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[Announcer] (0:00 - 0:35) Think about the Bible like you never have before. You're listening to Christian Questions. Experience more episodes, videos, and Bible study resources at ChristianQuestions.com.

Our topic is: "What Defines Moral Behavior?" Most of us would agree that morality is important. Without some kind of moral compass, society would be reduced to anarchy, as right and wrong would become irrelevant.

Here's the problem; who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong? What if I think your right and your wrong is just completely wrong?! Here's Rick, Jonathan, and Julie.

[Rick] (0:37 - 0:47) Welcome everyone, I'm Rick. I'm joined by Jonathan, my co-host for over 25 years. Julie, a longtime contributor, is also with us. Jonathan, what's our theme scripture for this episode?

[Jonathan] (0:47 - 0:59) Proverbs 2:6-7: "For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity."

[Rick] (0:59 - 1:54) To be moral is to conform to a standard of right behavior. Ideally, to be moral is to stand for principles and actions that are positive and contributory to the world in which we live. This sounds great! It sounds like something we would all (with the exception of those who just don't care) want to live by. However, there's a problem. Who defines what is moral and what is not?

Upon whose proclamation do we decide whether someone is acting in a positive and contributory way or in a way that is destructive? Outside of the laws of the land we live in, each of us, for the most part, has the capacity to develop a personal moral code. The big question is, do we each define that moral code based on personal experience and preference or do we define it by what we would consider to be higher guidelines?

[Jonathan] (1:54 - 2:08) In this episode, we'll address some philosophical ways people look at and define morality. We'll respectfully address and compare Humanism as a guiding principle for morality with God's word as a guiding principle for morality.

[Julie] (2:08 - 3:00) A few definitions, though. First, an "atheist" is someone who doesn't believe in God. An "agnostic" is someone who says, well, we don't know whether God exists or not, can't quite prove it. But what's a "humanist?" "Humanism" is how some atheists or agnostics approach life. It describes their values, their philosophy.

Rather than focusing on God and religion, a humanist will promote individual and collective well-being through natural and human means. It includes a reliance on science and reason instead of a supernatural source to understand the world. The American Humanist Association has over 30,000 members and their tagline is you can be "good without God." That's done by treating each other with kindness and respect. We only have one life, so we make the most of our time here for ourselves and others. They believe in being compassionate and honest and treating people with respect.

These are wonderful ideals!

[Rick] (3:00 - 3:23) They are wonderful ideals. Humanism ideally approaches life through the lens of a carefully thought out "subjective morality." That's what they use, is something called "subjective morality." What is that? I'm going to quote from "Objective vs. Subjective Morality: The Moral Disagreements" from believeinmind.com. Julie, what is "subjective morality?"

[Julie] (3:23 - 3:43) This "refers to moral judgments and values that are based on personal feelings, opinions, and perspectives... Subjective morality acknowledges that beliefs can vary between individuals based on their own experiences, cultures and circumstances." Different societies throughout history have had a differing sense of what's right and what's wrong.

[Rick] (3:43 - 4:25) We've got Humanism, understanding a little bit about what Humanism is, and now we've put "subjective morality" on the table. We've got these two pieces. Now let's take a look at God's Word as our guiding moral principle. Because you know what? We're Christians.

We're going to look at God's word and say, this is what we're going to be focusing in on. Here's a hint... it's a lot different than what we just heard. What does God's word teach us in terms of the basis for our own morality? Plenty! Here's just one teaching from the book of Proverbs, just one that gives us an overview of how our morality should be defined; Proverbs 2:6-14.

[Jonathan] (4:26 - 5:07) Starting with our theme scriptures: "For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice, and He preserves the way of His godly ones. Then you will discern righteousness and justice and equity and every good course. For wisdom will enter your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; Discretion will guard you, understanding will watch over you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things; From those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness; Who delight in doing evil and rejoice in the perversity of evil."

[Rick] (5:08 - 5:39) There is so much in just these few verses. You could spend hours looking at these. This Proverb is teaching that God is THE source. He is the source of all we need to establish a sound, wise, and righteous life. God gives knowledge and wisdom. That's what the Proverb says. He protects those who have integrity in relation to His guidance. That's what the Proverb says. He assures us that His principles will give us the capacity to discern true righteousness and true justice.

[Julie] (5:39 - 6:12) That's the basis for having what's called "objective morality." Going back to the article: "Objective morality means establishing moral rules and judgments that are universally valid and not subject to individual biases or preferences. Objective moral truths exist independently of what any particular person or group believes." A humanist who does believe--if they believe--in "objective morality" would say that it comes from inside of us. Our "objective morality" is naturally selected by evolution.

[Jonathan] (6:13 - 6:18) For the Christian, God's word is already in place. Our "objective morality" is all figured out.

[Julie] (6:18 - 6:28) It's important that we acknowledge we're giving very simplistic definitions for our purposes here. The subject of ethics and morality is extremely complex and hotly debated.

[Rick] (6:28 - 7:37) It is. I just want to make a quick point on the point you made. "Objective morality" is not possible to come from within. "Objective morality," by definition, as we will see, has to come from someplace else, because whatever comes from within is subject to "me." Just saying... the disconnects between Humanism and God-directed morality are many. As we trace the elements that give followers of Jesus clear moral direction, we want to begin by looking at where "subjective morality" began with the human race. Where did it start? It started in the Garden of Eden.

