Secularism's Borrowed Capital

Whether the issue is violence against women, genocide, reproductive rights or imminent domain, internationally, we adhere to moral standards of some kind. And we assume when we do that they are applicable to more than just us. If you visit the United Nations web site, you will find this more than any other place. However, such moral values that underscore the rules or rights pronounced are not derived from any religious tradition or worldview. They're secular. The U.N. has a Universal Declaration of Human Rights page where you can check out the details of these moral claims. Secularism has become the monolithic authority, both nationally and internationally, in terms of defining ethically desireable objectives, as well as undesireable ones. Being devoid of ties to any one religion or philosophical discipline, secularism makes the curious claim of objective and sufficient authority.

My main contention is that non-theists who actually believe in something pertinent to more than just themselves, MUST borrow from Biblical Christianity, in order to hold that view. In fact, if they were to abandon this habit of borrowing this or that Biblical concept, sticking consistently with their own view of reality, not a single opinion, regardless of importance, has any value. There's actually many examples, but let's see where this leads, if we accept the naturalistic, materialistic, atheistic view of reality, regardless of the ethic embraced.

There are two major points that secularism borrows from a Biblical worldview in order for it to hold to any of its ethical tenants; objective morality and free will. Despite the secular and naturalist unavoidable conclusion that neither of these things can exist, they are constantly borrowed, assumed and relied upon in order to make any ethical judgment or underly any worthy cause, whether the ethical judgment or cause is sound or not. What I want to do first is to show you, in detail, just where secularists and naturalists borrow from a biblical worldview of objective moral values and freedom. Next, I want to summarize how the conclusions of secularism and naturalism, if followed consistently, must lead to despair and chaos, then provide the source of their ethical borrowed capital, mainly biblical concepts about humanity, freedom and morality. Lastly, I wish to state how only Biblical Christianity has the answers required for a good life and ethical considerations.

Objectivity Is Required For Real Obligation

In order for human rights to be important values, their must exist objective moral values. To say something is objective is to say that it true is or isn't true, regardless of what we think or how we feel about it. Think about an objective opinion about something. You want someone who has no bias to provide an opinion, in order to obtain a better conclusion about something, like an essay or a business plan. The point behind objectivity is to get to the real state of affairs, unabstructed by things that would cloud our view of them. In terms of morals, and particularly a sense of duty towards any moral code, whether it is liberal or conservative, atheist or evangelical, for those moral values to reflect a real state of affairs, rather than it being reduced to our feelings or opinions or vested self-interest, they must be objective. Some moral claims have universal applicability, like 'you shouldn't torture infants'. They apply to everyone, at all times. They are objective, which means they refer to a real state of affairs, constitute real knowledge claims and all human beings have an obligation or duty to adhere to them.

But in order for them to be objective, they can't be grounded in our feelings or bias about them, although we would be biased and have feelings, some stronger than others. For a statement like 'you shouldn't torture children' to be objectively true, we can't rest this claim on just our feelings, our psychological bias, traditions or our vested interests as grounds for such claims. Otherwise, how could we really know for sure that such statements are true, regardless of our feelings, bias or self-interest? It could be that this is a meaningless statement, despite our feelings, bias or traditions. We may feel that torturing infants is horrible, but on what basis can we know that our feelings against such an act are justified? Without something more to ground these moral claims, we would have to admit we don't know. All we are left with is something like "It's wrong, just because." Although that comes with an intentional desire for obligation, it has no reasons and no justification for it.

What would be required for any moral claim to be objective, in order to be justified? For morality to be applicable to all people in all times, the only way for any moral code to be objective would be for it to come from outside of humanity. It would also have to be grounded in something transcendent from humanity in order for the obligation or sense of duty to be applicable to all people, regardless of feelings, politics, bias or self-interest. Otherwise, all morality is reduced non-justifiable subjectivity. It seems like the only choices we have as an adequate anchor for objective morality for things like a Universal Declaration of Human Rights would be to anchor their justification (and duty) in extra-terrestrials or God, since both would transcend individual or societal vested interest. But let's say our moral code comes to us from aliens from another galaxy. Would that make our moral code objective, when determining them between all conflicting moral notions we have? Well, it would satisfy the requirement for it to apply to all humans, but it would still not be objective. All we have done is zoomed the possible grounds (and real obligations) of subjective and relative morality outward towards interstellar life, if it exists. There could be another alien moral code that conflicts, and no way to adjudicate between them without something that would be able to transcend both them and us.

