GENERATIONAL & CULTURAL INFLUENCES

What does it mean to be a good person? How does someone define what it means to have good morals? Unfortunately, many people believe morality itself is subjective; meaning, it depends more on the culture or generation and its respective beliefs (evolutionary progression of morals). But oppositely, other people believe morality is objective; meaning, it doesn’t change over time, but that it is the same for everyone everywhere, and that those who don’t abide by it are behaving or thinking immorally. How can we know what good really is if morality can be seen in different lights?

OBJECTIVE GOODNESS

Our understanding of morality is helpful, but it’s more important to be on the same page about what it means to be good. Does good have opposing objective and subjective concepts like morality? If one person believes something is good, but another person believes the same thing is bad, does that indicate that morality is objective and that the person who believes that something is bad is morally correct, or are both morally correct but simply hold contrary beliefs to the same thing?

To answer this, we must compare our understanding of good to the source of good to be able to compare it to its opposite. But what is our source for what defines what good is?

ONLY ONE SOURCE FOR OBJECTIVE MORALITY

Perhaps this is where most people who don’t believe in God are more reluctant to agree with objective morality, because the only type of “good” that doesn’t change is founded in objective morality, first known to humankind through the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Bible (Genesis 1:3-7). Therefore, to believe in an unchanging type of moral good is to believe goodness itself was defined by the God who established objective morality.

To believe in subjective goodness, on the other hand, is to believe in the basic evolutionary progression of the idea of goodness. This, however, leads to acting out a belief that has no solid foundation, since again, anything subjective refers to something that is capable of being changed. We’ll address what that means about goodness in a little bit.

TO BE GOOD IS TO BE WHAT WE AREN’T ON OUR OWN

To be good, according to God, is to love: to forgive our enemies and do good to those who hate us. To be good is to follow the Ten Commandments obediently and fearfully (reverentially), since God gave them to us to help us grow closer to Him and to be without sin. It’s also good to repent of our sins, pick up our cross daily and follow Jesus as Lord over all (Matthew 16:24-26). To be good is to live as though to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21)—meaning—to live is to be able to serve God with a grateful, humble and joyous heart, and to die is to be with God for all eternity. In fact, to be good is to drop the idea that we are even good at all, to humbly admit to ourselves and others that the only good we have in us comes from God, that it is in fact not our goodness at all, but His. That would be quite good.

It is as relevant as it is critical to remember and keep close to heart that this life is only a gateway to eternity, and that the way we love God here and now is more important than anything else we do on this side of life. If we don’t have love for God, then we have no love for our neighbors, and that heart posture aims towards the wide gate that leads to hell (Matthew 7:13-14).

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With all of that being said about objective morality and its connectedness to what it means to be good, subjective morality, on the other hand, given its nature of permutation over time, is established by the beliefs humans hold. The type of good associated with subjective morality would have to be subjective as well, meaning, there is no clear definition for it—since the definition is different depending on who you ask, and when.

A HARD TOPIC IN SUBJECTIVE GOODNESS

For some, for instance, it is good to support same sex-marriage because it is all about love and equality. But when it comes to objective morality, it is against the command of God who established that man shall leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24, Ephesians 5:31). This cannot be done with two men, or with two women, therefore it is not good.

But, according to subjective morality, and subjective good for that matter, same-sex marriage is good because it is still under the umbrella of people loving each other, and since love is a good thing, the deception of the devil is that homosexual relationships should be thought of and believed to be good, too. But they aren’t. They do not give glory to God since they contradict His commands, and they do not reflect God’s image (male and female He created them). Neither can they contribute to society as they cannot bear children on their own.

Even in adopting children, they will be ineffective in passing down the fear of the Lord to their children since the very nature of continuing in their relationship doesn’t bear any fear of God, since it itself is in sin. Therefore, homosexual relationships bear no goodness, since God is the source of all that is good, and there is nothing good about homosexual behavior in the eyes of God (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13, Romans 1:26-28).