We're going to go back to the account in the Garden where sin enters. Why do we keep going back there? Because at this moment in human history, so much is defined.

We need to take it piece by piece by piece and understand that what happened in that one instance with this tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the baseline for how sin takes off and how God's righteousness gets put aside. Let's look at this now. We're looking at the birth of "subjective morality" for humanity. Genesis 3:1-3:

[Jonathan] (7:38 - 7:59) "Now the serpent... said to the woman, Indeed, has God said, You shall not eat from any tree of the garden? The woman said to the serpent, From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die." With this example, it was either right or wrong. There's NO gray area.

[Rick] (8:00 - 8:27) That's right. That is the "objective morality." Eve has successfully repeated God's "objective morality." Do this, don't do that.

That's what his clear and unambiguous command was. Very, very straightforward. Satan then introduces another subjective basis on which to consider what is right.

What is the right behavior? Here's what happens in Genesis 3:4-7:

[Jonathan] (8:27 - 8:37) "The serpent said to the woman, You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

[Rick] (8:37 - 9:03) He says something different. What happens? Eve pauses and Eve considers. This is why going back to this event is so critically important.

She had the "objective morality" clear. Something else comes up. She says, huh, wait a minute.

What's going to happen is she will override God's objective statement with her subjective human judgment. On to verses 6-7:

[Jonathan] (9:04 - 9:06) "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food..."

[Rick] (9:07 - 9:18) Okay. She sees that the tree was good for food. It opened her eyes to see things differently.

He gave her a suggestion. It's like, oh, wait, look at this!

[Jonathan] (9:19 - 9:21) "... and that it was a delight to the eyes..."

[Rick] (9:21 - 9:34) Now I've noticed it was beautiful before, but now that a door has been opened, it's beautiful in a different way. It's going to nourish me in a whole new way. I could just have a brand new life unfold before me because this tree is right in front of me.

[Jonathan] (9:35 - 9:38) "...and that the tree was desirable to make one wise..."

[Rick] (9:38 - 9:48) Well, there's a slam dunk! It's desirable to make you wise. Who wouldn't want to be made wiser by eating of this fruit?

Satan said I could do it.

[Jonathan] (9:48 - 9:53) "... she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate."

[Julie] (9:53 - 10:06) She reconsiders, as you said, Rick, this objective clarity of the God-driven morality with this new information from Satan as the serpent. If we won't die and Adam and I get this special knowledge, how could it be bad?

[Jonathan] (10:06 - 10:16) Continuing with verse 7: "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings."

[Rick] (10:16 - 11:12) What happens? Their eyes were open and now they're exposed and they're exposed on every level. They're exposed intellectually because they have now taken a subjective approach to an objective problem.

Don't do it. Oh, but we can. We did because we saw it differently.

Think about this. We saw it differently than God, our Creator. Is there something wrong just a little bit with that picture?

Understand, they are exposed intellectually and they realize their nakedness because now they're seeing things in a way that God had not yet intended for them to see. They've taken the beauty of God's commands, God's clarity, God's creation for them, God's gift of dominion, and they've made a mess of it because they made a choice outside of what the guidelines were that they were given. This all helps us to define moral clarity in a very unclear world.

[Jonathan] (11:13 - 11:28) This is what we're discovering. We as humans are blessed with intelligence and choice and we use those things to design our approach to life and circumstances. In our deciding right and wrong, we easily and often go by what feels right.

[Julie] (11:28 - 11:32) The question to us is, is what feels right to me right before God?

[Rick] (11:32 - 12:00) This is where we want to take our stand as we look at the subject of who defines morality. Is what feels right to me the same thing that is right before God? This is how we figure out the highest level of morality that we can have as human beings.

We are just getting started and already we have multiple reasons to truly stop and think about the direction that we might be going.

[Jonathan] (12:00 - 12:10) Are we saying that God looks down upon us as sinful human beings with eyes of contempt because we are stuck in our subjectively moral thinking?

[Rick] (12:10 - 12:49) No, no, no, absolutely not. God is far more just and wise than to look down upon His human creation in such a way. On the contrary, what He often did with Israel (His chosen people of the Old Testament) was to give them space to make their choices and then live with the consequences, be they good or bad. This reflects the positive magnitude of God's objective morality for His earthly creation. We're looking at God's "objective morality" versus humanity's "subjective morality" as a baseline for getting this thing going.

[Julie] (12:49 - 13:12) As we go through this, keep in mind that the complaint from a humanist is humanity doesn't require a god's assistance to be moral. Humanity has the ability within itself to be altruistic, responsible, act with self-control. When humanity is cruel and violent, that's outweighed by our capacity to be humane, cooperative and peaceful.

Again, very noble ideals.

[Rick] (13:12 - 13:44) They are very noble ideals. But let's just go back to Eve for one second. She was being clear and reasoning.

Hey, this tree is good. I've heard some information. She reasoned through and made the wrong choice.

Put that in perspective. Now let's go back to God's "objective morality." His "objective morality" is simply defined in this prophecy. We're going to quote a prophecy from Isaiah, and it's about Jesus's future role with humanity. There is a resounding theme in this very simple prophecy. Isaiah 42:1-4:

[Jonathan] (13:44 - 14:23) "Behold, My servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry out or raise his voice, nor make his voice heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break and a dimly burning wick he will not extinguish; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not be disheartened or crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands will wait expectantly for his law." The purpose of God's "objective morality" is to give humanity a just environment.

