How to enjoy Christmas

I was walking back from the office to where my car was parked in a side road one evening a couple of weeks ago. It was 5:15pm, cold, dark and crisp. It was early December, and one of the local residents had newly decorated the outside of their house with Christmas lights. Pulsing, multi-coloured chains. A reindeer running. A glowing, sparkling snowman, with a glowing, sparkling polar bear. I smiled as I walked past, glowing with the prettiness and the fun of it, picturing the smiles on the kids' faces.

And I got thinking of the excitement of my own kids as they look forward to Christmas, the fun and enjoyment they have from having presents, the fun they had decorating the tree, the way they all still enjoy opening the doors on their Advent calendars every day. And I thought of the candlelight carols, the Christmas crackers and mince pies with family that we spend far too little time with at other times of year.

Christmas is a time of joy.

Before I started writing this I had in mind to write about all the things I dislike about Christmas. For one thing, I was taken seriously ill on Christmas Day 2009 and I've been made redundant three times - all of them just before Christmas. But that's not important. I was going to complain about the commercialisation, the materialism, the overspending. I was going to bemoan the way that we exalt lie of Santa above the truth of Jesus. Jesus is, after all, the 'reason for the season'. I was going to ask why we celebrate the humble coming of the Son of God with glitz, glamour and excess, why we celebrate the coming of the sin-bearer with drunken parties and greed.

Don't get me wrong. Those issues are important and they are worth talking about. But it's the joy of Christmas that I have found myself reflecting on.

Joy is good. We were made for joy, not for hate, anger, despair or bitterness. God wants us to be happy.

From one point of view the source of our joy is morally limited. For example, if we get enjoyment from killing people, that's wrong; if we get enjoyment from sexual immorality, that's wrong; if our enjoyment comes from stealing, that's wrong; and so on.

But is the enjoyment of innocent things always right? That would be part of the response if I were to criticise the Santa cult. "It's just a bit of harmless fun!" (There's the 'no harm principle' I was talking about in "Whose Rules Rule (Part 5). Allegedly, if it does no harm it must be right.) How can we criticise fairy lights or tinsel? There is surely nothing wrong, per se, with parties, with alcohol, with glamour, gifts, trees and decorations, snowmen, and even myths of a red-velvet-clad-bearded-bloke and reindeers.

The answer is that it depends on our attitude to these things. We were made to glorify God by finding our joy in Him. One way of doing that is when we respond with joy, amazement, wonder at the beauty of creation, we are supposed to complete the thought with, "Thank you, Father". When we feel loved by, and love for, family and friends, we are sharing an emotion that God had first - first within Himself, between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and then shared with His human children. We were made for joy - not any joy, but a joy that explicitly exults in God.

So if I love the nature programmes on TV, I must realise that God made those wonderful creatures for us, so that we would marvel at how wonderful, great, wise and gracious He is.

If I love competing and doing sport, I must realise that God gave me skills and talents, and that these are a microreflection of God's skill, wisdom and power.

If I love a good book, or a nice car, music, drama, movies or paintings, I must realise that God gave human beings creativity, imagination, and aesthetic appreciation, so that we would be like Him who created the universe from His own perfect design, and so that we would see the designer and creator behind everything.

When I love another person so much I want to spend the rest of my life with them, I must realise that Jesus feels much greater love for His people, the church, and that "We love because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19)

When I love my children more than anything in the whole world, I must realise that this is only a pale shadow of the love my Heavenly Father has for me.

And God's love is exactly what is supposed to be in view when we celebrate Christmas. "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

When we think of the sin that cuts us off from God, the source of life and everything good - our sin - we know we are powerless to save ourselves. There is nothing we can do for ourselves to take away our sin or to make God think differently about it. So when the angel said to the shepherds, "I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people," (Luke 2:10) he was not exaggerating.

It really is good news of great joy that the eternal Son of God should put off His eternal glory and take on Himself our weak human flesh in order to die for us on the cross. "Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord," the angel said (v11). Another angel had said to Joseph, "you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." (Matthew 1:21)

The coming of Jesus Christ into the world is a cause for celebration. In fact it's the biggest cause for celebration the world has ever known! The only bigger event to celebrate will be when He returns to bring a complete end to this broken world and bring in the new and perfect world. To say that Jesus Christ is worth celebrating would be a massive understatement!

The travesty of Christmas is when we have so much enjoyment of the celebration that we forget that we are celebrating God's grace towards us. But that's the travesty of life in general - when we get so caught up in the world, good and bad, that we forget/refuse to worship the God who is in charge of it all, and we fail to accept His offer of forgiveness through faith in Jesus.

So as we do all our celebrating this Christmas, as we smile at the pretty lights in the winter darkness, as we share the thrills of the children as they open their presents, as we stuff our faces with lovely food (and maybe the odd glass of wine), as we relax with friends and family - let's not forget the reason why Christmas is so worth celebrating. Let's keep the joy of Christmas and praise God!

'O Come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!'

Merry Christmas, everybody!

It's good to be human

Whose Rules Rule - Part Six

In order to start to sketch out Christian moral foundations we need to understand that the way Christians talk about equality is different to the way modern secular atheists talk about it. That's because secular atheists can often appeal to equality as the fundamental truth on which to base moral principles (which, as we've seen, is in itself quite an arbitrary appeal). We also need to contrast the Christian view of the origin and purpose of human beings with non-religious views. 