So, God is our only other option as a grounds for objective morality, but even with the concept of God as the grounds, there are still some problems. If the divine moral code is created arbitrarily by this God (Divine Command), then the morality can't be objectively true or real, since it is arbitrary. Take the statement, 'torturing infants is wrong.' On the Divine Command theory, that's only true because it was decreed by Deity, and could have been decreed otherwise, making it arbitrary. We end up with a '...just because I said so.' type of justification, but with a Deity, rather than a school teacher or autocrat. What if the divine moral code comes to us from God, because its what God Himself has to abide by? Then you end up with something beyond God, which means we are no longer talking about a Deity but just an amplified contingent being....a bigger you or me, which concludes with both an insufficient grounding in morality plus a continued mystery as to whether or not this morality is ultimately justifiable, if it truly exists at all. The only way for objective moral values to exist are for them to be grounded in the eternal character of God....reflect what He's like, rather than being arbitrarily created by Him or some higher code that He abides by.

Without that exclusive grounding in morality, all morality is really reduceable to mere convention and the only objectivity one could drum up would be for morality to be a peculiar way in which natural selection has worked within human animals. But such an explanation, although an objective description, would eliminate morality as being normative and obligatory. It would be reduced to an explanation about animal behavior, sort of like describing how cats lick their paws when they bathe themselves. Cats don't do that because they should. They just do it. It devolves from an 'ought' to an 'is'. Nothing more could be added and no sense of moral duty comes with it.

Without this objective morality, no moral code, whether it is an individual constitution or an international bill of universal rights, means anything. It carries with it no sense of duty or obligation, outside of force and without this objectivity, there is no way to adjudicate between conflicting morals, whether they are to protect women from violence or to support age-old traditions of mercy killings. The difference between them would be the same as the difference between a square and a circle, Pepsi verses Coke or a french horn verses a coranet.

Morality REQUIRES Genuine Libertarian Freedom

Are we determined or free? The best way to define genuine freedom is the ability to choose otherwise. In other words, if I decide to work out in the morning, I could not have done otherwise unless I had the ability to choose not to work out. This is one of those issues (out of many) where we find it laughable to deny our freedom, and yet, under naturalism, we MUST deny this freedom. Why? Because whether we are talking about behaviorism or DNA, the answers always come up the same: we are determined animals. This is arrived because 1) naturalism can only explain things with naturalistic respones and 2) libertarian free agency has no room in a naturalistic worldview, anymore than does a mind, soul, the color red or warmth. Basically, anything that can't get reduced down to physics and chemistry MUST be denied and since the mind, in general, and free agency, in particular, seem to be hopelessly irreducable, they must go.

Why is freedom indispensible in terms of morality? Any ethical statement is ethical only under the presumption that people can choose to either follow the statement or choose not to follow it. It requires free choice. An ethical statement is different from others in that it carries with it a sense of duty ("Wash hands before working the kitchen") and a sense of duty requires the ability to choose otherwise, or else any such statement is meaningless. And ethical statements are exclusively for moral agents....you and me...yet if we have no choice in the matter, then not only are we no longer agents of anything but what we're deterimined to be (whatever that is) is already set and unchangeable. All ethical statements would be irrelevent, since we don't have the ability to choose otherwise. You can't have moral responsibility without genuine freedom to choose. That means when a society stones their women if they hold hands with another man, they do so because of prior causes, whether these causes are language, cultural, educational, genetic or a combination of all. They are not morally responsible. They are determined for all those reasons. That's why you see in some news headlines the defense of a thief where such defense appeals to the thief's inability to avoid stealing the shoes because of oppression and economic injustice, or whatever the prior causes are.

