Apologetics: Ethical Objections & Ethical Relativism

Introduction: Ethical Relativism Explained

Before we investigate objections on specific Christian ethical positions, I thought it would be best to assess the broader picture of Christianity’s place within ethical discussions. In this lecture, I’ll explain ethical relativism. Then, I’ll look at two ways in which ethical relativism manifests in a pair of objections against the Christian faith. Next, I’ll articulate responses to those objections. Thereafter, I’ll turn back to relativism with an aim of undermining it. To close, I’ll consider what’s often behind ethical relativism and highlight that philosophy’s weaknesses as well.

This lecture will resonate with our earlier treatment of religious pluralism and multiculturalism. Like that previous topic’s framework, there are many ethical systems from which to choose: utilitarianism, hedonism, virtue ethics, feminist ethics, and deontological ethics to name a few. The existence of differing belief systems is once again construed as definitive evidence that none are wholly true.

One of the more pervasive views today isn’t an ethical system per se but an interpretation of all ethical systems. Ethical relativism insists upon the profound limitation of ethics to tell us what is right and wrong. Normally when we speak of relativism, it’s the ethical version to which people are referring.

As you may know, ethical relativists think that the truth can’t be known about ethical matters. In that, they agree with skeptics who also claim we can’t know ethical truth. Unlike skeptics, though, the ethical relativist says this is the case because there is no objective truth to be known. There’s no position on a single issue, let alone a host of issues, that can be shared and accepted among all people because terms like “right” and “wrong” don’t capture any real features of the world.

To put it bluntly, “right” and “wrong” are just words within this view. Ethical principles are conventions like etiquette and traffic laws. We make up these sets of rules to help us decide how to act, to help us keep the peace, or to promote a privileged group’s interests. The rest of us abide by them because doing so helps us get along in society, garner others’ praise, and feel good about ourselves. Even if some of us naively think we abide by ethical rules or norms for grander reasons, there’s nothing grander going on than self-approbation.

Before we get too far, understand that ethical relativism doesn’t come in only one flavor. There are a few varieties of ethical relativists. One variety holds ethical truths are relative to groups of people. Multiculturalism often works hand in glove with group-centered ethical relativism. This position would say, for instance, that female circumcision is ethical or good for the groups that practice it in Africa or the Middle East even though many Western groups abhor it. We’re not able to condemn such practices without being ethnocentric, which is to say, without being biased in favor of the beliefs and practices of our group.  

Another variety of ethical relativism holds that ethical truths are relative to the individual. It may be the individual’s judgment, what he or she can or can’t accept, or what most promotes his or her interests. Regardless of why a person believes it’s good to behave in a certain way, another person cannot fairly pass legitimate judgment on another’s beliefs. This variety would be more consistent with American individualism, which says every single person should be free to pursue his or her self-determined goals without societal interference.

Listen closely in conversation about ethics to determine in which camp the person with whom you’re speaking resides. The same person may shift among these views. As an example: if he’s criticizing Christianity, it may be from the perspective of an enlightened American citizen. If he’s defending himself, it may be from the perspective of an unaffiliated individual. That sort of wavering is a vulnerability we can exploit because equivocation, where a person uses the same word to mean different things at different stages of argumentation, is a logical fallacy. We have something to say to both individual- and group-centered relativism, but anyone committed to clear thinking can see that it can’t be both.

Importantly, note once again that fair, impartial criteria with which to assess the various opposing ethical judgments do not exist. Any proposed criteria would be skewed either to the person offering the criteria or to that person’s group. As we’ll see, it’s hard to avoid using criteria, though.

One of the practical side effects of ethical relativism is it frees you up to decide whether you’ll obey the man-made rules or whether you’ll work around them. Ethical commandments or prohibitions are weaker within a relative paradigm. They aren’t compulsory. Other people may say sexual promiscuity is bad, but that doesn’t bind you when you’re a relativist in love. Others may say drug use is bad, but that doesn’t bind you when you’re a relativist who needs to chill out.

Another practical outcome of ethical relativism is that it stifles attempts at ethical correction. Within this schema, we shouldn’t criticize others because each of us is trying to do the best we can and figure out our life’s course for ourselves. Even if we aren’t relativists, we are influenced by its dominance. Many  of us hesitate to speak the truth in situations for fear of offending someone with such an intrusion. Our hesitation often comes from doubt about the truth’s existence, at least in that situation.

Correction is impossible for another reason as well. In lieu of justifying truth on rational or objective grounds, that is, grounds that are accessible by our fellow human beings, our culture frequently turns to sincerity. This is generally accepted to be the case for ethical and religious belief. Sincerity is, by definition, private. It’s internal. There’s no arguing with it because feelings aren’t rationally responsive. If a person sincerely believes something, many are tempted to conclude it is somehow true for him or her. The validation of belief becomes subjective. It’s a product of how strongly a person feels or how convinced he or she is.

Finally, notice that none of the above entails that ethical relativists have no ethical beliefs. As we’ll see, many ethical relativists still say they believe that certain actions are right and certain actions are wrong. What’s different is what’s at stake in disagreements. The tenor of those assertions and the ensuing discussions is nearer to disputes about matters of taste than debates about matters of truth. Since the highest achievement of ethics for a relativist is to become an established opinion accepted by others, there’s no need to cede any ground. Anyone else’s opinion is just as valuable as your own. The rub is that no opinions can be prescriptive, meaning rules can be forced on other groups or individuals. This is, however, another point of vulnerability that many of our responses will attempt to prod.

To summarize, ethical relativism alters the way ethical principles or propositions are held. For ethical relativists, even when you think some action is right, this isn’t actually the case. Instead of supposing a foundation beyond human opinion, ethics has flimsier grounding. The truth is often conceived as what works for us or what we sincerely believe to be true. It follows that whatever counts for the lesser caliber of truth varies between people, either groups or individuals.

Cultural Barriers

Our culture, under the influence of postmodernism, has grown increasingly dubious about mind-independent truth. A recent poll found that approximately 80% of Generation X assume there is no absolute truth, as compared with approximately 70% of Americans at large who assume there is no absolute truth. Ethics, as we have seen, is no exception.