[Rick] (14:23 - 15:19) Yes, justice. That's what's talked about in this prophecy over and over again; justice to the nations. He'll bring forth justice. It's going to be..."the coastlands... wait." When you think about morality, isn't morality truly based in the highest form of justice? What this prophecy is showing us is that God has justice in control and will bring justice, not just to His people, but to all of humanity. There are loads of prophecies that tell us this. That's a baseline for God's "objective morality," where it's bringing us. Let's look at one practical example of how God chooses to have his "objective morality" work with the "subjective morality" of sinful humanity. We're taking what God says as absolute primary truth and saying, how does He work when we as humans have all different levels of decision-making inside of our brains?

[Jonathan] (15:20 - 15:50) This was back in Samuel's day when Israel wanted a king after having judges for four hundred and fifty years. First Samuel 8:4-6: "Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah; and they said to him, Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations. But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the LORD."

[Julie] (15:50 - 16:07) Samuel had become old. He wasn't able to do the work of judging Israel by himself, so he appointed his two sons to help him. But they took bribes. They were corrupt. The people didn't respect them. These were legitimate concerns, but could have been solved by simply asking for honest judges.

[Rick] (16:08 - 16:56) Right. You had clear concerns. They were justifiable.

You can bring those concerns up and say, you got a point. Bring up the other concerns. You got a point.

You can conclude this point plus this point means trouble. You have very legitimate concerns. But here's the issue.

Here's the issue. The legitimacy of these concerns led them to the illegitimacy of their suggested solution. They took the concerns that had every right to be brought up.

But their proposed solution was, "Give us a king!" That was not what God wanted for them; plain, simple, unequivocal. God has to respond to this, and God's response can be a little bit surprising. 1 Samuel 8:7-9:

[Jonathan] (16:57 - 17:27) "The LORD said to Samuel, Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being King over them. Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt even to this day—in that they have forsaken Me and served other gods— so they are doing to you also. Now then, listen to their voice; however, you shall solemnly warn them and tell them of the procedure of the king who will reign over them."

[Julie] (17:27 - 17:46) God goes on to tell them all the bad things that would happen. Of course, God was right. Of the twenty kings of the two-tribe kingdom of Judah, about five were good. Five were utterly evil. The other ten were a mixture of good and evil. Of the kings of the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel, all were bad in varying degrees. It was a disaster!

[Rick] (17:46 - 18:45) It was a disaster. But they had legitimate concerns, and they took their own morality and applied it to those legitimate concerns and came up with a subpar, despicable answer when God was their actual king. You look at this and say, okay, what happens with all this? Though having kings would prove to be--Julie, you said it--pretty generally disastrous, I think that's a legitimate explanation.

God still always blessed Israel when they came back to Him and to His ways. Eventually, God would take the subjective desires of His people, He'd take those subjective desires and He would actually fulfill them with His objective justice and righteousness. Now, what am I talking about? Subjective desires, objective justice and righteousness-- what God would do is, He would bring them their true king. That's what they desired. But God would bring it in an entirely different way. Let's look at a very short prophecy in Ezekiel 37:24:

[Jonathan] (18:45 - 19:10) "My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd; and they will walk in My ordinances and keep My statutes and observe them." We know this verse is prophetic because David had been dead around five hundred years by the time Ezekiel was a prophet. David as a king here pictures Jesus, the everlasting king.

Now we remember the Messiah comes through the line of David.

[Rick] (19:10 - 20:13) This prophecy is saying, here's the king. But this king is appointed by Me in My time, in My conditions. Yeah, you wanted a king.

I'm giving you a king. But look at what your desire for a king brought you. Look what My execution of bringing you a king will bring you. "Subjective morality" versus God's "objective morality;" a great, great comparison. Let's break this down now in terms of looking at ourselves.

How do we put ourselves in the right position? The book of Psalms-- Psalms has got one hundred and fifty chapters. The book of Psalms begins with clear directions regarding standing firm in God's objective morality. Open up to the book of Psalms. Go to the first Psalm and go to the first verse.

Now think about it, one hundred and fifty chapters. We're going to go to the first verse of the first Psalm, and there is profound wisdom that actually reflects back to Eve in the garden in several ways. Jonathan, let's read that Psalm 1:1:

[Jonathan] (20:14 - 20:21) "How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers."

[Julie] (20:22 - 20:25) Did you catch the progression there? Walk, stand, sit.

[Jonathan] (20:26 - 20:35) Now let's look closer at the individual path of what a blessed man does NOT do. First, he "does NOT walk in the counsel of the wicked."

[Rick] (20:35 - 21:13) That's how Psalm 1:1 begins. He "does not walk in the counsel of the wicked." The first step is to resist common direction because the "counsel of the wicked"--folks, face it, look around-- you're going to see a whole lot more wicked counsel than you're going to see good counsel. I don't care what religion or lack of religion you have, that's what you're going to conclude. You'd resist the common direction. Don't walk along the path of those who seek their own answers. That's what the Psalmist is telling us in the first few words of these one hundred and fifty chapters. A parallel verse, Proverbs 13:20:

[Jonathan] (21:13 - 21:19) "He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm."

