1. Does Genesis 1 actually say, “God said it was very good”?
What *does* it say, and does this have any special significance?
From Genesis 1:
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God *saw* that it was good.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God *saw* that it was good.
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God *saw* that it was good.
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God *saw* that it was good.
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God *saw* that it was good.
31 And God *saw* every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
I think it’s significant that God “saw” that it was good, because this does not leave open the possibility that the earth was made good merely by God’s naming it as such. It was good because God had already created it in a certain way.
Goodness has a specific meaning, not the same as “approved by God”. God’s pronouncement is *descriptive*. The Bible supports a concept of “goodness” that is objective and not arbitrary. Those objects that are “good” may indeed be those same objects that “please God”, but I want to point out that “good” is not synonymous with “pleasing to God.”
(In going somewhere with this. I’ll explain in a moment.)
There is an important truth at stake here. Two phrases can refer to the same object while not meaning the exact same thing. Each phrase may focus on a single aspect of the object. For example, “the wife of Cody” and “the mother of Ira” are the same person. But the meaning of the phrases is not exactly the same.
If we assume “goodness” means exactly the same as “that which is approved by God,” we make the word meaningless. We might as well call it “gloop” and then define God as the all powerful lover of “gloop.” What is “gloop”? It’s the thing the almighty gloop-lover loves, of course!
What is missing from this arbitrary notion of “the good” is any reference to observable facts in reality. Therefore, what is missing is any comprehension of the concept. Therefore, what is missing is the concept.
These points are central to a philosophy. One’s entire approach to thinking, valuing, and even voting can be thrown into error if we botch this question. I know that’s a sweeping claim. But people and nations are never better than the ideas they hold.
And what could be more important than one’s very idea of what goodness means? Not just, “what things are good?” but, “what does it mean that good things are good?”
You may not have an explicit theory of “the good.” But you live every day by the implicit guidance of whatever theory of “the good” you have absorbed from your teachers. The intellectuals of a society –the professors, the authors, the pastors–they have a theory of “the good.” Or they at least have ideas about it and they have learned something of a theory from someone who has thought about it.
Our understanding of the good shapes all our pursuits and motives. Our civilization must get this right–if we will live, long term, and not fall to jihadists or theocratic dictators.
2. A Discussion of the Concept of “Value”
In a philosophical context, I accept the following definition for value: “That which a living being acts to gain or to keep.”
So here’s a starter question (one I’ve brought up before):
If you accepted this definition, wouldn’t you agree that bacteria also have values?
A bacteria doesn’t think about its values because it isn’t conscious. But it certainly does act to take in nutrients. Therefore, nutrients are a value within the context of the life of a bacteria.
According to this line of reasoning, the idea of “value” has broader application than the normal use we would think of when talking about a company’s values or a family’s values. Here’s why such a wider usage is useful: it accurately captures a relevant similarity. That is, all living things are in fact observed to act in a certain way, and this fact of reality gives rise to the need for a concept to capture it: the concept of value.
This is the starting place of understanding “value”–we need to look at the facts of reality that give rise to it. Whatever else we learn about value, this much will always be true: it must be something a living being acts to gain or to keep.
Why does all this matter?
If value is “that which a living being acts to gain or keep,” then we then have a starting place to begin to ask what else we can learn about values on this foundation.
For example, we learn that “values” are only values *to* living things. To explain: There is a fundamental distinction in reality between those things that are living (and must act to continue living) and those things that are not living. The concept of “value” only arises because life is conditional.
Thus understood (and based on observed facts) to pursue a value *means* “to pursue those objects and states which the maintenance of one’s life requires.”
This is a philosophical bombshell.
It means we have facts of reality giving rise not only to the concept of value, but also to the *content* of a value-system. The fact of what values themselves “are” does in fact necessitate that certain objects and states are objectively correct or incorrect as choices. A person that chooses a death-producing course of action is “acting to gain” that which is not gain, but loss–which is a contradiction.
