This idea of made-up morality has lived since the beginning. After the Flood it was moral to ignore God and stay together rather than to fill the whole earth, so when they decided to create a name for themselves "lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth" (Gen 11:4), they started building their own stairway to heaven and paid the price (Gen 11:1-8). After hearing the very words of God at Mount Sinai, Israel determined that the moral thing to do was to violate that whole "no graven image" command and worship a golden calf (Exo 32) and they paid the price. The Pharisees decided that the Scriptures needed to be more applicable to life, so they made up rules about "Corban" (Matt 7:11-13) and defined "work on the Sabbath" by narrow means (Matt 12:1-14) and so on. Same concept. We define "moral".
It hasn't changed. It's the same today. Try to show, for instance, that the Bible clearly claims that homosexual behavior is sexual sin and you'll be laughed at (or worse) because we know better now. Murder isn't evil because God said, "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image." (Gen 9:6) It's just ... evil. Bestiality isn't wrong because God said it was. It's a matter of consent, you see, because everyone knows that consent is the key to morality. No, seriously, that's what you'll hear. Or something equally ... odd.
The strange thing is that this comes from both the atheist and the self-professed[1] Christian. The argument is that right and wrong are fluid and we decide what it is. Maybe because of some inborn thing. Maybe because of culture. Maybe by evolutionary forces. Who knows? The believer will hold that there is objective morality and the atheist will deny anything not tested by science (which would necessarily include objective morality), but "right and wrong" are just "out there", nebulous somehow. You know, gray.
Biblical Christianity would have to disagree. When God is described as "good", it is not intended to convey that He conforms to an external form of goodness. He is unique in His attribute of "good" in that He defines good. "Good" is defined by that which is aligned with God's nature. So when God says, "This is right and that is wrong", it's not because He has insight into some higher moral code, but because He defines it.
But you will hear, "It's not right or wrong because the Bible says it is; it's right or wrong depending on if it aligns with what we all know to be right or wrong." And they'll tell you, in the instance in question, what that is. Usually it's "Does it cause harm?"[2] But here's the problem. We believers understand that atheists have no universal basis for morality--no basis on which to claim that their moral beliefs ought to apply to others--without a universal Lawgiver, and, yet, when self-professed Christians argue down this road, they're putting themselves in the same position. "It's not right or wrong because the Bible says it is" simply puts them in the position of holding to some nebulous, unknown, unknowable "morality" which is fluid, changing, and, in the final analysis, purely subjective. And it only gets worse from that point. Because people who hold this view and who believe in God will then backfill this information to God. God, now, must conform to their fluid, subjective morality. And now we've arrived at the singular problem of theism--an evil God who doesn't do what we all know is right.
Let me be clear, then. We don't get to decide what's right or wrong. What's wrong? Whatever God says is wrong. What's right? Whatever God says is right. How does He determine it? Not from a superior knowledge of some higher standard of goodness to which He and we must conform. No, He determines right and wrong by His own nature. So when He says "Do this" and "Don't do that" in the pages of Scripture, He's right and He is defining morality. When He says "This is an abomination" it is, not because of some higher standard of right and wrong, but because He says it is. When you or I decide that we have some better insight, then, we're not improving on God's moral code; we're defying God. Whether that's "It's wrong to dance" of some church groups or "It's right to own slaves" of some "Christian" groups of the 18th and 19th centuries or "Marriage is defined however we want it to be" and "homosexual behavior is certainly moral" of the modern liberal "Christian" mind, it is an assault on God. Nothing less. And my job is to be sure that I don't fall into that trap of either excusing that which God condemns or condemning that which God does not.
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[1] I don't use "self-professed" to say, "But they're not real ones." I use it to say that lots of people claim to be Christians, and I'm referring to that group of people, whether or not they are real ones.
[2] I find that odd because clearly sexual sadomasochism is defined as causing harm, but they'll defend that. Point out the damage of homosexual behavior and they'll defend that. So it's not making sense to me. Conversely, getting them to explain the "harm" it does an animal to engage in sexual relations seems to be impossible, but they'll argue against that. But, hey, who knows?
[2] I find that odd because clearly sexual sadomasochism is defined as causing harm, but they'll defend that. Point out the damage of homosexual behavior and they'll defend that. So it's not making sense to me. Conversely, getting them to explain the "harm" it does an animal to engage in sexual relations seems to be impossible, but they'll argue against that. But, hey, who knows?
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