Our lives are very much ethic-centric. We typically try to cut immoral people out of our lives. If we do something morally unjustified, we often find ways to justify ourselves or make amends lest we live in a tumultuous contradiction. That is why the moral argument is a favorite among Christian apologists. But in a recent debate with Kent Hovind, the atheist YouTuber Negation of P tried to turn the tables. He suggested that if Christianity is true, we would have no basis for our moral duties, and in fact, everything in the world (even that which we recognize as evil) would be objectively good. So how did he go about turning the table on the moral argument?
I had the chance to interact with Ned (Negation of P) during the after show of the debate, so he clarified his argument for me. He suggested that since the Bible teaches that God decrees bad thing (Genesis 50:20; Isaiah 45:7), we could never know whether an evil action was decreed by God and therefore never know if it is appropriate to interfere with something evil that is happening. For example, suppose you saw Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery. If God decreed that to happen, then we could never interfere because we would be sinning. In fact, since everything that God decrees is good (including Joseph’s brother selling him into slavery), then there is no objective evil. Everything is good from a cosmic perspective, and we have no framework for our moral duties.
I had never heard this argument before, but a few problems immediately emerged that I brought up in the after show. I would like to expand on those here.
Christian Theology Could Still Obtain Without Deterministic Assumptions
When I suggested to Ned that Christian theology could still obtain, he pointed out that he was granting it for the sake of the argument. But I think this point really cuts to the core of his argument. I am a determinist, but I would not claim that Christian theology would not obtain if determinism were falsified. So if I were to concede Ned’s argument, the most impact it would have on me would be to give up determinism and allow that God is contending with libertarian free will.
For example, it does not seem like Molinism would be vulnerable to his argument. Molinism is the position that God consulted his knowledge of counterfactuals to put men in situations in which they would freely choose to do his will. The Molinist would use that framework to interpret passages such as Genesis 50:20 and Isaiah 45:7. In that sense, God would be allowing men to have free will and contending with free will while using it to bring about his ultimate plan. Free will and moral decision making would become almost a guiding element of divine providence. God would create his plan based on how men would react in certain situations.
Typically when confronted with the free will defense, Ned will use passages such as Isaiah 45:7 or Genesis 50:20 to show that man’s free will cannot thwart God’s plan. But Molinism is nuanced enough to avoid that objection. They would affirm that God’s will cannot be thwarted but still he accounts for creaturely freedom. This all goes to underline my fundamental point that this is not an argument against broad Christian theology. It is an argument against determinism, and my Molinist friends could even use it and still be faithful Christians.
God’s Decree And Revealed Will
Of course, I do not know that it would prevail even as an argument against determinism. It makes a pretty detrimental category error in failing to distinguish between God’s decree and his revealed will. God’s decree refers to his purpose in everything that will come to pass. This decree is something that we do not have access to. It was God’s decree that Joseph’s brothers would sell him into slavery. His revealed will characterizes his revelation to us, which would prescribe our moral duties. An example is, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Ned’s argument is conflating the decree and the revealed will. He essentially suggests that we can never know whether God has decreed something bad to happen. If we see somebody being sold into slavery, we ought not intervene because it is part of God’s decree. This would be the theological position known as fatalism. The problem is that our moral duties are not based on God’s decree. They are based on his revealed will. When Jesus was crucified, his decree was that he would be murdered. But his revealed will is still “You shall not kill.” Our duties are based on “You shall not kill.”
Ned’s Response – Contending With Christian Theology
I actually had the opportunity to point this out to Ned during the after show linked above. He basically responded that there have been times in the Bible in which God’s revealed will was present, but people were still compelled to follow God’s decree based on personal revelation. When the Canaanites were slaughtered, they still knew “You shall not kill” as a biblical precept. So, suppose somebody kills another person today and claims that God commanded it. Perhaps they had the same sort of justification as when the Canaanites were slaughtered. So this would again hark us back to the point that we cannot know what our moral duties are.
But remember against that Ned’s argument requires him to grant Christian theology for the sake of the debate. The biblical data will then become relevant to our discussion. When the Canaanites were slaughtered, there was an expectation of an ongoing line of prophets. Deuteronomy 18:18 reads, “I will raise up for them a prophet… I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.” This would be contrasted against our current state – God does not reveal himself through prophets.
