Are Slavery and Genocide Morally Justifiable Actions?

I am privileged to have entered a dialogue with a very intelligent and articulate atheist writer concerning the origins of human morality. As an evangelical Christian, I understand that men and women are moral creatures by virtue of their having been created in the image of God. As an atheist, my friend does not believe that human beings are bound by any universal, overriding moral standards, but instead seems to hold that humans themselves (acting cooperatively as a society) are able to determine what passes for moral and immoral behavior.

I recently wrote an article on AC entitled "How Does an Atheist Explain His Sense of Morality?" in which I asked my friend (who happens to be a fellow AC contributor) to identify whether his moral obligations had a subjective or objective source. Essentially, I asked him whether he himself determined his moral standards, such that they were not imposed on him from without and therefore did not exist in objective reality (subjective source), or whether there exists a real and absolute moral code that transcends space, time, culture, and circumstance which applies universally to all human beings (objective source).

His response (entitled "From Where Do Atheists Derive Their Sense of Morality?") indicates that he rejects any objective morality outside of himself, which means that he holds to a subjective view of morality. (Though he states in his article that morality is both subjective and objective, his simultaneous rejection of an "outside force" that guides our morality shows that he does not understand the philosophical use of the adjective "objective" to mean "existing independently of the individual.") I regret to say that my friend's article is full of contradictions and logical errors. This is not ultimately because of poor reasoning; rather, it is due to the fact that truth is not on his side. Let's look at some of his assertions and see why they cause more problems for his argument than they solve.

My friend begins one of his paragraphs by saying, "To assume we need an outside force to guide our moral decisions is an affront to our abilities as humans to make determinations." This is a non sequitor; that is, the conclusion does not logically follow from the premises. The argument essentially says that humans must be free of external constraints when making decisions in order for those decisions to be meaningful. But we are NEVER free of external constraints, my friend! Does the law of gravity ever cease to exist? Of course not! But that doesn't mean that my determination not to jump out of an airplane without a parachute is without meaning, or that I am unable to make such a determination. It simply means that, by taking into consideration the fact that gravity will cause me to hurtle towards the very hard ground below, I am making a decision that is wise and informed. To say to myself, "I refuse to be guided by the knowledge of the laws of physics in making this decision because I am offended that such laws could even exist," would be foolhardy, indeed! Just as foolish is the man who says, "Because an absolute, objective moral standard would be offensive to me, I will not allow for the possibility that any such standard exists." In short, since humans are always limited by circumstances beyond their control, yet are always exercising their wills and making informed choices and determinations, the statement quoted above is illogical.

My friend goes on to say that morality "isn't grounded in any 'absolute truth' beyond what makes sense to a person with a brain. . . . We as a society set our legal mores as to what benefits our society." So far, so good. Even if you don't agree with his line of reasoning, at least the argument is internally consistent up to this point. However, this quickly changes when he later writes, "To choose what is right for others and yourself only because it is [right] - instead of out of fear of hell or promise of heaven - is far more honorable." Wait a minute! I thought he said that the definition of right "isn't grounded in any 'absolute truth,'" but rather is what "we as a society" have decided is beneficial to society? If that is true, then what he has just said is that the "far more honorable" thing to do is to choose what is beneficial for society "only because it is" beneficial for society! In other words, he's said nothing at all.

However, the biggest problem with my friend's argument has yet to be explored. It has to do with the logical consequences of allowing societies to define morality according to what is considered by the majority to be "beneficial" to each society. I refer, of course, to the times in history when an entire society has embraced and approved of actions which are now almost universally recognized to be wicked and immoral. In the past and even to this day, societies have tolerated and even encouraged such practices as child sacrifice, institutional slavery, oppression of women, segregation, and genocide, to name only a few. If we leave it up to a society to determine right from wrong, and strip ourselves of the ability to condemn the moral values of a society based on an outside standard, then we are forced to conclude that, say, the nationwide enslavement of African Americans in the United States was morally permissible.

Yet another problematic consequence of this view comes to light when we realize that such a definition of morality means that what is considered moral today may be considered immoral tomorrow. My friend recognizes this when he says, "We as a society set our legal mores as to what benefits our society. And that is subjective in the sense that we can change our laws." He admits that much of what we think we know about right and wrong will, in fact, soon be shown to be in error. But if he cannot be certain as to what right and wrong are, why should anyone place confidence in his ability to know the proper source of right and wrong?

Much more can be said about problems such as how we should define "society," what to do when an individual belongs to multiple societies, the dilemma of the moral reformer, and others. But those considerations are not really necessary right now, and might detract from the force of the above arguments, so I'll hold off on them for some other time. The bottom line of this article is that mankind's sense of moral obligation can only be explained by the existence of God. All other attempts to account for this sense of morality fail. As Romans 2 says, when human beings "do by nature things required by the law . . . they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts" (Rom. 2:14-15, NIV). And despite man's attempts to redefine morality according to his own standards, it is by God's standard alone that men and women will be judged: "Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God" (Rom. 3:19, ESV). Amen.