God is the Source of Morality
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Where does our moral insight come from?
One of the strangest things about human beings is that we have moral convictions.
Other creatures on earth don’t have moral convictions. Monkeys and tigers and alligators, they don’t worry that some of the things that they do are things they shouldn’t do. They just do what they do. But we hold our own behaviors up to a moral standard.
We say, “Was that right? Is this right?” And we say, “That was wrong, I shouldn’t have done that.”
Why do we talk like that? Where do we get our standard for right and wrong? Does that standard come from this world? Or does it come from beyond the world?
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Looking for the moral standard within the world
Let’s say we try to get our morality just by looking at the world. Let’s say we leave God out of the picture and just try to figure out right and wrong with no reference to God. Will that work?
Lots of people think they can do that. They think they can figure out the difference between good and bad without any thought of God at all. They’ll just look at this world, try to look at things scientifically, objectively, with microscopes and telescopes and math, and they’ll figure out the difference between right and wrong that way, right? Wrong.
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What does happen vs. what should happen
If you look out at the world, if you examine it empirically, scientifically, that will tell you what actually happens. But that isn’t what we want. If we’re looking for moral insight, we don’t just want to know what does happen, we want to know what should happen!
For instance, you can do a scientific study on murder and you can find stats on how many murders happen every year, and who commits them, and how they are committed. You can scientifically study what does happen.But, of course, our moral convictions tell us that none of that should be happening. So our moral convictions tell us something more than our observation of the natural world. Our moral convictions don’t just tell us what happens, but what should happen.
We can’t get our moral convictions just by looking around at the world, because the world doesn’t give us a moral picture.
We have to look beyond this world to get a moral picture. We have to look to God.
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Science and Moral Insight
We have to stop looking at “scientific experts” for all our answers, especially for our questions about morality, about how we should live. A scientist’s job is to report on what happens, not on what should happen.
When it comes to what should happen, scientists don’t have any more insight than anybody else. If scientist’s automatically had moral insight based on their science, then, for example, Nazi scientists would realize that the experiments they were performing on human beings were evil. Scientists experimenting on unborn embryos would realize that those experiments were wrong. And scientists who make world-destroying weapons would realize that developing those technologies was wrong.
But they don’t. Because moral insight doesn’t come from working in a lab. It comes from knowing what God has made us for. Otherwise, morally speaking, we’re always in the dark.
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Purpose comes from a Maker
This world doesn’t explain itself. This world hasn’t made itself. And this world hasn’t given itself its purpose.
If you want to understand this world’s existence, its nature, or its purpose, you have to look to the Creator. Only when you understand the purpose that we’ve been given by God will you understand what we should be, and what we’re supposed to do.
What’s the takeaway?
Don’t look to the world for the standard for how to live.
This world is not the source of right and wrong, which should be obvious when we think for just a second about how much is wrong with the world.
You will not be able to live rightly until you conform yourself to God.
So ask Him right now to conform you to Himself. Only then can you possibly hope to live a good life.