• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Randal Rauser

Home of progressively evangelical, generously orthodox, rigorously analytic, revolutionary Christian thinking (that's what I'm aiming for anyway)

  • About
  • Books
  • Articles
    • Articles (single)
    • Articles (in series)
  • Audio/Video
    • Audio Interviews, Lectures, and Debates
    • Video Interviews and Lectures
    • Powerpoint Slides
  • Blog
    • Current Posts
    • Blog Archives
  • Podcasts
    • The Tentative Apologist Podcast
    • Archived Podcasts
    • Reviews

Morality, the Divine Right of Kings, and Democracy

November 10, 2010 by Randal

In the last few days I have been hammering on the objective existence of moral facts because this creates a problem for naturalistic and atheistic views of the world (i.e. they don’t have room for such facts). There have been some noble attempts to sidetrack me from this singular purpose. The most notable, posited by Silver Bullet and most notably championed by Aces Lucky, is the following:

“The Christian god apparently once commanded that someone be stoned to death for picking up sticks on a Saturday.

Was this objectively moral? If so, how?”

I haven’t responded directly to this question. Why? Aces Lucky was so frustrated (or distraught) over my intransigence that he even pitched the question to the over-worked Robert Gressis. So why have I refused to engage more directly?

Let’s put this in perspective. Say that you are an advocate of democracy and you’re debating with somebody who repudiates democracy altogether and advocates the divine right of kings. Are you going to take the bait when they start asking you to address the problem of “e-voting” (i.e. electronic voting booths). This is an important issue somewhere down the line but you are simply not going to debate it at length when you need to defend democracy an sich.

By the same token, if somebody questions the existence of any objective morality at all, I am hardly going to get dragged into exegetical debates regarding specific verses in the Old Testament. Sorry, but there are  bigger issues at stake.

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, ethics, morality, naturalism, Old Testament, theism

Footer

Against Malaria Foundation

Against Malaria Foundation

Support Kiva

Support Kiva

Search this website

Archives



Copyright © 2022 • Randal Rauser • A Steady Site