[Rick] (21:20 - 21:41) I love Proverbs because you can take these one-liners in Proverbs and determine how to live life. If you walk along with the wise, you can learn to be wise. But if you are companion to fools, there's harm that follows. It's logical, and we all know it, but most of the time we don't listen to it because our "subjective morality" says, hey, this is kind of where I want to be.

[Jonathan] (21:41 - 21:48) What else does a blessed man NOT do? Psalm 1:1 continues with "...nor stand in the path of sinners..."

[Rick] (21:48 - 22:24) "Nor stand in the path of sinners." You're walking, and now instead of walking, you are now coming down to a situation where you stop the progression. Now you're kind of comfortable.

You're kind of comfortable in this one space, and here you are. The second step--the first step was resist common direction-- the second step is to repel common interest. It's easy to slow down and get very, very interested in something. Remember what Eve did. Pausing to consider another path opens up our subjective minds.

That's exactly what the problem with Eve was. Let's go to Proverbs 2:11-12:

[Jonathan] (22:25 - 22:32) "Discretion will guard you, understanding will watch over you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things."

[Rick] (22:33 - 22:48) Again, discretion, understanding-- these things, when we see them from above, they're higher than from within. That can help us to repel the common interest, the pausing and considering things that would bring us down an inappropriate path.

[Jonathan] (22:48 - 22:56) Finally, Psalm 1:1 says a blessed man "does not sit in the seat of scoffers."

[Rick] (22:56 - 23:40) You were walking along. You started to stand because you're getting comfortable, and now you sit down. When you sit down, all your defenses are gone.

All of your ability to run away is gone. You're now in comfortable fellowship, and that's the third step. Avoid ungodly fellowship.

Now we're talking, obviously, from the standpoint of God's "objective morality"-- being told, be careful where you spend your time, who you spend your time with, and what you allow into your minds. Prolonged engagement with those who diminish godly principles brings us to unhealthy doubts, and unhealthy doubt can even bring us to becoming unrighteously critical.

Let's go to Psalm 26:4-5:

[Jonathan] (23:40 - 23:49) "I do not sit with deceitful men, nor will I go with pretenders. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked."

[Rick] (23:50 - 23:59) I won't park myself where I will be taken out of a godly stance in looking at my everyday life.

[Julie] (23:59 - 24:39) But when you try to apply all of these lessons to your life individually, the Bible doesn't spell it out so clearly sometimes. A humanist critique is that religious people appear to be deciding morality on their own when trying to understand God's will. That's what all three of us are here for, trying to understand God's will.

But when we pick certain Bible passages to follow and ignore others, the argument goes, we are in effect interpreting our own standard of morality based on our own cultural prejudices. As proof, a humanist would point to the approximately 41,000 different Christian denominations all trying to find God's will in that objective morality. But it's all different.

[Rick] (24:39 - 24:42) Yeah, and they're right. They're absolutely right! There is...

[Julie] (24:42 - 24:43) That's not comforting.

[Rick] (24:44 - 24:45) But wait, stay with us, okay?

[Julie] (24:46 - 24:46) Okay.

[Rick] (24:46 - 25:40) They're right, because there is a ton of "subjective morality" within Christianity. Why does that happen? Inevitably, and we'll get into this more deeply in a few minutes, that happens because we want to take Christianity and match it to what we're looking for, rather than taking just the clarity of Christianity and accepting it for what it is.

When we do that, when I bring it to me and I put my little signature on it, I have taken something godly and made it "Rick-ly," if you will. I've made it part of me instead of me being part of it.

Let's get back to this whole perspective here with these three steps. By taking these three steps to avoid often attractive engagements, we can set our minds to what the next two verses of this Psalm offers. Because the Psalm says beware of walking, standing, and sitting. Now, Psalms 1:2-3:

JONATHAN:

"But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers." When we meditate on God’s word it brings us freedom, nourishment, health, strength, and peace. In today’s world, I don't know how any can cope without God in their lives!

[Julie] (26:07 - 26:28) Yeah, but to be on the other side, a humanist would say, well, they have freedom, they are nourished, they have health, they have strength, they can prosper without religion and without God. They would say religion is irrational, superstitious, oppressive, and it's also ancient and outdated. There are a lot of "religious" people who do terrible things.

[Rick] (26:28 - 27:07) Absolutely. Positively. Couldn't agree more.

But also within a humanistic environment, there is also irrationality. There is also superstition. Say, well, wait, we're all about us.

Yeah, that's right. You're all about you. You create realities based on your own perception instead of a larger truth and that becomes superstitious. That becomes oppressive because now you look at people who have religion, you say, oh, no, no, you're all wrong. You shouldn't be.

You shouldn't talk. Whenever you point the finger, my grandmother used to say, and I'm sure your grandmother did too, "You point a finger at somebody, doesn't mean we're pointing back at you." You have to be careful. What we need is Moral Clarity in an Unclear World.

[Jonathan] (27:08 - 27:27) This is what we have so far; when dealing with His people, God often demonstrated His respect for their legitimate complaints and did at times allow their own subjective solutions. However, His objective principles were always present and gave them the ability to reveal the potential folly of their choices.

[Julie] (27:28 - 27:34) Of course, the question for us is, are we willing to learn this kind of awareness as we face the moral challenges of our own lives?

