Posted on 01/05/2002 11:44:50 AM PST by Dr. Brian Kopp
Can We Be Good Without God J. BUDZISZEWSKI
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ABSTRACT: Now the question "Can we be good without God?" may be taken in two different ways. One way focuses on knowledge, the other on action; one takes the question as meaning "Can we 'know' what's good without 'knowing' God?", the other takes it as meaning "Can we 'do' what's good without 'following' God?" Let's consider both. |
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I’ve been asked to speak today on the question, “Can we be good without God?” To answer, I’m tempted to tell you my own story. Years ago when I rejected God, I also rejected the distinction between good and evil. Then again, I was an extreme case. Someone who asks “Can we be good without God?” isn’t trying to be extreme; he’s looking for a halfway house. So instead of telling you my story, I’ll try to lay out the logic of the matter.
Now the question “Can we be good without God?” may be taken in two different ways. One way focuses on knowledge, the other on action; one takes the question as meaning “Can we ‘know’ what’s good without ‘knowing’ God?”, the other takes it as meaning “Can we ‘do’ what’s good without ‘following’ God?” Let’s consider both.
Can We Know What’s Good?
As to the first — whether we can know what’s good without knowing God — you may think I’m going to say that unless we study the Bible we can’t know anything at all about right or wrong. I’m not, for the Bible itself makes the opposite claim: it says God has written a law on the hearts of all. Everyone has a conscience, and although the outer ring of our conscience may be influenced by culture, the inner core is universal and unchanging.
For instance there isn’t a human being alive who doesn’t know the good and right of love, and there isn’t a human being alive who doesn’t know the evil and wrong of murder. In the Biblical view, if we are confused about such things as sex, selfishness, abortion and euthanasia, the problem isn’t so much that we don’t know about right and wrong, but that we “suppress what we do” know about them. For we can’t not know the basic outlines of right and wrong.
Perhaps you think, then, that the answer to the question “Can we know good without knowing God?” is “Sure. Didn’t you just say we can?” Not so fast. I’ve said we all “know” something — but I’ve also said we “suppress” that knowledge. Let’s dig a little more deeply into this business of suppressing what we really know.
To begin, let’s ask why we do it. Why do we lie to ourselves about what’s right and wrong? We do it for the simple reason that we have a vested interest in doing so. We may want to know the truth, but the desire to know is not the only desire at work in us. The strong desire “not” to know competes with it, for our knowledge of right and wrong is an inconvenience to us. So we moan about how difficult it is to know what’s right even when we know perfectly well what’s right.
Now I propose to you that one of the things about good that we know perfectly well is the reality and goodness of God. When the Bible says, “The fool says in his heart ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1), it doesn’t call him a fool for “thinking” it, but for “saying” it, even though deep down he knows it isn’t true. From the Biblical point of view, the reason it’s so difficult to argue with an atheist — as I once was — is that he’s not being honest with himself. He knows that there is a God; he only tells himself he doesn’t know.
If this Biblical view is true — you are perfectly within your rights to challenge it, and we can take up such matters in the question-and-answer period — but if this daring, preposterous, Biblical view is true, as I think it is, it changes everything. Why? Because that would show that the real meaning of the question “Can I know good without knowing God?” is “Can I admit one part of my moral knowledge while holding down another?”, or “Can I admit to myself that I know about, say, the goodness of love and the evil of murder, while ‘not’ admitting to myself that I know about the goodness of God and the evil of refusing Him?”
My answer is you certainly can do that, but you will never do it well. To hold down part of your moral knowledge is to lie to yourself. So what? Think. We all know from experience that one lie leads to another. If you tell a big enough lie about something, pretty soon you have to tell a second one about something else just to cover it up. After a while you may find yourself lying about lots of things, and then you start losing track of when you’re lying and when you’re not. Before long you can’t tell at all any more. You’re lost in a maze of your making, unable to see the difference between how things are and how you said they are.
