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Pastor Jay's Blog

Moral Dilemma Pimple-Popping

 

 

In many college 101 philosophy classes there is an unstated class project underway from day one:  how many freshman can be brought to doubt and then reject the Christian faith.  This happens in the biology classes as well, but today our focus is the philosophy class.  A common approach in the philosophy class is to put questions to the freshman that will cause a faith upheaval.  What kinds of questions are used for this?  There are two types; questions of ontological dilemma and questions of moral dilemma.

Before we look at the dilemmas, I want you to understand what these questions are doing.  These questions are meant to put pressure on your beliefs.  They squeeze and squeeze until what is under the surface pops out; and for many it is the puss of worldliness.  This is exactly what the professor is wanting to achieve.  He wants to show that you are just like him.  You might be religious, but underneath you have the same commitments, expectations, and practices as everyone else.  Therefore, he wants to expose the moral ambiguity that will topple a religious commitment. 

How are we to understand this?  We must remember that the professor is operating independently from God, and therefore he does what is right in his own eyes.  And from that standpoint there really are moral dilemmas.  When the Creator is ignored or rejected, contradictions and dilemmas of every form and fashion will arise.  If he can get dilemmas lodged in the mind of his students, he can then effectively make them into his own image.  He is establishing them as independent thinkers who will not be able to reconcile all matters just as he is unable to reconcile all matters in his life.   He has exposed their underlying worldliness, capitalized on it, and exacerbated it so that it now dominates their thoughts.  If this moral confusion gets established, it is just a short step to moral compromise becoming a part of everyday life for the student.  This is when the broad road leading to destruction becomes a freeway.

From here two things are going to happen.  First, God’s word is sought by God’s people and the answers that come will satisfy those who are new creatures in Christ.  Secondly, the professor and other unbelievers will reject those answers as unsatisfactory.  Why?  Because biblical answers depend on both God’s wisdom and God’s sovereign control.  God’s word instructs us to obey him and to leave the results in his sovereign hands.  In short, biblical answers call for biblical faith.  The unbeliever will not tolerate this.  Their faith is in themselves.  They refuse to allow God to work all things after the counsel of his will: to call for obedience; to give life; to take life.

For everyone who professes Christ, the following questions will expose whether you trust God or your own thinking.  They will pop out what is underneath: either worldly independence or biblical faith. 

Ontological dilemmas

Ontology is the study of being and essence.  These are questions that have to do with the nature of God himself.  The most famous of these questions goes like this:

Can God create a rock so big he cannot pick it up?

This question is pressing the notion that God can do anything.  But the biblical answer to this is very simple.  There are things that God cannot do.  The Bible states emphatically that it is impossible for God to lie. (Heb. 6:18; Titus 1:2)  It boils down to this; God cannot contradict himself, either by sinning against his own holiness or by creating something above or beyond him.  God cannot cease to be God.  Therefore, no; God cannot create a rock so big he can’t pick it up. 

If God is all-powerful and all-good, then why does evil exist?

This question misses a key attribute of God: all-wise.  There are wise and morally-sufficient reasons God has for allowing evil to exist.   The story of Joseph is a wonderful example of this, culminating in one of the most important statements about what God has done regarding evil: Genesis 50:20 says “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” The ultimate example is Christ himself.  God used evil people to crucify his Son, which has brought about the ultimate good and will lead to the ultimate destruction of evil through his victorious Son.  God ordains what he hates to accomplish what he loves.  If you knew all that God knew, with the same commitments to his glory, you would do the same. 

Moral Dilemmas

Moral dilemmas may be even more popular.  What is the purpose of these?  The unbeliever wants to show that no religion or outdated book like the Bible can solve such problems.  But all he is doing is showing how committed he is to his own independence and his refusal to submit to God.  These questions have to do with conceivable situations that are put in life-and-death terms so that the stakes are as high as they can be. Let’s look at some of these supposed moral dilemmas:

A ship sinks and 30 survivors fill a lifeboat only intended for 7.  With a storm on the horizon it is clear that the lifeboat will not stay afloat.  Do you kick out some so that others survive or do you refuse to do that and condemn all to death?

How does God’s word apply to this?  The clearest statement on this is God’s command, “You shall not murder” and this command will be at play in most of the below dilemmas.  We have no God-given right to send an innocent person to their death.  But what about the death of all the rest.  That is in the hands of a sovereign God.  It may be the time for all of them to die.  Or perhaps God will turn the storm away.  Or maybe God will grant an unexpected durability to the boat.  Or maybe a rescue ship will come speedily.  We leave all those possibilities in God’s hands.  Our call is to not murder, not even if it saves other lives.  We must obey that command and trust that God will do what is right.

A fat man leading a group of people out of a cave on a coast is stuck in the mouth of that cave. In a short time high tide will be upon them, and unless he is unstuck, they will all be drowned except the fat man, whose head is out of the cave. But, someone has a stick of dynamite. There seems no way to get the fat man loose without using that dynamite which will inevitably kill him; but if they do not use it everyone will drown. What should they do?

This instance is similar to the first question but with one possible difference.  Like the first instance, we are called by God to not murder.  Though all lives are threatened, we do not have the God-given authority to take the life of someone else to preserve our own.  The one difference in this scenario is that the large man can willingly sacrifice is own life for the good of others.  If he so choses, he could lay his life down for the good of others and this would align with John 15:13.  But if he was unwilling to die for others, murder is still not an option. 

