Dr Greg Bahnsen - Normative Ethics: Topical Questions to Christian Normative Ethics (Part 6)

Again, we thank you for your Holy Spirit that has come to dwell with us, to give us the down payment of the kingdom of God and the inheritance of the saints. We praise you that we by your grace have received this inheritance in your kingdom. We thank you that we are members of that kingdom. We ask that today we'd be strengthened by the same spirit, that we would obey the King, we would understand your dictates and follow them out in this world. We pray, Father, that in this world your will would more and more be done. We might see the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it's in his name we pray. Amen. In our last session, we left off with a history of deontological ethics. Final school of thought we studied was intuitionism, and then passing remark was made about quasi deontologism and some expressions of that through history. In this session we want to look at some topical objections to the Christian approach to moral duty normative ethics. And after considering a handful of them, I'm going to go back and then try to summarize metaethics from a Christian standpoint or apologetical ethics. You want to put it that way, noting how the study philosophical ethics points to the truth of Christianity and the necessity of Christianity if we're going to have any viable world life view. But before we get to that summary, we need to look at the criticisms that are made of the Christian approach to ethics bearing on norm or standard. We have previously looked at some criticisms having to do with teleological and personalistic. When we were studying personalistic ethics, we had to consider the conditions of moral responsibility. If a person is totally depraved, and if the person is predestined to do whatever this person does, how can it be that they are morally responsible for their acts? We looked at that, and then in our course, just previous to this one, we studied the question of relativism. How can we respond to the objection that, well, what's true is true for you, but in my circumstance it's not true for me. Now, today we come to deontological sorts of objections to the Christian answer in ethics. And we want to begin with the objection that if we base our ethic on the word of God, on God's revealed will, how do we identify and interpret the genuine revelation of God? So far we haven't gotten into much substance, much detail as to what the Christian approach to normative ethics would be. We simply said in general or formal terms that we believe the answer the solution to man's Moral difficulty when it comes to norms for life is found in God's self revelation. But where is God's revelation? The unbelievers going to ask how do you identify it? And after you've found it, how do you interpret it? After all, there are many competing claims to God's revelation and there are many competing interpretations, even of the one interpretation of the one revelation called the Bible. Well, we begin with the question how do you identify the genuine revelation of God? Which revelation among the competing claims is the one to be accepted? And in answer to that general question, I'm going to pose another general question. And that is, which theology allows for a clear and authoritative revelation of God? Somebody asked me, how do you know which revelation is the revelation or the genuine revelation of God? I will usually respond, there's only one theology that allows for a revelation from God, and that of course is Christian theology. See if you do a brief survey of the religions of the world. Most non Christian religions don't have personal beings that are worshipped at all. The vast majority of non Christian religions worship or follow some kind of impersonal principle. Perhaps it's karma. Now, an impersonal principle can't genuinely be said to know anything, much less to communicate anything. And therefore these non Christian religions would be immediately precluded because their theology does not allow a clear and authoritative revelation of God. Many other non Christian religions have personal gods. However, they conceive of these personal gods in a limited way. These gods are finite. You might think here of the Homeric gods, the Greek gods, mythological gods like Zeus. These are personal beings, but they are flawed. They are limited beings. And for that reason they can't be counted on to be able to accomplish their own desires, much less to have proper desires, much less to know everything that needs to be known before they reveal the truth about ethics to us. So thus far we see that some non Christian religions don't have gods that can communicate at all. Secondly, we have non Christian religions that have gods that can communicate but are not in a position to communicate infallible truth. And so after these two classes of non Christian religions are reduced, you're left with religions which, although they are non Christian religions, to be sure, are still deeply influenced by the Bible. You have the religions of the Book and the people of the Book. You have the Jews, Christians and the Muslims. And then of course you have the heretical sects which are in some relationship with each one of those three groups. Judaism, Islam and the cults then stand outside of Christianity. Now, in turn, some of those Religions will develop impersonal gods. Christian science, for instance, mysticism, often have impersonal gods. Some will develop finite gods, as you see can find in the Mormon religion. And with those that are finally left now that we've whittled down and whittled down and whittled down with those that are finally left, you can argue theologically maintaining that what you are dealing with is a Christian heresy, or at least a biblical heresy. Somebody who wants to, or a group of people that want to appeal to the Bible but don't want to understand it fully or properly. For instance, Islamic faith is supposed to be the grand competitor in Christianity. Judaism, of course, can be dealt