No “Good” without God
Posted on February 10, 2010
Filed Under Intelligent Design, Reason, Religion, Science | 11 Comments
I was catching up on some comments that have been posted on the Higher Law blog today and came across this particular one (#2) that made a statement that I’ve heard many times over the years. I’ve often thought to write a bit about this idea in general, so I figure this specific instance is as good an opportunity as any.
In the comment, the author (who identifies him/herself only as Prime) says the following:
“Live life abundantly, god or no god, faith or no faith it matters not. The single most important thing is to treat your fellow humans with respect and kindness that is all. You do not need god to be good.”
So, here’s my question to Prime and all others who hold to this particular belief system: How can you have anything good without God?
Let me explain.
The concepts of “good” and “bad” are moral concepts and are entirely relative. The real question is relative to what? It’s only by defining what is “bad” that anything can be defined as “good” and vice-versa.
So who defines “bad?”
The historical answers to that question are as varied and the philosophies that have tried to answer it, but they all generally fall in to two camps.
In one camp, morality is determined by public opinion. A thing is morally correct if the majority of citizens of a community agree that it is so (atheists typically pitch their tents in this camp). In the other camp, morality is an expression of static, unchanging truth. Only one of these camps can ever be correct.
If morality is subject to public opinion, then really anything goes. There is no law at all under those circumstances, because there is no basis upon which law can be built. For example, a law that ascribes illegality to murder on the presumption that murder is “bad” is only valid until such time as public opinion sways enough to say “murder is not bad” or maybe more subtly, “the termination of a life is agreed to be acceptable inasmuch as said life can be demonstrated to present undue inconvenience or stress on a qualified individual or society as a whole.”
You think my example is silly or unrealistic? Ever heard of Sharia? Obviously it doesn’t use such distinct “legalese” type language, but Sharia law recognizes such a thing as “honor killing.” So obviously when a society degenerates far enough to accept the practice of murder, whatever the justification (including religion), according to the philosophies of camp one, it becomes morally acceptable, even “honorable.” The most devastating scourges in the history of humanity have taken shelter in this camp.
The alternative is that morality is only valid inasmuch as it is based on truth. Things are defined as “good” or “bad” relative to the static and unchanging truths of the universe. Things that are good adhere to truth and are therefore qualified to endure, while things that are bad break one or more of the laws of the universe (truth) and are therefore immediately consigned to eventual but certain destruction—in time they will break down and cease to exist.
In the latter case, the definitions of “good” and “bad” are not subjective. They are based on an absolute: truth. Our obligation, then, is to discover truth and adhere to it. We discover truth by appeal to the beings that have utterly mastered and become synonymous with truth: God.
In the interest of time, I have made a pretty big leap from truth to God (not really, but I can see where the arguments will come from and I’ll address them in future posts). Regardless, my initial question to Prime and others of the same mindset still stands:
Without some kind of moral absoluteness, some static definition of “good” and “bad,” by what standard can a person know if they are being good?
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11 Responses to “No “Good” without God”
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I know several atheists who believe that good and bad are clearly discernible in a situation, according to a concept of unchanging truth.
Assuming you are correct, how does God inform this truth then, if for them it has no anchor in religion?
Is God by nature incapable of acting in a bad way?
What if God sets rules and then proceeds to violate those rules, such as thou shalt not kill…?
Is Gods violation of Gods rule good because God can do no wrong?
Or is there a rule God can set that would be bad if God did not follow it?
I am trying to understand your essay in light of these questions and am wondering what you think.
Josh,
Many questions…I’ll try to address them each in turn.
Your first question actually helps to illustrate a point that I’ve been trying to make both here and in comments on the Higher Law blog. That point is regarding the separation that we have to begin to make between God and religion. More accurately, the transcendence of God beyond religion. We like to compartmentalize things and try to say that God = religion. That equation can be true, but that does not mean God is limited to the realm of religion any more than it means that any religion approaches us to God (which can’t necessarily be true since there is so much religious disagreement about God). The solution is with the individual. Each individual has the right to receive inspiration from God whether they are religious or not, whether they even know it comes from God or not. The only qualification required is sincerity in the pursuit of truth. So the atheist cannot be an atheist first and then a truth seeker, nor can the Catholic be a Catholic first and then a truth seeker. (I only use Catholic as an example. The same can be said for any religion.) Every one of us has the obligation to be sincere in our pursuit of truth first, and if that leads to a religion, then we have to follow or we are disingenuous and not really sincere in the pursuit of anything but our own desires, which obviously aren’t always consistent with truth.
My argument is that God and truth are synonymous, not because God created truth, but because He has become unified with truth by His own unyielding sincerity in its pursuit and adherence. What other reasonable definition of God is there if not a being who embodies truth?
