Is There Justification For Evil?

"Who can say to Him, 'What have you done?" Job 9:12 

"What's wrong with the world?  'I am. sincerely yours, G. K. Chesterton.'"

"We have met the enemy, and he is us!" Pogo, in Walt Kelly's cartoon. 

NOTE: THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF EVIL (MORAL AND NATURAL), I AM CONCERNED WITH THE MORAL ASPECT. 

FIRST:    God justified giving mankind free will when He planted the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and commanded Adam not to eat of it. Notice that there was one, simple rule to follow!   If there had been no test of obedience, one could say that true love and obedience couldn't exist.  It is impossible for evil to exist with free will and no one choosing it.   

Thus, God gave mankind the right to choose evil without being coerced or inclined in that direction and then prevent them from choosing it. If evil had not existed, then we would have no choice but to obey God and wouldn't be freewill moral agents but mere automatons, puppets, dolls, pets, or robots of God. 

The Bible clearly says God allows evil for His own purposes (Prov. 16:4) and even uses it to glorify Himself and can turn short-term evil into long-term good (Acts 2:23:4:28). All things happen according to God's design and plan (Eph. 1:11).  All things are going according to plan!  (Isaiah 37:26).   We must acknowledge nothing can happen without God's permission if we realize God is sovereign.  If God isn't ultimately in control, what kind of God is He?

But we tend to complain to God when we are the victims of evil: "Why me Lord?" Job probably never contemplated God's justice in allowing evil till it happened to him!  He said, "Must we accept good times from God and not bad times?" (Job 2:10).   "God turns the wrath of man to praise Him!" (Psalm 76:10) and that means God has ultimate purposes we cannot know and everything is for the final glory of God (Romans 11:36) for we were created for the glory of God (Isaiah 43:7). 

We wonder if God has done anything about evil and don't realize we can do something ourselves: God made you! Realize that Jesus was indeed the victim of evil and didn't complain to His Father that He had gotten bad karma or something He didn't deserve: remember, Jesus signed up for the Via Dolorosa and the Passion to the cross for our sakes. He was a willing target of Satan. 

We see in the crucifixion, a gross evil event perpetrated by wrongdoers and malefactors doing Satan's bidding via Rome, but God knows what He is doing and that "all things work together for good for them that love God that are called according to His purpose," (Rom. 8:28). But God allows short-term evil for long-term good. As when he told Joseph about his brothers, "Your brothers meant it for evil but I meant it for good," (Gen. 50:20). 

Evil must run its course because there is an angelic conflict in the spiritual arena between God and Satan and we are in the middle of it and sign up as combatants when we get saved. Good overcomes evil and will defeat it in the end, for Satan is already a defeated foe because of the victory of Christ at the cross and especially in His  resurrection, the victory over death itself. We are to equip ourselves with the weapons and armor of God and fight in Jesus' name. 

At the end of history, evil will be cast away into the lake of fire and will be silenced forever. But it is better in God's eyes to have defeated evil with His goodness than never to have allowed it to enter the equation in the first place. This way, all of us can participate in this war in heavenly places and be rewarded for our own victories with crowns and rewards.  

Only in Christianity is evil actually given meaning and given some sense of justification.  But we must not merely justify evil's existence but find what the answer to it is for the sake of argument: we must not just philosophize about it, grin and bear it, or become mere stoics but have faith in face of evil; this means that the prima facie answer is knowing a Person, namely, Jesus, not words of man, but the Word of God!   

In the final analysis, if God were to eliminate all evil in the world immediately, none of us would be left; only God is good.   Soli Deo Gloria! 

Do Biblical Values Conflict With Morals Of Today?

 True morality is timeless and absolute morals exist; moral relativism is a false narrative that is believed. Morals are not by consensus but dictated by a sovereign Judge, who is the moral center of the universe. What was wrong morally in the time of Jesus still holds today. Christians believe that most contemporary values have become corrupt and people have grown numb or oblivious to them, even ignoring them and “accepting” them to the point of co-existence or live and let live.

We are living in a similar time to Israel in the day of the Judges: “Each man did what was right in his own eyes, for there was no king,” (cf. Judges 17:6; 21:25). Also, New Age values are popular with youth: “If it feels good, how can it be so wrong? or Postmodern values or truth: “That may be true for you, but not for me.”

But what is misunderstood is that we are no longer under the Mosaic Law’s ceremonial or governmental requirements, to obey them. For instance, stoning people for blasphemy, adultery, or breaking the Sabbath. But that doesn’t mean we ought to sanction them as the norm of behavior. Jesus summed up the whole duty of man to God and man as loving God with all our soul and our neighbor as ourselves (cf. Mark 12:30–31).