with in terms of failing to see the fulfillment of Old Testament types and promises and prophecies in Jesus Christ. Well, the Muslims can be dealt with in much the same way. If a Muslim claims to hold to the teaching of the Scriptures or even to the Pentateuch, then of course you've got to develop your apologetic from the Pentateuch or whatever portion of Scripture your opponent will accept. And from that point on, you can deal with this person as a Christian or a biblical heretic. Simply try to show that they don't really understand that portion of the Bible they're playing. Now, among those who are professing Christians, of course you have people who use the Bible or claim to use the Bible and use it improperly. And I'm going to use here as my illustration the neo Orthodox. How do you deal with the neo Orthodox? Their approach to ethics is going to be quite different than our approach to ethics. Well, again, it's a question of whether the neo Orthodox have a theology that even allows for a revelation from God. Now granted, they talk about revelation. Actually they talk about self disclosure. God does reveal himself, according to neo orthodox. But can God reveal himself? If God is, as Karl Barth insisted, wholly other than man, if God is wholly other, completely beyond man, completely beyond our experience, if he is, as Tillich said, the ground of being, if he is beyond existence and non existence, how can God have any meaningful contact with this world or the situation in which we live at all? You have the old Kantian problem that God's made so transcendent you can't have any cognitive understanding, reliable understanding of God. So what I'm suggesting, and these thoughts obviously will be pursued in our apologetics courses at another time. But what I'm suggesting very briefly, is that when we found our ethic on the word of God and say that's where we find norms. And somebody says, well, now Wait a minute. How do you know that's the true revelation of God? We have an answer for that. We want to say, because there is no other theology that allows for a revelation from God. So at that point, it's come down to you either do or you don't have it in the Bible. But all the others disqualify themselves on the basis of an internal critique of their epistemological and metaphysical. Well, even if you accept that the Bible is the word of God, there's the backup question that can be asked. Well, whose interpretation of the Bible is to be adopted? Obviously, we've got just in the evangelical church, many interpretations of the Bible. You have Pentecostal interpretations, Anabaptist interpretations, Lutheran interpretations, Presbyterian interpretations. Whose interpretation do you accept? And even among the Reformed, those who claim to have foundational premises, theological premises in common, defined what amount to fairly significant differences of interpretation, whether it be over infant baptism or the extent of validity of God's law today. So there are many interpretations. How adequate is it now to found our ethic on the Bible? And there are two brief responses I'll make to that. Again, that's something of an apologetical question that we can come back to in another setting, in another course. But the first response to be made to that is that you don't accept any individual's interpretation. It may be that we group together as Calvinists, for instance, agreeing with Calvin's interpretation of biblical discussion of election. It may be that we can be categorized by our agreement with certain summary statements. However, we don't accept Calvin's interpretation qua Calvin's interpretation. We accept Calvin's interpretation because we believe that is what the Bible actually teaches. As the Westminster Confession says, the supreme sole judge of any doctrinal dispute must be the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures. Well, not everybody reads the Scriptures the same way. That isn't to say that the fault is with the Scriptures. If we've made the Scriptures our foundation for ethics, somebody says, well, that's inadequate because that foundation is going to let you down. Because. Because people come up with different ideas of what the Bible teaches. What we have to respond is the Scriptures have not let us down. Sin has let us down. See, the fault doesn't have to be with the Bible. Now, whether the fault is with the Bible or with the sinner is going to depend obviously on your understanding of theology. Again, now more particularly anthropology. And if you let the Bible speak apart from people who would disagree with biblical anthropology, that is, who believe the Bible doesn't teach man as a sinner and in need of illumination, that's going to be very few and probably the more ignorant of the Christian sects. Apart from people who utterly deny the fall of man, it's clear that biblical approach is to say man has by his sinful status, obscured the teaching of God's clear word. The second response that must be made seems to me is that if you think there are differences of interpretation, that because there are differences of interpretation, we can't accept the Bible as the foundation for ethics. Consider the alternatives. It's true that we don't live in a perfect world. You know, righteousness does not yet permeate all of creation, and there isn't perfect unanimity even in the Church of Jesus Christ at this point. But nevertheless, in comparison to the disagreements between the Epicureans and the Stoics, the rationalists and the empiricists, the idealist and the pragmatist, and all the rest of the history, these pale into insignificance. So we won't take any further time to deal with this objection. For the most part, the answer to the question, how do you know this is the genuine revelation of God? And how to interpret it? These questions are going to be taken up in courses in apologetics and hermeneutics, and I'll leave further remarks to that point. The second objection we want to take up against the Christian deontological ethics is the voluntarist objection. The