Where Does Morality Come From?: Christian Apologetics

SPEAKER A 00:00:00 - 00:00:32 Atheists, scientists, and even Darwin himself have wrestled with this thought. If we're just the result of billions of years of random evolution, if we're basically cosmic accidents, then why do we all feel like some things are truly wrong? Today we're looking at 3 different explanations for where morality comes from, and only one of them actually holds up. Welcome to Faith and Science. I'm Kaysie Vokurka. Joining me to discuss this topic is Dr. John Ashton. Welcome to the program, Dr. John. SPEAKER B 00:00:32 - 00:00:33 Hello, Casey. SPEAKER A 00:00:33 - 00:01:01 Dr. John has written a book called The Big Argument: Does God Exist? And in today's program, we're drawing on some insights from this book, particularly from chapter 11 by Dr. Stephen Cowan, who got his PhD in philosophy at the University of Arkansas. So talking about evolution, Can evolution explain why we have a sense of right and wrong? And does it make— does that make morality real? SPEAKER B 00:01:01 - 00:01:32 Yeah, sure. So evolutionists obviously have to explain a concept of right and wrong, particularly when, you know, people help people, when people tell the truth, this sort of thing. And essentially their argument is that by working together socially, they increase their chances of survival. And that there are certain moral values that if people accept these, it works better for them depending on their culture. SPEAKER A 00:01:32 - 00:01:33 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:01:33 - 00:01:54 So for example, in a culture where everybody was a cannibal, you were quite safe in that culture because they generally only ate people from outside their particular tribe or culture. So if you're in that particular tribe, you're quite safe, help protect you. But woe to anybody else that happened to stray nearby. SPEAKER A 00:01:54 - 00:01:55 For sure. SPEAKER B 00:01:55 - 00:02:10 So this is, that way they maintain, yes, moral thing is something that is quite relative. It's situational, depends on the situation. Hence we have situation, so-called situation ethics. SPEAKER A 00:02:10 - 00:02:11 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:02:11 - 00:02:25 That attempt to be taught in, you know, often today in place of scripture in schools, we'll teach ethics and this sort of thing. And ethics largely, as based on moral relativism and looking at this. But when— SPEAKER A 00:02:25 - 00:02:34 Yeah, I was gonna say, so does that make that— does that make their view of morality actually objective or is that— that's not an objective view of morality? SPEAKER B 00:02:34 - 00:02:37 No, no, because it's subjective. It's your particular view. SPEAKER A 00:02:37 - 00:02:38 Right. Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:02:38 - 00:02:41 Based on the situation that you are in for survival. SPEAKER A 00:02:41 - 00:02:43 Yeah. 'Cause survival's the most important outcome. SPEAKER B 00:02:43 - 00:02:44 Yes. SPEAKER A 00:02:44 - 00:02:44 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:02:44 - 00:02:44 Yes. SPEAKER A 00:02:44 - 00:02:45 Fair enough. SPEAKER B 00:02:45 - 00:03:03 Yes. So, and so it's a subjective thing. It's decided on by different cultures. Different cultures then have these different, you know, moral values about what is right. This sort of thing, how many wives one can have and, you know, different things like this. Yeah. Are all deemed to be, you know, quite subjective. SPEAKER A 00:03:03 - 00:03:23 Right. So then evolution at its best possible attempt to argue the reality of a moral morality that we have in existence in our society. or as human beings, their best possible explanation is still a subjective one. It's not an objective morality that we're talking about here. Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:03:23 - 00:03:27 So it's something that we as humans have come up with. SPEAKER A 00:03:27 - 00:03:28 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:03:28 - 00:03:53 Right? So the evolutionary model is that some sort of random process produced life and life form through random processes changed over a long period of time and eventually we came about. By this evolutionary process, right? Which involves essentially genetic mutations. Okay? So it's very mechanical, it's very chemical, it's at that level. So a big problem for them is consciousness. SPEAKER A 00:03:53 - 00:03:54 Mm-hmm. SPEAKER B 00:03:54 - 00:04:49 Where did consciousness come from? Right? But let's assume that somehow, you know, in their position, of course, from a, from the basis of evidence, there's actually no known evolutionary explanation for consciousness that works, 'cause Consciousness involves the non-material aspects of our mind. And this is another aspect of moral values. They're non-material. This is another thing. So they're very much linked to this whole aspect that we discussed previously of where do thoughts