Ethics is defined as our duty to God and man: “This is the whole duty of man: is to fear God and do His commandments” (cf. Eccl. 12:13). Jesus in the Great Commission (cf. Matt. 28:20) told us to do all He commanded. Certain values do change and Christians are aware of this, but that doesn’t preclude the existence of absolute moral principles.

The awareness of morals and values have evolved such as the evils of slavery and child labor. To the believer, morality is when the motive, means, and end are just and pure in God’s eyes who sees good and evil (cf. Prov. 15:3). ‘The LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts,” (cf. 1 Chron. 28:29). But it was Christ who gave women dignity and the concept of human rights and freedom, contrary to contemporary values of Rome. . In sum, we do live in an era of moral paralysis; we’ve become hard of hearing to moral values; decay has set in!  Soli Deo Gloria!

How Shall We Then Live?...

"And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God" (Romans 12:2, KJV). 
Francis Schaeffer wrote a book by this title too, showing its importance.  The question we all must answer:  "How shall we live in light of eternity?"  Jesus didn't tell us to close shop and stop working to wait till He comes but Matthew Henry said that we should live each day as if it's our last!  Jesus told us to occupy till [He] comes and be ready!  But we are to be ready and watch for Christ's coming and live our life to have maximum impact on eternity. We aren't seeking to be remembered but to be obedient. 

We see eternal results in everything; all we do strikes a chord that will vibrate for eternity.  Everything will either be rewarded or not, and in time we can be disciplined for what we do if not in God's will.   Paul said that to him "to die is gain" not as a death wish but he meant that he saw eternity in a better light than imagined ("what no human mind has conceived"). He only said this because he had a clear concept of heaven with no misconceptions or delusions to live the good life.

Living in light of eternity inspires us to do good deeds and to have a good testimony to the world at large so they get saved as a result.  It helps us in our trials, seeing that they are only temporal and serve an eternal purpose.  In short, we become purpose-driven.  We prove and validate our faith by our deeds--the faith we have is the faith we show and authenticate.   The more we see Jesus coming soon, the more eager we will be to show our faith also because we will see the urgency of the Great Commission relative to our personal lives. We will want to pass it on and become contagious Christians.  We will be eager to make others ready and to stop living for the moment and the here and now.  What we look forward to affects our worldview and how we interpret life in general.  When the "Desire of all nations" (cf. Haggai 2:7) comes at His Parousia, we will be transformed to become like Him, but we can have a taste of the good things to come now:  "Taste and see that the LORD is good." But now we can see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living (cf. Psalm 27:13, KJV).

We are simply pilgrims, aliens, foreigners, and even strangers in this life and to the world, and passing through, not meant to make ourselves at home here--we don't belong here!  But God has a place for us in His plan. God has an eternal purpose for our lives that He will fulfill and not give up on us.  We are on a spiritual journey too, growing in our relationship with Christ--Reality 101.  We should not cling to our mundane lives but see that our spiritual lives take precedence; however, we do not live with our heads in the clouds nor on cloud nine.  What matters is how our relationship with Christ is growing.  It is wrong to think that we should live as if we go around once and should grab all the gusto we can.  We must have an eternal bucket list that involves our beatific vision of God in glory.

Having a true focus on Christ, keeping our eyes on Jesus orients our life and sets the priorities to have spiritual value.   However, we ought not to be so heavenly minded we are no earthly good. We must not be known as mere secluded saints but actively involved in the real world.  We can enjoy this life, but without sin, and thank God for the blessings that it gives to all in common grace. We can enjoy life to the max as Jesus promised:  "I am come that they may have life, and have it to the full [more abundant life]" (John 10:10, NIV).  On the other hand, we ought not to "love the world nor the things of the world" because the more we do, the less room we'll have in our hearts to satisfy our spiritual appetites to enjoy all the good things He gives us richly as blessing for stewardship (cf 1 Tim. 6:17).

The good life has universally been defined as an ethical one: our duty to God and mankind.  We do this by loving God with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves as exemplified in the parable of the Good Samaritan.  "Mankind, He has told you what is good and what it is the LORD requires of you:  to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8, HCSB).  This is achieved by a true sense of "oughtness."  Knowing and believing right doctrine or having one's thinking straightened out is orthodoxy while living right and practicing what one believes and applying it is orthopraxy--both are necessary for the good life (which is not achieving the American dream!).

