Is Morality Just Opinion?: Evidence for God

SPEAKER A 00:00:00 – 00:00:27 We live in a world where people constantly say, that might be wrong for you, but it’s not wrong for me. But what happens when we actually follow that idea to its logical conclusion? You might be shocked where it leads. Today we’re asking, is right and wrong just a personal preference, or is there something deeper going on? Welcome to Faith and Science. I’m Kaysie Vokurka. Joining me to discuss this is Dr. John Ashton. Welcome, Dr. John. SPEAKER B 00:00:27 – 00:00:28 Hello, Casey. SPEAKER A 00:00:28 – 00:00:52 Dr. John has written a book called The Big Argument: Does God Exist? And in today’s program, we’ll be looking at some insights from chapter 11, which has been put in by Dr. Stephen Cowan, who has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Arkansas. So, John, what is the difference between morality being a personal opinion versus something that’s actually true for everyone? SPEAKER B 00:00:52 – 00:01:15 Yeah, so of course, this is a very deep philosophical question. Moral, what we call moral relativism, certainly dominates a lot of universities today and thinkers. And essentially, that is the view that you’ve just expressed, you know, that what’s right for you is not necessarily right for me. SPEAKER A 00:01:15 – 00:01:15 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:01:15 – 00:01:32 The opposite to that, of course, is called moral objectivism. And this is the claim that there are actual real moral values, that there are things that are definitely wrong. SPEAKER A 00:01:32 – 00:01:36 And that’s independent of personal opinion? SPEAKER B 00:01:36 – 00:02:22 Yes, yes, independent of personal opinion. Now, one of the issues that we get in with moral relativism is that what becomes right or wrong becomes determined by the most popular vote. Right? So what largely the community accepts becomes the right. And this sort of underpins this moral relativism, that our people are happy. Now, if that was the case, if we look at, say, cultures where we had slavery, then this would be considered, well, this is fine. And so people that opposed slavery and said, no, all people should be free, right? SPEAKER A 00:02:22 – 00:02:22 Mm-hmm. SPEAKER B 00:02:22 – 00:03:06 And said slavery is wrong, According to moral relativists, well, sorry, that’s your view. You can let your slaves go, but we’re happy with this. But I think as we look back on history, we can see, well, hang on, to be free is a moral value. To have freedom is a moral value. And this raises a number of things. We see in a number of cultures there have been things that we would abhor tonight, for example, today. For example, in some cultures when the husband died, the wife would be killed or burned with him. SPEAKER A 00:03:06 – 00:03:07 Oh, wow. SPEAKER B 00:03:07 – 00:03:41 And so this was a practice, for example, that was common many years ago in India. And it was an English Christian missionary that fought to actually stop that practice. Now today, and I think we would accept that, hang on, that’s morally wrong to kill the wife when the husband dies. So there are things, you know, things like this that in certain cultures, these were acceptable. Cannibalism is a classic one. SPEAKER A 00:03:41 – 00:03:41 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:03:41 – 00:03:55 As a matter of fact, just yesterday I was talking to a man who’d been a missionary in the Western part of New Guinea where cannibalism was practiced. SPEAKER A 00:03:55 – 00:03:56 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:03:56 – 00:04:26 And yeah, that was very real. And the difference that Christianity made in that culture when Christianity was brought in. But in that culture, cannibalism was fine. Of course, the Kuku people in the eastern half of New Guinea, they were very fierce and afraid and they were known cannibals. And of course, we know that that was practiced in many other parts around the world too, which we think is wrong to kill people and then eat them. SPEAKER A 00:04:26 – 00:04:27 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:04:27 – 00:05:13 And so I think one of the things is that, well, you could say, well, for those people it definitely wasn’t wrong. But was there an absolute moral value underpinning this? And I think that this comes to the issue of some, elements there are debate over. Classic examples being euthanasia, doctor-assisted suicide, these sort of things. And I think probably we don’t get clarity going to those sort of areas, but there are certain areas such as, sort of as we mentioned in a previous program, torturing children for fun. It seems morally wrong. SPEAKER A 00:05:13 – 00:05:14 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:05:15 – 00:05:28 I think there are some areas where we see culture has led people to, and particular moral values have arisen as a result of being popular. SPEAKER A 00:05:28 – 00:05:28 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:05:28 – 00:05:46 But when we look at it deeply, we find that, hang on, there is a conscience. And that’s why those tribes, for example, that commit cannibalism, they convert. Many of them convert very strongly to Christianity. Because they realized deep down that what they were doing was wrong. SPEAKER A 00:05:46 – 00:05:48 Yeah, that’s very interesting. SPEAKER B 00:05:48 – 00:05:59 It is. It’s quite an interesting thing that often these people from these tribes then become the strongest Christians because they realize this contrast. SPEAKER A 00:05:59 – 00:06:34 Yeah, fascinating. And I guess it brings to mind other examples in history where I guess the majority opinion has prevailed for a time, but then afterwards, has been rejected. And something like that comes to mind, for instance, with the Nazi Germany situation, their idea of elitist sort of group that then led them to also kill so many Jews, right? Today, most would look upon that as horrendous. But at the time, people did it, didn’t they? And they— SPEAKER B 00:06:34 – 00:06:52 Yes. And again, it’s interesting that that That particular worldview arose from evolutionary principles and evolutionary arguments. And essentially, once you have that evolutionary basis, so you have no God, there is no judgment. SPEAKER A 00:06:52 – 00:06:53 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:06:53 – 00:07:11 Therefore, you do what you deem at the time is best, or particularly what you’re educated as best. And we need to remember that people were, educated