Objective Morality is Disappearing

Historically, Western civilization — rooted in Christianity layered atop Greco-Roman thought — held that moral truth is objective, individuals are responsible for cultivating virtue, and justice flows from doing what is right rather than merely equalizing outcomes: first define the good, then pursue justice. Over the last century, that order has steadily reversed. Today, many institutions operate on the assumption that whatever feels equitable or balances group outcomes is therefore moral, even when achieving that “fairness” requires deception, coercion, collective punishment, or the abandonment of long-standing norms.

Trying to frame it a little tighter, the best I can do is to say I believe Western civilization is quietly moving from a moral system grounded in virtue and objective good to one grounded in outcomes and perceived fairness. When fairness is severed from moral truth, it becomes a tool of power rather than justice.

Michael Smith, A Civilization Losing Its Moral Compass

A Civilization Denying Moral Truth

We are watching a civilization decide whether it still believes in moral truth at all. A culture that abandons virtue for outcomes, truth for narrative, and conscience for consensus does not drift gently into decline; it slides into something colder and harder, where power masquerades as compassion and coercion is baptized as care. Once “fairness” replaces goodness, literally anything becomes permissible in its name.

Michael Smith, A Civilization Losing Its Moral Compass

Is God Dead?

People tend to misunderstand Nietzsche’s “God is dead” comment by taking it at face value, but his warning was a bit more pointed — famously warning that once Christianity lost cultural authority, Europe would become irrational and inhumane — it would become morally unmoored. Without transcendent standards, moral language survives but becomes raw power dressed up as compassion. He predicted the rise of what he called slave morality: resentment reframed as justice.

Michael Smith, A Civilization Losing Its Moral Compass

Where a Loss of Moral Compass Started

The loss of a moral compass that distinguished good from evil started with a hatred towards Israel that became accepted and then encouraged in society.  Equating the heinous acts of Hamas terrorists, who deliberately hide behind innocent children, with the actions of IDF soldiers, who defend all civilians—especially children—has led to a loss of the ability to distinguish between good and evil. 

There are only 15 million Jews worldwide, comprising less than 0.2% of the world's population, but condoning anti-Semitism—even or especially when couched as anti-Zionism—opens the door to a world without boundaries or ethics. When we turn the world upside down and pretend that Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas are "good" and Israel is an "evil colonizer" (an especially ridiculous claim, given that Jews have lived in Israel continuously for over 3,000 years and are the indigenous people of that land); when we deny the Holocaust; or when we blame the death of Kennedy or the pedophilia of Jeffrey Epstein on Israel, we are leading ourselves down a pathway that will accept any form of evil and then pretend that it is righteousness.

Rabbi Michael Barclay, The War of Good vs. Evil Starts in Israel.

The Needed Basis For Laws

The moral principles and precepts contained in the scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws…. All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.

Noah Webster, cited by Jeff Myers & David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews, pg.357.

What's Essential to Moral Order

 

Origin Ideas Steer Values

A culture’s understanding of the origins issue steers the value of its people: The Judeo-Christian origins perspective tells the story of morally culpable human beings made in God’s image and for companionship with one another. This understanding alone leads to a particular view of free will, the intrinsic value of human life, and traditional marriage as a part of God’s plan. The Darwinian origins story, on the other hand, is one of individuals in constant competition, seeking not to flourish in harmony but to survive at the expense of the other, which justifies Nietzsche’s view of the world—the pursuit of unbridled power. Where you begin will determine where you end up, and this carries great consequences for everything in our lives, especially how human society should be organized.

Jeff Myers & David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews, pg. 256.

Liberty Needs Religion and Morality

Liberty considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Morals vs Ethics

Religion is concerned with morals, Philosophy with ethics: the difference between the two being essentially this, that morals have to do with man’s relationship to God and ethics with man’s relationship to man.  Morals are absolute, ethics are relative. If we may substitute meta-nature for metaphysics we may say that the subject matter of Philosophy is meta-nature (as the subject of Science is Nature) but the subject matter of Religion is super-nature. In Religion, miracle is in one sense and essential adjunct, but in Philosophy miracle is simply of no concern. The end object of all Religion is to find God, but the end object of Philosophy is to find truth. This does not mean that Religion does not have the discovery of truth as and object, but only that it is a secondary one.

Arthur C. Constance, The Doorway Papers: Shem, Ham, and Japheth in World History, pg.18

Where From Morals?

Christian morality is founded on the conviction of an absolute moral order outside of, and yet somehow inscribed on, our very being. It flows like a river from the nature of the Creator through the nature of created things and into our minds and hearts. We cannot make it up. To quote [C.S.] Lewis again, “The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary color, or, indeed, of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in.”

D. James Kennedy, as cited in Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews, by Jeff Myers & David A. Noebel, pg. 41

What Is YOUR Ethical System?

When a person makes up his own ethical code he always makes up an ethical system which he thinks he has kept. In the law of God, we find a law which smashes our self-righteousness, eliminates all trust in our own goodness, and convinces us that we are sinners. The law of God leaves us with our hands over our mouths and our faces in the dust. We are humbled before God and convinced that we are guilty transgressors of his law.