In the final analysis, when our lives are given their final audit and we go one-on-one with our Maker to face God in the Bema or Judgment Seat, we must ask ourselves whether we are faithful stewards to the blessings God has given us and whether we used them to have an impact. We all will pass on some legacy and people will tend to judge our lives, but what matters most is what Christ sees in us. He isn't going to ask us about our achievements but our obedience and we will realize that success doesn't matter to God because it belongs to Him anyway (cf. Deut. 8:18), but what matters is our call to faithfulness.   Praise the Lord, life is good!    Soli Deo Gloria!

How To Live The Good Life

"If I want to know how to live in reality, I must know what God is really like." --Plato

Most people have dreams and fantasies, maybe even a bucket list of things to do in life in order to feel fulfilled or complete.  How about a bucket list of doing God's will?  Achieving the American dream isn't the answer to life; you can have everything to live on and nothing to live for!  The problem has never been dreams or wishes but in how to achieve them; most people end their lives in frustration have never "found themselves" or what God's will was for them.  We must be purpose-driven to have an impact and focused on our goals with a chord that will vibrate for eternity.

Not just to be remembered, but to be a game-changer.  According to the Bible, God has an intricate purpose and individual tailor-made plan for each of us, and if we are in God's will, walking by faith, we will find it to be the safest and most blessed place to be found.  We are hard-wired to work in our calling and to worship God.  He is interested in our whole being (heart, mind, body, soul, spirit) and its holistic health, not an unbalanced life that isn't worthy of our walk and has no testimony. 

Even Christians can have a secular worldview and not think biblically.  The goal in life is not just to be a goody-goody or to seek pleasure (you only go around once, grab all the gusto you can!), because God isn't primarily concerned with our "happiness," (which depends on happenings), but with us glorifying and enjoying Him.  There are intrinsic rewards and incentives in finding wisdom, which is more precious than rubies (cf. Prov. 8:11).   The result of the moral life is one of confidence and a good reputation, which is more valuable than riches too.

We all ought to seek a life beyond reproach so that the infidel has nothing evil to say about us (cf. Eph. 4:1).  One blockage to good thinking is not to have a Christian worldview; we all need to get our thinking straightened out and learn to think clearly, which will result in sound discourse and dialogue.  When we do find fulfillment and joy in life we become contagious and it shows.  Many people claim inner joy but haven't told their faces!

Plato thought of three inputs to our will, which control our ways:  desire, emotion, and knowledge.  We must make sure that we seek truth and feed on knowledge, wisdom, and understanding and even have a thirst for the Word, and we must have worthy ambitions and desires in life, and also the fulfilled person has his emotions in check.  But most people just are about as lazy as they dare to be and take the path of least resistance--the easy way out!

We must not ever pray for an easy life, but for God to increase our faith and strength. Remember, all a man's ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs the heart (cf. Prov. 16:2).   The study of ethics is about living the good life and we find it by practicing our ethics (putting our creed into action) and believing in miracles from God.   What we do is expect great things from God, but we must attempt them too, as William Carey would say.  Aim high, then!

God is the moral center of the universe and we all must have a moral compass and show moral fiber, for character counts!   But there is a danger to reducing Christianity to a system of ethics, a rule book, a catalog of rules, or a list of dos and don'ts.   We must never lose focus but keep looking onto Jesus and cultivate that personal relationship with Him.  Our ethic shows our character and the faith we have is the faith we show: we demonstrate, validate, and authenticate our faith by turning it into deeds, otherwise it's suspect and spurious, even bogus and hypocritical. Turning our knowledge into action is faith, demonstrated in obedience.   But avoiding sin and immorality is not all there is to Christian ethics; its summation is to follow Christ in full renewing, ongoing surrender.  We must not only cease to do evil, but do good!

Upon following Christ, now we don't go by feelings, but when doing the will of God, we'll have a peace that passes all understanding.  The person who really knows Christ knows how to live and live in reality.  Knowing truth is a matter of repentance and of being oriented to reality--only God can set us free form delusion (cf 2 Tim. 2:25).   Life in Christ isn't always a religious high or on cloud nine, but varies with the task, for God always fills us and anoints us for His work.   We must know and learn the real formula for feeling good:  know right, think right, do right, and finally, to feel right.  Doing the right thing should make one feel right.