Now the same thing is true when you lie to yourself. Here too one lie leads to another. This is especially true with the biggest self-deception of all, when you lie to yourself about God, because that knowledge is connected to the knowledge of everything else. Let me illustrate with something I mentioned earlier — the knowledge of the good of love and the wrong of murder. You may try to hold onto your knowledge of the good of love — but if you lie to yourself about the God whose very being is love, then your understanding of all love will be defective. That’s why we do such awful things in love’s name. Or you may try to hold onto your knowledge of the evil of murdering your neighbor — but if you lie to yourself about the God in whose image your neighbor is made, then you will find it difficult to recognize your neighbor when you see him. That’s why we do such terrible things to those who have the greatest claim on our protection.
Can We Do What’s Good?
I said at the beginning that the question “Can we be good without God?” may be taken in two different ways. We’ve just considered the first way. Can we “know” what’s good without “knowing” God? What we’ve seen is that in a superficial way the answer is “Yes,” but in a deeper the answer is “No.” Now let’s consider the second way. Can we “do” what’s good without “following” God? The answer this time is the same as before: Yes and no, but mostly no.
The “Yes” side is that as everyone knows, a person who doesn’t follow God can sometimes do the right thing. He can sometimes tell the truth, he can sometimes show compassion, he can sometimes set aside his own interests for someone else. The problem is that this isn’t enough. God is absolutely holy. We’re not. When Moses asked to see God face to face, God said no, because it would kill him. When the great prophet Isaiah caught just a glimpse of the glory of God, He said “Woe is me! I am undone.” When the glory of God filled the ancient temple, strong men fell down. These were what we call good people, but as St. Paul says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Once one of my students asked if he could talk about God with me. I said okay. He told me he didn’t see why he couldn’t be good without God. I asked him why he didn’t. He said, “Because I think I’m a decent person.” I replied, “If you think your decency is high enough for God, your idea of God must be pretty low.” At first he was shocked. But then I asked him whether he thought he could go a week without selfishness, without resentment, without lust. I asked whether he thought he could go a day, an hour, ten minutes. He got the point, because he knew he couldn’t. By myself, neither can I.
You see, trying to do without God has ruined us inwardly. Yes, by His mercy, there are still some good things in us, but not one of those good things is in its original healthy state. Not only are we broken, but we can’t repair ourselves. Could you perform surgery on your own eyes, or treat yourself for madness? Suppose you tore off both arms; without your hands, could you sew them back on? Our sin-sickness is something like that. We may long to love purely, but our desires have become idols that control us. We may long to be holy, but our righteousness has become self-righteousness that rules us. We may long to be reconciled with God, but we can’t stop wanting to be the center of the universe ourselves.
Because the law of right and wrong is written on the heart of all, many philosophies and religions teach about right and wrong with pretty fair accuracy. What they can’t do is heal the sin-sickness. However true, no mere doctrine can do that. Our cancer requires more than a doctrine. What it requires is the divine surgeon, God Himself, and the name of His surgery is Jesus Christ.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
J. Budziszewski "Can We Be Good Without God." Boundless (December 6, 2001).
Reprinted with permission of J. Budziszewski.
THE AUTHOR
J. Budziszewski (Boojee-shefski) J. Budziszewski is Associate Professor of Government and Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a specialist in ethical and political philosophy and the author of Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law, How to Stay Christian in College: An Interactive Guide to Keeping the Faith, and The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man. He writes a monthly column for Boundless. J. Budziszewski is on the Advisory Board of the Catholic Educator's Resource Center.
Copyright © 2001 J. Budziszewski. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.
Do you seriously believe what you wrote? You must live in a relativist utopia. So--God should remove punishment from people who commit unrepentant murder--he should just let them into heaven and that will make people do good? What are you smoking?
How do you define truth?
You have distorted Christianity and so you have distorted its conception of morality. Christianity does not teach that we are either saved/damned on the basis of our behavior. Instead it teaches that 'none are good' and we are only saved through Christ. This does not mean that becoming a Christian will not make one good- it will. However, the connection you have made between behavior and eternal destiny is a creature of your own making.
Furthermore, how can an atheist do good for its own sake? There is no place for good in the atheist universe. If we are the creation of random chemical interactions then I see no basis for of the existence of goodness.
Christianity does not call us to act good. Christ saved his harshest words for those who acted well but ignored the spirit of the law. Christians are called to be good. Read the Sermon on the Mount- it is about purification of the self- not acting rightly out of fear.
