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| photo courtesy of mick y |
Is morality only for Christians?
No.
It is possible for an atheist to live a moral life, as it is for a Christian (or
other theists) to live an immoral one. After all, everyone inherently share the
desire for goodness and truth and the disdain for evil and lies. There are
however, by default, differences in how morality is viewed by Christian
believers and non-believers:
Source
of morality
Christians:
- God – Christians believe that moral laws presume a Moral Law Giver.
Atheists:
- Evolution – a poor candidate as the source of morality. Morality simply has no place within the mechanics of natural selection. Altruism, for instance, cannot work within a system of “survival of the fittest”.
- Nature – is amoral and thus, cannot be the source of morality. Again, using a lion’s behavior as an example, it cannot be judged immoral for attacking and devouring its prey; it’s simply acting on its survival instinct.
- Culture (Man) – is dismissed as the source of morality by Peter Kreeft through the use of the following analogy (based on Immanuel Kant’s moral theory): A locksmith who locks himself in a room is not really locked-in for he can unlock himself. Kreeft further asks: “how can the one bound and the one who binds be the same?” In other words, it is impossible for man to impose morality on himself.
Judgement
of morality
Christians:
Christian morality is summarized in the Ten
Commandments. Thus, a person who commits a violation of any of the
commandments, such as murder of innocent lives, is guilty of committing sin/immoral act.
Atheists:
Atheists often turn to nature and evolution
to explain the existence of morality. However, neither explanation can account
for how and why we judge certain acts as right or wrong; this is due to the
following reasons:
- Nature’s indifference – As previously explained, nature is amoral; it knows not of good or evil. If morality comes from nature, then nothing can be judged as moral or immoral. But how can this be? For instance, how can someone view the Holocaust as anything but evil? As Scott Hahn wrote: “People will usually recognize evil, even if they are reluctant to recognize good”.
- Survival of the Fittest – Moral standards, according to the mechanics of evolution, works as follows: anything that aids self-survival is “good” and anything that aids self-extinction is “evil”. This is the morality of Nazism – an ideology responsible for the perpetration of the worst crimes against humanity. They alleged that the Jews and other “inferior” groups threaten the purity of the Aryan race and is therefore “evil”; they then justified the murder of millions of innocents as “good” because it aided to the survival of the “master race”.
Reason
of morality
Christians:
The Christian answer is based on 2 premises:
- 1st Premise – Morality is based on God’s nature
- 2nd Premise – Man is made in God’s image and likeness.
In light of the aforementioned premises, man's moral
obligation makes perfect sense:
Man is called to love because God is Love;
Man is called to the truth because God is Truth.
Atheists:
In the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote that in a world
without God “everything is permitted”.
Why love and not
hate?
Why the truth and
not the lie?
Why be good and
not be evil?
If God is not, then indeed, why not?
Despite the
differences, everyone - Christian believers and non-believers alike, are called
to live a moral life. There is an inner voice - the conscience, within all of
us, urging us to do good and avoid evil. This is further proof of God’s love
for us all; as Dinesh D’Souza wrote:
“while the atheist may have rejected God,
God has not rejected him”.
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