voluntarist objection as it comes to expression. For instance, in the Euthyphro, the Platonic dialogue that I mentioned in a previous lecture, the Christian says that God's will makes actions right or wrong. Whatever God commands, we say is ipso facto right, no matter what happens. If God commands it, that makes it right. If God forbids it, that makes it wrong. Totally apart from other considerations, Of course, this is contrary to the attitude which says that one's own ethical feelings, one owns ethical standards, one's own anticipations of right and wrong can be used to decide whether any divine claim is genuine or not. There are people in this world who say, I won't accept a revelation that represents God commanding things that I don't believe are right. Like some evangelical apologists like Carnell even use that as part of their apologetic that you should accept the biblical revelation because biblical revelation commands things which decent and civilized individuals believe are right. The Bible doesn't offend our moral sensibility. We can anticipate what God will be like, and therefore we can judge revelations on the basis of whether they conform to our ethical understanding or not kind of autonomous attitude, attitude that says I can be a law to myself. And my thinking naturally finds the stance that I'm promoting in ethics hard to accept. Consequently, it will criticize Christian normative ethics that's based on the will of God. Expressing Scripture as arbitrary and leading to absurd conclusions. And the absurd conclusion that Socrates and others down through history have thought that our approach to ethics would lead to is that cruelty could be as valid as love. If God just said so. You could conceive of a situation where God comes into the world and reveals that we should be cruel to one another rather than loving one another. Because if right and wrong are based on the will of God, then God could just in kind of an arbitrary, willy nilly voluntaristic way say, well, we'll be cruel instead of we'll be loving. However, Christianity recognizes that God's nature is good in itself. God's nature is good in itself. And God cannot contradict his nature because God cannot contradict his nature. His command commandments are not arbitrary. It's impossible that God could just in this willy nilly fashion say, well, let's all be cruel now for 200 years that I've changed my mind and now I will that instead of being loving, we do evil things to our neighbors. Well, we wouldn't call it evil. What we would call cruel now would be the right thing to do. The Bible tells us that God is always true to his nature. He cannot contradict his nature. And his nature is a good nature. And consequently the commandments he gives are not arbitrary commandments. They're commandments that conform with the nature of God. Therefore we say that a certain kind of action or attitude is good because God says so. And we add to that that he says so because that kind of activity is a reflection of his nature. So God says you should love your neighbor. Loving your neighbor is good. God saying that loving your neighbor is good makes loving your neighbor good. However, God says that loving your neighbor is good because loving your neighbor reflects his own nature, for God is love. However, how do we know the nature of God apart from his self revelation, he general or special revelation? Consequently, God Himself, we want to say, is the standard of goodness. God himself is the standard of goodness. And when we go on to say X is good because God says so, that's really more of an epistemological observation that we know that this reflects God's nature because he says so. And we wouldn't be able to know that otherwise. But it isn't Just God says so that makes it good. God say so tells us that it's good, and indicates that what he's calling good reflects his own character. We don't want to go to the other extreme in the dilemma posed to Euthyphro, by the way. While we don't want to say that X is good just because God says so in some arbitrary fashion, we don't want to go to the extreme of saying that God says what is good, because he doesn't say that something is good because he sees that it conforms to the standard of goodness, as though God has all these options out here. And then God has to consult the standard of goodness and all these options to see what kind of correlation there might be. We don't want to say that God's revelation just happens to coincide with what is right, or that God has a reason for commanding X that goes beyond his own character. Those sorts of suggestions would obviously subordinate God to some other basic principle and make him less than the sovereign Lord. If there were a standard above God in some metaphorical sense that God had to look to in order to determine what is right and wrong, quite clearly revelation would not be a standard of morality. Revelation would only be a shortcut to morality. That is, God would simply be giving us a head start finding out the truth about right and wrong. However, when all is said and done, we can look to that standard even as he can look to that standard if that standard is separate from Himself. So. So again, we want to insist that God himself is the standard of right and wrong for us, not something outside of God, and not simply the will of God, but God Himself. And so, in answer to Socrates, if we were in the position of Euthyphro, I think we'd want to say, socrates, you posed a false dilemma. We don't want to say either that God says X is good because it is good, as though good were a standard outside of God, or that X is good just because God says so. I think that's enough on voluntarism. The next criticism that we can take up in terms of our deontological or normative ethics is criticism. And it says that you really can't define the good on a Christian approach. And if you do try to define it, you end up with a form of circularity that makes it trivial. We say that good ought and such words rest on what God is. As Christians, our