Morality and Subjectivity

I've been arguing that any moral code given by an omniscient omnipotent Creator God would be absolute by definition. Since He created it all He knows how it is to be run. And it would be an absolute objective code whether anyone believes in Him or His Law at all. As Jesus said, not a dot or comma of the Law given through Moses will be lost or ignored, but all will be completely fulfilled in the end -- so certainly He treats the Biblical Law as absolute.Hammurabi, on the other hand, was merely a human king, with a tribal god, so I don't see how his code could be considered to be absolute. I happen to believe that he was more or less inspired by the true God, however, because God promises that kings are in His hand, but not inspired as directly and perfectly as the Israelites whom He chose, through whom He gave His own perfect moral law.So, a moral code given by an omnipotent omniscient God who created the entire universe would be absolute, I'm arguing, and also any moral code agreed upon by all humanity would be absolute. Those are the only two bases I can come up with for an absolute objective moral code.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-15-2006 05:50 PMThis message has been edited by Faith, 04-15-2006 05:53 PM

Would you agree that if there were to be found a moral principle on which all people across all times and places agreed -- by feeling or instinct or whatever -- that would constitute an objective moral principle?

By that definition even the giving of the Moral Law by the Creator God wouldn't suffice.

I don't have one in mind, but my impression is that there is just enough variation to thwart this possibility.

But of course there IS doubt about it, although I believe God has done it as do all my fellow fundies. I've also argued that whether or not anyone believes in it, if the Creator God established it, that makes it objective and absolute.Your opinion?This message has been edited by Faith, 04-16-2006 05:07 PM

OK, thank you. I now have two votes for this definition, three counting my own. I'll accept the qualification of "healthy" for this purpose, or the best legal thinking in the community perhaps, from the leaders of the community if it's a small tribe. Whatever the majority of normal people in any community think perhaps.Not going to consider trans-species "morals" though.

Well, you may be right it's simply impossible, as I also suspect. But I would start with the moral principles we have reason to think might possibly be universal, if defined carefully anyway, not the ones we know are disputed. But I think human beings are categorically different beings than any animals. I believe we were made in the image of God, that is, with perfect moral sense in tune with God's moral law, and then lost it through disobedience, are now Fallen and our moral sense is compromised since then. While animals are also affected by the Fall I'm not sure they were affected in anything like the same sense that human beings are. They simply have no culpability before God as we do. Well, give me a clue why I should consider this. I don't have the impression that any animal has such an absolute rule of behavior. And in any case, if a behavior is "hard wired" I doubt it can be called a morality. (I have the impression that animals do have something like a conscience however, even something like a sense of guilt, but it's based on very few personal experiences so doesn't mean much).

Yes, but my question was about His status whether or not anybody believes in Him, or whether or not "we knew it and knew His morality," as clearly only those of us who believe in Him claim to have this knowledge. And in fact He is. Except that those who believe in such a God also believe that our moral feelings have been damaged and therefore don't reliably respond to His objective rule.In other words, this God could exist and provide an absolute moral standard and we not know it. How does that change your view if it does?This message has been edited by Faith, 04-17-2006 08:45 AM

Unless, as you have agreed, they are given by the omniscient omnipotent omnipresent up-close-and-personal Creator God.In which case they carry the same weight as a true mathematical or logical statement.In the case of the law given by God to Moses as reported in the Bible, it is continuously in operation, judging us. It doesn't require us to obey it or acknowledge it at all.

