Contending For The Faith---Part 27

 

In St. Jude 1:3, we read, "Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." [Emphasis mine]. Contending For The Faith is a series of posts dedicated to apologetics (i.e.,  the intellectual defense of the truth of the Traditional Catholic Faith) to be published the first Monday of each month.  This is the next installment.

Sadly, in this time of Great Apostasy, the faith is under attack like never before, and many Traditionalists don't know their faith well enough to defend it. Remember the words of our first pope, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect..." (1Peter 3:16). There are five (5) categories of attacks that will be dealt with in these posts. Attacks against:

• The existence and attributes of God
• The truth of the One True Church established by Christ for the salvation of all 
• The truth of a particular dogma or doctrine of the Church
• The truth of Catholic moral teaching
• The truth of the sedevacantist position as the only Catholic solution to what has happened since Vatican II 

In addition, controversial topics touching on the Faith will sometimes be featured, so that the problem and possible solutions may be better understood. If anyone had suggestions for topics that would fall into any of these categories, you may post them in the comments. I cannot guarantee a post on each one, but each will be carefully considered.

Did Morality Evolve?

To My Readers: This post tackles the attack against morality by skeptics, agnostics, atheists, and others who reject objective moral values. They claim that God is unnecessary to having morality; that it evolved as humans evolved. Darwinian evolution is false. The Church teaches that one may believe in the evolution of the body, but the soul is created out of nothing by Almighty God. I will not address whether or not evolution of the body should be believed. Following the example of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, I will admit ad arguendo, that the atheist's premise of Darwinian evolution is true, and then explain why it doesn't advance their false idea that morality evolved or is independent of God. I take no credit for the content of this post. Besides the cited works, I read many books and articles (online and print), that helped form this post. I take no credit except in condensing everything into a terse and readable post.

In Christian charity, I ask you all to say a prayer today for the repose of the soul of my spiritual father, Fr. Gommar A. DePauw, JCD, who went to Judgement exactly 19 years ago. He was God's chosen instrument to preserve the Church in the dawn of the Great Apostasy. I miss him greatly, and he is responsible for my conversion and my decision to start this blog; passing on the One True Faith he gave to me. 

God bless you all, my dear readers---Introibo

"If there is no God, everything is permitted."---Attributed to Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

The infamous American serial killer, Jefferey Dahmer (d. 1994) made this remarkable statement before his death:

If you don’t . . . think that there is a God to be accountable to . . . what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought, anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we . . . died, you know, that was it, there was nothing. (From transcript of Dateline NBC news program of 11/29/94). 

Dahmer aka The Milwaukee Monster, murdered 17 young men in cold-blood from 1978-1991. He ate some of their body parts and committed necrophilia (i.e., sex with dead bodies). After his conviction, he began reading the Bible and became a "born-again" Protestant in 1994, just six months before his death. He made the above statement explaining that, since he had been an atheist when he committed the murders, he did not believe in objective moral values as a result. 

Let me be clear: by the phrase objective moral values I mean certain things are morally right and certain things are morally wrong independent of  the human mind. Therefore, even if Joseph Stalin had conquered the world for Communism, and brainwashed everyone in the world to believe that Communism, and all its evil ways was good--it would still be wrong. However, in order for that to be true, there must be something independent of the human mind; an external and eternal standard by which we can judge things as good or evil. That standard is to be found in the omnibenevolent nature of God. If there is no God, no objective standard, then moral beliefs are no more than mere opinions. You might not like it when people kill other people, but it's just your opinion. When an animal kills another animal, we don't call it "murder." 

Some atheists/agnostics/skeptics believe that morality is an adaption—a survival aid—like opposable thumbs, feet, teeth, or ears. The implication? Moral beliefs like “Love your neighbor” and “Be kind to one another” aren’t true duties; they’re just evolutionarily hardwired into us to help us survive. Such ingrained beliefs aren’t objectively good; we’re biologically duped to believe them to be good. (For an example of such thinking, See Michael Ruse, The Darwinian Paradigm, [1989]). 

A massive difficulty with the hardwiring theory is this: Why should we trust any of our beliefs? Naturalistic evolution isn’t interested in truth but in survival. In other words, we may hold beliefs that help us survive—for example, that we possess value and that we have moral obligations to fulfill. However,  these beliefs may be completely false. In fact, if naturalistic evolution were responsible for our beliefs, and we happened to believe naturalistic evolution is true, then this would have come about completely by accident. We would hold accidentally true beliefs, which, in turn, would mean knowledge is impossible.