Now, I might actually redirect your question back at you, with a little twist of my own. How can someone who does not believe in God claim to discern unchanging truth? By what standard is that discernment made? Intuition? History? Research? Scientific method? Without the appeal to a source of intelligence higher than our own, it’s all just opinion.
God, being unified with truth, is not incapable of acting in a bad way–bad being any way inconsistent with truth. He can certainly make that choice, but the moment He does, He would lose that characteristic that defines Him as God: perfect unity with truth. He would, therefore, cease to be God. (The passage I’ve linked to is from the Book of Mormon and is given specifically in the context of the Christian belief of the atonement of Jesus Christ; but verse 25 sums up my point that justice must always be done, even by God–justice being obedience to absolute truth.)
I can specifically address the commandment you cite (thou shalt not kill) but it would probably be a little long for this comment, which is already novel-esque. I’ll probably have to write another post on that one. You might start by reading here, but I warn you: don’t start reading there unless you’re going to read it all.
I think I can answer the rest of your questions in a single statement, just reiterating what I’ve already said: God doesn’t make the rules, He follows them perfectly. That’s why He is God. There may be some specific commandments that He does create specifically for this set of His creations (us), but with a little study, prayer and understanding, they are always revealed to be perfectly consistent with static, unchanging truth.
(And yes, any sincere truth seeker has to at least try sincere prayer, regardless of their “beliefs.” An atheist can’t say they know God doesn’t exist if they haven’t asked according to the method by which those who say they know He does exist came to that knowledge.)
Thanks for the questions. Feel free to continue. I love this stuff.
>>>How can someone who does not believe in God claim to discern unchanging truth?
Well, they do in many ways, not any general method. You should ask one, I am not an atheist, but I know many.
One thing that is often employed is a standard of truth or an ideal. For example, the ideal of: Do No Harm. I know several atheists that live by this creed. They apply the creed to individual situations and it allows them to have moral insights.
>>>>Without the appeal to a source of intelligence higher than our own, it’s all just opinion.
That alone is an opinion as well. You see, that is all we ever have. That is why you can tell fraud because it is presented as certainty. One cannot, for example, know that God exists, rather one can only have Faith: that God exists.
One cannot know that what we experience exists either, for example the boundaries between things do not exist when you look at them on certain scales. Remember that even our vision is flipped upside down by out brains, that babies do not see color and that our minds fill it in later. You see, what we experience is as an illusion, you know this aspect as the veil, and it pertains to many things relating to God and Spirit itself. Things are not as they seem, all we actually have is faith, knowledge is largely an illusion and certainty is the mark of frauds.
People are essentially cowards at heart, fearing what they do not know, and so are naturally god fearing, for they cannot know God, only have faith in God. However the very promise of Abraham, as addressed in Galations 3, is made regarding faith and faith alone. In it, those who witness Christ are chastised for lacking faith, not knowledge.
God is so far from religion is isn’t funny. There is no group approach to God that works, the relationship is as you say, constant, but it is also individual. No man can bring another to God, they may only show the way by example.
You say God is unchanging truth. But Gods truth changes, including the policies and practices of every Abramic religion. Gods laws change, if we are to believe the Words of Christ, who many say is Jehovah and yet himself fulfilled and thus negated the law of Moses.
The idea that God sets rule and follows rules cannot co-exist with the ideas that:
1 As god was man is, as god is so shall man be (*assuming one goes through the proper motions)
2 God created man that man might have joy (bhakti to those who study this type of joy)
Christ also said, by their fruits ye shall know them. This is an intellectual standard. First it uses a metaphor, something that cannot be understood without intelligence and consideration, it requires thought to apply, and thus is an intellectual standard. Again what counts as good or bad fruit is intellectually determined, one employs reason.
If God created reason, then why dishonor God and ignore it right? If God is as a shepherd, he wants us to have agency, to have this we must be able to determine right and wrong for ourselves. If we are constantly appealing to the idea of god for guidance, instead of trusting that we are works of god after his image with reason, then we will miss the point altogether. Not only are we meant to learn things for ourselves, we cannot do this without the veil, without the separation from God. For this reason there is evidence of God, but no proof, and we are left to ourselves to learn, explore and grow, for this is Gods will.
God does not guide us with the printed word, not with hymns or politics or rules, he guides us by the universe itself. Each breath is a sacrament, a sacred bond and mortal covenant. We can only have faith in God, and never know God in the form we are now. But even a tiny bit of faith is a powerful, and sadly today, a very rare thing. For as I said, certainty is the mark of fraud and the truth of the matter can be plainly seen using God given reason.