As I have already implied, I believe that when non-religious people talk about equality they include some notion of all humans equally having the right/authority to work out their own morality. For them the equality of human beings really stems from having the same origin. Logically that also puts us equal with animals, rocks and plants, and therefore it means that we have the same rights and responsibilities with regard to morality as animals, rocks and plants. Nothing in their assumptions necessarily leads to there being natural distinctions between things. There is no logic to it. But in an attempt to find meaning, arbitrarily, they distinguish between things (e.g. coal, water, air), living things (e.g. fish, birds, animals, flowers), and intelligent living things (human beings). Non-living things tend to just follow the laws of physics and chemistry. Non-intelligent living things tend to just follow the instincts of their species. But as intelligent living things we humans are characterised by a conscious struggle, according to the secular atheist or non-religious Westerner - the struggle for meaning and to "find our place in the universe". That struggle includes the struggle to work out right and wrong, but since we are equal we all have equal rights to find the answer for ourselves. 

For the Christian, equality also starts from equality of origin, but to fully appreciate the Christian's moral framework we have to also appreciate other levels of equality. Human beings are equally created, but also equally sinners, equally deserving of eternal punishment, equally called to repentance and faith, and equally offered grace to eternal life. We'll look at some of these in later parts of this series. For now let's think about our place in God's creation. 

Since God created everything, all of creation owes its existence to Him and its allegiance to Him. The Bible teaches that the human race was specially created to manage the rest of creation for God. Human beings were created "in the image of God". God defined the distinctions between things, living things, intelligent living things and human intelligent living things. Humans were created with the extraordinary and special capacity to relate directly to Him, the need to relate to Him. And we all - every single human on earth - trace our ancestry to the first man and woman, Adam and Eve. (Incidentally, this does leave open the possibility that we may find other non-humans that show intelligence. Intelligence does not define our special relationship with God. Our humanness does.) Nothing else in the material universe was given the same direct relationship with our Creator - no animal, no bird, no fish or tree. 

Before God, humans have special responsibilities that come with those extraordinary capacities. But under Him we are all morally equal, equally responsible. But note: we are responsible to God, not under our own authority. 

What this means is that when Christians talk about morality, we seek to reiterate God's standards and apply them to particular behaviours and contexts. And as we reiterate God's standards, we do it for ourselves too, as fellow human beings. If abortion is wrong, then it is wrong for me too. If sex outside monogamous heterosexual marriage is wrong, then it is wrong for me too. I am not at liberty to re-engineer morality, since God has hard-wired it into the universe. 

We're all equally judged by God's standards, which are the same for all human beings. So when a Christian makes a moral statement about whether something is right or wrong, that statement does not automatically include within it a moral judgment that puts the Christian above anyone else. This is key for non-religious people to understand, because their moral judgments do involve seeing themselves as better than others because their morals are based on themselves as final authority. So when a Christian makes a moral statement they are saying something objective and factual. When a non-religious person makes a moral statement they are saying something subjective and comparative. This actually makes it possible for a Christian to be hypocritical and still make moral statements that are no less true. And as we'll see next time there is a sense in which Christians are all hypocritical, but that doesn't invalidate what we say about right and wrong, so long as what we say is in line with God's Word. 

But we also need to emphasise to people that God created human beings for a purpose. He did not just make a man and woman and say, "ok off you go and have a play, and I'll check in on you from time to time!" He gave us a purpose and a job to do - "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground." (Genesis 1:28) He also said that we have to do that in a way that honours Him by obeying Him. The command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17) was God's way of saying that this world is His and we are not allowed just to do whatever we want. 

We are not meaningless blobs, we were not just created and left lost in a big universe. We are the special creation of an All-powerful Creator, with a special job to do, to manage the world in the way that He tells us to. 

In fact what I've said so far doesn't really do justice to God's purpose for us. The Bible consistently talks about God having a loving purpose for us. He calls us His children. He didn't create human beings and then leave us to do whatever we want in the universe while He went off to do something else. Nor did He create human beings and then leave us a job to do while He went off to do something else. 

God created human beings to work with Him. We have a whole universe to discover, and it's as if He's like an excited Father watching His children learn new and wonderful things, discovering amazing things He made for us. He made us for that relationship. When we discover something new and wonderful, He wants to hear us say in effect, "Wow! Thanks Dad! How did you do that? That's amazing!" (I hope I'm not being irreverent in putting it like that.) He made us to love His power and wisdom. He made us to love Him. And He is alongside us in every step we take. We humans are special to Him. 

So whilst it is right to think of God as Judge, because the Bible speaks of Him as Judge, we ought not to think of that role as an impersonal one. It is very personal. When we refuse to follow His instructions in the way we conduct ourselves in the world we are acting like delinquent, rebellious children. Everything we have is from Him (whether material possessions or intellect and wisdom or power) and yet we use those very things to shut Him out. We are selfish. We think life is all about us. But it's not. God is ultimate. Everything in the universe comes from Him and is for Him. So when we are out of step with God, disobeying His rules, we are out of step with the whole purpose of the universe. 

