Of Truth And Morality
Posted by Pastoral Musings on July 17th, 2012
In a previous article I spoke of God as the source of truth and the ultimate standard of truth. We all live as if this were true, whether we accept the foregoing statement as true or not. We live by a standard of truth and expect others to live by the same standard. For example, when I go to the bank to deposit my money, I expect the tellers to come to the same total as I do when they have completed their addition. Why? Because I know that there is a standard by which we operate. Two plus two always equals four. The fact that we live by such a standard points to the reality of the absolute and ultimate standard. There could be no standard of truth if there were no Christian God. The God of the Bible is not only all knowing, but is the source of all knowledge and truth. He is truth.
The above statements may seem to be somewhat of a leap, but consider that morality also exists. There is an ought-ness about certain things in life; and that ought-ness is personal, and presupposes an absolute person who cares about what we do. We do not live in an impersonal world. We interact with persons all the time. We live in a world that is so full of personality that we often give inanimate objects personal names, and many men refer to their cars as “she” and “her”. We have no true moral responsibility to inanimate objects as such. We may have a moral responsibility to God and to others in regard to how we deal with inanimate objects, but we are not morally responsible to an inanimate object itself.
Morals demand one to whom we are morally responsible. They also demand an absolute standard of morality. Since morality is impossible without personality, it follows that there is an absolute person who is the final arbiter and ultimate standard of morality. The God of the Bible certainly fits this description. He is called the God of truth who is without iniquity (Deuteronomy 32:4;2Corinthians 1:18) and all men will give account to Him in the judgment (Romans 14:10-12).
What does morality have to do with truth? That is the question that some will ask. It is a good and valid question. It is also a question that must be answered. The answer is that truth must be respected, honored, and adhered to. If we do not do so we are being immoral. To commit an offense against the absolute standard of truth is to commit a moral offense. An offense against God is an issue of moral consequence. God cares what we believe. It matters to God whether we believe the truth or not. He cares whether we speak truly or not. To stray from the absolute standard of truth is to offend against the absolute person who is the standard of morality and the judge of all men.
It may be argued that there is no moral culpability when one commits an error due to ignorance. We don’t truly live this way, however. Should I be fully convinced that a new bridge which will shorten people’s commute times by fifty percent is opened, and I inform everyone I see that it is opened though it is not; I can assure you that there will be a large number of people who will hold me responsible for giving them wrong information and causing them to be late for work. Ignorance will be accepted as no excuse. We also know that ignorance of the law will not excuse us in court if we have broken the law. Ignorance may be considered by many to be a mitigating circumstance, but it is not an excusing circumstance. Many times we find ourselves gaining new information and thinking, “Well, I’m glad that I know better now.” Scripture does not allow us to do that. Scripture compels us to look back on our ignorance with shame, and then commands us to repent ( See Leviticus 4:1-35;Acts 17:30).
Let’s take this a step further. Scripture intimately connects our loyalty to truth to our morality. You see, we are morally obligated to fear the Lord. That is commanded many times in the Scriptures. At the same time we are told that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7). Only by the fear of the Lord will we know the truth. As I am morally obligated to fear the Lord, and I am morally obligated to believe and speak the truth, truth and morality are inextricably connected.
I fear that many fail to see that man’s fall was a rejection of truth, and that man’s sinful state is one in which he suppresses the truth (Romans 1:18). Man’s fall was a rejection of truth in that he did not give glory to the one who is truly glorious (Romans 1:20), accepted the word of the one who is a liar (Genesis 3:1-7;John 8:44), and corrupted their own understanding and knowledge, thus becoming fools (Romans 1:22). This immoral rejection of truth then led, and still leads, to a rejection of the truth of God and a perversion of the truth of God.
The connection between morality and truth could hardly be more plainly seen than in a verse in the “love chapter” of the Bible, 1Corinthians 13. In 1Corinthians 13:6 Paul stated that love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in truth. We would be correct to say that the opposite of unrighteousness is righteousness, but it is also correct to say that the opposite of unrighteousness is truth. Think of it: the opposite of immorality then is truth. Truth is a moral issue.
Paul, speaking to the church at Corinth, declared that he worked to bring everyone’s thoughts under submission to God (2Corinthians 10:5). It did not matter to Paul from what school one originated. What mattered to Paul is that every thought was submitted to the Lordship of Christ, and that is a moral as well as a religious issue.
The letter to the Ephesians most definitely shows that Paul considered truth and morality to be related issues. His desire for the Ephesians was that they would not live by the standards of the world (See Ephesians 4:17-24). He explained to them that those outside of Christ lived in the futility of their thoughts, and that their minds were blinded because they were ignorant of the truth. Their ignorance of the truth was not only a sinful thing, but it led to more sin in that they went head-long after sin and gross immorality.
