Right & Wrong

[The Light]

I must say that in my short time on this forum, you guys, my fellow posters, have really made me think more, study harder, and spend more time connecting with my Lord. Because of that I feel I am growing and for that I am truly thankful.

To the topic at hand.......

In another thread the topic of being good has been discussed and it got me to thinking about what being good actually is and what I have been able to draw as a conclusion is that good and bad are purely human contructs that describe how we feel about things have no objective bearing in and of themselves. Right and wrong on the other hand seem to be a bit different in that there is an objective standard for what is not right and that standard is God's will as expressed to us in His Word.

What I am saying is that God is totally sovereign and as such has the authority to be the one who can give laws and mandates pertaining to any and everything including man's behavior and ways of thinking. Wrong then, is something that only comes into existence when God speaks creating a command to act or a prohibition against certain actions and people act against the commands and mandates of God. This means that NO ACT in and of itself can be either right or wrong without relating it to what God says. Without Him, all acts are just, acts; but with His Word being given, a guideline for behavior is born that reveals what is wrong and therefore also lets us know what is righteous.

So to be clear I am saying that acts like killing, plundering things that do not belong to you, slavery, etc. are NOT wrong in and of themselves. They can only be considered as objectively wrong based on one thing and that is God's ruling pertaining to these actions. For instance, if God says that a person should sacrifice and kill a child (as in the case of Abramham and Isaac), the act of killing would not be wrong. The only wrong that the person commanded to act could commit would be that of not obeying God's command.

Right and Wrong have no objective meanings without God's command and therefore, should be view in terms of obedience to God as opposed to looking at actions as being either innately good or innately bad. In other words, NOTHING is wrong unless God indicates that it is. We would do well to be humble enough to look at things and come to grips with the idea that right in right and wrong is wrong simply because God says so. We need no other underlying reasoning, we need not understand it, we just need to know what god commands and then align ourselves and our thinking with what God wants.

 

[WIP]

Romans 2:
12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;
13 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)

 

[Free]

I must say that in my short time on this forum, you guys, my fellow posters, have really made me think more, study harder, and spend more time connecting with my Lord. Because of that I feel I am growing and for that I am truly thankful.

To the topic at hand.......

In another thread the topic of being good has been discussed and it got me to thinking about what being good actually is and what I have been able to draw as a conclusion is that good and bad are purely human contructs that describe how we feel about things have no objective bearing in and of themselves. Right and wrong on the other hand seem to be a bit different in that there is an objective standard for what is not right and that standard is God's will as expressed to us in His Word.

What I am saying is that God is totally sovereign and as such has the authority to be the one who can give laws and mandates pertaining to any and everything including man's behavior and ways of thinking. Wrong then, is something that only comes into existence when God speaks creating a command to act or a prohibition against certain actions and people act against the commands and mandates of God. This means that NO ACT in and of itself can be either right or wrong without relating it to what God says. Without Him, all acts are just, acts; but with His Word being given, a guideline for behavior is born that reveals what is wrong and therefore also lets us know what is righteous.

So to be clear I am saying that acts like killing, plundering things that do not belong to you, slavery, etc. are NOT wrong in and of themselves. They can only be considered as objectively wrong based on one thing and that is God's ruling pertaining to these actions. For instance, if God says that a person should sacrifice and kill a child (as in the case of Abramham and Isaac), the act of killing would not be wrong. The only wrong that the person commanded to act could commit would be that of not obeying God's command.

Right and Wrong have no objective meanings without God's command and therefore, should be view in terms of obedience to God as opposed to looking at actions as being either innately good or innately bad. In other words, NOTHING is wrong unless God indicates that it is. We would do well to be humble enough to look at things and come to grips with the idea that right in right and wrong is wrong simply because God says so. We need no other underlying reasoning, we need not understand it, we just need to know what god commands and then align ourselves and our thinking with what God wants.

