Man’s Pursuit of Utopia

In “The New Atlantis,” Francis Bacon gives us a picture of the ideal state of humanity. In this ideal state, men possess the highest of moral qualities. The people of this Baconian community are devout, virtuous, and upright. In this utopia, science is the cause and ground for why man has been able to attain such happiness. Here, science is practiced perfectly and because the right method of science is employed, sound science is the result. And the product of sound science is the natural elevation of man to his proper place of absolute autonomous rule and reign over the physical world. In such a utopia, man acquires unimaginable cooperation, unsurpassed peace, and unceasing harmony.

Since men have existed, they have been in pursuit of the summum bonum. Bacon is clearly no exception. The problem with such lofty goals is that the manner in which each man defines the highest good differs almost to the man. What is humanity’s highest good? Philosophers have offered a number of alternatives for the highest good over the years and that is just the beginning of the problem. The answers have ranged from hedonism to rational eudemonism to ethical pluralism and many others. Bacon believes, as do many of his ardent students, that science has or is the solution to man’s problems. Not only can science define the highest good, it can carve out the path to this wonderful utopia.

In his book, “That Hideous Strength,” C.S. Lewis uses a fictional novel to expose the naïve belief that scientific materialism can actually deliver the utopia it promises. For modern readers, we cannot help but envision the same experiment guided by communism. One of the main characters of the novel, Mark Studdock, from the very beginning, is moved about like a pawn without any regard for what he might hold as the highest good. The arrangement at the N.I.C.E. is deliberately vague, slippery, and impossible for Mark to quantify or understand. The leaders of the N.I.C.E. clearly place little value on Mark as an individual. They only see him as a means to an end. In time, Lewis reveals that this is how the N.I.C.E. operates. This is their core philosophy. What matters is the ideal, not the person. Individuals are depersonalized and valued only for their ability to achieve the ideal. If they are deemed unhelpful, they are quickly disposed of in short order. Additionally, the N.I.C.E. seems to operate upon a purely pragmatic ethic. What is moral and just is that which promotes the ideal. If murder promotes the ideal, then murder is moral. If lying promotes the ideal, then lying is moral. If torture and false arrest and imprisonment promote the ideal, then these things are moral. One does not have to read about the N.I.C.E. for long before they realize that this utopia is indeed the strangest utopia one could ever imagine.

What Lewis is getting at is that thing which Bacon never seemed to consider. One man’s utopia is another man’s nightmare. One man may consider unrestricted access to another man’s wife whenever he pleases as utopia while for couple; such a scenario is much closer to hell. The modern ISIS group is a perfect example. Recently, ISIS terrorists that do well on the battlefield are rewarded with female slaves to do with them as they please. For these godless terrorists, such an arrangement may very well represent utopia. For the female slaves, it is sheer hell.

When man is the measure of all things the most natural question in the world is, “which man?” Utopian thinking requires criticism of the current state of affairs. One has to ask what the basis is for such criticism. How does one man look at the world and see deficiencies? Where does this idea that things ought to be better, originate? It is the myth and folly of rational thinkers to suppose that science can answer that question. It is not a scientific question. Moreover, it seems equally implausible for one to consider that a rationalist could provide a cogent answer. In that question, the question of the highest good, the summum bonum, is bound up a mystery, a puzzle that neither science nor pure rationalism can solve. Indeed, the solution rests someplace else.

The motives and values of the N.I.C.E. are clearly a very different set of values held by those of St. Anne. Who is to say, if man is the measure, which set of values ought to be preferred. How can we appeal to science to settle such a dispute? How could we appeal to logic to settle the matter? Indeed, an appeal must be made and that appeal must be made to that which stands over humanity, that which transcends humanity. There is no other way to address the riddle that is utopia.

The Moral Implosion of American Culture

Two very interesting things took place this week that caught my attention. The first was a spot that Shawn Hannity aired about spring break and the behavior that college students engage in when they head to the annual ritual. One student was asked to describe their drinking routine. He said they begin drinking as soon as they get up and they only stop drinking when they pass out. This behavior goes on all week. For years we have all known what goes on during the spring break ritual. We know there is abusive drinking, abuse of drugs, violence, and numerous instances of lewd sexual behavior.