God is good, but being good without God is evil and a parody of the real thing.  Now, I must conclude with the standard Jesus set (the Golden Rule):  the highest ethic of all and the highest incentive to do it.  We will never be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect--that's the standard, but the direction we go is the test!  Remember, God has great expectations for us and wants us to attempt to move mountains with our mustard-seed faith!   We all have unrealized potential and should actualize the innate worth we possess, not to let it be dormant and thus waste our lives.   Soli Deo Gloria!

Do We Need The Law?

Most believers know they are not under the law, but under grace (cf. Rom. 6:14); however, they are not lawless and do not have contempt for the law, but know it has its place.  The law was never given to be a way of salvation, but only to show our need, to measure us.  The law was given to show us we cannot keep it!  The Hebrews vowed they would keep all the law when it was given, but they should have asked for mercy, knowing such a law was impossible to keep.  The Christian life is not hard, it's impossible too!  We must live by faith and express it through love, for love is the fulfillment of the law.

The law of love is harder to satisfy than any code though!  Thank God Jesus lived it and the law's righteousness is credited or imputed to our account in the Divine Ledger up above.  We all fall short, and perfection is only the standard, the direction is the test as we grow in expressing faith through love (cf. Gal. 5:6, NIV).  In essence, the law is for the lawless and the lawbreaker (cf. 1 Tim. 1:9)!  We don't only have the law to guide us in right and wrong, we also have a conscience, the Holy Spirit, and the totality of Scripture as our plumb line to convict us of wrongdoing.

There are several purposes of the law for the believer (its purpose was formulated in the first Lutheran confession of faith known as the Formula of Concord in 1577):  a mirror to show us what we are like inside with all our guilt, insecurities, sin, and uncleanness--wrinkles and all; a sword to divide soul from spirit; a whip that drives us to the cross for mercy, and a hammer to smash our self-righteousness! The moral code is a guide to enlighten us to the Way, for morality never changes. It's a perfect standard of righteousness that only Jesus fulfilled.

The law was also ordained to restrain evil in society and provide for orderliness. To the Christian, it never loses its ability to convict of sin and to be a light unto our path.  But we must realize that the whole law is summed up in loving God and our neighbor as its fulfillment. The whole idea is to make us realize we cannot save ourselves no matter how righteous we think we are and no matter how good we are to our standards--we always fall short of the divine standard in Christ.

There are four types of laws that I want to mention, and disobeying each one has its consequences,   BUT WE ARE NOT ANTINOMIANS OR AGAINST THE LAW!  NB:  Nowhere in the NT are we exhorted to obey the Law, or to become somewhat Jewish--we must use it righteously--it's only a shadow (cf. Heb. 10:1)!

The first is the law of nature (SOME FIFTY UNIVERSAL CONSTANTS), e.g., the weak and strong nuclear force, the force of gravity, the speed of light, the speed of sound, the freezing of water, the charge on the electron, and even the nuclear weight of the proton and neutron, et al., and there are some fifty of them to consider and are uniform and consistent throughout the universe.  The laws of motion also come to mind:  an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion; each force exerted is met by an equal and opposite force; force equals mass times acceleration. 

The second law to consider is the moral law:  there is a moral compass in man's heart and conscience given by God, and guilt is meant to signal that we break it, there are consequences for wrongdoing to our soul's health, we don't toy with sin and get away with it! What was right in Moses' time is still right and what was wrong is still wrong--morality is absolute, universal, and also timeless.  If you ignore your conscience it may go away but this may lead to becoming perverted, degenerate, destitute, criminal, psychopathic, or worse!  It doesn't pay to ignore the signals of what God has ordained to restrain evil in man.

The third type of law is governmental (THE POWERS THAT BE), which is instituted by God and meant to keep evil at bay and provide for the public welfare--we no longer can survive with tribalism or patriarchal society.  Government, according to Augustine, is not a necessary evil, but necessary because of evil.  We are to fear government and submit to it unless it contradicts God and it has been given the power of the sword to enforce its laws--under God!

The last and probably most important law to bear in mind is the spiritual one (THE FIVE ONLY'S):  the way of salvation is only by grace through faith in Christ and saving faith must go hand in hand with repentance--one can imagine this as either penitent faith or believing repentance, but they must bear fruit to be genuine and not bogus.   Faith is manifest by trust in Jesus as Savior and embracing Him as Lord.

The savvy preacher knows how to discern and demonstrate law and gospel: the law is what God requires from us and God's expectations or standards; the gospel is the good news about what Christ has done for us in the cross and resurrection--solving the sin problem or the breaking of the law. NB:  Christ is the end of the Law for believers unto righteousness (cf. Rom. 10:4); Christ abolished the law (cf. Eph. 2:15).