In conclusion, non-religious views of morality are based on arbitrary foundations, because their assertions regarding the distinctiveness and equality of human beings have no foundation. In contrast, Christian morality is based on God's creation of human beings as special, to relate to Him and go with Him throughout the world to discover His wisdom and power and glory through everything He has created. As it has often been said, Christian morality is all about "following the Maker's instructions". And the equality of all human beings is firmly based on that purpose and special creation, giving God's rules a firm rational ground. 

But there are other things that apply universally to all human beings, and therefore reinforce the equality of all humanity. And we'll look at those in the next few pieces.

No harm done?

Whose Rules Rule - Part Five

If I were to say to a couple who were sexually active with each other outside of a heterosexual marriage (to each other!) that their sexual activity is wrong or sinful, I guess their response would probably be, "why is it wrong? What harm is it doing to anyone?" It's a response that would reveal one of the principles often given for non-religious moral standards. Since non-religious people have no absolutely infallible reference point (like the one Christians have from God via the Bible) they have to choose their own principles. One such principle used in civilised cultures (I would say those that have been historically influenced by Christianity) is that we can do many things, but we must not harm other people. 

Of course, history is full of examples of where people have not used that principle. Hitler and Stalin obviously thought it was ok to inflict a great deal of suffering on a huge number of people. However, this only demonstrates how arbitrary these principles are when they have no absolute and objective reference point. When a higher principle is developed, for example, from the philosophies of Marx or Nietzsche, for the positive evolution of the human race (i.e. involving the elimination of those who are substandard), the 'no harm' principle gets an exclusion clause. And the recent English city riots and looting demonstrates that the 'no harm' principle is being gradually ditched, because it is arbitrarily restrictive, and replaced in many people by the 'if it feels good do it' principle.

I am also aware that some of those who have called themselves Christians in the past - e.g. the Crusaders or the Roman Catholic church with the Spanish Inquisition - have not lived up to the teachings of their Lord when they have caused suffering to their opponents. Atheists are quick to point this out and even grossly generalise by saying that all wars are caused by religion. However, my point in this introduction is not to say that Christians are morally better than atheists. We are no less sinners. Neither do I want to get into historical debates over which philosophies gave rise to which wars. 

My point is simply that it is very common in today's Western cultures to say that our guiding moral principle should be that anything is ok if it does not harm others. The point of mentioning Hitler and Stalin was only to reinforce what I've said in an earlier article, that moral standards without God are necessarily arbitrary. I am simply choosing for examination a foundation principle that is often held by non-religious people who want to portray themselves as respectable and civilised.

So let's look at this 'no harm' principle. First of all, some people may question why I say that the principle is arbitrary. A rule is arbitrary if it has no logical basis or deduction - it cannot be deduced logically from true statements or facts. For example, parents are sometimes arbitrary when our children ask, "why do I have to do tidy my room?" and we answer, "Because I say so!" If something is only so because I say so, then that is arbitrary. My earlier articles have tried to show that all moral standards that are not based on God's revelation of right and wrong, good and evil, are automatically arbitrary. They are subjective, as no-one can argue with someone else that one moral statement is right and another is wrong.

So we should ask from a non-religious perspective why it would be wrong to harm someone? Having asked this several times in real life, my experience is that the answer from the non-religious person is always something like, "well it's obvious that you shouldn't hurt someone". But I don't have to accept that it is obvious. As I mentioned above, there are many examples of people who don't see that as obvious - people that the majority of civilised human beings frown upon or see as evil. Most people do not see Hitler or Stalin as simply having different philosophies. They see them as evil. But how would our civilised non-religious friends reason with someone who shared the same views as Hitler or Stalin? How would they argue that human beings should not inflict harm on each other? They have no basis. In practice, because they have no basis, they don't try to reason. They resort to dehumanising people less civilised than themselves - so the likes of Hitler and Stalin are called madmen or monsters. The rioters of summer 2011 were called 'feral rats' and 'scum'. The cannibals of the jungle are patronisingly called 'primitive' (they don't know any better).

The non-religious person has no basis for the 'no harm' principle because this principle conflicts with their other basic assumptions. As I have highlighted in earlier articles, their basic assumptions about the origins of life lead them to believe that human beings are not set apart from other animals or even other things that exist. So why should we be upset about human beings - just one type of meaningless formation of molecules amongst millions - being harmed? And on the other hand, why should human beings be the only species or entity with their own moral code? Animals base their behaviour on fear and strength and class distinctions, rather than right and wrong. Why shouldn't human beings? And if the response is simply that intellect, self-awareness and morality is just the particular way that human beings have evolved as distinct from other species, then intellect, self-awareness and morality are meaningless distinctions. On that basis one person's morality based on not doing people harm is as good as another person's morality based on using other people for their own pleasure.

But let's also ask the question, what is harm? We could say that harm is an action performed on an entity that detracts from the quality, pleasure or good feeling of that entity. So the countryside can be harmed by leaving litter, because it detracts from the quality of the countryside. A person can be harmed physically, financially or emotionally by attacking their body, taking their possessions or by threatening their safety or security or pleasure.

But what defines quality in a universe where one formation of atoms is no more meaningful than any other? We could just as well say that quality is something esoteric that evokes pleasure in human beings. It's something we sense.