The main problem with this line of thinking is that if something is wrong because God commands it, it could be wrong to do a certain thing at one point in time and then right at another time. In other words, we would be subject to the whims of God. In addition, someone could claim, as happens every now and then, that God commanded them to do something which go against either the Bible or the laws of the land, or both, and no one could say otherwise. Even more than that, two or more people could claim that God is telling them to contradictory things and there would be no way to say who is doing right and who is doing wrong. If there are actions people are committing that are not mentioned in Scripture, then how does one determine whether they are right or wrong, other than the persons says God commanded them to do them? This makes any concepts of good and evil purely subjective, and hence meaningless.

The biblical position, and best philosophical position, is that actions are good, or evil, based on the nature of God. God is perfect and his character and nature such that he is good. Any good action then is in agreement with the nature of God and any evil action would be contrary to the nature of God. What this means is that good and evil are objective and there is a standard by which good and evil can be measured--God's nature.

That is the only way that we can say that what Hitler did was, in fact, evil, or that killing babies for fun is evil. Such things are evil even if someone claims God told them to do it. They are clearly against the nature of God and therefore, truly evil. This is also why certain things are considered evil by all people, in all times, and in all places.

 

[The Light]

The biblical position, and best philosophical position, is that actions are good, or evil, based on the nature of God. What this means is that good and evil are objective and there is a standard by which good and evil can be measured--God's nature.

That is the only way that we can say that what Hitler did was, in fact, evil, or that killing babies for fun is evil. Such things are evil even if someone claims God told them to do it. They are clearly against the nature of God and therefore, truly evil. This is also why certain things are considered evil by all people, in all times, and in all places.

I must disagree with your assertion about the Biblical position on God's nature. We are told very little about the specifics of what God's nature is. All we know is that He is our Sovereign God that He loves us and expects obedience to His commands. We have no way of knowing what it means to be God, what comprises His "godness", etc. We just know that God is, not WHAT God is. His nature is beyond us.

The way we can know that Hitler's actions were TRULY evil is if what he did violated rules, prohibitions, or mandates revealed to man by God. We are not able to understand God's nature but we have been blessed with His Word and it reveals God's will and how He feels about certain things to us. That is our guideline.

All people of all times hardly agree on evil and good. We can look to the Bible and see that under the law of Moses, God's Law said that if a man has sex with a virgin who is not betrothed (regardless of whether or not it was rape or consensual) he is obliged to marry her. Today, people would say that such a thing is evil and wrong, yet for those under the Mosaic Law, it was the rule.

The main problem with this line of thinking is that if something is wrong because God commands it, it could be wrong to do a certain thing at one point in time and then right at another time. In other words, we would be subject to the whims of God.

But God is God, so that gives God the right to be SOVEREIGN and do and mandate things as He sees fit! Who are we to judge? The "whims" of God govern man because God is God!
As far as it being wrong to do a certain thing at one point in time and then right at another time, look again at Abraham binding and beginning the process of killing his son. Had it not been for the fact that God explicitly gave Abraham the command to do that, Abraham would not have been right/justified in doing what he did. But having God command the action made the action right because God is God.

In addition, someone could claim, as happens every now and then, that God commanded them to do something which go against either the Bible or the laws of the land, or both, and no one could say otherwise. Even more than that, two or more people could claim that God is telling them to contradictory things and there would be no way to say who is doing right and who is doing wrong. If there are actions people are committing that are not mentioned in Scripture, then how does one determine whether they are right or wrong, other than the persons says God commanded them to do them? This makes any concepts of good and evil purely subjective, and hence meaningless.

Good points. The only way I see us being able to gage the actions of not only these people but us as well is to see if what they claim and what they do lines up with whart God's Word dictates. Obviously if a claim is made that goes against God's Word we can know that it is not from God. For a person claiming that God tells them to do something in particular, they burden of proof rests on them to demonstrate that God actually communicated to them as they claim.

-------
We must remember that we exist, live, move, and have our very being in God. We are His handiwork and are subject to His "whims". Those "whims" have served to bless us, sustain us, and make us better people for His service.
We often make the mistake of viewing God as we view ourselves and that leads to us making statements like "my god wouldn't do that" as if what we think has any control over God's ability to act.

