Theology
Posted on 11/03/2009 9:57:44 AM PST by AreaMan
10.30.2009
Can people be good without God? How can people be good, in the moral and ethical sense, without being grounded in some sort of belief in a being which is greater than they are? Where do concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, come from if not from religion?
Children often repeat ideas gained elsewhere as if they were their own profound insights. I remember in school “inventing” what I thought was a stunning new idea for propulsion only to be told that jet engines were, in fact, fairly common. Of course, a good idea is not less good because kids don’t recognize the source, though you can forget the patent!
In the same way, moral secularists depend on God for their morality, but don’t recognize it. Walking with God over the centuries, theists have learned a thing or two about ethics from divine revelation, the image of God within each human being, and reason. While not able to found much of anything, many Western secularists have appropriated much of this heritage and use it within their own ethical lives. This is infinitely preferable to attempts by secularists such as Mao and Stalin to reinvent ethics in the twentieth century, and thus religious humanists (such as Christians) welcome secular humanists to the fold.
Some of the most ethical people I know are atheists and agnostics. One can certainly be moral without believing in God, but this is because men can surely breath without being aware of the existence of oxygen. God is the cause of moral goodness, but nobody has to recognize the cause in order to get the benefit.
Goodness is an idea that exists in the mind of God. It is built into the very fabric of His creation. When I look up on a starlit night, I see harmony and order. When I look at nature, I see a universe that reflects His glory. The light pollution of Los Angeles cannot obscure every star, and so even the poorest citizen of this crazy coast can still look beyond his petty problems and errors.
Concepts such as good and evil are built into the human soul. While each culture misses something and develops ethical blind spots that ultimately destroy it, one can look at humanity as a whole and get a good picture of what is right and wrong. Our own time has developed weird and wicked obsessions, but history is a good corrective to them. The image of God can been seen in looking at large numbers of men, even if it is obscured just in looking at me, because of where I fall short.
Finally, God is not silent. He speaks to each generation and each culture wooing them to the Divine. All the great world religions contain a seed of that call, though Christianity contains that message in its fullness. God so loved His world that He came Himself in the Jesus not just to show us the way to live, but to provide a means to do it.
This dependence on God, directly and indirectly, is obvious by looking at the creation of human cultures. In terms of global culture, theists create and secularists appropriate what theists create. There is no evidence that great world cultures can be created or sustained over the long haul without religion.
Education taught me right and wrong, good and evil. Much of that education came from nonbelievers who lived out the truths of what I believe better than I did. Plato was wrong about one thing: just knowing something is good does not give a man the moral power to do it.
Knowing what is good and doing it are two different things. Many thoughtful people from Plato to Confucius have had keen ethical vision. Some like Socrates have been willing to die for the truth, but what of the rest of us? What of the ways in which we all fall short of what we know in our hearts is right?
We don’t just need a standard, but mercy. It is mercy and a clean soul that secularism cannot by nature provide and Christianity can. Those of us who have done things we regret, who have placed scars on our souls, are given hope in Christianity that we can be “born again” . . . start over. This hope is priceless and makes me love God.
If you love God, you want to become more like Him. You slowly turn from your own petty loves and begin to love what He loves. This change is gradual, but it is real. Often it forces me to confront things about myself that I would prefer not to see, but love pushes me to change. It is no wonder that Christianity has spread throughout the globe, because it offers goodness with mercy and hope.
Humans can try to “reinvent” morality, though cultural revolutions have usually not worked out well for culture. We can try to pretend that we have not fallen short, even of our standards, but we know the truth. We can even declare our vices to be virtues, but remain vexed by our private sense of guilt and shame. Jesus offers us the truth with mercy, and it is that combination humanity so badly needs.
no
Nope.
Yes. Being an atheist or agnostic doesn't mean someone is an evildoer out to get everyone.
“Where do concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, come from if not from religion?”
They don’t come from religion; they are part of our GOD-GIVEN nature; it is part of his “image”!
No there is not— not if you believes what the Bible says.
If you don’t believe the Bible, than the answer would be yes.
I believe, therefore, my answer is no.
Perhaps ... but without God, "good" is no longer an objective thing; it requires human definition and is therefore a malleable thing. Morality becomes relative.
They may not be “saved” for a believer, but do you think that every atheist is evil and immoral?
The author never wrote that.
Excellent response and spot on. Like the abortion debate, Liberals think giving someone the freedom to murder is good, while they acknowledge begrudgingly that the underlying the supposed "Good" is something very black and evil. The definition of moral relativism and the slippery slope of relying on “Natural Law” as the atheists point to.
Certainly not intentionally. However, an atheist consciously rejects the very source of goodness and morality. Like cut flowers that soon wither and die without roots, atheists also have no roots for any morals they may hold, and they vanish under stress.
The question cannot be so simply couched. There are plenty of pagan gods out there that were horrific by today’s standards. Then there were and are many people who believed and are believers in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God, yet whose hideous actions they try to justify using God as an excuse.
In a more subtle light, there is the longstanding argument among more respectable God-believers whether people can be directly inspired by God, or can only do so through a small minority both trained and experienced in knowledge and faith.
There are those who claim that there is complete free will; but others who claim the outcomes are foreordained; and yet others who say all our actions are predestined. Still others say that God could intervene but chooses not to most of the time; that God set the universe into motion, and has let it run on its own since.
Such arguments and debates go far beyond these, and there are no ready answers beyond belief.
I believe the word teaches human nature is inherently “bad”.
Without a Savior, and, as a result, a change of heart, we will constantly only look to further our own selfish desires.
Romans: chapter 3: 9-12
9What shall we conclude then? Are we any betterb? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. 10As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
12All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
If you were young and your parents went out for the evening and left you at home by yourself, did you stay out of trouble or not?
People who stay out of trouble and behave themselves when mom and dad or the babysitter weren’t around are less likely to run amok if they don’t believe in god.
And while you can’t force religion on people it should be tolerated far and wide rather than attack daily in every way possible.
It was the first question of the article. Whether people can be good without God... The article itself of course is more differentiated. But I took the freedom to respond to the first question.
Yes, excellent response. No need for me to duplicate.
Yet, there it is...
They don’t come from religion; they are part of our GOD-GIVEN nature; it is part of his “image”!
The concepts of "good or evil" and "true or false" become subjective in the absence of God. If "good and evil" are subjective terms, then they can mean a different thing to each person. But that renders them meaningless.
The concepts of good and truth need to be anchored in the absolute, which is to say they need to be anchored in God.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.