But then what defines pleasure? Has pleasure any meaning? Isn't pleasure just a release of endorphins in the human body, caused by certain predictable triggers? Is pleasure any more meaningful than something that gives human beings a will to survive?

And what if one person's pleasure is limited by another person's pleasure? Relationships are a good example. If your relationship with your boyfriend or girlfriend (pre-marriage) is not making you happy, or you can be happier with someone else, should you end the relationship or continue? Your boyfriend or girlfriend may be upset (reduced pleasure - i.e. harm) if you end it, so that your increased pleasure results in their reduced pleasure. Would it be wrong to end the relationship?

And if the response is that this is a trivial example, because hurt feelings don't count, then why do we have a concept of 'psychological abuse' or bullying? Sometimes a domineering husband or wife may not physically hurt their spouse, but they inflict psychological damage by the way that they speak or act. And in the school playground a big kid may not actually physically hurt others, but may hurt someone's feelings by their threatening or manipulative behaviour. Why would this be wrong if hurt feelings are trivial?

And why is it ok to harm criminals? Some would say it's not ok, on the 'no harm' moral principle. That's why many psychologists and politicians refuse to talk about punishment. If we don't like someone's behaviour to the extent that we call it criminal then we try first to 'rehabilitate' them (i.e. persuade them to live by the moral standards of the majority), then if they won't be rehabilitated they are restricted. Prison becomes something that protects civilised society, rather than something that punishes criminals. 

There are many many more avenues we could explore to show that the foundations of any morality without God are arbitrary, subjective and meaningless. We simply have to keep asking for definitions, asking why and pointing to the inconsistencies.

In the end we all basically know what harm is, what pleasure is, what quality is. The point is that non-religious people have no rational basis for these definitions. They simply feel what is right and wrong. But as Christians we know that people know these things because we are all created by God, in His image. God gives meaning to everything and is the foundation of truth and knowledge. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we cannot change the fact that we are God's special creation. And as such we are made to think in terms of right and wrong, truth, emotion, pleasure, and such like. And therefore it is no surprise that all these things only make sense in a Christian worldview. But if non-religious people try to do without God and still have right and wrong, truth, pleasure, emotion, etc, they find they end in meaninglessness, irrationality and emptiness.

Next I want, God-willing, to look at the foundations of Christian morality, where it comes from, why it is a positive thing, and how it works. This will take another few articles.

Why should we care about morality?

Whose Rules Rule? - Part Four

I've been writing recently about morality, and comparing non-religious concepts with the Christian source of morality. I am writing this series of articles for two reasons. Firstly, I have noticed the apparent paradox whereby many non-religious people, who seem to have strong moral repulsion to awful acts such as rioting, looting from shops or child abuse, also have a strong dislike of Christian morality. So I’m trying to point out why this is, and why Christian moral standards have much more in their favour than people think, even if they don’t like living by those standards. 

Secondly, Christians, influenced by the pressure from the prevailing philosophy of our culture (thrust at us through every channel available – billboards, tv, newspapers, magazines, internet) have become timid in our reasoning about morality. That’s a big problem in our presentation of the gospel, the core of our faith, and the good news we have for the world. You see, without a conviction of sin, the news of salvation from sin makes no sense. My perception is that much of our evangelism makes no sense to the non-religious people who make up the majority of our population in the West, and it makes no sense because we do not challenge their faulty concept of sin.

Of course, this should not be any surprise to us, and it isn’t just that the non-religious have a faulty concept of sin. They also have a faulty concept of God, humanity, knowledge, science, and just about everything else. It shouldn’t be a surprise because the Bible tells us that in order to see the kingdom of God we have to be born again of the Spirit (John 3:3-5) – i.e. it is impossible without God’s spiritual intervention.

However, every age and every philosophy and every false religion have their own major blind spots and points where they diverge from the truth. It has been noted by evangelical commentators for many years that as generations through to 20th and 21st Centuries have passed, the influence of our Christian heritage and institutions has become less and less (see, for example, Telling the Truth, D.A. Carson (ed); The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World, John Piper and Justin Taylor (eds); Above all Earthly Powers, David Wells; The Gagging of God, D.A. Carson). Whereas 60 years ago, when Christian assumptions were still influential, an evangelist could speak of the sinfulness of people and be more or less understood, that is not the case now in an age where Christian assumptions and beliefs have been largely rejected.

My conviction is that this is no reason to minimise talk of sin in our gospel presentations, and indeed our day-to-day conversation (which is what leads to personal evangelistic opportunities). It is instead time to recognise the need to press deeper into our culture’s philosophy. When we present the gospel, at almost every point we will meet with challenges and misunderstanding. And therefore the work of apologetics – answering objections – is now a more important discipline than ever, and something that all Christians should become proficient in.

So part of my purpose in writing these articles is to attempt to work through how we should, as Christians, talk about sin and morality. How can we engage with the culture in which we live in a way that not only tries to democratically prevent further descent into God-dishonouring behaviour, but also forces debate that allows us an entrance to share the gospel. After all, it is not politics but only the gospel that is the “power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).

What our non-religious friends and neighbours need to see is that Christian talk about sin and morality, even in politics, is in actual fact our way of being kind to them. We want them to know what sin is, acknowledge it as sin in their lives, and have the opportunity to turn from it, and in turning from it and turning to Christ receive salvation. The church needs to have this explicitly in our rhetoric when debating in forums such as the Church of England’s General Synod (though I acknowledge that the media often portrays even the most loving rhetoric as hateful). 