Remember: Generally, knowledge is a belief that is true and is warranted or "properly accounted for." In other words, knowledge excludes beliefs that are just true accidentally. For example, suppose it’s 12:30 p.m., and through an antique shop window I happen to look at a non-working clock, which by chance indicates 12:30. I would not be warranted in concluding that it’s 12:30 p.m. I may have a belief that is true—the first two components of knowledge—but I happened to get lucky. This doesn’t qualify for knowledge; it’s not properly warranted (which completes the definition of knowledge).

The genetic-and-social-conditioning explanation for morality, if true, turns out to be either trivial or incoherent. Consider what the behaviorist psychologist B. F. Skinner (1904–1990) declared: 

If I am right about human behavior, I have written the autobiography of a nonperson. . . . So far as I know, my behavior at any given moment has been nothing more than the product of my genetic endowment, my personal history, and the current setting. (See Thomas W. Clark, Encountering Naturalism: A Worldview and Its Uses, [2007], pg. 94). 

If so, then Skinner’s own views were nothing more than the product of his genetic endowment, personal history, and the current setting (trivial, and thus to be ignored). Now, if he was speaking for everyone’s belief-forming processes, then he had somehow risen above all deterministic influences to offer a reasoned, truthful conclusion (incoherent, since it completely goes against what he said).

Another Problem with "Evolving Morality

Here’s another problem: Given naturalism, it’s hard to avoid the theory’s arbitrariness of moral beliefs—even if they help us to survive. Atheist philosopher Michael Ruse’s gives an example of how people could have developed “termite values” (cannibalizing each other, needing to live in darkness) rather than those of “savannah-dwelling primates.” Supposedly, we could explain away certain abhorrent moral practices in other cultures by rationalizing that these somehow enhance their survival.

If a naturalist (i.e., an atheistic worldview that nature is all that exists) happens to think moral values are objective and that we are duty-bound to them (this is naturalistic moral realism), he still has to grapple with significant challenges. He faces the “is-ought problem” (also called “the naturalistic fallacy”): How do we move from what is (the descriptive) to what ought to be (the prescriptive). There are lots of “natural” phenomena with biological, survival-enhancing explanations that we intuitively know are profoundly wrong, however advantageous to creating progeny.

The atheist Michael Shermer (b. 1954) considers the question “Why should we be moral?” to be much like “Why should we be hungry or h***y?” He insists “the answer is that it is as much a part of human nature to be moral as it is to be hungry, h***y, jealous, and in love”; such drives are hardwired into us by evolution. (See Michael Shermer, The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule, [2004], pg. 57).  So all Shermer can do is describe how human beings actually do function; based on scientific observation, he can’t prescribe how humans therefore ought to behave. There is no difference between whether I ought to be moral and whether I ought to be hungry; both are functions of evolutionary hardwiring. These states just are, and, randomly, we could have evolved quite differently.

To further illustrate the arbitrariness of this hardwiring, consider the book A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion, coauthored by an anthropologist and a biologist who maintain that the act of rape can be explained biologically. When a male can’t find a mate, his subconscious drive to reproduce his own species allegedly pushes him to force himself upon a female. Such beastly acts happen in the animal kingdom all the time (e.g., with mallards, orangutans, or scorpion flies).

While the authors don’t advocate rape (they don’t want to move from is to ought), my question is: If the rape impulse happens to be embedded in human nature from antiquity, and if it confers biological advantage, how can the authors imply that this behavior ought to be ended? Their resistance to rape, despite its “naturalness,” suggests that true moral values aren’t rooted in nature after all. Pure natural hardwiring may produce beliefs that enhance fitness (leaving us with more offspring), but it can’t produce goodness, and value.

Alternatively, God’s existence makes excellent sense of objective morality. Rather than moving from no value to value, the theist begins with value (God’s good character) and ends with value (divine-image-bearing humans with moral responsibility and rights). God perfectly bridges the chasm between is and ought. 

