Are Ethics Universal?

OLD TESTAMENT ETHICS:  "And don't say, 'Now I can pay them back for what they've done to me!  I'll get even with them!'" (Prov. 24:29, NLT).
"Do not hold good from those who deserve it when it's in our power to help them" (Prov. 3:27, NLT).  "... As you have done to Israel, so it will be done to you.   All our evil deeds will fall back on your own heads"  (Obadiah 15, NLT).
JESUS' SUMMATION:  "... 'You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important:   'Love your neighbor as yourself''" (Matt. 22:37-39, NLT).  "So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets"  (Matt. 7:12, ESV). 
PAUL:  "For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself'" (Gal. 5:14, NLT).   "Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God's law" (Rom. 13:10, NLT).  "Let love be genuine.  abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good" (Rom. 12:9, ESV).  "Don't be defeated by evil, but defeat evil with good" (Rom. 12:21, CEV).  "Avoid every kind of evil" (1 Thess. 5:22, CEV). 
Scriptural Caveat:  "What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet bitter" (Isa. 5:20, NLT).

"If I am interested in reality, I must know what God is really like."--Plato
"No society has been able to maintain a "moral life without the aid of religion."--Will Durant
Morality is merely the expression of self-interest.--Karl Marx (paraphrased) 
"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."--John Adams

Postmodernism wants to eradicate all traces of universal ethics or morals and make them personal, variable, subjective, and dependent.  This goes counter to what Immanuel Kant postulated that an act is ethical if the results were favorable by everyone doing it.  Just ask yourself the one question:  What if everyone did it?  One can point to the absurd example of the case of why we might know homosexuality is evil because if everyone was homosexual, society would fail to propagate and thrive after one generation!

Ethics with a capital E can be found if one has the presupposition that Christ is the Great Exemplar and showed us the way:  To follow Christ or do what He would do is the highest ethic attainable.  No one has ever surpassed his ethics or moral principles or fully lived up to them:  Muhammad, for instance, was a flawed man; Muslims give him superlative status as their example in ethics.

The Sermon on the Mount, or Jesus at His best, is the summation of our ethic, the gist of which is the Golden Rule:  Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you!  This principle raised the bar to make ethics a positive thing, not merely avoiding bad things, like the so-called Brazen Rule, saying that you should do unto others as they do unto you--tit for tat!  Americans believe firmly in this so-called principle.   Rabbi Hillel was asked to sum up ethics and he said it was merely not doing to others what you don't want to be done to you!  Confucius called this "reciprocity" and urged us to live by its principle.  Many today who live by the law of the jungle in this dog-eat-dog world where the survival of the fittest rules, engage in the so-called Iron Rule of doing unto others before they do unto you:  This actually can be interpreted as "might is right," the rule of authority setting standards.

If ethics are only relative, and Dostoevsky said that if there is no God all things are permissible, there is no reason to pursue absolute, universal standards of conduct, but they vary by culture and are relative to time, situation, and people concerned--make up your own system!  Immanuel Kant said that without God ethics are meaningless and cannot be predicated.  This is why denying God brings the ultimate conclusion that there is no universal standard or code of honor to live by.  But we all know that there is a sense of fair play and justice inherent to man that he is cognizant of.  We don't make up rules as we go along, and morality and ethics are not thought of, but are discovered, rather than invented by man; e.g., the rules of a game are not arising out of nowhere, but fairness was always there to be discovered.  We all appeal to some higher standard of right and wrong as the final arbiter.

Christianity is not a system of ethics, a list of dos and don'ts, but knowing God and applying that knowledge to the mundane life of the real world.  Ethics is what is required of all, whether Christian or not, and is necessary for all law and order and decent society.  Christians have raised the bar and made Christ the standard.  Even pagan scholars admire His moral principles and ascribe flawlessness to His character; even the crassest heretics have not accused him of being a sinner!  Of the known 52 virtues, all of them are mentioned in the Bible, while no other faith even comes close to this standard!  This high ethical standard of the Bible is one proof of its inspiration.

Right practice or orthopraxy is the logical conclusion of our right belief or orthodoxy, and we must apply what we learn to the real world.  The Greek philosophers said that ethics and truth are correlated and interdependent.  We believe in being truthful because we have faith in a God of truth; the Decalogue merely shows our duty to God and what is man's dilemma in this pursuit.   The whole question of "How should we then live" can only be adequately answered with God in the picture.

If you believe anything goes, because the ends justify the means or whatever is expedient or pragmatic is justified, or even pursuing the greatest good for the greatest number, you will be able to justify just about any evil in the world.  Hitler was very good at just pursuing what worked and what was practical without regard to a universal norm.  Natural law convicted the Nazis at Nuremberg, which relied on the fact that we should just know better and have a built-in conscience to be sensitive to universal norms or transcendent law, making us all responsible for our choices and conduct.