I have to admit to being more than a little concerned when I hear the language of outrage being used by Christian preachers and politicians speaking about homosexuality and abortion. The very fact that the worldly counter-rhetoric speaks in terms of phobias and religious hatred may partly indicate that we are not communicating in the right language. We are being misunderstood. I admit also that part of this misunderstanding is deliberate prevarication by the liberal intelligentsia and media in an effort to avoid the truth, but at least we ought to take care in the words we use.

At the same time I firmly believe that Christians ought not to stop talking about sin, specifically and generally. And should not pull punches when it comes to talking about its seriousness and serious consequences. We should not expect necessarily to remain friends or to be popular when we tell the truth about sin and morality. However, we should only fall out for the right reasons – because of the truth and not the harshness of the way we present the truth. “In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” (1 Peter 3:15-16)

So far, I’ve outlined the following:

• That non-religious people have moral standards, but the source of their morality is themselves. This is the reason why they get upset when Christians say that some actions are sinful that they do not think there is anything wrong with – even if they do not do these things themselves. They take it personally.
• That non-religious moral systems are therefore necessarily subjective, and have no objective basis. The logic of this is anarchy, unless sufficient common ground can be found to keep the peace in a democratic society.
• That non-religious assumptions either devalue humanity and make even their own moral standards pointless, or reduce to arbitrary emotional biases. Both situations militate against a peaceful and orderly society.

To summarise: non-religious people, even though their basic assumptions about life and the universe give them nothing on which to base moral standards and care for others, still get upset about the brutal killing of a child, the famine victims and AIDS victims of Africa, or terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre. This seems illogical, but it actually isn’t when you take into account that they see themselves arbitrarily as the final authority in matters of right and wrong. If something makes them feel bad, then it they define it as bad. As someone has said, non-religious morality is based entirely on “the yuck factor”.

In future articles I hope to probe other areas that demonstrate the emptiness of postmodern thinking about morality compared to the robust rationality and cogency of Christianity. I also hope to demonstrate further how Christians can talk about morality in clearly loving ways.

What’s so special about being human?

Whose Rules Rule - Part Three

What I’ve done so far in this series of blog articles is only to sketch outlines. I’ve tried to outline the fundamental difference between Christian morality and non-religious philosophies of morality – the final authority. For the Christian the final authority in all matters is God, and He communicates through His Word, the Bible. For the non-religious person, however religious his background and upbringing, the final authority is himself. I believe, as I’ve said, that this is the reason why Christians are treated so harshly in the West when we use our right to free speech to point out the immorality of certain actions and lifestyles. It’s because any criticism is taken personally, as an affront to the non-religious person’s authority and autonomy.

However, I also indicated that the lack of absolute standards gives problems for the non-religious person. When they meet someone whose moral standards are different they have no basis on which to argue. 

But there are other problems. The majority of moral opinions held by non-religious Westerners – those brought up under the influence of Christianity – assume human beings are superior to, or at least set apart from, other animal species, and further regard all human beings as equal. In some ways this is not remarkable. Since we are human we are naturally concerned with the morality of our own species, and we naturally generalise for all of the same kind. Apes have certain general habits and traits, iguanas have their own general characteristics, eagles and rats too, and so on. So we humans focus on the general moral characteristics of humans. But in many ways it is more than that. We do tend to talk about the human race as somehow special or greater than animals.

The problem is that these assumptions are inconsistent with other fundamental beliefs of non-religious people.

First, let’s think about whether human beings have any intrinsic value that means we should care what happens to them. To do that we have to have some definition of what it means to be human. If we want to have a concept of some kind of intrinsic value in humanity, then that must come from what we are. And what we are is determined by how we originated. 

My amateur assessment is that non-religious people divide into two camps with regard to how we originated. One group is the atheist group that believes everything that exists is the product of random chance evolution. This is their most basic assumption. (It’s an assumption that has no proof… but that’s not for discussion here!) The other group cannot bring themselves to believe that the intricate beauty of the universe - in its majesty, complexity, intricacy and variety – could have evolved randomly. They believe that the universe was probably designed and made by an intelligent being, greater than any other being or any part of creation. In short, they believe in a Creator. They just don’t see Him as relevant to the way they live their lives, or indeed have any concept of His attachment to any particular religion. 

The atheist, I assert, would be inconsistent and irrational to build any moral code at all based on the value of human life. As Christians living in a democracy we are thankful for this inconsistency, for without it we would have violent anarchy and a disintegration of civilisation. However, for the atheist to say that something is wrong because it attacks a valuable human life is irrational, because it conflicts with their basic belief.

I’m worried that this may be stating the obvious, but I’ll explain it anyway, just in case. If atheistic, random evolution is true then the basic building blocks (let’s call them atoms and molecules to save us from unnecessary technicality) of the universe simply ebb and flow in a meaningless progression that we define as evolution. One formation of atoms looks like primordial soup, another like rocks, another like invisible gases such as oxygen. Chemical reactions happen as these atoms and molecules come into contact with each other, and these reactions bring about big changes from time to time. The result is yet more different formations of atoms and molecules. Mutations happen so that some fish spawn new amphibian species; some amphibian species spawn bird and reptile species; some bird and reptile species spawn mammal species, and so on through to apes and humans.