Whether or not the respondents to those surveys understand the ramifications of that statement, it’s clear the Bible cannot accommodate that stance. Christians would say this incommensurability is a problem for nonChristians in that they are wrong or confused about the nature of reality. It’s also a problem for us, though, in that we are judged by many nonChristians to be wrong or confused about the nature of reality, too.

Since Christians believe in objective moral truths, they will disagree with ethical relativists. The Bible contains many behavioral rules that are intended to apply to everyone, everywhere. For example, Christ has told everyone, everywhere to be perfect like their heavenly father is perfect. There is never a situation in which any of us have permission or license to be imperfect. Even though we act, as a matter of fact, imperfectly, we know this is our own wrongdoing.

As you could imagine, relativism, ethical or otherwise, is an impediment to apologetics insofar as people think that Christianity’s ethical claims don’t have the truth value and explanatory power we hold that they do. If you say that some action is wrong--especially a popular action, an ethical relativist would object, “Maybe to you, but not to me.” If you respond that the Bible backs up your view, you’re likely to hear, “Maybe you think it backs up your view, but it really doesn’t.”

One conclusion from conversations with ethical relativists we can draw is that Christianity has lost its accumulated cache of authority. It may come as a shock because, in the realms of church and congregation, the faith is held in such esteem. We like to believe that we not only stand on but that we own the moral high ground in our culture. Listen to ethical discussions around you, however, and you’ll hear that others stringently believe that Christians are ethically bankrupt.

After the revision of the concept of truth, from capital “T” truth that’s true for everyone at all times to little “t” truth that’s true for certain people at certain times, Christianity’s ethical claims are construed as intolerant. From a relativist’s perspective, Christian claims deny others’ opinions. Instead, Christian claims are understood as opinions that claim to be more than opinions.

Another objection levels the higher charge that Christian ethical claims are immoral and wrong. Part of this indictment is that those claims don’t allow people to choose for themselves what is right and wrong. We’ll address both claims of Christian intolerance and Christian immorality next.

***

Rather than simply disagree with ethical relativists, or worse still wag our fingers and scold them, we need to debate. We need to show others not only why we believe in ethical truth but why they should believe so, too. We need to uncover the implications of ethical relativism as well as elaborate upon common misrepresentations of Christian commitments.

In addition, it bears reminding that while speaking to the subtlety and nuance of interpreting Scripture and applying it to our lives, we can never question its absolute truth.

Christian Intolerance

As we saw last week and as we’ll see once again on when we discuss hell at length, people commonly take offense at Christianity’s perceived intolerance. While the heart of these issues is the same, their bodies are different and worthy of examination.

One common ethical objection to Christianity we’ll cover has to do with the way Christians believe. Namely, they take their ethics too far. They cross the line that respects others’ freedom to act and live as they see fit.

Because it’s inflexible about what is right and wrong, some would say Christianity doesn’t respect people’s ability to find their own happiness. To them, Christianity is an elaborate political movement that aims to force it’s outdated morality on the country as a whole. Christians’ understanding of God and attempt to impose his will on others is seen as encroaching upon everyone’s personal freedom, which is acutely threatening to Americans.

Oftentimes, objectors point to Christian fervor as a necessary consequence of their commitment to objective morality. They’ll point to self-righteous, overzealous, bigoted, antagonizing and all the other volleys they claim Christians launch in the culture wars. They’ll talk about the picket signs and protest marches, the threats of damnation, and televangelists perverse excitement with natural disasters befalling sinful places. To them, we hate the sinners and the sins. We’re not merely close-minded, we’re aggressively close-minded.

What these critics want is to be left alone and allowed to do as they wish. They would say, “I don’t believe those rules,” or “My people don’t believe those rules.” Either way, they’d say “Stop trying to force me to obey them.”

Christian Misdeeds

Another common ethical objection to Christianity focuses on what Christians have done, often in the name of God. Some people make ethical objections to Christianity on the grounds that it has supported, initiated, or turned a blind eye to immoral actions large and small

You’ve heard the charges against the church historically, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the various bloody wars during the 16th and 17th centuries, endorsement of the slave trade, and vast institutional betrayals like the never ending sex abuse scandal. Today, we are constantly accused of smaller scale atrocities for which we need to answer. There is no shortage of accounts of nominal Christians and church leaders involved in wicked schemes of adultery or theft. There have been plenty of violent attacks upon abortion clinics or their staff. There have been cruel disruptions of funeral services.

Atheists and agnostics point to these examples of wrong-doing. In so doing, they’re basically claiming, “There is no truth to what their religion espouses. Look at the sorts of people it generates.”

Responses to Christian Intolerance

Using the proper approach is an indirect way to address ethical objections generally. On a most basic level, guard the way you present yourself to others. Don’t challenge someone unless you’re motivated by a concern for his or her ultimate healing. Again, don’t approach someone with an air of superiority. We all struggle with various temptations and idolatries. We should never forget we, too, are sinners. Taking a humble posture is one way to disarm charges of intolerance before they’re leveled.

We also need to be mindful of the way the conversation is framed. While it’s easier to be against something than to be for something, defining yourself negatively, in opposition to something, doesn’t inspire people to act or to change. We don’t want to be on the side of intolerance and allow another group to be on the side of tolerance. We need to make a finer distinction. We aren’t advocating for intolerance as opposed to tolerance. We’re advocating for intolerance of evil in the world and in ourselves and embrace, not just tolerance, of good.

As a brief but important aside, I’d like to once again plug the golden rule. Reciprocity can spare us much wasted effort in misunderstanding. Christians groan at every news story that presents us as unintelligent, hypocritical, or self-serving. Let’s not repeat this mistake and assume that every nonChristian is a liberal, an evolutionist, or a feminist. Not all atheists or agnostics are across the board moral relativists or would self-identify as such. Many simply struggle with confidence in their judgments because they’ve been told definitive positions are arrogant. We can show people by grace by asking them what they believe to be the right course of action rather than assume they believe a false one.

Adding content to that form of humility, we can begin with agreement. Tim Keller is quick to point out in response to these observations a scriptural observation of his own. The Bible reserves plenty of criticism for religion. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes the religious to task, not the irreligious. He condemned pharisaical pride. So, we should feel emboldened to echo his rebukes.

