Do We Get Our Morality From God?
This is a continuation of the previous article. It is a discussion on why Gen Z’s ideas of right and wrong will lead them to a place of emptiness and hopelessness unless they follow the law of God written on their heart.
A common roadblock to accepting this premise stems from the belief that objective truth can come from someplace other than God. I want to address three of the most common forms of this argument and explain why they are not convincing.
Objection One: Why Are Our Moral Codes So Different if Morality Comes from God?
To answer the question posed in the heading, our moral codes aren’t different. God’s law does not change from person to person, and He has written it on our hearts without compromise or variation.
You may raise an eyebrow at this, thinking it doesn’t seem to match reality. After all, one person may have no qualms stealing a few small items from their local party store, while another person would never dare do such a thing. One person may call abortion murder, while another calls it a public good and a human right. One person has no problem sharing sexual experiences with multiple people, and another believes devotion to one individual in a lifelong marriage commitment is the only appropriate setting for sexual expression.
This apparent discrepancy only increases when one stops observing the situation on the basis of individual-to-individual and zooms out, comparing culture-to-culture. Some cultures believe it is deeply immoral for a woman to show virtually any part of her body, and they force their women to cover up completely; other cultures have beaches populated by string bikini-clad women.
Most cultures believe that it is a grievous act of immorality to eat another human, and yet it is the culture of many tribes to regularly engage in cannibalism. Others still think there is no shame in marrying multiple people, while the rest harbor a conviction to settle down with only one person. The list goes on ad nauseam. If God really wrote His law on our hearts, then why are we not much more uniform in our views on truth and morality? We’ve got the same law within each of us, don’t we?
There are two valid responses to this. For one, knowing something is wrong and acting as if something is wrong are two different things. God did not make us as robots, devoid of free will and forced to follow what He says. We can choose whether we want to obey or live in open rebellion against Him.
Look at it this way: when you were little, surely you did something you weren’t supposed to at some point–perhaps eating a slice of cake when you did not have permission. Let’s say that was your horrible crime. When you did so, you knew full well what you were doing was not right. You knew mom and dad only let you eat sweets if you asked first, and you were consciously aware that the action of eating the cake was in direct opposition to how you ought to be behaving.
In the same way, we can commit any number of grievous moral crimes even though we know better. Therefore, just because we see individuals and cultures with differing moral codes does not mean there isn’t one ultimate, divine moral code drawing us toward the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. All it means is humanity is capable of abandoning its God-given moral code if it so desires, even though it knows that it shouldn’t.
The second reason for our seemingly different moral codes centers on our acute ability to self-deceive. In my–at the time of writing this–twenty-two years of living on this earth, I have observed a masterful ability on mankind’s part to delude itself into thinking something wicked is admirable–or at the bare minimum something justifiable.
As an extreme example, read up on the perverse, twisted reasoning Adolf Hitler used to portray his attempted genocide of the Jewish people as a moral necessity. He was lying to himself and others because telling the truth was not an option. Imagine if he said “yeah, what I am doing is an act of unspeakable evil, bigotry, and hatred, the likes of which this world hasn’t seen since Genghis Khan, but I am doing it anyway because I want to.” That would be cartoonishly evil–evil for its own sake, which very few if any human beings can bear to do (even school shooters use warped reasoning to “justify” their actions).
For a more commonplace illustration of humanity’s self-deception, consider the man who plays mental gymnastics in order to feel better about the affair he’s about to have: it’s not a big deal. As long as she doesn’t know, nobody gets hurt, right? This makes me happy. Doesn’t everyone deserve to be happy? Besides, my wife has been awful lately. Nagging, cold, distant, and denying me sex too much, so it only makes sense that I get what I need from someone else. This is a physical need. It’s not my fault. She should have treated me better. This is on her.
We utilize self-deception, I think, way more than we realize, and it certainly is a large reason for the distinct moralities between individuals and cultures. And sure enough, God’s Word coincides with this unfortunate truth:
Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
Objection Two: We Don’t Need God to Give Us Morality!
I’ve already described how, if morality is to make sense, it cannot be subject to the arbitrary whims of the individual because if we live this way, then we are left to endlessly create our own reality, with good and evil no longer existing in any meaningful way. Morality would be a social construct and nothing more.
There are some who would read what I just said and, especially if they have an affinity for postmodern philosophy, chuckle. They might propose that morality is indeed a social construct–a useful and necessary one, but a humanly devised concept all the same. This cannot be further from the truth. Morality only works if it derives from an unchanging, perfect source that firmly anchors down what is right and wrong for every generation to observe; otherwise, what is wicked one day may be perfectly acceptable in the next, left entirely to the ever-changing will of the human race.