With evolutionary philosophical foundations, though, the progression has no meaning. And the distinctions between different forms have no meaning either. Different forms of atoms are just different forms of atoms. End of story. And yet even an evolutionist makes distinctions between things, even though in his own worldview these distinctions are meaningless. They persist in distinguishing between non-living things (solids, liquids, gases) and living things (animals, birds, trees); between plants, animals, fish and birds; and between non-intelligent animals and intelligent animals (of which human beings are allegedly the only type so far known to have evolved… but leaving the possibility that we may find that some animals or aliens qualify as being intelligent). Non-living things tend to just follow the laws of physics and chemistry. Non-intelligent living things tend to just follow the instincts, cycles and habits of their species. But as intelligent living things we are characterised by conscious struggle, according to the secular atheist - the struggle for meaning and to "find our place in the universe".

However, these distinctions are arbitrary for the atheist, since he wants to say that fundamentally we are just random collections of atoms. Feelings, knowledge, memory, understanding, wisdom, relationships are all meaningless for the atheist. They are simply, for him, just more random chemical reactions within the random atomic residue. So we, as human beings, surely should have no more rights than the gecko, the gopher, rocks, seaweed or nitrogen gas!

The atheist is inconsistent and irrational because they persist in living their lives as if things that happen to human beings matter whilst philosophically asserting that they don’t! Why do they get so upset about certain things they claim are “wrong”? Why do they get upset about people who disagree with their irrational babbling? Those are not the logical responses of people who really believe that all human beings are only different to rocks, plants and lizards by degrees of evolution.

The real logic of atheism and evolution is that human beings are not special at all, and deserve no special laws. So what if one random atom blob called a child is attacked by another random atom blob called an adult, and in a way that other random human atom blobs call sexual abuse? So what?

In the film Collatoral Vincent (played by Tom Cruise) is a cold-blooded contract killer who hijacks a taxi and forces its driver, Max (played by Jamie Foxx), to take him to various places to kill people. Max asks Vincent at one stage why he is killing the people he kills that night. Vincent’s reply is typical of the consistent atheist, “Get with it. Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars, and a speck on one in a blink. That's us, lost in space. The cop, you, me... Who notices?” Later on, he says simply, “There's no good reason, there's no bad reason to live or to die.”

So the atheist not only has the problem that he cannot find an absolute and universal basis on which to argue for his moral standards, he also has the problem that his own philosophy concludes that morality and immorality is meaningless!

But what of the non-religious person who believes in a Creator? Their basic problem is that their concept of the Creator or god comes from within themselves. As such it has no objective truth, and therefore there is no way to know this god absolutely. The reason I say that their conception of god comes from within themselves is that it cannot come from anywhere else. What I mean is that even if they are influenced by Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism or whatever, they consider themselves authorized to vary and contradict elements of those religions on the basis that they simply don’t feel like believing them. You may hear them say things like, “I don’t see god as being angry,” or “I see god as primarily a benevolent force,” or “I don’t think god will judge people”. If you were to ask them why they believe these things about god, they would say they just think it’s obvious or that they’re entitled to their opinion.

This applies just as much, by the way, to the assertion that the gods of all religions are really different faces of the same being, and therefore all religions lead to God. It is a belief that has no basis. It is wishful thinking, inasmuch as people don’t want to have to choose. They don’t want God to be someone whom they must know and honour. That would be too threatening. They want the Creator to be a being so distant and unknowable that we only catch glimpses of him/it in the insights of various religions. From that distance and obscurity he/it is no threat and they can choose to ignore him/it.

Their feeling that the human race was created, or that evolution was guided, by some intelligent powerful being, however, gives them no clue as to what they are as human beings. They too, like the atheist, are left wondering, making it up out of their own emotions and intellect. They have no basis on which to talk about what human beings are or what our purpose is. And therefore they have no basis on which to build any conclusions about whether we are distinct or set apart from animals, and about what constitutes right and wrong things that we should or should not do.

So non-religious people of the West in the early 21st century have some serious problems when it comes to discussing morality. Everyone has concepts of right and wrong, as we saw, but the criticisms of Christian moral standards from contemporary non-religious people fall apart because they have no rational basis.

What makes something wrong?

Whose Rules Rule? - Part Two

I made a big assertion in my last article. I said that the non-religious people of the West basically see themselves as the final authority when it comes to deciding what is right and wrong. I see that as the primary reason for conflict between Christian moral standards and the norms of the non-religious West, because if people are their own final authority then they tend to define right and wrong in a way that suits their self-interest. They tend to define things as right that make them feel good. And therefore the Judeo-Christian moral code is seen as oppressive, because it limits their enjoyment of things they have given themselves the right to enjoy.

It’s a big assertion and it masks a lot of variety and complexity in the presentation of those beliefs. But don’t worry. I’m not going to leave that assertion ungrounded. I may not explore absolutely every angle of the issue, but I hope that I’ll talk about enough for you to see the direction of the argument and the logic of it.

