Good and Evil – Who Decides? Pt. 1
In her 1969 counterculture anthem Woodstock, songwriter Joni Mitchell intones: “We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves Back to the garden.” Of course, there is no getting ourselves back to the Garden. We live in a decaying universe which “groans and suffers” (Rom 8:22) because our first parents succumbed to temptation and disobeyed the LORD God when they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:17; 3:22). I think that “the knowledge of good and evil means the ability and power to determine what is good and what is evil.” (Victor P Hamilton Commentary on Genesis). Hamilton explains: “Of course, this is God’s prerogative alone. He has never delegated moral autonomy to any of his creatures.” Again, likely “The temptation to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was to seek wisdom without reference to the word of God. It was an act of moral autonomy deciding what is right without reference to God’s revealed will” (R Kent Hughes Beginning and Blessing)
Regrettably many today are firmly convinced that man does indeed possess moral autonomy. For example, we find the following in Humanist Manifesto 3:
Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Humanists ground values in human welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and beyond.
It is comforting to know that signatories to the Manifesto “are committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity.” It is less comforting to know that others who share the view that moral codes are human constructs, do not share this commitment. For example, some of the more radical Sophists of ancient Greece “concluded that, since traditional moral standards are mere conventions, they have no binding force, and the rational way to live is therefore to pursue one’s own interests and power, acting unjustly if one can get away with it” (The Oxford Companion to Philosophy [moral philosophy, history of]). Now that’s a depressing thought, but let’s keep in mind that if there is no God “all moral judgements (are) … statements about the speaker’s feelings mistaken by him for statements about something else (the real moral quality of actions) which does not exist” (C S Lewis Miracles). (Continued next month)
Rex
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