearness and evidence, something opposite."[9]

According to religion, God's will, however objectionable, is by definition good; and human judgment to the contrary, however rational, is by definition bad. The "real distinction between right and wrong," explains Bishop Robert Mortimer, "is independent of what we happen to think. It is rooted in the nature and will of God."

When a man's conscience tells him that a thing is right, which is in fact what God wills, his conscience is true and its judgment correct; when a man's conscience tells him a thing is right which is, in fact, contrary to God's will, his conscience is false and telling him a lie.[10]

Thus, if God wills that a man should kill his son, then, regardless of what the man thinks, he should do it.

But, you might ask, isn't human sacrifice wrong on principle? Not according to religion. As Dr. Kaiser reminds us, the religious point of view is precisely that "human sacrifice cannot be condemned on principle. The truth is that God owns all life and has a right to give or take it as he wills. To reject on all grounds God's legitimate right to ask for life under any conditions would be to remove his sovereignty and question his justice…."[11] Bishop Mortimer elaborates the religious position as follows:

[God] has an absolute claim on our obedience. We do not exist in our own right, but only as His creatures, who ought therefore to do and be what He desires. We do not possess anything in the world, absolutely, not even our own bodies; we hold things in trust for God, who created them, and are bound, therefore, to use them only as He intends that they should be used.[12]

In short, the basic moral tenet of religion is that obedience to God must be absolute--calls for human sacrifice and all. Granted, religion does not call for everyone to murder his child. But it does call for everyone to sacrifice his judgment and interests for the sake of an alleged God; and in order to uphold this tenet consistently, a person must be willing to do just that. If he claims to accept the moral tenets of religion but fails to uphold them consistently, then, on his own terms, he is guilty of "sin"--and on anyone's terms, he is guilty of hypocrisy (the consequences of which we will get to shortly).

Given the sacrificial nature of religion, it is not surprising that many people reject it and embrace its alleged opposite: subjectivism. But if human sacrifice is the problem, subjectivism is no solution.

Read more here.

[1] John R.W. Stott, Basic Christianity (London: InterVarsity Press, 1971), p. 78.
[2] Abraham Heschel, God in Search of Man, A Philosophy of Judaism (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983), p. 117.
[3] Walter C. Kaiser Jr. et al., Hard Sayings of the Bible (Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1996), p. 127.
[4] Stott, Basic Christianity, p. 79.
[5] See Genesis, 2­--3.
[6] Saint Augustine, City of God, trans. Gerald G. Walsh et al. (New York: Doubleday, 1958), p. 314.
[7] Genesis, 22:2.
[8] Augustine, City of God, p. 313, emphasis added.
[9] The Philosophical Works of Descartes, trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross (London: Cambridge University Press, 1973), Vol. I, p. 253.
[10] Robert C. Mortimer, Christian Ethics (London: Hutchinson's University Library, 1950), p. 8.
[11] Kaiser, Hard Sayings of the Bible, p. 126.
[12] Mortimer, Christian Ethics, pp. 7--8.