Reasons to Accept the Empty Tomb

Gary Habermas is no stranger to those who study the historicity of Jesus’s resurrection. He is a world-renowned scholar on the resurrection who serves as a Research Scholar who teaches in the Ph.D. program in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University’s School of Divinity. Habermas’s claim to fame is his six minimal facts concerning the resurrection of Jesus. His minimal facts are not the only facts available to defend the resurrection. However, they do serve as the six facts that over 90% of historical scholars accept as valid. Surprising to some, he also adds a seventh minimal fact which holds greater than 75% acceptance among historical scholars. The seventh minimal fact is that the tomb was discovered to be empty on the first Easter Sunday.[1] Yet, one may ask, is there any evidence that the tomb was discovered empty on the first Easter Sunday?

            The historian holds solid historical reasons to accept the empty tomb as a historical fact. Stemming from the research I conducted in one of Habermas’s classes, I would like to submit to you twelve reasons to accept that the disciples discovered the tomb to be empty on the first Easter Sunday morning. 

1. The Gospel was first preached in Jerusalem, the very place where Jesus was crucified, which would have made it easy for an inquirer to check the tomb. If a person desired to invent a story, the last place they would tell the story would be in the very location where the event supposedly occurred. The enemies of Jesus would only need to check the tomb to see if it was empty.

2. If Jesus’s disciples had only hallucinated, Jesus’s body would have still been in the tomb.[2] Because Jesus’s body was never retrieved and Christianity continued, then one must assume that the tomb of Jesus was empty. Hallucinations cannot account for an empty tomb.

3. The message that Jesus had risen from the dead is extremely early. The creed of 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 dates early (within months to a couple of years after Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection) and to the Jerusalem church.[3] Given that the resurrection message began in Jerusalem and that it began early, people could have easily checked to see if the tomb was empty. Some may inquire, “Would the people have known where the tomb was located?” To answer that question, see the next point.

4. Joseph of Arimathea was a popular person in first-century Israel. Being a prominent member of the Sanhedrin (Mk. 15:43), everyone would have known where his tomb was located, and where Jesus’s body was placed. Remember, the crucifixion of Jesus was a very public event. The tomb was not found very far from the crucifixion site.

5. That women were reported to be the first to have seen the tomb empty strengthens the case for an empty tomb as the testimony of women was not trusted as much as the testimony of men.[4] This has been mentioned before, and for good reason. The women’s testimony not only strengthens the resurrection message, but their testimony also intensifies the validity that the tomb was found empty.

6. Jewish authorities did not respond to the claim that Jesus’s tomb was empty. Rather, they concocted a rebuttal which argued that the disciples stole the body (Mt. 28:11-15). Ironically, their rebuttal actually strengthens the claim that the tomb was found empty.[5] Why concoct a story that the body of Jesus had been stolen if the body of Jesus was placed in a shallow grave, as suggested by John Dominick Crossan, or still remained entombed?

7. The early creeds of Acts 13:29-31 and Acts 13:36-37 indicate more clearly than 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 that Jesus was buried in a tomb, raised, and appeared without experiencing bodily decay.[6] The book of Acts contains sermon summaries that are almost as early as the 1 Corinthians 15 creed—depending on the date given to the creed. These texts denote that the body of Jesus was no longer found in the tomb.

8. Historian Paul Meier indicates that two or three sources render a historical fact “unimpeachable.”[7] The empty tomb is verified in four sources Mark, M (Matthew), John, and L (Luke),[8] with 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 and Acts 13’s sermon summary adding two more. Historically, the more sources one holds, the greater probability that the event in question occurred. In this case, at least 6 sources suggest that the tomb was empty, doubling what historians would call “unimpeachable.”

9. The Jewish and Roman leaders never produced a body which at least implies an empty tomb.[9] If they were opposed to Christianity and possessed the body, why would they not expose it? Even if the Jews wouldn’t, the Romans would squelch what would be perceived as a new uprising.

10. While the empty tomb does not enjoy unanimous support from scholarship, a strong majority still consider the empty tomb hypothesis valid including Michael Grant, James D. G. Dunn, and Thomas Torrance.[10] Habermas notes that over one-hundred contemporary scholars accept at least some of the arguments for the empty tomb.[11]

11. The story of Jesus’s burial is simple without any form of theological development. Its simplicity argues for the empty tomb’s authenticity.[12] Signs of legendary development are simply not found in the empty tomb hypothesis.

12. The resurrection story and the empty tomb are part of the pre-Markan passion story which is extremely early which precludes any time for legendary development.[13] Legendary claims do not apply to the empty tomb hypothesis. This suggests that the tomb was not something that came later in the Christian story but was rather found at ground zero.

Conclusion

The twelve points noted in this article are not the only lines of defense that could be construed. However, they strongly indicate that the story of the empty tomb was not something that developed over time, but it was rather a component that accompanied the earliest stories of the Messiah’s resurrection. Perhaps time will see more contemporary scholars accepting and adopting the empty tomb as part of the historian’s scholarly consensus. But even if they do not, 75% of the scholarly agreement is strong. Furthermore, the historical data concerning the empty tomb hypothesis cannot simply be ignored. No matter the consensus of agreement, the empty tomb is as steadfast a historical fact of antiquity as any other. If the Church of the Holy Sepulchre contains the actual burial place of Jesus, then not only can it be known that Jesus’s tomb was found empty, but it can also be visited. If people realized that the tomb was literally found empty, then maybe churches wouldn’t.

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About the Author

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com, the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast, and the author of the Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics. Brian is a Ph.D. Candidate of the Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University and is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has served in pastoral ministry for nearly 20 years. He currently serves as a clinical chaplain.

https://www.amazon.com/Laymans-Manual-Christian-Apologetics-Essentials/dp/1532697104

© 2021. BellatorChristi.com.

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[1] Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996), 158.

[2] Gary R. Habermas, The Risen Jesus & Future Hope (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 11.

[3] Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove; Nottingham, U.K.: IVP; Apollos, 2010), 227-228.

[4] Habermas, 23.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Paul L. Maier, In the Fullness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1997), 197.

[8] Habermas, 23.

[9] Ibid., 25.

[10] Ibid., 24.

[11] Ibid., 45, fn127.

[12] William Lane Craig, “The Empty Tomb of Jesus,” In Defense of Miracles: A Comprehensive Case for God’s Action in History, R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas, eds (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1997), 250.

[13] Ibid., 254.

Making Sense of Morality: Wielenberg’s Naturalistic Ethics

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

Introduction

There is one more naturalist’s ethical views to consider, and they are quite unique compared to others we have seen. Rather than deny the existence of objective, universal moral properties (i.e., types), Erik Wielenberg (b. 1972) affirms them. To him, they are Platonic kinds of entities, not being reducible to just physical things.

Wielenberg’s Ethics

For him, there are natural facts and moral facts. Particular moral instances (tokens) supervene upon particular physical facts. So, the particular moral properties instanced in a given act or person depend completely upon its non-moral properties.

 Why do moral properties supervene on non-moral ones? Wielenberg appeals to the “making” relation, which is a kind of causation. There is a natural fact of an act of deliberate cruelty that makes the act morally wrong (Wielenberg, 16). To him this making relation is a brute fact, one without further explanation.

Moreover, moral properties are epiphenomenal; they do not have any causal powers of their own to exert upon natural facts (Wielenberg, 13-14). He also allows the existence of the felt-qualities (i.e., qualia) of experiences, desires, etc. Beyond these concessions, humans basically are made of physical stuff.

Wielenberg also appeals to certain inalienable rights and obligations that humans have. These have arisen due to the cognitive capacities endowed upon us by evolution (Wielenberg, 56). These include, for instance, capacities to reason, set goals, suffer, and fall in love (51).

Assessment

Wielenberg seems to recognize that morals are not just descriptive things, which they would seem to be if naturalism is true. Instead, there is something irreducibly normative about them. Moreover, he steers clear of potential problems with morals if they are just particulars; after all, why should we all be just and loving, or not murder or rape, if those aren’t universals?

Nevertheless, there are a few problems with his view to highlight. First, in his example about the natural fact that an act is deliberately cruel, he seems to pack a normative, moral notion, cruelty, into his description of the natural, non-moral properties. Thus, it seems he presupposes that the natural is intrinsically moral. Yet, this move is at odds with naturalism, for it would posit essences to natural things. As we have seen, too, naturalists deny that there are intrinsically moral qualities that are part of nature.

Moreover, since moral properties are epiphenomenal, it is hard to see how we could know them. Since humans basically are physical, it seems we would come to know something by that thing causing a physical state in us. But since moral properties instanced in us cannot cause anything, they cannot cause such physical states. Thus it seems we could not begin to know them.

Consider also his claim of inalienable moral rights. On his view, the moral equality all humans would have depends upon their natural properties. Yet, we differ in terms of these natural properties. Not all humans have these cognitive abilities, and they differ in degree. If so, why should someone who lacks in these natural abilities be treated as equal with another who possesses them to greater degrees?

