Someone I know posted a meme on Facebook that said "I try to do good in the world not out of fear for Hell or a reward of Heaven, but because it feels better not to be a *** *******" Someone else asked him where he thought his morality of not wanting to feel like an ******* came from, to which he replied it came from an instinct to perpetuate the survival of the species. (I just saw the questioner replied that they came from real Judeo-Christian values, not the perverse ones we see in many arenas today. I'd landed in the same place when I was thinking about this too. We all grew up in a country founded by Christians. Christian ideals are embedded in our founding documents. Should Christianity be mandated? Of course not. It can't be. Each of us must choose to follow Jesus. But do Judeo-Christian values provide an excellent civil framework? Absolutely.)
I'd replied to the original post that I'm a Christian and I don't do good works for any of the reasons in the meme. The poster replied that I'm just a good person and it has nothing to do with anything else. There are just good people who do good because it's in their nature.
This got me thinking. Where do I think morality comes from, and of course, being a Christian, I believe it comes from God. The person who posted this meme is an atheist. He and I have gotten to a place where we can respectfully disagree on this. We agree on most other things, in particular we agree on what "a good person" looks like in this world. So how did that happen? How can I believe that our sense of morality comes from God, while he believes it got there through natural selection? What evidence do I see that morality doesn't come from within mankind, but was put there by an external God?
Of course, the Bible says God exists and that He is the source of everything. But that only works for someone who already believes in God. That won't work for my friend.
I settled on this idea: the definition of "a good person" has changed dramatically over time and across cultures. In some cultures, human sacrifice was considered good and right. A good person today doesn't think that human sacrifice is right. How could that have evolved into existence as instinct, but my belief evolved exactly the opposite way? Slavery was considered good and right by some cultures, and in fact still is for some. My friend and I don't think it is. Anthropologically speaking, my idea of what makes up "a good person" only works for the recent past. A good person does good for complete strangers who have no way to pay them back. How does that perpetuate your survival? Doing good to your own clan / tribe certainly makes sense. But groups historically competed for resources. Survival was hard. It didn't make sense to use up your resources on someone you weren't related to. No, I don't buy it. The sense of right and wrong is not intrinsic to humans without someone else writing it there. That person is God.
But wait! You might say that in the Old Testament, the ancient Israelites were not very good people by our standards. God told them to do some pretty awful things, like wiping out every man, woman, and child of certain groups in the Promised Land. Do you claim this is the same God that defines morality today? Isn't that a contradiction about the nature of God? It's a question I've asked for myself. It's a difficult one to reconcile.
Here's where I have landed on this question. The instructions from God that seem downright barbaric to us - wiping out the occupants of Canaan, stoning adulterers - were rules to be applied at that time, in that place, ONLY. These actions and penalties were never intended to be eternal. When Jesus preached, He told us our neighbors were everyone. He didn't tell us to wipe out people, and he stopped the authorities from stoning anyone. Beyond that, He corrected the distortions that humans had perpetuated on right and wrong, or held over from times past. He didn't even tell the Jews to wipe out the Romans from occupying their land (which is what many people hoped He would do). Clearly wiping out people wasn't right anymore.
So why was wiping out other people and stoning sinners EVER right?
I'll start with wiping out the occupants of Canaan. I'm not a scholar on the ancient Middle East. I have not studied the people who lived there before the Israelites came out of Egypt. So I'm going on what I've been told, which is that the previous occupants were extremely corrupt and living extremely immorally. Sacrificing children, raping, and pillaging kind of immorally. It wasn't wrong to them. They hadn't evolved a sense of morality for survival of the species; they'd evolved a sense of IMmorality for survival of the species. God, who is all good and right, and is omniscient, knew that they weren't going to "come around" and needed to be wiped out like an infection. So He commanded the Jewish nation, the nation He was building, to be the disinfectant. Did He NEED them to do it? No. He could have done it himself, however He wanted, like He did with Sodom and Gomorrah. He used the Israelites in order to build up the nation and to build up the relationship between them and Himself. Scripture is replete with accounts of the Israelites prevailing against impossible odds when they simply trusted God and followed His directions. Over and over, when they trusted in God, the outcome was what He said it would be. When they trusted in themselves rather than God, ignoring His warnings, things didn't turn out well. And finally, God knows that it's better for us when we are involved in His work, rather than Him just handing it over. We need to see for ourselves, what happens when we follow his direction and when we go against it. Without any struggle, we tend to give the glory to ourselves. If God wiped out Canaan without involving the Israelites, they wouldn't give God the glory. They needed to see that He was responsible.
What about the punishments for breaking God's law? Isn't the death penalty a bit severe for adultery, homosexuality, and disobedient children? Let me reiterate - it was only prescribed in that place, in that time. Jesus made it clear that we aren't supposed to be stoning anyone anymore.
First, I think some perspective is in order. God created the universe. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly loving, and perfectly just. I did not create the universe. I'm not all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly loving, or perfectly just. I'm none of those things and He is all of them. He is God and I'm not. I don't know everything that He knows. HE defines right and wrong. Period. That in itself is enough for me to say that what He told the ancient Israelites to do was right. He said it. He defines what is right. Therefore, it is right. Q.E.D.
But to someone who isn't starting from the same place I am, this logic isn't enough. I know, because at one time it wasn't enough for me. I tried to justify to myself, from a practical standpoint, why God would do this. I came back to "God was building a nation". Times were different. The world was savage. Human practices were immoral. We didn't have the "Judeo-Christian ethic" yet. Nations rose, nations fell. God was building His nation on a solid foundation, not on sand. Is adultery good for society? Does homosexuality grow a nation? Do horribly disobedient children strengthen a civilized people? (Let's assume these parents loved their children. Do you think they'd apply this particular penalty flippantly? I think they'd only use this one on horribly disobedient children, such that their behavior was dangerous to the family or society.)
Wait, did I say homosexuality and adultery were not private matters? Yes, I did. Remember, in my argument, one of God's main goals is building the nation of Israel. Nations die without children to grow up. Homosexuality produces no children. From a very practical sense, people who willingly engage in practices that don't fulfill God's purpose become a drain on society. The nation was fragile. People could veer off course very easily. The nation couldn't tolerate willful defiance. And adultery, I think it's clear even today that adultery destroys families. We see it everywhere. Children have the best shot at growing into excellent adults when they have both parents committed to their well-being. Is it possible for children to grow up with one parent? Yes. Is it much harder, does it happen less often than with both parents? Yes. What about if a parent dies? The rest of society was instructed to take care of orphans and widows. Would most children and wives CHOOSE to become orphaned or widowed, thus making life harder for themselves? Becoming an orphan or widow is not an act of disobedience.
My point here about these severe penalties for things that aren't even illegal in today's world is that the world was much different in that time and place. The world's "deck" was already stacked against the Israelites. They couldn't tolerate any WILLFUL actions that would make it worse. God's Law tells us what is best for us. I think it's clear that it's much better for society not to engage in the things God tells us not to. God is not a cosmic killjoy. The Law isn't there take the fun out life. It's there to tell us how to live the BEST life, and to show us our need for a Savior (which, btw, He also provided for us). The life that is best for us, and best for society at large.
I started out with talking about morality coming from God, not evolving from within mankind, hence God exists, ended up reconciling an apparent contradiction between God's instruction in the Old and New Testaments. If you've read this far, thank you and I hope it's helpful to you.