[Rick] (27:35 - 27:55) Am I willing to learn something bigger than me and take that and have it create my direction? So far, one thing is clear; it's very easy to inject our own subjectively moral decisions as we face the daily challenges of following God's objective principles.

[Jonathan] (27:56 - 28:03) We have just been given a sense of how God deals with the "subjective morality" of His people. How does He respond to everyone else?

[Rick] (28:04 - 28:34) All right, for many, this is a big question. In our present social environment, we can see that when those on one side of an issue with moral implications are faced with an opposing view, the most common default reaction is contempt. Our wholesale discounting of those who see things differently is absolutely telling and in so doing, are we acting in accordance with or in contradiction to God's ways? We've got to ask ourselves that question.

[Julie] (28:34 - 29:14) It's interesting you brought up "contempt" because, in fact, one of the reasons why you might be hearing this term humanism more and more is because of the traditional stigmatism towards atheists. They're a mistrusted minority here in the United States. According to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, an overwhelming majority of atheists, like 94%, say that the statement "religion causes division and intolerance" describes their view and 91% say the same about the statement "religion encourages superstition and illogical thinking." Almost 73% say religion does more harm than good in American society.

[Rick] (29:14 - 29:49) They say that. In some cases, that may be true. But in other cases, if you want to look at American society, if you look at what it was based on, it was based on biblical principles.

Just saying that's easily provable. We're not going there today, but you have to take it and put it in a balance. Let's get back into this. Before we navigate God's responses to those who don't seek Him, let's observe one more detail of His care for those who do seek Him. We're going back to that theme text because we left out a detail that's really, really important. Jonathan, back to Proverbs 2:6-7:

[Jonathan] (29:49 - 30:20) "For the LORD gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity." Now, the Hebrew word translated "integrity" here means "completeness, morally innocent." The shield described here is a "buckler," a portable shield held by hand or worn on the forearm. God is described as a buckler for those who live their lives with integrity to God's principles. This is comforting!

[Rick] (30:21 - 31:10) Think about being able to walk into the battle of everyday life wearing God's principles as that shield as you have to go and deal with this, that and the other thing. It is a great comfort and it gives us a sense of great, great direction. Now, look, humanism in its most honorable form proclaims that we (humanity) are the source of human enlightenment. It seeks not a higher power, but instead, Julie, as you said, it seeks science and nature and reason for its basis. We've got that as one side of this moral definition issue. The Bible, on the other hand, recognizes and reasons that all are given the testimony of nature and science.

That's what the Bible puts out there. It tells us that. We'll get to that in a moment.

[Jonathan] (31:10 - 31:24) I've got a question. Without a "higher power" of guiding and governing the universe, what are the chances that such expansive order, beauty, creativity, power, and intelligence could come from sheer chaos and random disorder?

[Julie] (31:24 - 32:11) Oh, I've got two answers for you. Let me first give you the answer of Stephen J. Gould, a humanist and evolutionary biologist. He said this (Rick, you're going to love this): "We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs...because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a 'higher answer'--but none exists." James Heming, the President of Humanists UK, said: "Our entire bodies and brains are made of a few dollars' worth of common element... Assemble them all in the right proportion...and the result is our feeling, thinking, striving, imagining, creative selves. Such ordinary elements; such extraordinary results!"

[Rick] (32:11 - 33:10) Such intelligent design! That's what it is. They don't want to say it because that ruins the perspective.

But folks, what you just described, yes, the basic elements that humanity is made up of are cheap and plentiful, and yet they are so magnificently put together. It is undeniable. I say it's undeniable-- I guess we'll have to qualify this as a "Rick opinion." It is undeniable that there is intelligence behind the creation of humanity. No, humanity didn't come from fish with weird gills or fins. It just didn't happen. Humanity is far beyond the rest of creation. We could go on long with this instead of going there, though.

Let's go back to the scriptures and see what the scriptures say about this very argument. Jonathan, let's turn to Romans 1. We're going to read through Romans 1:20-27. We're going to take it essentially one verse at a time. Let's start with verse 20:

[Jonathan] (33:10 - 33:29) "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." The vast complexity of creation gives us cause to acknowledge a much higher power than ourselves.

[Julie] (33:29 - 33:42) Of course, WE look at science and nature and we see the fingerprints of God. How smart are humans, and we still have no idea how our own immune system works or even something as basic as how our brains are able to dream at night.

[Rick] (33:42 - 34:24) Think about the complexity of DNA. Just think about that and think, OK, let me just randomly throw a bunch of elements up in the air and see how long it takes to come down with one strand of DNA. It's impossible.

Folks, understand there's reason here. Romans 1:20 starts out by saying the world has God in front of them. They have His signature all over creation, all over the order of things, all over the stars, all over gravity, all over the fact that ice floats and doesn't sink, all of those things. That's God's signature. We have that, and yet, here's what Romans 1:21 says:

[Jonathan] (34:24 - 34:34) "For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened."

[Rick] (34:34 - 35:33) "They became futile in their speculations." Yes, this kind of fish had weird gills or fins-- I can't remember what you said, doesn't even matter-- and out popped a human being, I don't know, half a million years later, whatever it was, doesn't matter. It's ludicrous to really bank your ancestry on such foolishness.