I’ll put it another way: morality only makes sense if it comes from God instead of man. Many people will find this statement to be overused, disproven, and obnoxious. In fact, “morality can only come from God” is perhaps chief among the Christian claims of which skeptics find the most stupid. Despite the unpopularity of the claim, though, I have never once–and I mean never–heard or encountered anything that even remotely disproves it.
Without God establishing objective truth for us, how are we to know what is truly right and wrong? Do we trust our gut and hope for the best? What would the “best” in “hope for the best” mean if there is no objective standard for good and bad? By what or whose measure would we determine the best outcome and the highest good? These are serious questions asked in good faith.
I expect detractors would suggest that “trusting our gut and hoping for the best” is a gross simplification of their argument. Their true position, they may say, is that morality does not have to be as complex as I am making it out to be. They would claim we don’t need a divine being to micromanage every aspect of our actions in order to determine what is and isn’t evil. Think about it–is it really that complicated to determine murdering someone in cold blood is a bad thing to do? Do we need some god to tell us that?
Or what about rape? Do we need the big man in the clouds to tell us that rape is bad? Isn’t it obvious? The same goes for any number of clearly reprehensible things: stealing, cheating on your partner, abusing children, manipulating others to get what you want, etc. They might finish by telling me if I need God to tell me those things are wrong, then I must be, to my core, a very troubled person.
Well, my response to that is yes, those things are clearly wrong regardless of one’s belief in God, and yes, I am an intrinsically wicked person, which is why I need the saving grace of Jesus Christ…but for now focus on the first of those two answers. Those previously mentioned crimes against humanity are easy to spot and condemn without belief in God, but that does not create the refutation that some may think it does; in reality, it reveals that there is some form of universal, innate moral barometer in each of us that, even with the blatant rebellion and self-deception of man, we have not managed to completely snuff out.
Moreover, humanity’s competence in taking God out of the equation and determining right from wrong for ourselves has been less than stellar, and I am unsure that our track record is such that deciding good/bad should be left up to us. Today, ask just about any American if they think slavery is wrong, and they will tell you it is. Not too long ago, ask Americans that same question, and many of them would call slavery an active good.
They, through cultural desensitization via mass, generational self-deception, would have no moral hang ups over it whatsoever. Overcoming this mindset took much bloodshed, much prayer, and many determined individuals whose scripture-informed worldview told them that God had a plan for America which was better than its current state. This is just one example of many. Think of the casual, commonplace racism of the Jim Crow era. Think of the many, many cultures throughout history that have treated women like property, with nobody ever batting an eye.
At this, some may object and say “that may be true, but for every one of those societal evils you pointed out, mankind has largely corrected its course. We have always, in time, realized what was right and wrong. We progress.” This individual would only be sort of correct. A sad truth of humanity that perfectly paints a picture of the fallen, sinful state in which we find ourselves is our insistence on evil. Consider the previously mentioned examples: there is no worldwide consensus that, say, slavery is wrong. Or that women are more than property and ought to be treated with respect and dignity. Or that discrimination by way of caste system, race, gender, and other attributes is, in fact, immoral.
When I say “worldwide consensus,” I am by no means positing that there must be one hundred percent agreement within our species before I am satisfied with our competency at getting morality right. I am, however, saying that if humanity were remotely adept at deducing what is right and wrong for itself, then large chunks of the contemporary world would not be lying to themselves that these practices are good, Western civilization (which I love and do not aim to mindlessly criticize) would not have the troubled history that it has, and most of human history would not be characterized by greed and bloodshed.
Left to our own devices, we do not reliably choose what is correct. Consequently we require God’s objective morality–which stems from Who He is and reflects His perfect character–to remind us of His holiness, our need for a savior, and the blueprint for living rightly.
By the way, this is also why you cannot just say “anything goes as long as nobody is infringing on the freedom of anybody else.” This is not only an arbitrary standard for determining morality; it also leaves mankind to make all manner of evil choices under the guise of personal liberty–and any confrontation of these evil choices, in a perverse twist of events, becomes the only action society can definitively pinpoint as immoral. It is seen as judgmental. It is seen as antagonizing or even hindering someone from exercising their right of doing whatever they want (which exists for them as long as they do not step on anyone else’s right to do the same).
