The American Worldview Alert

Issue # 4 Dr. Frederick Meekins 11/1/09

The Moral Argument For God

The early 21st century stands as a period of profound moral confusion. On the one hand,
mothers and doctors are permitted to crack open the skulls and suck out the brains of
nearly-born babies with government sanction under the banner of partial birth abortion.
Should these very same people hike into the woods and crack open a bald eagle egg, they
could face serious prison time.

It would therefore seem that contemporary society is marked by two seemingly

contradictory extremes --- that of extreme license and that of excessive control. However,
upon closer inspection it could be concluded that these conditions are not as contradictory
as the situation might originally appear. Rather, it would seem each is the result of the
systematic removal of the ethical balance provided within the Judeo-Christian tradition
with its emphasis upon transcendent standards provided by an infinitely just and loving
God.

With the increasing complexity of knowledge and technology, those trained in the
acquisition and use of this complex body of thought (those broadly referred to as
“intellectuals”) have taken on increased levels of influence and responsibility throughout
society. No longer does agriculture or manufacturing dominate society to the degree it
once did.

Futurists from Alvin Toffler to Newt Gingrich have characterized the current sociological
epoch as information-based, with those manipulating this information from government
bureaucrats to Hollywood producers exercising unfathomable power over the composition
of the contemporary mind. Therefore, it must be remembered, as Lord Acton is believed
to have said, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Through a historical process too complicated to detail to a significant degree in this brief
analysis, the prevailing secular elite came to see the world around them and their own
assorted intellectual systems as satisfactory explanations in and of themselves for the
reality in which these thinkers found themselves. According to Phillip Johnson in “Reason
In The Balance”, this way of viewing the world prevalent among the most influential
intellectuals is naturalism. Naturalism is the idea that the material reality constitutes the
totality of existence and the idea of God is merely a mental construct promulgated in an
attempt to cope with the stark realities of the universe in which man finds himself (7).

The average person might naturally conclude that naturalism by its nature would confine
itself to the issues of blunt observable scientific fact. However, naturalism has left the
tedium of the laboratory and now seeks to influence fields as divergent from science as
education, ethics, and government. It is through this set of paradigms embracing the
present material reality as the highest criteria of judgment that the twin siblings of chaos
and tyranny have become so prevalent throughout world society.

No matter what the secular elites call their particular systems or what concerns these
systems emphasize, it is the goal of the secular elite to remake man in the image of the
prevailing secular elite. According to Alister McGrath in “Intellectuals Don’t Need God &
Other Modern Myths”, prominent ideologies competing for the minds of men include
Enlightenment rationalism, Marxism, and scientific materialism (160).

Despite the shades of difference between each of these systems, at their core each shares
the assumption that man is bound by no eternal standard beyond this reality and can be
remade into whatever the powers that be see fit. It is from this effort to remake the
fundamental nature of man that the sorrow of anarchy and tyranny flow.

Bound by certain God-ordained limits regarding behavioral standards and human

relationships, man can expect nothing but heartache should he decide to ignore these
warnings. However, those seeking to craft a cultural ethos standing apart from the moral
will of God regularly ignore these moral stoplights like newly-licensed teenagers barreling
down the Las Vegas strip.

Proponents of modernism originally hypothesized that man could retain a high degree of
morality without reference to all that theological superstition. Yet without a clear
theological reference by which to measure, the actions of man degenerate into the depths
of unfathomable evil.

According to Norman Geisler in “Introduction To Philosophy: A Christian Perspective”,

when man looks to himself as the source of right and wrong, the result is existential
subjectivism and relativism where each person becomes a law unto themselves (404).
And while modernism attempted to maintain the illusion of objective standards apart from
the revelation of God, the logical conclusion of such atheistic thinking --- postmodernism -
-- holds to no such delusions. In fact, political radical and literary critic Michel Foulcalt
has stated there are no facts (though this assertion is itself stated as a fact) and his fellow
travelers down the deconstructionist superhighway literally fancy themselves as “assassins
of objectivity” according to Lynne Cheney in “Telling The Truth: Why Our Culture &
Country Have Stopped Making Sense & What We Can Do About It” (91).

Such sentiments possess ramifications beyond settling the issue of whether or not hemlines
will be low or high for the coming year. Such ideas determine the very shape and
composition of human society and relationships.

This is particularly evident on college campuses where these kinds of ideas enjoy free
reign having the status of orthodoxy and where no one bats an eye with anarchy and
tyranny walking together hand in hand. For example, Dinesh D’Souza points out in
“Illiberal Education : The Politics Of Race & Sex On Campus” that many college
campuses distribute condoms and support the vilest profanity as art yet advocate a radical
form of feminism just about branding traditional forms of sex as rape and enforce speech
codes so broad as to punish “misdirected laughter” and “exclusion from conversation”
(238).