There is a strain that tries to reconcile determinism and freedom together, in harmony. It's called compatibilism. There are compatibilists in both non-theist and theist camps. Classic compatibiblism says that although we are determined creatures, real freedom is simply the ability to act without being encumbered from doing it or the ability to restrain without being encumbered from restraint. It isn't that we are determined not to choose. We can choose, but that we are determined to choose only in line with the desires we already have. The secular compatibilist will say that either our cultural baggage or DNA saddles us with a set of desires in which our decisions are locked or determined. The religious compatibilist will say that we are saddled with a sin nature such that we can only choose the strongest inclinination of the will, without exception.

The problem with compatibilism can't be clearly drawn out unless we can summarize the main difference between it and libertarian free agency. The main difference is causation. The compatibilist believes that although decisions can be made, they are made within the confines of given desires and we don't choose our desires. The desires cause the decisions. The desires are either caused by natural forces ("My DNA made me do it.") or from sin nature ("The Devil, and my sin nature made me do it."). Libertarian freedom looks at the free choice as the first cause, rather than the result of a chain of prior causes. Although those who hold to such freedom don't deny causal chains, even in decisions, they do deny that all choice is necessarily the result of a causal chain, and hold to free choice as a sufficient first cause.

Compatibilism isn't a successful position for two big reasons. First, although a small circle of 'freedom' has been drawn in choosing between present desires, that 'freedom' is illusory. There is no real freedom because all choice is determined based on the strongest inclination at the moment. Second, although the compatibilist is correct in that our desires drive our character, what they fail to explain or even acknowledge is that desires can be changed by intentionality of the will. We can change our desires and our character through free choices that will re-work our desires and character. For example, no one is born a professional tennis player. Our natural inclination is to stink at tennis. Once we set our mind to learn it and master it, our ability changes and our attending thoughts and desires will change as well. The entire concept of character formation hinges on the assumed belief that the first cause of character is free agency, not determinism.

So, how does this all bear out in terms of our Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as all other ethical values? Well, it doesn't move the conversation very far. I will not deal with theological compatibilism as much as secular compatibilism, although some of the same arguments can be made. For a compatibilist, all decisions are caused by prior conditions, particularly desires and those desires caused by other natural things. There is no real freedom with compatibilism. There is only pre-caused behavior. So, Gaddafi torches rebels because they are a threat to national security, while the international community sees Gaddafi as a tyrant, the compatibilist will run into some problems. Since both Gaddafi and the rebels make decisions based on desires which are based on prior natural causes, there is no justification for either side and no moral responsibility. In the end, there are two groups, the Libyan government and the rebels that are caused to move into two opposing camps and really nothing more can be said, without accidentally bringing in either objective morality or free will into the argument. In the end, there can be no morality with determinism, without abandoning determinism at just the point of tension where freedom becomes necessary for that morality to exist.

Secularism & Naturalism, If Consistently Followed, Lead to Despair and Chaos

Secularism is a worldview that is based on a complete divorce from religious beliefs, systems or traditions. It comes from the Latin word saeculum which brings with it the idea of 'here and now' without any need of referring to deity, spirituality or any other concept that cannot be tested with the five senses, presently. It's mainly concerned with civil government, but has also bled over into media and culture in general. Secularism is based on the philosophy of naturalism. Naturalism is a view that believes only the natural exists. All reality is explanable and reduceable to physics and chemistry. Scientism, contrasted to science, is the belief that emperical, observational methods of testing hypotheses is the exclusive way to gain knowledge about reality. If there are some aspects of reality, like consciousness, that cannot be explained scientifically (reduced to an explanation of physics and chemistry), then it is only a matter of time for science to catch up with an explanation through research and study.