What does this all mean in essence?  What can we take away from this going forward?  Laws couldn't exist without a lawgiver, right?  All these laws are indicators of a Supreme Lawgiver far superior to anything we can fathom!  Law implies a Lawgiver--this is reasonable to believe!  We all must beware lest we violate any of God's laws that apply to us, for God disciplines and chastens His children and they don't get away with sin or lawlessness.  Also, each law has its natural consequence which cannot be avoided any more than we can avoid gravity--we violate at our peril!     Soli Deo Gloria!  

An Incentive To Live The Good Life

"The heart has reasons the mind knows not of."  --Blaise Pascal
[No nation has been able to maintain] "a moral life without the aid of religion."   --Will Durant, humanist and historian.  
"God must exist for ethics to be possible."  --Immanuel Kant
"If God does not exist, all things are permissible."  --Fydor Dostoevsky
"For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command:  'Love your neighbor as yourself'"  (Gal. 5:14, NIV).  
"...The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love"  (Gal. 5:6, NIV, emphasis mine).  
DEFINITIONS:  RELIGION IS KNOWLEDGE OF A CREED; CHRISTIANITY KNOWLEDGE OF A PERSON

Some philosophers reduce moral living to living the good life (however they define it!), but this is impossible without getting one's thinking straightened out and beginning to think clearly to do it.  The path to enlightenment is not an easy one (Jesus said the truth would set us free) and once we've found it we want to share as contagious believers--you'll want to pass it on!  Our goal in life must not be our own happiness, but to unselfishly seek the happiness of others and to glorify God. The goal is spiritual and moral goodness which will have fruit, not to be on a blind pursuit of happiness which can have no anchor or moral compass but have the problem of excess or abuse.   Man always seems to do what is right in his own eyes,  but the Lord sees the heart and considers motive. (Cf. Prov. 16:2; cf. 21:2)  Happiness can be seen as the fruit of moral and right living as the byproduct not aim.   We all ought to live beyond reproach in order to have maximum influence and impact with our lives--to make a difference!

Ethics, then, is about the good life.  But goodness without God is evil because it's a sham.  Many have pondered, "How shall we then live?"  I'm not just talking about being a goody-goody or do-gooder but living a fulfilling life that counts.  If you just want to be a good person, any religion will do! Everyone has a religion or faith, and to some, they reduce Christianity to a code of conduct or ethics or make it simplistic like "My religion is the Golden Rule." We must not reduce Christianity to the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man--it's simply knowing God and then making Him known, which brings Him glory and will be rewarded.  According to John Stott, Christianity is Christ, all else is peripheral or circumference.   But the valued spiritual life is about a relationship, salvation being the restoration of it, not just studying Him academically.   We don't study or read the Bible to increase our knowledge but to change our lives.

We soon discover that there's a moral center to the universe--God!   And that without Him life makes no sense!  Without God in the picture there's no basis of absolute right and wrong and character doesn't count--it's all relative.  But we all are convicted of the moral and divine order of the universe; that's why we see justice, love, fair play, courage, integrity, etc.).  But we all have the same weakness as far as morals go:  we tend to justify ourselves and hope we don't get caught or no one will know our flaws or faults.  We are a moon with a dark side no one sees!  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!  Being a Christian isn't about rules or a list of dos and don'ts but dedication and commitment to Christ, who said, "Follow Me!"  Even Plato realized that to know how to live in reality, we must know what God is really like.   We experience God and grow in the knowledge of Him as we put it to use and apply what we know:  "Now that you know these things, blessed are you if you do them."  (Cf. John 13:17).

Now a good person learns to live according to faith, not feeling, which can be as variable as a weather vane in a storm.  There's no walking around on cloud nine or on some spiritual, perpetual high either.  He doesn't necessarily feel on top of things all the times, or even in control, but keeps the faith--he does 't go by feelings.  He doesn't know all the answers or what's going sometimes but knows the Answerer and the One in control.   He learns to know right leads to thinking right, which leads to doing right and finally feeling right.   The good life is the byproduct of being focused and living on purpose to glorify God and never for oneself.  The only truly happy people, according to Albert Schweitzer, are those who've learned to serve.  We never know how bad we are until we've tried to be good, and we cannot be good without realizing how bad we are!            Soli Deo Gloria!

