Friday, February 18, 2005

The Moral <i>Sine Qua Non</i>

Dennis Prager has been writing an excellent series of columns on the indispensibility of Judeo-Christian faith as the only realistic ground for a vigorous moral sense in our culture. This link will take you to his archive where you can open each essay starting with the first (There are five).

In Part I of the series Prager examines the current moral confusion in our culture and explains the need for grounding morality in the God of Judeo-Christian belief:

Chesterton was right. The collapse of Christianity in Europe led to the horrors of Nazism and Communism. And to the moral confusions of the present -- such as the moral equation of the free United States with the totalitarian Soviet Union, or of life-loving Israel with its death-loving enemies.

The oft cited charge that religion has led to more wars and evil than anything else is a widely believed lie. Secular successors to Christianity have slaughtered and enslaved more people than all religions in history (though significant elements within a non-Judeo-Christian religion, Islam, slaughter and enslave today, and if not stopped in Sudan and elsewhere could match Nazism or Communism).

In Part II he argues that without God all morality is purely subjective:

If there is no transcendent source of morality (morality is the word I use for the standard of good and evil), "good" and "evil" are subjective opinions, not objective realities.

In other words, if there is no God who says, "Do not murder" ("Do not kill" is a mistranslation of the Hebrew which, like English, has two words for homicide), murder is not wrong. Many people may think it is wrong, but that is their opinion, not objective moral fact. There are no moral "facts" if there is no God; there are only moral opinions.

Part III is a case against relying upon reason to yield moral guidance. Reason, Prager maintains, is a wholly inadequate ground for morality:

Another example of reason's incapacity to lead to moral conclusions: On virtually any vexing moral question, there is no such a thing as a [missing] purely rational viewpoint. What is the purely rational view on the morality of abortion? Of public nudity? Of the value of an animal versus that of a human? Of the war in Iraq? Of capital punishment for murder? On any of these issues, reason alone can argue effectively for almost any position. Therefore, what determines anyone's moral views are, among other things, his values -- and values are beyond reason alone (though one should be able to rationally explain and defend those values). If you value the human fetus, most abortions are immoral; if you only value the woman's view of the value of the fetus, all abortions are moral.

Part IV addresses the dehumanizing consequence of a thoroughly secular ethics. In a Godless cosmos man is nothing but a flesh and bone machine, a herd animal different from others of the kind only in being relatively more intelligent:

The second reason that the breakdown of Judeo-Christian values leads to a diminution of human worth is that if man was not created by God, the human being is mere stellar dust -- and will come to be regarded as such. Moreover, people are merely the products of random chance, no more designed than a sand grain formed by water erosion. That is what the creationism-evolution battle is ultimately about -- human worth. One does not have to agree with creationists or deny all evolutionary evidence to understand that the way evolution is taught, man is rendered a pointless product of random forces -- unworthy of being saved before one's hamster.

Part V looks at what Judaism and Christianity have in common and argues that together they are chiefly responsible for America's greatness:

Both religions are based on the Old Testament, which Judaism and Christianity hold to be divine or divinely inspired. Clearly, then, they will share values -- unless one holds that the New Testament rejects Old Testament values. But that is untenable since, in addition to Christianity believing the Old Testament is God's word, Jesus was a believing and practicing Jew. He would not practice a religion whose values or Bible he rejected.

One way to understand Judeo-Christian values, therefore, is as values that emanate from a Judeo-based Christianity. Christians have always had the choice to reject the Jewish roots of Christianity (which, when done, enabled Christian anti-Semitism), to ignore those roots, or to celebrate and embrace them. American Christians have, more than any other Christian group, opted for the latter.

One point that bears elaboration, perhaps, is that if there is no God then the categories of moral Good and Evil are empty. Unless there is a God to provide us with moral sanction then anything we do, as Nietzsche is at pains to convince us, is neither good nor evil. It just is. A wolf kills a young elk or our cat torments a mouse before thrashing it to death. Neither behavior is evil. There is no crime committed nor any offense against morality. Likewise, if we are just animals, when one man slays another there is no evil in the deed. There are only acts of which we approve and acts of which we disapprove, but our disapproval is no reason why someone should refrain from doing them. Nor does our disapproval make them wrong.

If there is no God then there is no reason why those who have the ability or the power should not impose their will upon the rest. A Godless world is a world of might makes right and there is no escaping it. That we haven't devolved into that hellish circle of the Inferno yet is due only to the fact that there is still a significant Judeo-Christian presence in this country and because those who have embraced secularism simply don't think the moral implications of their convictions through to their logical endpoints. If, as time goes by, secularism continues its advances then this state of affairs will inevitably and gradually deteriorate, and the weak will fall prey to the strong. We will see history reprise the Europe of the twentieth century.

Dennis Prager has given us an outstanding series of articles, and we urge all of our readers to take the time to read his columns with close attention. His message is as important as any message could be.