As a Protestant, I believe in what is known as sola scriptura. This is the doctrine that Scripture is the only infallible source of knowledge for the Christian church. It is best summarized by 2nd Timothy 3:16-17. The text reads, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” Beyond that, the apostle Paul used the illustration of the foundation of a building. God’s church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20). Extra-scriptural revelation as described by Ned’s argument is simply not part of our worldview. Bringing us back around: this means that we can know what our moral duties are because God will not violate his revealed will.
Ah, But Did The Jews Have A Deficient Moral Epistemology?
I anticipate some may point out that even if we are not currently in this unsavory position of not knowing whether some action is good or evil, it may be that the Jews were in that position. That might be a scaled-down version of the argument. But if rendered properly, it could still be as forceful. After all, if we believe as Christians that God inspired the prophets, we would also have to believe that he put men in this epistemic situation for thousands of years. So if we could have prophets saying “You shall kill,” while the revealed will said “You shall not kill,” that would put the Jews in a bad situation.
There are a few things we might say about this. First, there is a distinction between descriptive and prescriptive. If something is prescriptive, it is our moral duty. This would relate to something like “You shall not kill.” If it is descriptive, it would simply relay something that happened. The slaughter of the Canaanites was a descriptive event.
Yet still, you have this conflict between “You shall kill,” and “You shall not kill,” so should we expect another massacre similar to what happened to the Canaanites? How do we know that it was descriptive and not prescriptive? Well, the slaughter of the Canaanites was preempted by a long history of promises rooted in the biblical narrative. God spoke of the Promised Land in Genesis 15:18-21, 26:3, 28:13, and Exodus 23:31. So the slaughter of the Canaanites was a unique event rooted in biblical history with a specific purpose (namely, driving out the Canaanites) not to be repeated or thought to be prescriptive. Therefore, the Jews would have no problem distinguishing between God’s revealed will and personal umptions to violate the revealed will.
Is Everything That Happens Objectively Good?
A related clause of this argument is the notion that everything should be objectively good. When Joseph was sold into slavery, it was a truly good event because it was part of God’s perfect decree. This would criticize our moral values more than our moral duties. I first want to repeat the point that determinism is not a necessary aspect of Christian theology. Many faithful Christians have different interpretations of deterministic passages. An Arminian might say, for example, that God sees that an evil thing has occurred and uses it for his good purposes. So again, this would be an attack on determinism rather than on the broader Christian theology.
But still, I think there are different aspects of an event. God could see something in more than one way. God would see Joseph being sold into slavery as an evil event in the sense that the people who did it were evil. Yet there would be a sense in which it was good because it prevented his family from enduring the famine. We are all capable of recognizing these distinct dimensions. People will often say things like, “My life has been hard, but it made me the person I am today. I wouldn’t change it.” We should not think that there is only one dimension to an event.
Turning The Tables On The Moral Argument?
I wrote about this argument because it was pretty unique. It turned the tables on the moral argument and was nuanced enough to grant the Christian worldview for the sake of discussion. But ultimately, I think it suffered from a few fatal errors. It is really not an argument against Christianity. It is an argument against Christian determinism. Many indeterministic Christians might even rejoice at this argument and add it to their arsenal. However, if they were to do that, they would still be making a basic category error. They would fail to distinguish between God’s revealed will and his decree; they would also conflate prescriptive passages and descriptive passages. It also does not account for the biblical data that I presented. But overall, it was a thoughtful critique and I enjoyed listened to it and thinking about it.
Click to see Ned’s Response.
Ned:
I honestly want to thank you for the work you put into your blogged response to my argument. However I must say given that you admit that my argument is relevant to your flavor of christianity (Christian determinism) I don’t see how you have addressed the essential question GNOM asks. Namely, with the existence of an omni-god how can a non-omnishant being possibly determine what action to take when confronted with a situation where a moral decision must be made? Now I realize that you have asserted we all (or at the very least you) “Know” gods decree. However again I must remind you that you have yet to demonstrate how you (let alone anyone else) can be certain your/their specific understanding of “god’s decree” is correct. To be as clear as possible I ask you demonstrate how you have determined that the knowledge you base your morality on is; divine in its origin, infallible, non-demonic, not a result of conditioning by the people you find influential &/or the church, and so on and so on………?