claim is that what God is gives us the definition, definition of goodness and oughtness and all the rest. God's law shows how we Are to use the word good and right. Good and what God approves have the same referent, the same denotation. Somebody says, if that's the approach that you take, how do you know that God himself is good? Does it even make sense to say that God is. If by good you mean whatever is Godlike? Because by saying God is good, you would only be saying God is godlike. And that seems rather trivial. However, what I have said here is that good and what God approves have the same denotation. The same denotation. The connotation between. There's a great deal of difference between the connotation of the word our name God, and the word good. So the connotation can be different, even though the referent of the two is going to be the same, even though the standard for identifying what really is good is going to be God himself. And as we've said in a previous lecture, again, it's certainly true that you can say of ultimate standards that they exhibit the feature of which they are the standard. The standard meter is 1 meter long is certainly a meaningful statement. It may not be devastating. You may not write grand novels around that one statement. It may not be full of being pregnant with meaning, but nevertheless, it's not utterly trivial. The standard meter is 1 meter long is a significant statement to make. And so to say that God is good, even though by good we understand the character of God, can still be a very significant statement. Moreover, God's goodness, according to the Scripture, isn't simply an abstract, formal matter of using an honorific or favorable word in the right place. God shows his goodness. He verifies his goodness in the course of history gives evidence of his goodness. So that we have not only the, if you will, the a priori or the presuppositional approach. God is good, and good means godlike. But we also have the acts of God in history. The expressed character of God as we see, for instance, Son come into the world and how he behaves in the world to show us the goodness of God, to verify the goodness of God. Basically, what I'm suggesting, then, is that there's a relationship between presupposition, evidence for a presupposition and God is not only presupposed to be good, but God gives evidence of his goodness as well. Since there is a reciprocal relationship between how we understand the evidence in terms of presuppositions and how the evidence clarify our presuppositions, it seems to me that we're in no more of a quandary. In terms of this kind of circularity than we are with any other basic philosophical issue, whether it be the issue of truth or justification or value or what have you. Do we have any questions on these first three lines of criticism? Which revelation is the genuine revelation of God? Is God's will the soul standard or the arbitrary standard of good? And can you use the will of God to define the good in the circular fashion? We have more questions then. The next problem that I want to deal with very briefly. Well, there's kind of two related difficulties that we're going to look at here for a few moments. If we define our norm, our standard by the will of God, there will be those who say that is really too narrow a conception of ethics. We say we have to go to the Bible to find our norms. There'll be those who say that's too narrow a conception of ethics. But on the other hand, there are those who will say that is too broad a conception of ethics, too broad a conception of ethics. And I'd like to deal with each one of these related criticisms. The first argues that we have too narrow a conception of ethics because. Because on our understanding of ethics there's no such thing as non Christian ethics. If ethics is defining good and evil on the basis of God's revealed will, then those who don't go to the Bible for their ethics are by definition not doing ethics. It seems that our definition precludes the idea of non Christians engaging in moral philosophy seeking a standard of goodness. In response, I think what we have to say is that's right, there is no such thing as non Christian ethics. Of course, that isn't to say that there's no such thing as non Christians attempting to do ethics and failing to find the standard of ethics. Non Christians try to. For instance, Kant was trying to derive a norm for ethics. He was trying to find the word of God for that situation. However, he did it in a very debased way. We want to say that non Christian ethics is a debased enterprise and that in a real sense non Christian ethics doesn't deserve the name ethics. It doesn't find the good. Non Christians only find one more version of the wrong. You see, they always have idolatrous reference points. It seems to me it becomes a question of whether you say non Christians are religious people or not. All depends on how you're using the word religious. Right is an idolater, a religious person? Well, in the broad sense he certainly is. He's religious and he's got a false religion. And yet he's not religious in any genuine or honorific sense. The very fact that he worships something that goes beyond him, while that is respected by many modern philosophers of religion, is not respected in the Bible because it's just one more variation of idolatry. And you don't have higher and lower forms of idolatry. So that a person who just worships getting drunk on the weekend, he's an idolater too. Somebody who worships a Mormon God and is more self sacrificing. Sacrificing is better off. No, they're in the same boat. They're both idolaters and the difference is just the nature of their gods. So are non Christians religious? Yes and no. They're all idolatrous. Are they ethical? Yes and no. They're all seeking a standard to live by, but none of them are doing what the Bible honors as ethics. Now, by taking this approach to the objection that we have precluded non Christian ethics, I think we gain the advantage of pointing out that non Christians are not simply