Nor would moral properties have anything to do with the moral judgments we make. Our cognitive capacities are the results of evolutionary adaptations, and while Wielenberg seems to think that evolution could give rise to capacities to know truth, it is far more likely that particular adaptations will not give us knowledge of the truth. After all, what counts in evolution is not truth, but survival and the passing on of one’s genes. Furthermore, if a murder is committed, then clearly it will shape our moral beliefs about that action (that it is wrong) and what should be done about it (e.g., a person should be convicted).

Moreover, there will be evolutionary variations in adaptations amongst all humans. If this is so, then, as Angus Menuge observes, it seems people across the globe could have varieties of moral beliefs, including ones that do not uphold Wielenberg’s inalienable rights of other humans, or our core morals.

For Further Reading

Angus Menuge, Review of Robust Ethics, in Faith and Philosophy 33:2 (2016).

Erik Wielenberg, Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism.

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R. Scott Smith is a Christian philosopher and apologist, with special interests in ethics, knowledge, and seeing the body of Christ live in the fullness of the Spirit and truth.

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The Moral Argument(s) and Christian Theology, Part II: Sanctification

The first installment of this series covered forgiveness. To be made right or reconciled with a holy God involves forgiveness for the many ways in which all of us fall short. More than this is required, but such forgiveness is an ineliminably important part of this process. Mercifully, because of God’s provision in Christ, forgiveness is available for those who seek it.

Another part of a reconciled relationship with God has to do with the next step or stage of salvation—still tied to the theology of “justification,” but usually more associated with what theologians call “sanctification.” Intimate and organic connections obtain between justification and sanctification, but rather than offering an exegetical analysis, we are using these categories as a way to connect the parts of Christian salvation with aspects of the moral argument. After our conversion to Christ, we are still left with a moral gap—the space between where we are morally and spiritually, on the one hand, and where we need to be, on the other. We have a long way to go. That gap needs to be closed. To be forgiven without being changed leaves too much undone.

Another way to put it is like this: we need more than our sins to be forgiven; we need our sin problem itself to be taken away. A documentary concerning the issue of nutrition and physical health I saw a few years ago may be helpful here by way of analogy. One of its basic claims is that doctors do not really produce health. About the best they can do is remove some barriers that impede and stand in the way of health. What actually produces health is the properly functioning body—a healthy immune system, a body, properly treated and fed, doing what it was meant to do.

This is most clearly seen when it comes to chronic diseases. Doctors and pharmaceutical companies cannot fix such problems. What they can do is provide medicines that help alleviate and manage certain symptoms and make life more comfortable for the patient, even while the affliction persists, managed to one degree or another. Although medical practitioners are rather limited in what they are able to do, the body is remarkably resilient in its ability to ward off diseases, recover from various injuries, and heal itself. This is why proper nutrition and exercise are so important, because they enable the body to do what it does best. Chronically undernourished or sedentary bodies eventually become impaired in their ability to perform their proper functions.

The point of the documentary was well made: there is a crucial difference between genuine health, on the one hand, and merely improving conditions, on the other, however much a blessing the latter can be. Another fitting analogy would be the distinction between pulling out a weed versus killing its root. The former is at best a temporary fix; the underlying problem will recur until the latter step is taken.

A similar distinction holds in the arena of morality. One option is merely to deal with symptoms, settling for marginal moral improvements, avoiding hurtful consequences by our actions. True achievement of integrity, virtue, and holiness, though, requires considerably more. In light of what seem to be some deeply entrenched patterns of selfishness and moral weakness endemic to the human condition, we need powerful resources to meet the moral demand and effect the needed change in our character.

Benjamin Franklin once tried to do this on his own, setting himself to the formidable task of achieving moral perfection. In “Arriving at Perfection,” an excerpt from his Autobiography, he wrote about his plans to conquer all imperfections that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead him into, but “I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employ’d in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason.”

Immanuel Kant recognized that we fall short of what morality requires, and so he said we need to have moral faith: the belief that the moral life is possible. But in light of our moral malady, this requires radical transformation. Can we be transformed? This is a second great existential moral need, after forgiveness. Perhaps owing to his Lutheran upbringing, Kant was quite sure that human beings have a deep moral problem, a tendency to be curved inward on themselves, an intractable ethical taint, a deeply flawed moral disposition in need of a revolution. Kant saw clearly that the moral demand on us is very high, while also recognizing that we have a natural propensity not to follow it.

Malcolm Muggeridge once said that the depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact. In Kant, the parallel suggestion seems to be not just that we happen to fail to meet the moral demand, but that our failure is inevitable. We have a problem, one too deep for us to solve on our own. Humans are not essentially good. We are broken, deeply broken, and need to be healed at the root, not merely the symptoms removed. Like Clay Jones puts it, all of us are born Auschwitz-enabled—the people responsible for such unspeakable atrocities of history were not, as human beings go, preternaturally bad people. They were garden variety human beings who, when certain circumstances presented themselves, behaved deplorably. All of us have that hideous potential. Moral ugliness lurks in each of our hearts. There is something in need of radical fixing deep within us. We need major moral surgery.

The moral standard remains obstinately in place, but because of our moral weakness, corrupt characters, irremediable selfishness, intractable egoism, and the like, we are unable to meet that standard. An axiomatic deontic principle is that “ought implies can” in some sense, and yet we seem to be obligated to do what we simply cannot. How can this make sense? Augustine offered the crucial insight: God bids us to do what we cannot, in order that we might learn our dependence on Him.  We cannot live as we ought in our own strength alone, but we can by God’s grace, with divine assistance.

So, even without sugarcoating our brokenness, there is great hope. Christianity says the needed resources for transformation are available. Although we cannot meet the moral demand on our own, God himself has made it possible, if we but submit and allow Him to do it through us. It may well require a painful process, but it is possible.

Having started his book Mere Christianity with talk of the moral gap between what we are and what we ought to be, Lewis then explained his reason for doing so. His explanation is telling. The passage can be found in his concluding paragraph of Book 1:

My reason was that Christianity simply does not make sense until you have faced the sort of facts I have been describing. Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. … It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power—it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. When you have realized that our position is nearly desperate you will begin to understand what the Christians are talking about. They offer an explanation of how we got into our present state of both hating goodness and loving it. They offer an explanation of how God can be this impersonal mind at the back of the Moral Law and yet also a Person. They tell you how the demands of this law, which you and I cannot meet, have been met on our behalf, how God Himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God.

God can do more than merely ameliorate the symptoms of our chronic moral malady. In the face of our urgent need to become not just better people, but new people, and our desperate need for a revolution of the will and for radical moral transformation, the death and resurrection of Christ is indeed “good news.” This issue of transformation, again, is the theological category of sanctification. Just as God answers our need for forgiveness, God’s grace in sanctification answers our need for radical moral transformation.

By the way, biblical holiness is not just individual, but social. And here one like Paul Copan has done us a great service by bringing a historical twist to the moral argument. He has shown how historically it has been Christ followers who were largely responsible for such significant social advances as building orphanages, arguing for the inherent dignity of the handicapped and infirmed, fighting for women’s suffrage, standing against foot-binding, and so forth. This investigation gets into historical contingencies, but it remains an important empirical consideration, one that brings to mind John Wesley’s refrain that there is no holiness without social holiness.

Having discussed our need for and God’s gracious gift of both forgiveness and transformation, next time we will discuss a third deep existential and spiritual need, namely, to be morally healed completely, saved to the uttermost.

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David Baggett is professor of philosophy and Director of the Center for Moral Apologetics at Houston Baptist University.

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Editor's Recommendation: Between Heaven and Hell by Peter Kreeft

Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis Aldous Huxley

By Kreeft, Peter

“So often reason and imagination are seen in tension or conflict, but Kreeft’s classic piece of posthumous fictional dialogue powerfully illustrates the prospect of their seamless integration. Rife with no-nonsense uncommon common sense, not to mention unapologetic apologetics, it explores timely and timeless questions—from the nature and primacy of reality to the power and purpose of evidence, argument, and even debate—in an utterly charming, engaging way. Eminently readable and a veritable delight to relish, it takes truth with sober seriousness yet also with playfulness, creativity, and a winsomely light touch. Its longevity and enduring impact is no mystery. ”

— David Baggett, Executive Editor

Making Sense of Morality: Singer’s Ethics

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

Introduction

Now I will give a brief, selected overview of Peter Singer’s ethics. He is one of the most influential ethicists today, and he takes seriously the implications of naturalism and utilitarianism. He has written extensively on animal rights, the right to life of fetuses and infants, and much more.

Singer’s Views

For Singer (b. 1946), the evolutionary, naturalistic story is a given. Therefore, the belief that humans have intrinsic moral worth is from Christianity and thus is not universally applicable or even true. He also distinguishes between humans and persons. Humans and other species do not have essences, and mere species membership does not seem morally significant. So, Singer decries the Christian, essentialist view as giving an unjustifiable preference to humans, making it speciesist.

