Vision Series 2023

Well, at the age of 16, Lance Armstrong started competing in triathlons.

He became national sprint course champion in 1989 at the age of 18, two years after starting

competing and again in 1990.

In 1992, he became a professional cyclist at the age of 21.

He won the world championship the next year.

Three years later, 1996, he was diagnosed with cancer.

He returned to cycling just two years later in 1998 and won the Tour de France.

And for the next seven years, he won that race, seven years in a row.

He was a champion who beat cancer.

And we love winners, particularly winners who overcome adversity.

So why is he not liked anymore?

Because he cheated.

Because he cheated.

He broke the rules, took performance enhancing drugs.

When it first was raised in his career around about 1990, 1999, he denied it and eventually

came out with a public admission in 2013.

He was stripped of all of his awards and he was given a lifetime ban from all sport.

Not just from cycling, from all sport.

The judge, in declaring that, considered that he was the biggest cheat they'd ever experienced.

As human beings, we don't just look at the world through the lens of what is.

We look at the world through the lens of what ought to be.

We can't help but think that some things are right and some things are wrong.

But how do you decide which is right and which is wrong?

There's a whole range of ethical issues.

We face it every single day of our life of what's an ethical issue.

Use of plastic bags.

The origin of the clothes that I wear.

Cold power stations.

Generosity.

Immigration.

Sexuality.

Whether I'm allowed to poke little furry animals with sticks.

Like, the range of issues is you're confronted with it every day.

What's good?

What's bad?

But specifically, on what basis do you decide what's good and what's bad?

What we're seeking to do in the coming weeks is to look at Christianity.

Look at the rising tide of secularism in our society.

And we're also looking at some other religions, occasions.

We throw that in there.

And see which of these belief systems, and they are all belief systems, including atheism.

So if you weren't here last week, go and check that one out from last week.

And work out which is the best solution to what every human being needs in order to flourish.

In life.

Things like meaning, the ability to face suffering, an identity solid enough to endure all the ups and downs of our personal performance.

A basis for moral judgment, deciding on what is right and wrong, which is today.

Belief systems is what provides these things, so which does it best.

And the goal in the next number of weeks is to strengthen the faith of the believer, but also to challenge the skeptic to see that the Christian faith, which is increasingly becoming rejected in our society, is both plausible, relevant, and good.

And so today we're looking at the contribution to Christianity in the issue of morality.

And I want to do that by three ways.

What we're looking at is by looking at how these good and evil decisions, morality decisions used were traditionally made, how they're made in a secular culture like today, and the unique contribution of the Christian faith.

So traditional good and evil.

A moral judgment is how we explain moral convictions, moral obligations, and moral motivation.

So every moral judgment has three elements to it.

A moral conviction or a moral feeling, a moral obligation, and a moral motivation.

A moral conviction is I feel X is right and I feel Y is wrong.

I feel I feel I should always do X, but I should never do Y.

And it's a moral conviction, it's a moral feeling.

It's personal.

A moral obligation, however, is when I say I feel X is right and you also should feel X is right.

You're obligated to feel the same way that I feel.

It's moral obligation.

Even if you don't feel it, you should feel it.

It's an ought.

That's the difference between moral feelings and moral obligation.

So what is the basis for moral obligation?

That's the key that I want to really unpack today.

What's the basis for moral obligation?

Historically, all religions and traditional cultures have said that the basis for moral obligation

is a sacred order that exists outside of the world in which we live.

It's transcendent.

Christianity, Judaism, Islam have traditionally said,

if God says it's wrong, then it's wrong.

Even cultures that didn't have any concept of a personal God, such as the Greeks,

still believed in a realm that existed beyond the physical material world in which we lived.

In fact, the Greeks called that realm the logos.

The thing that was behind the world that gave order to the world was the logos.

The logos was the cosmic order, a set of moral absolutes that stood outside the universe.

And to live a good life in this world as a Greek was to align yourself with that moral order of the logos.

Ancient Chinese, especially Confucius, had a similar idea.

Confucius told people how to live, but not because he said so.

Confucius said you must live this way because it fits with heaven's will.

A wise and a virtuous life was aligned to heaven's will.

Now, of course, all the different religions and cultures have different opinions on that sacred order

and therefore on what those moral absolutes were.

But there is, and nevertheless, that was the basis of a rational justification for every bit of morality and moral decision.

That is, every justification for morality was linked to purpose.

There's a purpose behind the universe.

