Christian moralilty-necessarily objective?

[wakawakawaka]

perhaps some of you know about Jason Lisle, whom works for the institute of creation research, and his blog, anyrate he claims that only his religion can provide objective morality and all other worldviews fall short now when somebody told him that if his morality was based on the commands of a god, or what not its by definition subjective he said this......

"If God were merely a very powerful individual as you’ve suggested, the situation wouldn’t change much. But God is actually the Creator of all that is. He is sovereign. And He is the Judge. All people will answer ultimately to God, and hence His rules are necessarily objective. They are the same for everyone, and binding on everyone because we all owe our existence to God and will answer to Him. Clear?" and "People are finite, and so our personal preferences are limited to our own mind. But God is infinite, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, and sovereign. So His thoughts determine reality, and His preferences determine morality. In order for morality to be objective, it must stem from God. No other system can make sense of that.”
http://www.jasonlisle.com/2013/09/0...y-self-conscious/comment-page-2/#comment-7932

and i was utterly dumbfounded when he wrote those things and i was wondering did the things he make utterly no sense what so ever? could a command of a being ever become "necessarily objective?

 

[Dissolution]

Isn't this the same gibberish that the likes of Kent Hovind and his idiot son espouse?

 

[wakawakawaka]

no its the same gibberish that the likes of Sye Ten Bruggengate and Kent Hovind's idiot son espouse

 

[Dinwar]

If God were merely a very powerful individual as you’ve suggested, the situation wouldn’t change much. But God is actually the Creator of all that is. He is sovereign. And He is the Judge. All people will answer ultimately to God, and hence His rules are necessarily objective. They are the same for everyone, and binding on everyone because we all owe our existence to God and will answer to Him. Clear?

This is wrong in a number of ways, even granting ad arguendum that God in the Christian sense exists.

The first bit (underlined) is nothing more than Divine Command Theory, which is moral subjectivism when the one determining morality is God. Subjectivism doesn't become objective merely because the person has tremendous--or infinite--power.

The second bit (italicized) is equivocation. Jason Lisle is attempting to trick us into ignoring the difference between "universal" and "objective". The fact that something is universal doesn't mean it's TRUE, much less objective--if every person on Earth believed that the world was populated by invisible demons, and that's how computers work, it wouldn't make it true.

He's not the first to attempt either form of reasoning. Here's the obligatory wiki link. I'd add that anyone basing their claim on the Bible has additional problems: essentially, they aren't talking about God, but on the concept of God held by the mortal writers of the book and the mortal editors and mortal copiers and mortal compilers etc. We know that there were books removed, for example, and the reasons weren't always exactly pious. It would be inconsistant at minimum for this person to argue that this is irrelevant--their whole argument is built upon human incompetance and stupidity and patheticness, and the superiority of the Divine. Logically, it would be impossible for the authors of the Bible to provide an accurate understanding of the Divine. So even if we assume that Divine Command Theory was true, without a direct conduit to the Divine it renders itself (as presented by this arguer) irrelevant.

 

[Hokulele]

...

--if every person on Earth believed that the world was populated by invisible demons, and that's how computers work, it wouldn't make it true.

...

How about daemons?

 

[wakawakawaka]

"Subjectivism doesn't become objective merely because the person has tremendous--or infinite--power. "
isnt that just might makes right with extra smug?

 

[pgwenthold]

The confusing part about "objective morality coming from God" is that we can't even agree upon what God thinks is moral.

Even assuming that morals that come from God are "objective," if we can't figure them out, then we still back to our own subjective assessment.

Ultimately, there is no objective basis for determining God's morality, so it that means the morals we espouse are obtained subjectively.

 

[Dinwar]

"Subjectivism doesn't become objective merely because the person has tremendous--or infinite--power. "
isnt that just might makes right with extra smug?

More or less, yes. It's sometimes a bit different in so far as DCT presumes that the Divine creates morality along with everything else, but most people simply use the argument "God can make you suffer if you disagree." Even when I was religious I found such a concept so vile that I'd have fought any deity that took such a view, even if I would be instantly destroyed.

When you look at the concept of God held by people like Jason Lisle you find much more in common with schoolyard bullies than with philosophers.

 

[Brainache]

You could try asking him what is so morally superior about profiting from the suffering of others.

He'll probably just use his superior morality to insult you though.

 

[wakawakawaka]

too late! he shut the comments off his blog after there were too many "trolls"

 

[I Am The Scum]

Dinwar is right on the money, here. His summary is fantastic. I have only a little bit to add.