Instead, Singer adopts functional criteria for personhood, such as having (1) the capacity to see oneself as a continuing subject; (2) a desire to keep living; (3) the capability to make choices and act on them (autonomy); (4) self-awareness; and (5) a capacity to experience pleasure and pain (i.e., sentience). Moreover, there are members of other species that are persons, such as apes and dolphins. As persons, they should be subject to greater moral protection than a human fetus or infant, which lacks these traits. Accordingly, abortion and infanticide are permissible.

As a utilitarian, he thinks pleasures should be increased and pains avoided. Still, only actual pleasures and pains should be included in the calculus; we cannot calculate other, possible ones. He also gives weight to a person’s desires, or preferences. If beings prefer to live, they are persons, so it is wrong to kill them. Killing them would thwart their preference and thereby reduce pleasures.

Sentience is crucial since sufferings directly affect the calculus. Further, since suffering extends across species, and there are nonhuman persons, we should give equal moral consideration to any person that suffers. But, if a being cannot experience suffering (i.e., is not sentient), then there is nothing to factor into the calculus. Moreover, Singer believes that when giving such consideration, we should adopt a universal point of view.

Assessment

Singer’s views have been widely influential, and he seems to take the implications of naturalism for ethics quite consistently. After all, if all life has evolved without God, why should humans have greater moral value than other species? 

Still, there are various concerns we can surface with his ethics. First, as a utilitarian, Singer’s views do not seem exempt from various concerns we raised about utilitarianism. While he evidently would support murder and rape as wrong, and justice and love as good, still those conclusions would depend upon the calculus. So, these core morals could be overturned. Yet that would undermine several deeply held convictions.

Consider also Singer’s functional definition of personhood and the capacity to see oneself as a continuing subject of one’s life. On naturalism, can there literally be an identical person who continues through time and change? There are no essential properties on naturalism. It seems I am just a bundle of physical properties at any given time. That bundle would be identical to another bundle at a different time only if they have all the same properties. But, physical things always are changing. I am changing continuously; some may be relatively minor, e.g., my hair grows, while others may be more significant, such as my growing into adulthood.

What makes all these bundles of properties me at each of these times? The answer seems to be that there is nothing that can do that. My properties keep changing – even the cells in my body and brain. Without something that remains the same, there is no continuing subject, which is a prerequisite for personhood for Singer. Unfortunately, his view entails that there are no persons, which surely is false. Moreover, without any literal sameness of person through time and change, his other criteria are undermined, too.

Crucially, his ethics depends upon the validity of naturalism. Is it justified? That answer will affect all the naturalistic options we have considered, and any others too. To that question I now turn.  

For Further Reading

Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 3rd ed.

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 6

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R. Scott Smith is a Christian philosopher and apologist, with special interests in ethics, knowledge, and seeing the body of Christ live in the fullness of the Spirit and truth.

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Communion Meditation: God’s Insurance Policy

A Twilight Musing  

What would you think if an insurance agent came to your home and offered you a policy that covers not only the mishaps that might come to you in the future, but all of the misfortunes and mistakes from which you have suffered in the past?  And what if, moreover, the expense and risk of this dream policy were to be borne, not by you, for whom it is written, but by the company that issues it?  You would say, of course, "What's the catch?  What do I have to do?"  Then the agent says, "You have to agree only to accept the policy as a gift, and not to think or say that you have received it because you deserve it; and also to commit yourself to be governed by the spirit of generosity manifested by the company and to tell others about it."

 Jesus referred in His institution of the Lord's Supper to the "covenant" sealed by His blood.  This covenant is somewhat like the unbelievable insurance policy described above, in that, like all of God's covenants, it depends on what He has done, not on what we have done. We have no bragging rights when we accept it, only thanking rights.  But accepting the covenant sealed by Jesus' blood is a much more intimate arrangement than signing that fantasy insurance policy.  It is more like the marriage of Hosea to his undeserving wife, for God Himself has plucked us from the miry clay of sin and set our feet on the rock of His assurance that He will cover all past and future harms that may come to us.  

Of course, that places some responsibilities on us, not by way of payment, but by way of gratitude.  How can we live in the light of His salvation except by letting the brightness of His generosity shine in us, and by telling others of the wonders of God's covenant of grace?  As we take these symbols of Jesus' sacrifice and covenant, let us remember that He has made us his Body in the world, so that we can be the proclaimers of His Perfect Insurance Policy, written in blood.   

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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The Moral Argument(s) and Christian Salvation, Part I: Forgiveness

Over the next three installments, we will extend the discussion of moral apologetics and Christian theology by connecting the moral argument—particularly one version of it—with three deep moral needs we as human beings display: our need to be forgiven, our need to be changed, and our need to be perfected. Each of these profoundly existential needs we possess as human beings corresponds to an important aspect of Christian salvation.

When I say “the moral argument,” I’m using that phrase in a general sort of way. In truth there’s more than one moral argument. There’s a whole range of them. If you prefer, you can think of one moral argument with a number of different parts. At least most of the time that works pretty well since the different variants of the argument tend to be rather consistent with one another. The specific formulation of the moral argument we will consider today is what John Hare calls the “performative” version or, for reasons that will become clear, an “argument from grace.”

You might remember in Book 1 of Mere Christianity C. S. Lewis says two things are at the heart of our understanding of reality: First, there’s a moral law, and second, we all fall short of it. On his claim we can start to build a performative moral argument. There is a moral standard that’s objective and universal. It’s binding and authoritative on us, but we invariably fall short of meeting it. This results in the “gap” between the best we can do and what morality requires. And this gap needs addressing. We find ourselves as having fallen short, and we know it.

How do we know we’ve got a moral problem on our hands? One way, you might say, is by our moral sense, which even plenty of secular thinkers recognize as in some way significant. Take Charles Darwin, for example, who thought it’s our moral sense that best distinguishes human beings from the animals. Indeed, he begins chapter 5 of Descent of Man with this admission: “I fully subscribe to the judgment of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important.” He even says he considers the moral sense, our sense of “ought,” to be “humankind’s finest quality.” Elsewhere in the same book Darwin casts both “ought” and “disinterested love for all living creatures” as the noblest attribute of man.

Darwin intuitively felt the importance of morality, even if he ended up embracing a deflationary analysis of its import. Similarly Sigmund Freud. To Freud’s thinking, the problem of guilt is so severe that he diagnosed it in Civilization and Its Discontents as the single most important development of civilization—a problem so acute that it is the thing most responsible for our unhappiness. Perhaps what helps explain Freud’s conviction is that his analytic work found that nearly every neurosis conceals an unconscious sense of guilt, which in turn “fortifies the symptoms by making use of them as punishment.”

For both Darwin and Freud, the phenomenon of guilt was both interesting and important, even revelatory. Recall their depictions: Darwin thought our capacity for experiencing the moral sense and a painful conscience is by far the most important distinction between us and the animals; our sense of ought and disinterested love for all creatures, he believed the noblest virtue of man. And Freud took the problem of guilt as the single most important development of civilization. But they mistook its import, I suspect, embracing reductionist analyses and taking guilt itself as the essential problem, rather than the deeper malady of which guilt is but the symptom. Rightly construed guilt is semiotic, pointing beyond itself.

That we intuitively sense there to be a moral standard that we fall short of leaves us with a condition of guilt in need of fixing. And if we take our feelings of guilt as more than mere feelings, and something like a real objective condition of guilt, we are left wondering if there’s a solution. We need forgiveness for having fallen short of the moral standard—and not just falling short in the past, but continuing to fall short all the time. Forgiveness is a basic and chronic existential human need. 

I rather doubt Freud was wrong about guilt creating quite a bit of unhappiness, which makes it understandable that our secular friends see the need to deal with it, usually by trying to deny that we are really that guilty. Unaddressed guilt eats us up. And sometimes people do have an overactive superego and feel guilty for all sorts of things that they’re not really guilty of. But at other times, most of us intuitively recognize, our guilt isn’t a mistake, but a real insight into ourselves. We don’t need our guilt explained away, in those cases, but taken away, forgiven.

And of course this is one way that the moral argument serves as the perfect pathway to the gospel of Christ—indeed we have fallen short, and are in need of forgiveness. And God offers us that forgiveness through the death and resurrection of Christ. Not only does God offer us forgiveness, but we as his forgiven children can extend forgiveness to others. This is why it’s so imperative we maintain a stance of forgiveness toward our neighbors, modeling the grace God has shown us. And of course many will recognize that all of this broaches the whole theological topic of justification.

So you might wish to approach this philosophically—talking about guilt and our need for forgiveness, and then showing how philosophy leads you to the brink of theology. Or start with a theological discussion of justification, and then show how it comports with what we learned from our moral experience and what we might call general revelation. Or take the deliverances of theology like justification and use insights from moral apologetics to spell out part of what’s going on—that’s doing philosophical theology.

However we approach it, the moral argument, from this angle, functions as an ideal way to introduce the good news of the gospel. We have a problem, yes, but God offers the solution.

In the next installment we will discuss the moral argument and moral transformation.

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David Baggett is professor of philosophy and Director of the Center for Moral Apologetics at Houston Baptist University.