There’s more on which we can agree. One of the reasons why ethical relativism is so popular is because it capitalizes on a salient feature of ethical reasoning. Specifically, that ethics can be hard. There are situations in which interests collide, principles conflict, intentions confuse, and outcomes confound. On that point, the ethical relativist and the Christian of like mind. They both recognize the imperfections and limitations of human understanding. Let’s not be afraid to explain how even when we as Christians take right and wrong to be black and white, that we still live in gray. Be open with how hard it has been for you to apply God’s instruction to your life. It does not follow that we should throw up our hands and just go with our gut or, even worse, conclude that our best judgments are faulty.

After humbling yourself, point out what’s wrong with taking tolerance as a universal virtue like it commonly is. Many of our peers speak as though tolerance were always good. But this cannot be the case. To say a person is wrong is construed as disrespectful. It hurts people to tell them they’re wrong. But first of all, what if a person is incorrect? So long as you don’t gloat about it, wouldn’t we say that correction is a good thing? We don’t let children believe that Abraham Lincoln was the first president. Surely if it’s proper to correct people about trivial matters, it’s proper to correct people about weighty matters like courses of action.

Second of all, is harm--such as the harm involved with disagreeing with someone else--always wrong? If so, then we have a universal principle for which ethical relativism cannot account. If not, how can you draw the line? On what ground can a person who takes tolerance to be a virtue stand up against an intolerant person? It’s one of the inherent inconsistencies with global tolerance. It can’t be sustained indefinitely. At bottom, tolerance can often become a refusal to value what is true and good.

Point out how we would not be benefitted by God allowing us to determine what’s good for us. We need God’s law as well as his love. We believe in divine ethical imperatives, commandments that God has passed down to us through his word and has written on our hearts. These cannot change. They are always righteous. Don’t mince words. God does constrain our personal freedom. This is merciful on his part, not controlling. It the only sort of correction that could truly repair us.

No response would be complete without an attempt to help sophisticate others’ understanding of Christianity. Firstly, Christian doctrine does not claim that all ethical topics are straightforward. The Apostle Paul himself writes of the complications when he says, leaving aside whether or not it’s lawful to eat certain foods, that you should not do what makes others stumble even if it doesn’t make yourself stumble. (Romans 14:13-23)

Moreover, Christianity is not just a set of rules to follow. This is not the place to elaborate upon the Gospel. Suffice it to say our faith is relational, not transactional.

Responses to Christian Misdeeds

First of all, ask why those actions are wrong. Hard questions like that have a way of softening positions because, as we’ve agreed, ethics isn’t easy. You’re likely to reveal the other’s version of relativism or you’ll hear something that sounds like or a foundational belief. The latter, of course, would no longer be relative. Afterall, accusing Christians of wrongdoing is self-defeating for an ethical relativist insofar as it assumes there is something truly evil about dominating others, for instance. We’ll discuss what we can say to secular foundations towards the end of class.

Also, ask why the person focuses on Christian misdeeds in the first place. Ask them if there is any group in history who couldn’t be criticized. Even the groups relativists associate with would be vulnerable to reproach. Here, as elsewhere, the merits of the ethical system aren’t born out in its representatives’ actions. They’re borne out in the inherent correctness.

Provide a counterweight to the critic’s slanted portrayal. Point out the many of the positives accomplishments Christian groups and individuals have made for civilization. To scratch the surface: Hospitals have Christian roots. Public education and universities were a product of early Christian living. Christians were greatly influential and some of the first to push for abolition of the slave trade. More recently, the Civil Rights movement was largely made possible by Christian faith. It had a part to play in ending apartheid and repressive Soviet communism. The Christian legacy has many examples of people who gave their lives in service of others, an act empowered by a fervent belief in a God who already died to save the world.

But we shouldn’t whitewash our past or even our present. We need to humble ourselves before others, nonbelievers included, and admit we are flawed like our other Christian brothers and sisters. Christian misbehavior, be it on a personal level like rudeness or on a historical level like some churches’ support of slavery, cannot be soft pedaled. We need to be clear in condemning wrong actions, regardless of who commits them or whether or not they self-identify as Christian. The fact is Christian misdeeds are done in contravention of Christian principles.

A good time to introduce the notion of sin and inject the Gospel into these discussion may be precisely when speaking of such failures. The Bible regularly illustrates the faithfuls’ disobedience, so we need not shy away from calling it out. We can explain our enduring need for God’s mercy and how, of all people, Christians shouldn’t be self-righteous. We all need a savior.

***

When it’s time to take on ethical relativism itself, we have a few tacts we can take. I’ll cover two tonight. One is to crack the ribs, as it were, and the other is to get to the heart of the matter. We’ll cover both in turn.

Making a Case: Why Relativism Is Wrong

Insisting that truth is subjectively determined is muddled thinking. Clarify the terms. There’s a difference between what is believed and what is true. It may be true that you believe something, but it isn’t necessarily true that what you believe is true. Christians can agree with relativists on that point. We know our fallibility continues past our baptisms or conversions. Just because we can err doesn’t mean that we always do, however. Furthermore, just because we disagree doesn’t entail there’s no truth about the subject of our disagreement. The relativist’s leap to these conclusions needs explaining.

Frances Howard-Snyder in his essay “Christianity and Ethics” concisely recounts the many difficulties for ethical relativism. First, either version of ethical relativism is incompatible with moral progress because it can’t regard changes as progressing in any direction, positive or negative. Improvements requires standards and any proposed standard would be relative.

This fact has unsavory ramifications for many ethical relativists. Who’s to say taking biodiversity into account when modifying seeds and planting crops is any nearer to the good than ignoring natural stability and doing whatever is cheapest? To give another example, there’s no objective way to compare our society to antebellum America, for instance. We can’t claim improved race relations for ourselves. All that can be said on the relativist’s account is that our beliefs have changed, not that they’ve changed for the better or the worse. This also undermines accusations that past Christian misdeeds like the Crusades we’re actually wrong. (That’s not the point were arguing, of course, but it does refute that objection.)

