Cold Case Christianity: Is “Right” and “Wrong” Simply a Matter of “Human Flourishing”?

  J. Warner Wallace, author of "Cold Case Christianity", banned me from his Facebook page despite the fact that I did not engage in any rule violations, and so it would appear that he simply got fed up with the fact that informed bible critics like myself find it rather easy to point out the flaws in the arguments he expects his followers to be amazed at.    

I also emailed Warner, twice, with an offer to engage in a written debate with him about any apologetics topic he wished.  He never answered.

In light of this, and in light of his relentless promotion of his books, I am forced to conclude that Mr. Wallace is dishonest in the sense that he will stifle criticism of his views, where possible, if he feels that criticism is likely to reduce sales of his books.  
My answer to J. Warner Wallace's Article entitled

 Cold Case Christianity: Is “Right” and “Wrong” Simply a Matter of “HumanFlourishing”?   Posted: 24 May 2017 01:02AM PDT 

 When it comes to moral truth, where do we get our notions of right and wrong?

 Answer: Since the bible says you should raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and everybody agrees you can warp a child’s mind and morals by raising them wrong, its perfectly reasonable to conclude that we get our notions of right and wrong from the environment we were raised in.  And because all mothers will insist their babies showed unique personality characteristics as far back as birth, it would appear that some of the way we determine morals comes from our genetic predispositions.

Can we generate binding, obligatory concepts without grounding them in the nature of a Holy God?

No, what we do is talk to each other, find out who agrees with our morals, organize ourselves into cities and nations, elect leaders to pass laws consistent with the morality in our group, then tell everybody that you either conform, or face civil and criminal penalties.  On the other hand, it is the belief that obligatory moral absolutes come from God, that is precisely why fundamentalists can never resolve their disagreements with each other.  Calvinists have no problem believing it is consistent with God's love and justice for some people who die in infancy to end up in hell, while most other Christians are instinctively repelled by it.   This would provide a rational basis for dismissing the biblical view of God and thus dismissing the concept of absolute morals.  Worse, the God of the bible manifests conflicting morals within himself.  His first moral inclination is to go down the mountain and kill the disobedient Israelites, but he changes his mind after Moses talks some sense into His head:

 9 The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.

 10 "Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation."

 11 Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

 12 "Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth '? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people.

 13 "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'"

 14 So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.

 (Exod. 32:9-14 NAU)

  

As an atheist, I thought so for many years. Like Sam Harris (author of The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values), I argued that we can establish the moral value of any particular action by simply evaluating its impact on human well-being (something Harris typically refers to as “human flourishing”). Harris, a committed and vocal atheist, accepts the existence of objective moral truths but likens the establishment of such truths to a game of chess.

I am an atheist and I do not believe in objective morality, that is, that any morals are absolute.  I don’t know why you would ask me whether I think torturing babies for fun should is immoral.  Yes, I believe it is, but I am a human being, and a human being’s opinion does not an absolute moral make. 

In any particular game, each player must decide how to move based on the resulting effect. If you are trying to win the game, some moves are “good” and some moves are “bad”; some will lead you to victory and some will lead you to defeat. “Good” and “bad” then, are evaluated based on whether or not they accomplish the goal of winning the game. Harris redefines “good” (in the context of human beings) as whatever supports or encourages the well-being of conscious creatures; if an action increases human well-being (human “flourishing”) it is “good”, if it decreases well-being, it is “bad”.

An excellent reason to say Harris is wrong and that objective morality doesn’t exist, since obviously, what’s “good” to one person is “bad” to another, and if humans are the highest standard possible (as atheism would require), then the fact that human beings disagree on what’s good and bad is proof positive that there are no objective morals.  But lets not forget that even if we allow that Christianity is true, the god of the bible manifests conflicting morals.  In the NT, sex itself, not “illicit” sex, is still considered to be defiling and less than God’s highest good, when in fact sex is believed by most Christians to be a gift from a perfect god:

4 These are the ones who have not been defiled with women, for they have kept themselves chaste. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These have been purchased from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb. (Rev. 14:4 NAU)

They didn’t remain undefiled from prostitutes, but undefiled from “women”, i.e., the sex act itself, regardless of whether it takes place inside or outside the marital bond, is still considered by this biblical author to be something that “defiles” a man to a certain extent, a view totally opposed to most modern Christians who think sex within a Christian marriage is a blessing from God, and therefore hardly "defiling".  Here the Revelation-author seems to be contradicting the forthright statement in Hebrews 13:4 that marital sex does not defile.

