All the Pizza Toppings
One restaurant I have never been to is a true ‘Pizza Buffet’. Not a ‘buffet’ as in ‘they’ve made some pizzas and set them out for you’ to choose from, but ‘buffet’ as in, “You start the line by choosing your dough (deep dish, thin, regular, stuffed) and walk down the line adding your own toppings until you give it to the guy at the end, and he bakes if for you. That would be fun, eh?
I’ve never been to a restaurant like that, but that seems to be the way that many people approach their morality. Add a little bit of this, a lot of that, leave that off entirely, and bake. But there are two problems with this form of moral reasoning:
You can’t build a society on it. If George believes in open marriage, and includes your wife, your belief in monogamy is… tested.
It implies a very unsatisfactory meaning for ‘morality’. And one that does not accord, at all, with the way humans think and act.
Turtles all the way down
I suspect you are correct that “nothing comes from nothing.” That does seem, however, to fall short of discrediting the ability to have very deep ethical beliefs and understandings some 300,000 years into our existence as a species. People existed and acted, those actions we observed, and over a very long time, cultures and values emerged. Perhaps ethics falls short, but ethics coming from nothing aside from objective morality does not seem a given.
It is perfectly true that when you are standing on the back of a turtle one can notice the stability, the age of the moss, and the sun rising overhead. But when discussing the foundation of these things, it is important to ask yourself… is it turtles all the way down?
You can, obviously, live your life, marry your wife, raise your children, all on the back of the turtle. But if it is important to you, you do need to ask, is it turtles all the way down?
Morality and Ethics are things we do, things we teach, and things we believe. But if we are going to be honest with ourself it is important to ask… is it turtles all way down?
When I decide not to kill my neighbour, or sleep with his wife, am I merely making a choice that will make the rest of my life comfortable? Or am I acting on evolved instinct and layered cultural transmission? Or, even if I could get away with it, would there be something actually… wrong… with killing my neighbor and sleeping with his wife? Is it turtles all the way down?
It is possible to say, “Human evolution has led me to the point where my brain and hormone pathways inhibit me from killing him and sleeping with her.” It is nonsense, but it is possible. It is possible to say, “Multiple generations of human socialisation have left me reluctant to sleep with her after killing him.” It is wrong, but it is possible.
The turtle question forces us to ask ourself… do I really believe that my reluctance to murder and commit adultery are merely gene expressions or social conditioning? So if someone else has different pathways and different conditioning I shouldn’t feel any moral outrage no matter what actions he performs? (Altho I will, of course, since my genes and social conditioning have taught me that too!) Is it turtles all the way down?
All the Toppings
This still leaves the question, what to do for those who do not have the same belief system, to persuade to act more ethically? What of those behaviors deemed immoral by the Bible, which get little to no mention, such as those in my last post?
There is something unique about ‘truth’. Well, there are lots of things, but the issue I wish to address here is: it is indivisible. Once you start discussing the ‘truth’ of something, you can’t mix and match. The pizza has to have all of the toppings on it.
Jas 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
When an engineer goes to build a bridge, he can’t accept some engineering principles, some math, and reject other parts. Oh, he can, and should, decide which principles are actually true but he can’t accept some true principles, and reject others because he doesn’t like them.
The problem I see is that this not all that far off from different religions having different rules according to their own teachings of morality. Each claim to be correct, and superior, much like a cultural value system. Which leaves me wondering if my thought that we might be wise to “take the good from each and enjoy the richness of life” is all that far off.
The problem with this quote is it begs the question and contradicts itself. It assumes a definition of ‘good’ and ‘richness’ exist and that he knows them, and that he can, using those definitions, go out into all the sources of moral wisdom and pick and choose the ones that fit the ‘good’ and ‘richness of light’ definitions. But that is precisely the very issue at hand! Is there such a definition? Does he know it? Because if there is, if there exists an objective definition of ‘good’ and he knows it… then he has no choosing left to do! He has arrived!
If he is able to look at all of the world’s religions and say, “I, myself, know what the objective and eternaleral ‘good’ and ‘richness’ (add ‘beauty’, ‘justice’, etc. Altho they are all subsets of ‘good’) are in each and every one of these…” then he has arrived at a perfect knowledge of morality.