D. James Kennedy, as cited in Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews, by Jeff Myers & David A. Noebel, pg. 40

Relativism—A Moral Free-For-All

Relativism’s chief virtue is tolerance, or so it seems. A closer look, though, shows just the opposite to be true: the obligation of tolerance is meaningless in relativism.

“Morality is individual,” relativists say, “therefore we ought to tolerate others’ viewpoints and not pass judgment on their behavior and attitudes.” Do you see the contradiction built into the sentence? The word “ought” is a give-away. This attempt commits suicide.

If there are no objective moral rules, there can be no rule that requires tolerance. In fact, if there is no moral truth, that’s a good reason not to be tolerant at all. Why not force my personal morality on others if it’s in my own self-interest and my own ethics allow it?

Moral relativism does not lead to tolerance. It leads to a moral free-for-all.

Greg Koukl, “No Tolerance in Relativism”

Oppressor vs. Oppressed Morality?

Morality based on the oppressor vs. oppressed model is always going to be a setup for horrors to be justified in its name. It’s merely racism with another face.

Emily Griffin

When Accountable to the State Instead of to God

One does not have to believe in God to recognize that as America has become increasingly secular—that is, as God has become smaller and smaller—the state has become bigger and bigger. In order to prevent moral chaos society must inculcate moral accountability in its citizens. And as people hold themselves less accountable for their behavior to God (specifically, the God of the Bible), the more they will be accountable for their behavior to the state. In order to create a free country—and America did become the freest country in world history—America was designed to have people morally accountable to God. This is the reason John Adams, the “father of the Constitution” and the second president of the United States, wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral an religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses, pg.67

Families MUST Teach Morality

The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families. … In vain are Schools, Academies, and Universities instituted, if loose principles and licentious habits are impressed upon children in their earliest years.

John Adams (1778)

The Harm in Removing God From Society

As Western civilization races to remove any reminder of God as the foundation for morality and ethics, they pave the way to erase the Imago Dei from the image bearers themselves. To kill, rape, or subjugate women by displacing them with men who masquerade as women is just a meaningless personal choice.  Likewise, to execute infants in the womb is neither right nor wrong but is just a personal preference. If someone believes it is wrong to subjugate others or to kill, they can personally decide not to do it, can they not? But they must never impose their personal preferences on those who disagree because THAT would be WRONG – small-minded and bigoted. We best not wander into the question of WHY bigotry and small-mindedness are WRONG and not just another personal choice. What is true for me is true, period.  But what is true for you may just get you “canceled.” And it’s also true for me that canceling you is perfectly warranted. So shut up!

Don and Joy Veinot, The Dilemma of Morals

The Harm in Removing God From Society

As Western civilization races to remove any reminder of God as the foundation for morality and ethics, they pave the way to erase the Imago Dei from the image bearers themselves. To kill, rape, or subjugate women by displacing them with men who masquerade as women is just a meaningless personal choice.  Likewise, to execute infants in the womb is neither right nor wrong but is just a personal preference. If someone believes it is wrong to subjugate others or to kill, they can personally decide not to do it, can they not? But they must never impose their personal preferences on those who disagree because THAT would be WRONG – small-minded and bigoted. We best not wander into the question of WHY bigotry and small-mindedness are WRONG and not just another personal choice. What is true for me is true, period.  But what is true for you may just get you “canceled.” And it’s also true for me that canceling you is perfectly warranted. So shut up!

Don and Joy Veinot, The Dilemma of Morals

What Would You Do?

Many in the United States assume something like the Holocaust could never happen here because our human nature is above all that.  Well, think again.  Throughout history, human nature has remained the same no matter where you live.  Would your moral foundation enable you to give up your job, wealth, family, and life to oppose evil?  Or would you succumb to silence by the immediate need for self-preservation?

Jeff Lukens, The Church Must Speak Out

Redefining Morality

Rather than our democracy following prior moral principles, our moral principles now are defined by our democracy. What we deem to be moral — good and evil, right and wrong — now arrives to us not from heaven but from Hollywood. … A free society cannot function when individuals cannot govern themselves through personal responsibility. … Let’s pray that all our citizens see that the only path to freedom is each embracing eternal truths that enable all of us to successfully govern our own lives.

Star Parker, cited in The Patriot Post, 12/22/22

Moral and Ethical Restraints are Gone

The moral and ethical restraints which preserved our culture for centuries are being replaced with a far more changeable, “follow your feelings” variety. Something which was wrong yesterday is decreed perfectly acceptable today and demanded to be celebrated tomorrow. And what was right yesterday is declared a “sin” today by the same people who cannot stand the very idea of sin as Christians define it, a moral offense against a Holy God. Why, after all, should some God be allowed to decide what is right and wrong – for me? A contemporary “sin” is and will continue to be – in the eyes of the mob – what the loudest (and often the most violent) voices declare it to be, and virtue is decided the same way. But don’t get too comfortable because both can be changed on a whim. Feelings rule everything, and feelings are fickle. Bad is good, wrong is right, down is up, and the value of an individual human being is way down.

Don and Joy Veinot, Revisiting “A House Divided Against Itself,” Nov 10, 2022