Christian Morality and Public Law--Three Secular Myths

[The Straight Story]

Christian Morality and Public Law--Three Secular Myths

Thursday, May. 5, 2005 Posted: 8:29:18PM EST




Secularism rests on three myths. The first is the myth of the secular state. Secularism is not a positive construct. By its very nature, something is secular only when it denies the existence of God. Here is where Professor Audi's definition begins to break down. One cannot be genuinely secular and be indifferent to the existence of God, because if God did exist, that would bring immediate demands upon society--obligations and prohibitions which society would not be able simply to ignore without admitting that it is only tacitly or operationally secular. A truly secular state must altogether deny the existence of God. In other words, this is a call for an absolutely secular state--the existence of which is a myth. Why? Because states must deal with fundamental questions. They must deal with questions concerning life and death, questions about human identity, ultimate questions about existence and meaning in the universe. But the moment a state begins to deal with those fundamental questions, it ceases to be secular, especially the way Robert Audi defines it even at the motivational level. When states begin to effect laws and codify some morality, there is no way that can be purely secular. For any question that addresses itself to the meaning of life and death, for example, must be considered in terms much larger than secular theory will allow. There is no truly secular state.

Second is the myth of a secular argument. No argument is truly irreducibly secular. For anyone who wants to make an argument about anything beyond procedure will have to deal with questions of meaning, morality, and value--questions that are larger than any individual human frame of reference. On issues like those, there are no arguments that are genuinely secular. As a matter of fact, listen carefully to those who most seek to advocate purely secular arguments. On questions of meaning and morality, their arguments are themselves just as essentially religious as the "religious" arguments they reject. They may believe their claims are not religious, but they end up being religious precisely because they are anti-religious. Moreover, they attempt to set up their own version of God--their own idea of what is the ultimate good--in order to determine value.

Third is the myth of secular motivation. Motivation is an inherently complex issue, because none of us is fully aware of our own motivation. This is the problem with the circular reasoning of Robert Audi's principle of secular motivation. Audi expects people to disregard their beliefs about God in thinking about public policy, to decide what they would believe about a certain issue if they did not already believe in God. But a human being can never know what he would believe if he were not motivated by what centrally motivates him. How can a person know that he would continue to advocate the same position if he no longer believed in God, or if belief in God were simply bracketed from the equation? Audi's position is simply unrealistic. No human being will ever know himself so well that he can separate himself from his own motivations, even those who allow themselves the conceit of believing they are driven by a purely secular motivation. Furthermore, to move the focus of the national conversation from the objective content of an argument to its subjective motivation is to be no longer engaged in public policy discussions, but rather in some kind of communal therapy session.


http://www.christianpost.com/article/editorial/345/section/christian.morality.and.public.law--three.secular.myths/1.htm

[The Magistrate]

1. This, Sir, Is High-Grade Nonsense

It cannot make the slightest appeal to any thinking person who does not share the writers own convictions on the subject.

States do not deal with ultimate questions about meaning and the universe, unless they are also theocratic states. States simply regulate the divy-ing up of the swag, and the violent means used to enforce the divisions arranged by clash of various interests.

The most basic lack of the work is the paucity of imagination concerning ethical standards and behavior the author displays. Empathy is the only reliable basis for ethical behavior: the awareness that other people are like oneself, and feel the same in response to injury as oneself, is the only ground on which moral behavior can fruitfully be reared.

[The Straight Story]

2. Morals

In a larger, state sense perhaps, are made by those in power. Less power to them, more to us, and we can choose our own lives and morals.

Tis all an interesting subject, which is why I posted this. :)

I keep thinking about those amish folk. They are not trying to change the government mostly, they just want to be left alone and have the freedom to live their lives as they see fit. Gay marriage, abortion, et al can be legal and used for all they care - they just choose not to practice it themselves.

Got Freedom? We did have it at one time. Seems like it is slipping away ever so quickly....

[The Magistrate]

4. Those Are Not Morals, Sir

What is made by a state authority, whether secular or religious, is law. That there is never more than the loosest of overlaps, and often no overlap at all, between legal conduct and moral conduct is a commonplace of human experience and thought, familiar to everyone except theologians grasping at straws.

Your citation of the Amish is interesting, but prickly if looked at closely. It is true that group has no desire to impose its views on others, but is is certainly open to question how much freedom a person born into such a group actually has to live life as he or she sees fit.

[The Straight Story]

5. With the amish

they are free to leave at 18 (in some sects) to explore the world and see if the amish way is right to them.

Deciphering the rights of those under age (as it were) is a bit harder as they are the wards of their creators (parents) and also protected under law (ie, basic rights are given them by the state).