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Making Sense of Morality: John Rawls’s Ethics

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

Introduction

Another more naturalistic form of ethics comes from John Rawls (d. 2002), which might be better described as secular. Rawls’s works have had enormous influence, especially in his conception of justice as fairness.

Overview of Rawls’s Political Liberalism

Taking democracy as his starting point, Rawls spells out the basis for how today we can come together and form the basis for such a society. Yet, this faces the challenge of a plurality of reasonable, competing “doctrines” (conceptual frameworks, or paradigms) that address substantive notions of the nature of the good, the meaning of life, and more. These doctrines appeal to metaphysical, moral, and/or religious views, including substantive understandings of justice. Examples could be religious groups and adherents of different philosophies and worldviews.

Each “doctrine,” he thinks, has its own internal rationale for its beliefs. What justifies them is not that they correspond with reality, for, similar to Kant, we cannot know that directly. Instead, they should be internally coherent. Yet, this means each doctrine will have its own criteria for the substantive questions of life, making them largely incommensurable. If so, it seems we cannot form a democratic society on the basis of these private, substantive kinds of reasoning.

How then can we form a society on the basis of apparently neutral, public reasons? Rawls uses a thought experiment in which representatives of different groups are in an original position, behind a veil of ignorance. They are to reason as though they are abstracted from their lives’ situations and conditions, and they are to choose principles of public, procedural justice as the basis of a society. He claims they would adopt two principles: 1) the equality principle: there is an equal claim for all citizens to basic rights and liberties; and 2) the difference principle: there is equality of opportunity, and the greatest benefit should go to the least advantaged socially and/or economically. He thinks the members of these different “doctrines” can find an overlapping consensus and form a social contract based on these two principles of procedural justice.

Assessment

Rawls tries to take seriously the fact of diversity and how we can come together as a unified society. He also realizes that while doctrinal views may differ greatly, nonetheless we can dialogue and find commonalities.

Yet, there are several problems with his views. Rawls thinks a secular, procedural basis for justice enables him to remain neutral in regards to the various doctrines. He too would need to be philosophically neutral, for such views belong to the doctrines, he claims. But, Rawls’s own views are not philosophically neutral. He has bracketed out any metaphysical notions of justice and other morals. He also has privileged his epistemology, that we cannot know such morals as they are in reality. Thus, we should embrace epistemic coherentism (a belief is justified not by its correspondence with reality, but by its internal coherence within a given web of beliefs).

Put differently, Rawls seems to think he can set aside his own standpoint and gain a neutral vantage point, to claim no one doctrine’s philosophical views can be a suitable basis for a democracy today. Yet, he seems to be privileging his own doctrinal stance, that secular thought is what is needed.

Therefore, Rawls’s reasoning invites the question: why shouldn’t the competing doctrines argue publicly, to see if they can offer compelling reasons for their views of the nature of justice, the good life, etc.? Just because we have a plurality of moral viewpoints, it does not follow that none is more rationally defensible than another. The mere fact of diversity does not necessitate a procedural basis for justice.

Another concern is his concept of a person as one “who can take part in, or who can play a role in, social life, and hence exercise and respect its various rights and duties. Thus, we say that a person is someone who can be a citizen, that is, a normal and fully cooperating member of society over a complete life” (Rawls, 18). Yet, this understanding could exclude many people, including those with permanent disabilities, from protection as citizens.

For Further Reading

John Rawls, Political Liberalism

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 7

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R. Scott Smith is a Christian philosopher and apologist, with special interests in ethics, knowledge, and seeing the body of Christ live in the fullness of the Spirit and truth.

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Communion Meditation – "Let the Beauty of Jesus be Seen in Me"

A Twilight Musing

           There is a wonderful little chorus that we used to sing when I was young called "Let the Beauty of Jesus be Seen in Me," and after the first line it went, "All His wonderful passion and purity."  When we partake of the Lord's Supper, we are told that it is in memory of Him and that it proclaims His death until He comes again.  But it is not a mere act of memory of our Lord's death, even in awe and respect and love, nor yet again a recounting of the event of His crucifixion; but rather it is always to be a fresh submission to letting His presence dwell in us so that our very lives are proclamations of the living Jesus.  As Paul says, we are "crucified with Christ," so that it is no longer we who live, but Christ in us (Gal. 2:20); and thus, indeed, His beauty will be seen in us.

           We must remember that in partaking of this Supper, we are not giving thanks for something that was wrapped up in the past, but we are acknowledging something that is still in process through the transformation of our lives into copies of Jesus.  And in that process, we are not reservoirs, but wells springing up and making the water of life real to those who observe us.  As we take the bread within us, we affirm again that we have taken on His crucified Body, so that we can contain His Spirit; and as we take the wine, we embrace the power of God that inhabits us and empowers us.  The world cries out with the Greeks who sought out Jesus (John 12:21), "We want to see Jesus!" and in this Supper each week, we determine afresh that by God's grace and enablement, the world will see Him in us.

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

The Analytic Christian: A Positive Case for Objective Morality (Dr. Eric Sampson)

From The Analytic Christian:

There are two broad strategies one can use to show the truth of moral realism- defense and offense. When playing defense, one tries to show that criticisms of the view do not succeed, while criticisms of alternative positions do succeed. This could be called, "The Argument from Elimination." When playing offense, one tries to give positive reasons in favor of moral realism. In this interview, Dr. Eric Sampson will play offense by providing four arguments in support of moral realism.

Making Sense of Morality: Christine Korsgaard’s Naturalistic Ethics

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

Introduction

Now I will turn away from analyzing naturalistic, ethical options in terms of noncognitivism and cognitivism. Here, I will explore the views of a few individuals, starting with Christine Korsgaard (b. 1952).

Korsgaard’s Kantian Ethics

Like Mackie, Korsgaard rejects objectively real, intrinsically moral properties as very “queer.” Instead, the world is made of matter. How then does she derive ethical prescriptions?

She thinks that apart from our valuing something or some action, there is no value in the world. We do this by imposing our reason onto the material world. For her, this is like what Kant taught us, that we are to will what should be universally the case (i.e., by acting autonomously). This is an exercise of our practical reason.

One basis for her move is she thinks that if, like Plato thought, objectively real, intrinsically moral properties exist, then it is hard to see why they should have anything to do with us, since we are material. In that case, why should a person be moral? I think this is a good concern with Plato’s own views, to which I will return much later.

Instead, she thinks the only way we can secure our obligation to be moral in light of naturalism is by imposing reason onto reality (i.e., matter). By using practical reason, we self-legislate and construct our moral norms. These practical reasons exist and are prescriptive. We construct them by reason and universalize them by following Kant’s categorical imperative.

How do we go about forming these reasons? Korsgaard thinks it occurs as we are guided by our various practical identities. Such identities are descriptions according to which people find their lives to be worth living, and their actions worthwhile. By treating our human identity as normative, we regard it as a source of reasons and obligations, which she labels a moral identity. Then, ourmoral identity yields universal obligations, and that makes us, like Kant thought, members of the kingdom of ends. That is, we should always should be treated as valuable in ourselves, and not merely as a means to some end.

Assessment

If naturalism is true, then Korsgaard’s ethics makes much sense. There are no intrinsic morals in a naturalistic world. Yet, we do experience the importance of morality, and it seems that morality would have to be a construct of some sort. She clearly recognizes this, and her appeal to Kant fits well with her project. Moreover, she is right that our practical reasons exist and are normative. They are real, even though they do not exist independently of us.

Now, moral normativity depends upon us and our being able to use practical reason. Three issues arise here. First, what if some humans are unable to use their reason adequately, or at all? Would they thereby become disqualified from being valued in themselves? Also, who decides if they can reason “adequately”? Second, what if some do not see their lives as worth living? Does that also disqualify them from being valued in themselves? If so, may they be discarded or actively euthanized? Third, Korsgaard assumes we can reason on naturalism. Yet, later, I will examine to see if that is so.

Korsgaard could reply that there is a safeguard based upon the universalizability principle. We should will what we want to be normative and universal for all. But, this could be misused, it seems. For example, all persons should be treated with dignity seems very universalizable. Yet, then a separate, descriptive matter arises, to which all may not universally agree: are all humans persons? If not, some humans could be treated as means to an end due to a nonmoral decision. That is, her criterion of universalizability may not be sufficient to prevent abuses.

Further, Korsgaard’s proposal depends upon our treating ourselves as valuable. But, why should we, if we know naturalism is true? We can play that “game,” and if we live in affluent conditions, that might seem satisfactory. But, for those in oppressive conditions, that “game” could become unbearable.

For Further Reading

Christine Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 7

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R. Scott Smith is a Christian philosopher and apologist, with special interests in ethics, knowledge, and seeing the body of Christ live in the fullness of the Spirit and truth.

Communion Meditation – Bread of Earth & Bread of Heaven

A Twilight Musing by Elton Higgs

“Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal!"...Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst" (John 6:27, 35).