DECEIVED AND MANIPULATED BY SATAN

Readers, don’t misread my words here. There are many really kind homosexual people in the world today, I’ve met many of them. They are amicable and easy-going, but they are also deceived, and convinced of their deception as some form of truth; but it is not God’s Truth. Any truth aside from that which stems from the Lordship of God in Christ is not truth at all. Satan perverts the Truth and twists its words to make our fleshly desires seem worthy to cling to, when in reality we are clinging to satan’s manipulation. Don’t be deceived, the devil’s lies lead to spiritual death.

SPIRITUAL REDIRECTION

People who believe in love, but whom don’t believe in the God of Scripture, tend to believe if we don’t believe what they believe, we are unaccepting, judgmental and unwilling to see equality of relationships. Whereas for the person who lives in the Truth of the Holy Spirit, we desire to correct those who live apart from the law of God; not by judging them, but by loving them with Truth into the understanding that the God of love doesn’t want anyone to be deceived. God desires that we would be brought into the light of Christ and to live forever in the real Truth of our Lord Jesus (repent from sin, pick up our cross, and follow Him).

It’s not that Christ-followers don’t want people to be happy, and it’s not that we hate people who consider themselves to be homosexuals; rather, we believe they are spiritually lost, deceived, and are in need of spiritual redirection by the work of the grace of God through the Holy Spirit.

GOD’S FOOLISHNESS IS WISER THAN MAN’S WISDOM

To be objectively good is to love, trust, and fear God. To be subjectively good is only to trust oneself under the deceptive belief that we understand life better than our short-sighted idea of God. But to question the omniscience of God is the epitome of human foolishness. Remember this: God’s foolishness is wiser than man’s wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:26).

MORALITY & JUSTICE

Another important point to make about objective morality is that it doesn’t excuse evil by dismissing justice. Subjective morality, on the other hand, excuses evil for the sake of convenience in the way it doesn’t require justice, since it doesn’t have a definitive stance on what is morally wrong.

For instance, some might think that all would agree that Hitler’s actions were unspeakably morally evil; yet, such an extreme belief exclusively belongs to an objectively moral stance. Subjectively, Hitler’s actions were justified by those who actually carried out orders to slaughter innocent people. They didn’t see his commands as morally corrupt, or at least not corrupt enough to stop them from acting on the commands they were given.

OUR NEED FOR AN OBJECTIVE STANCE

When it comes to subjective morality, one can no longer claim factually that what Hitler did was evil, because under the pliability of subjective morality, Hitler was acting upon his belief of good at the time. One man’s idea of good was another’s man’s idea of evil, yet subjective morality claims both are correct in that they interpret evil differently.

Only objective morality can see clearly that evil is opposite of the nature of God, who is the source of all love, and the source of all that is good, and Hitler’s actions were completely void of love or goodness. To agree to this is to agree to the existence of objective morality, which is to agree that there is a Creator of objective morality and therefore of objective good. Furthermore, this type of morality requires justice for sin.

This about this… if there is objective morality, there is a right and wrong, objectively. If there is a wrong, then wrong deserves a consequence, otherwise what is the purpose of understanding right from wrong? There is no purpose to there even being a right or wrong if wrong is acceptable to the Author of what defines right and wrong. The fact that they are two distinctly different stances of judging something is an indication that one is superior than the other; one is acceptable, and the other is deplorable. One receives God’s favor, and the other God’s wrath.

GOD’S HAND OVER THE WORLD

Despite so many people believing in subjective morality and subjective goodness, dismissing the idea of our need for adhering to objective moral beliefs, there are many who believe in the God of the Bible, who acknowledge that His goodness has never changed. This complements the fact that objective morality never changes—that God’s goodness and commandments hold steadfast over time, cultures, generations, and against opposing ideologies. The only reason people are still capable of choosing good today is because God’s Spirit resides in His children, His children seek Him, and His goodness shines through their obedience.

COMING FULL CIRCLE

Subjective goodness is a fallacious perversion of what goodness truly is, and God is not the author of it. Subjective goodness is confusing, and God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33). If we want a clearly defined understanding of goodness, and a scrupulous point of view of morality, then we must repent of our sins, choose God’s ways, and be humbled into accepting Jesus as our Lord. There is no other way: He is the way, the Truth, and the life, and no one comes to our Father God in heaven but through Jesus (John 14:6).

Photo by Jack Swords on Unsplash