Violet, my atheist blogging buddy, has a post up called “WHAT MORALITY MEANS” in which she engages in her first favorite pastime, telling everyone Christians are wrong about everything, but also wrestling with some issues around morality, empathy, and Absolute Truth.
I empathize somewhat, because I am the first one to argue against Absolute Truth, as in, “Dude, what you are saying is not objective, not truthful, and not absolute.” Oh yes, there are people in the world who claim to be in possession of absolute, objective truth, and they stand before me looking much more like a piece of swiss cheese full of holes, than anything else.
So I understand the skepticism over the nature of objective truth or Absolute Truth. I’m picky, I expect my truth to be objective, absolute, and truthful. As human beings, I think we’re somewhat limited there, because we are subjective creatures. So, we simply do the best we can and come up with something that resembles objectivity.
However, human flaws aside, objective truth and Absolute Truth are still real things in the world. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” -John 14:6. The truth is important in the Christian walk, and it is an objective, tangible thing, outside of and beyond ourselves, our feelings, and our sentimentality.
Violet says, “Our shared sense of morality as human beings is guided by our understanding of the impact of our actions, which is influenced by our naturally evolved empathy (understanding and caring about other people’s suffering) mixed with, among other things, the logic of the Golden Rule, the observation of which ensures a more pleasant society for everyone.”
As much as I would love to hold hands with her and just sing kumbaya, this begs the question, So how come that isn’t the world we are living in? If morality amounts to nothing more than evolved empathy, the golden rule, and our understanding of the impact of our actions, how come there is so much violence and suffering in the world? Wars, rumors of wars, beheadings, kids sold into sex slavery, politically created famines…..
Our so-called “naturally evolved empathy and logic” seems to have totally failed us.
I’ve written before about empathy being a really poor guide for morality. Don’t get me wrong, empathy is a beautiful thing, it is just that as humans we can’t really empathize in two different directions at the same time. We have to choose. If you empathize with a woman facing an abortion, then you are unable to empathize with the fetus she is carrying. Empathy always fails us when faced with a fork in the path and it simply demands that we choose our loyalties. There is no lukewarm here.
But what is really missing from Violet’s entire post is any awareness, acknowledgement, or recognition of evil. I get that, I did that for many years myself. I simply refused to even consider the existence of evil. If you cannot see evil, you may not grasp the desperate need for a Savior, the powerful insistence that Absolute Truth is a real thing in the world. If there is no evil, then what is it all the crazy people think they need to be saved from?
I hate to be such a wet blanket here, so jaded and cynical, but I know, I have learned, evil is real enough, terrifying, and it never seems to recognize itself for what it is. There is no lukewarm there, either. It is what it is. A harsh truth.
Violet concludes with yet another slam on Christians, “Be scared for the people who can’t see complex decisions in a rational light, be scared for people who don’t understand their basic empathy, and who can’t see the logic in working together to create societies with less suffering, societies where we all look out for each other. Because all too often these are the shallow, instinctive moral judgements that can lead people to burn heretics, to hang homosexuals or to deny women bodily autonomy.”
To which I can only say, Pol Pot. Stalin. Hitler. Mass graves, killing fields, communism wars, a whole bloody and violent history, not a single one the least bit interested in making “shallow moral Christian judgments,” about much of anything. Every single one was an evil convinced it was good, not unlike the same kind of “morality” that has now lead us to conclude that 51,888,303 aborted fetuses in the US were nothing but a clump of cells. Selling their organs for research is not evil either, it’s now good, just as conducting medical experiments on Jews was once seen as being for the common good.
And Joseph Stalin, well I suspect he and many of his followers were absolutely convinced they were making “a more pleasant society for everyone.” To this day we don’t even know how many he killed in the Great Purge, but it is estimated to have been millions.
The problem with evil Violet, is that it can not ever see the nature of its own self. It simply believes it’s good. In the absence of Absolute Truth guiding us, there is no place humankind won’t go. History has taught us that truth, time and time again.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
Quite interesting and amusing, but you let Violet off too easy. your quote of her’s – “naturally evolved empathy and logic” – is one of those oxymoron phrases. Evolution (although a mere unsubstantiated theory) involves progression from lower to higher forms. If human qualities of empathy and logic were indeed part of such evolution, the evidence of improved qualities would be clear, but instead – if anything, man is devolving!
Ironically, THAT complements the Scriptural evaluation. Sin remains the constant culprit while things are getting WORSE – NOT better! Lest we ignore the warnings from Christ: “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be” – Mt.24:21.
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Ha! I often say we seem to devolving or de-evolving. Can you even evolve backwards? Regardless,we don’t seem to be progressing very well, not if “progressing” is supposed to have something to do with becoming more moral and wise.
