Seeking Truth
How do different worldviews think about morality?
The more I study Christianity, the more I realize how unique it really is as a worldview.
Maybe this shouldn’t be too surprising. But, I think one of the lies that modern culture likes to cling to is that some form of religious or worldview pluralism can be viable.
“Maybe there are multiple ways to achieve enlightenment,” culture says. “Who says yours is any more valid than mine?”
This general attitude reveals a few things:
That, at our cores, we all really do want our lives to mean something
That we do seem to respect other peoples’ attempts to figure out what that meaning is
Generally, these are good impulses. In some sense, it implies that our rational faculties are tuned properly; that to be human is to seek higher Truth. There’s also a necessary (if difficult at times) respect for the “other” that emerges here—maybe a misplaced application of the right understanding that all people are equally endowed with innate worth and dignity.
Even so, the Christian faces an imperative to go out into “all nations” and preach Christ crucified and resurrected, which is itself a pretty exclusive message. Though supremely welcoming in its scope—literally all people are invited to partake—there’s no denying that only Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life,” and that “no one comes to the Father except through [him].”1
You know this. I know this. Yet, I am too apt to be silent when this worldview pluralism pops up.
There may be many reason we shy away from being cultural contrarians; at the end of the day, none of us are immune to modernism and the truth claims it makes…and as such, none of us are immune to this common cultural way of thinking. Whether or not you agree with it on its face, it’s baked in to the world we live in. It takes vigilance and bravery to confront it at every turn, to remind ourselves and others that worldviews can be examined critically, and then (the hardest part) to model that.
So, what sets the Christian worldview apart from other dominant worldviews when it comes to the biggest questions we all face? This week, I want to examine one of my favorite philosophical topics—human morality—through a few unfamiliar lenses.
Worldview roundup: Where do moral standards come from?
It’s impossible to encompass one worldview in a few sentences, so think of the following examples as one version of an answer to the question “Where does morality come from?” based on these worldviews.
I don’t want to attack straw men here—as such, I’ve done my best to give a fair representation of what each comparative worldview believes. Obviously that’s difficult to do with just a few sentences! But I hope it’s clear that my intention is to be fair and charitable.
Naturalism
In essence, the Naturalistic worldview claims that nothing exists outside of what can be scientifically observed in nature. “Naturalists simply assert that nature is reality, the whole of it. There is nothing beyond, nothing ‘other than,’ no ‘other world’ of being.”2
Therefore, morality must arise from within nature, through so-called “natural” causes. The most common formulation of this idea is the belief that societies agree on moral standards and norms based on biological impulses. For example, we generally agree that murder is wrong because it’s advantageous for the human species to continue surviving.
We talked last week about some of the weaknesses in this viewpoint.
Islam
Islam teaches that humans are born with an innate tendency toward goodness. There’s no concept of “original sin,” the idea (common in Christian teaching) that humans have an inherently sinful nature and therefore must be redeemed from that sin.3
The goal of moral living in Islam is to please Allah. Moral standards are divine commands of Allah that may be revealed through human reason (that innate moral sense) and through divine revelation, which is captured in the Quran and other collections of teachings. Good intentions are also important; “good” actions done for bad reasons, and vice versa, are considered wrong.4
Judaism
In Judaism, moral standards are commands of God that are primarily revealed through the Torah.
“Torah” can mean a couple of different things: specifically it refers to the first five books of (what Christians would call) the Old Testament, or the five books traditionally written by Moses—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. “Torah” also broadly refers to the larger collection of Jewish scriptures also known as the “Tanach,” which includes the five books of Moses, the Prophets, the Psalms, Lamentations, and Proverbs.
Moral standards are also preserved through “Oral Torah,” or traditional teachings.5
Christianity
In the Christian worldview, God himself is the source of morality. 1 John 4 provides a case study of sorts:
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
1 John 4:7-11
Love isn’t an empty command; it’s an essential attribute of God. And it’s not a “do as I say” situation; Christ’s atoning, victorious death and resurrection are the supreme examples of what it is to be love. This is true with other moral attributes: God does not decree “goodness;” he simply is “goodness” itself. All morality begins and ends in him.
The differences between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are subtle when it comes to the question of the source of moral standards. In general, all three believe they come from God. This shouldn’t be too surprising once you realize that all three religions claim to be descended from the religion of Abraham. (Naturalism is the obvious outlier here, for several reasons.)
The real disagreements begin to arise when we define the character and nature of God. Is he all-loving? Is he triune? Does he interact with people?
It’s essential to know what Christianity teaches. It’s also important to understand what other worldviews are claiming—to know what we’re up against, so to speak. Not because we are called to pick fights or flaunt our so-called superior worldview, but because we serve the God of truth and therefore must be committed to knowing, upholding, and defending the Truth if and when we’re asked.
From the archives:
A visual reminder:
John 14:6
Note that the doctrine of original sin is not the same as a moral sense. Christians believe that, though humans are generally sinful by nature, God has still given us a sense of “moral law,” an ability to discern between right and wrong.
Sources: https://www.islamreligion.com/articles/1174/moral-system-of-islam-part-1/; https://www.islamicity.org/12983/ethics-in-islam-the-west-and-muslim-world/; https://www.iium.edu.my/deed/articles/themoralsystem.html; https://www.whyislam.org/morality-ethics-in-islam/; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK500185/