distorted in their conclusions. The non Christian doesn't just come to distorted conclusions, but the non Christian is distorted in his very conception of the discipline of ethics. He is disposable, sort of, with respect to the proper method for doing ethics. It's not just that the non Christian goes through his procedure for coming to a moral conclusion and then happens to get the wrong conclusion about abortion. It's that he seeks the answer to the abortion question in the wrong way. He has a perverted understanding of what ethics is all about. And so in a real sense, the very point at issue is the nature in definition of ethics, not just the outcome. Conclusion. So was Aristotle doing ethics? No, he really wasn't doing ethics. Seems that our definition precludes the idea of non Christians engaging in moral philosophy seeking a standard of goodness. In response, I think what we have to say is that's right, there is no such thing as non Christian ethics. Of course, that isn't to say that there's no such thing as non Christians attempting to do ethics and failing to find the standard of ethics. Non Christians try to. For instance, Kant was trying to derive a norm for ethics. He was trying to find the word of God for that situation. However, he did it in a very debased way. We want to say that non Christian ethics is a debased enterprise and that in a real sense non Christian ethics doesn't deserve the name ethics. It doesn't find the good non Christians only find one more version of the wrong. You see, they always have idolatrous reference points. It seems to me it becomes a question of whether you say non Christians are religious people or not. All depends on how you're using the word religious. Right. Is an idolater a religious person? Well, in the broad sense he certainly is. He's religious and he's got a false religion and yet he's not religious in any genuine or honorific sense. The very fact that he worships something that goes beyond him, while that is respected by many modern philosophers of religion, is not respected in the Bible because it's just one more variation of idolatry and you don't have higher and lower forms of idolatry. So that a person who just worships getting drunk on the weekend, he's an idolater too. Somebody who worships a Mormon God and is more self sacrificing is better off? No, they're in the same boat. They're both idolaters and the difference is just the nature of their gods. So are non Christians religious? Yes and no. They're all idolatrous. Are they ethical? Yes and no. They're all seeking a standard to live by, but none of them are doing what the Bible honors as ethics. Now, by taking this approach to the objection that we have precluded non Christian ethics, I think we gained the advantage of pointing out that non Christians are not simply distorted in their conclusions. A non Christian doesn't just come to distorted conclusions, but the non Christian is distorted in his very conception of the discipline of ethics. He is distorted with respect to the proper method for doing ethics. It's not just that a non Christian goes through his procedure for coming to a moral conclusion and then happens to get the wrong conclusion about abortion. It's that he seeks the answer to the abortion question in the wrong way. He has a perverted understanding of what ethics is all about. And so in a real sense, the very first at issue is the nature and definition of ethics, not just the outcome, the conclusion. So was Aristotle doing ethics? No, he really wasn't doing ethics. He was pursuing what is at best a distorted or a shadow of what genuine ethics is. Aristotle was trying to find right and wrong, but he was wrongly trying to find out right and wrong. He was, if you want to put it in another paradoxical way, he was unethically pursuing his ethics. Now, in addition to those who say that our conception of ethics is too narrow because it excludes the non Christian approaches to ethics, to which I said we want to exclude the non Christian approaches to ethics in the ultimate sense, there is a school of thought, the cosmonomic or deleuverian school of thought that says that our approach to ethics is much too broad. We shouldn't, we shouldn't say that all revealed norms are to be found in the Bible. We should say that ethics is really and values what you call the term, what you mean by the term ethics should be restricted to just one modal sphere of reality. The doyouverdians maintain that it's wrong to hold to only one way to find norms, the Scripture. Instead, there are 15 ways to find norms. You find norms in all of the law spheres. And so by holding that the Scripture is the foundation for all values, we're being far too broad. We're letting Scripture take the whole field rather than restricting scripture just one area of norm. Okay, so there should be 15 different spheres, modal spheres, and each one of those spheres gives us standards by which to live. You might imagine somebody offering, following line of objection, let's say you're playing football. Isn't it true that God is much more pleased if you make a touchdown rather than Simply making a 3 yard gain when you carry the ball? Isn't it true that God is pleased when you excel in football rather than just doing a mediocre job in football? Well, if it's true that God's pleased when you make touchdowns, therefore there is a value there, there's a standard there, and that's not derived from the Bible. There's nothing in the Bible that says God wants you to score touchdowns rather than just make 2 or 3 yards in a running flight. The doubt would say that God is pleased when you score a touchdown. But that's not an ethical man matter. It's a matter of value. But ethics is restricted to just one of the 15 modal aspects of reality. For each of the modal spheres, there is at least one special science. According to Doyoubert. For instance, for the modal sphere of faith, you have the special science of theology. For the numerical sphere, you have the special science of mathematics. And on this basis, ethics