Confusion about Moral Law
In reading Mr. Philip Stahl’s article on morality, it is clear where his confusion about the Moral Law arises. If you have not read the article, let me summarize briefly. The general train of thought was: It is possible to be a ‘decent human being’ without believing in God or his Moral Law. An illustration of saving a child from a burning house was then used to show that one can do good ‘without invoking god or religion’. The writer seems though to be confusing ‘decent behaviour’ with the Moral Law itself.
Assuming we choose to rescue the child from the fire we will probably have felt two desires. One a desire to give help (due to our animal instinct) and two a desire to keep away from the danger of a burning house (due to the instinct of self-preservation). But, you will find third thing, pressing in on you. This third thing tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help the child and suppress the impulse to run away. The Moral Law, often tells us to side with the weaker of the two impulses. You probably want to be safe from the fire but the Moral Law tells you, no you should help the child, and suppress self-preservation. As C. S. Lewis put it, ‘you might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not the other, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.’ The belief that the conscience of man is a product of evolution, and is quite apart from anything else, is utter nonsense. Moral judgements can only be valid if they are the offshoot of some absolute moral wisdom, which exists ‘in its own right’ and is not a by-product of Nature.
It is also unwise to be satisfied with what the writer calls ‘the sane, human and decent thing to do’. If we look no further than our ‘human decency’, we are still rebels. A thoroughly bad man thinks he is alright. It is the man who realizes there is evil and sin left in him, sincerely repents, and looks to that which is stronger (Christ Jesus), who is getting better. We cannot impress God with ‘decent behaviour’ anymore than water can get wet.
In dealing with issues of morality, we are all guided by our philosophical presuppositions and to a larger extent our world view. ‘The theory of evolution’ has become fact, simply because its modern proponents have dropped the words, ‘the theory of’. That would mean then that my ‘theory of Orange Unicorns on Mars’ is now fact as long as I phrase it ‘Orange Unicorns on Mars’. Atheism and the theory of evolution, amount to perhaps the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen. Writers who continue to maintain this anti-God state of mind need to stop fumbling about in the dark and come home to their heavenly Father.
