Foundation of Christian Moral Life 3

Arguments and Counterarguments (continued)

The problem of evil

Objection: If God is good and all-powerful, the state of the world argues against Him more strongly than morality argues for Him.

Response: This argument is the strongest objection to Christian faith, and it deserves far more space than a section in Chapter 1; Chapter 45 returns to it pastorally, which is where it usually needs to be met. Three things belong here. First, the objection is itself a moral argument, and it borrows the very moral realism it is often used to attack. If there is no object, then there is no problem of evil. Second, the Christian answer is not primarily philosophical but historical: God's response to the suffering of the world was to enter it and be killed by it. Third, no Christian should offer such an answer as a tidy solution to a person in agony. The book of Job ends without an explanation, and God rebukes the friends who supplied one.

The argument from moral disagreement

Objection: Cultures disagree profoundly about morality, which suggests there is no objective standard.

Response: Disagreement does not mean there is no fact of the matter; people disagreed for centuries about the causes of disease. And moral disagreement is routinely overstated. Much apparent disagreement about values turns out, on inspection, to be disagreement about facts. A society that burns witches and a society that does not may share the value "murderers should be punished" and differ about whether witchcraft exists and kills. A society that exposed infants and one that does not may share the value "the innocent must not be killed" and differ about who counts as a person — which is exactly the disagreement running through the modern debate on abortion, and worth noticing early.

Beneath the variation there is a striking core. Loyalty, fairness, courage, care for one's own children, and honesty are honoured, in some form, everywhere. The differences are real, and they mostly concern the scope of moral concern — how far the circle extends. That is a serious difference. It is not evidence that the circle is imaginary.

"That may be true for you, but not for me."

This is the sentence most Christians actually encounter, and it is rarely a philosophical position. Usually it is one of three things: a request to end an uncomfortable conversation; a defence of personal autonomy against someone perceived as controlling; or a genuine expression of humility about our capacity to know.

Each deserves a different response, and none deserves a lecture.

If it is a request to stop, the loving answer may well be to stop. Winning an argument with someone who has stopped listening is not evangelism.

If it is a defence of autonomy, the useful move is to say clearly that you are not trying to force anything, only to say what you believe and why. Much resistance to Christian moral claims is resistance to a tone.

If it is genuine, then a question is better than a speech. Do you think it was true only for its opponents that slavery was wrong — or was it wrong even for the slave-owners who believed it was right? Almost everyone, given a moment, will say the latter, and once they have said it, relativism has been abandoned in the only case that matters. This should be done without triumph. The aim is not to trap someone but to help them see what they already believe.

Difficult Cases

A genuinely torn conscience. A Christian nurse sincerely believes a treatment is wrong; her professional body says it is required. She is not being asked to choose between morality and preference but between two things she experiences as duties. Chapter 14 treats conscientious objection in medicine in detail. Note here that the existence of hard cases does not disprove objective morality any more than optical illusions disprove the existence of vision.

Moral progress within Scripture. Some Old Testament laws regulate practices that Christians now regard as wrong — polygamy, slavery, and the treatment of captives. If morality is unchanging, why did God tolerate these? The classical answer is divine accommodation: God works with human beings inside their historical situation, restraining evil before He abolishes it, as a physician treats a patient he cannot cure in a day. Christ Himself uses this reasoning about divorce, saying that Moses permitted it because of hardness of heart, but that it was not so from the beginning (Matthew 19:8). This is a real answer and not an evasion, but it must be handled with care, because "accommodation" can be stretched to excuse anything. Chapters 19 and 32 take up the hard cases directly.

When Scripture and conscience seem to conflict. A Christian reads a passage and finds it morally repugnant. The wrong responses are to suppress the reaction and pretend or to discard the text. The better path is to investigate: what is the passage actually saying, in its own language and setting? What have the Fathers made of it? Is my reaction moral insight or cultural reflex? Sometimes the investigation corrects the reader. Sometimes it reveals that the reader had misunderstood the text. This is slow work, and it is the honest kind.

The sincere person who is sincerely wrong. Sincerity does not make an act right, and this book will not pretend otherwise. But sincerity bears directly on culpability, which is a different question, treated in Chapter 3. A person who does wrong in genuine ignorance is not in the same position as one who knew. Both did the same wrong thing. They do not carry the same guilt.

Pastoral Guidance

Several things follow for how we handle this in real life.

Do not use these arguments to win. The urge to have the better argument at a family gathering is not the same as the desire for someone's good, and people can tell the difference instantly. If your relative leaves the conversation feeling defeated rather than considered, something has gone wrong even if every word you said was correct.

Notice that most moral disagreement is downstream of something else. People rarely change their moral views because of an argument. They change them because of a relationship, an experience, or a book that came at the right moment. Argument clears obstacles. It does not usually move the will.

Take the doubter seriously, especially in your own family. If a young person in your parish starts asking Mina's questions, the worst possible response is alarm. Questions of this kind are usually a sign of a mind waking up. A tradition that cannot survive being asked why is not worth handing on. The Coptic Church has been arguing philosophy since Alexandria was the intellectual capital of the world; it can manage a nineteen-year-old with a reading list.

Be honest about what you do not know. Saying "I do not know, but I know where to look" builds more credibility than a confident answer that turns out to be flimsy. And on some questions the honest Christian answer really is that we see through a glass darkly.

Do not let the strength of your convictions determine how you treat people. This is the whole burden of the book. The stronger your conviction, the more careful you must be, because a strong conviction held by a proud person is a dangerous instrument.

Practical Principles

1. Moral truth is real, and you did not invent it. This is a relief, not a burden: you are not responsible for constructing an ethical system from nothing.
2. Distinguish the three questions — whether moral truth exists, how we know it, and what grounds it. Most confused arguments are confusions between these.
3. Never argue that unbelievers cannot be good. It is false and unkind, and it destroys your credibility in everything else.
4. When you meet relativism, ask a question rather than delivering a speech, and choose a case where the person's own convictions will do the work.
5. Test moral claims against Scripture read whole, the mind of the Church, the witness of the saints, honest reason, and your conscience — and be suspicious when only one of these supports the conclusion you already wanted.
6. Expect moral knowledge to grow through obedience as much as through study. Some things become visible only after you have done them.
7. Hold your conclusions with the confidence they have earned: firmly where the Church has spoken clearly, provisionally where faithful Christians differ, humbly always.
8. Remember that being right is not the same as being righteous, and that the same Lord who is the Truth washed feet.

Questions for Reflection or Discussion

1. How would you have answered the lecturer's question about the self-contained society? Try to give a reason that does not simply restate your feeling.
2. Have you ever changed your mind about a serious moral question? What actually caused the change — an argument, an experience, or a person?
3. "Goodness is God's own nature." What difference does that make, practically, to how you read a commandment you find difficult?
4. Think of someone you know who does not share your faith and whose character you admire. How does the doctrine of the image of God explain this?
5. Is there a moral conviction you hold mainly because of your upbringing? How would you find out whether it is also true?
6. When someone says, "That's true for you, but not for me," what is usually going on underneath? How could you respond in a way that leaves the door open?

A Prayer

Lord, You are the Good, and everything true that I have ever recognised, I recognised by Your light. Where I am certain, keep me humble. Where I am confused, be patient with me. Save me from the arrogance of thinking I have understood. You and the cowardice of pretending I know nothing. Give me a love of truth that is stronger than my love of being right, and let me never wound another soul with the truth. You gave me for their healing. Amen.