becomes the science, scientific study of one particular aspect of reality. Now, the Doyouvardians don't entirely agree on what the ethical aspect of reality is. Among themselves, there's no unanimity in Doyouva. Ethics has to do with trough relationships, relationships of trust and honorary promises. In von Meyenfeld, it has something to do with ethos, the social customs around us. And others have variations in terms of the suggestion as to what particular aspect of reality is studied by ethics. But the important thing is that Ethics is a special science dealing with a particular aspect of reality. It is a certain type of assertion that you are giving about reality when you're discussing ethics. Therefore, ethical values are not the only kinds of values. The realm of ethics is not the same as the realm of God's approval or blessing as expressed in the Scriptures. Ethical right and wrong is only one kind of right and wrong. And you can ask what particular religious faith pleasing to God, which is not? That would be a question for theology. You can ask about aesthetic principles, which ones are pleasing to God, which ones are not. You can ask about numerical sequences and consequences to find out which are acceptable to God, which are not. And any number of other illustrations can be given. JM Spear, for instance, says that sin is something which contradicts the normal which God has set up for any of these law structures. In his Christian Introduction to Philosophy, Spear says that sin is something which contradicts the norms which God has set up for any of these law structures. So then, to make a logical blunder, according to Speer, is sinful because it goes against the norms that God has set up for the logical aspect of reality. To use improper English is sinful, according to Speer, because it goes against the norms that God has set up for the lingual aspect of reality. To write a book in the style of the 17th century, he says, is sinful because it contradicts the norms God has set up for the aesthetic sphere. To build a church in the Roman style is sinful because it contradicts the aesthetic or historical spirit. So we can go on and on. And what bothers me about this whole approach is that these norms which are said to be violated and therefore making us sinful, are norms that are not found in Scripture at all. That's the whole genius or defect of the Doverdean approach. The norms that they say we are bound to keep are found not just in the Bible, but but in 14 other spheres of life as well. These norms, presumably are not found. The norms that say, I'm not using proper English or Roman style of architecture or what have you. These norms are not found by exegeting the Bible, even though they are found when you study reality and the law structures with a heart that is in the grip of the Bible in some way that is really quite hard to exploit. You study Doyeberg. When you become a historian and do your study right, you'll discover norms of history. When you become an artist and study correctly, you'll discover God's norms for aesthetics, for the aesthetic sphere become a Mathematician, you'll find God's norms in that area. So on this basis, the way you discover God's requirements is by engaging in the special study of the sciences motivated by the power of God's Word. It seems to me that this whole approach therefore contradicts the sufficiency of the Scriptures for guiding our lives. This whole approach is an attack upon the sufficiency of Scripture to provide norms for our lives. Whatever we need to know about the realm of God's approval, approval to receive God's blessing, to merit God's curse, all that we need to know that is necessary to engage in God pleasing activity or attitudes is found in the Scriptures. We may have to study our situation, have to study the world to know how to apply the Scripture, how to understand the application of Scripture. But the commands and the norms, the standards are all to be found in the Scriptures. I would maintain. Now understand that this isn't simply a matter of definition. It isn't as though that word ethics is being used in a very broad way by the theonomist and in a very narrow way by the cosmonomic school. As though they say, well, okay, it's just the use of the word. We'll all agree that there are values in all areas of life. It's just that we call ethics just that very narrow sphere that you call biblical. And you use the term in a different way. Well, it isn't that. What we're saying is that all value, value that has to be kept to avoid sinning, all value is defined by the word of God itself. Of course, as many of you will know, the Dolly Verdeans have replied to this approach, recognizing that it's not just the difference of definition. They have replied that our approach amounts to biblicism, letting the Bible give us detailed, specific scientific answers in areas outside of theology. So we are biblicistic. That is one reproach that I think we should be willing to receive. We are biblicistic. That's let us be biblicalistic. We are not worshipers of the Bible, some kind of paper God. We aren't wooden literalists, we aren't abusing the Bible. But nevertheless we are certainly saying that the Bible gives us standards in all areas of life. Instead of calling that Biblicism, I think it would probably be preferable to say we simply hold to the sufficiency of Scripture. The sufficiency of Scripture. So there are two criticisms that can be considered together. The one says our approach is too narrow. The other says our approach is too broad. We exclude non Christians on the one hand, and we are biblicistic on the other. The final criticism pertaining to deontological ethics that I'll be looking at is tied up with the whole question in modern metaethics or philosophical ethics as to whether there is a reason for being moral. Can Christians offer a reason for being moral? Why should we obey God. To say that reward and punishment make something right or wrong? To say that it's right to do something because reward will follow, and