in a way that they were not taught correct facts. SPEAKER A 00:07:11 – 00:07:11 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:07:11 – 00:07:41 This is another thing that often underpins moral relativism, is that people don’t understand all the facts, or there are facts that are wrong. I think Steven Cohen uses a very interesting example that he gives in his book. So he says, imagine this tribe somewhere, right? That believes that deformed children should be fed to hippopotamuses. SPEAKER A 00:07:41 – 00:07:41 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:07:41 – 00:07:48 Because they believe that the children, deformed children, belong to hippopotamuses. SPEAKER A 00:07:48 – 00:07:49 Right. SPEAKER B 00:07:49 – 00:08:16 So this is, and he poses a very interesting scenario here, right? So this is sort of moral relativism, we think. But in actual fact, there are a couple of moral absolutes that are involved in this. All right. So first of all, they believe that things that rightfully belong to someone should be returned to them. SPEAKER A 00:08:16 – 00:08:17 Fair enough. SPEAKER B 00:08:17 – 00:08:27 And we would understand that as a moral absolute, right? That if this is yours, you deserve to be able to possess it. SPEAKER A 00:08:27 – 00:08:28 Yes, of course. SPEAKER B 00:08:28 – 00:08:36 And so if it’s been taken from you or is away from you and somebody finds it, it then should be returned to you. SPEAKER A 00:08:36 – 00:08:36 Mm-hmm. SPEAKER B 00:08:36 – 00:09:02 All right? So this is an interesting thing. So in actual fact, what they were believing followed a moral, you know, absolute that this— yeah, that something that belonged to someone should be returned to them. But what they got wrong was that deformed children, Did belong to hippopotamuses. SPEAKER A 00:09:02 – 00:09:04 Right, that was the fact they believed. SPEAKER B 00:09:04 – 00:09:09 That was the fact that they believed, but that wasn’t correct. SPEAKER A 00:09:09 – 00:09:11 Yeah, but it led to an incorrect action. SPEAKER B 00:09:11 – 00:09:12 Yes. SPEAKER A 00:09:12 – 00:09:16 Because it was combined with an incorrect principle and incorrect fact. Interesting. SPEAKER B 00:09:16 – 00:09:44 And this is where a lot of people get mixed up with moral relativism and don’t realize, you know, the underpinning actions there. And this is where we have to identify what are the actual facts. And a lot of people committed in the past, for example, in the Holocaust, a lot of Germans, they were given incorrect facts. But I think at the same time— SPEAKER A 00:09:44 – 00:09:45 It’s true. SPEAKER B 00:09:45 – 00:10:00 And we see this in different cultures. I remember Gladys Aylward, for example, a young lady who went to China and she saw how the practice of binding the little girls’ feet— SPEAKER A 00:10:00 – 00:10:01 Oh, yes. SPEAKER B 00:10:01 – 00:10:32 Really, really tightly so that they didn’t grow because small feet were considered beautiful. And of course, she led a massive effort to stop that sort of practice. And today, of course, we would consider that morally wrong to harm a child. In that way. But that was a commonly held practice. And we can think, of course, that there are many other examples of these things. So that was a practice that was based on subjectivity. SPEAKER A 00:10:32 – 00:10:32 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:10:32 – 00:10:59 Right? The subjectivity was that small feet are beautiful, right? And this is a desirable trait. And we see that a lot of these sort of things have been practiced around the world. What we say, what we would say is that it’s morally wrong to impose this subjectivity, that is someone else’s subjectivity, on a child to interfere with their normal development. SPEAKER A 00:10:59 – 00:10:59 Mm-hmm. SPEAKER B 00:10:59 – 00:11:26 So this is where we have to be careful that we don’t confuse and mix up and claim that it’s moral relativism, where part of it may in actual fact involve moral Objectivism. And then one of the arguments is, where do the actual objective moral values come from? Like, it’s wrong to steal, it’s wrong to kill. SPEAKER A 00:11:26 – 00:11:27 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:11:27 – 00:11:47 It’s wrong to tell a lie. These are values that are essentially held across cultures. And virtually everyone would agree that these, you know, a moral objective. They’re moral things that are true. They have an intrinsic truth value. SPEAKER A 00:11:47 – 00:11:48 Mm. SPEAKER B 00:11:48 – 00:12:27 And this, of course, underpins the argument that if these exist, this is powerful evidence for God’s existence and that there will be a judgment and that those perpetrators of, you know, slavery, the Holocaust, the other massacres that have occurred and this sort of thing will one day face that judgment. And again, this points to atheism has no answer to this. Atheism says these people have got away with it. But deep down inside, we often feel that it is so wrong. It is so wrong that these people should get away unpunished. SPEAKER A 00:12:27 – 00:12:29 Yes, we crave justice in these cases. SPEAKER B 00:12:29 – 00:13:01 Yeah, we do. And again, this is another intrinsic thing that’s part of us that one day there will be a judgment. And the resurrection of Jesus Christ is powerful evidence that supports that scenario as well. And the fact that God exists, this points to the existence that there must be a God that can bring about this resurrection, who is a Creator. This points to a realistic, and it seems a just solution— SPEAKER A 00:13:01 – 00:13:02 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:13:02 – 00:13:13 To the problem of evil that we see in the world. As opposed to atheism has no solution to that. Just, you know, cold death of the universe. SPEAKER A 00:13:13 – 00:14:00 Pretty much, yeah. Fascinating to discuss all of that and think about the implications of culture and then underlying fundamental moral principles and how that all fits together. And yeah, as you say, it does bring to light the fact that The, the idea of God existing really makes a lot more sense when we talk about these kind of details compared with believing in an atheistic, atheistic or evolutionary worldview. So thank you for sharing that and making that clear. Have you ever struggled with doubts about God’s existence or known someone who has? What helped you through it? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments. Your journey could inspire someone else who’s searching for answers.