Also, ethical relativism that’s group-oriented becomes incoherent when an individual is a member of multiple groups. If a woman is Christian and living in Saudi Arabia, it becomes impossible to say whether it is or is not moral for her to drive a car, for instance. As a Christian, she should be free to operate a vehicle but as a citizen in a heavily paternalistic nation, she should be a passenger. Nothing is right for her.

Relativism Relativizes Itself

Most damning, ethical relativists almost always stop claiming there is no ethical truth at some point. If you ask probing questions, there will likely come a time when the ethical relativist concedes that certain immoral actions are always immoral, regardless of the person or society. I’ll have more to say on that later, but for now: to break through the purported equivalence of all truth claims, pose an extreme example of evil behavior and see if the other person would tolerate it as permissible. If not, inquire after why this particular action shouldn’t be allowed.

Most stringent relativists will have trouble allowing naziism to be a good thing, even for early 20th Century Germans. This shows that there must be some criteria with which to exclude certain viewpoints as unacceptable. As CS Lewis points out in Mere Christianity, as soon as we think one system is better than another, we stop thinking of ethics as a human convention. Whenever we say one is better than the other, we appeal to a standard that is independent of ourselves. That is, essentially, the Christian ethical position.

It would be fair to ask how he or she explains the conviction that animals shouldn’t be abused, for example. You may need to challenge them to explain how his or her beliefs aren’t undone by one of the varieties of ethical relativism. Whether or not a response is forthcoming, it could be powerful to offer the theistic account.

The relativist’s inconsistency is telling. People want to believe in ethical truth, even if they vocally deny its existence. An amoral universe is frightening, even if we suppress that fear. The deep sense of ethical conviction is bridge to atheists. This is where God’s truth has a hold of them. Use that. Explain how God has made his moral character known by imbuing our universe with real goodness.

Good Implies God

At this point, it may be appropriate to pivot towards an argument for the existence of God. As you may recall, I mentioned that one of the chief arguments that God exists is an argument that accounts for the objective truth about ethics. Now that we’re talking about ethics again, it’s fitting we revisit that argument.

Tim Keller presented an argument for the existence of God from a moral sense in his book The Reason for God. He observed that we have an unavoidable belief in moral values and obligation. Even if we don’t always see eye to eye on what those values are and how we are obligated in a specific situation, we are convicted by our consciences. Even purported ethical relativists draw lines that cannot be crossed regardless of how a person feels about them.

The difficulty for the strictly secular theories of morality is they cannot state on what inalienable rights, for instance, depend. It’s inconceivable how something like human dignity could be from nature, given nature’s tendency towards violence and predation where the strong lord over the weak. It’s impossible to claim justification from majority rule because nothing prevents a majority from acting oppressively and compromising the minority’s human rights. The binding law can’t come from the individual because, as we mentioned, individuals disagree.  Short of saying that nature is unnatural when it comes to morality, a strictly secular account cannot answer why we ought to respect others’ rights. Considering moral obligation the Biblical account of things, once again, makes better sense of things than the secular account.

Thinking Through Relativism: Relative Evil

As we just saw, we should bore down in these conversations, drilling past ethical objections, past relativism, and down into the bedrock metaphysical commitments. Doing so, we’ll eventually confront naturalism. That’s where our fundamental conflict lies with ethical relativists because that tends to be the philosophy to which secularism appeals.

To understand the heart of relativism, I’d like consider how ethical relativism is at the root of another objection to Christianity. When the problem of evil arises, many atheists and agnostics have a simplistic view of suffering. They are likely to assume all pain is evil. The influence of relativism is behind this assumption. When we deny the reality of objective moral values, we only have recourse to subjective ones. We look to our preferences and feelings to discern between good and evil. Everything that hurts us, that is unpleasant, is taken to be evil and, contrarily, everything that helps us, that is pleasant, is taken to be good.

This brings us to another reason for the popularity of ethical relativism, besides the fact that ethics can be difficult, is that values like good and evil, right and wrong, aren’t empirical. We can’t directly see or measure values. That makes it hard to be quantified, which means it makes it hard for science to study them. The cultural authority the Christianity has lost has in many ways been claimed by science. This is the true core of our disagreements.

We can use moral intuitions to undermine science’s sway. Just because science can’t label it and explain a phenomenon doesn’t imply it doesn’t exist. Unexpectedly, the very fact that there is real, genuine evil in the world that isn’t a matter of personal opinion, a fact that remains evil even if the people perpetrating it invincibly believe it is good, this fact is a problem for a naturalistic worldview that science assumes. It is a fact that we are appalled by ethical evils, but how else could that fact be adequately explained without recourse to theism? What is the physical status of that evil, how can it be measured and quantified? If it’s more than just a feeling of displeasure, more than a preference, more than a delusion, or an accident, if it is the truth, which seems to be what people are saying when they’re appalled by brutality, where is it to be found outside the brains of the affronted and indignant? How could it be anything more or even other than a natural outcome of natural processes?

The conclusion to draw from this is that naturalism is normatively challenged, by which I mean, cannot adequately obligate its adherents to do good or avoid evil regardless of their peculiar subjective, personal states. If the right thing to do is costly or if the wrong thing could be easily done secretly, naturalistic accounts don’t have sufficient obligating power to require us to be ethical. As I mentioned at the outset, some would selfishly prefer this to be the case and to take advantage of this leeway. Those of us who long for justice to be done can’t abide by that outcome. Either justice is real and will be done or it’s optional and it won’t.

This is another component of the moral argument for the existence of God in that it’s exemplary of people’s intuitive knowledge of the moral law. The problem of evil exhibits that knowledge in that it assumes things on earth are not the way they ought to be. Whatever falls short of a standard presupposes a standard of goodness. The Christian has recourse to the supernatural. Our standard of goodness is derived from God's. (Matt 5:48) What does the naturalist have?

(return to Apologetics page)

Apologetics: Arguments for the Existence of God

Introduction: Looking for Overlap

Before I begin to reviewing the arguments for the existence of God, I wanted to go back and touch on one more practical tip. I think it will be immensely helpful regardless of the objection you’re addressing. It beings with a simple observation. All of us need to have both biblical and cultural literacy. That dichotomy captures nearly all of our human experience. We can lump a lot of the ideas we come across everyday into either of those two categories, either God’s thoughts or human thought.