it's wrong not to, because punishment will follow if you don't amounts to a form of egoism as a standard of morality. The reason you should do this is because it's for your own good. Now, Plato maintained that the truly moral man does not do things because they're for his own good. He does them because they are good. We do duty. If we can speak in Kantian terms, for duty's sake, the truly moral man can be given no reason for morality. He does it just because it's the right thing to do. That sounds fairly noble, sounds honorable. We don't want to cater to people's base desires to serve themselves. We don't want to make ethics founded on some kind of selfish platform. And so it has appeared that to some modern philosophers, you can't offer a reason for being moral. Some people are, some people aren't, but you can't offer a reason for doing it. If you offer as a reason, you'll be rewarded for being moral. And as a matter of fact, you're catering to a selfish desire and you're encouraging the person not to be moral when all is said and done done. Moreover, from a Christian standpoint, if we make reference to sanctions as a reason for being moral, in one sense we remove motivation for unbelievers and for doubters. A person who doesn't believe in God has no sanction for morality. And those who have doubts would likewise have no reason for morality. So it would appear that reference to sanctions is the offering of incentives for morality, but not the offering of reasons for moral behavior. So why should we be moral? Why should we obey God? Again, there are unbelievers who offer what amounts to selfish reasons. They're unbelievers who say you can't offer any reason. They're very deontological. Duty for duty's sake. The Christian, however, doesn't find himself in that bind either. Doing duty for duty's sake and therefore not being able to give any reason for morality. But on the other hand, being selfish, the Christian says the reason we should obey God is because God made us. God cares for us and God has redeemed us. We have a reason to obey God found in love, gratitude, and reverence for God. It's important to see that these reasons for being moral all depend for their force on the goodness of God. Why do we obey God? Because God is good. Moreover, God is ultimately the moral authority. We not only obey God because He is good, we obey God because we owe obedience to the Creator. Moreover, we obey God because He does good to us. Through our obedience, we're obedient, that is rewarded. So it appears that we're looking at the goodness of God, the goodness of the reward, as well as what we owe our Creator. When we say that we should obey God, we obey him out of love, gratitude, and reverence. I think the Christian has an answer to this question why we should be moral, why we should obey God without having to fall into the trap of duty for duty's sake, therefore seeming arbitrary or into the trap of being selfish. Do your duty because it gets you some kind of reward. This brings us back, and is a nice transition to the summary remarks I want to make, brings us back to the whole triperspectival approach to ethics. You see, the reason we obey God is not just for deontological reasons, or just for personalistic reasons or for situational, teleological reasons. We obey God for all of those reasons. It's a package deal. You have to have all three of these approaches kept together. Now we've had, or in the process of having, three different courses in ethics, a course in personalistic, teleological. And now we're in the midst of a deontological or normative approach to ethics. And in the process of studying these three perspectives philosophically. We have done three different surveys of the history of ethical philosophy, looking at philosophers in each of these three categories. And we found that in every case they come up wanting. These philosophers have not been able to find, either as personalists, or as teleologist, or as a deontologist, an answer to the key problems in ethics. What I want to do now is summarize these apologetical remarks by making overall observations for the sake of all three courses, trying to bring all the material together. So now, in terms of an overall apologetical critique, let me remind you of the transcendence, eminence, dialectic that Mr. Frame has so ably set out in his syllabus on pages 6 to 8. Every ethical system is going to have some kind of transcendence, some kind of moral authority, some Sense in which the law for ethics, or the principle for ethics is sublime and binding. But on the other hand, every ethical system is going to make its ethic imminent as well, bring it right into life, make it relevant, so that it gives us concrete direction. Now it turns out that when unbelievers try to formulate ethical systems apart from a transcendent God who can come right into our lives with ethical direction and give concrete direction, when they try to play the part of the gospel, they end up making the transcendent part of ethics conflict with the imminent part of ethics. The binding aspect of ethical authority has to become so abstract that there is no concrete relevant content to it. So you have Kant, duty for duty's sake, or Plato, the form of the good, and yet you don't have any real clear idea of what that means in practical experience. On the other hand, you get systems of thought that can be very relevant. You get Sartre or you get utilitarianism, tell us specifically what to do. But then they don't have any authority, any binding or sublime transcendent character to what they say. We ought to do it because every man doing what's right in his own eyes. And if you happen to prefer doing it, then you do it. The bringing together of the transcendent, eminent aspects of ethics is possible only on a Christian understanding of reality and knowledge. God is the Lord, God is transcendent, God knows all things. God is binding authority over our lives. We owe him allegiance, no matter what kind of self sacrifice that's going to entail. But not only is