Morality: Meaninglessness or Meaningfulness?

     Initially, these writings were going to be something rather simple but the name of the overarching theme seemed rather robust and had captured something within me. "Conversations Concerning Us" is something I feel this world needs. Especially within the context of current events. With subjective morality, relative truth, and hateful speech and actions running amuck as if Pandora's box had been opened. These articles I have come to realize will be apologetic in nature and will not hold anything back and if I can tug at the heartstrings of just one then my writing has not been in vain. What will follow will be just a short writing on the issue of morality and how our sense of morality determines the kind of world we live in. Morality is a compass whereby we determine the direction of our actions and the actions of our societies but the question is whether or not there is something that transcends ourselves (humanity) that is the guiding factor. With a little bit of thought and guidance, I hope to answer this question or at least give a gentle shove in a direction that may provide some hope and clarity on the issue.

Morality seems like such a cut and dry issue but is it really? We live in a day where every man may live in such a way that makes him happy so long as it does not hurt someone else. But does this justify the world's sense of morality? Not hurting another person per se, in a physical or bodily sense, is that a justification for saying something is in fact moral?

Where does our justification of morality come from? We need to establish our basis for our sense of where morality comes from before we can determine a justification for said morality. Morality in a basic sense is our determining of right and wrong. So morality comes from our minds. When I say minds this is to say morality comes from our thoughts because we have to "think" that something is right or think that something is wrong. But where does this leave the case for morality in a materialistic worldview?

For the materialist has to determine morality strictly by the sense of the mind as a byproduct of material atoms. But how does the mind and thoughts come about by matter? To have thought and cognition it must come from a transcendent and cognitive source. Such is the same for morality because it too is a byproduct of our thoughts and our minds (as determined by an objective moral standard, i.e. God). Morality is somewhat of a touchy subject because as the materialists claim morality is something that is developed over time because it has been found that whatever is the most beneficial for a species is adopted as the moral norm. But when stepping back and looking deep into this philosophically this seems to contradict this worldview on a foundational level. Where survival of the fittest is preached as the epitome of all that is; when morality is presented suddenly herd pride is now of utmost importance. This is much like saying a triangle is both a triangle and a square at the same time which is obviously a logical mistake and impossible in a coherent and logically consistent universe such as our own.

Another issue that tends to haunt a materialist version of morality is that of who will be the arbiter/ arbiters of the established moral standards once they are set about by communal laws? Ultimately, as functioning human beings we are all on the same level with regard to living standards (i.e. from a materialist perspective we have all developed from the same source). So who is ultimately above reproach in these situations and is aptly able to mediate situations of morality in an unbiased fashion and someone whom everyone would accept as someone who actually transcends these laws and is able to handle and mediate these laws fairly. At a cursory reading, no human can fully fill this description but if we set aside any worldview bias God fills that role quite nicely.

C.S. Lewis in Christian Reflections says, "If 'good' or 'better' are terms deriving their sole meaning from ideology of each people, then of course ideologies themselves cannot be better or worse than each other. Unless the measuring rod is independent of the things measured, we can do no measuring. For the same reason it is useless to compare the moral ideas of one age with those of another: progress and decadence are alike meaningless words."

What Lewis is saying (and said much better than I could ever say) is that having a set of ideas (morally, specifically what's being discussed here) cannot be weighed against each other because there is no standard outside of those two sources by which to set them against. There needs to be a source outside of those ideas whereby those standards can be objectively weighed to determine whether one is "good" or one is "bad." Otherwise, the ideas are just that, ideas. Neither idea is good or bad they just exist as thoughts conjured by thinking beings and are indifferently accepted as the babblings of material creatures longing for some meaning. Ultimately, the question of morality boils down to a question of meaning. If there is no right or wrong then how can there be meaning in life but if there is definitely right and wrong there is undoubtedly meaning in life. There is unequivocal consequences in this exploration for humanity if we unbiasedly explore these issues with an open heart and open eyes.

A side note and something interesting to look at is an idea presented by Pascal in Pensees on page 59 where he says, "The point is that if man had never been corrupted, he would, in his innocence, confidently enjoy both truth and felicity, and, if man had never been anything but corrupt, he would have no idea either of truth or bliss. But unhappy as we are (and we should be less so if there were no element of greatness in our condition) we have an idea of happiness but we cannot attain it. We perceive an image of the truth and possess nothing but falsehood." 