In common, everyday life we live as if these things are true. We expect our banker to hold to the truth about addition, subtraction, multiplication, because we are relatively sure that, if he doesn’t, he will err on the side of immorality and take our money instead of erring so as to give us more money. When people speak to us, we expect them to speak the truth to us and we don’t accept ignorance as an excuse when someone is harmed due to being given wrong information. Ivory tower academics and philosophers may quibble about this, but they also deposit money in the bank, and their expectations are the same as those of the common man. It is reasonable to conclude that there is an unbreakable link between truth and morality.
There is one application that needs to be made before concluding this article. That application relates to the debate surrounding the inerrancy of the Scriptures. Not only are there some who deny that the Scriptures are inerrant, but they plainly state that there are mistakes in the Bible. Not only so, but some go so far as to say that Jesus Himself erred and ignorantly spoke things that were not true. If that is so, we cannot accept that Bible as what it claims to be: a holy book which is the true Word of God that teaches us the way of righteousness and salvation. Neither can we take Jesus to be what the Bible claims Him to be: the sinless Son of God. To insinuate error in Christ and the Bible is to insinuate sin in them. There is no way to escape that. Those who do so, no matter what they may claim about adoring Christ and accepting the authority of the Scriptures, are grossly in error and would do well to reconsider their position. What true Christian wishes to be guilty of implicitly accusing Jesus of sin and Scriptures of being deceitful and misleading?
July 20th, 2012 at 4:09 am
Jason, this quote seems to mesh nicely with your blog:
If we adopt the Word of God as our ultimate commitment, our ultimate standard, our ultimate criterion of truth and falsity, God’s Word then becomes our “presupposition.” That is to say, since we use it to evaluate all other beliefs, we must regard it as more certain than any other beliefs.
John M. Frame, “Presuppositional Apologetics: An Introduction,” RPM MAGAZINE, April 19, 1999, http://reformedperspectives.org/newfiles/joh_frame/PT.Frame.Presupp.Apol.1.html
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July 20th, 2012 at 10:07 am
EA,
Frame is the one who gave me the idea for the post
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July 20th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Great minds think alike!!!
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July 20th, 2012 at 5:48 pm
Well, to quote a friend of mine, “Even a blind pig stumbles across an acorn now and then”.
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July 25th, 2012 at 12:24 pm
Hi Jason, you will not be surprised if I disagree with you on much of what you say. Morality is not absolute or objective in the way that empirical statements like “I am wearing a grey shirt” can be regarded as objective. If words like “absolute” and “objective” mean anything at all when applied to statements, they entail that there is some way of verifying the statement or otherwise showing that it is true, and moral judgment do not seem to be susceptible to this process. We can argue about them but we cannot really prove them to someone who sees things differently. The other point is that, though I may be morally responsible for my actions, I am not usually responsible TO anyone in particular, so I would question how use you use the idea of moral responsibility to show some need for God; God is not an employer to whom I owe some duty in order to receive a salary.
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July 25th, 2012 at 12:42 pm
Peter,
Let me mark things out by number. Right now I must be brief. Please do not think that my brevity is in anyway a dismissal of you or of your ideas. I am spending much of this week preparing for a busy week next week.
Thanks for the comments.
No, I am not surprised
1. Did you read the linked post? It is actually fundamental to this one.
2. Can you prove empiricism empirically? If so, please show me the empirical proof that all must be proven empirically. If not, I think you see where that leaves this particular argument.
3. Since you don’t believe in God, I cannot help but wonder why you would then give a description of what you think that God is not. Please elaborate on that.
My time this week and next week will be limited, but I shall get back to you when I can.
Thanks again for the comments. I look forward to discussing this with you in depth as time permits.
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July 25th, 2012 at 2:08 pm
Peter, I think if someone was in the process of robbing you blind and harming you physically, you would find that “absolutely” and “objectively” immoral. But maybe I am wrong…
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July 25th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Peter,
EA reminded me of a question I need to ask you: In what circumstances are murder, rape, and genocide morally good?
By what authority is your answer established?
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July 29th, 2012 at 4:18 pm
Jason your points
1 – No, I had not read Presuppositions and Inerrancy but I have now. For now I will stick to your questions.
2 – I am not sure what you mean by “empiricism” here. To me the word connotes a type of approach to our knowledge of the world which is in contrast to rationalism (so philosophers like Locke and Hume were empiricists). I have no particular view on this and my hunch is that you mean something other by this word than what I have indicated.