God eminently in a position of universal authority, but absolute authority. God also can speak directly to us and say this is right, that is wrong. In this circumstance you do this, in that circumstance you do the other. God can give us relevant direction for our lives, and that relevant direction can be absolutely binding. So we're able to bring together the absoluteness and the relevance of the moral law in a way which unbelievers cannot. The absolute law becomes an unknowable law, law for the unbeliever, and relevant law becomes an unauthoritative law for the unbeliever. We've seen this many times over in our approach. The second thing that we can say about by way of overall summary of our study of metaethics or philosophical ethics is that the unbeliever doesn't seem to be able to integrate all three of the concerns which seem legitimate in ethics. The unbeliever doesn't seem to be able to bring together all three of the angles of the triangle, goal, motive, and standard. Indeed, all sorts of conflicts develop between these three angles, both between the various schools of philosophy and within the various schools of philosophy. How can there be a norm which is somehow beyond us and yet right in our midst, guiding us? How can that norm even be part of us? So you have some philosophers who want the norm to be part of us, some who want to say the norm must guide us, some who want to say the norm is somehow beyond us. And binding and bringing these three perspectives together hasn't been easy or even possible for the unbeliever. On pages 16 and 17 of his syllabus, Mr. Frank summarizes a number of questions that I think you should try to master so you can call to mind when you're talking with unbelievers about ethics. Questions that very, it seems to me simply, but effectively put the screws to any unbelieving approach to ethics. For, you see, the unbelievers trying to reconcile things which, apart from resolving them in God, cannot be reconciled. The example of authority and relevance has been used. The example of norm guiding us, as well as being internal to us, part of us, and others can be found. The unbeliever fails to understand the three different perspectives and fails to integrate the three different perspectives. Deontological ethics, as illustrated in Plato or the school of Stoicism or Kant, tries to determine duty without reference to the physical world, without reference to consequences. We do our duty no matter what. However, without reference to those consequences, it's rather unclear how our duty in a given situation can ever be defined. Teleological ethics, as we see it in Aristotle, the Epicureans, and the Utilitarians, tries to avoid the notion of absolute duty altogether, a duty that transcends experience. And yet its own concept of the ethical goal of pleasure or the greatest happiness for the greatest number can never be obligatory unless there is a duty that transcends our particular experience. Existential ethics, as it's found in the sophist or the idealist or the existentialist, tries to make ethics merely an internal matter, a matter of the heart and virtue, personalistic traits. And yet it cannot avoid making reference to transcendent duties for external situations. We do have a duty to behave in a certain way in certain situations, even if you're an existentialist. So the unbeliever has not been able to do justice to any of the individual perspectives. Nor has the unbeliever been able to integrate three perspectives of goal, motive, and standard for ethics. So the unbeliever lacks authority and, or in various ways, relevance. The unbeliever cannot bring together the internal, the external, as well as the transcendent or the authoritative aspect of ethics. He doesn't appreciate or even do justice to the individual perspectives themselves. And so it's no surprise that the non Christian approach in the 20th century has really led to the abandonment of ethics almost altogether. Without any norm or duty available to human knowledge, ethical study isn't possible. And although unbelievers don't want to admit that and say it outwardly, their practice shows that they have given up on the idea of ethical study. Ethics in the 20th century has for the most part come down until just most recent years, maybe in the last five years. In all honesty, ethics in the 20th century has been a study of the meaning of ethical language and the logic of its discourse. Not what is right or wrong about this or that issue, what is the right system of thought, just how does ethical language function? So you have the emotivist and the prescriptivist, you have Urmson's view of grading. You have all sorts of different alternatives that are given to us as as to what ethical language is doing and how various types of ethical speech relate to each other. But you don't have concrete positions being taken in ethics. After all, if man is a product of chance in a naturalistic or materialistic universe, if everything happens by chance, then our decisions don't have any meaning anyway. And if this is not a chance universe, but a universe that is determined, determined by naturalistic precedents, I.e. prior events, if this is just a deterministic universe, then we don't make any genuine pre choices either. And so modern metaphysics makes ethics impossible or meaningless. Also, non Christian thought for the most part, has become speculation in the place of deontology, has become a technological approach to accomplishing our will in the place of teleology, and has become mere psychology in the area of personalistic or existential ethics. The modern world has abandoned ethics for metaethics and language analysis and has abandoned any attempt to give ethical guidance as with existentialism, retaining only the vocabulary. And modern ethical issues therefore have gone wanting. We look only at the social utility of this. Therefore non Christian ethics is helpless. It seems to me to offer a critique of the approach that we're now going to be taking in this course to normative problems of life.