The problem that a lot of theists run into (and where obfuscation comes in), is they don't want to contend with the fact that their moral system ultimately boils down to God's opinion, and in return, they want to make it look like something "bigger." This isn't how it works. It's not like we can take something that is subjective, inject it with steroids, put a nice polish on it, and then it gains enough experience points to become objective. These are two distinct properties, and while the distinction can become muddied at times, there is no definition of objectivity that references the powers or capabilities of a subject. Any attempt to do so is a distraction.

 

[The Greater Fool]

"There may be no God. Worse, there may be a god with whom I completely disagree."

 

[Jules Galen]

perhaps some of you know about Jason Lisle, whom works for the institute of creation research, and his blog, anyrate he claims that only his religion can provide objective morality and all other worldviews fall short now when somebody told him that if his morality was based on the commands of a god, or what not its by definition subjective he said this......

"If God were merely a very powerful individual as you’ve suggested, the situation wouldn’t change much. But God is actually the Creator of all that is. He is sovereign. And He is the Judge. All people will answer ultimately to God, and hence His rules are necessarily objective. They are the same for everyone, and binding on everyone because we all owe our existence to God and will answer to Him. Clear?" and "People are finite, and so our personal preferences are limited to our own mind. But God is infinite, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, and sovereign. So His thoughts determine reality, and His preferences determine morality. In order for morality to be objective, it must stem from God. No other system can make sense of that.”


and i was utterly dumbfounded when he wrote those things and i was wondering did the things he make utterly no sense what so ever? could a command of a being ever become "necessarily objective?

Thank you for pasting that quote by Jason Lisle - because it isn't often that an apologist makes the mistake of clearly defining what they really mean by "Objective Morality" and "Objective Morals".

As Skeptics, our BS meeter should peg to the red any time an apoligist uses the terms "Objective Morality" or "Objective Morals". Christian Apologists have posited a myriad of definitions for "Objective Morality" or "Objective Morals" and, taken as a group, these definitions are almost universally conflicting and about as clear as mud. However, if you read enough of their literature, the only non-conflicting definition you can find for "Objective Morality/Morales" is that they/it is that they are capriciously decreed by someone's particular brand of God - and this hold whether the Apologist is Lisle or William Lane Craig.

So, when you hear the term(s) "Objective Morality" or "Objective Morals" used by an apologist, know that it is not an honest use of terminology, but an attempt to mentally tie you into knots and confuse you. In fact, I refuse to let Apologists use the terms in my presence without instantly calling them out on it.

 

[Manopolus]

Yeah, it's this question that drove me away from Christianity at a young age; not that I didn't have a few questions before that. Who holds God accountable? We do. We MUST; especially when we have no actual knowledge of such a being's existence beyond tradition. Otherwise, we are just letting someone else do our thinking for us, and not truly living at all. Why the hell some people desire to hand their conscience over to half-understood dogma that isn't even of their own making is a mystery to me.

 

[Wolfman]

Actually, I'd agree with his arguments, to a certain degree.

If we first accept that there is some entity that is omniscient and omnipotent; and we accept that that same entity literally created our universe, with both physical and moral laws; then yes, his conclusion would be valid.

Take the physical laws of our universe. Posit that those laws exist because that entity decided that those were the physical laws it wanted; there would be no arguing that those physical laws are "objective", regardless of whether they had arisen randomly, or at the command of said entity. Gravity is gravity, regardless of whether you personally agree with it, or not.

If we accepted the argument of the omnipotent, omniscient creator of our universe as true, then one could argue that the moral laws instituted by that creator would be just as objective, and just as irreversible and undeniable, as the law of gravity. It wouldn't matter if you disagreed with that entity; you'd be wrong, by simple merit of the fact that you are yourself a created cog within a machine that the creator itself made.

The author is, however, wrong on two counts:

1) The idea that Christianity is the only religion to offer this option; actually, there are quite a few other religions that similarly offer omnipotent/omniscient creators of the universe.

2) The idea that either A) god does exist or B) it is necessary to have some sort of "absolute morality". And it is in this last respect that I think the biggest problem arises.

It is completely true that one can have morality without religion. However, without religion, I don't see how one can have absolute morality. That is, a morality whose rules/laws/values are as immutable as the law of gravity. Morality without religion will, almost inevitably, be subjective and relative.

For some people, it isn't enough to simply have "morality". They need "absolute morality", a list of pre-defined rules and regulations by which they can run their lives. Then they don't need to think about the things they do...as long as they do what they think their creator has designated as "good", they cannot be criticized or questioned. They are "right" by definition.

So yes...the author is correct in a limited way, that absolute morality is impossible without some sort of super-entity that defines good and evil for us, and enforces it universally. But the author fails entirely to demonstrate that A) such an entity exists, and that B) absolute morality is desirable or necessary.