I think having shown that both Christians and non-religious people have standards of right and wrong, the next place to go is some discussion of how we decide what makes something wrong. That’s obvious for the Christian, or the Jew or Muslim for that matter. Something is wrong if God the Creator, the King of the Universe, says it is wrong. For the non-religious person it’s more complex. Of course, the application of God’s law to different situations is not always clear-cut, and therefore there is legitimate debate amongst Christians. But at least we all agree that God is the final authority and we turn to His Word for guidance.

For the non-religious, the source and rationale for their morality varies from person to person. A couple of brief examples will hopefully suffice in the limited space we have.

Let’s ask an imaginary atheist why it would be wrong of me to kill them. What would they say? Because it is wrong to hurt other people, they might say. To which we would say, why is it wrong to hurt other people? We may point out that doctors often hurt people in the process of helping them to get well. 

The atheist may reply that doctors hurt people in order to benefit them in the long term, so the principle is that we must do things that benefit other people. Why, we should ask again, should we benefit other people? 

Because the survival of our species depends on us helping each other to survive – that could be the answer. One of the things which separates human beings from other species, and which has made us the dominant species after millions of years of evolution, they may say, is our ability and urge to help each other. But why is the survival of our species important? After all, evolutionary theory suggests that all species are the result of random chance mutations and changes. Why shouldn’t we expect to be superseded in the evolutionary process?

They may respond that it may not be important or meaningful for our species to survive, but it is a natural urge to survive. It is what living things do, they may say. And caring for each other is the human way of living out the collective urge to survive. But, we could answer, why then do we see human beings who like to kill people – cannibals, serial killers? They obviously don’t feel the same way about the wrongfulness of killing. Why is my atheist friend’s principles and arguments any better than the cannibal’s? What right has my atheist friend to say that the cannibal is wrong to kill people, or that Ted Bundy was wrong to kill all his victims?

At this point the atheist is in a really sticky place, because he cannot say that killing is absolutely wrong for everyone. To say that he must have some absolute authority to appeal to. But he denies the existence of absolute authority. So all he can say is that the majority of people in our culture have decided that killing in certain circumstances is unacceptable. In fact, he can’t really talk about things being right and wrong at all. All he can say is that he doesn’t like people murdering other people, and so on. If he can get enough like-minded people on his side then together they can enforce that as a rule.

But notice the final authority is nothing absolute. The authority is the individual. Collectively the majority view is forced onto the minority, who are supposed to either accept it or they suffer the consequences. So the atheist’s final authority is himself. He decides what is right and wrong, and seeks to be in the majority to promote those views in democratic systems.

What of the non-religious person who claims some church background? It seems still fairly normal in England for people to say that they are Anglican when it comes to filling in surveys or school application forms. And yet much less than 5% of the population is in church every Sunday. So there are some people for whom the Christian church is a badge or part of their heritage, but means nothing more to them on a day-to-day basis. They too are practically non-religious.

It is not unusual for people such as these to be sexually promiscuous, or to have sex before getting married – they simply fit in with whatever the fashion of the day happens to be. If most couples live together and enjoy sexual relations before they get married, then so do they.

If they were asked why they don’t see that as wrong even though they call themselves Christians, a high proportion might just reply simply that they think parts of the Bible are old fashioned and out of date.

And there again we see the final authority is not God, but themselves. They give themselves the authority to pick and choose which parts of the Bible they accept as having influence in their lives and other parts they choose to ignore. But if they do that they fall over the same problem as the atheist. They have no grounds on which to say any particular thing is right or wrong for all people – if they are the final authority for determining right and wrong in their lives, then there is no absolute right and wrong.

They may or may not find this perturbing. I do. You see, when people start to accept that there is no absolute right and wrong, and they start to see themselves as the ultimate authority over their own moral standards, then they start to act in increasingly selfish ways. If they can decide what is right and wrong for them, why not make up rules that make them rich and happy? If I’m a bloke and I can’t get a girl, then why not see if I like sex with other blokes? And if I don’t like sex with adults, then why not get thrills with children? If I am a girl who gets pregnant from casual sex, why not kill the baby to save the hassle? If I am brought up in a poor family and have a rubbish education, why not rob rich people to get money? If I have a depressing life, why not take drugs or drink to excess at the weekend to block out reality and get at least some thrills in life? If I see rioters attacking police, why not take advantage of the situation and steal from an electrical store? If a rival gang is threatening my neighbourhood, why not teach them a lesson with a gun? Why not? Why not? Without an absolute standard of morality that we all appeal to, we have nowhere to get the answer.

The fact that every non-religious person does not act so selfishly is a blessing, but is ultimately only due to the fact that we are in reality all made by God and have a conscience. But as that conscience is increasingly and collectively ignored, we will descend further and further into anarchy. 

There is so much more to be said, but there is not enough space left today. I have sketched very faintly the contrast between the firm source of Christian morality and the crumbling foundations of non-religious Western morality. I have not laid out positively the Christian position, or made any calls for change at this stage. Those will come, but there are more areas to cover.

Whose Rules Rule? - Part One

Part One - What is sin?

When non-religious people talk with Christians about morality they normally do so with the belief that there is common ground that can form the basis of discussion. But there ultimately isn't! In terms of the ultimate principles that underpin and guide what we feel is right and wrong, we are in completely different belief systems. I'm going to try to illustrate this over what is currently planned as a series of twelve articles, by looking at several questions where Christians come from a completely different basis of belief than the non-religious person.

