I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (30 page)

7. Without the Moral Law, There Are No Moral Grounds for
Political or Social Dissent—
Political liberals like Alan Dershowitz and many in Hollywood are famous for their moral opposition to war, antiabortion laws, anti-sodomy laws, tax cuts, and just about anything the “religious right” might support. The problem for them is that many of them are atheists who thereby have no objective moral grounds for the positions they vocally support. For if there is no Moral Law, then no position on any moral issue is objectively right or wrong—including the positions taken by atheists.

Without a Moral Law, there would be nothing objectively wrong with Christians or Muslims forcibly imposing their religion on atheists. There would be nothing wrong with outlawing atheism, confiscating the property of atheists, and giving it to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. There would be nothing wrong with gay-bashing, racism, or imperialistic wars. Nor would there be anything wrong with prohibiting abortion, birth control, and even sex between consenting adults! In other words, without the Moral Law, atheists have no moral grounds to argue for their pet political causes. There is no
right
to an abortion, homosexual sex, or any of their other political sacraments because in a nontheistic world there are no rights. Unless atheists claim that there is a God and that his Moral Law condones or commands these activities, then their positions are nothing more than their own subjective preferences. And no one is under any moral obligation to agree with mere preferences or to allow atheists to legislatively impose them on the rest of us.
⁹

So by rebelling against the Moral Law, atheists have, ironically, undermined their grounds for rebelling against anything. In fact, without the Moral Law, no one has any objective grounds for being for or against anything! But since we all know that issues involving life and liberty are more than mere preferences—that they involve real moral rights—then the Moral Law exists.

8. If There Were No Moral Law, Then We Wouldn’t Make Excuses
for Violating It—
Did you ever notice that people make excuses for immoral behavior? Making excuses is a tacit admission that the Moral Law exists. Why make excuses if no behavior is actually immoral?

Even the number one virtue of our largely immoral culture—tolerance—reveals the Moral Law, because tolerance itself is a moral principle. If there is no Moral Law, then why should anyone be tolerant? Actually, the Moral Law calls us to go beyond tolerance to love. Tolerance is too weak—tolerance says, hold your nose and put up with them. Love says, reach out and help them. Tolerating evil is unloving, but that’s what many in our culture want us to do.

Moreover, the plea to be tolerant is a tacit admission that the behavior to be tolerated is wrong. Why? Because you don’t need to plead with people to tolerate good behavior, only bad. No one needs to be talked into tolerating the behavior of Mother Teresa, only the behavior of some relativists. Likewise, no one makes excuses for acting like Mother Teresa. We only make excuses when we act against the Moral Law. We wouldn’t do so if it didn’t exist.

A
BSOLUTE VS
. R
ELATIVE
: W
HY THE
C
ONFUSION
?

If there really is an absolute Moral Law as we have argued, then why do so many believe that morality is relative? And why do so many people appear to have different values? Rationally, the reason lies with the failure to make proper distinctions. Let’s take a look at those distinctions to clear up the areas of confusion:

Confusion #1—Absolute Morals vs. Changing Behavior

A common mistake of relativists is to confuse behavior with value. That is, they confuse what
is
with what
ought
to be. What people
do
is subject to change, but what they
ought
to do is not. This is the difference between sociology and morality. Sociology is
descriptive;
morality is
prescriptive.

In other words, relativists often confuse the changing behavioral situation with the unchanging moral duty. For example, when discussing a moral topic like premarital sex or cohabitation, you often hear people in support of it say something like, “Get with it, this is the twenty-first century!” as if current behaviors dictate what’s right and wrong. To illustrate the absurdity of the relativist’s reasoning, you need only to turn the discussion to a more serious moral issue like murder, which also occurs much more frequently in America today than it did fifty years ago. How many relativists would speak in support of murder by asking us to “Get with it, this is the twenty-first century!”? That’s where their reasoning takes them when they confuse what people do with what they ought to do.

Another aspect of the
is–ought
fallacy manifests itself when people suggest that there is no Moral Law because people don’t obey it. Of course everyone disobeys the Moral Law to some degree—from telling white lies to murder. But that doesn’t mean there is no unchanging Moral Law; it simply means that we all violate it. Everyone makes mathematical mistakes too, but that doesn’t mean there are no unchanging rules of mathematics.

Confusion #2—Absolute Morals vs. Changing Perceptions of
the Facts

Another confusion is made between the existence of an absolute moral value itself and the understanding of the facts used in applying that value. For example, as C. S. Lewis has noted, in the late 1700s witches were sentenced as murderers, but now they are not.
¹⁰
A relativist might argue, “See! Our moral values have changed because we no longer seek to kill witches. Morality is relative to time and culture.”

But the relativist’s claim is incorrect. What has changed is not the moral principle that murder is wrong but the perception or factual understanding of whether “witches” can really murder people by their curses. People no longer believe they can. Hence, people no longer consider them murderers. In other words,
the perception of a moral situation
is relative
(whether witches are really murderers),
but the moral
values involved in the situation are not
(murder has always been and always will be wrong).

Failure to make this distinction also leads people to believe that cultural differences reflect essential differences in core moral values. For example, some believe that since Hindus revere cows and Americans eat them, there’s an essential difference between the moral values of Americans and Hindus. But the reason people in India consider cows sacred has nothing to do with a core moral value—it has to do with their religious belief in reincarnation. Indians believe that cows may possess the souls of deceased human beings, so they won’t eat them. In the United States, we do not believe that the souls of our deceased relatives may be in a cow, so we freely eat cows. In the final analysis, what appears to be a moral difference is actually an agreement—we both believe it’s wrong to eat Grandma! The core moral value that it’s wrong to eat Grandma is considered absolute by people in both cultures. They only disagree on whether Grandma’s soul is in the cow!
¹¹
They have different
perceptions of the facts
pertaining to the moral value, but fundamentally agree that the moral value must be upheld.