What those rights are, and why, are perhaps based on morals (as one may define such things).

One could take a purely scientific view of things (not including here the nashian view) of survival of the most fit and natural selection. In which case we have someone like * in power, which means he is, perhaps, more fit then we are on an evolutionary level (ie, he has power, we have little, so he must be more fit).

I guess it boils down to values - and goals. Goals define values and morals, if you adhere to the morals which are good for the goal you are doing 'the right thing' in relation to the goal.

It is all up to debate perhaps because we all have different goals, and because we have that we have different ways to get there which we all believe are right (and hence, more moral).

At any rate, a worthwhile discussion!

[Freedom_from_Chains]

7. It cannot make the slightest appeal to any thinking person

I think it is targeted to people who can't think but they can at least look at it and convince themselves that it sounds intellectual, so it must be right.

[johnaries]

3. I am so tired of people changing definitions of words to fit their

arguments.
Wikipedia: Secular in its most common meaning, means "outside of religion"...
In current political and philosophical discourse, it refers to a government obeying civil laws (as opposed to religious instructions like the Islamic shariah, the Catholic canon law or rabbinacal law), independently from any religion, and not favoring any particular religion; in addition, secularism also includes the priority of the civil laws over any religious legislation.

In answer to the author's comments "No argument is truly irreducibly secular. For anyone who wants to make an argument about anything beyond procedure will have to deal with questions of meaning, morality, and value" and also his diatribe on "motivation", I think Jefferson said it best:

"If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God."

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814

Rev Mohler's arguments simply are not valid.

[countmyvote4real]

6. But how many angels can dance on a pinhead?

Excuse me, but this argument is flawed by the presumption that goodness or God is at that root of all decisions. I think not. But maybe God told me to express that thought just as God told * to invade and destroy Iraq for the crimes of others.

Wait a minute. If * was speaking with God and * was already planning the invasion of Iraq a year before 9/11, then why didn’t * pay more attention to impending disaster? Perhaps it was the “greater good” bullshit.

Once again, please excuse my outrage, but how much “greater good” bullshit and human sacrifice must we endure before we can achieve a state of harmony among various religions, philosophies, positions, whatever?

WTF, I can’t tell if God told me to say that or not to say it.

Eat me. :-)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. As you may have noticed on other threads, I've been a practicing

Christian for most of my life, but as I look around the world and through history, I can't find a single example of a theocracy that didn't degenerate into an intolerant tyranny. Even in a state where most of the citizens hold the same religious beliefs, there are always going to be the dissenters, and the more the theocracy reflects the beliefs of the majority of its citizens (Saudi Arabia, Calvin's Geneva), the more likely it is to come down really hard on non-conformists.

Over time, I've come around to believing that no tenet that is unique to a particular religion should be enshrined in law. But doesn't that lead to lawlessness? No, not at all. If you look at the real world, both contemporary and historical, you find that in all societies, of whatever religious bent, it has been illegal for individuals to commit murder, to take what doesn't belong to them, to swindle, to vandalize, to rape, to extort, and so on. (Governments and powerful people have exempted themselves from these restrictions at certain times, and so have religious institutions, but the fact remains that interactions among individuals have been governed by similar principles throughout history and in every type of society.)

The principal of empathy, or, in other words, the Golden Rule as stated variously in many religions and philosophies, is the best basis for a legal system that does not favor one religion over another. A useful corollary to it is, "What if everybody did that?"

You don't want to have someone steal your stuff, so thievery is wrong. You don't want someone dumping raw sewage into your drinking water, so don't dump it into someone else's drinking water. You don't want to be held back in a job situation due to factors beyond your ability to control (ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation), so don't do that to someone else. You don't want someone selling you a defective car, so don't sell one to someone else.

You pay taxes for other people's children to go to school, because long ago, someone paid taxes so that you could go to school. You support aid to the poor because you know that you're only a paycheck or two away from destitution and could easily end up like them. You're against unprovoked invasions of other countries because you wouldn't like to see another country invading the U.S. for no reason.

Then there's the "what if everybody did it" corollary.

Your SUV may not make much of an individual contribution to the oil problem, but what if everyone drove SUVs? You may think that "other people" will take care of your children if you abandon them, but what if everyone abandoned their children? You may think you're smart for hiding your assets from the Feds and paying no income taxes, but what if everybody did that?

You pick up litter that accumulates on your block. What if everybody did that? You give a certain percentage of your income to charity. What if everybody did that? You take the bus or walk instead of driving whenever possible. What if everybody did that?

These two principles together, "Do under others as you would have them do unto you" and "What if everybody did it?" pretty much cover the whole spectrum of laws.