But I don't consider anything I derive from the Bible to be merely my "personal beliefs" or a "subjective viewpoint" etc. The Bible is the source of OBJECTIVE standards, if in fact it reveals the nature of the omnipotent omniscient Creator God. If I were trusting my own moral sense of course it couldn't be trusted, but the moral standards given by the Bible, and its distinction between humans and animals, give me an objective standard.I would argue that this criterion for objectivity is valid whether or not anyone else believes the Bible.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-17-2006 07:56 PM

I don't know. It would be nice if anyone who is knowledgeable about all this joined the thread. Murder? Adultery? Stealing? I don't think you can say they "understand," the way we'd say that about a human being. It would be interesting if simply behaviorally they are similar but there are so many unknowns in all of this at this point in the conversation I don't know what it means to suggest even a merely behavioral similarity. I dunno. The greater human consciousness and especially consciousness of moral questions I just don't want to mix up with chimp behavior. It may LOOK similar, but it isn't really because we can't say for sure that they have any consciousness of why they act as they do. Yeah, but you'd have to find it across all people groups in any case, and if we could do that we wouldn't need to consult the chimps to discover a universal human moral code. Yes, and a good point. But isn't the terminology "hard wired" a tad inappropriate if applied to a moral code and not to blind instinctual behavior? I get what you mean though. That would probably take an anthropologist who is up on the literature about all the people groups that have ever lived anywhere. Yes, I'm being inconsistent. I don't really know what to think about animals. What seems like morality probably doesn't deserve the name. But I do believe the Bible and my interest is in human beings so I'd rather stick to human beings in any case. Yes, could be. But the little raccoon I rescued, when she was still very little and I took something away from her, would snap at me and then look up at my face with what sure seemed like a guilty apologetic look. I just can't draw conclusions about humans from chimpanzees, although chimpanzee behavior in itself may be very interesting.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-17-2006 08:30 PM

We have been assuming that we could not find enough agreement crossculturally among all the people groups over all time to constitute an objective absolute moral principle. We know these things are "usually forbidden" but for an absolute principle I would think we would need something more solid and universal than that. I suspect that's just a convenient explanation after the fact looking in from outside. I rather doubt anybody has ever codified this kind of reasoning into their moral statements or laws. The tendency is to say This is wrong, and We aren't going to put it with it, period. That's all awfully speculative and open to many objections I would think. I don't see that moral philosophy helps at all for establishing a principle that is truly absolute across all people groups, because isn't it more interested in arriving at the BEST moral philosophy rather than discovering what humanity already considers to be moral and immoral? Yes, but what we need is a principle that doesn't require sophisticated moral philosophy to justify it but is taken as almost axiomatic by ALL people in ALL times and places. I don't see how it can be universal otherwise.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-18-2006 04:31 PM

All of which is why it's seemed that no absolute objective morality can be found this way. But it seemed worth thinking about nevertheless, and it might still be possible if we carefully define the principles in question.I really doubt there is any such thing as a naturally created culture where everything is held in common -- EVERYthing -- so that such a culture would likely also have a concept of stealing in some areas of life, and it could be interesting to isolate that and find what it has in common with other cultures' attitudes toward stealing. Same with different cultures' views of adultery. Lowest Common Denominator idea I guess. I'm just playing with this whole thing though. I really don't know.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-19-2006 02:41 PM

As you go on to note, I certainly don't believe that, as I've acknowledged over and over that this may in fact not be possible BECAUSE there is so much difference in morality from culture to culture. Nevertheless, I'm still up for considering that IF we could show that there is a moral trend running through all cultures in all times, so that if it's carefully enough defined it's virtually universal, then we could start talking in terms of an absolute. Maybe. I'm not totally convinced even about that.Your story about the headhunters shows again the difficulty with this project, as has been acknowledged. I also pointed out somewhere at EvC that one of the Northern European tribes -- I forget if it was Goths or Scandinavians, but I sort of think it was the Vikings -- rejected Christianity because they considered it to be immoral to forgive an enemy, and believed that Christianity was only going to corrupt the morals of their youth -- their highest morality being vengeance and successful war campaigns against other tribes. They held out against Christianity up to around 1000 AD as I recall. I'll have to look that up again.That's, again, a typical example of why it would be hard to find a universal absolute moral principle by looking at all cultures in all times.But I don't see how the principles of any moral philosophy are going to solve it either. Maybe we could consider that a third possible way an absolute might be established I suppose, but I'm still contemplating this second way, of finding a universally practiced moral principle.

[personal note to Faith: all e-mails to you are returned "user unknown"].Problem should now be cleared.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.