Naturalism has used scientism and a bastardized form of logical positivism (the original concept, culminating out of the analytical schools at the turn of the century, was found untenable and self refuting, with a rescue attempt made by the late A.J. Ayer, managed to avoid immediate self-refutation, even though it was still a logically untenable epistemic methodology), has made its mission the reduction of anything in reality that has not been explained in terms of science, into a scientific explanation. For example, in many circles, the spirit or soul was reduced to the mind and the mind reduced to the brain and nervous system, obeying all physical laws. The concept of God is either a curious development in the evolution of human species, psychologically a response to fear of death or just a carry-over of childhood make believe. In essence, the naturalist believes there is only the physical plus nothing. She also believes, as a result, that the only knowledge that exists is scientific knowledge. If it cannot be tested and observed in a scientific way, then it doesn't count as knowledge or a description of what's real.

But, if you think about it, there are scads of topics that are outside science. What about the arts, politics, religion? The postmodern movement was a response to fill in the vaccuum left by naturalism. The liberal arts at the university level, has provided a way for study to continue in these fields, while acknowledging that naturalism is true. What you end up with is no experts in these fields, which then leads to everyone, with an opinion to express, becoming an expert in these fields. There are experts on disease and astronomy, but no such experts on God or politics. As a result, with the help of the media, naturalism hasn't quelled discussion in these areas, but created billions of voices, all saying contradicting and contrasting things, all vying for their day in the sun, none having any more truth than the other. But since conviction, preference, truth and justice are concepts that even postmoderns can't avoid or reduce, the only way to adjudicate between all these voices is political power. So, politics has moved in as the new God or Arbiter of right, wrong, justice, etc. The State is the final say and since leadership in States change, power is the only important aspect and the final goal to a meaningful life.

Power has no ethical clout, in and of itself. If power is the end, then all the means to achieve the end of attaining power can be considered and then all ethical clout is determined in terms of its ability to gain or lose power. This is the same as saying Obama was right because he won in 2008, but wrong because he lost all his congressional support in 2010. It doesn't matter how truthful or ethical the specific topic or issue may be. In the postmodern ethic, all that matters is whether or not we win or lose, with all our attending views and positions becoming truth, depending on our winning or losing. And with a diverse democratic society, power (and truth) changes hands every other year. In tyrannical governments, truth changes after each revolution. There can be no preferred state of affairs, outside of control, with the ultimate conclusion to postmodern thought. It concludes with managed chaos, which has no way to really quell non-managed chaos (using a play on words).

But for those that are thinkers/searchers, there is a far more at stake. With enough insight, one can determine that life, assuming a naturalistic worldview, leads to meaninglessness and absurdity, with any meaning we give as reduceable to nothing more than a way to while away the hours. In 1942, Albert Camus published The Myth of Sisyphus, which provides insight into the ultimate conclusions of a world and life devoid of meaning and purpose. Camus concluded that life is absurd and we can either pretend it isn't by finding ways to occupy our time and minds, so we don't think about it, through work, following lives of public figures, hobbies, sex, drugs, politics, religion (necessity of the sleep of life). Alternatively, we could attempt an inauthentic way to get out of the absurdity of life through invented pipe dreams or Pollyanish answers that aren't necessarily true but held only in virtue of their attempt to find a happy answer, or accept the absurdity of life. Lastly, we could realize the absurdity and fight against it with the intent of finding some happiness in doing so. He used as an illustration the old myth of Sisyphus who was condemned by the gods to carry a rock up a mountain, throw it down, and carry it back up again, forever. He likened that condemnation with an office job or politics in contemporary settings. But by accepting the absurdity of his predicament, Camus concluded that we must imagine Sisyphus as happy. Was he? Are we?

There is no meaning to life found in DNA. There is no moral law contained within quanta. In rare moments in secular writings, this unavoidable conclusion rises to the surface.

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no other good. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music. - Richard Dawkins, Out of Eden, p. 133

Michael Ruse, evolutionary biologist, comes to a similar conclusion...