In one instance, the reported talked to one young man who watched two girls have sex with five guys on the beech in public for all to see. In another instance, the reported talked about a young woman that stood on a platform with her bottoms off and allowed anyone who wanted to come by and grope her without embarrassment. I don't know if spring break is worse than it used to be because I never participated in the event. I suspect it is worse but I also suspect that it has always involved drunken lewd behavior, if not so much in the open, then behind closed doors. In other words, I suspect there has always been a lot of fornication between young men and women that do not know each other and will likely never see each other again. Parents with the kind of money it requires to send a kid off to spring break know what happens there. Shawn Hannity and the reporter both seemed shock by the behavior and maybe they were. We all should be shocked by such immorality. But can we provide the sort of rational justification for that shock that we once could?

Another story that came out this week is the sad story of the Mozilla CEO. In 2008, Brendan Eich donated $1000 to California's proposition 8 to ban gay marriage. Little did he know that in 2014, that his personal beliefs about gay marriage would cost him his career in a country that boasts about religious freedom. America has seemingly decided that it is immoral to oppose gay sex or the gay lifestyle or gay marriage. It is no longer acceptable to have a different moral opinion about the nature of gay sex than mainstream culture. More than a few have argued that this is not an infringement on religious freedom because corporations have a right to hire and fire whomever they please. If this is true, then religious discrimination is now legal. The whole point about religious freedom is that you should be able to hold to your deeply held religious beliefs without fear of losing your job or without fear of being eliminated from contention for a job purely on the basis of your religion.

When one examines these two stories, they should evaluate the underlying presuppositions for both. Long ago now, America has said to true biblical Christianity that our morality is out of date, that the Bible cannot be trusted, and that the kind of God we preach does not exist. Liberal Christians have been preaching tolerance and love for so long now that morality, sanctification, and holiness have simply faded into the background and died the same death as modernism. I would say that it is the individual that decides what is right and wrong in our culture. But that is not quite right either as the Mozilla story indicates. We have a real problem on our hands. Spring break kids are deciding that open orgies are perfectly fine. Why not? On the other hand, corporations are firing good men because they simply have a different view of homosexuality. Where are we as a culture when it comes to morality?

Since we have removed Christian theism as the objective reference point for moral behavior, what are the remaining options? If we went with private subjectivism, the college kids should be allowed to do as they please and everyone else should view their behavior as different rather than offensive or immoral. One person likes chocolate and another vanilla. One woman takes a high view of sex while another sees it as nothing more than an opportunity for physical pleasure. Neither is moral or immoral. They are mere preferences. However, it is clear that private subjectivism does not work in our culture. If it worked, Brendan Eich would still have his job. What we see with Eich is cultural relativism. This is a subjectivist form of ethics similar to private subjectivism but it extends to the majority of the culture. If the cultural majority deems something as good or bad, then it means simply that the culture likes that behavior or does not like it. But Americans think that cultures cannot be allowed to determine their own morality because Hitler taught us this lesson all too well.

If private subjectivism is a valid way to view ethical behavior, then how could one condemn date rape under such a scheme? Why shouldn't the boys at spring break take advantage of every girl they can seduce or trick? One might say that we should never hurt or take advantage of someone else. But that is not consistent with private subjectivism. That abandons private subjectivism and seeks to impose an objectivist position into the scheme. Such a move is rationally inconsistent. Moreover, why should one human care about taking advantage of another human? After all, we are not only just sophisticated apes, we are worse than that. We are, according to modern science, nothing more than extremely fascinating accidents of nature.

If cultural relativism is a valid way to view ethical behavior, then how does the culture progress? If the culture is always right, then how did we move beyond slavery? At one time, slavery was morally acceptable in this culture. How did that change if cultural relativism is valid? To go against the culture would be immoral. But great men like Martin Luther King Jr. did just that. And we laud him as a hero and rightfully so. Moreover, cultural relativism would dictate that we stay out of the affairs of other cultures.

Both private subjectivism and cultural relativism fail as systems for ethical behavior when subjected to critical examination. Perhaps we should be more critical. Human beings are created in the image of God. We exist to bring God glory. We exist to honor Him in all that we do. We exist to be a reflection of His image in all of creation to one another and back to God. For this reason, human life has value, dignity, and worth. For this reason, others are to be respected, honored, and appreciated. Because this is true honor and shame are possible. Any appeal to right and wrong, to good and evil, are bankrupt apart from the basic presupposition that God exists and that He brought man into existence for His own glory. Philosophy has failed to establish ethics apart from God. Not only does Christian theism provide for ethical behavior, it provides the motivation for such behavior as well. Fear God and keep His commandments for this is what every human should do!

