How does Morality come from God

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Spiritualseeker14

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I have been struggling the past day or 2 about objective moral values. Not if they exist, because in my opinion they are self-evident, but how God is the ultimate source of it and not a product of evolution. Maybe I don’t quite know what they are, but I am having trouble with them not being a product of evolution. This article may help but I am not sure if I get all of it What can evolution tell us about morality? - Mark Sloan | Center for Humans & Nature. I also bought Trent Horn’s book Answering Atheism and it should be here tomorrow so maybe that will help. Also while I do appreciate help I will not accept that evolution is a lie or anything like that I know Evolution and Christianity is compatible I just do not know exactly how yet.
 
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Some argue for Divine Command Theory, which is simply that whatever God commands to be moral is moral.

However, I believe the majority Catholic view follows St. Thomas Aquinas on Aristotlean natural law. What is good for a nature is what fulfills (or “perfects”) that nature. Nature here is referring not to Wesrock’s nature of Spiritualseeker14’s nature, but our common human nature. We’re two individual instances of human nature.

Anyway, that notion of goodness as being the fulfillment or perfection of a nature applies to any type of goodness. Moral goodness is specifically how we evaluate the deliberate and knowledgeable choices of rational agents, and whether those choices fulfill and are consistent with that nature or contrary to it. And God does not just make up natures adhoc, rather he is the knowledge of every possible nature (and every possible nature is some finite likeness to him).

This isn’t in contradiction to the notion of evolutionary development helping to evolve our morality, but it requires us to consider more than just evolution when we consider human nature. And really whether a human evolved or a human was created ex nihilo from God immediately this very moment, their nature would be the same. But our knowledge of evolutionary history, in that case, may still help shed some light.

But, dear me, I suppose you asked about morality coming from God. And that may not be clear from what I wrote. God is of course our cause of being, and is himself not a being but is just Subsistent Being. Insofar as all created being is an image of God, it’s cause, and God exists as an eternally perfectly fulfilled nature, God is the source and standard for being and goodness.

Well, I’m not at my most coherent here, and I’ve typed all this up on my phone. I’d really need more time to draw out that latter point. I don’t know where you’re at in your knowledge of theology, so that’s either enough for you to get what I’m saying or just sounds like platitudes.
 
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And evolution does not give us any standard because ultimately natural selection is about strong vs weak? and if someone didn’t believe in God there is still the question of where the standard comes from?
 
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Spiritualseeker14 said:
And evolution does not give us any standard because ultimately natural selection is about strong vs weak?
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Knowing our evolutionary history might give us some insight into what a human being is, but you are right, the way evolution works (and sayings like “survival of the fittest”) are not standards of morality in themselves.
 
Spiritualseeker14 said:
I have been struggling the past day or 2 about objective moral values. Not if they exist, because in my opinion they are self-evident, but how God is the ultimate source of it and not a product of evolution. Maybe I don’t quite know what they are, but I am having trouble with them not being a product of evolution. This article may help but I am not sure if I get all of it What can evolution tell us about morality? - Mark Sloan | Center for Humans & Nature. I also bought Trent Horn’s book Answering Atheism and it should be here tomorrow so maybe that will help. Also while I do appreciate help I will not accept that evolution is a lie or anything like that I know Evolution and Christianity is compatible I just do not know exactly how yet.
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Simplest way for me to comprehend it is like this:
Morality points to the good. I didn’t make the good, didn’t even make myself. Hence the good is not subjective, or not created by me or my opinions or experiences. So morality points to something radically independent of me. Or radically “other”.
 
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How do you determine which values evolution has produced? If some people believe murder or rape is good, then what about those who don’t? If some people do those things then evolution must allow for it all. But if most others don’t believe so then evolution is in conflict with itself. What kind of morality is that and how can it differ really from moral relativism since people display a wide range of moral values? And at the end of the day isn’t it really us who would speak for evolution anyway, since it’s nothing more than a mindless process? And wouldn’t that mean that we’re sort of superior to evolution since we could override its morality and substitute another one?
 
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Morality does not come from evolution and there several examples that can be used to prove the point.
Any trait that a species develops according to Theory of evolution is perpetuated when it gives a definitive advantage to the perpetuation of the species.
So the question then is can moral values be advantageous in this manner?
Most species thrive by the survival of the fittest.
All predators kill, weak, sick or very young specimens of their prey.
They abandon their sick and old.

What is the behavior of the human species?
We protect the young and the old as well as the sick, but that could be construed as being advantageous. However we sometimes sacrifice our life in order to protect our friends. That is not advantageous, in fact goes against the very instinct of survival which is present in all the species of the animal kingdom.
There are many other examples like this, that point to some extra natural source for these “behaviors”.
Also the moral code that we have most of the time works in the abstract. What I mean is that it applies to interactions between persons that require the use of the intellect. When someone lies for example is using the higher functions of communication. If the other person knows the truth it is affected by the fact of being lied to. There is no loss or gain in this. So no value for survival of the species.

Peace!
 
You should read the Thread “Thoughts on a debate”

I recently posted there.
 
It’s both.
Creation- Space, Matter, and Time being created out of nothing. “ In the beginning there was nothing and darkness was on the face of the deep… and God said Let there be light!”