BTW you also need to address just how you have gotten around the problem of knowing all possible aspects of gods plan and you even admit as much later in the blog by stating ‘We should not think that there is only one dimension to an event.” and given this is the case how can you determine if the “evil” you perceive is not in fact a good that is necessary to bring about god’s decree?
“This all goes to underline my fundamental point that this is not an argument against broad Christian theology”
I feel I need to remind you that I never claimed GNOM was applicable to all +33,000 sects of christianity and by asserting that other flavors of Christianity may be able to bring to bare some solutions to the problems GNOM highlights does nothing in getting you “off the hook”.
“If I were to concede Ned’s argument, the most impact it would have on me would be to give up determinism and allow that God is contending with libertarian free will.”
Are you saying that human free-will could possibly not only run contrary to gods plan but human actions could/would result in individuals in being capable of acting in opposition to god’s decree?
“Bringing us back around: this means that we can know what our moral duties are because God will not violate his revealed will.”
This implies god’s will and mandates are reflective of an objective will. Again god’s will is not viewed as objective not even by you in that if god’s will is objective (or believed to be objective) then we should see people (at least people like yourself) adhering to all gods commandments not just the ones you like, However what we see is the exact opposite happening. In that throughout history we see even people like yourself gravitate away from laws prescribed by gods will that once mandated the death penalty for example. Or perhaps you are advocating we kill everyone who:
Attacks or is cursing a parent (Exodus 21:15,17)
Is disobedience to parents (Deuteronomy 21:18)
Preform witchcraft and sorcery (Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 20:27, 1 Samuel 28:9)
Commits adultery (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22)
Commit a homosexual acts (Leviticus 20:13)
Blasphemes (Leviticus 24:14,16, 23)
Make false prophecy (Deuteronomy 18:20)
Makes a false claim of woman’s virginity at marriage (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)
Just to name a few.
So which is it? Is god’s will objective or does it change to fit the times &/or suit the needs of god &/or his people?
One quick followup before I leave for work, regarding your claims about “category errors” As a point of clarity would you say god’s will can run contrary to gods decree and if not how would that effect your claims? In short if they are essentially identical it seems like nothing more than semantics to point out category errors in such a case.
Thats all I have time for tonight but again I thank you for your time and would enjoy discussing this with you again in the future.
Thanks
Ned (~P)
Richard:
I usually do not publish responses to my articles within the post. But I did it this time because apparently there was an error in my article’s plugin which seemed to delete it. That is not the first time this has happened. I am planning to install a new comment plugin. But let’s move on to my response.
I was interested in Ned’s argument because he wanted to understand my theology and mount his argument from there. As a determinist, his argument would be relevant to my position. But I also noticed that he was using this same argument against Kent Hovind, who would be more indeterministic. Throughout the debate, Ned was insisting upon deterministic theology based on the Bible. That is because determinism is really the only model of Christian theology where his argument will work. But there are indeterministic models of the relationship between sovereignty and freedom that I think evade Ned’s objection. He pointed out that he was not arguing against all sects of Christian theology. Well, that is fine by me. But it should be noted that this is an argument against determinism, easily adopted by a Molinist. The absolute worst this argument could do is to make me into a Molinist.
But I am still a determinist, so let’s consider the points I made in light of Ned’s objections. He said, “Now I realize that you have asserted we all (or at the very least you) “Know” gods decree.” It was actually the decree that is unknowable. God’s revealed will (what we find in the Bible or come to by moral reasoning) is what we do know. Only God knows the decree. That might be a semantic point, but I thought it was worth pointing out.