In partaking of this bread, we reaffirm our commitment to the true Bread of Life, rather than to the bread which perishes. Our labors for the daily bread which sustains our physical bodies are set aside, and we allow ourselves to be drawn into the realm of eternal satisfaction with Jesus. The repeated supplying and partaking of our daily bread is necessary as a means to an end, which is learning to eat and drink of God Himself, so that we may be completely filled and satisfied. Jesus is making this point in John 6, when He contrasts the temporal manna in the wilderness, miraculous though it was, with the true bread--Jesus Himself—which sustains spiritual life, not merely physical life.

However, in our present form, we need both the bread of earth and the Bread of Heaven. The bread of earth prolongs our days on earth long enough for God's purposes for us here to be fulfilled; by the grace of God we are sustained so that we may be His instruments in the world. But the fulfillment of that instrumentality is accomplished only by our taking within us the nature of the perfectly obedient Son of God. The Bread of Heaven sustains us as reborn beings who are delivered from the captivity of the first Adam into the freedom of the Second Adam, Jesus our Savior. Thus the Bread of Life nourishes the eternal part of us, not just our doomed bodies. But just as Jesus manifested the Divine Nature in a physical and perishable body, so we carry out His ministry by a temporary reflection of the Incarnation, merging the mortal and the immortal in an uneasy union to carry out God's purposes.

Jesus calls us to be like Himself in the world, experiencing the tension between the first and the second birth. He sustains both natures by His provision of bread, which is profoundly symbolized in its double sense in the Lord's Supper. He calls upon us to embrace and ingest it with thankfulness for both the physical and the spiritual sustenance which are embodied in what is at once the bread of earth and the Bread of Heaven. We walk thus, suspended with Him, until He calls us home to feast imperishably at His table.

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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The Savior and the Sea: The Theological Meaning behind the Absence of the Sea in Eternity

I enjoy going to the beach. There is something soothing and therapeutic about the sound of the ocean’s waves crashing upon the shore. The ocean’s rhythmic sound patterns tend to alleviate the stress and strains of life. The beautiful sunrises and sunsets over the ocean’s horizon are something that no artist can duplicate.

For this reason, Revelation 21:1 has always seemed odd to me. The text reads, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more” (Rev. 21:1). Why are oceans and seas not found in the new creation? Heaven is greater than anything possibility imaginable in this creation. If something is good in this creation, then it will be great in the next one. If that is the case, then why would one of God’s most beautiful creations not be found there? Revelation makes it clear that the new creation would have water. Revelation 22:1 notes the existence of a “river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rev. 22:1). If there are rivers, would they not pour out into a larger body of water that would be comparable to modern oceans?

The absence of the sea in the new creation holds a deeper theological issue and is most likely not to be taken literally. The symbol speaks to a literal truth. But the concept of the sea is an image that resonates with the overall teaching of Scripture. I have always been taught that the best interpreter of Scripture is Scripture. With that in mind, what does the sea represent throughout the pages of Scripture?

The Sea as a Representation of Chaos

            Genesis 1 depicts God’s creation of the universe. While God is shown to be in total control of creation, the text describes an ordering of creation from the chaotic waters of the deep (Gen. 1:1-2). The watery depths of the sea are shown to be a place of chaos as opposed to the stability of the dry land. Yahweh—the personal name of God—brings order by causing the waters to subside and bringing order and stability to the world by the creation of the continental bodies. Considering how dangerous seafaring is today, even more so in antiquity, it stands to reason why the ancients would have viewed the sea in such fashion. David writes, “The ropes of death were wrapped around me; the torrents of destruction terrified me” (Psa. 18:4). While the sea was chaotic, Yahweh, the “God of glory” (Ps. 29:3), “thunders above the vast water” (Ps. 29:3).

The idea of a storm god battling the sea was not unique to the OT. Many beliefs in the Ancient Near East and Indo-European religions held that the storm god battled the chaos of the sea (Green, The Storm God; Ara, Eschatology, 105-107). The difference with the OT is that Yahweh was shown to be the creator over both the clouds and the sea. He was sovereign over everything and brought order from chaos. No other entity was involved in creation outside of Yahweh. Yahweh’s battles did not bring about creation as was found in other worldviews. Rather, Yahweh, and Yahweh alone, was responsible for creation. Nonetheless, the sea became associated with the idea of chaos.

The Sea as a Representation of Evil

            While Yahweh was the exclusive creator of the cosmos, the OT still holds that Yahweh was opposed by the enemy forces of darkness. The enemy of God is depicted as a marine serpentine animal known as the Leviathan. The Leviathan is a monstrous beast whose home is found in the chaos of the sea. Yahweh strips Leviathan of his power and causes him to be his servant (Job 41:4). Leviathan, the serpentine dragon of the sea, will be ultimately destroyed by Yahweh at the end of time (Isa. 27:1). This image is continued in the book of Daniel as the evil political powers are shown to be serpentine sea monsters rising from the chaos of the sea (Dan. 7:1-13). The Pharaoh of Egypt is depicted as a monster of the Nile who would be defeated by God (Ezek. 29:3-5). It is unsurprising that the Red Sea kept the Israelites from crossing over into the Promised Land—that is, until Yahweh overcame the power of the seas by dividing the waters and allowing them to cross on dry land. In Revelation, the antichrist is shown to be a beast rising from the chaotic sea (Rev. 13:1-10). Thus, evil serpentine powers of darkness are linked with the chaos of the sea.

The Savior’s Defeat of the Sea

            The powers of chaos and evil were about to be dealt a lethal blow by the Savior. Jesus changed everything. He preached that the kingdom of God was at hand (Mark 1:15). He even proved the power of God’s kingdom had come by performing miracles. Two of Jesus’s miracles are especially pertinent. Jesus proved his power over the chaotic seas by walking on the water (Matt. 14:22-33; Mark 6:45-56; and John 6:16-24) and by calming the tumultuous sea (Matt. 8:23-27; Mark 4:35-41; and Luke 8:22-25). No wonder the disciples feared Jesus’s power after observing these potent displays of authority over the forces of nature and the powers of darkness. Ultimately, Jesus’s victory over the enemies of God will be full and complete (Rev. 19:11-16) in fulfillment of Isaiah 27:1 when the serpentine dragon known as Satan and his minions are thrown into the Lake of Fire (Rev. 19:19-21).

Conclusion: What the Absence of the Sea Really Means

            After considering all the biblical data, it seems that the best interpretation of Revelation 21:1 suggests that absence of the sea is to be taken symbolically rather than literally. Yahweh created the oceans, lakes, and rivers (Exod. 20:11; Neh. 9:6; Ps. 146:6; Job 38:8-9; and Amos 9:6), and his creation was good (Gen. 1). If his creation of watery bodies on Earth is good now, the bodies of water will be perfect in the new creation. Rather than having no oceans or bodies of water in the new creation, Revelation 21:1 teaches that the new creation will bring an end to chaos and evil. The curse will be forever removed. Creation, humanity, and divinity will all live in eternal harmony. God brings order, harmony, love, and peace. His heavenly eternal creation will be a place of perfect peace. Chaos will be no more. As one who hates drama and chaos, this serves as just another reason why heaven is a wonderful and glorious place. 

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Sources

Ara, Mitra. Eschatology in the Indo-Iranian Traditions: The Genesis and Transformation of a Doctrine. New York: Peter Lang, 2008.

Green, Alberto R. W. The Storm God in the Ancient Near East. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003.

Sarlo, Daniel. “Sea.” The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Edited by John D. Barry. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture comes from the Christian Standard Bible (Nashville: Holman, 2017).

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About the Author

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com, the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast, and the author of the Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics. Brian is a Ph.D. Candidate of the Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University and is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has served in pastoral ministry for nearly 20 years. He currently serves as a clinical chaplain.

https://www.amazon.com/Laymans-Manual-Christian-Apologetics-Essentials/dp/1532697104

© 2021. BellatorChristi.com.

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Making Sense of Morality: Naturalism and Objectivist Ethics

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

Introduction

Now let’s shift to explore objectivist options for naturalism (i.e., ethical naturalism) within moral cognitivism. These views reduce morals to natural facts, so that scientists can measure them empirically, whether that be physiologically, biologically, chemically, or otherwise. There are no intrinsically moral properties. Furthermore, moral statements are about facts concerning (1) objects thought to have moral value, or (2) moral actions.

Options for Ethical Naturalism

Here are some strategies for reducing morals to natural facts. Morals are:

1. What most people desire or approve;

2. What an impartial observer approves;

3. What maximizes desire or interest; or

4. What furthers survival.

First, all these kinds of things are descriptive in nature. But, that seems to lose the normativity of moral principles and virtues. How then do we get the moral ought from what simply is the case descriptively?

Morals need to be identical to natural facts. Yet, these strategies face problems. Consider (1): While what most people desire could be good (such as being loved), it also could be something clearly immoral. In the early 1800s, most people in the Deep South in the U. S. desired to keep slavery as an institution. Similarly, in the 1960s, what most white people wanted in that area was segregation from African-Americans. Yet both policies were clearly wrong.