3 – Yes, one trouble with the idea of God that it can mean lots of different things. There could be a creator who did not demand obedience, for instance, and who in fact took little interest in human behaviour. What I was trying to say that if I accept money from an employer I am obliged to do something to earn it. Even if God the creator did exist, it seems to be that there is not automatically any obligation to obey him; I did not ask to be created in the way that I might ask to be employed by a paying employer.
Elizabeth’s and your queries about morality. This is going to be a long tussle. Being robbed – yes, on the whole I think robbery is wrong (and not just when it’s me as the victim!) There might be justifications though – if a starving man robbed me I would not blame him and I would rather be robbed than know that he starved to death.
As for murder, genocide and rape – well murder IMO is a loaded term: we just don’t call homicide “murder” if we think it’s OK. Rape and genocide – certainly I would find it hard to imagine justifying circumstances, but my point was that I could not actually simply “disprove” some justification by someone else of these crimes. I think I can actually throw this back at you, since arguably there are cases of rape and genocide committed in the Bible with God’s apparent sanction. You are obviously much more knowledgeable than I on this, but the point is that I feel you have a problem here. I am saying that there is no absolute authority on ethics, only our own considered and well-intentioned thoughts, but once you accept some external standard, in the way that you take the Word of God as automatically the standard, you are committed to accepting many things which to many people are actually wrong. At this point I should make it clear that I am not an ethical relativist – I do think that some things are right and some wrong, but I reject any idea of a transcendent authority to tell me what I should think or do. There are many many problems with working out any ethical theory (I actually don’t think it is possible), but I think that taking a religious approach just muddies the waters rather than clarifying them. The Ten Commandments, for example, are not too bad, but they leave out much is clearly wrong (eg rape and injustice) while incorporating a good deal which seems to reflect just the need of God for worship, and they are also unclear over, for instance, what “killing” actually means, since in fact much killing seems to be allowable. Again I say, what has God done to deserve worship, praise and obedience? Even if there are good reasons, the very fact that you have to find them means that you in fact are making your own moral judgments on God’s character as depicted in the Bible. You cannot escape your own adult rationality and humanity by seeking refuge in a sort of cosmic superdad.
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July 30th, 2012 at 8:14 am
Peter,
Thanks for your comments. You give me much reason to think. I like that. I must be brief, because I have church services twice daily this week. Again, please don’t escape brevity for dismissal. Also, please understand that the term irrational is related, not to you as a person, but to ideas.
1. The other post being fundamental to this one, it would be helpful to discuss it before going much farther with discussing this one. Just a thought.
2. Empirical definition. If you will look back you will see that you used the term in your comment. Perhaps you can tell me more about what you had in mind regarding the word.
3. Actually there is no problem with the idea of the God who is thought of in this post. I am thinking of the God of the Bible. I think that is very plain. No other God actually can provide us with what is necessary for rationality and intelligibility.
I suppose that we could deal with the issue of the Canaanites, but that truly would be getting the cart before the horse. I think it wise to presently say that I actually do not have the problem that you think I do. There are explanations that are quite consistent with morality and the character of God.
I’m not sure why you wish to bring the employer/employee analogy into the discussion. With God it is more of a sovereign/subject analogy.
Finally, if there is
as you say, we have a much greater problem than the issue of whether or not we can reconcile the Scriptures on the decimation of certain people groups with morality.
You see, the issue is that, without an objective moral standard, there is no way that anyone can speak of another as doing any sort of wrong. What is wrong for you may not be wrong for me. What is right for you may not be right for me. There is only moral relativism.
If there is only moral relativism, we have problem with rationality. After all, if there is no absolute moral standard we don’t have the ability to distinguish truth from untruth. We cannot appeal to the law of non-contradiction. There is no standard of intelligibility. There is no rationality. What I say may be true, but you may think it a lie. What I say may be a lie, but you may think it true. That leaves us with irrationalism.
Truth and morality are so intimately connected that we cannot divorce them and we cannot posit any form of relativism, or the absence of an absolute standard. We know that lying is not moral. We recognize that each time that someone lies to us. We despise being lied to, or about. The only way that we can actually hold the person lying to be in the wrong is to hold to a standard that is external to ourselves, above ourselves, and objective in that that particular standard applies to the other person as well as to us. That standard is not only above us in authority, but it must be personal and intelligent. Impersonal forces place no moral obligations to us. Unintelligent forces are unable to place moral obligations upon us.
Finally, considering your words
leaves us with a great problem. You cannot pronounce me morally wrong in anything, if you believe that. You cannot pronounce me to be intellectually wrong in anything, if you believe that. It is, by your own admission, impossible.
Are you truly ready to live in such an immoral and irrational world?
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