Truth or Consequences

A survey of philosophy and of human experience strongly indicates that human beings desire the consequences of God without accepting the truth of divine reality. One has to look no farther than the plethora of ethical constructs in the various worldviews in order to understand what I mean. Some philosophers reduce ethics to two basic types: teleological and deontological. The former view focuses on the production of a particular result (pragmatic) while the latter focuses its attention on inherent duty or obligation (rule). It is clear that the fuss over ethics in our world isn't going away any time soon.

Why is it that human beings have such an irresistible attraction to ethics? There are a number of answers offered up to this question, most of which offer little more than fodder for philosophical squabble. Perhaps the question comes down to the highest good that is to be sought in human experience. Hedonism would argue that pleasure is the highest good. Moreover, it is the greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest amount of people that humans ought to seek. But one cannot help sensing the arbitrariness in this point of view. What is pleasurable for one may not be pleasurable for another. Who defines pleasure? One person contends that the fine arts produce the kind of pleasure humans ought to seek while another counters that sexual pleasure is the type of pleasure humans ought to seek. On and on we could go about how humans ought to seek this or that kind of pleasure. The disagreement has raged for centuries and it shows no signs of letting up today.

Another view, rational eudemonism claims that the highest good consists in the exercise of the highest human faculty, which is of course, reason. The highest good consists of disciplining the lower appetites and bringing them under the control of human reason. It is sad to say but a large percentage of professing Christians fit this category even though they label their system "Christian."

Yet, another view holds that there isn't one intrinsic good we ought to seek but rather we should seek to maximize all pleasures of all types whenever and wherever possible. In other words, there is intrinsic good in pleasure, in knowledge, in virtue and other areas as well. Ethical pluralism seeks to maximize all the possible areas of highest good rather than isolate a particular one. In other words, the highest good is the highest good we can glean from each of the areas of human experience. However, we cannot help but wonder what makes anything intrinsically good? Still, we seem to be confronted with the charge of arbitrariness. Who says what good is and who says what is good?

"Ethical theories not only aim to prioritize moral principles; they aim to tell us the meaning of moral terms, concepts, and principles." [Cowan/Spiegel, The Love of Wisdom, 324] What we have examined thus far begs the question of what exactly makes good, well, good. Where does the concept "good" enter the human experience? Why does it even matter? But matter it obviously does. There is no denying that goodness matters, at least not for the sane person as far as it goes.

Morality serves a very real purpose in life. It anchors meaning, provides order and structure, and preserves the species. Is it then the mechanism of evolutionary processes solely intended to aid the survival of the species? Somehow, we seem to know that there is more to morality or ethical theory than just the survival of the species. We don't derive nearly the same kind of satisfaction from eating dinner as we do when we do the right thing especially when doing the right thing was not the easiest thing to do. Yet, we must eat if we are to survive as a species. There is something fascinating and mysterious about morality that philosophers and scientists have yet to solve. Why have these specialists not been able to solve the riddle that is morality? I suggest it is because they have been looking for answers in all the wrong places. Typical.

Before we can answer the mystery of morality, we must answer the question of the summum bonum, or the highest good. What is the highest human good? "The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God, and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person." (Ecc. 12:13) The conclusion or sum of all of life is for every person to fear God and to keep His commandments. It is in these words that not only do we see the highest good of humanity but also the very anchor of divine and hence, human morality.

The consequence of God is seen in the ethical theories that humanity grapples with day in and day out. We are confronted with the fact of morality no less than our own existence. Just as light stands in our path each and every day, so too does the fact of morality. It refuses to shrink into the shadows and even though its details have been twisted and contorted beyond recognition in some cases, its principle, like the Sun in desert sky, refuses to hide. The awareness of right and wrong, morality and immorality exists everywhere humans exist. Every philosophical system known to man fails to overcome the obstacle of arbitrariness where ethical systems are concerned. There is one and only one worldview that accounts for morality. That system is Christian theism.

The argument for morality from Christian theism is simply that if there is morality, then God exists: there is no God; therefore, there is no morality. But there is morality. Therefore, God must exist. In other words, God is the necessary precondition for the experience of human morality. Apart from God, human morality is not just arbitrary; it is unintelligible. But humanity wants the consequent of God's existence, namely morality, without the truth of God's existence.

If humanity wants the consequent of God's existence in the form of morality, then it will also have to eventually face the consequences of rejecting His truth. Either way, humanity will eventually come face to face with both the truth of God's existence and the consequences of that existence, whether it wants to or not. And that existence shines as brightly as ever in the person of Jesus Christ as revealed to us all in the pages of Sacred Scripture.