Confusion #3—Absolute Morals vs. Applying Them to
Particular Situations

As we have seen, people know right from wrong best by their reactions rather than by their actions. When people are the victims of bad behavior, they have no trouble understanding that the behavior is absolutely wrong. Yet even if two victims wind up disagreeing over the morality of a particular act, this does not mean morality is relative. An absolute Moral Law can exist even if people fail to know the right thing to do in a particular situation.

Consider the moral dilemma often used by university professors to get their students to believe in relativism: there are five people trying to survive on a life raft designed for only four. If one person isn’t thrown overboard, then everyone will die. Students labor over the dilemma, come to different conclusions, and then conclude their disagreement proves that morality must be relative.

But the dilemma actually proves the opposite—that morality is absolute. How? Because
there would be no dilemma if morality were relative!
If morality were relative and there were no absolute right to life, you’d say, “It doesn’t matter what happens! Throw everyone overboard! Who cares?” The very reason we struggle with the dilemma is because we know how valuable life is.

While people may get morality wrong in complicated situations, they don’t get it wrong on the basics. For example, everyone knows murder is wrong. Hitler knew it. That’s why he had to dehumanize the Jews in order to rationalize killing them. Even cannibals appear to know that it is wrong to kill innocent human beings. It may be that cannibals don’t think that the people in other tribes are human. But chances are they do. Otherwise, as J. Budziszewski observes, why do cannibals “perform elaborate expiatory rituals before [they] take their lives?”
¹²
They wouldn’t perform these rituals unless they thought there was something wrong with what they were about to do.

So the basics are clear, even if some difficult problems are not. Moreover, the fact that there are difficult problems in morality doesn’t disprove the existence of objective moral laws any more than difficult problems in science disprove the existence of objective natural laws. Scientists don’t deny that an objective world exists when they encounter a difficult problem in the natural world (i.e., when they have trouble knowing the answer). And we shouldn’t deny that morality exists just because we have trouble knowing the answer in a few difficult situations.

There are easy and hard problems in morality just as there are in science. Answering a simple scientific problem such as “Why do objects fall to the ground?” proves that at least one natural law or force exists (i.e., gravity). Likewise, truthfully answering a simple moral question such as “Is murder justified?” proves that at least one law of morality exists (i.e., don’t murder). If
just one
moral obligation exists (such as don’t murder, or don’t rape, or don’t torture babies), then the Moral Law exists. If the Moral Law exists, then so does the Moral Law Giver.

Confusion #4—An Absolute Command (What) vs.
a Relative Culture (How)

Another important difference, often overlooked by moral relativists, is between the absolute nature of the moral command and the relative way in which that command is manifested in different cultures. For example, all cultures have some form of greeting, which is an expression of love and respect. However, cultures differ widely on just what that greeting is. In some it is a kiss; in others it is a hug; and in still others it is a handshake or a bow.
What
should be done is common to all cultures, but
how
it should be done differs. Failure to make this distinction misleads many to believe that because people have different practices they have different values. The moral value is absolute, but how it is practiced is relative.

Confusion #5—Absolute Morals vs.
Moral Disagreements

Relativists often point to the controversial issue of abortion to demonstrate that morality is relative. Some think abortion is acceptable while others think it’s murder. But just because there are different opinions about abortion doesn’t mean morality is relative.

In fact, instead of providing an example of relative moral values, the entire abortion controversy exists because each side defends what they think is an
absolute
moral value—protecting life and allowing liberty (i.e., allowing a woman to “control her own body”). The controversy is over
which
value applies (or takes precedence) in the issue of abortion.
¹³
If the unborn were not human beings, then the pro-liberty value should be applied in legislation. But since the unborn
are
human beings, the pro-life value should be applied in legislation because a person’s right to life supersedes another person’s right to individual liberty. (The baby is not just part of the woman’s body; it has its own body with its own unique genetic code, its own blood type and gender.) Even if there were doubt as to when life begins, the benefit of the doubt should be given to protecting life—reasonable people don’t shoot unless they’re
absolutely
sure they won’t kill an innocent human being.

Recall that our
reaction
to a particular practice reveals what we really think about its morality. Ronald Reagan once quipped, “I’ve noticed all those in favor of abortion are already born.” Indeed, all pro-abortionists would become pro-life immediately if they found themselves back in the womb. Their
reaction
to the possibility of being killed would remind them that abortion really is wrong. Of course, most people deep in their hearts know an unborn child is a human being, and therefore know that abortion is wrong. Even some pro-abortion activists are finally admitting as much.
¹⁴
So in the end, this moral disagreement is not because morality is relative or because the Moral Law isn’t clear. This moral disagreement exists because some people are suppressing the Moral Law in order justify what they want to do. In other words, support for abortion is more a matter of the will than of the mind. (For a more detailed discussion of this and other moral topics, see our book
Legislating Morality
.
¹⁵
)

Confusion #6—Absolute Ends (Values) vs.
Relative Means

Often moral relativists confuse the end (the value itself) with the means to attaining that end. Several political disputes are of this sort. On some issues (certainly not all), liberals and conservatives want the same things—the same
ends.
They just disagree on the best
means
to attain them.

For example, regarding the poor, liberals believe the best way to help is through government assistance. But since conservatives think such assistance creates dependency, they would rather stimulate economic opportunity so the poor can help themselves. Notice that the end is the same (assist the poor), but the means are different. Likewise, both militarists and pacifists desire peace (the end); they simply disagree as to whether a strong military is the best means to attain this peace. They both agree on the absolute
end;
they just disagree on the relative
means
to achieve it.