 What, however, do we mean when we talk about “flourishing”? It’s one thing to evaluate a behavior in terms of its impact on survival, and if we are honest with one another, this is really what drives Natural Selection. But Harris recognizes survival, as a singular goal, can lead to all kinds of morally condemnable misbehavior. History is replete with examples of actions that secured the survival of one group at the immoral expense of another. Harris suggests the goal is something more; the goal is “flourishing”. Human well-being involves more than simply living, it involves living a particular way. Human flourishing comprises a particular quality of life; one in which we honor the rights of others and seek a certain kind of character in order to become a particular kind of human group that has maximized its potential. See the problem here?  Harris has already imported moral values into his model, even as he seeks to explain where these values come from in the first place. One can hardly define the “maximization” of human wellbeing without asserting a number of moral values. What, beyond mere survival, achieves our “maximization” as humans?

I agree with you that Harris is wrong to believe in objective moral values, given that atheism would logically preclude objective morals.  But I deny that the last question above is legitimate.  The whole idea that we should strive for “maximization” stems from a greedy capitalist predisposition, which has manifested its true fruits clearly for the last 100 years.  It is enough to live life where we find ourselves and solve problems in our personal circumstances (i.e., paying debts, resolving family issues).  The drive of most people to “maximize” is precisely what has turned America into the ridiculous cesspool of hedonism it is.  I say chop wood, carry water, and put down that fucking cell phone.

 What does this even mean? The minute we move from mere survival to a particular kind of “worthy” survival, we have to employ moral principles and ideas. Concepts of sacrifice, nobility and honor must be assumed foundationally, but these are not morally neutral notions. Human “flourishing” assumes a number of virtues and priorities (depending on who is defining it), and these values and characteristics precede the enterprise Harris seeks to describe. Harris cannot articulate the formation of moral truths without first assuming some of these truths to establish his definition of “flourishing”. He’s borrowing pre-existent, objective moral notions about worth, value and purpose, while holding a worldview that argues against any pre-existing moral notions.  If, as a police officer, if I was watching Harris’ chess game and observed one of the players make a “bad” move, could I arrest the player? No. the definitions of “good” and “bad” Harris offers here are morally neutral. On the other hand, if one of the players was able to successfully cheat (without detection) and managed to win the game in this manner, could we call this behavior bad? He did, after all accomplish the goal of winning the game. We can only call this behavior “bad” if we begin with a notion about winning that identifies undetected cheating as a prohibited act; a moral truth that pre-exists the “chess game” and ought to govern its moves. Even though there are times when cheating can help us win (or survive) without any physical or emotional consequence, we theists recognize we’ve done something that “damages our soul” and offends the Holy nature of God (even if our behavior goes undetected by our peers).

Again, I disagree with my fellow atheists who think objective moral values exist.  Harris is just as wrong as Barker. 

When the atheist recognizes human flourishing as something more than mere physical or emotional survival, he too acknowledges the spiritual and moral nature of our existence, as he borrows from our theistic view to construct his own.

That is perfect nonsense.  Human “flourishing” is a very subjective thing, with greedy prosperity preachers saying you aren’t really flourishing unless you are rich, and the other Christians who contend that flourishing does not involve ease and comfort in this world.  My suggestion is that it is unreasonable for Christians to think spiritually blind atheists are obligated to figure out which of the spiritually alive people got the bible wrong.  Let God's likeminded one's get their act together, THEN they can have a hope of morally obligating non-Christians to see things their way.