 

[Free]

I must disagree with your assertion about the Biblical position on God's nature. We are told very little about the specifics of what God's nature is. All we know is that He is our Sovereign God that He loves us and expects obedience to His commands. We have no way of knowing what it means to be God, what comprises His "godness", etc. We just know that God is, not WHAT God is. His nature is beyond us.

I don't have the time for a full response, so I will just respond quickly to this. Scripture explicitly states many things about the nature of God, including that he is love. And we can also deduce many other things about the nature of God. So while we can't fully comprehend or understand God's nature, we certainly know many things about his nature and more than enough to backup my assertion that what I have stated is indeed the best biblical and philosophical position.

 

[Tristan]

I must say that in my short time on this forum, you guys, my fellow posters, have really made me think more, study harder, and spend more time connecting with my Lord. Because of that I feel I am growing and for that I am truly thankful.

To the topic at hand.......

In another thread the topic of being good has been discussed and it got me to thinking about what being good actually is and what I have been able to draw as a conclusion is that good and bad are purely human contructs that describe how we feel about things have no objective bearing in and of themselves. Right and wrong on the other hand seem to be a bit different in that there is an objective standard for what is not right and that standard is God's will as expressed to us in His Word.

What I am saying is that God is totally sovereign and as such has the authority to be the one who can give laws and mandates pertaining to any and everything including man's behavior and ways of thinking. Wrong then, is something that only comes into existence when God speaks creating a command to act or a prohibition against certain actions and people act against the commands and mandates of God. This means that NO ACT in and of itself can be either right or wrong without relating it to what God says. Without Him, all acts are just, acts; but with His Word being given, a guideline for behavior is born that reveals what is wrong and therefore also lets us know what is righteous.

So to be clear I am saying that acts like killing, plundering things that do not belong to you, slavery, etc. are NOT wrong in and of themselves. They can only be considered as objectively wrong based on one thing and that is God's ruling pertaining to these actions. For instance, if God says that a person should sacrifice and kill a child (as in the case of Abramham and Isaac), the act of killing would not be wrong. The only wrong that the person commanded to act could commit would be that of not obeying God's command.

Right and Wrong have no objective meanings without God's command and therefore, should be view in terms of obedience to God as opposed to looking at actions as being either innately good or innately bad. In other words, NOTHING is wrong unless God indicates that it is. We would do well to be humble enough to look at things and come to grips with the idea that right in right and wrong is wrong simply because God says so. We need no other underlying reasoning, we need not understand it, we just need to know what god commands and then align ourselves and our thinking with what God wants.

There is an issue with "do it merely because it's God's will." It's argument from authority and is a logical fallacy. I don't obey God just because he's God. I don't even obey God because he's perfect. The reason I obey the will of God is because he has shown me that his ways are better than mine. He has explained to me and demonstrated that he's right. It's not just "because I'm God you must obey me." He has shown that I'm sinful and in need of grace and I answer the call.

I agree that no action itself is wrong. That's why I'm a bit liberal about hot topics like homosexuality and abortion.

 

[Deborah13]

I must disagree with your assertion about the Biblical position on God's nature. We are told very little about the specifics of what God's nature is. All we know is that He is our Sovereign God that He loves us and expects obedience to His commands. We have no way of knowing what it means to be God, what comprises His "godness", etc. We just know that God is, not WHAT God is. His nature is beyond us.

I must say that scripture tells us we can know much about the nature of God, the Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, they are One.

Joh 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
Joh 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

The way we can know that Hitler's actions were TRULY evil is if what he did violated rules, prohibitions, or mandates revealed to man by God. We are not able to understand God's nature but we have been blessed with His Word and it reveals God's will and how He feels about certain things to us. That is our guideline.

All people of all times hardly agree on evil and good. We can look to the Bible and see that under the law of Moses, God's Law said that if a man has sex with a virgin who is not betrothed (regardless of whether or not it was rape or consensual) he is obliged to marry her. Today, people would say that such a thing is evil and wrong, yet for those under the Mosaic Law, it was the rule.

