In the last blog I wrote about how morality is not a human
construct. I did so briefly, and in very
little detail. I am going to proceed with
the assumption that morality is not a human construct. If you want to read more on the subject,
there are many books on the topic. I
personally recommend The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis.
If moral law is not human construct, one would suppose that
it came from some entity beyond nature.
Thus we need to look deeper at reality.
We need to go beyond merely the physical world and into the spiritual
and philosophical realms.
Millions before me have tried to delve into this topic, and we would be wise to read
the thought of those who came before us.
However, this is a blog not a book, so I do not have the space to delve
deeply into the thoughts of even a fraction of the sage men and women of times gone by.
Rather let me tell you what criteria I use to determine which teachings
have the most authority. This will narrow
down the list and expedite our quest.
I would want teachings that admit that morality does not
come from man. I have already briefly
demonstrated how this is a flawed assumption, and smarter men than me have done
an even better job arguing this point.
Therefore, I rule out any philosophy that makes humanity the source of
morality. This essentially leaves us
with religions.
I would next rule out any religion in which the supernatural
entities are dependent on or derived from humanity. If such forces are dependent on humanity then
humanity has a say as to what is moral and what is not because we can
manipulate the supernatural to do our bidding.
This would put us back in the realm of humanity being the source of
morality. Thus animistic religions fall
short, as do most eastern religions.
I would also rule out religions that claim the source of
morality to be a non-personal entity. If
the source was non-personal, the laws of morality would be mere facts of nature
produced by random chance. They would
therefore, have neither real power nor a compelling reason to obey them. This would leave us with a non-morality
system which is, in essence, a human morality.
The moral law can find its origin in either one person or more
than one person provided that those persons are in such unity that they never differ
in their opinions on morality. A
pantheon, like in ancient Greek or Roman religions, would not do because the
gods in these stories are often depicted as being at odds with each other, and seem to have
no set morality other than their own desires.
A “deist republic” would not suffice to produce a stable moral system.
It appears that we would have to find our moral lawgiver in
a monotheistic religion. This is
somewhat problematic because there are several monotheistic religions. To narrow down the field further, the thing
to look for is unity. Anyone can write a
book about God and claim it to be true.
What we need to look for is books that have unity despite being written
over a great period of time and in different cultures and languages. This would demonstrate that the books find their source from something that transcends a specific culture and way of thought. I find this in the Bible.
To understand my reasoning, it is important to realize that
the Bible is not just one book. It is 66
books. These 66 books were written by
about 40 different authors. These 40
different authors did not all live at the same time either. The 66 books of the Bible were written over
about 1600 years. They were also not all
written in the same language. The Bible
was written in three different languages (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic). It was also written on three different
continents.
So to sum up, the Bible is a collection of 66 books written
by about 40 different authors over the course of 1600 years in three different
languages on three different continents.
Yet despite this great diversity in time, geography, authorship,
cultures, and languages, these 66 books are unified in their overall teachings
and story-line.
Such unity through
diversity leads me to believe that these books were divinely inspired. Should anyone disagree I challenge them to
duplicate this feat using any other books written throughout history, but
remember the conditions: at least 66 books, at least 40 authors, at least 3
languages, at least 3 continents, and unity in content.
To further state my point, let’s look at a section of the
Bible:
“He grew up before him like a
tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to
him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a
man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held
him in low esteem. Surely he took up our
pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by
him, and afflicted. But he was pierced
for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that
brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of
us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us
all.”
If you know anything about Jesus, you probably recognize that
this passage is about Him. You would be
correct. This passage is about the
Messiah. Yet it was written hundreds of
years before Jesus was born.
One might object at this point and say, “Sure, you claim
that the books are diverse in origin yet unified in content, but how do we know
that they were not doctored after the fact.
How do we know that the prophecy about Christ you just presented was not
written centuries after Christ to improve the legitimacy of Christianity and
then falsely ascribed to an ancient prophet?”
This is a fair objection.
None of the original manuscripts of the Bible exist as far as we
know. Yet there are manuscripts that
date to before the time of Christ. In
the case of the passage above, the oldest existing manuscript (that I am aware
of) dates to about 100 years before the birth of Christ. There may be debate as to when the above
passage was written, but no scholar would date its writing after Christ’s
birth.
Reflect again on the passage above. It was written hundreds of years before
Christ was born. Can you think of anyone
else it could possibly describe? If not,
then we have a legitimate prophecy clearly pointing to Jesus as the
Messiah. What does this tell us about
the authority of the Bible, and the person of Jesus? I believe it demonstrates that they are both
divine in their origin.
If the Bible provides us with God’s moral law, the next
question is how we measure up to it. This is the question we all fear. I will answer it next time.