Dr. Jerram Barrs, who teaches apologetics at Covenant Theological Seminary, uses a similar dichotomy in his course to describe the human condition. One of the best practical take-aways from his course uses a venn diagram to help us as evangelizers and defenders of the faith identify with nonChristians. Identifying with, sympathizing with, and having compassion for others is, after all, half of what I was getting at with my earlier talk on approaches (the other half being the need to maintain our identity in Christ). 

Professor Barrs asks us to think of the the believer and the unbeliever as being in the same basic situation. Regardless of which group you are a part, you can’t help but be steeped in the two worlds. Both groups live in two worlds, the earthly world of our culture and the world of God’s truth. The believer is obligated and striving not to be conformed to the earthly world. We’re in the earthly world of culture but trying not to be of it. The unbeliever is oblivious about the world of God’s truth, yet, because of things like common grace, general revelation, and the divine image, still knows some of God’s truth. They’re of the earthly world of culture but still committed somewhere to God’s decrees.

A successful means of evangelizing and defending the faith is identifying those places in the unbeliever’s life where they are invested in God’s truth and cling to it tightly. You can start a conversation by naming that belief and showing how it’s incongruous with the other world of culture they’re steeped in.

So be mindful of where you agree with the nonChristian. Those are the grounds on which you’ll be able to erect the most powerful arguments to others. It should also help you pick among the various defenses from which we can choose on any given topic. It should help you, for instance, to know which argument for the existence of God to lead with.

Preface: Arguing from common ground

Most of the remainder of our course will be defensive in nature. We will be dispatching objections to the Christian faith. In this lecture, though, we’ll be discussing the the principal offensive apologetic. We’ll be assuming the burden of proof in arguing for the existence of God in a few different ways. Although we mentioned last week it’s perfectly advisable to turn the tables and ask others why they don’t believe in God, we need to prepare ourselves for the inevitability of the table being turned once more. We will be asked to explain our rationale for belief.

One of the first reasons many Christians would offer is that we’ve in some way met God, not necessarily face to face but in the words he left behind and in the spirit that still moves and acts and dwells among us. Many of us know that God exists from our experience of Him. Indeed, special revelation in the person of Jesus Christ is the ultimate evidence of God. We have clear, intimate proof in the form of a sense of being called by God, of being loved by him, of being forgiven by him on account of his Son, of spiritually partaking of Christ’s body and blood in communion, of having our silent prayers heard by an omniscient being that is our Maker. Perhaps you’ve been blessed to have this assurance since you were quite young. These interior experiences aren’t to be discounted, but they aren’t universally relatable.  

Others, those people who have not yet shared in those experiences with us, begin from more skeptical ground. We can imagine, putting ourselves in their shoes, how those reasons could be unconvincing. If they’ve not had any of the subjective experiences you referenced, they may ask you for further justification. While we pray that the Holy Spirit would make his reality and presence felt in the souls of atheists and agnostics, we are obligated to prepare a defense of our joy in knowing the Lord. In addition to drawing on religious experience which nonChristians have not had, we seek in these arguments to speak from experiences and assumptions that are basic to all humanity.

Because of that commitment to shared beliefs, it’s important to note at the outset that these arguments, which tend to be more philosophical and less directly grounded in special revelation and Scripture, stop short of establishing the God of Bible’s existence. Nor do these arguments attempt to conclude Jesus is the Son of God. It’s important to remember there is a profound chasm between theism and Christian theism. We should understand that our work is not done even if we persuade someone of the validity of these arguments. We will need to continue along side the person and evangelize. The historicity of the Resurrection and the reliability of the Scriptures, which we will cover later, are intended to draw a person nearer to Christ specifically may build upon these more general foundations.

The various arguments form the existence of God for the cornerstone of what’s referred to as traditional or classical apologetics. That approach assumes at the outset of debate that the theist, atheist, and agnostic can find common ground from which to proceed.  It assumes all parties are able to recognize and agree on the truth value of certain statements. As a reminder, we find clear Scriptural support for this traditional approach in Psalm 19:1, (“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”) and Romans 1:19-21 (“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse.”). Both of these passages make it clear that limited evidence of God is universally accessible, even while fuller knowledge of Him is possible only through the aid of faith.

We’ll cover three arguments in the remainder of our class. To make use of our venn diagram, the first two arguments you see listed in your outline will be more germane to scientifically-minded people, people who have a passion for the natural world. The last kind of argument will be more germane to humanists, people who have a passion for other people. You can rely upon your knowledge of the specific person to inform you as to which sort of argument you should lead with. That does not mean you should stop there or refrain from sharing your intimate awareness of God, just that you’ll be building on firmer ground if you start with arguments that resonate.

The arguments we’ll be discussing today share a common form. Each begins with uncontroversial premises, statements that should be considered obvious or true by anyone participating in rational discussion. From those premises, each proceeds carefully and logically with the addition of other widely acceptable propositions towards the conclusion that God exists. The following arguments are probabilistic, meaning they establish the great likelihood of the conclusion’s truth. Provided a person grants the premises, you will make an effective argument. That person should believe the conclusion. Should, however, falls well short of must or will.

For those of you who are who are logically inclined, most of these conclusions are not deductively certain. Our apologetic goal is not to reach risk-free certainty. We aren’t going to pretend that being a devout Christian is rationally compulsory. As Michael J. Murray stated in his essay, “Reason for Hope In the Postmodern World,” “There are no arguments for the truth of Christianity which force the atheist or non-Christian to their intellectual knees.” Nor should that even be our aim. We are not out to score a knockout blow for the rationality of Christianity but to win men and women for Christ. To do so would take more than reasoning. It requires love, trust, and in the end, the grace of God.

I will be reviewing many positive arguments, so you’ll likely leave this lecture with your head spinning. That’s intentional on my part. If and when you engage in apologetic discussions, I’d advise you do the same if possible. Because any belief if rationally avoidable, meaning you can deny a conclusion you should believe by altering your preexisting beliefs, a determined skeptic will always find a reason to continue disbelieving. The goal in presenting so many arguments in favor of God’s existence is to prompt the skeptic to compare his or her system of beliefs with Christianity. We strive to make the case that a belief in God makes more sense of our universe than the godless alternatives. After facing the fully array of positive arguments, skeptics will have to make so many exceptions and hedges, they’ll will be left considering the strength of their contorted state against the elegant simplicity of the theist’s position. This is the edge or precipice to faith we described as our apologetic goal. We pray that God intervenes at that point.