The greatest miracle in the Bible has already occurred and we have scientific evidence for it…

I just mentioned it. The creation of the universe out of nothing. Physicists today are admitting the scientific truth that Space, Matter, and Time had a beginning out of nothing. So, whatever created Space, Matter, and Time can’t be made of Space Matter and Time. What is
-Spaceless, -Timeless, -Immaterial, -Powerful, -Personal, -Intelligent?

GOD

Think about this If he can create the whole show out of nothing then everything else in the Bible is at least within the realm possibility.

Evolution- I have two points to make about this. First I have to say is that Biological evolution is simply irrelevant to the truth of Christian Theism. Genesis 1 fits all manner of different interpretations and one is by no means committed to a 6 day creationism.The creationist picture of the world’s formation is not a necessary component of Christian belief. St. Augustine in the A.D. 300s wrote a commentary on Genesis and pointed out that the days do not need to be taken literally nor need the creation be a few thousand years ago. Indeed he suggested that God made the world with certain special potencies that would gradually unfold over time and develop. This interpretation came 1,500 years before Darwin.

Barrow and Tipler two physicists who wrote the Anthropic Cosmological Principle lists 10 steps in the course of Human Evolution and each of which is so improbable that before it would occur the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and incinerated the Earth. They calculate the probability of the development of the human genome to be somewhere between 4 to the negative 180th power to the 110,000 power and 4 to the negative 360th power to the 110,000 power! So, if evolution did occur on this planet it was literally a miracle and therefore evidence for the existence of God.

Evolution has no bearing whatsoever–as far as I can tell–on anything relating to Jesus Christ. To me, the account of creation in Genesis is a way of explaining something that was completely beyond the understanding of ancient man. God is creator, but His method is rather irrelevant.

“There are no difficulties in explaining the origin of man in regard to the body by means of the theory of evolution. According to the hypothesis mentioned it is possible that the human body, following the order impressed by the Creator on the energies of life, could have gradually been prepared in the form of antecedent living beings [i.e. living beings that existed prior to humanity].”

St. John Paul II , “Humans are Spiritual and Corporeal Beings”, April 16, 1986.
 
Spiritualseeker14 said:
And evolution does not give us any standard because ultimately natural selection is about strong vs weak? and if someone didn’t believe in God there is still the question of where the standard comes from?
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Easy. We decide.
 
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No, because if we decide the standard there would no point in arguing about certain subject like abortion or the death penalty everyone would be like “well thats your opinion do its fine” and that could make killing okay.
 
Every people throughout history, even the most uncivilized and uncultured, has had its own morality or sum of prescriptions which govern its moral conduct. That is evidence of a natural moral law that is universal. Of course we live in a fallen world and many unfortunate deviations occur, but a moral sense is universal.
 
Sometimes evolutionary biologists make the claim that morality is an adaptive behavior to increase non-violent cooperation among humans.

But so what? How does that change anything? If you already posit the existence of a transcendent Creator-God who set evolution in motion, where’s the problem with morality coming from that God?
 
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Most people will state that you can be good without believing in God. But, the question isn’t can you be good without believing in God. The question is can you be good without God? You see here is the problem. If there is no God what basis remains for objective good or bad, right or wrong? If God does NOT exist; objective moral values do NOT exist. Here is why. Without some objective reference point we have no way of saying if something is really up or down. God’s nature provides an objective reference point (Love, Truth, Mercy, Patience, Grace, Holiness, Goodness, Peace, and Justice.) for moral values. It is the standard against which all actions and decisions are measured.

But, if there is no God then there is no objective reference point. All we are left with is one person’s viewpoint which is no more valid than anyone else’s viewpoint. This kind of morality is subjective not objective. It is like a preference for strawberry ice cream. The preference is in the subject not the object. So, it doesn’t apply to other people. Some might have a preference for chocolate or for vanilla. In the same way subjective morality applies only to the subject. It is not valid or binding for anyone else.

So, in a world without God there can be…… “ No EVIL and no GOOD. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” –Richard Dawkins Atheist, Evolutionary Biologist, at New College Oxford.
 
Spiritualseeker14 said:
No, because if we decide the standard there would no point in arguing about certain subject like abortion or the death penalty everyone would be like “well thats your opinion do its fine” and that could make killing okay.
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That is one possibility. Another is that people will agree to follow a majority position. It’s been popular for a couple of centuries now in many places.
 
Dan_Defender said:
Every people throughout history, even the most uncivilized and uncultured, has had its own morality or sum of prescriptions which govern its moral conduct. That is evidence of a natural moral law that is universal.
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If this were true each people would have similar ‘natural moral laws’. They don’t.
 
Evolution cannot explain heroic virtue. It cannot explain well any virtues other than those that sustain one’s own life and none that are over and against one’s own life.
 
Duke12VonFalkenburg said:
Barrow and Tipler two physicists who wrote the Anthropic Cosmological Principle lists 10 steps in the course of Human Evolution and each of which is so improbable that before it would occur the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and incinerated the Earth. They calculate the probability of the development of the human genome to be somewhere between 4 to the negative 180th power to the 110,000 power and 4 to the negative 360th power to the 110,000 power! So, if evolution did occur on this planet it was literally a miracle and therefore evidence for the existence of God.
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Hmmm, interesting can you send me the source so I can read it for myself.
 
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