Furthermore, much of twentieth and twenty-first history has been a running commentary on
the chaos and tyranny that result from attempting to undermine the insoluble union
between morality and divinity. The former Soviet Union perhaps stands as the primary
example of this kind of experiment where in an attempt to better himself man turns his
back on God and reaps the consequences in abundance. That particular society
experienced bloodshed and misery rarely repeated in human history except perhaps in its
sister dictatorships of Nazi Germany and Maoist China.

Without an objective standard as provided by the moral revelation of God, the state as
embodied by the Communist Party was free to do as it pleased such as changing the law at
the drop of a hat and then violate the law when it suited without any degree of institutional
recourse available to the Soviet people. In his monumental "Understanding The Times",
David Noebel quotes a Communist functionary who said, "There is no God, no hereafter,
no punishment for evil. We can do as we wish. I thank God, in whom I don't believe, that
I have lived to this hour when I can express all of this evil in my heart (104). Few
Evangelical thinkers have been able to express the moral dangers of atheism in a more
succinct manner.
Standing in marked opposition to atheism and its law of the jungle and inherent
antinomianism is belief in God and the corollaries of morality flowing from God's
existence. From the heartaches and confusion mentioned previously in this exposition, it is
evident that mankind is incapable of establishing a satisfactory moral system of his own
accord.

Instead, man must be provided one by an objective outside source yet one familiar with the
conditions under which man is capable of thriving. Furthermore, it is only through God as
revealed in Scripture that one is even justified in speaking of morality in the first place.

Try as he might, C.S. Lewis points out in "Mere Christianity", man cannot escape the
encompassing embrace or rebuke of morality. For even in the attempt to flee from its more
traditional formulations, one must invoke the structure of its dialogue in order to appeal to
a competing set of standards (3).

For example, D. James Kennedy points out in "Character & Destiny: A Nation In Search
Of Its Soul" that tolerance is the last virtue of an immoral society since this moral principle
in invoked to cover over a plethora of popular abominations ranging from pornography to
abortion to sodomy (78). The issue is not so much that man will live without some degree
of morality, but rather by whose standards will man live and the consequences resulting
from such decisions.

Westminster Seminary Professor John Frame elaborates in "Apologetics To The Glory Of

God" that, in order to exist as objective standards beyond the level of subjective
sentiments, morals must stem from an absolute source; and since these principles govern
personable entities, they must exude from an absolute ultimate personality (100). If
morality exists in a transcendent source apart from man in God, morality is granted a
degree of liberation from the murky fog of subjectivism yet is accessible to man and can be
said to exist in all situations even if finite man refused to disentangle himself from the
passion of the moment to view these conundrums from the crisp peaks of objective
detachment.

Since these divinely legislated standards stem from God, they exist as part of the
underlying fabric of the universe. Try as he might, man cannot escape the lure of morality,
such a situation further attesting to the power of the God standing behind these principles.
Romans 2:14-15 says, "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature
things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the
law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts...(NIV)."

Even those who actively choose to suppress and undermine this universal order appeal to it
when it suits their interests. C.S. Lewis writes in "Mere Christianity", "Whenever you find
a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man
going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try
breaking one to him he will be complaining before he can say Jack Robinson (5)."
Norman Geisler illustrates this point in "Christian Ethics" in the story of a student
professing antinomianism who appealed to objective standards upon receiving a failing
grade from this ethics instructor regarding a trivial matter (384).

At this point, readers not normally enchanted by the banter of academic dialogue may
concede that morality does indeed flow from God but may wonder what practical impact
such a truth may have in everyday existence. Actually, quite a bit.

Since God is both the legislator of traditional morality and the loving creator of man, it
follows that the traditional moral system established by God and set forth in the revelation
of the Holy Bible is the system of morality best suited to the nature of humanity, both
protecting him to the greatest possible degree from the rampant evil plaguing a fallen
world and allowing him to enjoy whatever goodness that remains in it through the grace of
God.

For example, God did not establish the rules surrounding marriage in order to toss a wet
blanket over the fornication follies. Rather, confining the act of human intimacy within the
context of marriage balances both the desire for physical pleasure and the need for lasting
love, to say nothing of protecting the individual against the proto-apocalyptic pestilences
now ravaging millions. Instead of withering away like a forgotten memory as predicted by
some, Tim LaHaye hypothesizes in "The Battle For The Family" that the family will in
reality provide a foundation of stability in times of unprecedented social turmoil (237).

The moral argument for God is far more than a dry academic proof found in seminary
textbooks. Its reality is being made more concrete each day throughout the culture as the
nation continues to drift away from its Judeo-Christian foundations.

In "Turning The Tide: The Fall Of Liberalism & The Rise Of Common Sense", Pat
Robertson describes the two possible futures that await the United States (293-296).
Americans can either repent of their wickedness and return to God and His standards,
experiencing national renewal, individual well-being, and eternal salvation in the process.
Or, the American people can continue in their sin and deny God's very existence, risking
national decline, personal suffering, and eternal damnation as a result. The choice is up to
you, with your eternal destiny and the welfare of your family hanging in the balance.

by Frederick Meekins