Argument Types

Cosmological - The root of cosmological is cosmos, which is Greek for world or order.  So the cosmological argument makes a claim about the world, specifically the world’s origins. It’s usually the first brought up in positive apologetics because it is so basic. The argument is born out of a a very simple, fundamentally human question that all of us have pondered. Why is there something rather than nothing?

If we look around us, everything we see is classified by philosophers as a contingent being. That means, simply, that its existence depends upon a previously existing being. If we look at a given object, we can always ask why is it here. We will trace it back to a previously existing contingent being. This pen is here because I brought it here from my house. It made its way into my house because I bought it from the store. I bought it from the store because it was shipped there from the pen factory. And on and on it goes, past machines and plastic injection molds and raw materials extracted the soil and fossils. Its origins go back a great distance in the past. Eventually our inquiries take us to the earth itself. We can ask the same thing of our earth. It is, afterall, another contingent being. Again, the answers to our questions recede further and further back into the distance past. We can ask the same thing of our universe and recede far back into the cosmically distant past. But we inevitably run aground on a mystifying question: why is the universe here?

In order to stop this infinite regression to previously existing contingent beings, we have a few options. First, we could say the universe is itself a different kind of being philosophers call a necessary being. A necessary being is a kind of being that has always existed, which is to say it is eternal. Second, we could say the universe is a one of a kind being that is contingent but somehow doesn’t depend on another being for it’s existence. Or third, we could say that there is a necessary being separate from the universe that created the universe, a being with the omnipotence required to create all things and the eternality to create time itself. This necessary being theists call God.

Of those three options, the theistic belief is the only one that doesn’t immediately ensnare us in a tricky situation. Briefly put, the eternality of the universe is not supported by the dominant scientific cosmology known as the Big Bang. The Big Bang is a scientific theory that holds the universe explosively began at a very specific time in the far, far distance past. Now, a skeptic could be content dismissing the Big Bang. The problem, however, is what happens when you bring that premise to its logical conclusion. The Big Bang is such a cornerstone of natural science and enjoys such explanatory power it would be inconsistent for that same skeptic to invest any authority in other natural scientific truth claims. Most skeptics you’ll meet will be uneasy about that fate.

Alternatively, the second option that the universe is the only contingent being that doesn’t need another contingent being for its own existence is nonsensical. It’s absurd to believe that a being that has not always existed can begin on its own. The skeptic is free to be nonsensical, but you’re not likely to run into many people who are honestly, committedly nonsensical. Should you find such a person, you may want to ask him or her what’s so terrible about the Christianity and the aspects of its doctrines that transcend reason.

With the first two alternatives suffering from obvious weaknesses, the third alternative, the one the supports theism is left. We then have our first of many good reasons for thinking God, a necessary being, exists.

Teleological - The Greek root of teleological is telos, which basically means an end. A telos is the final outcome for which a thing is aimed to meet. The teleological argument, also sometimes called the argument from design, makes a claim about purposes. Like the cosmological argument, it also begins by wondering about the universe. It asks a more specific question, though. Instead of wondering why is there something rather than nothing, it looks around and asks why is there just this universe instead of another?

Thomas Aquinas is frequently credited with being the first to formulate the teleological argument. His massive 13th century tome, the Summa Theologica, includes an argument from design as its fifth argument in favor of God’s existence. There have been many versions since then, some falling out of favor and some still dominating the field.

The argument here, which has been popularized in the last few decades by what has been dubbed the intelligent design movement, is an inductive kind of argument known as argument from analogy. Inductive, as I mentioned earlier, means probabilistic. It says, when two things are sufficiently alike in relevant ways, it is rational to ascribe to the one thing attributes that are known to be true of the other thing. More simply stated, like effects have like causes. We all know and use this type of argument whenever we say, “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.”

There are many different versions of the teleological argument. We’ll cover an exemplary one here, but know that you can research and find others that rely upon other analogical reasoning.

In the teleological argument, the two things that are said to be alike are human artifacts, things people make, and the universe and all the natural objects it contains, things like clouds, rocks, and electrons. Human artifacts are adjusted to specific ends by our intelligence. We invent them to help us in our tasks, for instance. If we observe natural objects, we find they are likewise adjusted to specific ends. They act uniformly, in expected ways, to preserve itself and achieve stasis. Therefore, natural objects must be adjusted by an intelligent agent capable of creating the sum of natural objects we call the universe. That intelligent agent fits within our conception of God.

Objection: the world is not like a human artifact. Many atheists and agnostics, most concisely the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume, have rebutted this argument by objecting to the premise that the world and artifacts are similar or similar enough to support the teleological argument’s conclusion. The world, or to extrapolate further, the universe is so wildly unlike anything humans have ever produced that it’s impossible to claim that judgment on a small part of it suffices to establish a strong enough similarity between the world at large and say, a house that humans designed and built. When we weaken the analogy, we weaken the conclusions from the argument.

Reply: the intricacy of the world is unlike any given natural object. We could distance ourselves from the analogy claims between the world and human artifacts while still drawing conclusions from the evident purposefulness of the natural universe. If we were to take the widest view of the world as humanly possible, the fact that it functions to sustain life is evidence against brute force as its cause. Each natural object is a part of a natural system, ecosystems, weather systems, geological systems, etc. The natural systems, chemical, physical, and biological are so complex and complexly interwoven and yet functioning regularly and orderly, they bear no resemblance to the products of any inanimate object on its own.

Objection: the intricacy of the world can be explained by natural processes over a long, long amount of time. If the functionality of the universe were presumed to be quickly established, such as within the lifespan of a human, then it would be reasonable to believe a designer would be necessary to make the universe thus. However, incremental change over durations of millions of human life-spans could account for the complexity we see.

Here you can see we’re quickly running into evolutionary science territory, which I cannot thoroughly unpack here. Instead, let me simply retort here that it’s impossible for science to explain the purposive nature of material processes over long, long amounts of time without assuming that nature has some sort of goal. It is, however, impossible to suggest a goal--even a far distant one--without recourse to a being capable of assigning a goal. Arrows don’t fly towards targets on their own. They’re aimed by an archer. That goes to show purposiveness is not brute or innate. Blind, formative power cannot establish its own ends.

