Board index ‹ Morality

[Argento]

> It's contrived because no matter what one chooses, it's both wrong and condemnable.

I disagree here - technically, whatever option God chooses, it's the good one, and it's not for us to judge. So I don't want to judge God for having a preference here, I'm only pointing out the problem that in this situation there seem to be no right choice - both for us and for God. And yet we're still expected to act morally, in every situation. So what is the moral choice here? Or, at least, which one is less immoral? Are they both equally bad, and should you just toss a coin to choose? You have to act one way or another, there's no other way out. And if you no longer can use God as a standard (because God disapproves of both choices, I guess), what should you do?

[jimwalton]

> technically, whatever option God chooses, it's the good one, and it's not for us to judge.

I disagree with this line of thinking. It smacks of Divine Command theory, which is an illegitimate approach to Christian ethics. In Divine Command theory, things become morally good because God commands them, in which case ethics is totally arbitrary. it's not a biblical position.

> And yet we're still expected to act morally, in every situation.

We see occasions during WWII where people hid Jews and then lied about it. We see similar situations in the Bible, such as Rahab in Joshua 2, where she hid spies and lied about it. The Bible never endorses her lying, but doesn't condemn it, either. But we all know that there are some situation where there ARE no perfectly moral choices, so people try instead to "do the right thing," which is protect Jews from extermination at the hands of a corrupt government. That doesn't make their decision moral, but it does make it the best decision to have made. We must be careful not to conclude that the ends justifies the means, which is also not a biblical position. In situations of moral conflict, which are inevitable in life, we are asked by the Bible to act with wisdom more so than to act with morality.

[Argento]

I disagree with this line of thinking. It smacks of Divine Command theory, which is an illegitimate approach to Christian ethics. In Divine Command theory, things become morally good because God commands them, in which case ethics is totally arbitrary. it's not a biblical position.
That's not what I meant - I was talking about God's nature being the source of morality. If it's in God's nature to do this and that, then it's moral, because God's nature if perfectly good.

Your examples show a choice between a lesser evil and a greater one. Lying is bad, but not saving a life is worse, and there's no doubt that God approved of people hiding Jews. The Trolley Problem is different - here both options seem equally bad, and if they really are, then even God would not be able to make the right choice here. Which seems absurd.

[jimwalton]

I know you want really bad to hang on to this dilemma as a way to evaluate God. To be honest, though we humans get tangled in these situations, I'm not sure that God has ever faced a situation where there are only two choices and they're both bad. God always has options at His disposal that are greater than ours and different from them, based on His position and attributes. I would say with some confidence that God has never been and would never be in this position. I would guess you think I'm being evasive, but I'm really not. I'm confident that God would not be limited by the box of this dilemma.

[Argento]

Yes, God would probably never be in such a situation, but when you think about it, the morality isn't really about what God would do - otherwise we couldn't use it as a standard, because we're never in the position of God (for example, God can kill people, since he's their maker). It's more about what God would do if he was himself a human (a real, powerless human, not Jesus).

So the right choice, in this situation, is the choice compatible with God's nature, and within human's capabilities. And it looks like even the most righteous man on earth wouldn't be able to make the right choice here.

[jimwalton]

There is no right choice. That's the point of the dilemma. It's been designed with competing horrible choices to force someone to pronounce death on an innocent person. At core, the dilemma is not about morality at all, but instead about cruelty. "How much death will you inflict and why?"