In all seriousness however, I don’t think human nature has changed much since ancient times. In the Western world we’ve become a bit insulated from the nature of ourselves, at least in the nicer parts of town. 🙂
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Very well said IB. We all like to think we make decisions based on objective morality (well most of us), but in reality if you’re trusting your own inner instincts to make the call on what’s good and bad, you will eventually fail and bring much misery to those caught in the after effect. The extremes of this are of course the evil and unspeakably cruel movements led by Godless tyrants who think nothing of humane life as long as their cause is being advanced.
The desire to control and rule over others is an evil that resides in all of us, which in democratic societies is tempered by the rule of law and limited government power. It still comes out in a multitude of ways though, thus the ever increasing encroachment of government do gooders to “save us from ourselves” via a multitude of rules dictating what we can/cannot eat and drink, how we educate our kids, what type of lightbulbs to buy and toilets to install. The list goes on.
An oldie but goody CS Lewis quote I’m sure you and your readers are familiar with fits the bill here quite well.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
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Well said,Tricia. Very appropriate CS Lewis quote, too.
I’m always a bit baffled about that, if we’re all allegedly good and have no need of Savior, than why do we need all these government programs designed to protect us from our own selves?
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Well that is a darn good question IB! 😉
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Funny, every time I think the world might not be so bad, either I’m reminded of my own faults or a tragedy happens, or both. 😉
I’m thinking the enemy likes his arrangement as the man behind the curtain. If people can’t see him then they can’t know everything is wrong, can they? Pay no attention to the evil behind the glossy, PC veneer…
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Oh, I so hear you! Isn’t that a rotten trick? I will be going about my life, evil all but forgotten, the nature of people all but forgotten, and than boom, there it is again.
Somebody smart once said the enemy’s greatest deception of all was in convincing us he didn’t exist. What you can’t see, you can resist.
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“And Joseph Stalin, well I suspect he and many of his followers were absolutely convinced they were making “a more pleasant society for everyone.” To this day we don’t even know how many he killed in the Great Purge, but it is estimated to have been millions.”
I agree. And this is the problem with dogma. The The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has gained a lot of traction since then, and most people agree with the basic principles. It’s when people set them aside in a pursuit of a perceived greater good that things start to go wrong. There can never be a ‘greater good’ that trumps how we treat individuals – maybe as a species we’re starting to learn that, maybe not quite yet.
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What you’re describing is the logic that comes from eating from the wrong tree. In our delusional understanding of “good” (“the myth of redemptive violence” Walter Wink), as well as “evil.” It’s purely a subjective form of good” and evil, depending on who’s defining it. It’s often hypocritical and self-serving, whether it’s practiced by despots, atheists, or Christians. In the end, we believe what we want to believe.
I like your take on absolute and objective. While there is objective truth, we’re constantly grappling to define it. One thing we’ve found out in the last 200 years is that there is no such thing as seeing something purely objectively, as if totally unaffected or disconnected from it, and with no bias attached. Like with quantum physics, the observer automatically affects the data. Language, by definition, is metaphorical and subjective, at best. Even when something is stated literally, absolutely, it’s no more than a description of what’s being observed or heard. And no matter how accurate it may be, it’s still open to interpretation We’ve proven that, even with the simplest and most obvious facts! We need to be aware of our own bias going into the conversation in order to have meaningful communication. This is where humility and grace trumps having to be right.
This is also why Truth is a Person (John 14:6), not an idea or doctrine. And if we don’t get this, especially as Christians, we’re not going to put down our rocks.
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“This is also why Truth is a Person (John 14:6), not an idea or doctrine. And if we don’t get this, especially as Christians, we’re not going to put down our rocks.”
Oh, amen to that!
I know of someone writing about a profound spiritual experience, what I call, “a close encounter of the God kind” and her honest response was to fall on her face and exclaim “Holy crap!” That wording is a bit rough around the edges, but the purity of spirit there is genuine, the child like response. Real too the fear and the awe! So about a dozen Christians simply came along and complained about her language, completely missing the life altering, spiritual experience that just happened, the close encounter of the God kind right in their midst.
Sometimes I wonder what w’ed do if we ever heard the disciples speak. Faint probably. A bit rough around the edges, most of them and fisherman, too. I’m going to guess their language was sometimes colorful at times.
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Reminds me of the poster I saw once that had the caption, “I don’t care if you’re right, you said it wrong!”
You’re probably right about the disciples. We had a lady stand up and give a prophetic word that was absolutely from God, it was so full of grace and pure, message-wise. She was a new believer and there’s no way it was her own thoughts. But it came out with some colorful expletives! Fortunately, she did so innocently and there was enough maturity in the room that her word was received with grace. (It did wake a few people up from their worship slumber!)
It’s the water through the garden hose thing, I suppose. 🙂
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I wholeheartedly agree.
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