To quickly review, imagine you found a deck of cards arranged by suit in numerical order on the sidewalk, it’s very arranging demands an explanation. It would be absurd to hypothesize these were so organized at random. Likewise, the beauty, order, and structure of the universe as a whole and its parts demands an explanation. Could such a thing just happen without design and intention, as the atheist contends, or does it make more sense that an intelligent, willful being created the universe?

We don’t have the time to properly investigate them here, but I should make you aware of more recent developments in the arguments from design that assert the greater explanatory power lies in theistic rather than atheistic cosmologies. To briefly touch on one such account, the intricacy of biological systems like the inner workings of the cell are such that it is highly improbably that all such necessary systems could arise at random concurrently. If you’ve ever heard of the term “irreducible complexity,” this is where that term frequently arises. The idea is that you cannot subtract a single component of a system without the system breaking down. It stretches credulity to suggest that each component of the system arose slowly over a long period of time when the system  itself would only be of use at the end of the development when each of the components are developed enough to contribute their essential portion of the task.  Prior to that point, the inadequacy of any contributing part renders the overall system useless, which would make it superfluous from a natural selection perspective. That, however, is what the alternative to divine invention is committed to.

We still have to establish at this point that a designer did act rather than leave it as more probably explained by a hypothetical designer than an unintelligent process. This sort of argument is more potent when appended to another argument proving God’s existence. You can see the teleological argument working in tandem with the cosmological argument we covered earlier.

It’s important to note that the teleological argument on its own, as I previously mentioned, attempts to prove the existence of an intelligent, all-powerful being. It does not, however, prove other characteristics of that being or, as some have suggested, that there is only one such being. Thus, the teleological argument is used by theists in the various monotheistic religions and deists alike. What the argument results in is the proof of a universal watchmaker. It does not demonstrate, however, the watchmaker has any interest in his watches, let alone intense, loving interest.

Fine-Tuning Argument

As our scientific knowledge has increased and sophisticated over the years, as we’ve developed more accurate instruments that measure more phenomena, many scientifically-minded people have drawn the conclusion that an intelligent designer is even more obviously behind the universe. An updated version of the teleological argument is known as the Fine-Tuning Argument.

In brief, a number of fundamental physical variables appear to be fine-tuned to support life. Life could not happen were apparent coincidences in physical constants not the case. If gravity were slightly different, habitable planets wouldn’t exist. For my astronomers out there, changes in gravity one way or the other would turn all stars into blue giants or red dwarfs.  If the universe wasn’t expanding at this precise rate, life wouldn’t exist. It would be either too hot or too cold. If the weakness of the gravitational force relative to the electro-magnetic force were different, life wouldn’t exist. The motions of fundamental particles wouldn’t be stable enough to sustain even cellular life.

The delicacy of life and these apparently specially suited constants and physical laws raise an important question: why does our universe exist in just this way? There are so many possible values, theoretically as many values as numbers. It is highly unlikely that random chance could align so many constants in such precise degrees and maintain them there.

Objection: just because an outcome is exceedingly unlikely or rare doesn’t mean that it was caused by intelligent design. All specific outcomes, like the arrangement of our universe, are equally improbable. It could still be that the unlikely event or sequence of events did in fact happen by chance. The odds we would flip a coin and land on it land on heads after doing so 20 times in a row are no worse than flipping a coin and landing on heads once. It could be that there are or have been many universes that came into and out of existence without the stability to support life. That we’re here now, observing the universe’s stability doesn’t tell us anything new. The theists is left to ask which is more reasonable, the theistic point of view that God created the universe as it is to support life or the atheistic point of view that the universe is as it is and the atoms happened to align in such a way to make conscious observers of the universe possible?

Note: It’s fair to pose the question to anyone scientifically-minded or inclined to heavily invest in the authority of natural sciences how they explain the origin of life? Empirical studies have an exceedingly hard time hypothesizing as to the leap from inanimate to animate objects. The chances are so vanishingly small the a random process could arrange the precise sequence of genetic information necessary for life that it would be unreasonable to grant strictly materialistic theories explanatory power. Again, there’s a lot more to consider than we have the time for here. My point is that we shouldn’t hesitate to show that the Christian worldview isn’t the only one that has apparent holes.

Anthropological - The last stop on our itinerary is the anthropological argument. “Anthropological” is likely to be a word more familiar to you. The root of anthropological is the Greek word anthropos, meaning human being. The anthropological argument, then, begins by wondering about a specific creature that dwells within the universe. From general observations about humanity, we wonder how it is we could be this way? I should add here that the anthropological argument isn’t one specific argument but a kind of argument like the teleological argument was, an umbrella term under which a number of arguments stand.

I mentioned at the outset that many of the arguments for the existence of God argue for theism generally. They conclude a powerful, necessary, and intelligent being exists. The anthropological argument goes farther. It brings us closer to a Judeo-Christian conception of God than the other arguments because a cornerstone of these faiths is the divine image of God in humankind. We believe, after all, in a personal God, and that is precisely the sort of God the anthropological argument posits.

From as far back as the 4th century Augustine to as recently as 2013 Tim Keller, Christians have been appealing to innate human knowledge and characteristics to point to God. We look to internal, common traits that most humans share, and argue from them to the existence and characteristics of the being who could have given them to us.

Moral

Most of us, for instance, have deep convictions regarding the need for wrongdoing to be rectified in some way. We’ll discuss Tim Keller’s moral argument for the existence of God later in this course as a refresher because it’s adept at dispelling the moral relativist’s objection to theistic belief. For now, let’s summarize C.S. Lewis’ version of the anthropological argument. The first of the four books that comprise his compilation Mere Christianity entitled “Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe” builds a moral argument for the existence of God.

He begins with an observation that if you listen to people for any length of time, you’ll soon notice everyone makes appeals to objective moral standards. People are constantly referring to fairness or justice or reciprocity in praising or blaming others or asking others to behave a certain way. He adds that this law of right and wrong behavior is a unique sort of law in that we are aware of it but we can transgress it. We know about other laws that naturally govern us and ways that physical objects behave, for instance, but we can’t disobey them. We can’t make our blood cells cease bringing oxygen to our tissues and we can’t continue rising indefinitely when we jump.