Morals are as sure as the law of gravity and must be obeyed or we suffer the consequences.  If you believe we are to be held accountable for our actions and that there are absolute right and wrong, this faith comes from God and entails His existence.  Your ethics cannot rise above your own ideals or standards: Muslims see Muhammad as superlative, yet he had many personal flaws, like being a thief and warrior out to steal, kill, and pillage for the purpose of gaining converts by force and for their wealth.  Islam is called the religion of the sword, and for good reason--they force people to convert and kill you for not believing, the very opposite of martyrdom, where one is killed for believing in a religion.  Politicians often listen to the voice of the people and think that the voice of the people is the voice of God; on the other hand, it's often the voice of the devil!  We don't vote on moral principles and they don't change or evolve with time; what was immoral in the day of Moses is still a crime and wrong today--we aren't just more enlightened and see things in a modern light.

"The character of Jesus has not only been the highest pattern of virtue but the strongest incentive to its practice," according to Irish historian and political philosopher W. E. H. Lecky, no Christian himself.  There could be no universal law without a universal Lawgiver!  Ethics "defines moral obligation as man's moral duty to God," according to Carl F. H. Henry. Ethics is no preference, but duty as creatures of God!  Living the good life is what ethics is about, and living up to our potential is our duty to God and man.  God is our guide and standard, and the present principle of pragmatism is evil, saying that the test of an idea is not its truthfulness, but its practicality and usefulness.  Scripture says that man knows right and wrong in his conscience and will be judged by that standard (cf. Rom. 2:15).  The one who knows the right thing to do, and fails to do it, sins (cf. James 4:17).

Unfortunately, moral relativism is prevalent today and people think we can all make up our own standards as we go along and they are justified as long as we make responsible choices and have good reasons to justify them.  We all have a sense of "ought" and even bemoan the fact there ought to be a law sometimes.  New Morality has infiltrated and many see ethics as the result of good motives:  if you mean well or have the motive of love--that's all that matters!  However, true morality is only when the motive, as well as the end, are justified.

Man can never live up to God's standards, given in the Decalogue or Ten Commandments, but this was never meant to be the solution, but only given to convince us we cannot keep it; the Christian life is impossible (without Christ!).  It is merely the whip driving us to the cross, and the mirror showing us what we are really made of, and a hammer (according to Martin Luther), smashing at our self-righteousness. No one has ever kept the Law of Moses except Christ, and he fulfilled it on our behalf to become our righteousness.  God demands perfection, and this is the standard, however, the direction is the test (cf. Matt. 5:48).

What is evident today is that man doesn't see himself in the image of God with the inherent duty to obey as Creator but as an animal.  Teach men they are animals; is it any wonder they act like them?  New Age goes to the extreme of creating your own system as you go along, and whatever feels right to you is your duty to God, others, and yourself. They proudly proclaimed in the Hippie counterculture: If it feels good, do it!  Today they proudly affirm that it works for them; that is what matters most.  But what is right for one person is right for all, and isn't individualized, but universal and applicable to all.   If there is not an objective basis for right and wrong, you would have to absolve Hitler of his crimes against humanity.  It's because we are in the image of God that so much is expected and we are not animals in heat-seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, but have a divine purpose for our existence: "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever,"--The Westminster Shorter Catechism.

We begin with God and explain our duties, we don't begin with man and come up with independent ethics on our own--by voting on them or being forced into it--man is not the measure of all things, as Secular Humanists posit.  Christian standards have been found worth believing in and in living out, and real faith is expressed in right conduct as its fruit.  Could it be that man has a universal sense of morals because there is a universal Lawgiver who gave them?  God forbid that we begin with the premise that whatever is legal is ethical because the laws of land can be wrong and are fallible. Being legal doesn't make it right!

There's a higher law to answer to.  "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge" (cf. Prov. 1:7). Is it any wonder that today's ethics is merely about not getting caught and coming up with a justification for behavior, or just responsible decision making? This is why Johnny can't tell right and wrong and character doesn't count anymore!

Western Civilization or Christendom depends upon the Bible as the foundation for all Common Law and we must never lose sight of this heritage and duty to God, our fellow man, our nation, and ourselves. The logical conclusion of moral relativism, on the other hand, is that in the final result, the stronger force will win and might be right, as it was in Nazi Germany.

In such times we only pray for some God of justice to end the evil.  Their justification was in the belief that we are only animals, not children of God and in His image, and whatever was sanctioned in nature was equally moral for us, since we are not responsible to a higher ethic or calling than mere animals, who are not morally responsible or capable.   "They are people who lack all sense of right and wrong, and who have turned themselves over to doing whatever feels good..." (Eph. 4:19, CEV).  Soli Deo Gloria!