The Insufficiency of Instinct

Another difficulty with naturalistic evolutionary morality is this: The naturalist’s viewpoint is hard to reconcile with acts of self-sacrifice that we typically consider morally praiseworthy and heroic. An individual ant or termite may feel compelled to sacrifice itself for the colony. But if it somehow knows it’s giving up all the existence it will ever have, then why is there any obligation to sacrifice itself for the colony if it can overcome its self-sacrificing instinct? If a man sees his child drowning but feels too scared to risk his life, why condemn him? He’s just acting in accordance accordance with his strongest instinct. Charles Darwin (1809–1882) himself doubted that humans have free will, since every action is “determined by heredity, constitution, example of others or teaching of others.” He claimed that this view “should teach one profound humility” since “one deserves no credit for anything . . . nor ought one to blame others.” (Ibid).  Humility? Why not passivity? Why rescue the drowning child and risk losing your own life? What’s more, why sacrifice our lives for other merely advanced animals that are here by chance?

Even if morality were to have progressed through biological evolution and historical processes (e.g., abolishing slavery and widow-burning), this wouldn’t mean that morality is invented (as opposed to discovered), or that moral standards don’t exist, or that slavery and widow-burning were good “back then.” We’ve seen that moral reform or improvement strongly implies that ideal standards exist—even if humans have been slow to grasp them. Furthermore, moral progress through biological evolution (even if Darwinian evolution were true) doesn’t exclude God from the picture. Indeed, God is needed to ground the moral values and human rights we intuitively recognize. If biological evolution is true, and if people have progressed in moral understanding and recognition of humans being special, then God could have utilized these processes in the unfolding of his purposes. We begin with value (God), and so we need not be surprised that humans have value.

Can an Atheist/Agnostic/Skeptic Be Good Without God?

Many Traditionalists have made the classic mistake of assuming that lack of belief in God entails lack of morality. Even if they reject God’s existence, Confucians, Buddhists, and adherents to certain versions of Hinduism uphold certain moral beliefs that compare favorably with what Traditionalist Catholics uphold. In fact, there are some atheists a person would rather have as neighbors, than some of those who profess belief in God. Belief in God isn’t a requirement for being moral. Nevertheless, there’s something more basic to consider: The existence of a personal God is crucial as a coherent foundation of objective morality, and personal accountability. That is, one can’t be a moral being unless God exists—whether or not one believes God exists—and atheists as well as theists have been made in God’s image. Thus, both can recognize basic moral goodness and evil when they’re functioning properly.

Atheist philosophers have claimed that morality doesn’t depend on God; we don’t need God to be good. Protestant-turned-atheist William Rowe (d. 2015) writes: “The claim that God is needed for morality to be objective is absurd.” (See William Rowe, “Reflections on the Craig-Flew Debate,” in Does God Exist? The Craig-Flew Debate, ed. Stan W. Wallace, [2003], pg. 66). Atheist Michael Martin (b. 1932) argues that people can know that, e.g., rape is wrong, without appealing to God’s existence—it’s wrong because it violates the victim’s rights and tears apart the fabric of society. (See Atheism, Morality, and Meaning ,[2002]). Of course, neither Rowe nor Martin tells us how such rights or values could emerge from valueless matter. Matter has properties (shape, mass, color, texture, and so on), but moral value isn’t one of them.

Sam Harris, one of the emboldened so-called “New Atheists,” declares that we can know objective moral truths (right and wrong) without “the existence of a lawgiving God,” and we can judge Hitler to be morally reprehensible “without reference to Scripture.” (See Sam Harris, The End of Faith, [2004], pgs. 23-24). However, here we have an example of a common confusion: between knowing and being. One can know what’s right without believing in God, the Bible, or the Church. Nevertheless, the claim that goodness doesn’t depend on God fails to explain how valuable, rights-bearing beings could exist in the first place. Goodness is bound up with personhood, and without the existence of a personal God (who created all other persons), no moral values would exist, period. 

If God doesn’t exist, moral values and duties must have emerged from valueless processes. In fact, and in contrast, from no values, values cannot come. However, God’s existence offers a ready explanation for the existence of value in the world. If goodness somehow existed as part of the furniture of the universe (reflecting Plato’s theory of forms), then it would be an astonishing cosmic coincidence that creatures would evolve over billions of years and somehow be duty-bound to moral values just waiting “out there” . . . as though these values were somehow anticipating the emergence of humans.  Again, God’s existence connects preexisting goodness (in God’s character) with these valuable creatures (in God’s image).

Conclusion

A solely materialistic universe might produce in us feelings and beliefs of obligation—like the protection of our children or the survival of our species—but that’s a different matter from actually having such obligations we ought to carry out. False Darwinian evolution, even if true, does nothing to show there are objective moral values and duties. Atheists will often appeal to various secular ethical theories in hopes of finding morality without God—but they inevitably end in failure. May God have mercy on such people and lead them into His One True Church.