Alternatively, while most people there did not desire to end racial discrimination against African-Americans, nonetheless Martin Luther King, Jr.’s efforts were right to try to do so. We also could look at others examples where what most people desired, or approved, was wrong, such as anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, or apartheid in South Africa.

How about (2)?  Besides the problem of how to get the normative moral property from what is descriptive, (2) raises the prospects of just how impartial anyone could be. All of us are shaped and influenced by a wide range of factors, including our worldviews. If someone is a naturalist (or a Buddhist or theist), would that person really be able to set aside all that conceptual framework to be impartial in the needed ways? Additionally, it is possible that what an impartial observer approves of still could be immoral.

Regarding (3), the same issues explored above with the southern U. S. could repeat here. And with (4), what furthers survival could be immoral. Arguably, the Nazis aimed to preserve the purity (and thus survival) of the Aryan race, but in so doing they would kill off those they deemed to be “defective.” Also, on the basis of (4), some acts of genocide could be justified. After all, if morality is what furthers survival, why should the weak survive? Yet, justice often requires defending the defenseless against those who are oppressing them.

Cornell Realism

All these ethical naturalist options are realist; they affirm that morals are real, yet they are nothing but natural kinds of things. There is another ethical naturalist option, called “Cornell Realism,” and developed by Richard Boyd (b. 1942), Nicholas Sturgeon (b. 1942), and David Brink (b. 1958). Like other naturalists, there are no intrinsically moral facts. Still, our ethical beliefs (such as Hitler was morally depraved) are justified in light of their coherence with our whole body of beliefs, which is shaped by naturalism. For them, we do not have direct access to moral or other kinds of facts; we always access them through our “conceptual grid,” or interpretive framework. Our moral beliefs and theories give us approximations to the truth.

Later, I will address this coherentist idea more. Still, we already have seen some commonalities with Kant’s views. The question will be if we can access reality at all on such a view. For now, notice that for them, moral facts still are natural facts, and though we conceive of them as moral ones, what is moral is just a matter of our interpretation. If so, a people could conceive of murder or rape as right. But, we clearly know such interpretations would be wrong.

For Further Reading

Richard Boyd, “How to be a Moral Realist,” in Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, ed., Essays on Moral Realism

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 5

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R. Scott Smith is a Christian philosopher and apologist, with special interests in ethics, knowledge, and seeing the body of Christ live in the fullness of the Spirit and truth.

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Why the Horrendous Deeds Objection Is Still a Bad Argument

Editor’s note: Matthew Flannagan has graciously shared his newest article, “Why the Horrendous Deeds Objection Is Still a Bad Argument,” with us. Link and abstract are below.

Why the Horrendous Deeds Objection Is Still a Bad Argument

Abstract:

A common objection to divine command meta-ethics (‘DCM’) is the horrendous deeds objection. Critics object that if DCM is true, anything at all could be right, no matter how abhorrent or horrendous. Defenders of DCM have responded by contending that God is essentially good: God has certain character traits essentially, such as being loving and just. A person with these character traits cannot command just anything. In recent discussions of DCM, this ‘essential goodness response’ has come under fire. Critics of DCM have offered various objections to the essential goodness response. This paper responds to these critics. I examine and refute six such objections: (a) the objection from counterpossibles, (b) the objection from omnipotence, (c) the objection from requirements of justice, (d) the objection from God’s moral grounding power, (e) the objection from evil and indifferent deities, and (f) the epistemological objection. I will maintain that despite all that has been said about the horrendous deeds objection in recent analytic philosophy, the horrendous deeds argument is still a bad argument.

Making Sense of Morality: Error Theory

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

Naturalism and Error Theory

Still another kind of naturalistic moral cognitivism is error theory, which has been defended by J. L. Mackie (d. 1981) and Richard Joyce (b. 1966). Mackie used two arguments for his view. First, the argument from relativity maintains that empirically, there are many moral differences amongst people. For him, the best explanation is that moral judgments are tied to different forms (or ways) of life, each of which has its way of interpreting reality. Second, the argument from queerness says that, if objectively real, moral qualities would be very bizarre things in an otherwise naturalistic world. Since we know natural kinds of things empirically, to know objectively real, intrinsically moral properties would require some extraordinary faculty.

Moreover, moral discourse is dependent upon institutional facts. Unlike brute facts about the world itself, which are natural, institutional facts are social constructs, due to how people in various societies (or forms of life) have constructed their institutions and their rules that guide peoples’ actions, including moral discourse. When people speak as though morals are objectively real and not dependent on their social, institutional settings, they show that moral discourse really is filled with error.

Joyce follows Mackie in that there are no independently real moral facts. Still, as a kind of moral cognitivism, error theorists do maintain that we do make moral judgments. However, since there are no real moral qualities, these claims are systematically false and thus filled with error.

Still, Joyce thinks that error theory does not demand that people give up engaging in moral speech. It is just that, to be consistent, their speech act is only making an assertion. They are not believing these moral claims to be true. Additionally, since error theorists reject the existence of any real moral properties, they deny that any action is moral or immoral. Nevertheless, they still can oppose others’ actions, for that need not require that they believe objective moral properties exist.

Assessment

Error theorists consistently hold that on naturalism, there are no intrinsically moral properties. This naturalistic view of what morals are trades upon language use. They are just ways of speaking according to the “grammar” (or, rules) of a given people that allows them to use moral discourse, yet while (apparently) avoiding the reality of morals.

Now, we will see when we explore ethical relativism that while there is a fact of moral diversity amongst people and cultures, nonetheless those differences may not be as wide or deep as we have been taught. Instead, we can identify common morals that may be applied differently (e.g., how people in one culture show respect for their elders, versus how people in another culture do so). Further, just because there is a descriptive fact of diversity, that alone does not give us ethical relativism, which is a normative thesis.

Granted, too, irreducibly moral properties would be rather “queer” given naturalism. But, perhaps there are independent reasons why we should question that assumption. In later essays, I will suggest a few such reasons.

Moreover, it is true that we may speak in ways that do not necessarily commit us to the reality of things we are talking about. Generally, mere word uses do not have power to cause things to come into existence (except, for instance, stories). A scientific example was talk of phlogiston to explain combustion. Later, however, scientists discovered it was not real; instead, oxygen was what was involved.

Further, error theory does not explain why we find morality to be such a ubiquitous aspect of life. After all, why talk morally if there are no morals? While error theory explains why we can talk morally, given naturalism, it still does not give us an adequate explanation of what morals are. If they are just the way we use words, then we can change morals by changing how we talk. In that case, murder could become right, and justice could become bad. But surely that is false.

For Further Reading

Richard Joyce, “Mackie’s arguments for the moral error theory,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

J. L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 5

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R. Scott Smith is a Christian philosopher and apologist, with special interests in ethics, knowledge, and seeing the body of Christ live in the fullness of the Spirit and truth.

Moral Apologetics & Christian Theology

For some while now I have had the thought that it would be worthwhile to explore the connection between moral apologetics and theology. I have had occasion to touch on this matter here and there, but never anything remotely exhaustive. It remains in my mind a project to pursue for later—resonances of the moral argument(s) with such theological categories as ecclesiology and Christology, eschatology and soteriology, pneumatology, theological anthropology, and theology proper. In this short piece today, I’m going to just tip my toe in such a project by using something of a traditional four-fold distinction that cuts across a variety of theological concerns.

From the earliest chapters of Genesis we find that what gets broken and is need of being set right are the following facets of our existence: ourselves, the creation, our relationship with others, and our relationship with God. John Hare’s forthcoming book on theistic ethics—the third in his trilogy (after The Moral Gap and God’s Command)—is structured in a similar four-fold way: specifically, the unity we seek in life, with the creation or environment, with other people, and with God. And R. Scott Rodin’s excellent book on the steward leader similarly couches the discussion in terms of four areas in which leaders foster robust health: in the self, with others, with creation, and with God. Categories of self and life might seem different, but since I see the biblical discourse of life primarily in terms of the abundant, kingdom life for which God designed each one of us, it seems to me that they are inextricably linked. So let’s quickly canvass each in turn.

In terms of the self, and the sort of life for which we were made, there are three conceptually distinct aspects to our salvation. There is justification, which puts us right with God; this largely involves our forgiveness for falling short. C. S. Lewis said the key to understanding the universe resides in recognizing that there’s a moral standard and that we fail to meet it. This introduces the need, first, for our forgiveness, and according to Christian theology God has made provision for our forgiveness in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The second dimension of salvation is sanctification, the gradual process by which we are not just forgiven, but actually changed and transformed into the likeness of Christ. This introduces what John Hare calls the performative dimension of moral apologetics—how we can cross the gap between the best we can do, morally speaking, and the moral standard. If we are obligated to meet the standard, but are unable to do so on our own, Augustine thought that this was to show us our need for God’s grace to be changed. The culmination of salvation is glorification, the point at which, by God’s grace, we are entirely conformed to the image of Christ; we are made perfect, altogether delivered from sin’s power and consequences. Christian theology thus makes sense of our need for forgiveness, our need to be changed, and ultimately even our desire to be perfected.

