Infants Know Right from Wrong

[Hesychios]

It is when we can assess the morality of things apart from instinct that we become real moral beings - for example seeing that helping our child in preference to others, as our instincts tell us, is unjust.

Interestingly, this is the teaching of Moism, Universal Love.

Mozi (Chinese sage) taught this very point, making Confucian filial piety wrong and (in our way of thinking) actually sinful.

 

[TriuneUnity]

Well you can’t use the fact that the article shows the children always choosing the good puppet as reinforcing your assertion that babies are born with an evil inclination.

Nor can you use it to show they are born with a good inclination. It’s only to show they understand the concepts of evil and good.

You are using an argument from a news source, outside of scripture and tradition for what purpose? To show that we can learn from things outside of our religion and “fuse them in” in some syncretistic way?

What the heck, exactly, are you talking about? I would love to know what a demonstration from a secular psychology review to show that children have a sense of moral awareness has to do with learning things from outside of our religion and fusing them in a syncretistic way? Has Shintoism entered the conversation without my catching it?

 

[crazzeto]

No… it would show a recognition of good and evil, not the moral disposition of the infant.

“for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”

The study also shows a clear predisoposition to prefering good over evil, you really can’t get around that since the babies

1. could distinguish
2. prefered good over evil.

Thus Catholics are still right going into the third century, God created the world and it was good, and so are human beings fundamentally even despite our fallen nature.

 

[TriuneUnity]

The study also shows a clear predisoposition to prefering good over evil, you really can’t get around that since the babies

1. could distinguish
2. prefered good over evil.

Thus Catholics are still right going into the third century, God created the world and it was good, and so are human beings fundamentally even despite our fallen nature.

That would be a contradiction. If our nature is fallen, then it cannot be fundamentally good. The only nature that would be fundamentally good would be an unfallen nature. There is a reason that Catholicism accepted Augustinian theology, after all. Because, quite frankly, it makes sense both realistically (do you have to tell children to commit sin?) and biblically (I haven’t yet seen an example from Scripture that states we are fundamentally good).

You are, of course, correct that God created the world and everything in it good, since He is unable to create evil. The fall was not created by God, though.

Of course we prefer good over evil, as humans see it. As God sees it, it must be perfect to be good.

 

[Hesychios]

What the heck, exactly, are you talking about? I would love to know what a demonstration from a secular psychology review to show that children have a sense of moral awareness has to do with learning things from outside of our religion and fusing them in a syncretistic way? Has Shintoism entered the conversation without my catching it?

My wording was obviously poor, I guess that is my corrupt nature catching up to me .

We cannot learn anything about God from modern science and research. Studies like this cannot be used to influence our theology one way or the other. The proper Baptist response (if they were to be actually following the received tradition handed down from the Apostles) would be “so what?”, even if it supported their ideas.

Our Faith is a revelation.

 

[Hesychios]

That would be a contradiction. If our nature is fallen, then it cannot be fundamentally good.

Usually choosing the good is an indicator of moral awareness and a fallen nature?

What would usually choosing the bad show you?

 

[TriuneUnity]

My wording was obviously poor, I guess that is my corrupt nature catching up to me .

We cannot learn anything about God from modern science and research. Studies like this cannot be used to influence our theology one way or the other. The proper Baptist response (if they were to be actually following the received tradition handed down from the Apostles) would be “so what?”, even if it supported their ideas.

Our Faith is a revelation.

Theology has a proper application to our every day lives, however. Obviously you are correct that we cannot learn anything about God outside of revelation. We can see the results of His activity, though. If man is born with a moral awareness, we would expect science to confirm it, no? We can’t learn what God is like from creation, but we can observe the creation itself.

 

[TriuneUnity]

Usually choosing the good is an indicator of moral awareness and a fallen nature?

What would usually choosing the bad show you?

It doesn’t say anything about the nature at all. It only shows that we can tell the difference between good and bad. Earlier you said we can’t learn anything about God from science, but now we can learn that man is born without sin from the science experiment?

 

[Hesychios]

It doesn’t say anything about the nature at all. It only shows that we can tell the difference between good and bad. Earlier you said we can’t learn anything about God from science, but now we can learn that man is born without sin from the science experiment?

To paraphrase what you said earlier, if man is born with a moral depravity, we would expect science to confirm it, no?

Here you are taking evidence that humankind has moral awareness from a scientific experiment, but selectively ignoring the fact that these unacculturated creatures usually use this moral awareness to choose the good. Your own argument is inconsistent.

I have two further comments.