Sadly, this is the doctrine of morality largely at play in the Western world today. We have thrown objective morality to the curb in favor of this new philosophy. It is wonderful to live in a free country like America, and I am not saying otherwise. What I am saying is this: the freedom to do whatever you want and to be left alone in doing it is not the highest good we should be prizing above all else. That is not the apex of goodness. To phrase it in an alternative way, the litmus test for determining an act’s immorality or morality should not consist of whether it makes you happy and stays out of everyone else’s way.
There is a lot more to true virtue than that. Additionally, it is an incoherent doctrine of virtue. It states that there is no objective standard for right and wrong except for the protection of the one supposed highest good we have just discussed. This vein of thinking introduces an impossible dilemma. A culture that states there is no God-given morality and yet also maintains that it is an active, inherent good to be able to live in any manner one chooses–regardless of the damage to self and soul–is trying to have its cake and eat it too.
You cannot have it both ways. Either there is no definitive right and wrong, in which case we welcome in a sort of moral anarchy, or the definitively correct thing to value most highly is the freedom to do whatever we want undisturbed by others. Currently, the culture Gen Z has grown up in is paradoxically espousing both views at once.
Right now, the same person who states there can be such a thing as “my truth” and “your truth” will also tell you it is objectively evil to keep someone from pursuing “their truth.” Well that doesn’t make much sense, does it? By whose standard is it evil to do so? Certainly not God’s standard–He is now out of the equation. Is it by your standard? What if, in my personal opinion, your standard is wrong? What then? Who is right?
If we have taken objective truth away, then by what standard do we measure immorality, and why does that standard matter? What gives it credence? What gives it moral weight if not our Creator?
Once more, a detractor may accuse me of overcomplicating the matter. “Figuring this morality stuff out is easy,” they may say. “Just don’t be a jerk.” Okay. We will run with that. I would then ask them what behavior merits the title of “jerk.” If everyone is to walk around following their own truth, which means by necessity that they each carry with them differing perceptions on what constitutes poor behavior, then there is no standard for bad behavior. None.
In my experience, the critic would then, in a display of circular reasoning, bring the conversation back to the declaration that bad behavior is determined by interfering with people’s personal business or infringing on their rights in some way. But without God’s set-in-stone, unchanging law, there is nothing to inform us that we have dignity and personal agency that is to be respected by others on the basis that we are lovingly created in the image of God. Under this mindset, the conduct of the murderer and the thief becomes equally as valid as the mother who is faithfully raising her children and paying her bills on time.
Truth comes from our Creator.
Objection Three: Can’t Morality Come from a Need to Survive?
Finally, even if someone does understand that morality doesn’t make sense as an arbitrary value system, they may still suggest it derives not from a God that is calling us to repentance and the acceptance of His Son’s sacrifice, but from an internal drive to ensure our own survival, propagate our genes, and protect ourselves from social ostracization/exile.
To me, this objection is the most convincing of the three. It does away with the premise of the other two objections that morality is largely derived from the subjective self, which I think the majority of people, even spiritual skeptics, do not really believe. The premise of this objection, in contrast, is built upon a naturalistic and scientific foundation, which is easier to get behind than an eradication of all objective right/wrong.
To supply some examples of this viewpoint, which for the sake of this dialogue we will call the Naturalistic Morality argument, first think of the person considering theft. Perhaps they are at a convenience store and would like to rob the cash register, or perhaps they are at a relative’s house and feel inclined to take the valuable, bejeweled vase on the coffee table.
However, in both these instances, the moral compass of the prospective thieves tells them no, don’t do it. It’s wrong. The reason for this conviction stems from the baked-in knowledge that the committing of these infractions is likely to lead to social isolation from their peers (their “group” or “tribe,” so to speak), which is a fear programmed within us from our hunter-gatherer days when sticking together was more vital for survival.
Another example proponents of Naturalistic Morality might use is the deeply enraged individual, who even in the heat of the moment knows it is wrong to murder the object of their anger. There would be many reasons for this, one of them being the fear of social isolation and abandonment discussed previously. An additional one would be the instinctual knowledge that an action as extreme as murder will probably be met with great retribution, possibly at the expense of their own life. It is the instinctual idea that if you infringe on someone else’s rights, then you may leave your rights open to being infringed upon, which could be detrimental to your survival.
This framework for good and evil can even become nuanced and complex in such a way that it is made more convincing. Under a value system governed by Naturalistic Morality, which would appear to prize the preservation of the self as the highest good, self-sacrifice and dying to oneself can, in very limited situations, be virtuous as well (but not always; more on that shortly).