The position of the modern evolutionist…is that humans have an awareness of morality…because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation, no less than are hands and feet and teeth…. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, [ethics] is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves…. Nevertheless…such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction and…any deeper meaning is illusory…. - Michael Ruse, Evolutionary Theory And Christian Ethics, pages 262, 268-269

Does that mean that the secularist/naturalist can have no happiness, good life or meaningful existence? The only happiness, goodness or meaning that can be given in a naturalistic frame of reference, to the postmodern, is whatever you create for yourself. In fact, this has become a new virtue in entertainment, whether it is in music or movies or literature. It assumes we have no real nature, either good or bad, yet assumes we will always desire what's good, and use that as the jumping board for creating our own happiness, goodness or meaning, regardless of what we come up with. How do you maintain a civilization if one person defines happiness as sexual assault and another as religion and yet another as violence? There's law, but since we've already concluded that law changes as the power changes within the State, you can't conclude any of these are any better or worse creations of happiness. They're just different. And under this strange system, it may be considered virtuous exclusively because it's original.

You can conclude that whoever is in control makes the rules to be followed, encouraging some definition of the good life, or not. You could say that the individual is naturally geared with a decency and moral barometer to keep society humming. But where is this moral barometer located in the body or brain? What is the naturalistic explanation for a moral nature? Is it simply deciding morality based on what works and what doesn't? If so, we're back in the same delimna since determining what works implies an end and if there are conflicting ends, then there is no real answer in this sort of utilitarianism. In fact, most utilitarians I know are very morally motivated politically. Unless the justification for their political beliefs is grounded only in power, they are betraying their own first principles. But then, the naturalist MUST betray their first principles precisely because their first principles leads to death, not life. That's not a reference to religious terminology either. It's a logical conclusion. The law of the jungle is all that remains, when the dust settles, and the rules can be over turned through raw power, at any time. As Steve Turner once penned,

If chance be

the Father of all flesh,

disaster is his rainbow in the sky

and when you hear

State of Emergency!

Sniper Kills Ten!

Troops on Rampage!

Whites go Looting!

Bomb Blasts School!

It is but the sound of man

worshipping his maker.

In order for secularism and naturalism to flourish, it requires a stable soceity and a stable society requires an ethical and moral society. But we have already concluded that in order to have a moral society, morals must be real, apply to all and be objectively grounded in something transcendent, which is absent in naturalism. They must also be applicable to real moral agents and libertarian freedom is required for moral agency, which is denied with naturalism. So, in order for naturalism to flourish, it must borrow these concepts, without any rational explanation for them. The only place these concepts are grounded in sufficient answers is in the biblical worldview.

Only A Biblical Worldview Gives A Foundation For Morality

There are unique concepts found only in the Bible that provide titanic answers in terms to the issues dealt with in this article. First, is the nature of human kind being in the likeness of his and her Creator. What does that mean? In Genesis, we find out that humanity was created to be verbal and communicate with one another. We also discover that humanity had moral knowledge and rationality. The value of humankind is grounded in this image-bearing quality that distinguishes us from the rest of creation. We have aspirations, can think about our ability to think, have moral motions, verbally communicate as a primary means of relating with others in a way not found anywhere else in nature. Because of that value, we have a basis for the treatment of one another. Rather than the worth of others being related to how they can help us or hurt us, or what they can give or take from us. Outside of this answer, humanity has equal value with the rest of nature and either all of nature is held high at the same value or none of it, at least consistently. We can see that in the modern environmental movement. The Bible considers environmentalism a good ethic. However, since modern environmentalism has divorced itself from the biblical undertanding of the value of both humankind and nature, it is stuck between choosing to protect the lives of the Delta Smelt over the lives of people or destroying entire forests for people.

Without an adequate answer to value, which cannot come from naturalism, it is a constant imbalance and the imbalance noticed comes from the essential understanding within us. Although the bible reflects people as sinful by nature, even the most sinful recognize the moral law within, as detailed in Romans 2. Although the content of morality may be wacked, the fact there is morality used in terms of justifying ourselves or condemning others, shows we are fully aware of a transcendent moral law, whether we wish to admit it or not. The 'moral law within' as Kant worded it, reflects part of the reflection from the Law Giver, even if such moral intuition can't be fulfilled. The bible doesn't paint a picture of happy people who simply need to fly right to become happy. It's almost like Camus' Sisyphus, in that we recognize the moral law and yet cannot fulfill it, no matter how hard we try.

