CAN EVOLUTION ADEQUATELY ACCOUNT FOR AND SUSTAIN MORALITY?

While nearly all of us agree that we are wired to make certain moral judgments, we disagree from where the wiring originates. While evolutionists claim that we evolved moral intuitions through a mindless, purposeless process for adaptive reasons, theists invoke God. However, the account of evolution encounters numerous problems.

1.    For one thing, evolution reduces morality to mere biochemical reactions or intuitions. This raises the question of whether or not we should even bother to obey our moral impulses.

·       Why should I obey my biochemical instincts? They need not command my life if they are no more than reactions. I’d rather do what I feel like doing. Besides, these reactions only tell me what “is”; they do not tell me what I “ought” to do.

2.    No one will obey all of their moral impulses. Some are actually contradictory. Some of our impulses lead us to act altruistically; others selfishly. Even worse, some of our impulses are evil, like sadism, revenge, rape, bitterness, and hatred. If it is just about biochemical impulses, how do we decide which to obey and which to restrain? It seems must be a higher moral law that mediates over our instincts.

It can be argued that this “higher moral law” is no more than another biochemical instinct. However, we do not experience it in this manner. Instead, this law seems to be able to dispassionately mediate over our competing instincts/drives in a non-instinctual and non-reactive way.

3.    It seems that we are unable to resist the impulse that these moral intuitions represent as higher objective moral law, which ought to be obeyed. C.S. Lewis famously reasoned that making moral judgments is unavoidable:

·       "Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promises to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining, ‘It’s not fair.’"

·       "If we do not believe in decent behavior, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is we believe in decency so much—we feel the Rule of Law pressing on us so—that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility." (Mere Christianity)

Perhaps, then, we have to accept our moral intuitions that morality is more than just the sum of our biochemical reactions.

Perhaps we need to regard our moral instincts as we do music. We perceive that music has a life of its own that transcends the sum of its notes. And if we are willing to trust our sense about music, perhaps we also should regarding our sense about morality.

Can the evolutionary worldview sustain a conviction that our moral reasoning is paramount and ought to be obeyed? Not if it is just a biochemical reaction. It then will be regarded as no more authoritative than a fire alarm bell that sounds when there is no real fire.

FROM WHERE DID OUR MORAL WIRING COME?

Virtually everyone now agrees that we are wired to know and to respond to moral truth. But from where did this wiring come? Many believe that it is merely the product of a mindless process – evolution. Others claim that this wiring must come from God, as the Bible asserts (Romans 2:14-16).

An atheist therefore asked:

·       "But what convinces you that morality has a supernatural origin?"

I listed some reasons that I thought might appeal to him:

1. Even when we deny that our moral wiring comes from God, we cannot act as if it's just the product of a mindless process. When someone cuts in line in front of us, we protest, “You have no RIGHT to do this.” This reflects the fact that we take this common moral law very seriously – more than just a biochemical reaction.

2. It contains beautiful design and harmony (ID). When I do something wrong, I feel badly. When I apologize, I feel relieved. When forgiven, I feel restored.

3. I now have a confidence that I had never before experience, knowing that even God forgives my sins.

4. Humanity uses the same avoidance techniques they use to avoid God as they do their troubling conscience. This suggests that there is a strong tie between God and conscience.

5. Conscience is so hard-wired into us that all of our attempts to silence it -- drugs, denying freewill, denial, moral relativism, evolution, masochism, good deeds -- have utterly failed. It would seem that a God does not want to let us out of His grasp or to give us an easy excuse for our misconduct.

6. When we live in accordance with our conscience, we live the fullest life, as the ancient philosophers have asserted.

When we deny that our conscience is God-given, we give room for moral horrors. Before his execution, serial killer, Ted Bundy, confessed how the rejection of God had affected his life:

·       “Then I learned that all moral judgments are ‘value judgments,’ that all value judgments are subjective [it just depends on how you think about them], and that none can be proved to be either ‘right’ or ‘wrong’…I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable “value judgment that I was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked myself, who were these ‘others?’ Other human beings with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a human animal than any other animal, a pig or a sheep or a steer? Is your life more to you than a hog’s life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than for the other? Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as ‘moral’ or ‘good’ and others as ‘immoral’ or ‘bad’? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure I might take in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me – after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and uninhibited self.” (“Christian Research Journal,” Vol 33, No 2, 2010, 32)

The Dharma of Happiness

My very limited survey of self-help literature has shown me that there has been some improvement. It seems that there used to be an emphasis on first taking care of #1, whether psychologically, financially, physically or sexually. However, there seems to be a growing appreciation of the fact that there are certain human principles or laws – dharma - to which we have to adhere in order to promote our happiness or mental health. For instance, instead of fulfilling ourselves sexually, we are now advised to give, forgive and to be grateful.