1. 
   *]I have my own skepticism over the experiments, and would dismiss them myself without seeing the results confirmed independently by another source. I don’t need them to justify my church’s practice of infant baptism, confirmation and communion.
   *]I do not think that either the Lutheran church or the Latin Catholic church have ever specifically claimed that young children have moral awareness (perhaps such a claim has been made, but for the life of me I don’t remember it). If they have not before, but now decide that young children do have moral awareness it would probably be a new belief (for both churches) derived not from revelation but from science, that’s really a poor practice going forward.

 

[TriuneUnity]

To paraphrase what you said earlier, if man is born with a moral depravity, we would expect science to confirm it, no?

Science actually has demonstrated this in studies that show children exhibiting selfishness and manipulation at a very early age. It is not, however, the subject of this particular study. The hardest science that shows this, though, is every mother who has never had to teach her children to disobey her.

1. 
   *]I have my own skepticism over the experiments, and would dismiss them myself without seeing the results confirmed independently by another source. I don’t need them to justify my church’s practice of infant baptism, confirmation and communion.
   *]I do not think that either the Lutheran church or the Latin Catholic church have ever specifically claimed that young children have moral awareness (perhaps such a claim has been made, but for the life of me I don’t remember it). If they have not before, but now decide that young children do have moral awareness it would probably be a new belief (for both churches) derived not from revelation but from science, that’s really a poor practice.

1. 
   Moral awareness, no. There’s nothing specific that states children are born with this. However, it shouldn’t be surprising since we know that man still possesses the imago Dei and as a result, would exhibit the ability to know right from wrong innately. It would come from having the law written into our conscience.

 

[Bluegoat]

Interestingly, this is the teaching of Moism, Universal Love.

Mozi (Chinese sage) taught this very point, making Confucian filial piety wrong and (in our way of thinking) actually sinful.

I think Christianity also would say that injustice, even in response to the powerful instinct of motherly love, is wrong. You can’t but in line to get your kid into French Immersion, or whatever.

Human love, and human morality, are acts of the will. Instincts are often useful clues, but not always, and they aren’t exclusively human either. Dogs have the emotion of love, and I daresay infant chimpanzees have a kind of instinctual moral awareness, since their parents do.

 

[crazzeto]

That would be a contradiction. If our nature is fallen, then it cannot be fundamentally good. The only nature that would be fundamentally good would be an unfallen nature. There is a reason that Catholicism accepted Augustinian theology, after all. Because, quite frankly, it makes sense both realistically (do you have to tell children to commit sin?) and biblically (I haven’t yet seen an example from Scripture that states we are fundamentally good).

You are, of course, correct that God created the world and everything in it good, since He is unable to create evil. The fall was not created by God, though.

Of course we prefer good over evil, as humans see it. As God sees it, it must be perfect to be good.

No it’s really not a contradition, you’re stating that it’s impossible for something which is fundamentally good and useful to ever be used for evil or to become fallen. False… It is no contradition for something which is fundamentally good to become twisted in some way and now have a weakness for evil which did not originally exist. This is not a logical inconcistancy.

 

[crazzeto]

To paraphrase what you said earlier, if man is born with a moral depravity, we would expect science to confirm it, no?

Here you are taking evidence that humankind has moral awareness from a scientific experiment, but selectively ignoring the fact that these unacculturated creatures usually use this moral awareness to choose the good. Your own argument is inconsistent.

I have two further comments.

1. 
   *]I have my own skepticism over the experiments, and would dismiss them myself without seeing the results confirmed independently by another source. I don’t need them to justify my church’s practice of infant baptism, confirmation and communion.
   *]I do not think that either the Lutheran church or the Latin Catholic church have ever specifically claimed that young children have moral awareness (perhaps such a claim has been made, but for the life of me I don’t remember it). If they have not before, but now decide that young children do have moral awareness it would probably be a new belief (for both churches) derived not from revelation but from science, that’s really a poor practice going forward.

1. 
   Certainly in the Latin tradition, a moral awarness at baptism isn’t a requirement for the sacrament to be effectual… It’s never been a teaching that infants know the difference, only that they can in fact receive the sacrament.
   
   That said, assuming these experements pan out it’s just one more thing to make baptists life harder in apologetic situations
   
   With regard to the fallen nature argument, your statements bare out… If humanity is born depraved as suggested, that would bare out in these experements. We would expect very few of these infants to care about good vs. evil at the very best, or even to actually choose evil until they are finally baptised.
   
   Since these experements went the way they did, and particularly if they are independantly repeatable with the same results then this puts Lutherans & co in a tough spot. Humanity doesn’t look fundamentally depraved if at the most basic level there is both understanding and yerning for that which is good.

 

[jimmy]

I think Christianity also would say that injustice, even in response to the powerful instinct of motherly love, is wrong. You can’t but in line to get your kid into French Immersion, or whatever.