He went on to ask, “How can you determine if the “evil” you perceive is not in fact a good that is necessary to bring about god’s decree?” This would bring me back to my point that there are different layers to an event. If I saw Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery, I would have a moral duty to attempt to stop them. Yet it was God’s will. They were sinning when they did that despite that it was God’s will. Another example is when the Assyrian army attacked Israel. In Isaiah 10, we learn that the Assyrians were the vessel of God’s judgment, and yet he punished them for the sins they committed. This may raise questions of moral responsibility, but that might be beyond the scope of this argument. An event has more than one dimension. It can be good in a consequentialist sense, that it contributes to the unfolding of the divine plan; and evil in the sense that those who did it were sinning against God. So it does not matter if I can perceive whether an evil event is decreed. In fact, I think all events, whether good or evil, were part of the decree.
Let’s move on to free will. Ned asks, “Are you saying that human free-will could possibly not only run contrary to gods plan but human actions could/would result in individuals in being capable of acting in opposition to god’s decree?” Certainly not. If we are arguing from a Molinistic perspective, human freedom is part of the decree. On Molinism, God put men into situations in which he knew that we would freely choose to do his will. That model aspires to retain libertarian freedom and divine sovereignty. That is why I said that Ned’s response regarding free will would not cover every model. As a determinist, I would take a compatibilistic view of free will, which would essentially be to say that human freedom is compatible with divine determinism. Overall, I do not think that freedom can overthrow God’s plan. There are pretty compelling philosophical ways to retain human freedom without that consequence.
Ned argued that our ethics are not truly objective because they can and have changed. He cited that list of laws in the Torah. I think there is a distinction between objective morals and absolute morals. An objective morality would be a moral claim that is binding independently of human opinion. An absolute moral claim would be an unshakeable ethic that obtains in all possible worlds. There are very few absolute moral claims that do not have a list of qualifiers. For example, we all agree that it is wrong to lie. But if you are hiding a persecuted minority in your home, you have a moral duty to lie to the authorities when they arrive. The restriction against lying is objective but not absolute.
The restrictions in the Torah were valid and binding, but not absolute. There are times when an ethic could be applicable at one time but not another (lying being one example). Think of a child who was restricted against leaving the porch when she was 5. When she is 15, that restriction is lifted. A culture in the Ancient Near East would have to have different ethical guidelines than today. One reason for that is they did not have an established prison system. Without that, you have to find other ways to deal with criminals. Death and slavery were therefore more common and even more acceptable. Contexts often determine moral choices. What is wrong in situation A may be right in situation B. This is an example of an objective moral standard but not an absolute moral standard.
I anticipate that Ned will say something like, “But then how is that different from relative morality?” After all, the ethics in Central America a few hundred years ago could have been different, hence allowing for human sacrifice on my objective system. But I do not think we can make radical jumps. We can generally reason about morals and determine right from wrong. Sometimes it is not so clear (especially when reasoning about ancient cultures). But propositions like “I sacrifice my child to appease the gods” are clearly moral obscenities. We can reason about the Holocaust or slave-trade and see that they were about diminishing human value and therefore immoral. We can usually determine what is right and wrong just by reason and explanation. In a relative system, we would have to just say that they were truly right because they believed they were. But I think an entire society could err in their moral reasoning.
The final question that I am going to cover is whether God’s decree can contradict his revealed will. I think it can. I pointed out in this article that God’s revealed will is “You shall not kill.” Yet in the crucifixion, he decreed that Christ would be killed. The men did it were sinning against God because they were taking an innocent life. But God decreed them to do it. This could raise another debate about whether those two claims are compatible, but that would be a separate discussion.
Overall, I usually do not defend determinism against atheists. I like what William Lane Craig refers to as Mere Christianity. I defend the central claims of Christian theology because these nuances can be conceded and Christianity would still obtain. I will defend determinism when speaking with other Christians. But against an atheist, I generally do not think it is useful. Christianity is not a house of cards. It will not collapse if determinism is removed. There are pretty robust models of sovereignty and free will that are available to Christians.
Our lives are very much ethic-centric. We typically try to cut immoral people out of our lives. If we do something morally unjustified, we often find ways to justify ourselves or make amends lest we live in a tumultuous contradiction. That is why the moral argument is a favorite among Christian apologists. But in a recent debate with Kent Hovind, the atheist YouTuber Negation of P tried to turn the tables. He suggested that if Christianity is true, we would have no basis for our moral duties, and in fact, everything in the world (even that which we recognize as evil) would be objectively good. So how did he go about turning the table on the moral argument?