And unless I obey the moral absolutes and fulfil my purpose, then I will most likely destroy my life now

and also in the afterlife if that belief system had an afterlife.

Now, that's how people used to make decisions of what was good and what is not.

It was linked to purpose.

Telos is the Greek word for purpose.

Telos, the end, the goal of life.

Your life must align to the telos.

And the other Greek word that they used, as I mentioned, was logos,

which means the word, the logic, the reason for something,

the purpose and the reason, the telos and the logos.

You must align your life to the telos and the logos.

For instance,

is this a good watch or a bad watch?

On what basis do you make that decision?

Because it's black?

You must first ask the question,

what is the purpose of the watch?

You see, I could put this watch on and say,

well, it's a, you know, I think it's a good watch.

And then I decide that I'm going to hammer a nail into this brick wall with my watch.

And it breaks it and you go, bad watch.

Bad, bad watch.

But that's not the purpose of the watch.

What is the purpose of the watch?

You cannot decide whether it's a good or a bad watch

until you first understand the purpose of it.

And that is what traditional cultures do.

What are human beings made for?

And the answer to that question is the basis of determining between good and evil.

Now, the secular framework for determining good and evil starts without any purpose.

Secularism says all of life is an accident

and it rejects any sense of the transcendent world.

A transcendent creator, a transcendent being,

in his book River Out of Eden, Richard Dawkins writes this.

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect

if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good,

nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

Now, let me just say here,

just in case you think I'm going to head in an unhelpful direction,

I believe, I think,

that secular people, atheists,

do good things.

It's not a question of whether they can do good things.

They can do very good things.

In fact, there are many atheists

who have incredibly high moral convictions,

moral feelings.

I do, however,

think that there is an enormous problem

for a secular society like ours

on the issue of moral obligation.

A secular worldview really struggles

to have a consistent,

coherent argument for moral obligation.

So Richard Dawkins writes that in a book.

And then the same Richard Dawkins,

in the summer of 2013,

when England was playing Australia in the Ashes Test,

and he's a major cricket fan,

accused English player Stuart Broad of cheating.

The fuming cricket fan Hawkins wrote on Twitter,

Stuart Broad obviously knew perfectly well he was caught,

refused to walk,

what a revolting cheat.

I now want Australia to win the Ashes,

and don't we all?

The question is,

on what basis did Hawkins make that claim?

It's a value judgment.

On what basis did he make that claim?

He can only say Broad was a cheat

if there is a purpose by which Broad,

Hawkins,

and you and I must live to.

On what basis does this secular person

call for moral obligation?

You must not cheat.

Now, I'll mention a few of the main arguments

for moral obligation in the secular world.

There's a number of them,

but here's just a few of the bigger ones.

First, there's the evolutionary argument.

It states,

Well,

all organisms are engaged in a struggle to survive,

and those things that help species survive

are selected.

A giraffe's long neck,

a cat's ability to land on its feet,

nine times out of ten,

or a human being's sense of morality.

It's an evolved sense we have.

That is,

the moral feelings we have come,

have come from our ancestors,

and they help us to survive.

One major counter-argument against that view

is that evolutionary ethics

describes function,

not morality.

Natural selection has chosen

the lion's pointy teeth.

It's chosen the eagle's wings.

It's chosen the baboon's big red butt.

Not because they're right,

not because they're good,

but because they work.

They get the job done.

Another counter-argument is that

just because ethical behavior,

X, Y, Z,

helped my ancestors survive,

that doesn't in any way

obligate me to live in exactly the same way as them.

There's no obligation to follow a feeling

just because it's evolution.

A further counter-argument is that

if morality is a result of evolution,

then you cannot logically

criticize the past generations.

You cannot criticize

previous decisions of other cultures

because they were simply less evolved.

In other words,

what they,

at their stage of evolution,

determined to be good

cannot now be called bad.

It's like saying,

my cat is a terrible cat

because it cannot fill its own water bowl.

A secular person

cannot in any good conscience

criticize any past behavior of societies

as being immoral.

It's like that.

That's a difficult problem for them.

In other words,

marriage between a man and a woman

in past generations

was good.

They have to say it was good.

One last counter-argument.

If evolution and natural selection

is the basis for moral obligation,

then the strong eating the weak

is natural

and any feeling that I have contrary

is wrong.

Genocide is natural

because it's the strong

eating the weak

and it therefore has to be

determined as good.

Secondly,

the pragmatic argument.

This one is simply,

if no one does good,

then all we're going to get

is bad

and so it's in the best interest

of everyone to do good.