Taking God Out Of The Equation

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil..." (Isaiah 5:20, NIV).
"O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end" (Deut. 32:29, KJV).  
"There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death"  (Proverbs 16:18, KJV).  
"In those days there was no king [standards] in Israel.  Everyone did what was right in his own eyes"  (Judges 21:25, ESV).

In other words:  Without God, all values are up for grabs!  Everyone believes they are sincere and that sincerity is what matters; it is part of the equation, but not the whole solution, because you can be sincerely wrong--we need more than sincerity, we need to be absolutely right because there is an absolute standard and Judge that we are accountable to.  Man claims his goals or ends are justified, but the means to them must also be just in God's eyes!  The logical conclusion of academia indoctrinating students that we are evolved animals is that we tend to act like animals!  As atheist Albert Camus said:  "The absurd is sin without God."  Consequently, there is no basis for a moral compass! 

It is commonly assumed in academia that there is no absolute truth, and this proposition is widely accepted by students--but they confuse truth with belief:  There is no absolute belief, but there is, nevertheless, absolute truth, that is objective and remains true whether believed or not, and doesn't matter who believes it or who doesn't.  You just can't rule God out of the equation, like in eliminating variables in science or voting for some unobjectionable choice.  

Since Socrates claimed that "the unexamined life is not worth living," we must search our own hearts and find ourselves, as it were, to know what we actually do believe in and in what we base our faith, because everyone believes in something and everyone worships something, even if they don't believe in God.  Is there anything you will die for or stand up for and defend to the death, because of conviction and commitment?

Note that an opinion is something you hold, while convictions hold you and something you are willing to die for.  If you don't stand up for right and wrong, do you think you'll stand up for Jesus?  Edmund Burke, a philosopher, said that the only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.  There is something everyone can do to neutralize evil in the world, even if it's being a prayer warrior!

Rome fell due to a collapse in morality, as perversion became the norm, and it has been wisely put that when a nation loses its gods it cannot survive--no matter the religion, religion is necessary for morality, for there is no need for it otherwise, when each man does what is right in his own eyes.  All truth is God's truth and meets at the top (Augustine and Aquinas), and all religion does have an element of truth, and even false religion is but a distortion of the truth and not the opposite of it; however, "no lie is of the truth" (cf. 1 John 2:21)!

When we take God out of the reckoning man loses his moorings and anchor to weigh in on society and to set standards to live by--ethics and values only become what society approves of, and are a matter of consensus and public opinion; however, often the voice of the people is the voice of the devil (Vox Popoli, Vox Diaboli)!

Today we see an absence of faith in absolute moral principles, and this is called moral relativism. No truth equals no virtue, according to Socrates, and Postmodernism has made truth a short-term contract and posits that there is no Truth with a capital T.  There is a reason why nihilism is the biggest fad or direction of today's young people, they really don't believe in anything!  This is dangerous territory according to Dostoyevsky:  "If there is no God, all things are permissible."  They will tell you that something just doesn't work for them and this is the ultimate test, not whether it's true (classic pragmatism).

William James was the founder of pragmatism, which was further delineated by John Dewey, said that you cannot test the truth of an idea, but only its usefulness--what matters is whether it works.  We have no basis of truth and principle without God and everything is up for grabs, as one says, that may be true for you, but not for me.  Caveat:  "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Psalm 11:3, ESV).

The ideas of skepticism, cynicism (the most prized modern virtue), and humanism, ( or homo mensura, i.e., man being the measure of all things, originated by the Greeks of antiquity) are not new--there is nothing new under the sun because the devil isn't creative, but only keeps recycling old lies, as the father of lies.  When you don't have some standard and put yourself as the standard, it is tantamount to making yourself God and becoming His judge by your personal standards, which are subjective and variable over time.

he very concept of justice and mercy must come from somewhere, and we all appeal to some standard to judge them by, just like Plato reasoned that God is the ultimate good. since there must exist something to judge goodness by. Beauty remains after the rose fades, and if we have these senses of right and wrong instinctively by nature, there must be a higher sense governing the universal moral order from which it originated:

In other words:  Where did good faith, fair play in sports, unselfishness, courage in battle, integrity in personal dealings, altruism, generosity with money, trustworthiness, honesty in relationships, genuine joy and happiness, etc. come from, if not some absolute standard?  How did we get these ideas?  We are essentially appealing to some divine standard or norm of moral right and wrong (like when someone buds in line and we are offended or upset at the injustice).  Appealing to a higher sense sounds a lot like appealing to God, a Higher Being, or Higher Power.