Imagine you see your child fall into a cold, dangerous, rapidly rushing river. They are swept away by the current and unable to stay above the water. Obviously, jumping in to save them is a life-threatening endeavor which could result in your death, and yet every person reading this knows it would be a grave evil to stand there and not do so. The moral action would be to rush in after the endangered child with no regard for your own life. The Naturalistic Moralist would explain this as a drive to ensure the survival of the next generation so subsequent generations may be created from them, as well as to ensure the survival of your own personal bloodline.
As compelling as some of these arguments are, I see a big problem with this line of thinking. The existence of self-sacrifice as a moral good under the philosophy of Naturalistic Morality only makes limited sense, and yet we all know self-sacrifice is an immeasurably admirable thing. The bloodiest war in our nation’s history comes to mind.
Looking through the lens of a Naturalistic Morality viewpoint, why was Abraham Lincoln’s mission to free the slaves an undeniably good thing? Did it help propagate the genes of the North or protect its bloodlines? No. Much the opposite, in fact–and yet thousands of soldiers were willing to die in order to fight for a higher cause that did not expressly benefit them in any way. It doesn’t make sense under Naturalistic Morality, and yet we all agree it was an honorable thing for which the North fought.
That is just one example of why Naturalistic Morality does not work, and we must instead receive our moral standard from the character of God. There are many more instances in which the right thing to do runs directly counterproductive to the goal of survival and gene-propagation. Why is giving food to hungry strangers when we’ve got little food to spare a good thing? Why do we know that having a one-night stand with the married woman we will never see again is wrong? That’s a chance to propagate our genes, isn’t it?
The trait of self-sacrifice altogether largely should not be a virtuous or desirable trait in the boundaries of Naturalistic Morality. The truth of the matter is, there are too many instances in which denying our own personal gain, safety, and pleasure is obviously the moral choice for this system of right/wrong to be true.
So What Does All This Mean?
This was by no means a comprehensive discussion on all the differing perspectives on morality; such a discussion would provide enough content to fill several thick philosophy books. I know some people will read what I have written and offer opposing arguments that I have not addressed, to which I would likely have my own objections. Chief among these dissensions, I imagine, is the claim that I have only established the existence of objective morality, but that does not necessarily have to stem from God, or the Christian God for that matter.
Fair point–unless we can know with certainty the Christian God exists, in which case, objective morality would come from Him. I will make the case in a later blog as to why I think the evidence pointing to Christianity’s validity is compelling.
With that said, my purpose in writing what I did was not to thoroughly describe without a shadow of a doubt why my view is undeniably the best. My objective, and hopefully I succeeded, was to demonstrate that our secular culture’s perception of human ethics and truth is not the unquestionably forgone conclusion on the matter. Also, it was to get you entertaining the idea–or, if you already agree with me, equip others to entertain the idea–that perhaps the Christian ethic has something to it that rings true.
Acknowledging such a thing would bring us back to where we were at the beginning of this chapter, where I suggested every person has God’s law written on their heart, informing them of what is wicked and what is right. This law reflects God’s perfect and holy character, and the fact that it is present in all of us further demonstrates that He lovingly created us in His image. In so doing, it further demonstrates that my generation has immense, eternal value, though they may not be aware of it.
But perhaps the person reading this post can help make my generation aware by striking up a conversation on that nagging, incessant spiritual compass they just can’t seem to get out of them. Then, they will naturally be introduced to the idea that some refer to as the Offensiveness of the Gospel. It is called this because it is a rather tough pill to swallow at first: we are sinful creatures who cannot live up to God’s law. It informs us that we continually violate the system of ethics inside of us, and we are bent on doing what is wrong.
This means we are separated from a holy God and deserving of eternal punishment, which keeps us from intimate community with him in this life and the next. It also prevents us from enjoying and glorifying him, which is our purpose in life. The only remedy to this is placing our faith in the loving sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who came to earth as God in the flesh to die for the sins of mankind. It is our knowledge of God’s law—and our continual breaking of it—which, in part, enables us to understand this.
You did not stumble upon your code of ethics by mere chance. It is within you for a reason, and it is within you, no matter how much you distort, ignore, or allow others to mold it. That internal, spiritual groaning you feel when you go against what is right—and I know you have felt this before because we all have felt it—is the law of God on your heart. It is always there, leading you, dragging you, imploring you to come to its source, fall at your knees and begin a Christ-sustained life of repentance, abundance, and community with God. Receive a hope that extends beyond this life into the eternal joy of the next!