The pragmatic argument

isn't saying

it is wrong

to let the poor starve.

They're saying

it's just impractical

to let the poor starve.

It's impractical

not to help

Syria and Turkey right now.

Now the danger

of this argument

is the definition

of what is practical

comes down to

what's at my best interest.

The reason I should care

about the environment

and feed the poor

is because it serves me.

It's about my good.

It will turn out better for me.

It sounds very self-centred.

The third argument,

which is the one

that's really popular nowadays,

and you probably see this

worked out in the media

a lot more,

is the social consensus.

This one tends to be

the most popular, I think.

As a modern society,

we've progressed to see

that some things

that were done in the past

were not so good

and now we're seeing

them as bad

and we need to

right the bad.

Can you see how that one

conflicts with the first

argument of evolution?

And there is a social consensus

or there soon will be

that that stuff is bad

and needs to be changed

to the good.

If a majority says

it's wrong to starve the poor,

then it's wrong

to starve the poor.

Now, the counter argument

for this

is many

and it's pretty straightforward.

A thousand years ago,

social consensus

said that slavery

was fine.

So was it good then?

Or was it fine then?

It wasn't good then,

was it?

I mean, was slavery good then?

In other words,

has racism only just become

a bad thing?

Or was it bad

300 years ago?

It was wrong then too.

Even though there was

social consensus

for it back in those days.

Don't forget

there was social consensus

in Nazi Germany

to exterminate the Jews.

Social consensus

in itself

is not the basis

of morality.

There was social consensus

in our society

to effectively

denigrate

Aboriginal cultures.

There was social consensus

to exterminate them

in Tasmania.

Was that good?

No.

There's a second sting

in the tale of this one

which I think

that

the modern progressives

need to realise.

Anything that is called

good today,

your deepest values,

your treasured

moral standards

could well be considered

bad within the next 20 years.

Depending on how society changes.

Good cannot be determined

by society

because society shifts

so quickly.

It has a fickle mind.

The biggest problem

with the social consensus argument

is how quickly

it leads to the problem

of authority.

And the problem

of what if you are

in the minority

that doesn't agree.

it could be

the wealthy,

the government,

the newspaper editors,

the school bully,

the social media influence,

or just simply

the one

who shouts

the loudest.

The person

with power

can impose

their own

set of morality

on others

even if there's

no justification

for that morality

whatsoever.

ever heard

statements like

religion should have

no voice

in today's

modern secular society

when discussing

ethical issues?

That's an authority

argument.

The counter to this

is that if I have

a view

on an ethical issue

and you have

a different view

but I force you

to have my view

isn't that called

oppression?

And all we've done

in our society

and I want to put

my hand up

and I'm going to say

this a little bit later

the church has done

that in the past

it's just now

becoming a minority

voice

there's now

a majority

secular voice

doing exactly

the same thing.

We've just changed

from one oppression

to another oppression.

former professor

of law

at Yale University

Arthur Leff

who was best

known

for a series

of articles

examining

whether there is

such a thing

of morality

at all

once said

all claims

of moral

obligation

are authority

claims.

he concluded

that in the absence

of God

there are

but two options.

The secular world

has got two options.

You turn

every individual

person

into a little

God of themselves

able to decide

good and evil

for themselves

but then

who evaluates

between them

when there's

a clash

between

the little

God

claims.

Who does

that?

How do you

decide?

How do we

do that

in our

modern day?

One yells

louder than

the other.

Alternatively

he says

you can turn

the state

into God

and let it

determine

good and

evil

but then

might

power

becomes

right

and you

end up

with sheer

naked

brutality.

He says

if you

go down

that route

morality

becomes

meaningless.

If you

go down

the personal

God

route

morality

becomes

impossible.

What I

would add

is that

if the

former

ultimately

gives

the former

one

of every

individual

being gods

and making

their own

decisions

gives rise

to anarchy

in society

and then

you need

the latter

to solve

the anarchy.

secularism

has a

very

significant

problem

between

determining

what is

good and

evil for

society.

It cannot

produce

moral

obligation

by itself

and so

in secular

society

all we do

is yell

at one

another

yell

and yell

and yell

and so

the rise

of social

media

angst

yelling

about

who's

right

and who's

wrong.

It's

interesting

that

left

himself

an agnostic

and therefore

didn't think

it was possible

to know

whether God

existed at

all

ends

his essay

by

pointing

out

that there's

only one

solution

one solution

and that

would be

that goodness

was something

bigger

than us.

