Welcome to the discussion, Derek,
You wrote:
> And if the basis for our common morality is in our genes, from whence
> did it come? Was it a direct gift from God? Or was it an indirect gift
> of God via the evolutionary process? Or was it simply necessary that,
> as a social animal, we, like every other social animal, either behaved
> altruistically, mostly to our close relatives and less to the rest of
> our group, or we ceased to be social?
>
> How can we test these and other alternatives? Based on the teachings of
> the Bible, Joshua and some other huge moral lapses notwithstanding, we are
> expected to behave altruistically to all people. But IS that how we behave,
> especially under stress, when our real natures are revealed? No, we revert
> to the moral nature within, i.e. me and my family first, my tribe second,
> anyone else with whom I share significant common purpose third, anyone with
> whom I have no disagreement fourth, and anyone who stands against us can
> expect a fight.
>
> If our moral nature was to behave altruistically to all, then theists could
> account for it. More, I think evolutionists would be very hard-pressed to
> account for it. But the true nature of our altruism/morality, which is
> often only revealed under stress, has so much in common with other social
> mammals (those who are most genetically similar to me come first, and so
> on), and so little in common with Biblical teaching, that I think the
> conclusion is obvious.
>
> Our morality is a product of evolution. The only questions that remain are,
> (1) Was/is God involved in evolutionary processes?
> (2) If so, to what extent?
>
> These are theological/philosophic questions, the answers to which we
> disagree without significant hope of agreement.
>
> What I am hoping that you will see is that, while our moral IDEALS, i.e.
> what we aspire to, might be derived from religious or cultural influences,
> our moral actions when stressed are the product of the genetically-based
> altruism we inherited from our social-mammal ancestors.
>
> I would suggest that "oughts" or "moral imperatives" have much less to
> do with subjective preferences and much more to do with our genetic
> inheritance. They are imperatives because they REALLY ARE part of us.
> All that our religion and culture does is to formalise and, perhaps,
> polish them a little. But notice how quickly the formalities and the
> polish disappear in times of great stress. If you doubt that, look at how we
> honour those few people who DO hold the high moral ground under great
> stress.
First, I'll make a semantic point to avoid (I hope) future confusion. You
used the term "moral nature" to describe, primarily, how most people
ACTUALLY behave most of the time, and only secondarily to describe
humanity's more-or-less shared "ideal standard," which tells us how we
SHOULD behave. Theists (and hence, most of the people on this group)
primarily use the term "moral nature" to describe humanity's "ideal."
(To describe how people ACTUALLY behave most of the time, we use the term
"sinful nature." ;-) Clearly, we'll have to be careful about our
definitions.
Should we look for evidence of God's influence over human morality in our
"actual morality," or in our "ideal morality"? I'll leave that as an open
question for now.
Second, your argument puts a lot of stress on the genetic component of
human morality, as opposed to the learned/social component --- the ol'
nature/nurture debate. We'll have to be careful about that one, too.
(Is the "family first/tribe second/etc. altruistic hierarchy" genetically
programmed, or learned, or both?)
Third, when you are looking for answers to the questions, "Was/is God
involved in evolutionary processes? If so, to what extent?" don't
concentrate so hard on _collective_ human behavior that you ignore
evidence for God in _individual_ human behavior. More on that later.
O.k., having said all that, I agree with quite a bit of what you wrote.
There are remarkable similarities between the behavior patterns of social
mammals and human moral choices. My own tentative (evolutionary
creationist) perspective on this is that the competing behaviors
reinforced by natural selection (e.g. selfishness/altruism, abandonment of
offspring/sacrifice for offspring, pleasure-reinforcing activity/difficult
and dangerous food storage activity, pair-mating/harems, acceptance of
social roles/rogue behavior) were God's way of creating "raw material" for
free will and moral choice. In this sense, "evolutionary psychology"
might eventually tell us something useful about our behavior patterns.
Once the basis for free will and moral choice are in place (along with
the ability to grasp the concept of "moral ideals"), revelation from the
Creator can play a formative role in shaping humanity's moral ideals (and
our response when we fail to live up to those ideals). God's affect on
certain individuals' moral codes can be transmitted socially to affect all
of humanity. I suggest that if we're looking for God's SUPERnatural
influence on morality, we look for it in the learned/social component of
our moral IDEALS.
Whether I can prove to you that there IS an affect of God's revelation on
the development of society's moral ideals is, to say the least,
problematic. :-) But I would point your attention to the "religious
affections" described so well by Jonathan Edwards in his book by that
title. What is the source of "truly gracious and holy affections ...
grounded in the excellent nature of divine things, not self-interest"
found in so many people? (In other words, why do some people place their
highest values and affections, not on family/clan survival, but upon the
perceived qualities on a transcendent being?) Does genetic altruism have
a hope of explaining it? I, who am so naively optimistic about so many
"evolutionary" things (just ask this group :-) , must express some
skepticism.
=======================================================
=======================================================
In your personal introduction to this group, and in your "How to Think
About Naturalism" post, you boldly ask some very difficult questions of
Christianity. Since you have been so bold (and I commend you), I hope
that you won't object to some difficult answers. (I'm not trying to be
difficult myself, but the answers I suggest will be difficult to accept.)
You wrote:
> Presumably, in a free society, Christians can claim what they like. I fail
> to see how Christians could provide strong support for a claim that their
> "oughts" can "logically displace" the "oughts" of Buddhism, for example.
If the unique claims about Jesus --- which his followers wrote down as
coming from his own mouth --- are true, then the "oughts" affirmed by
Jesus must displace all other "oughts." The strength of Jesus' "oughts"
depend on the strength of support for his claims of divinity.
-----------------------------------------------
> I reject
> revelation transmitted via "chosen" people as a means of gaining knowledge
> or understanding, since such revelation is so easily counterfeited that no
> god worthy of the title would consider such an unreliable method of
> revealing themselves.
This puts me in mind of a small child who complains to his mother,
"My real mother would let me eat all the cookies I want."
Your categoric rejection seems hasty. If God had some good reason for
limiting supernatural revelation to SOME humans, rather than ALL humans,
then revelation will inevitably be transmitted via "chosen people." What
good reasons might the Creator have for acting this way? Whole chapters
have been written, so I'll leave that discussion for another day.
---------------------------------------
> Let's look in
> the Book of Joshua, Chapter 10.
>
> 40 So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of
> the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining,
> BUT UTTERLY DESTROYED ALL THAT BREATHED, AS THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL
> COMMANDED.
>
> So, would you care to explain what was so "special" about the
> "circumstances" surrounding these wholesale slaughters
Here is the _particularly_ difficult idea:
Every society, every family, every human being, including you and me,
deserves exactly that same treatment. By God's perfect standards, and our
abysmal failure, truly just judgment earns everyone the death sentence.
Occasionally, occasionally, God let that judgment fall, sometimes using
natural disasters, sometimes using the armies of "his chosen people,"
sometimes using pagan armies to punish his own "chosen people."
The "special circumstance" is that MOST of the time, God restrains this
just judgment.
Can we fully accept the idea of a TRULY holy, infinite Creator, and his
proper disappointment with continually rebellious creatures? I find it a
terribly difficult concept, even so soon after meditating on Good Friday
and Easter, which I believe are God's ultimate answer to the whole sordid
situation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"How did we get into this mess...?" | Loren Haarsma
--C3P0 (_Star_Wars_) | lhaarsma@opal.tufts.edu