Here's what happens here. The act of ignoring God, of intentionally discounting His existence, of intentionally saying nope, I don't see order in the creation, nope, there's no intelligent design, nope, I'm not looking, I'm not listening, I'm not looking-- the act of doing all of that, when we take His existence and His power and we put it aside, it creates a void in man's "subjective morality." Now we're operating with less than our full intelligence because we have chosen to ignore.

Because by definition, we are the highest moral decision makers now. We've taken God out of the picture. Therefore, therefore, therefore, I, I am the one.

I am God. Now let's look at Romans 1:22:

[Jonathan] (35:33 - 35:43) "Professing to be wise, they became fools." This sounds familiar. We often hear the phrase, "it's my truth." That's what an individual wants to believe.

[Rick] (35:43 - 36:39) They do. They do. Look, I get it! I get it because when I look at this and I look at this and I put the pieces together, I see it come together very clearly. In my mind, that's it. That's the truth. Don't mess with my truth. I understand that.

We're all human. We all do that. Not saying we're above it.

We do that, okay, we do that. Any profession of wisdom though, here's the thing; any profession of wisdom and enlightenment within a godless environment is ultimately flawed. When you profess wisdom in godlessness, there will be a flaw that takes place. Why? It forces its "subjective morality" to never have a true and everlasting answer or direction. Meaning the morality can work for now, for this generation, but it's going to have to change, it's going to have to change, it's going to have to change. If you don't change exactly, precisely the right way, you create anarchy. Look around in the world. How are we doing?

We're not going in the right direction, are we? Let's go to Romans 1:23:

[Jonathan] (36:39 - 36:57) "And exchange the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed animals and crawling creatures." This "subjective morality" replaces worshiping the mighty God with self-worship and nature worship.

[Rick] (36:57 - 37:16) This is a problem, because when we take out the Designer and just worship the design, we've lost our touch with the intelligence behind that which we are worshiping. It becomes an issue, and we lose our way because we're stuck in a lower level of thinking.

[Julie] (37:16 - 37:19) This was written, what, two thousand years ago?

[Rick] (37:19 - 37:19) Yeah.

[Julie] (37:19 - 37:30) We're still dealing with literally the exact thing that this is talking about, in paganism and witchcraft and just the way of mentally thinking. This is "subjective morality."

[Rick] (37:31 - 37:46) Right. This is two thousand years ago this was written, because it is—here's an idea—it is eternal wisdom. It's wisdom that doesn't change for humanity.

We will always be the subject of God's creation. Let's move forward. Romans 1:24-25:

[Jonathan] (37:46 - 38:03) "Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who was blessed forever. Amen."

[Julie] (38:03 - 38:03) That's it.

[Rick] (38:04 - 38:58) Yeah, yeah-- case closed. Idolatry—worshiping the created rather than Creator—is the epitome of darkness masquerading as light. Humanism, with its "subjective morality," is incredibly well-intentioned. I have no qualms about the intention of, let's do it right, let's do it better, let's do it higher. That's a beautiful thought. But when you take it and you apply it in an idolatrous fashion, you've got darkness instead of light.

It's well-intentioned, but by definition it operates in ignorance of our ultimate purpose. Again, it can be good for today and tomorrow and next year and ten years from now, but ultimately it has to change. If we don't get the change right every single time, we end up with anarchy. The end result of how God responds to humanity when they don't look to Him, the end result is, He leaves them to their own devices.

[Jonathan] (38:59 - 39:18) Right, like He did with Israel. He patiently explained all the reasons why they didn't want a king, but they wanted one anyway. He let them have their way to show them natural consequences. They remind me of teenagers who think they have all the answers but lack the life experience or maturity.

[Julie] (39:18 - 39:38) Speaking of "leaves them to their own devices," Rick, what do you say to those who say, okay, God does exist (in agnostic thought), but this human experiment went so awry that He abandoned the project and He moved to a far distant universe to try again. We're on our own to fend for ourselves as is obvious by looking around--how awful things are!

[Rick] (39:38 - 40:27) Well, what I say to that is you don't understand at all what God's word says, because this permission of evil, this permission of time where it looks like God is not here is by design. All you have to do--all you have to do, I say that as though it's easy-- all you have to do is look at the prophecies, look at the structure of the Bible as a whole, and you will see this tapestry of beauty that shows you a beginning, a middle, and a happily-ever-after ending to the putting away of sin and death and to the eternal life that God promised humanity. What I say to that is look at the scriptures, give us time, and let's walk through all of this. That's what we want to be looking for here.

Here's a question. What does God ultimately want from His human creation? What is He looking for? Let's look at Micah 6:6-8:

[Jonathan] (40:27 - 41:04) "With what shall I come to the LORD and bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams, in ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" Let's pause. Should I do all these dramatic, overt things?

No! Here's the answer. Continuing: "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

[Rick] (41:04 - 41:42) There is a simplicity, and here's the catch. Here's the key. Here's the difference.

God above requires us to do justice according to His standard, to love kindness according to His standard, and to walk humbly not with each other. That's an important thing, incidentally, but primarily to walk humbly with Him. That puts all of us on an equal par, learning everything that every humanist wants humanity to learn.

It just does it from a higher perspective. That helps us understand this is God's objective for the human race.

[Jonathan] (41:42 - 42:15) You know, guys, this world really does need moral clarity. God's wisdom dictates that He gives space to humanity in this age of sin and death. He knows that any and every human attempt at a godless utopia will end in the sadness of dysfunction and destruction.