Ok, let's pin this down with real brutally honest examples before we start on the philosophical reflections:

Christians believe that abortion is wrong. It is killing a child. It is murder. Killing other people is wrong, except by accident, in war or in self-defence. It is sin. We are given a hard time for saying that by the non-religious masses. Not only do they think that abortion is not wrong, they believe that Christian opposition to abortion is wrong. Christian opposition is a sin against their freedom.

Christians believe that sexual intercourse outside heterosexual marriage is wrong. That means, of course, that we believe that 'living together' is a sin, one-night stands are sinful, adultery is sinful and that homosexual sex is also sinful. We are frowned upon big time for saying that too. Not only does the modern non-religious person think that homosexuality and sex outside marriage is not wrong, they believe that Christian morality is wrong. Christian sexual standards are a sin, in their view, against their freedom. And they find that offensive.

So it’s not the case that Christians believe in sin and the non-religious person doesn’t. The non-religious person clearly believes in sin, but their definitions are different.

(And when I talk about the 'non-religious person', as I outlined in my article about the riots in England in August 2011, I intend to talk about the majority of people in the UK, Western Europe and other English-speaking nations. Some of these people are confident enough to call themselves atheists or agnostics. Others still want to call themselves Christians, Anglicans, Catholics or Jews, but what they are really saying is that they don't want the hassle of arguing about the existence of God, but they still just want to get on with living life without religion intruding on it.)

Where views differ so radically it is normally because we have different basic assumptions. But many of us fail to recognise this, and we continue to argue as if we were agreed on certain principles and are only arguing about the particular details. This is the case when non-religious people in the West argue about moral standards with Christians.

You see, for the 21st century non-religious person there are two things that annoy them. The first is when someone transgresses their own standards and does something that they believe is wrong – for example when someone sexually abuses children or defrauds the state benefits system. The second is when someone tells them that their standards are wrong – i.e. when someone says something is wrong that they think is not wrong. And these opinions may be different from one person to another.

Why is that? I believe it’s because both scenarios are a challenge to their authority and autonomy (control) in the world. When other people do things they don’t like that is an implicit challenge to their authority. When other people tell them that they are wrong in their moral statements, that is an explicit challenge to their authority. Either way they are confronted with the brutal fact that they cannot control what goes on in the world, because other people have different views of right and wrong. Normally so long as these other views do not impinge directly on their freedom to live in the way they want they just get on with life, with a slightly uneasy feeling. But when crimes are very bad, in close proximity, or their freedom to do what they want is at risk they become very unhappy.

To put it bluntly, effectively 21st Century non-religious people take it personally when someone does something they believe is wrong, or tells them their morals are wrong. And it is personal according to their basic assumptions, because they believe that they have the final authority to set the rules in their lives. Even law-abiding citizens only agree to be bound by the law of the land because it has their seal of approval, their vote, because they recognise that their own peace and prosperity depends on everyone limiting their behaviour by agreeing to go with the majority. To get political about things, in a democracy this clearly only works when people have similar basic assumptions and similar moral codes. The wider the divergence of opinion, the more likely factions will occur, as one or more group starts to feel their power for self-determination unacceptably limited by the majority, without apparent benefit to them. And when the benefits of self-control cease to outweigh the cost to their freedom there is often resentment and then occasionally violence.

In summary, for the 21st Century non-religious person their moral authority is ultimately themselves alone.

Christians, on the other hand, put moral authority wholly outside of themselves, in the hands of the One who created us all – the Almighty God. When we say something is wrong it is not on our say-so, it is on the basis of higher authority, the ultimate authority of God.

This has several implications for the way that we approach each other:

The non-religious person often feels that Christians are acting ‘superior’ when they point out things they think are wrong. However, this is often because they think Christians are arguing on the same basic assumptions as themselves – i.e. that they have final authority in their own lives. Actually when a Christian says something is wrong it is not because we are trying to force our own personal opinions on everyone else. It is because we are trying to help our friends, families and culture avoid the anger of the Almighty God, whose rules have been broken. So I’d urge our non-religious friends not to take offense, taking it personally when we talk about sin and morality. We believe we are under the same rules, and have also transgressed those rules. We are equally sinners. 

Christians have, I tentatively suggest, also allowed that misunderstanding to go unchecked. Realising that we live in a culture that does not accept God’s Word as a sufficient reason for restraining behaviour, we have tried to find common ground on which to argue for traditional moral standards (that we believe God requires). For example, when arguing against abortion or assisted suicide, we tend not to say that God forbids it because it involves killing someone. Instead we try to persuade people on the basis of science and psychology. In general terms public opinion is divided on these issues, so the success of these arguments is mixed. But the point is that in an attempt to lead society to behave in ways that do not openly displease God we have tried to use worldly arguments, and ended up giving the impression that our motives are the same as the non-religious people we argue with.

So when we say, “abortion is wrong” or “euthanasia is wrong”, what most people hear is, “we are better than you, we have better standards than you and we want you to join our party”.

What I am urging is that we allow the argument to go deeper. We should recognise that we have different morals because we have different principles and beliefs, and discuss those as well. Then we may find we both understand each other better, but hopefully also start to see the firm rationality of Christianity compared to the irrationality of non-Christian principles. That’s what I hope to drive into in the next few articles.