An atheist told me that in order to seriously consider Christianity, he would have to believe or assume certain things:
1. There is a non-material element of each human being, the soul, which is created at conception and continues to exist after the death of the individual.
2. There exists two places, heaven and hell, that are or will be eternal repositories for souls rejoined with their physical bodies at some point in the future.
3. There exists a single set of immutable rules governing all human activity, morals.
4. Transgressions against these morals, sins, are punishable by eternal extreme torture in hell.
5. Mitigation of this punishment and attainment of heaven is only available through belief in and practice of a particular religious doctrine.
In my first post, "A Skeptic's Guide to Faith," I set forth what I consider to be the best conceptual framework for deciding whether Christianity is true. Mathematical or scientific proof is not possible for reasons we have already discussed. This means that we are left with the legal standards of proof: "the preponderance of the evidence" (civil) or "beyond a reasonable doubt" (criminal), or we can see if the Bible is consistent with the evidence. According to Denis Alexander, this is the standard often used by scientists: "Scientists habitually use that little phrase 'consistent with' in the discussion sections of our scientific papers. We don't 'prove things' in biology, but we do gather data that can count for or against a theory."
I decided to go with the latter standard. If the Bible is the true inspired word of God, it will be consistent with reality, and it will be the best explanation for reality. But if it's just the best explanation for a few aspects of reality, then it fails. The Bible, properly understood, has to be the best explanation for every aspect of reality.
Next, I discussed what the Bible says about an "immortal soul" and eternal punishment. My approach was to put aside cultural assumptions and study everything the Bible says about the soul and hell. Although we have no way of proving whether or not this is true, we can determine whether the Bible is internally consistent, including whether its teaching about hell is consistent with its teaching that the Moral Law is written on our hearts. That is, is the Bible's teaching about hell moral? I reached the conclusion that, properly understood, it is. In a future blog post, where I will discuss God's solution to the problem of evil, I will also argue that it is necessary.
In this post, I will address the issue of Moral Law and examine whether evolutionary or cultural factors provide a better explanation than the existence of a divine Lawgiver. Again, the question is which explanation fits best. One might argue that a sense of right and wrong is a by-product of evolution, since animals also exhibit care for members of their group. But what about altruism? Why do humans almost universally agree that it is right to risk one's life in order to save or protect someone else? And why do we feel particularly inclined to protect the vulnerable or disabled? These things are universally considered morally right—not simply wise or expedient. Altruism is by its very nature the unselfish giving of oneself for the benefit of someone else.
When our oldest daughter Chelsea was about nine and Ingrid was seven, we took the family out to the California coast for a day trip. Rick had the boys elsewhere on the beach and Chelsea, Ingrid, and I waded into the water (but it was too cold for swimsuits, so we just rolled up our pants). Ingrid is disabled and could not walk without support at the time, so I held her hand, and Chelsea was a few feet away. When a large wave suddenly pulled the sand out from under our feet, Ingrid and Chelsea both started to lose their footing. Although I was able to quickly stabilize Ingrid, a man standing nearby grabbed her other hand as Chelsea fell into the water and got soaked.
Well, Chelsea was very indignant on the drive home because she could not see the logic behind this man's actions. "Why did he grab Ingrid's hand and not mine when you had her other hand? She wasn't going to fall anyway." We tried to explain that it was because he could see that Ingrid was disabled and he just reacted instinctively—if he had had time to think about it, he probably would have grabbed Chelsea's hand. (Chelsea only reluctantly gave me permission to use this story because it made her "seem obnoxious," so I want to make sure that everyone knows that she is a very nice girl who isn't the slightest bit obnoxious. This attitude was cold- and wetness-induced. Also, it was years ago.)
This was just a normal human reaction to seeing a vulnerable person in danger, but some will risk everything, including their lives, for other people. And even if we are not capable of that kind of altruism, we admire those who are. Is Darwinian evolution responsible for the instinct to protect a stranger even at the cost of one's own life? How could the "selfish gene" have evolved in such a way? Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project says:
One proposal is that repeated altruistic behavior of the individual is recognized as a positive attribute in mate selection. But this hypothesis is in direct conflict with observations in nonhuman primates that often reveal just the opposite--such as the practice of infanticide by a newly dominant male monkey, in order to clear the way for his own future offspring. Another argument is that there are indirect reciprocal benefits from altruism that have provided advantages to the practitioner over evolutionary time; but this explanation cannot account for human motivation to practice small acts of conscience that no one else knows about.
But maybe the Moral Law has nothing to do with evolution; perhaps it's just cultural. People almost universally agree that integrity, justice, and courage are admirable qualities. But why do people choose to act in this way? Is it for social approval? No, it goes far beyond that, because we admire those qualities even more when someone does the right thing in the face of persecution. In the movie A Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas More had been imprisoned awaiting execution for refusing to swear an oath supporting the divorce and remarriage of King Henry VIII. When his family came to visit in order to convince him to swear the oath, his daughter Meg accused him of playing the hero, and he said:
If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly. And we'd live like animals or angels in the happy land that needs no heroes. But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose to be human at all . . . why then perhaps we must stand fast a little—even at the risk of being heroes.
The Moral Law calls us to act with courage and integrity even when nobody approves. It means staying on the path of truth and justice when it leads to social rejection and even death. And although we can watch the movie about Sir Thomas More and admire his actions, his peers (those whose approval matters most) stripped him of his title of Lord Chancellor and executed him.
In the movie To Kill a Mockingbird, attorney Atticus Finch defended an African American man who had been wrongly accused of raping a white woman. His decision to promote justice made him a pariah in his small, racially bigoted southern town and even put his children in danger. He lost the trial due to the lies of the prosecuting witness and the corruption of the jury. When he packed up his briefcase and left the empty courtroom, all the African Americans who sat crowded together up in the balcony stood up as he passed. But the most powerful part of that scene is that he never looked up and saw it.
The Moral Law at its purest calls for this kind of selfless dedication to doing what is right regardless of consequences. Few are willing to make the sacrifice when following it becomes hard. It doesn't promise popularity, power, or wealth. But as much as we may try to squash it, every human heart bears its imprint. Why is this? C. S. Lewis says:
If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe—no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that is just what we do find inside ourselves. Surely this ought to arouse our suspicions?
The aspect of the Moral Law that is most difficult to explain in naturalistic terms is the kind of altruism that makes a person willing to die for a stranger and even an enemy, or to suffer scorn and rejection for the well-being of others. In my previous post, we discussed possible natural explanations, like evolution or culture. Now we will discuss the possibility of a divine Lawgiver.