Why does He do this? He knows that in the resurrection, every ransomed human being will plainly see just how far their collective "subjective morality" fell short of the true and pure morality that He has in store for them.

[Rick] (42:15 - 42:43) The end of the story is not here yet. God does have it in control, even though He allows us to think He doesn't. He's giving us the opportunity to make our choices to see where they lead us. He has a great, great process laid out for us coming forward. The fact that God leaves humanity alone in their own moral reasoning and planning really makes us look hard at our results. They're not good!

[Jonathan] (42:43 - 42:50) As we attempt to follow Jesus, how do we more fully embrace God's "objective morality" in our everyday lives?

[Rick] (42:51 - 43:21) Of the many answers provided to us in Scripture to this question, we'll deal with just a few. The key here is understanding that life has too many intricacies to make this a black and white, right or wrong discussion. Morality must be able to fit into the practicality of every day and the only way to do that is to use our best God-based moral judgment in each and every circumstance that we face.

[Julie] (43:21 - 43:45) In spite of the apparent contradiction, though, objective and subjective morality really aren't mutually exclusive. There is some overlap. To say that morality is subjective, varying from person to person, doesn't preclude it from existing objectively as well. We are all flawed by sin. Our own biases do interfere. How do we make sense of all this so that we CAN do better?

[Rick] (43:45 - 44:33) Well, we're going to go into four very specific points right now. Julie and Jonathan, that is really the subject of Part II. Part II is going to just settle in and focus in on what do I do as a Christian right now with my subjective approach to God's objective standards? Because you have to figure that out. We absolutely do. So, these four points: The first point; regularly clarify the origin of our Christian morality. Clarify where it comes from. Without clarity, we're subject to compromise.

Our mission is adherence to God's "objective morality" driven by the precepts that He proclaimed. Not the precepts that I like the best. It is by the precepts that He proclaimed.

Let's look at Psalm 119:165-169:

[Jonathan] (44:33 - 44:57) "Those who love Your law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble. I hope for Your salvation, O LORD, and do Your commandments. My soul keeps Your testimonies, and I love them exceedingly. I keep Your precepts and Your testimonies, For all my ways are before You. Let my cry come before You, O LORD; Give me understanding according to Your word."

[Julie] (44:58 - 45:18) We've got law, salvation, commandments, testimonies, precepts, the word. There's a lot to make a good baseline to establish morality as a Christian. This differs greatly from a humanist perspective that objective moral truths can be discovered by using reason and science only, and that that process doesn't require a belief in God.

[Jonathan] (45:18 - 45:29) This is why Bible study is so important. We ask God for understanding. Our high standard can slip a little with each life experience, so we want to constantly keep it in check.

[Julie] (45:29 - 45:41) Well, that reminds me, when you photocopy something or you handwrite something, you don't copy from a copy. You always want to copy from the original because over time, those copies get degraded just a little bit, little bit, little bit.

[Rick] (45:42 - 46:10) That's exactly what "subjective morality" does. Our "objective morality" needs to be--we need to clarify its origin. Its purity comes from God above.

That's how our Christian morality needs to have its stance. The second point now builds on that. The second point is to regularly check the authenticity of our Christian conscience.

We can have a standard of morality, but what does my conscience do with that standard of morality? Does it hold it up high or do I do something else with it?

[Jonathan] (46:10 - 46:40) We have to ask ourselves, is my inner voice from God or me? 1 Timothy 4:1-3: "But the spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who...know the truth."

[Julie] (46:40 - 46:49) Like it or not, my inner voice is flawed. Romans 3:23 says: "...for all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God." That's all of us.

[Rick] (46:49 - 47:13) We naturally have consciences that can be easily 'seared...as with a branding iron," like this scripture talks about. We have to be careful that we don't base our big picture of our life on that seared, flawed conscience. We've got clarifying the origin of our Christian morality, checking the authenticity of our Christian conscience. The third point; truly believe in what you say you're going to believe.

[Jonathan] (47:13 - 47:24) There's a huge difference between merely professing something and truly believing something. "Profess" in the New Testament means "to express approval; that is, to covenant or acknowledge."

[Julie] (47:25 - 47:36) There's an American idiom that says, "talk the talk and walk the walk." That emphasizes the importance of matching your actions with your words. It's not enough to say something.

You've got to demonstrate those intentions with your actions.

[Rick] (47:37 - 47:56) When we profess things--and look, all humans do that and do this; Christians do it, atheists do it, agnostics do it, humanists do it. We all profess things.

There's two sides of professing. First is the weak side, the common side. Just like you said, Julie, talking the talk.

This is illustrated in Titus 1:15-16:

[Jonathan] (47:57 - 48:14) "To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed."

[Rick] (48:14 - 48:49) It's talking about those who make a profession, who "talk the talk." But when you look at the life that is lived, there is nothing more than just a bunch of chatter. That's a problem. Look, that's a problem within Christianity. You said 41,000 different denominations of Christianity-- there is likely a lot of "talking the talk" going on. The question is, do we look to the strong side of professing, where we "walk the walk" of that profession? This is illustrated in 1 Timothy 6:11-12.