To summarize the above:
If value is that which one acts to gain or keep, then correct values must be those which actually can be gained and kept, and there are correct and incorrect values.
Moreover, we know another important fact about values. It was implicit in what was already said, but it is critically important, and worth emphasizing:
For something to be a “value,” it must be that which an *individual* needs to obtain in order to sustain his *own* life. Values are self-interested, by definition (!)
Value is a relational concept. There are not “values as such,” but, rather, there are only values *for* one individual or for another.
This does not mean values are subjective, as held by the false doctrine of moral relativism. Rather, values are objective facts about the relationship between a given individual and existence.
Values are objective.
This single insight and the implications thereof will eventually revolutionize Christian philosophy and awaken the Christian mind—and heart.
It’s for this reason that I started “Christians Discussing Individualism.”
Discussion?
One more note: This explanation is not a crude move from is to ought, as if I were to say, “Animals do X, therefore people should do Y.” Rather, I have explained that to be a living being means to take certain kinds of action, and we need to act as such, if we will live. Further, I have explained that the concept of “value” arises *because* of this choice. I’m not constructing an argument saying, “You should live, therefore value x, y, and z,” for that would invert the hierarchy. “Should” is a concept that only arises on the basis of having already made the choice to live. I’m saying, “This is what life is, and this is how you must organize your concepts if you choose to live.”
3. What is Faith?
In Christianity, faith is not merely belief that some fact is true or false; it is belief that the Lord will bring a good thing to pass for his people.
The faith is in a promise, and the promise is for blessing. That’s what the our faith means—faith that God will bless.
Consider how the Apostle Paul explains faith. He points mainly to the blessing of eternal life. If there were no eternal life, says Paul, our faith would be worthless (1 Corinthians 15:16). If our hope were only in this world then, we would be greatly pitied (v. 18).
Notice that, for faith to be worth anything, there must be a connection to one’s own self-interest. In fact, faith is inseparable from self-interest. If it were not faith that God would do something *for me* then what would be the reason for faith?
We see the logic of faith.
But this flies in the face of much of what is preached today. Who is wrong? Today’s preachers of selfless duty and self-immolation? Or Paul?
Building on some of the recent topics, I’d like to run an idea by you…
It’s a statement of how I view morality:
“Each individual must choose his values and actions by the standard of man’s life—in order to achieve the purpose of maintaining and enjoying his own life?”
Would you agree? If not, why not?
4. Someone asked, if there is no God, according to a secular moral system, then who decides what is right and wrong? This is meant to make the idea of secular morality seem absurd. I’m not an atheist. But I don’t think that particular criticism against the atheists is valid. That is, a secular morality may be founded on objective reality.
In a secular moral system, there is no “who decides.” Reality dictates the conditions needed for life on earth. Individual people do or do not identify the principles by which life can be achieved. The standard of temporary morality is temporary life, and its purpose is the happiness of the individual. In such a system there need not be a predatory relationship between the strong and the weak.
John Piper describes such an approach to morality and says that in its logical approach its basis is correct. He talks about the objectivity of morality and its basis in human flourishing here: http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-ethics-of-ayn-rand.
A secular moral system doesn’t rest on a presupposition that there is no creator. If you were agnostic you could still have this view. In this view, reality gives us the information needed to come to some foundational moral principles (meaning, principles about how human beings may flourish). But people have the capacity to evade that knowledge or to simply act on whim without concerning themselves with knowledge. This is the reason the field of ethics exists: it takes careful reflection to decide which principles support life in the long term and to decide how these principles should be applied.
People should take the time to think about their moral code. They need to if they want to live. (That’s why my blog is called “If We Will Live.”) But the necessity of choice does not therefore mean that the choice is arbitrary or subjective. (Is a math problem subjective because it takes thought to arrive at an answer?) We may choose wisely or unwisely, to reference Indiana Jones.
Why do people disagree, though? Because some are misled and others do not value their own lives or their tool of survival, their minds.