Who Defines Morality?
What is the most presumptuous thing humans can do?
Is it tinkering with genetics, the code of life? Committing genocide? Poisoning the earth?
We could add others, but all of them have a common thread—morality, the defining of behaviors as acceptable or unacceptable. Here’s the key question: Are humans equipped to define right and wrong, to set the rules of morality? History shows that we haven’t “played God” very well; and while that should be a deterrent, it never has. We continue to experiment with life and change the rules of morality as we go along.
Consider the current debate over same-sex marriage. Is sexual desire a valid reason to change the definition of marriage, as long as the majority of people think it is? If so, then any desire is theoretically grounds for altering morality. Anything can become “moral,” if enough “consenting adults” give their approval!
What about perverse desires such as cannibalism or slave-trading? Well, some societies have perceived those things as moral. Given enough time and support, virtually any illicit desire can be just a court ruling away from being the law of the land.
If you think this is absurd, you are right—but that is exactly how humans reason. And we don’t want to give up the right for anyone else to determine morality. Even the phrase in the American Constitution, “We the people,” is a phrase that empowers us with the ultimate right to define morality. What’s the problem with that? Very simply, it detaches us from the eternal, unchanging standards of God.
Let’s understand a key concept: Desire, or public opinion, is never grounds for altering the rules of life based on God-given definitions of good and evil, right and wrong. For example, “we the people,” apart from God, have now made it acceptable to murder unborn babies in the name of expediency and desire. Our founding fathers, most of whom were God-fearing men, would shudder in revulsion at the depravity of such actions!
God has a unique perspective on what constitutes life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He sees the end from the beginning and knows with absolute certainty whether actions will be a blessing or a curse. By contrast, we humans are short-sighted, creatures of emotion, driven by desire, and lacking the character to renounce the dark path that leads to perversion, suffering and destruction. Without the ability to see the end result of an action, we continually stumble from ditch to ditch down the road of travail.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t enjoy suffering. Long ago I responded to a calling to live a way of life that absolutely guarantees happiness because it trusts in the Creator God and the immutable rules of life He has given us for our benefit. While not every day has been filled with blissful exuberance, being a Christian has given me the tools and guidance to live a life without overwhelming heartbreak and suffering. This guidance is available to you as well—along with an ironclad promise of future immortality for those who follow the morality of godliness.
Chances are, you may not have life completely figured out. You may have questions that tug at the strings of your heart each day as your watch a world rushing toward destruction and see time-honored institutions collapsing around you.
Escape the presumptuous and futile way of a life based on imperfect, flawed human reason and logic! Come and study the Bible with us at Life, Hope & Truth. Find out what God has in store for all of His children in the soon-coming Kingdom of God!
For Life, Hope & Truth, I am Britton Taylor.