come from? Where does consciousness come from? But essentially they believe their own arguments, of course, which as I said, I believe we've shown quite clearly that are false. in previous episodes. But assuming that this is something that we have come up with, so it's a man-made thing. And because it's a man-made thing, man is master, which is the evolutionary position. SPEAKER A 00:04:49 - 00:04:49 Mm-hmm. SPEAKER B 00:04:49 - 00:05:07 Because we seem to be, you know, the highest evolved organism, and this is what we have chosen to do. So we've just made a choice. Now, of course, in some ways there's all sorts of moral problems here. once you get into this scenario, and that is, do we have free will? SPEAKER A 00:05:07 - 00:05:08 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:05:08 - 00:05:20 Okay. And so, and from an evolutionary perspective, that raises again another issue that links us in with God if we have free will, because they wanna see, hang on, no, we are programmed just like a— SPEAKER A 00:05:20 - 00:05:20 Oh yes. SPEAKER B 00:05:20 - 00:05:56 You know, a European cuckoo to fly to South Africa or so forth. We are programmed in a certain way to carry on and for survival. And so they would have to argue that somehow evolutionary mechanisms have arisen that have programmed us to make choices that have enhanced our survival. And therefore the choices that we make, we are masters. These are human things. And so they're relevant to the situation we're in. Hence, you know, situational ethics and— SPEAKER A 00:05:56 - 00:05:57 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:05:57 - 00:06:09 And these sort of things that come from that. And that's her argument that there's no moral values. But there's a major problem with that. And that major problem is that essentially anything is allowable. SPEAKER A 00:06:09 - 00:06:09 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:06:09 - 00:06:14 And that's why Hitler got away, for example, with the Holocaust. SPEAKER A 00:06:14 - 00:06:24 And I guess that means then the phenomenon of guilt shouldn't really exist if that was a true philosophy because It doesn't matter. SPEAKER B 00:06:25 - 00:06:25 Yes. SPEAKER A 00:06:25 - 00:06:41 Whatever is gonna enhance your survival, whether it's like, there's no, an objective moral compass is irrelevant. It's the outcome that's important. So yeah, guilt, that shouldn't even exist. So I guess that's a real problem for that evolutionary perspective. Yes. SPEAKER B 00:06:41 - 00:07:09 And this underpins a lot of psychology as well and how psychology attempts to deal with guilt and pacify people. But it's also quite fascinating that the Bible talks about this, particularly Paul in his book of Romans addresses this whole issue of guilt, where he points to the fact that even in remote tribes that have never heard anything about Christianity, these cultures had a sense of right and wrong. SPEAKER A 00:07:09 - 00:07:10 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:07:10 - 00:08:04 And that some people, they chose to go against the whole cultural values because they knew there was a higher absolute. There was a higher moral value, and they chose to live by that moral value. And that's something that Paul implies, that those people too, by making those choices, really will be saved by Jesus as well because they've made those choices in their heart. And that's a very interesting point that you raised there. So, there were obviously people that felt, hang on, human sacrifices such as practiced by the Mayans and other big cultures around the world were wrong. And would've made a stand against those things. And a lot of things, made a stand against slavery, against a lot of things 'cause they knew that there was a higher moral value. SPEAKER A 00:08:04 - 00:08:30 Now there's another worldview that is, I guess quite common, um, in various different, um, I guess religious persuasions or spiritual kind of persuasions where the idea that everything around us in our environment, everything we see, everything that exists on this earth is somehow naturally or innately spiritual and divine. And so this would be like a pantheistic sort of worldview. SPEAKER B 00:08:30 - 00:08:31 Yep. SPEAKER A 00:08:31 - 00:08:35 Um, does that give us any sort of foundation for morality? SPEAKER B 00:08:36 - 00:08:49 Yeah, well, that's another very interesting one again, where you look at God is in everything. In other words, we are in a sense like God and we are little gods in, in a sense. SPEAKER A 00:08:49 - 00:08:49 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:08:49 - 00:09:28 It's a very, very interesting thought. And it, it comes back from this, this whole concept, I guess when you look at it in, in the olden days, it was, attributing spirits to things like trees and rocks and different animals as well. Right. Mm-hmm. Some of it has arisen in modern ages through quantum theory and the fact that we're essentially all quantum