Well, already I can see where there would be a

But God is God, so that gives God the right to be SOVEREIGN and do and mandate things as He sees fit! Who are we to judge? The "whims" of God govern man because God is God!
As far as it being wrong to do a certain thing at one point in time and then right at another time, look again at Abraham binding and beginning the process of killing his son. Had it not been for the fact that God explicitly gave Abraham the command to do that, Abraham would not have been right/justified in doing what he did. But having God command the action made the action right because God is God.



Good points. The only way I see us being able to gage the actions of not only these people but us as well is to see if what they claim and what they do lines up with whart God's Word dictates. Obviously if a claim is made that goes against God's Word we can know that it is not from God. For a person claiming that God tells them to do something in particular, they burden of proof rests on them to demonstrate that God actually communicated to them as they claim.

-------
We must remember that we exist, live, move, and have our very being in God. We are His handiwork and are subject to His "whims". Those "whims" have served to bless us, sustain us, and make us better people for His service.
We often make the mistake of viewing God as we view ourselves and that leads to us making statements like "my god wouldn't do that" as if what we think has any control over God's ability to act.

 

[The Light]

Scripture explicitly states many things about the nature of God, including that he is love. And we can also deduce many other things about the nature of God. So while we can't fully comprehend or understand God's nature, we certainly know many things about his nature and more than enough to backup my assertion that what I have stated is indeed the best biblical and philosophical position.

Scripture tells us what charactor traits God chooses to exhibit. It does not even remotely uncover the nature of God. Love for example is something the scriptures say God is. When we read the scripture we can see that though love is a charactor trait God can exhibit far better than could we, He is more than just love. God is, and what God is is sovereign and unencumbered by the parameters of descriptive human terminology.

 

[The Light]

The reason I obey the will of God is because he has shown me that his ways are better than mine. He has explained to me and demonstrated that he's right. It's not just "because I'm God you must obey me." He has shown that I'm sinful and in need of grace and I answer the call.

But what is sin aside from missing the mark set by God, (the ultimate authority), for us? The Biblical terms for sin that have been translated from Greek and Hebrew literally refer to missing a target.
Have you considered the reasons why God's ways are right? Are they right because they are somehow innately right apart from God or are they right because they are God's ways? My best answer is that right is right because God, the author of all things, makes it so. He is the one who sets the mark for us and when we miss that mark, we have then sinned against God.
The reason we should obey the will of God is because it is the will of God! He has designed the universe, life, the rules of nature, as well as having set the parameters of existence that we must abide within.

 

[Tristan]

But what is sin aside from missing the mark set by God, (the ultimate authority), for us? The Biblical terms for sin that have been translated from Greek and Hebrew literally refer to missing a target.
Have you considered the reasons why God's ways are right? Are they right because they are somehow innately right apart from God or are they right because they are God's ways? My best answer is that right is right because God, the author of all things, makes it so. He is the one who sets the mark for us and when we miss that mark, we have then sinned against God.
The reason we should obey the will of God is because it is the will of God! He has designed the universe, life, the rules of nature, as well as having set the parameters of existence that we must abide within.

Sin is putting yourself in the place of God. Missing the mark is the result of sin, not the cause or nature of it.

I believe that good exists independently of God. I also don't believe evil is a thing in itself. Evil is the absence of good. So it's not a matter of God choosing good or evil, it's that perfection is good and God is perfect...so God is good. When God created the universe, it was good because it was perfect...but the nature of "difference"...the nature of there being anything other than a uniform soup of energy means that evil is a necessary byproduct. It's inevitable.

Because sin was inevitable, God needed a plan to help us. The plan of salvation was set into motion from the foundation of the Earth. He knew that sin would happen, so he planned for it. God gives us a way out.

 

[Free]

Sin is putting yourself in the place of God. Missing the mark is the result of sin, not the cause or nature of it.

On the contrary, one of the Hebrew definitions of sin literally means to "miss the mark". Putting oneself in God's place is a sin, not the definition of sin.

I believe that good exists independently of God.

This is a significant error. This means that "good" is greater than God, or at least that God is subject to good, and therefore there must be something else which is even greater than God, whether it is the good or something greater than both God and good.

This is the other horn of the Euthyphro dilemma (the first of which is given in the OP), which is a false dilemma, as far as Christianity is concerned anyway.