What does faith have to do with morality? The choice to take something on faith is fundamentally a moral choice above all else. A good definition of faith comes from chapter 11 in the book of Hebrews in the Bible: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Basically, to take something on faith means believing in something for which there is no evidence. Loaning money to that friend who has never paid you back in the past and hoping this time will be different? That’s faith. Asking a stranger for coffee? Quite possibly an act of faith. Believing there is an all-loving super-being out there who cares for you personally? Most definitely an act of faith.
As a Christian, moral relativism was something I heard about quite a bit. The term was used in disdain; it was obvious that the Christians I were around felt that moral relativism represented something very wrong with the world. This is something I agree with them on. Unfortunately, I think the Christian stance on this is akin to psychological projection. That is, they deny that their own faith contains any such relativism, and instead assign it to those “not christian.”
The demonstration that moral relativism is at the core of Christian views of faith is relatively simple. It is a theme in the bible: from Abraham’s attempted murder via sacrifice of his only son, to the ongoing acceptance of hell as a legitimate theological stance. Abraham is held up as one of the holiest men of all time – the father of three of the worlds largest religions. His faith in God is adored and held up as an example. Very rarely are his actions questioned in a moral light. The questions, “why did he feel it appropriate to take action he knew to be wrong?” The answer for Christianity is a given: God told him to do so, and when you’re given a commandment by god, you are not to question, but to obey. To obey is the moral, holy thing to do. This idea has not died out. It’s why we still have suicide bombers, women who drown their children by divine commandment, and apparently, a war in Iraq.
Additionally, a divine commandment delivered personally supersedes any other divine commandments (turn the other cheek leaps to mind, ignoring the Big Ten.)
The other big example of moral relativism is the doctrine of hell. That is, the idea that those humans not made holy through the acceptance of Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior will spend eternity in eternal torture. It never ceases to amaze me how easily people seem to accept this idea. It’s given as the practice of perfect divine justice. Yet, given the definition of Justice, hell certainly doesn’t fit. There is no justice, fairness, grace, or love to be found in the doctrine of hell. I’ve gone in depth on this in the past, so I’m not going to rehash it. The doctrine of hell is the ultimate expression of faith: the acceptance of something known to be morally abhorrent as holy.
The theme is simple: morality is not objective but derived from mandates from god and the only absolute is obedience to those mandates.
This is a source for cognitive dissonance. How can any god worthy of the title give immoral commandments? Obviously he cannot, therefore any actions he takes are moral. Yet just a quick browse through the old testament yields dozens of instances where the abrahamic god is most certainly not moral. The solution for those who wish to remain Christians is to plead imperfection. The argument goes, god is much wiser than us, who are we to to judge his actions? God is all-just, especially when he’s killing people – or more likely – commanding people to kill other people. God is all-wise, especially when sending people to spend eternity being tortured.
The result of all this is nothing more than the further erosion of objective morality. What meaning does justice have when we accept eternal torture as a legitimate practice of it? What meaning does “right and wrong” have when it’s subject to ever-changing whims? It’s even worse in that there is no way to verify these whims. How can the woman who drowns her children by divine commandment be prosecuted? How do you know God didn’t tell her to take that action? There is no way to check. Luckily we have a secular government who can act against such madness.
Unfortunately for Christians, the remaining choices are not acceptable: either decide that god is not worthy of worship, and go looking for a god so deserving elsewhere, or stop believing in gods all together (or as I did, both). Some Christians are forging another way: re-interpreting Christianity to remove the moral ambiguity. Hell doesn’t survive the cut and Abraham becomes a villain. I don’t know how intellectually acceptable it is, but it is interesting.
So the next time you hear a Christian railing against “Moral Relativism” just remember: their beliefs are likely more relient on it than yours are.
Disclaimer: I realize I may be taking a simplistic approach to Abraham’s situation. The book that really talks about it, Fear and Trembling, is on my reading list, but it might be a while before I get to it.
Disclaimer 2: Yes, this is another post where I pigeonhole christians to mean “fundamentalist christians” Bad Josh! Bad bad Josh! I realize that not all Christians have the problems described above. However, those christians who have railed against moral relativism usually do have these problems, and that is why I wrote this. If you have a better way to describe these people that identifies them specifically, please let me know.
Theology