fields of some kind or another. You know, we're largely empty space. If you look at the volume of an atom, you know, the nucleus is the size of a golf ball. The outer electron is, you know, about 4K away or whatever the value is. SPEAKER A 00:09:28 - 00:09:29 Wow. SPEAKER B 00:09:29 - 00:10:20 We are largely just energy fields. Yeah, for sure. And so from that is attributed a spiritual value. What maintains these energy fields? All these sort of things. And this has led to this whole concept then, okay, so we are part of that. So in a sense, there's no such thing as good and evil. There's no such sense thing as moral values because we're We're all together. We're all part of this spiritual entity. We're all one. So again, this leads to some very non-conclusive issues that again leads really back into relative moral relativism. That's the solution. So it's whatever the spirit leads you to do. SPEAKER A 00:10:20 - 00:10:21 Right. SPEAKER B 00:10:21 - 00:10:46 Whatever you feel moved to do, that is right for you. And again, this is why this is so widespread. It just feels, oh, it fits in with a whole lot of modern philosophies related to spiritualism, New Ageism, these sort of things. It fits in. What's right for you is right because you are part of the big entity. You make up this interesting entity. SPEAKER A 00:10:46 - 00:11:07 And I guess if, I guess if you are the entity, the God, part of the God, then there's no higher or other God that you're accountable to because you are part of God. So the idea of accountability and being judged and guilt and everything is negated because of that. Would that be correct? SPEAKER B 00:11:07 - 00:11:15 Yeah, it's true. And that led to, obviously underpins a lot of cultures that practiced human sacrifice and these sort of things. SPEAKER A 00:11:15 - 00:11:41 They have that mindset. Interesting. So Obviously, you know, we talked about the atheistic evolutionary kind of worldview model. We talked about the pantheistic worldview model, and then there's the theistic worldview model, of course. And we know that there is a morality associated with that. But why does the existence of right and wrong actually make the most sense in a world where God exists? SPEAKER B 00:11:41 - 00:12:05 Yeah. Now this is very— this raised a very interesting question as well. In that, okay, they can argue if, and Socrates sort of asked this sort of question, okay, if God exists, does God decree everything has to be good? Or does God decree it because good is good? SPEAKER A 00:12:05 - 00:12:06 Right. SPEAKER B 00:12:06 - 00:12:26 Yeah, you know? And of course the Christian answer is that God is separate from his creation. God created this world, right? And good is good because, not so much because God commanded it, but because that is what God is. SPEAKER A 00:12:26 - 00:12:27 Right. SPEAKER B 00:12:27 - 00:12:59 So the Bible talks about how God is love. And this is a very deep issue. A lot of people look at the Bible and they think, oh, you know, it's some myth and cultural thing, you know, written by, you know, religious sort of people. The Bible's extremely deep philosophically in its contents message. When we dig down, you know, God says, I'm self-existent. I've always existed. I'm outside time. I am love. And then the Bible defines what love is, that it's not selfish. SPEAKER A 00:12:59 - 00:12:59 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:12:59 - 00:13:33 It always does good to other people, this sort of thing. And so God deliberately gave absolute moral values, said it's wrong to kill, it's wrong to steal, it's wrong to tell lies. All these sort of things. It's wrong to desire things that belong to your neighbors, which we know intuitively now are wrong. And that's because we've been programmed. We've been created in the image of God. And the evidence that we have for that is twofold, I think. Twofold in that we have been given minds where we can understand the creation. SPEAKER A 00:13:33 - 00:13:33 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:13:33 - 00:13:41 We've begun to understand structure of the atom and so forth. We can't explain how we came here, but we can explain a lot of the operations. SPEAKER A 00:13:41 - 00:13:41 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:13:41 - 00:14:13 And the other thing is we've been given this intrinsic value of a conscience of right and wrong. And again, this is really, really powerful evidence for Christianity that there are these absolute moral values that we seem to be programmed with. And again, this leads us to very, very powerful evidence that God, there must be a God, and that the God of the Bible most strongly fits the evidence that we observe. SPEAKER A 00:14:13 - 00:14:37 Thank you for making that distinction so clear about these different ways of approaching this question and what fits the best, which obviously is acknowledging the existence of God. 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.