Why should I not dub any specific deed (which you may commend to me for my appraisal, hoping that it should strike me as 'evil') as 'good', if I have adopted a code that would be consistent with such a move on my part?
If people have different ideas about morality, that still would not mean that there could not be an objective, universally binding moral law; and when one grants that the differences in morality between cultures never have amounted to anything like a total difference (inasmuch as there has never been a culture that has prized something like cowardice as a virtue); when one realises how broad and how positive an agreement there has existed between different cultures as regards fundamental principles of morality; one would not be so quick to dismiss the idea that there could be a set of 'exceptionless moral norms' that are objectively and universally binding.
This teaching has been reiterated in the encyclicals of many popes; and C S Lewis argued magnificiently for this position in his masterful 'The Abolition of Man'.
Ben
Sorry, if this is a bit off-topic, but the mail I am about to post below was sent to me by someone close to me; and I think that it makes a point that we would do well not to forget whenever we discuss morality.
God isn't a 'karmic force', a personification of what is essentially a blind, impersonal moral law; God is rather a God of love and mercy, and he is able to bring good out of the evil we commit.
We shouldn't ever forget that.
As St Augustine said ' Since God is the highest good, he would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil'.
God is not morally ambivalent (in the way Ged suggested in one of his posts, about some of God's dealings that were recorded in the OT); God is rather One who 'loves holines, and hates iniquity'; but most fundamentally of all (to quote St John) 'Deus est Caritas' (God is Love).
Ben
Here is the mail:
Isaiah 55:8-9
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
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This is a verse we believe on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Other days of the week, we lean toward thinking God is pretty much just like us or we are just a little smarter than God.
Our worst days are the ones when we think we're smarter than God. We do clever things we shouldn't do while telling ourselves that God won't notice.
Then we realize that he did notice and we fear that he will react as we would. That is, we fear that he will reject or abandon us.
And if our sin has serious consequences (as it so often does), we can become even more convinced that God is mainly interested in punishment and vengeance.
It's just then that this verse shows us the surpassing mystery of God. For the truth is, he is not a God of tit-for-tat or mere karmic force: he is a God who loves us.
And such is his generosity to us that even our sins are treated with more than mere justice. They become occasions of redemption.
This is how it is that God can take the worst thing we've ever done -- the crucifixion of his Son -- and make it the occasion of the greatest gift he ever gave: eternal life.
So offer him your sins and your sincere repentance. He can turn even our flaws into gold.
Amen! Praise be to GOD!
God bless you and have a wonderful day!
What is the definition of universal morality? The implication of "universal" is that it applies to all people and all situations. I would argue that this idea is nice in principle, but unworkable in practice. Morality, on the other hand, is a judgement between right and wrong. Strictly, the two are incompatible because one is objective and the other is subjective.
Okay, let's go with your example of cowardice. Let's say you are a judge, and the case before you is a man charged with drug smuggling at the Woodlands checkpoint. A bag of drugs has been found stuck under the rear bumper of his car, and there is no evidence of the man having any drug connections.
The man claims that he's never seen the bag of dope before, and it must have been planted under his car's rear bumper while he was queueing up to pass through customs.
On one hand, all you have is a bag of drugs, and there's nothing to say that the defendant isn't telling the truth and that the real smuggler is out there somewhere, relieved that some poor patsy got caught instead of him.
On the other hand, if you accept the defendant's plea, then you've opened the floodgates for drug smugglers to simply stick their cargo to their own raer bumpers in future, knowing that they can beat the rap.
If the defendant's plea is entirely reasonable and you choose to find him guilty, you're a coward for not going with your conscience. If you choose to find him not guilty (regardless of his guilt or lack thereof), you're a coward for disregarding the repercussions of your decision on future cases. Which of the two possible decisions is immoral is entirely dependent on the perspective you choose to take.
whoa hold on a sec, I'm not gonna read all that Shit!