University of California Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky presents eight “suggestions.” One of these is “Learn to forgive”:

• Let go of anger and resentment by writing a letter of forgiveness to a person who has hurt or wronged you. Inability to forgive is associated with persistent rumination or dwelling on revenge, while forgiving allows you to move on. (Time, Jan. 17, 2005)

Few today would doubt the wisdom of these words. Many of us have actually experienced their “wisdom.” One woman located her biological father who had abandoned the family when she was only three years old. She was now a mother herself. In her letter, she asked his forgiveness because she had hated him for many years. He was touched and responded, “It is I who must ask for your forgiveness.” Now, they are best-of-friends.

I too have been blessed by following the law of forgiveness. My wife had left me for another man 35 years ago. However, forgiveness has healed our relationship and has brought forth something very special. My present wife and I are now close friends with my ex and her second husband. This has proved to be a blessing in many ways.

Forgiveness is healing. It restores, teaches and deepens us. However, this self-help “suggestion” separates the act and benefits of forgiveness from the truth of forgiveness. It tells us to forgive for the benefits of forgiveness and not because it’s the right thing to do.

This distinction might sound meaningless, but it isn’t. It’s essential. I couldn’t and wouldn’t have forgiven my ex for only the benefits. My sense of personal dignity would have forbidden me from laying down my grievance. I had been wronged, and I wouldn’t allow myself to be bought-off by the emotional/psychological benefits. This compromise would have been a betrayal of what I had known to be true – that I had been wronged.

However, I knew that Christ had forgiven me – something that I didn’t deserve. I therefore had an obligation to forgive others, not because it would benefit me but because forgiveness represented a truth higher than my damaged ego.

However, over the years, the Lord began to teach me something else. I had always prided myself that I wouldn’t do to others what they had done to me. I had always regarded myself as morally superior, but that didn’t last for long. Under the Lord’s all-wise tutelage, I learned the truth of this verse:

• So, if you think you are [morally or spiritually] standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! (1 Cor. 10:12)

I’ve had to learn the hard way. I had convinced myself that I would always stand firm and never do the things that others do. However, I’ve learned that, if the Lord mercifully pulls out the rug from under us, we will fall. And I fell.

Forgiveness is a matter of truth – not only the truth of our Lord’s forgiveness but also the truth about ourselves. We are in no position to look down on others because, given the right circumstances, we will do the same kinds of things (Romans 2:1; John 15:4-5)

If instead, we practice forgiveness only because of the benefits we receive, it’s not really forgiveness. It’s conditional – based upon whether or not we are profiting from it. It’s also not truth, and it must be of truth. Can you imagine someone “forgiving” by saying, “I don’t really want to forgive you, but because of the emotional benefits that I expect to derive from this act, I will temporarily set aside my grievances. But if you don’t respond in the way I want, all bets are off!”

This type of “forgiveness” is laughable, but this is the self-help forgiveness, lacking its necessary theological content.

You will doubtless respond, “I’ve practiced forgiveness without the theological content that you insist is necessary. And I found it to be healing!”

I’m going to try to not be offensive, but this will be difficult. This is because I’m almost sure that my response will be experienced as dogmatic and invasive. I am going to tell you what you have experienced. In other words, I will make the offensive suggestion that I know better about your experiences than you do. Gulp!

I would venture to say that forgiveness “worked” for you because it not only bore positive results, but that you sensed something transcendent about it – that you were somehow it touch with the “truth” behind it, although you might not have been willing to acknowledge the fullness of it.

The process of forgiveness is a pointer. It points to the Transcendent. We sense that there is more involved in forgiveness than good feelings. We actually sense something holy. The feelings come and go, but the instruction in “holiness” remains. Similarly, we might also sense the transcendent in music or in a sunset. The feeling might depart but the lesson leaves its afterglow.

Our Lord’s pointers are all around us. They point beyond our feelings to a reality that we dimly see, but it’s a reality that must be acknowledged if our searching is going to lead anywhere.