Immanuel Kant’s argument for the afterlife was predicated on his thinking that a “holy will” was the province of God’s alone, and that it would forever reside beyond our reach. We would thus need eternity to approach it asymptotically (ever closer but never there)—because it’s a process that will never be completed. He was both right and wrong, I think. Contra Kant, Christian theology says that we will indeed by God’s grace be entirely conformed to the image of Christ, so there is a destination at which the regenerate will arrive. But I suspect he was right in an important sense to think of our eternal state as involving more of a dynamic picture than a static one. Once glorified, our growth won’t cease; indeed, completion of “the good work within us” will mark the chance for us to live as we were fully intended with all the obstructions removed.

Sometimes there is debate over whether morality will go away in heaven. My guess is that morality in Kant’s sense certainly will; talk of rights and duties will pass away. But they will be replaced by something far grander—gift and sacrifice, as George Mavrodes would say. Or think of rights and duties as the mere anteroom in a grand castle or cathedral that represents morality. Life in that place will be as it should be: life among its towering spires, where self-giving love is the norm. We are told, in fact, that the glory to come is something so wonderful we can scarcely imagine it.

Lewis sometimes likened the whole quest of morality to a fleet of ships. This fleet must consist of vessels that are individually seaworthy. It must function cooperatively, with all vessels navigating their ways without crashing into one another. And this fleet must have a destination. The first and third requirements—individual seaworthiness and reaching a destination—are closely connected to the individual’s moral trajectory. By God’s grace we are made seaworthy: we find forgiveness for our invariable shortcomings, grace to be radically transformed, grace by which to find meaning in life and our vocations of purpose, and grace ultimately to become the wholly distinctive expressions of Christ God designed us to be.

Lewis’s middle requirement in the fleet example pertains to not bumping into others, and this is the second of the aforementioned four theological constraints. In fact, nowadays, morality is often deflated in the minds of many to pertain just to this feature of ethics, but in fact it is only one of the four parts. Morality rightly understood and practiced does indeed lead, in general, to more harmonious relations with others; this is one reason why Christ followers are called to be ministers of reconciliation. Indeed, this is arguably also part of the goal or telos of humanity: that the barriers of fellowship between people would be removed and we would learn to love another and forge deep relationships of mutual care with one another. Indeed, in Christian theology, after the most important commandment, which we’ll get to in a moment, the second most important command is that we love our neighbors as ourselves. And we are pretty much told that we can’t discharge the most important command without taking the neighbor-love command with dreadful seriousness. The communal aspects of sanctification remind us that the implications of morality are not a simply individualist affair; waging war on systemic evils, promoting justice, feeding the poor, opposition to slavery—all of these are aspects of the moral life expansively and communally construed. Paul Copan is especially effective at highlighting this historical dimension of the moral argument by chronicling a myriad of ways in which Christians have traditionally led the way in women’s suffrage, building orphanages, opposing foot-binding, and the like.

In terms of the third theological category—unity with creation—two salient connections with moral apologetics immediately come to mind, namely, moral duties we have to care for the creation of which we have been made stewards, and treatment of animals as the sacred creatures they are. In his Lectures on Ethics Kant tried to spell out how our duties to animals are rooted in our obligations to fellow human beings, writing that if a man treats his dog well, regularly feeding and watering it and taking it for walks, this man is probably going to be kinder in his dealings with human persons. This is why Kant says, “We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals…. Tender feelings towards dumb animals develop human feelings towards mankind.”

Although that is likely true, I can’t help but be a bit dissatisfied by this analysis alone. It seems sounder to say we have an obligation to God to treat his creation properly, which includes animals, and it’s even more pressing we treat animals well because they are capable of feeling pain. It’s almost become cliché to remind us all that dominion isn’t domination. Intentionally and needlessly inflicting pain on animals, for example, is cruel disregard for God’s creation—and a sin against God. We should care about the experience of animals and want them not to suffer needlessly, and not just for instrumental reasons. I count the inability of a number of naturalist accounts to justify believing we have obligations toward animals a deficiency—even if it’s true that animals don’t have rights (a question on which I’m currently agnostic).

Elsewhere I have repeatedly made it clear that I’m eminently open—with N. T. Wright, John Wesley, and C. S. Lewis—to the idea that we will see animals in heaven. It’s not a nonnegotiable conviction of mine, but it’s a reasonable inference, I think, if we take seriously the notion that the work of Christ redeemed the entirety of the created order, of which animals are a vital part. It is actually quite illuminating to peruse the full range of biblical teachings about the animals.

Fourthly, finally, and most centrally, Christian theology gives pride of place to reconciliation with God—and not just reconciliation, but a relationship of all-consuming love for and relationship of intimacy with God. Since there are principled reasons to think of the ultimate good in personalist terms (as nothing less than God himself) and the ultimate good for us in such terms as well (nothing less than the beatific vision), I can’t help but think of the telos of humankind and the culmination of salvation in the Christian order of things through the lens of Goodness itself. The deontic family of terms, discourse about what’s obligatory or permissible, might well pass away when all things are made new, but the Good and the Beautiful will be on full display and to be enjoyed forever. That Christianity teaches that the most important commandment of all—a necessary and eternal truth—is love of God with all of our heart and soul, mind and strength, puts this dimension, this unity, this relationship at the core of reality.

Morality here and now involves just the first, fledgling lessons in learning the dance steps of the Trinity. For this reason Lewis once wrote these words: “Mere morality is not the end of life. You were made for something quite different from that…. The people who keep on asking if they can’t lead a decent life without Christ don’t know what life is about; if they did they would know that ‘a decent life’ is mere machinery compared with the things we men are really made for. Morality is indispensable: but the Divine Life, which gives itself to us and which calls us to be gods, intends for us something in which morality will be swallowed up.”

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David Baggett is professor of philosophy and Director of the Center for Moral Apologetics at Houston Baptist University.

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Making Sense of Morality: Sociobiology

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

Ruse and Evolutionary Ethics

Michael Ruse (b. 1940) is another cognitivist in that moral sentences can be true or false. Yet, he is not an objectivist. If he were, then moral statements would be about facts concerning moral acts or objects thought to have moral value. Yet, there are no intrinsically moral properties, or any that transcend our biology. Instead, he too is a subjectivist. Moral discourse ends up being a way of describing the biological. Ruse also grounds ethics in naturalistic evolution and science.

Ruse’s Sociobiology

Ruse rejects as a myth the older paradigm that evolution is essentially progressive and that it generates value, for humans are its successful endpoint. Instead, he embraces sociobiology, in which morality is part of biology. Social norms develop by their evolutionary emergence.

On this view, moral behavior simply is a biological adaptation. Cooperation with others is a good survival strategy, which he claims is virtually the norm in the animal kingdom. Since we cooperate, we are successful in surviving and reproducing. Moreover, “social success” leads to the evolution of more efficient means of cooperation.

Following Richard Dawkins’s idea of the “selfish” gene, Ruse believes that what appear to be “altruistic” acts relate back to an individual’s self-interest. That is, such acts occur because ultimately they benefit the performer’s biological ends. But, since we have a self-centered nature, and we have adapted via sociality, we need a mechanism to break through that self-centeredness. Morality is that mechanism, which has been selected for cooperative behavior.

So, Ruse thinks he can derive the moral ought from what biologically is the case and thereby avoid the issue posed by the “naturalistic fallacy”: i.e., how do we get what is morally normative from what is biologically descriptive? Moreover, he is consistent as a naturalist, denying that there are any intrinsic morals. While morality seems objective to us, it does not exist objectively (i.e., independently of us), for it is an illusion of our genes.

While this position might make Ruse’s ethics seem vulnerable to charges of relativism, he flatly rejects that charge. Instead, he strongly rejects as immoral many clear cases of wrongdoing, such as rape, Hitler’s savagery, female circumcision, and more. 

Assessment

Clearly, Ruse’s ethics is an important attempt to account for ethics in a naturalistic, evolutionary framework. Surely he is right that cooperation is a good strategy for survival, and that humans seem to have a self-centered nature. He also rightly addresses the need to preserve the oughtness of morality, that it not be reduced merely to what is the case.

Now, Ruse admits that “altruistic” and “selfish” are metaphorical ways of describing behaviors. They are not the case in reality, for morality simply is an illusion. Indeed, all moral discourse would seem to be a metaphorical way of talking about biological behavior.

In that case, Ruse’s claim that his view can preserve the normativity of morality (especially of core morals like murder and rape are wrong) seems to do nothing of the sort. As he has admitted, there are no intrinsic moral properties, even to biology. But, generally, how we talk about something does not confer new properties upon it. Clearly, Ruse is not suggesting that our moral speech adds moral properties to biology. In that case, we can talk in whatever ways we want about morality, even that murder is right, but it will do nothing to change the biological facts of the matter, that there are no moral properties in our biology.