This is highly ontological in that we would have no idea of a God if there was none--where did mankind get the original thought, which is so universal?  We see virtue as well as evil in every civilization, and this is collaborated by the biblical record of the war between the two and the ultimate triumph of good over evil--our sense of right and wrong demand there be a hell for wrongdoers, and if you've ever gotten angry at someone you may have wished he go there, even if you doubted God's existence!

Some believe in moral relativism because they conceive of a situation of being forced to decide between raping their daughter and witnessing her torture, but God doesn't hold us culpable for coerced choices but only freewill ones.   God is the one that allowed it to happen for His purposes and we must not doubt His long term witness seen in light of eternity.

Denying absolute morality goes nowhere since everyone would agree, that is of sound mind, that rape and incest are always wrong under all circumstances without exception (which lays to rest the theory of situation ethics, whereby someone could justify himself).  Hitler justified himself, and we don't want to absolve him of his "evil" in the process, by saying that his sincere belief that Jews were the problem and the "final solution" was the answer was justified.

There is no limit to the evil man is capable of and the only restraint is God's Holy Spirit, who will only stand for so much before judgment is inevitable. (Note:  2 Thess. 2:7 says, "... Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.")  "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: Who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9, KJV).  The Bible says in Proverbs 14:34 that "sin is a reproach unto any people" and it doesn't matter whether they approve of it or not, God is the final judge and arbiter of how much He lets the man get away with (e.g., Sodom and Gomorrah).

Man needs a sense of "ought" and, without God, this is problematic; ethics become nebulous.  Man will always try to justify himself and his purposes and set standards he believes he can achieve:  He will say that he wants the greatest good for the greatest number (i.e., utilitarianism) and believes the ends justify the means in achieving it; or he can believe that it just doesn't matter whether something is true, for who can determine this?

But what matters isn't whether it works and is practical or not; and this is the crux of the problem: Christianity isn't true because it works, because many untrue things work (e.g., yoga and TM); but it works because it's true--"Taste and see that the LORD is good" (cf. Psalm 34:8); find out for yourself! And where I'm coming from, truth matters and is worth knowing and defending.  The New Morality of today is dangerous too, even though it sounds sincere, in saying that all that matters is the motive, such as being with the intention of love or helping someone when its none of their business. People think something is a responsible  decision if they can justify it!

What is the answer?  The world faced this issue at Nuremberg after WWII, when they were bringing the Nazi war criminals to justice because they claimed to be following orders and only doing what their society had approved of and they asserted sovereignty in determining this standard.  The only way they found they could convict them was to appeal to some "natural law" or what may be called "transcendent law" that we all know by nature and are responsible to beware of, regardless of what the government says or tells us to do--would you rape your sister if the government said it was sanctioned in their new morality?

The Bible confirms this principle in Romans 2:15 because it says clearly and dogmatically that God's law is written in the hearts of man, and he has a conscience to convict him by the gift of God--we are not unconscionable animals but in God's image!  We cannot act like animals observing the law of the jungle and believing in the survival of the fittest, but that the strong ought to help the weak as the humane thing to do--this is what we are meant to be (noble creatures that are in God's image).

The only solution to man's dilemma is to know the resurrection power of Christ, who is in the business of changing lives from the inside out or transforming them miraculously.  What He's done for others, He can do for anyone who seeks Him, repents, and taps into this supernatural power; the trouble is that Secular Humanists deny the supernatural as the foundation of their worldview and won't even go there or give Christ the opportunity in opening the door.  The doors of academia are basically closed with secular worldviews in control.

The Bible isn't just inspiring like Shakespeare is but can change lives and we don't need to defend it, no more than a caged lion, which can defend itself.  POW's during WWII on the Malay peninsula had resorted to savage-like living, until they found a New Testament and decided to read it, with the result that it civilized them.

An anthropologist on Papua New Guinea asked what a native was reading while stirring his pot:  He said he was reading a Bible and the scientist said that modern man has rejected that book and he's wasting his time--the answer was that he'd be in the pot, were it not for that book! When someone asks you to prove that the Bible can change lives, just tell them that they can prove it themselves by only sincerely, with an open mind, willing spirit, and needy heart, to read it for themselves, and the results will speak for themselves.

In summation:  Only in Christianity do we see the synthesis of right motives and means unto right end results.  Soli Deo Gloria!

Ethics With A Capital "E"

I realized the way our qualms or principles evoke reactions in others watching Gunsmoke. A common criminal who had stolen golden relics from a church went into a bar and when the prostitute saw them he said, "Don't you have any principles?" He retorted, "I have as many as you!" Next, he held up the bartender but noticed he was wearing a crucifix. He couldn't do it, but said, "You don't know how close you came to being killed." He later became a Christian.