You are in a brutal prison camp.  The guards are executing people regularly.  For some reason your family is given a unique opportunity.  The guards will allow one of your two children to live, but only if you decide which one.  If you do not decide which one, they both die. 

It is tempting to use the biblical call to not murder as a call to do nothing in this case, since choosing would contribute to someone’s death.  But that commandment does not apply in this context because you are not murdering anyone; only the guards are doing that.  In this scenario, you are doing what you can to preserve life.  There is an opportunity to preserve life and it should be taken.  But how can you decide between your two children.  After zealously seeking mercy from the guards for the lives of both children, and if they still refuse to relent from this cruel game, you should pick a child to live.  Yet, I don’t believe it would be wise to pick a child on the basis of ability or intellect or any other perceived distinction.  I would put this squarely in God’s hands by means of casting a lot.   Proverbs 16:33 says, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”  This scenario is one of deep wickedness on behalf of the guards and that is where the accountability rests.  Your effort was taking every opportunity to preserve life, though it was still deeply sorrowful.

Terrorists have come with guns to the apartment building where you live.  You arrive with your daughter just as they show up at the door.  The door to the building is locked with a security code.  They demand you give them the security code or they kill your daughter.  What do you do?

It is clear people are going to die.  Who is it going to be?  In this kind of situation, I believe your first move would be to fight or flee even though both actions would risk you and your daughter’s life.  You cannot comply with any demand they give you for it would be at the cost of lives.  If they capture you and hold your daughter at gunpoint with the same demand, I believe you still must refuse to comply with their demands, even at the cost of your daughter’s life.  Again, you are not the one culpable for sinful action.  You are preserving life, though it would not be the life most precious to you. 

An underwater tunnel is being constructed despite an almost certain loss of several lives. Presumably the expected loss is a calculated cost that society is prepared to pay for having the tunnel. At a critical moment when a fitting must be lowered into place, a workman is trapped in a section of the partly laid tunnel. If it is lowered, it will surely crush the trapped workman to death. Yet, if it is not and a time consuming rescue of the workman is attempted, the tunnel will have to be abandoned and the whole project begun anew. Two workmen have already died in the project as a result of anticipated and unavoidable conditions in the building of the tunnel. What should be done? 

The loss of lives in the building of a huge project is not a morally sinful action.  Life in this world is risky.  Great effort should be taken to make it as safe as possible, but still risk will remain.  The loss of lives is deeply sorrowful, but it should not paralyze work.  Yet, in the case of the trapped worker, to proceed with the project and crush the worker would be the intentional murder of a human for the sake of a project.  Risk is something that applies to projects as well as to lives.  Sometimes a project has to be abandoned at great cost.  While lives might be lost in a huge project, we can never cross the line of intentionally murdering someone to continue the project.  

You are hiding Jews from the Nazis.  The Nazis come to your house to search for Jews but find none.  They then ask you if you are hiding any.  If you lie, everyone stays safe.  Should you lie or should you not lie? 

God has told us not to lie, but we also don’t have to obey evil demands.  They have stepped outside their God-given authority and therefore you do not have to obey their request to speak.  This refusal to speak would be a time to lay your life down for others.  Does a refusal to speak raise the suspicions of the guards and put everyone at risk?  Of course it does.  Yet again, we are trusting God with our act of obedience.  It is in his hands to do what he will.  Sometimes it is a glorious rescue.  Sometimes it is a sorrowful death.  God knows what is right and we are called to trust him. 

There are three things we should remember about everything we have read above.  First, moral dilemmas can only happen if there are necessary moral standards.  Satan would love to get people to think that there are no moral standards, but he knows that is a bridge too far.  We can’t escape God’s creation, and we can’t escape the fact that we are made in the image of God.  All people inescapably know there is right and wrong.  Morality can only exist if there is a holy God that gives laws that reflect his nature.  This should always be pressed into the unbeliever.  But if Satan can sever such moral knowledge from the authority of God to declare what that moral standard is and how to apply it, then the battle is effectively over and a moral standard can be whatever each person thinks it is.  People can then use morals like a Golden Corral buffet; picking and choosing what they want and when they want it.  Two helpings of self-justifying moralism please!

Second, one of the realities that clashes so deeply with independent thinking is that God gives life and takes away life.  We are not God.  We cannot do what he does unless he directly gives us the specific authority to do so, like he does in governmental capital-punishment.  We saw this reality over and over in the above cases.  Lives were on the line and someone was going to die.  We have to remember that God can use horrific and sinful situations to accomplish his purposes.  Everyone is going to die, and for some it may be God’s will to die young and in a terrible way.  But remember the second ontological question and answer: God has wise, good, morally-sufficient reasons.  The only question is will you trust him? 

Lastly, just because I gave short and concise answers to the above questions does not mean all of life is simple.  Quite the opposite.  Life is often very complex.  This is why God calls us in his Word to be wise.  We are to learn the truth from God’s Word, study God’s ways in his word, do diligent work to get all the information we can, understand the deceitfulness of sin and a host of other features called for by wisdom.  We rarely have life-and-death issues, but life-impacting issues are regular.  And they can be extremely difficult.  Yet God has “granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.” (2 Peter 1:3)  We can make godly decisions in the hardest of cases if we avail ourselves to God’s wisdom in his Word.  

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