> ...for most of history, Christians have
> *not* been able to agree on morality.
> Sure, they all believed that murder was
> wrong, but it was always a question of
> what constituted murder. Is killing a
> Muslim murder? The Crusaders didn't
> think so. What about a Jew? Or a
> "witch"? Or a Jew? Or an atheist?
> Christianity has shown no more moral
> cohesion than any other system of
> morality, and that is strongly
> indicative that there really isn't
> anything truly objective or
> transcendent about it.
There are really three points here: 1) that Christians can't really
agree on "Christian" morals; 2) that some Christians considered "crimes
against humanity" acceptable; and 3) the fact that Christians disagree
on the standard and that they do not live up to their own standards
anyway proves--or at least suggests--that the Christian moral system is
not transcendent. In other words, points one and two imply that the
system was created by men.
(For the best--and simplest--argument against this view, please read
book I of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. You may not agree with it,
but it does provide a compelling counterpoint to these ideas leaving
them somewhat less than a slam dunk.)
In refuting this argument, I will first deal with the second point which
was to remind us that Christians have justified the killing of many
different peoples en masse. In this premise, you are referring to the
behavior of people who did not know or understand true Christian
morality because it was forbidden them either by law or due to their own
ignorance. Those people who were motivated to hate their
neighbor--instead of loving them--or to kill their enemies--instead of
praying for them--were not animating true Christian morality as it is
taught in scripture. They were practicing a moral system that was not
only un-Christian but also anti-Christian because many of their victims
were those who *did* try to practice true Christian morality.
Now, here is the rub: Many people assume that the atrocities committed
by some Christians are somehow the natural outworking of the teachings
of Christ and His disciples. Horrible genocides being the result of a
system that teaches hatred, violence, and murder, Christianity must be,
at its core, more demonic than divine. Nothing could be further from
the truth. The fact is that people who murder in the name of Christ are
in direct violation of the Christ's commandments. They bring shame and
dishonour to Him and to all of Christianity. This means that they are
not really animating Christian morality at all but some hybrid, bastard
morality that has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity.
Nevertheless, the one thing Christianity has the power to do is condemn
wrongdoers, and this gets us to the first point above--that Christians
cannot agree on what Christian morality really is. On the surface, this
seems to be true, but in reality Christians agree much more than they
disagree on this point. Among Christians, there are disagreements about
who can be lawfully put to death: some would say that no human should
ever be deliberately killed for any reason even as an act of justice or
war; others would allow some killing within those categories; a few
would advocate the relief of the suffering of the terminally ill through
so-called mercy killing. No Christian, however, can truly say that G-d
commanded him to kill Moslems in the name of Christ--or Jews, or
atheists, or even abortion doctors. Why? Because we are to love and
pray for our neighbours and our enemies, not hate and kill them (Matthew
5:43-44). Consequently, I exclude people who did--or do--such things
out of hand because they are not immitators of Christ.
One might say that this exclusion is unfair, which may or may not be
true; nevertheless, the point is reasonable: A person who kills for
spite, power, jealousy, reveange, torment, greed, rage, etc. is not
exercising the Christian moral values that are taught in scripture.
Once the matter is corrected by this exclusion, the true situation
becomes apparent: the Christian moral system leaves some things to
debate, but nothing that amounts to any real disagreement. On the
matter of being true to the Christian system, the real point is not that
we disagree on who can--or should--be killed but that all Christians
agree that we cannot kill just anyone and that there must be powerful
moral justification when--if ever--we do.
When it comes to Materialist morality, the situation is much more in
doubt. It cannot regard men killing other men as really bad because it
lacks the moral authority to make judgements. In Materialism, good and
bad are not relative terms; they have no meaning whatsoever. It is no
use arguing that the Materialist system condemns murder because it
cannot really condemn anything. For example, Materialism cannot condemn
me for killing another man's offspring any more than it can when a lion
kills that of another lion. You must add something immaterial, like
humanism, to get this "power to condemn". I cannot emphasize this
enough, Materialism provides no ground for judging the rightness or
wrongness of human behavior. We must go to religion to get this
essential moral authority.
On the third point--the conclusion that the transcendence of Christian
morality is undermined by disagreements and bloody atrocities--I simply
reiterate the points that 1) there is not as much disagreement as people
think; and 2) that the atrocities, although committed in the name of
Christ, were in complete violation of the letter and spirit of Christian
moral law. These points make the conclusion a non-sequitur.
Russ
Russell T. Cannon
rcannon@usa.net