If, on the other hand, very much the other hand, all he means is ‘I like this bit, I don’t like this bit’, or ‘this bit appeals to my human wisdom, that bit doesn’t’… then he has very much not arrived. In judging each of the world’s religions he would be basically saying “I am wiser than Solomon, so I will only pick out the parts of his wisdom I agree with’, “I am more righteous than Job, so I will ignore his sayings I don’t agree with.” He would, in affect, be declaring himself to be God… and what happens to atheism them? Or he would be denying the existence of ‘good’ and ‘richness’, and merely telling us what he liked?
Turtle Sushi
I kind of hope that that title grossed people out, cause that was my goal. That and keeping with the theme, obviously. Turtle soup, sure, I’d try that, but do they make turtle sushi? Would you eat it? Would they cook the turtle parts first?
One enormous issue in morality is that of ‘fitting together’. In my ‘monogamy’ series I am examining a whole series of issues that ‘go together’. And contrasting them with polyamory… where they don’t. I read an article that said, basically, ‘people are happy in polyamory…’ but then it added, almost as afterthought ‘… but they don’t have many children’. Well, that’s societal suicide. A society that goes down that path won’t end up happy, because they won’t exist.
Let us look at God’s Law. The standard Christian view is that there are two primary laws: Love God, and love your neighbour. Underneath those two laws are the ten commandments. They explain aspects of how we are to love God and our neighbour. Then under them is all sorts of ‘case laws’ that tell us more about how to implement the ten commandments.
Now, the problem with ‘choosing’ from these is the same as turtle sushi… one of these things is not like the other. They don’t go together. If you like ‘marriage’ but wish to add ‘Sodomy’, you will find yourself in the position of liking something loving, and something hateful, and they won’t work well together. A morality, like a car, must have all of the parts working together.
Introduction and Conclusion
This post is part of our ‘Pizza and Sushi’ series, in which we have been discussing the importance of religion, morality, and God. And railing on pineapple pizza. This particular post comes after three posts (one, two, three) that focused particularly on the issue of ‘can morality exist without an external lawgiver?’
I have a couple of statements to make as I sign off. The first is that I am not ignoring or avoiding any particular issue in his posts. If he wishes to talk specifically about how gluttony or covetousness fits into the grand scheme of morality, I will speak on that subject. I am not afraid of any moral issue.
The reason that I have been focused in the direction I have been is that I don’t believe that ‘lesser’ issues can be discussed profitably when ‘larger’ issues are still on the table. Can we profitably discuss monogamy when we disagree over ‘Love God’ and ‘Honour your Father’?
The second issue is like unto it. I am continually defining words, and defining them down to their bare minimum. I do that because I believe it is difficult to discuss a concept if everything but the kitchen soup is involved. I would not bring up the ‘war game’ checkers in a discussion with a pacifist.
I also focus on certain issues because I believe that they are the ones that our society has the largest problem with nowadays.
Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!
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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von
Pizza Discussion
The “Pizza Discussion” is a letter exchange with
In it we discuss issues of the importance of religion, God, and morality… comparing them to the importance of Pizza and Sushi. It started when he posted a post entitled‘Religion’and specifically comes from this line: “Arguing over religion strikes me as the same as arguing over whether sushi or pizza is better.”
has also contributed.
Sure the more direct way exists - but just knowing it’s there doesn’t tell you how to get there.
I think a very basic problem comes down to the human ability to know what is moral. The usual way we do this is simply to accept G-d's morality *as taught by human beings.* So are you not, in fact, accepting a human definition of morality? If one persuasive preacher tells you that X is right, and an equally skilled preacher tells you that X is wrong, what objective means do you use to decide who is correct?
Now it seems to me that there are least two reasons to care:
1) the impact on human society (thus, "love your neighbor as yourself") and
2) whatever reward G-d plans for us.
The second one is a bit trickier, as we don't have any way to observe that we've chosen correctly; it all comes down to he said/he said. I have a bit trouble accepting that something that is so subjective could actually be His means of deciding - that all that matters is believing the correct authority when it comes to belief. I therefore suspect that the first reason needs to be more important to Him; otherwise, it's like playing the lottery.
But even the first has its issues, as we see all around us. People disagree to the extent that they believe that murdering somebody who disagrees with you earns Divine favor, and they can rationalize it by pointing to claims about revelation.
My own expectation is that multiple faiths must be "true" in the sense that they lead their followers to behave in ways consistent with the Divine Will - even though they have a lot of difference.
So, how do you avoid the infinite turtles?