The Heart of God: Can Ethics Justified without God? In every society and community you have an agreement of behavior known as ethics. At times these ethics are spoken at others they are just understood. These behavioral codes may have variations but anthropology has discovered that they are nonetheless universal, there is a golden strand that runs through the vein of humanity that tells us how to behave no matter what culture you belong to.[1]
Ethics is best defined as an ought rather then an is. If ethics is just a description then we have no obligation to keep any ethical code. In our modern society this has been challenged philosophically but never really endorsed practically. While a man might consider himself a relativist he expects fairness in practicality. A story is told of a professor of ethics who received an essay brilliantly written defending relativism. The student received an F for the paper that should of have been A material. When the student confronted the teacher about the grade the professor simply replied, “You turned it in a blue folder, I hate blue folders.” The student stood shocked for second then retorted, “That is not fair?” The professor smiled and immediately they both knew that while relativism could be argued philosophically it is a principle no one accepts practically.
That leaves us with the question of the hour, how do we justify ethical standards? The question is not how we provide a reason why we behave the way we do but the reason why this ethical behavior is better than any other, why it is a transcendent law that is true regardless the circumstance. A brilliant debate took place in MIT back in 2009 by one of the most brilliant atheist ethicist, Peter Singer, and a Christian professor of the same field, John Hare. The title of the presentation was ‘ Does Atheism or Theism provide the best foundation for human worth and morality’. The most stunning of statements made was not when both of the debaters disagreed but when they came to they agreed:
So you agree, first, that there is this problem of reconciling morality and happiness, and on your view it would be nice to have an answer, but we just don’t. Second, you agree that it would be nice to have a justification for morality, but you think ultimately we just don’t. On my view, we do.[2]
As an Atheist Singer lacked two quintessential aspects of ethics he did not know how to reconcile ethics with fulfillment and he did not know of a way to justify ethics as a law above all laws that is mandatory for everyone, Hare, the Christian Ethicist did. The difference was God. Yet why would anyone be convinced of such an absurd notion that is commonly dejected in modern society? Isn’t believing that ethics comes from God an antiquarian way of thinking that was done away with the stone age? Apparently even in our modernity killing God by not believing in him not only betrays religious convictions but also a part of our humanity. Nietzsche foretold the malady in his infamous ‘Parable of the Madman,’
“Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers… Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing … Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.[3]
This famous atheist Requiem of God is very telling of the consequences of abandoning God. If God does not exist, if we kill God with our minds by not believing in him (not that his existence depends on our belief) then we have to face the consequence of not only a life without faith but one without justifiable ethics. We will have to try to pick ourselves up from out bootstraps only to find we cannot fly. A society where might makes right and people are just mud and blood.
Yet ethics in Christianity is not an abstract field of philosophy but the very heart of God. Ethics grounded not only in a being that knows everything, but sees everything, and cares for everything. If he knows everything then he obviously could show us true ethics, and if he sees everything then he can hold us accountable for our ethical misfires, and finally if he cares then ethics is not a cold principle but a way in which every sentient being could live the happiest existence possible. Only when ethics is firmly grounded in the citadel of heaven will we be able to stand on ethically justifiable grounds. God is not dead and our inner voice, our conscious, is his whisper into our souls.
[1] See Donald Browns work on universals for further study http://www.amazon.com/Human-Universals-Donald-Brown/dp/007008209X
[2] Dallas Willard. A Place for Truth: Leading Thinkers Explore Life’s Hardest Questions (p. 188). Kindle Edition.
[3] Nietzsche: Parable of the Madman. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/nietzsche-madman.asp
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