[Jonathan] (48:50 - 49:15) This is from the Weymouth translation. Paul is speaking to Timothy: "But you, O man of God, must flee from these things; and strive for uprightness, godliness, good faith, love, fortitude, and a forgiving temper. Exert all your strength in the honorable struggle for the faith; lay hold of the life of the ages, to which you were called, when you made (or professed) your noble profession of faith before many witnesses."

[Rick] (49:16 - 50:16) This is a beautiful, beautiful example, because Timothy, as a young man, professed that he was living his life for Christ. The Apostle Paul, later in Timothy's life, says live that profession that you made because you said the words and then you walked the walk. This is what a true Christian is supposed to look like.

Many times we say the words and we don't do the deeds according to those words. We need to walk the walk of the professions that we make, walking the walk of God's "objective morality." That's what it is. It's walking the walk of His morality. Not my best interpretation, but it's His morality. It requires effort to learn and embrace its principles. In 1 Timothy, Paul was writing, live that profession. In 2 Timothy, Paul is dying. He knows that his life is going to be cut short and he's turning much responsibility over to young Timothy.

Here's what he says to this young man who walked the walk. 2 Timothy 2:14-15:

[Jonathan] (50:16 - 50:50) "Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth." This reminds me of natural Israel. God told them to remember each year at Passover, how He saved them and to stay close to His Laws. Human nature forgets so easily. We also need to be diligent in staying close to God's word.

[Rick] (50:50 - 51:42) Diligence is a requirement to live God's "objective morality." You can't just sit back and relax and say, I got it now. I'm saved.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That doesn't even come close. We have to stand up.

We have to dig in. We have to try and understand God's word. That's what our whole focus here at Christian Questions is--trying to understand better the word of God so it can show me where I need to go and how I need to get there. Let's move on to our fourth point: Acknowledge the role our humanity plays in our thinking and actions and then compensate. Then make the adjustments.

Acknowledge the role that our humanity plays, our "subjective morality," and then we need to compensate. Submitting subjective human morality to God's "objective morality" creates an objectively subjective approach.

[Julie] (51:42 - 51:44) What? Can you say that again in English?

[Rick] (51:45 - 51:54) Yes. We have our subjective approach to things. God's approach is always objective.

We can't get rid of our subjective approach.

[Julie] (51:54 - 51:57) That's what I was saying before. They're both together.

[Rick] (51:57 - 52:14) We need to raise that up as high as we possibly can in this sinful state that we're in to meet God's objective approach. The objectively, from on high, subjective, from down here, approach to living. How do we do that?

Let's take a look at Romans 7:18-20:

[Jonathan] (52:14 - 52:47) "For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but the sin which dwells in me." This evil is not the heinous sin against humanity kind of sin. Rather, it's the human selfishness, idolatry, ego, idleness, and covetousness kind of sin.

[Rick] (52:48 - 53:11) The Apostle Paul had committed heinous sins against humanity, and he had run away from those. He had run hard and fast away from them. He never turned back to them.

However, you know what? He was still an imperfect human being, and he's saying, still, the things I don't want to do, I do. His "subjective humanity," looking at God's objective principles, he's saying there's a gap. There's just a gap in my life, and it's frustrating.

[Julie] (53:12 - 53:23) We all have this gap. Literally, everybody can read this scripture, no matter who you are, and it all applies. We just have to keep trying to honor God with honest hearts. Even though we fail over and over again, we don't give up.

[Rick] (53:24 - 53:33) That's exactly what the Apostle Paul writes in the next few verses. He doesn't leave us hanging there. Here's what he writes, Romans 7:22-25:

[Jonathan] (53:33 - 54:01) "For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin."

[Rick] (54:02 - 54:51) He understands that he's a living contradiction, and he's okay because his effort is focusing upward. Paul is showing us how to look at our lives using God's "objective morality" to identify our path, and to use our own "subjective morality" to work on living acceptably before him. That's hard to do! There's a lot of issues. Again, Part II is going to get into this. This is not a matter of all or nothing.

Sometimes Christians make the mistake of saying, if I'm not exactly right, then I'm completely wrong. Yeah, you know, we're in sin. But God understands.

There's compassion. There's grace. There's forgiveness.

It's a matter of step-by-step moving closer to our goal of true Christlikeness. We absolutely need moral clarity in this unclear world.

[Jonathan] (54:51 - 55:21) Rick, it's a challenge, but God knows our frame and that we are mired in sin, even though we are disciples of Christ. He uses our fallibility along with the dramatically deficient wisdom of the world's best thinking to plant the permanent seeds of remembrance into humanity's history. Why does He do this? He does this to solidify His eternal plan of redemption through Jesus and bring all of the creation back to honoring their wise and loving Creator!

[Rick] (55:21 - 56:18) There is a method to the reasonableness with which God created humanity, allowed sin to come and reign for all these thousands of years. People say, well, He's abandoned us. No, He hasn't. He's just giving us our humanistic approach so that He can bring us to a higher level later. The prophecies say that resoundingly over and over. Jesus says, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." There's a reason for that. God's "objective morality" says, I see you. I've got you.

I will bless you. I'll let you learn from what you're doing, but watch where I'm bringing you. It is higher.

There is so much to learn about focusing on God's objective approach rather than our subjective approach. Think about it. Folks, we love hearing from our listeners.

We welcome your feedback and questions on this episode and other episodes at ChristianQuestions.com. Coming up in our next Episode: "What Defines Moral Behavior?" (Part II)

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