Human love, and human morality, are acts of the will. Instincts are often useful clues, but not always, and they aren’t exclusively human either. Dogs have the emotion of love, and I daresay infant chimpanzees have a kind of instinctual moral awareness, since their parents do.

No, Christianity asserts that a mothers responsibility is to her own child, not to a strangers child. You have a responsibility to those who are closer to you before those who are distant. A man who loves a stranger above his own children is like a man who abandons his family to become a monk. You are not an objective observer standing above the earth offering your love equally to all. You have a specific place in this world and you are responsible for certain people.

Love can not be reduced to an act of the will. Love involves ecstasy (joy). If you love then certainly you will feel ecstasy, and if you feel ecstasy then certainly you will be drawn on to further union.

 

[Bluegoat]

No, Christianity asserts that a mothers responsibility is to her own child, not to a strangers child. You have a responsibility to those who are closer to you before those who are distant. A man who loves a stranger above his own children is like a man who abandons his family to become a monk. You are not an objective observer standing above the earth offering your love equally to all. You have a specific place in this world and you are responsible for certain people.

Love can not be reduced to an act of the will. Love involves ecstasy (joy). If you love then certainly you will feel ecstasy, and if you feel ecstasy then certainly you will be drawn on to further union.

So I can butt in the line to get my kid into the best class? I think you are missing the point.

Yes, parents have a special kind of responsibility in relation to their children. We have a special responsibility to those close to us. But in no case does that mean we can use maternal or familial love, or love of country, or other such emotions, as an excuse to perpetrate or allow injustice.

These kinds of emotions are primarily instinctual, and are part of our animal nature. We share these emotions with other members of the animal world.

Joy is wonderful, but it is by no means an integral component of love, or inevitable result. It is often the result, but some are asked to bear without it, or without feeling the closeness of the Divine. That does not mean they didn’t know God or that their acts were not acts of love.

 

[TriuneUnity]

No it’s really not a contradition, you’re stating that it’s impossible for something which is fundamentally good and useful to ever be used for evil or to become fallen. False… It is no contradition for something which is fundamentally good to become twisted in some way and now have a weakness for evil which did not originally exist. This is not a logical inconcistancy.

Something which is fundamentally good can become fallen. We know this because man, who was good at his creation, did become fallen. That is the point, though. Man is already fallen, hence not fundamentally good. Scripture does not describe the condition of the fallen man as a mere weakness. Do you agree with the 2nd Council of Orange’s conclusions on this matter?

 

[Bluegoat]

Something which is fundamentally good can become fallen. We know this because man, who was good at his creation, did become fallen. That is the point, though. Man is already fallen, hence not fundamentally good. Scripture does not describe the condition of the fallen man as a mere weakness. Do you agree with the 2nd Council of Orange’s conclusions on this matter?

I think I understand what you are getting at, but it isn’t usually expressed this way. Saying something is fallen is not identical to saying it is no longer fundamentally good. Rather, God’s creation is still understood to be fundamentally good, even though fallen. But not good of its own accord, but because it has the goodness from God.

 

[KathleenGee]

Not only the babies, but I believe the animals have a moral dimension as well…read that recently that the animals know when things aren’t fair…like one dog getting something and the others not.

My girlfriend had a border collie. And she had two boys. And at Easter she got the boys their Easter baskets. She put them on the fireplace hearth. Tippy came over and sniffed the two baskets and then got sad. So she made a little basket for him that night.

The next morning all 3 got their Easter baskets and the doggie was very happy.

St. Francis did real good with animals…He was able to communicate to the wolf at Gubbio not to hurt the people anymore.

Sometimes Francis would walk by the birdies and they would strain their necks up and down and flap their wings. He said he wished he had spent more time in his life preaching to the birds.

Seeing the inability to communicate with others, I am considering now to spend my time preaching the moral innocence of the little ones and all the birds and animals, and to help the mothers and single women come to Gentle Mary. For me, that may work more grace.

 

[TriuneUnity]

I think I understand what you are getting at, but it isn’t usually expressed this way. Saying something is fallen is not identical to saying it is no longer fundamentally good. Rather, God’s creation is still understood to be fundamentally good, even though fallen. But not good of its own accord, but because it has the goodness from God.

I think a lot of the problem, Blue, is that when we say that mankind is evil by nature, others read that as “mankind is an axe murderer by nature.” Which, of course, is not what we’re saying or meaning by original sin. What we are saying is that man by nature is spiritually dead, separated from God, and bent in on himself, so that no action he takes meets the criteria of good in the eyes of God.

 

[Shredderbeam]

Assuming that the study was done properly and its conclusions are legitimate, it seems to be evidence of a genetic predisposition towards certain behaviors, not evidence of a universal, objective morality.