Although this moral law has changed over time and although our understanding of facts has changed over time as well, Lewis asserts there has never been a total difference between moralities. Societies must adhere to certain kinds of rules and promote certain kinds of values in order to endure and these are what constitute the moral law of which Lewis is writing. There is, in fact, more in common than in contrast between various cultures and times.

Next, he notes that this law is compulsory. We are forced to believe in it and yet none of us abide by it completely. This means that moral law is prescriptive not descriptive. It doesn’t describe what we do. It tells us what we should do, which is significantly different. When we don’t do as we should, we make excuses for ourselves and our misdeeds. That practice goes to reinforce our belief in the moral law. We want a special exemption from that law, not to abolish the law altogether.

Having established these two propositions, 1) that we ought to behave in a certain way and 2) that we don’t do so, Lewis concludes that all of us are aware of ourselves as imperfect beings. Our imperfection is unique in the world in so far as our imperfection implies guilt. Plants and animals suffer from imperfections we call mutations or other ailments, but we don’t blame them for that because they couldn’t have been otherwise. But this blameworthiness, this sense of obligation, is unique to humans.

In order to be as binding as people act like it is, the moral law must be objectively real. It can’t be our personal preference. It can’t be an account of how we behave. It can’t be something made up by humans for the benefit of the society. In order to make us do it, regardless of what we want or what other humans want, it needs to be real independent of us.

Our knowledge of the reality of the moral law is unlike our knowledge of any natural laws or natural objects. We do not observe it with our five senses of touch, taste, smell, vision and hearing. We don’t observe it with that sixth sense we call the kinesthetic sense. It’s something we know more intimately, that is, subjectively. We know it because we are human. The moral law presents as something built into all humans, or nearly all humans. Now where, we ask, did this law come from? How could it be a real part of us if we didn’t make it up and if it isn’t perceivable?

That there is a fact that is knowable and real outside of physical, objective facts must be accounted for by our theory of reality. To this point, allow me to quote Lewis at length. “If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe--no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave a certain way. And that is just what we do find inside ourselves.”

Here, as elsewhere, the theistic account goes up against atheistic accounts of the universe. If you recall back to our first class, I talked about the prevalence of modernist thinking in our society.  Confidence in science as a guiding light for completely describing reality is a very modernist and still very popular belief. When we offer up arguments for the existence of God to our skeptical peers, they’re likely to harbor what we call a materialist philosophy. Materialism basically holds that the only stuff that exists is physical stuff or matter. Materialists explain reality by solely physical processes such as thermodynamics and evolution. Contrastingly, Christian belief asserts there is an additional kind of stuff that isn’t physical or material but that nonetheless exists. We call this stuff metaphysical or spiritual. The Father, souls, and angels are all examples of metaphysical beings.

So, when we articulate a moral argument for the existence of God, we’re in effect claiming greater explanatory power for ourselves as opposed to the materialist alternative. In a universe made only of physical objects, we can’t explain the obligatory nature of the moral law, our knowledge of it, or the independent reality of it. For that, we need a moral being, an arbiter of right and wrong that engenders us with an awareness of and desire to conduct ourselves rightly.

Other

Materialism has other problems I’d like to briefly address before bringing the lecture to a close. Besides moral intuitions, we have other kinds that are innate or unlearned and which, never the less, we commonly consider to be truthful. By truthful I mean significantly true, as in accurately describing reality. For example, children from a young age display logical and mathematical intuitions. If we take these seriously and believe they provide us with real and important truths, at least when our cognitive faculties are functioning properly, then we must answer why we have them. A materialist can’t account for the legitimacy of those views, only for their evolutionary advantage. Truth has no inherent evolutionary value. Evolution doesn’t care if we’re wrong. What counts in natural selection is the propagation of the species via propagation of the individual animal. If error is advantageous, then the process of natural selection will promote that error. That is a dissatisfying ramification of the most popular sort of materialism. But that’s not materialism’s only soft spot

Love is central to much of our human experience. It’s quintessential to life, both in the multiplying of it and the sustaining of it. The variety of loves and affections people have is explained by a God who is himself love. If love is basic to the structure of reality, then we can see why so many different sorts of relationships would involve true, sacrificial love. Here again, materialist accounts cannot support or explain or endorse altruism adequately enough to justify, let alone require, the demand for selfless action we know to be imperative. I heard on NPR the other morning that science has explained altruism. My ears perked up at that. The ensuing story didn’t relay an explanation, though. It was a description, specifically recent scientific findings correlate large amygdalas--the loci of emotional recognition--with altruistic behavior. If your brain is bigger in certain spots, you’re less likely to be selfish, but that doesn’t say a thing as to why you are or why you should be. Here again, we see that materialism alone is not adequate ground on which to build an ethic.

There is so much that we do, that we are passionately committed to, that has no survival value. Indeed, we do and love it in large part because it serves no purpose and has negligible utilitarian value. Play, humor, and the arts all do so much more for us than let us live to see tomorrow or pass our genes down. The suggestion that such behaviors is only self-gratification is repulsive to us.

Those of us who spend time in art galleries, museums, sculpture parks, or even our own studies can attest to the stirring power of art. On the naturalist’s account, our susceptibility to certain sensory attributes that we would call beautiful or sublime or awesome is accidental. On the other hand, our aesthetic sense is explained by a God who recognizes beauty. That there is a shared sense of worthiness for appreciation suggests that there is something objectively in beautiful objects and artifacts to intuit.

Importantly, these features of humanity cannot be as well accounted for by materialism. Endowment of intuitions from an orderly, law-giving God makes more sense than an alternative account of humans as products of solely physical forces that encourage our survival. Similar to the chasm between inanimate and animate objects, materialism also has no adequate explanation for the correlation between physical and mental properties, between unconsciousness and consciousness. Here, then, is one of those fissures that opened up in the modern era. Confidence in humanity’s privileged status in the universe cannot cohere with confidence in a universe reduced to matter.

(return to Apologetics page)