Animals are not properly moral in any sense. They are ontologically good as humans are- but they also participate in creation's fallen nature.
Yeah...
Aint gonna get "you" anything...but sure you can.
Somebody's knocking at your door, and I don't think it's Ed McMahon. I'd answer it if I were you.
He's still knocking.
I'm looking at it right now.
Sleep well, lexcorp.
We aren't a warring nation. We have never been a warring nation with the intent to plunder. But here we are, wondering about GOD, country and our families united to destroy our enemies. There is a message in all this and I don't get it, yet. I don't know how GOD regards good but "we" certainly know what evil is, don't we?
Whether some make this connection or not is irrelevant- I am stating flatly that this is not a Christian teaching. Do you understand this? If you cannot, I will not argue with someone who seeks to tell others what they believe based on their own ignorant conceptions.
Furthermore, why don't you try studying philosophy before you before you create your own histories that satisfy your prejuidices. The idea of gods and rewards/punishments is far older than any conception of the soul which only came along with the Greeks. However, one's man 'invented' is another man's 'discovered' (even if even in a crude form.)
Hello, I'm st.smith, and I make broad, sweeping and incorrect assumptions about people whose belief systems I'm unable to understand."
If I am incorrect, why don't you try to formulate a rational argument why it is so?
Here's a test: assume a situation such as in "Towing Jehovah:" you wake up tomorrow and read the news "God Has Just Died" (or left the universe on it's own forever, or shut the doors to heaven and hell, whatever you like). There will be no more salvation, and it has been somehow or other proven to your personal satisfaction (Jesus came down and said "I've got some bad news, " something like that). When you die, it's lights out, but the universe keeps on ticking. Do you get dressed and go to work, or go nuts like a British soccer fan and start trashing your neighbors apartment
This scenario contains a fundamental contradiction. For God to act in this manner this manner would be arbitrary. God by definition is immutable and unchangeable- the god in this scenario is some sort of divine tyrant. I can make this statement on philosophical grounds alone. If God exists he is eternal and unchanging in nature.
However to answer your question I can posit a universe in which God does not exist at all. In such a universe I would agree with Dostoyevsky that "if there is no God, everything is permitted."
Dear Friend, the Sermon on the Mount is not such a good place to suggest as necessary for DOCTRINAL understanding in 2002. Not many understand the Bible as well as you. You, no doubt, understand that Christian doctrine (for this age), is understood best by a study of epistles to Christians, i.e., the Pauline letters, which of course Matt. is not.
For example, if one who were not quite so learned as you were to go to Matt. 5 (Sermon on the Mount), they may get the mistaken notion that if they were to be "poor in spirit", the "kingdom of Heaven would be theirs", (Matt. 5-3), and it wouldn't.
They may think that if they were to "mourn", that God would "comfort them", and He wouldn't.Matt. (5-4).
They may think that if they were to be "meek", that they would "inherit the earth', and they will inherit nothing. (Matt. 5-5). Etc., etc., etc..
I do not intend to criticize you, only to offer a bit of insight and clarification to those who may not be quite so grounded in "rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Tim 2-15) as you are.
Your friend, LP.
Why the separation?? Matthew must be understood within the context of the entire NT canon as well as the Bible as a whole- but this in no way negates its truth (doctrinal or otherwise), it simply places it within the context of a more comprehensive message.
For example, if one who were not quite so learned as you were to go to Matt. 5 (Sermon on the Mount), they may get the mistaken notion that if they were to be "poor in spirit", the "kingdom of Heaven would be theirs", (Matt. 5-3), and it wouldn't.
I would never suggest that someone take any passage out of context. I was simply citing as a direct example of how Christianity requires self-purification and not merely Pharasaical following of the letter of the law. However, I do not see the purpose of denigrating Matthew's gospel or at least placing it in opposition with Paul's epistles.
If you are asking where do God's sympathies lie- that is a dangerous road to follow. Inummerable wars have been fought under the misapprehension that 'God is on our side.' God is not on anyone's side- to whatever extent we trust in God and His will we are on His side, to whatever extent we don't we are against God.
I would agree with the above (emphasis mine).
To it I would add that the twain are so inextricable as to lend veracity to the following:
Where there is good, there is God also.
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