Even Christ had his hesitations, his uncertainty Must I? He asked. But he had faith, not knowledge, and so taught us of faith, not knowledge, and not by Law:
Galatians 3, 9-11
Josh,
What is the “standard of truth” if it isn’t set by some higher form of intelligence? You cite one specific example of “Do no harm,” but here’s you first problem problem: define “harm.” If there is no absolute that specifies what harm is, then you and I can define harm in very different and incompatible ways, and we would both be justified in our definitions. If that were possible, we would live in a universe of lawless chaos (and we likely wouldn’t be alive at all).
Consider this statement by renowned string theorist Brian Greene in his book The Elegant Universe
There are laws that govern all things in the universe, including us. They are fixed and unchanging. Where there is law, there is knowledge. We can over-philosophize it all we like, but the notion that there is no certainty about anything is just plain incorrect. Don’t believe me? Ask god about it. (James 1:5; Moroni 10:3 – 5).
I think you’ve misunderstood the passage in Galatians. The law being referred to throughout that chapter is the Mosaic law (law of Moses), which was intentionally designed to be temporary. It was intended to direct the children of Israel to the law of obedience, which doesn’t ever change, and to look to Jesus Christ as the awaited Messiah. It was given because of their own stubbornness, as an aid to them in their progression. As indicated by its name–the law of Moses–it was not considered or claimed to be an eternal, unchanging law. Not all laws are eternal (I’ll come back to this more specifically in a future post), obviously, but the existence of eternal laws cannot be disputed by religion or science.
Faith is a vehicle for arriving at knowledge. Without knowledge as the end of faith, faith itself is useless. That’s one reason why Jesus is called the “author and finisher of our faith.”
You have to understand the separation between truth and law. A law is statement of truth, an active expression of a true, unchanging principle. God’s truth does not change because truth does not change. Some laws may change, may come and go depending on the needs of society at a given time, but any law that is not consistent with truth will ultimately come to an end. In the case of the law of Moses, that’s why it was actually given–to teach that principle (among other things–almost nothing God does has a single purpose).
I’ve said enough in this comment. I’ll likely have to write an entire post or series of posts to really address everything you’re brought up. Suffice it to say in closing that you are simply incorrect in your assertion that God cannot be known. You’re absolutely right that we have intelligence (more accurately we are intelligences) for a reason: reason. (God, however, did not create reason.) We absolutely must engage our ability to reason and continue to improve it. Study, intellectual development, education…all are critical to our progression; but appeals to God for instruction are a part of that process, ideally the first part (asking for guidance and enlightenment as we study, or even to know what to study) and the last part of that process (seeking confirmation that the things we have reasoned and studied are true).
Finally, I think you mischaracterize Christ’s question. “Must I?” as you put it, is not a question of uncertainty regarding whether or not what He is about to do has to be done; it’s a question of whether or not there is some other way it could be done. So while he may not have been certain about all the alternative possibilities (if any), He was certain that what had to be accomplished (atonement) indeed had to be accomplished, and more importantly, he was certain to be obedient–”nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” That’s not faith, that’s knowledge.
I’ll never tire of this conversation, so continue as long as you like.
If you cannot define the word harm, or don’t know about Judiac law then how can we continue what never started?
Ok, so define harm.
Harm 1
Definition: Injury; hurt; damage; detriment; misfortune.
Harm 2
Definition: That which causes injury, damage, or loss.
Harm 3
Definition: To hurt; to injure; to damage; to wrong.
harm 4
Definition: the act of damaging something or someone
harm 5
Definition: the occurrence of a change for the worse
harm 6
Definition: any physical damage to the body caused by violence or accident or fracture etc.
harm 7
Definition: cause or do harm to; “These pills won”t harm your system”
I find it rather a simple concept, to do no harm. The first definition works well.
Ok, so answer this then:
Much debate has ensued in the past decade over what is commonly referred to as the “Bush tax cuts.” The republicans say they were necessary to stimulate the economy and provide the working capital (in the form of tax relief for business owners) that would lead to job creation and economic expansion. Conversely, the democrats say that they are unfair because they provide the top 1% of the wealthiest people in America with the vast majority of the benefit, leaving the lowest salary earners without any benefit at all.
So, the republicans claim that eliminating the tax cuts will harm the economy and thereby harm the citizens while the democrats say that the tax cuts have already harmed and continue to harm the economy and the citizens.
So which is correct? Both claim that their opposition is harming the citizens. According to the definition of harm, who is right?
As an anthropologist and a believer in a Universal Higher Power, I call the HOLY ONE; I think the personal call to be good even many atheist feel is from The HOLY ONE. Even if not recognized to be such a call, the fact humans, human beings want to be good is an empiric proof to me the HOLY ONE exists. It is a theory like Evolution that one can choose to believe or ignore.
Like your blog thank you for taking the time to post your thoughts. A friend, Mary
An Aside Christ came to earth to save all whether they thought they wanted to be saved or not. Just a personal thought.
Evil is the absence of good aka God for example.