Monday, June 10, 2013

"Those Christians and Their Morality..."



“[T]hink of us as a fleet of ships sailing in formation. The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and get in one another’s way; and secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order. . . . But there is one thing we have not yet taken into account.  We have not asked where the fleet is trying to get to…”
-C.S. Lewis

Modern people feel pretty strongly about morality.  But based on the above analogy, we aren’t thinking very carefully about this subject (despite our feelings) if we haven’t answered at least three questions: (1) How must I live to avoid hurting others? (2) How must I live to avoid hurting myself? And (3) what am I made for?  Most people begin and end with the first question.  We often say it is okay to “do whatever you want as long as you’re not hurting anyone.”  But as Lewis goes on to explain, the second question is equally important.  How can you expect the ships to steer carefully to avoid colliding with one another if each ship is in such bad shape that it can barely be steered at all?  In other words, how can I avoid harming others if I don’t have any control over myself?  So some people will admit that you shouldn’t do things that are bad for you.

But is that enough?  Is it okay to do whatever you want unless you hurt yourself or someone else?  Returning to the ship analogy, we must first be able to explain why the ships are in the water at all.  Is there a destination?  Is there a purpose?  If not, the first two questions have no ground to stand on.  By neglecting to think about question no. 3, we’ve left out something essential to our ethics—the foundation!  How can we say the ships shouldn’t collide with each other if we don’t know why the ships are in the water to begin with?  Perhaps they’ve decided to destroy each other, like warships.  Perhaps they feel as if they were made to destroy each other.  Or worse—perhaps they feel that they were built to seek victory at all costs.  If you think I’m just exaggerating, consider the suicide bombers, kamikaze pilots, or the 9/11 hijackers of our world.  Could we condemn their behavior?  Could we condemn the cut-throat mentality of corporate America?  And how about people who set themselves on fire for political reasons?  What could you say to such a person? “Your life has no purpose.  So do whatever you want… but not that!”  The existentialist philosophers have been unable to provide any coherent answers.

As a Christian, I believe that morality must be grounded in the creator.  There is room for social and personal ethics, but they will only take us so far.  As 1 Corinthians 8:6 says, all things exist for God.  He is our foundation.  Without him, morality is subjective and arbitrary, and whoever has the most power wins, right or wrong.  But with God as our foundation, we will begin to find real, coherent answers to our moral problems.  Each one of us will feel uncomfortable with this at some point.  But if we are seeking a source of truth that transcends each individual, isn’t that exactly what we should expect?