Furthermore, due to how natural selection happened to work, it is conceivable that we could have evolved differently, such that murder or rape would not be wrong, but perhaps even right and obligatory. After all, since morality’s “objectivity” is just an illusion of our genes, then murder’s or rape’s being wrong, or justice’s and love’s being good, could have turned out otherwise, or not ever have evolved. But that seems deeply mistaken.

For Further Reading

Michael Ruse, “Evolution and Ethics: The Sociobiological Approach,” in Ethical Theory: Classic and Contemporary Readings, ed. Louis Pojman, 4th ed.

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 5

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R. Scott Smith is a Christian philosopher and apologist, with special interests in ethics, knowledge, and seeing the body of Christ live in the fullness of the Spirit and truth.

Making Sense of Morality: Naturalism and Moral Cognitivist Options: Subjectivism

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

Naturalism and Moral Cognitivist Options: Subjectivism

In terms of the meaning of moral sentences, naturalists also could be cognitivists. They maintain moral claims are truth apt, yet they still deny there are any intrinsically moral properties. There are three main branches of moral cognitivism: subjectivism, error theory, and objectivism. Subjectivists generally reduce morals to what a speaker likes or dislikes (private subjectivism), or what a culture likes or dislikes (cultural relativism). This essay will look at subjectivism in general, and then in particular at that of Gilbert Harman.

In general, while subjectivist theories about the meaning of moral statements are compatible with naturalism, there is an obvious problem with them – they reduce moral claims, which are normative, into merely descriptive ones. But that does not seem to do justice when we claim (for example) that murder is wrong. We do not mean that we simply dislike murder; rather, we mean it is wrong. For example, when we see people cry out for justice when a murder has been committed, it is not because they merely dislike murder. Instead, they know something morally wrong has been committed, and justice should be done.

Harman’s Subjectivism

Now, for Harman (b. 1938), there is another sense of subjectivism. According to him, moral facts are natural facts. Consistent with naturalism, there are no intrinsically moral facts. Moral facts should be understood as being relational facts, which are about reasons that are grounded in a given subject’s goals. Moreover, our moral beliefs arise from our interaction with natural facts. But that interaction always is conditioned by our upbringing and psychology, so all moral beliefs are our constructs. Morals are dependent upon us, so they are subjective in that sense.

In terms of moral reasons, Harman thinks people likely have them only if they have implicitly entered into an agreement with others about what to do. Nevertheless, these motivating reasons will not be the same for all, and he thinks it is likely only some people have made those agreements. So, Harman’s ethics is relativistic.

Discussion

For now, let me make some observations about Harman’s ethics. For one, we can see a consistent naturalistic position at work, that there are no intrinsically moral properties or facts. If everything is natural, and the world has been “disenchanted” of things like essential natures, then surely morals would not have essences either.

Also consistent with naturalism is his relativism, even though many naturalists have not embraced ethical relativism as a system. Still, it is consistent because naturalists usually are nominalists, and on that view, everything is particular. On ethical relativism, there are no universal morals, which fits very much with nominalism.

Notice too that he admits morals are our constructs. This will be true of ethical relativism in general, which we will discuss later. But, later I also will address an issue that I think will show that on naturalism all knowledge, even of morals, must be, at best, just our constructs. This will stand in contrast to what naturalists who are objectivists believe.

For Further Reading

Gilbert Harman, The Nature of Morality: An Introduction to Ethics, and Explaining Value: And Other Essays in Moral Philosophy

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 5

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N. T. Wright on Virtue

(an excerpt from Wright’s After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, pp. 18-22):

Thursday, January 15, 2009, was another ordinary day in New York City. Or so it seemed. But by that evening people were talking of a miracle.

After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters

By Wright, N. T.

            They may have been right. But the full explanation is, if anything, even more interesting and exciting. And it strikes just the note we need as we launch out on our exploration of the development of character in general and Christian character in particular.

            Flight 2549, a regular US Airways trip from LaGuardia Airport, took off at 15:26 local time, bound for Charlotte, North Carolina. The captain, Chesley Sullenberger III, known as “Sully,” did all the usual checks. Everything was fine in the Airbus A320. Fine until, two minutes after takeoff, the aircraft ran straight into a flock of Canada geese. One goose in a jet engine would be serious; a flock was disastrous. (Airports play all sorts of tricks to prevent birds gathering in the flight path, but it still happens occasionally.) Almost at once both the engines were severely damaged and lost their power. The plane was at that point heading north over the Bronx, one of the most densely populated parts of the city.

            Captain Sullenberger and his copilot had to make several major decisions instantly if they were going to save the lives of people not only on board but also on the ground. They could see one or two small local airports in the distance, but quickly realized that they couldn’t be sure of making it that far. If they attempted it, they might well crash-land in a built-up area on the way. Likewise, the option of putting the plane down on the New Jersey Turnpike, a busy main road leading in and out of the city, would present huge problems and dangers for the plane and its occupants, let alone for cars and their drivers on the road. That left one option: the Hudson River. It’s difficult to crash-land on water: one small mistake—catch the nose or one of the wings in the river, say—and the plane will turn over and over like a gymnast before breaking up and sinking.

            In the two or three minutes they had before landing, Sullenberger and his copilot had to do the following vital things (along with plenty of other tasks that we amateurs wouldn’t understand). They had to shut down the engines. They had to set the right speed so that the plane could glide as long as possible without power. (Fortunately, Sullenberger is also a gliding instructor.) They had to get the nose of the plane down to maintain speed. They had to disconnect the autopilot and override the flight management system. They had to activate the “ditch” system, which seals vents and valves, to make the plane as waterproof as possible once it hit the water. Most important of all, they had to fly and then glide the plane in a fast left-hand turn so that it could come down facing south, going with the flow of the river. And—having already turned off the engines—they had to do this using only the battery-operated systems and the emergency generator. Then they had to straighten the plane up from the tilt of the sharp-left turn so that, on landing, the plane would be exactly level from side to side. Finally, they had to get the nose back up again, but not too far up, and land straight and flat on the water.

            And they did it! Everyone got off safely, with Captain Sullenberger himself walking up and down the aisle a couple of times to check that everyone had escaped before leaving himself. Once in the life raft along with other passengers, he went one better: he took off his shirt, in the freezing January afternoon, and gave it to a passenger who was suffering in the cold.

            The story has already been told and retold, and will live on in the memory not only of all those involved but of every New Yorker and many further afield. Just over seven years and four months after the horrible devastation of September 11, 2001, New York had an airplane story to celebrate.

            Now, as I say, many people described the dramatic events as a “miracle.” At one level, I wouldn’t want to question that. But the really fascinating thing about the whole business is the way it spectacularly illustrates a vital truth—a truth which many today have either forgotten or never known in the first place.

            You could call it the power of right habits. You might say it was the result of many years of training and experience. You could call it “character,” as we have so far in this book.

            Ancient writers had a word for it: virtue.

            Virtue, in this sense, isn’t simply another way of saying “goodness.” The word has sometimes been flattened out like that (perhaps because we instinctively want to escape its challenge), but that isn’t its strict meaning. Virtue, in this strict sense, is what happens when someone has made a thousand small choices, requiring effort and concentration, to do something which is good and right but which doesn’t “come naturally”—and then, on the thousand and first time, when it really matters, they find that they do what’s required “automatically,” as we say. On that thousand and first occasion, it does indeed look as if it “just happens”; but reflection tells us that it doesn’t “just happen” as easily as that. If you or I had been flying the Airbus A320 that afternoon, and had done what “comes naturally,” or if we’d allowed things just “to happen,” we would probably have crashed into the Bronx. (Apologies to any actual pilots reading this; you, I hope, would have done what Captain Sullenberger did.) As this example shows, virtue is what happens when wise and courageous choices have become “second nature.” Not “first nature,” as though they happened “naturally.” Rather, a kind of second-order level of “naturalness.” Like an acquired taste, such choices and actions, which started off being practiced with difficulty, ended up being, yes, “second nature.”

            Sullenberger had not, of course, been born with the ability to fly a plane, let alone the specific skills he exhibited in those vital three minutes. None of the skills required, and certainly none of the courage, restraint, cool judgment, and concern for others which he displayed, is part of the kit we humans possess from birth. You have to work at mastering that sort of skill set, moving steadily toward that goal. You have to want to do it all, to choose to learn it all, to practice doing it all. Again and again. And then, sometimes, when the moment comes, it happens “automatically” as it did for Sullenberger. The skills and ability ran right through him, top to toe.

            Which is just as well. The other options hardly bear thinking about. Supposing they had been novice pilots simply “doing what came naturally”? Or supposing they’d had to get hold of a book with detailed instructions for coping with emergencies, look up the relevant pages, and then try to obey what it said? By the time they’d figured it out, the plane would have crashed. No: what was needed was character, formed by the specific strengths, that is, “virtues,” of knowing exactly how to fly a plane, and also the more general virtues of courage, restraint, cool judgment, and determination to do the right thing for others.

            These four strengths of character—courage, restraint, cool judgment, and determination to do the right thing for others—are, in fact, precisely the four qualities which the greatest ancient philosopher who wrote about such matters identified as the keys to genuine human existence.