This is Blaise Pascal and he is talking about anthropology or making an argument for Gods existence based on our human condition. But if you follow me for a minute here I think that this plays well into our discussion of morality here as well. The basic idea that Pascal is stating above is that because we were initially created perfect and we are now fallen, our current state of unhappiness is worsened because we have an internal sense of this reality. So on an internal level, we all know that we are missing something that we once had before and that is why our unhappiness or unfulfilledness or meaninglessness is seemingly more profound than had we not lost that initially created perfection. Said another way had we be made with only one eye, we would not know what it would be like to have two eyes so having one is the norm but if we were to end up missing that one eye our happiness and joy would be greatly affected because we know what it is like to have that one eye.

But what does this have to do with morality? All of humanity for nearly all of time has cried out for some moral cause at some point be it slavery, women's rights, rape, murder, child abuse, and the list can go on and rightfully so. The point is had we not known (following Pascal's line of thought) what a morally perfect community/ setting was like then our happiness or our passion to fight these moral wrongs would not be as strong as they are. If this makes sense, I believe we have a strong passion to fight moral wrongs because we know that we come from an ultimate moral community and our internal longing is to attain that perfect (and missing) moral community again (not communist, Marxist). Because on a foundational level we know that we have lost the perfect moral setting we know that we should fight against moral injustice with impunity. Though I will say, that there is a huge difference in thought with regard to what is moral and what is not and this can be boiled down to each person's perception of what is real, where everything has ultimately come from, axiology, epistemology, etc. But the fallen nature of the human condition can account for the disagreement amongst these issues but does not have to determine how they are handled.

I believe based on what the materialist worldview can present what they offer in regards to morality is meaninglessness. This is not to say that you cannot believe in this worldview because you are free to believe however you choose to but with regard to meaning and especially with right and wrong and ultimate axiology (value), materialism is lacking. Matter begets matter not meaning. Pascal says, "Man's greatness and wretchedness are so evident that the true religion must necessarily teach us that there is in man some great principle of greatness and some great principle of wretchedness." What materialism lacks is the ability to think outside of matter and to answer how morality came to be and to answer for the human condition (i.e. man's greatness and wretchedness). What is so self-evident is that what comes out of the mind is not simply the firings of the collocation of neurons or atoms but rather transcendent thoughts, they have risen above matter and material, but how? The only substantial or even logical answer that seems even remotely plausible is that it was created that way.

If you would forgive my writing for this in no way is supposed to be exhaustive in nature so I understand that I am making substantial truth claims and am glossing over information relatively quickly. My hope is that I am presenting enough information that can be convincing to fence sitters and enough information to those who have little knowledge to investigate the matter further. The reason the information is presented in such a small fashion is most people read quickly and quite frankly there are books that cover these subjects just by themselves.

But back to the point, I believe that the Christian worldview presents the human condition in such a light that it shows our greatness (created in Gods image and likeness, Gen. 1:27), our finitude because we have sinned and are in a fallen state (Rom 3:23), and we need a savior to be reconciled back to God. Ultimately, apart from God, we cannot fully function in a moral sense because we are operating with only half of the parts we were originally intended/ created with. At the fall, Augustine said we had lost our liberty so in a sense, you could say we lost an essential created part of who we were and we became captive to our evil desires which have made us morally bankrupt. This is why we need to have God as that moral standard because even "Christians" are not these perfect, sentient creatures that can do no wrong because they are saved but rather the opposite is true, we are saved because we NEEDED it and we need it every day. Through the moral guidance of Christ, we are able to live lives that hopefully adhere to Christ's example. So long as we can live a life of love and show that love, grace, and mercy towards our fellow man then I believe we are doing our moral duty (on a horizontal level). This brief view when looked upon can be viewed as having substantial meaning. The Christian worldview when taken based on its principles laid out by Christ and not by some of its failed peoples (i.e. the Crusades, a favorite example by atheists) then there is no doubt that the Christian worldview provides the existential superior view. I say the principles as laid out by Christ because he is our example and he is the perfect one and we are the ones trying to live up to his example and anything that is a deviation from that standard is not Christianity in its fullest sense or potential. Also, any blatant deviation from the direct precepts from the teachings of Christ should be regarded as completely heretical in nature and tossed to the side as such.

To the fullest extent possible of a scope such as this, I believe a case has been presented in such a fashion that should be fitting to show that meaning is found in only an objective morality that transcends humanity. For how can we measure the good or bad done by people against other people? There would be no meaning in this type of comparing but rather finding meaning in our morality is knowing that we have a moral sense given to us in our very nature as Paul talks about in Romans (2:14-15). For if we hold to a materialistic worldview we are left with nothingness in the sense of morality. Morality is left in the tenuous relationship of the masses and can change at the whims of the next madman who desires something different. It is essentially meaningless and no matter the effort put forth in placing meaning therein it can be usurped at a moments notice. But placing morality in God's hands there is nothing that can usurp his moral authority and that should bring comfort for those who are concerned for the moral well being of a lost and hurting world.