The tension felt is ignored with another Camuseque concept of sleep, in that as we tend to invoke the sleep of repetitive tasks and hobbies into our lives to take the tension off of the absurdity, we also invoke a moral sleep to handle the tension of recognizing the good without being able to grasp it. As Paul goes on in chapter 7 of the same letter, he neither justifies our sad condition nor demonizes the very moral law that condemns us. Rather, he concludes that we need redemption through grace dispensed from the same law giver. Jesus is represented as the exclusive inflection point between God and humankind, as well as the fulfillment of the moral law and becoming the punishment for those who wish to accept His substitionary atonement, in our place. Jesus provides the answer to this delimna. However, we are not left simply redeemed from our inability to fulfill the law in our condition. By chapter 11, Paul tells us that by devoting ourselves to God, our character can be tranformed from renewing our minds. This mental renewal is simply a willful and intentional act of replacing former beliefs about reality with those in accordance with God. With that process comes a power to assist us in the transformation of our lives into something it couldn't be without this power.

As this relates to morality, the incarnation of Christ introduces us to the concept of unmerited grace and the power this grace has in our own healing and personal development. This too has been borrowed by secularism. Of course the secularized form of grace is never consistently applied, defined or upheld. Again, devoid of a solid ethical foundation, even the concept of grace devolves into a useful tool for personal gain, at the expense of others, or an excuse to unravel before loved ones and attempt responsibility for our actions. But all of this implies a moral law that comes from without, even if it is recognized within, making this law objective and real. It also implies that people have free will and are the first cause in moral decisions, making them true moral agents. Lastly, the value of humankind being anchored in the likeness of the same Law Giver, coupled with a point to living (being satisfied in Him, above all things), is the meaning to life, aside passing desires, interests or concerns.

But what about God? How can you ground a morality and a free will in a Deity that exists before and without creation? And what does that say about His desire to create in the first place? Although the concept of one God revealed in three persons defies natural reason, it is the only answer that can provide a series of questions unanswered by all natural philosophy, religions and other worldviews. First, one God that existed as three persons, forever in the past and the future, provides a source for the old unity/diversity problem (how can we explain the unity of things without sacrificing the diversity we see...and how can we explain the diversity we see by sacrificing the unity to be able to explain it?). The Trinity also explains why we love, relate with one another and verbally communicate. Rather than these being evolutionary conventions for survival, which would conclude that even a happy marriage of 50 years is an ultimately unfulfillable idea, they were always grounded in the triune God of Father, Son, Spirit, co-existing, each subordinating themsleves willfully to the other and loving without any need or lack. Creation was a free act of this Triune God to share in what was already there, rather than to fill a void. Only Christianity has this answer. It isn't that the Bible is the best answer out of many. It's the only answer that exists. We have been locked up in a reality that outside of Scripture, has no answers.

But we still try. Instead of utilizing our likeness of imagination and creativity to glorify the God that created us and sustains us, even when we hate Him, we use that gift to find creative and imaginary ways to avoid Him at all costs. This is the motivation and the essence of naturalism and secularism, by promoting an appearance of certainty and objectivity, while cutting off its nose, despite its face. Of course, if what I am writing is true, what it means is that outside of a real world-wide Christian revival, there is no hope and no answers for humanity. I believe that is true. But, despite the lack of popular press, I truly believe that revival is world-wide, happening even in the most despotic places on earth (especially in those places), and that the message of the Kingdom has resulted in churches being started in old mosques, meetings happening in homes underground, where its illegal for such meetings. The cause of Christ strongly marches on, even if we in the west are too drunk on living vicariously through famous people, glued to our hand-held phones and gadgets or too absorbed with our own drama to notice. As that happens, we will see a corresponding unravelling of secular society. The pressure of reality will continue and as it does, anything borrowed, begged or stolen for that worldview's existence will erode, leaving it with its own first principles. And the result will be reflective of those first principles. As Steve Turner apply wrote, when we hear 'state of emergency!' or 'bomb blast kills twelve', its the sound of secular man worshipping his maker.