Ed Gungor: What I Hate Most About Christianity

This is an original piece that I wrote as a contribution to Ed Gungor's book: What I Hate Most About Christianity

Is Good Without God Possible?

A college student once asked professor and author, Dr. J. Budziszewski, if it is possible for one to be “good” (or moral) without God, to which the professor wisely replied:

"A person who doesn’t follow God can sometimes do the right thing. He can sometimes tell the truth, he can sometimes show compassion, he can sometimes set aside his own interests for someone else. The problem is that this isn’t enough. If you think your decency is high enough for God, your idea of God must be pretty low." (1)

Such a low opinion of God is essentially the inspiration behind outspoken atheists, such as Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. In fact, each of these men, in their own respects, clearly state that if one has a high opinion of God, then he most certainly must have a rather low opinion of himself. One would not be too far off base to say that each of these men has quite a high opinion of his opinion. It was Christopher Hitchens, in fact, who said that God did not create man in his own image; it was the other way around.

John Stuart Mill in his Autobiography wrote of his father’s aversion to religion, calling it the “greatest enemy of morality”. (2) This is likely the reason Christopher Hitchens quotes Mill—he couldn’t agree more. Hitchen’s book God is Not Great overflows with examples of how religion reeks of immorality, and as the author puts it, “kills and poisons everything”. (3) Interestingly, Hitchens himself demonstrates a keen sense of right and wrong, which he would attribute to having attained a sophisticated level of understanding. Christ-followers, however, would liken it to the pen of God on his heart. Hitchens is good…some of the time.

Dinesh D’Souza in his book What’s So Great About Christianity explains how humans have the capacity to discover morality apart from faith; the source, however, of all good is God. (4) Man’s divinely given moral nature is what separates him from the animal world. It is highly unlikely that mammals, such as chimpanzees, have the capacity to “weigh their own interests against the rights of others…develop a vision of the greater good of society, or feel lifelong guilt about something they should not have done.” (5) Why? Because animals are designed to abide by physical laws, whereas humans abide by both physical and moral laws. Physical laws, such as the law of gravity, are immovable. Moral laws too are immovable, telling us what we ought to do. The only difference is that we are free to violate them if we so choose. (6) And violate them we do!

Dr. J. Budziszewski, author of Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law, asserts that morality is universal and unchanging, not unlike the laws of nature. Each human being has a divinely given conscience whereby he or she innately knows right from wrong. The lack of morality so clearly seen throughout history is not the result of the knowledge of right and wrong, but rather of a need to suppress what we know in order to suit our desire “not” to know. Truth is often a great inconvenience to the person with a conscience. (7)

Biologist and author Richard Dawkins has gone to great lengths to discover the roots of morality and to explain how men can have a capacity for good, apart from God. He concludes that, “our sense of right and wrong can be derived from our Darwinian past.” (8) Morality is found at the gene level and is passed on from one generation to the next through a selfish struggle to survive. The “selfish gene” guarantees survival of the fittest by “influencing organisms to behave altruistically.” This, according to Dawkins, explains why mothers are good to their children, why we engage in reciprocal bartering, repay good actions with good, and bad deeds with bad and foster good reputations. (9)

Dawkins has received mounds of criticism from scientists who feel he has taken the “selfish gene” theory entirely too far. Nevertheless, his thoughts have been very influential since he first wrote The Selfish Gene in 1976. He has no doubt influenced the research of neurophysicists Wilder Penfield and Michael Persinger who claim that the right temporal lobe of the brain enables a person to have mystical encounters with God. Some, not all, have a much more sensitive right lobe and are therefore more likely to have religious experiences and to act on them—either morally or immorally, depending on their interpretation of the encounters. (10) This apparently gives a mechanical explanation for the crazy abuses present in some religious communities, and not in others. It is believed that when the research is complete and conclusive the next step is for pharmaceutical companies to develop medications to regulate the right temporal lobe and deal a concluding blow to religion. Wow. Medicate morality. What a thought.

So, is it possible for man to be good without knowing God? Yes, some of the time. And, with medication? Perhaps, more of the time. But what about all of the time? Most certainly not. Why? In conclusion, Dr. J. Budziszewski states the answer quite clearly.

"Trying to do without God has ruined us inwardly. There are still some good things in us, but not one of those good things is in its original healthy state. Not only are we broken, we can’t repair ourselves. Could you perform surgery on your own eyes, or treat yourself for madness? Suppose you tore off both arms; without your hands, could you sew them back on? Our sin-sickness is something like that. (11)

We need God.



Sources

1. http://www.boundless.org/1999/regulars/office_hours/a0000054.html

2. Hitchens, Christopher. 2007. God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York, New York: Twelve Hachette Book Group USA, page 15.

3. Hitchens, page 22.

4. D’Souza, Dinesh. 2007. What’s So Great About Christianity? Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., page 226.

5. D’Souza, page 227.

6. D’Souza, page 228.

7. http://www.boundless.org/1999/regulars/office_hours/a0000054.html

8. Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, page 245.

9. Dawkins, page 247-250.

10. http://atheism.about.com/library/books/full/aafprGoodWithoutGod.htm

11. http://www.boundless.org/1999/regulars/office_hours/a0000054.html