I would like to propose an hypothesis namely “If a society loses its belief in God and Judeo-Christian morality, it will go down the drain faster than dislodged hairs will follow a can of drano.” We shall test this hypothesis in a laboratory. We shall have two teams of rats in cages. In each cage there will be four rats and two pieces of cheese. In cage A, the rats will be allowed to fight over the cheese. In cage B, the rats are allowed to fight over the cheese, but are required to say “Please” before grabbing the cheese.
If our hypothesis is correct the rats in cage A will kill each other for the cheese faster than the rats in cage B. America is now more like cage B. There is a minimal form of civility that is attempting to pass as morality. Thus, we remain intact somewhat longer than other societies. But the civility that we mistakenly call morality is still such a futile exercise and devoid of spiritual power and enlightenment that mutual destruction is assured even if delayed.
We have regressed in American culture to the point where many consider morality to be a combination of common courtesy or civility with the law as the “moral code” for more complex or difficult situations where civility cannot be the basis for deciding the dispute, assault, theft, etc.
The idea of an eternal/absolute morality has been diluted or altogether disappeared. The adjudications that arise in a myriad of criminal and civil conflicts presumably restore the fairness or equilibrium that is otherwise lacking. Egregious harm to another or others, while sometimes called “evil” is not evil in some religious or dogmatic sense, but is evil in that it is far from a norm of civility that has replaced Judeo-Christian morality. Although “evil” appears as an absolute term, it is now used in a relative sense. It is only relatively absolute. From a logical point of view of course “relatively absolute” makes no more sense than saying “truthful lie,” but in our fluid and bereft consciousness, this seems to be where we are.
Unlike our present hybrid or false morality (secular from beginning to end), true morality insists that right and wrong are God-given, that the ethical rules of life precede all life, that those rules are only known through supernatural revelation, and that the social order does not exist so we all can get along with each other. Rather, society exists and must cohere so that we may become more worthy of the God who created us, and, through following His rules, we may glorify His eternal and Holy Name. These rules must be intelligible and enforced. Holy Scripture states, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these [the means of sustenance and personal growth] will be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33)
The above view of morality and law is considered by various pundits to be relegated to the backwater of history, and thus is sometimes called “a traditional view of morality.” Likewise, our legal system is now treated in most law schools as having its own integrity, and not founded on any principles (eternal in nature) outside of that law. However, this was not always the case. The foundation of our law can be understood more readily if we consider the work of the founder of modern English Law philosophy, William Blackstone. He understood that the law originated in an order of the universe, including a moral as well as physical order, that preceded the creation of law, and on which law was based.
For Blackstone, there were six types of law, but for our purposes, here are three of the six:
“1..Law as a rule of human action. ‘. . . the precepts by which man, the noblest of all sublunary beings, a creature endowed with both reason and free will, is commanded to make use of those faculties in the general regulation of his behavior.
“2.Law of nature. ‘These are the eternal, immutable laws of good and evil, to which the Creator Himself in all His dispensations conforms; and which He has enabled human reason to discover, so far as they are necessary for the conduct of human actions. ’
“3.Revealed law. ‘The doctrines . . . delivered [by an immediate and direct revelation] we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures . . . . Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.’”
Reflecting on the above, we see that we are creatures “endowed” with free will and reason. Neither of these incredible gifts originated in ourselves. They are not biological in origin, nor are they a result of evolution. Rather, they inhere in the creation of humanity by a Creator who created us in His image. Further, the laws of good and evil are immutable, meaning that they are not sociological constructs subject to variability according to time and place. Thus, when the philosopher Frederick Nietzsche envisages a “transvaluation of values” where – under his “God is dead” scenario – that which is good may be considered bad and that which is bad may be considered good based on the valuations of an evolved ubermensch (“superman”), he is expressing a highly intellectual wish, not a reality. The universe, being immutable, cannot by using free will reverse good and evil. In the same way, the flight of planes can take place, whereby the planes do not fall back to Earth, but their flight in no way changes the law of gravity nor proves the law of gravity to be false. Eventually, airplanes must return to earth.
Blackstone’s “revealed law” poses the greatest obstacle to our law professors and to humanity in the English-speaking world, including America. That view which elevates the moral law of the Old and New Testaments to the highest level, a level not to suffer contradiction, is untenable for non-Christian religionists, but most especially for the modern breed of leftwing cultural Marxists and secular humanists. Homosexuality, adultery, abortion/infanticide, lewdness, fornication, incest, debauchery, are just as wrong today as they were 3500 years ago. The modern atheists want the Hustler/Playboy philosophy of human sexuality, but are in such conflict with eternal moral values that they are surprised and appalled when those values produce a very long list of public figures who have mistreated women.
Thus, we are facing a corrupt reductio. Post-Judeo-Christian morality is replaced by civility, and the eternal, immutable moral law is replaced by our very mutable legal system. The legality of the legal system is defined by that system itself, and even conservative jurists refer to themselves as original textualists and not as natural law advocates. Without the immutable, Scripture-based moral law, how long will it be before anarchy overtakes us?
