The Seven Deadly Spins--Skepticism about Morality

 It’s often said in our culture today, “You shouldn’t push your morality on others.” If this statement was simply used to argue that we should use persuasion rather than threats of force when we discuss morality, no one should object to that. But more often, there’s an unspoken claim that lies behind this statement; a claim that sounds something like this: “You shouldn’t push your morality on others—because what’s right and what’s wrong is just a matter of personal opinion.” Increasingly, our culture asserts that morality is a realm in which there are no objective standards that apply to everyone. We are told that each person must decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong and to tell another person that he’s done wrong would just be, well, wrong! It seems that the only sin in our society today is to tell another person that he’s sinned.

 It's not hard to see that this claim is self-contradictory. If you believe morality is relative to each person’s opinions and you say, “You shouldn’t push your morality on others,” you are really saying, “It’s wrong to tell someone else that he’s wrong!” Yet that’s exactly what you are doing by making this claim. Since this claim contradicts itself, it should be no surprise that we quickly abandon it when someone does us wrong. If you were (God forbid!) mugged in a parking lot somewhere, you wouldn’t think to yourself, “How unlucky that I ran into someone who has a different opinion about mugging!” No—you would think that this person has done wrong and that your assessment is not simply a personal opinion. You would think that this person had violated a true standard that applies to both of you and that he should have known about this standard and followed it. What’s more, you would be convinced that this man had done you wrong even if mugging was legal—so your conviction isn’t based on whatever the law happens to say but on something else, something more fundamental in reality than even the laws of a society.

 You would be right, of course, yet the idea that morality is relative still persists in our culture like a stubborn stain that won’t come out in the wash. On a spiritual level, it’s not hard to see why this persistence exists: we are sinners and we don’t want anyone telling us we’re wrong—not even God! On an intellectual level, I think there are two main reasons why moral relativism persists. First, we seem to assume that if there are objective standards for morality, then moral decisions ought to be easy. It might seem that our moral choices should be crystal clear if certain actions are always right and other actions are always wrong—yet our moral choices are not always easy to figure out, so we may question whether objective moral standards exist. But we need to understand that there’s a difference between recognizing moral standards and applying them. It’s one thing to acknowledge that the standard “do not murder” applies to all people at all times; it’s another thing to sort out whether a certain instance of killing is murder or if it is something else—like justifiable self-defense. But we must recognize that a difficulty in applying a standard doesn’t prove that the standard is non-existent.

 A second reason why moral relativism persists is the connection between morality and politics. Many moral issues have become hot-button political topics today. As free citizens of a republic, we correctly object to the idea that the government would have the power to tell us what is right and wrong. Yet it’s easy to take this line of thinking too far and say that if the government doesn’t have the power to tell me what is right and wrong, no one else should either—it should be entirely up to me. Here we must simply recognize the vast difference between human authority and divine authority. A human government cannot define what is right and wrong because it is also supposed to be subject to the true standards of right and wrong. But divine authority is different. God has the authority to tell us what is right and wrong because He is our Creator. He knows how and why He made us, so He can tell us what is good for human nature and what is evil for it, and He can declare what would move us toward our true purpose and what would move us away from it. This connection is why many people have seen the moral order to offer a powerful argument for God’s existence—for if objective moral standards exist for humans, God is the only one who could be their source. So ultimately, if you want to deny that objective moral standards exist, you must deny that God exists. I hope you’ll agree with me that that price is far too steep to pay.