Julian Huxley's Religion Without Revelation reveals how you can be moral and not believe in God. The New Morality or situation ethics justify wrongdoing but the Bible's teachings are immutable and rock-solid. We are to imitate that which is good and not evil. Without God morality is just consensus and if there is no judge or judgment day why not eat, drink, [and be merry] for tomorrow we die" like the Bible says? If you just want to be a nice guy or an ethical person, any [ethnic] religion will do, but this is for the seeker of God. For instance, Buddhism is so popular because you can be good without God. (Buddha was an atheist.)

What about the unlearned, unsophisticated person--does he/she have any discernment? We all have the ability to make value judgments by the moral compass God has given us. Like Jiminy Cricket said, "Always let your conscience be your guide." Martin Luther said it is neither right nor safe to go against conscience. But the conscience can be wrong if it isn't enlightened by the Word of God. Alexander and Hymenaeus ignored and rejected their conscience and thus made shipwreck of their faith: A word to the wise is sufficient.

Do not be confused that the Christian life is a philosophy or a code of conduct or system of ethics; one can lead a very moral life and still not be saved. Being a Christian is knowing Jesus personally and having a relationship with Him.

Why do universities that believe in relative morality (What's right for me) even teach ethics? Because it's good for business. Orthopraxy is the name for putting into practice what you believe and how correct it is, just like orthodoxy is right believing, orthopraxy is right doing. Everyone has a code of conduct, their own conscience, so to speak; even criminals have a prison code! But what I'm concerned with is the Christian perspective; that of perfection, which no one can satisfy. ("Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.").  Perfection is the standard, the direction is the test.

Christians believe morality stems from God's immutable character and are therefore immutable and not arbitrary or changeable. James is the book dedicated to ethics because it's theme is the faith you have is the faith you show. "I will show you my faith by my works" (James 2:18). God has redeemed "a people zealous unto good works," (cf. Titus 2:14).  The admonition to follow Christ is the decision every Christian has made and Paul has some insight when he says "Abstain from every form of evil." "By their fruit, you shall know them."

Nowadays people think ethics are relative (I believe in absolute moral values) and we can make up our own rules as we go along. I believe in absolute morality because it is the only system of ethics compatible with faith in a righteous and moral God. The statement, "All truth is relative" is itself relative and of no value and is a truth statement.   Have you heard of the professor who introduced his class by saying, "You can know nothing for certain." One student replies: "Professor, are you sure?" He answers, "I AM sure."

I have heard it said that the summation of Christian ethics is to overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). Jesus made famous the Golden Rule: "Treat unto others the way you would have them treat unto you." This is an impossibly high ethic that no one has completed to perfection.  "The Christian life is not hard, it's impossible"--only Christ has fulfilled it.

But the idea wasn't unique. The Jews had heard of the great Rabbi Hillel who said that you must not do anything to others you wouldn't want to be done in return--that this summed up the Law. Confucius was asked to sum up his teachings with one word and he did: "Reciprocity." Buddha's rule was called the Silver Rule because it was slightly easier and it was in the negative: "Don't do to others what you don't want done to you." The Golden Rule was also in the Old Testament. In Obadiah, it says, "As you have done, so shall it be done to you." It's the highest ethic.  This is the reverse of said rule. Solomon also had a word of wisdom that will suffice: "Do not withhold good to others when it is within your power."  Solomon also said we should return evil for evil:  "Don't say, 'I'll do to him what he did to me; I'll repay the man for what he has done.'" (Prov. 24:29). Americans mostly live by the Brazen Rule:  "I'll do to him as he has done to me."

Finally, the famous physician Hippocrates said in his famous oath, "First, do no harm." Unfortunately, some people go by the Iron Rule:  "I'll do to them before they do unto me, or might makes right."   We want to go the extra mile and do some good, not just avoid evil. Faith is a verb that does good deeds. We are not saved by our good deeds, but we are not saved without them either--we are saved unto good works (cf. Eph. 2:10).

To sum up, Micah 6:8 is a good Old Testament paradigm of ethics: "He has told you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God" (When my pastor asked me my philosophy in a verse, that was the one. The definition of the Christian life from Paul could very well be this: "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, and yet not I, but Christ who lives in me, and the life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20). Thus the hallmark of the Christian is love as Jesus said to the disciples: "By this shall men know that you are my disciples, that you love one another.  Soli Deo Gloria!