This is an

agnostic

saying this

something

outside of

this

something

outside

of us

only then

could ethics

morality

and law

work.

perhaps

this

source

of

goodness

could

also

help

with

the

question

of

purpose

give us

a clue

that we

are not

merely

cosmic

accidents

churned up

from the

genetic

cauldron

of chaos

but instead

that we

were made

for something

we were

fashioned

to be

something

of course

this raises

its own

problem

what are

the implications

for us

if we

fall short

of the

transcendent

source of

goodness

what if

we discover

that we

are not

aligned

to goodness

what if

we discover

that we're

actually not

good

as people

if goodness

is not

controlled by

me

if it's not

controlled by

society

it may

turn out

that this

transcendent

goodness says

that I'm in

fact messed

up

that this

world's

messed up

everyone's

messed up

because the

whole point

of a moral

standard is

that we all

would measure

up and

what if we

don't

this is what

makes the

issue of what

I'm talking

about this

morning the

issue of

morality

reality not

simply a

philosophical

discussion

but a

highly

personal

one

so what

if we

were made

for something

what if we

were fashioned

to be

something

and even

as

Christianity

declares

intended

to know

someone

that's

the

unique

contribution

of

Christianity

to this

whole

discussion

or if

you like

the unique

contribution

of the

goodness

of Jesus

Christ

Christianity

stands

with all

the other

great

religions

in declaring

that there

are moral

absolutes

that are

outside of

us

that are

the basis

of our

moral

feelings

and our

moral

obligation

they're the

basis of

moral feelings

and moral

obligation

and also

behind our

moral motivation

having said

that

what we see

in our

society right

now in

this country

and many

places in

the western

world is

people shedding

religion and

particularly in

the western

world shedding

Christianity

because they

see a

self-righteousness

in that

Christianity

they see a

legalism

they see a

cruelty

they see a

hypocrisy

they see a

history of

oppression

throughout history

religion and the

Christian church

has in my

view got blood

on its hands

for abuse of

power on

moral absolutes

religious

institutions

have in

the past

when they

had the

power

yelled

the most

many have

abandoned

that therefore

abandoned the

Christian faith

and moved

towards secularism

as a reaction

to what they've

seen in the

hypocrisy of the

church in the

past

what I've

tried to do

this morning

is show that

if that has

been your

move

that doesn't

solve your

problem

secularism does

not solve your

problem so what

is the solution

hopefully you

remember this

a little while

ago I talked

about the

Greeks

and they

believed

the

logos

was the

cosmic order

behind the

universe and

gave it

its purpose

if you're

connected to

the logos

and lived

by the

logos

then you

would be

living a

wise and

virtuous life

that is in

obedience in

following the

logos is the

way of

a virtuous and

wise life in

this world

at the beginning

of the bible

passage that was

read out to

us by

noeline

john chapter

one we read

this in the

beginning was

the word and

the word was

with god and

the word was

god he was

with god in

the beginning

and through him

all things were

made without

him nothing was

made that has

been made in

him that is the

word was life

and that life was

the light of all

of mankind

and then down

into verse 14

this word became

flesh and made

his dwelling

amongst us

this word who

was god came

and lived

amongst us

and we have

seen his

glory the

glory of the

one and only

son who came

from the father

full of grace

and truth

that word there

is referring to

as you go

through john's

gospel you

realize in

verse 17 it

makes it very

clear the word

is jesus christ

why is he

calling him the

word john's

writing this to

greeks why is he

referring to jesus

what a weird thing

why call him the

word because in

the original

language the word

word is

logos

john in writing

this is using a

technical greek

philosophical term

to say that

there are moral

absolutes

there is a

purpose

it's not an

abstract set of

standards but the

logos of the

world the purpose

of the world

the standard of

the world

is not a book

it's not a set of

laws

it's a person

jesus christ

there is a

rational design

and order behind

the universe

it's not a code

it's a person

it's jesus christ

i find it

remarkable

quite telling in

fact

that when

a secular

person

is engaging

with the

christian faith

they pick out

obscure passages

from the old

testament

and talk about

the implausibility

of those

passages

as if it's

some sort of

code to be

obeyed

and they don't

look at the

person of jesus

christ and pull

apart him

they don't pull

apart his

character

what we discover

about the logos

in john's gospel

is that the

deepest moral

obligation

of every

human being

the

ought

of every

human being

is to

know him

having

been asked

in john

six

what was it

that god

required of

people

jesus responds

the work of

god is this

to believe

in the one

he has sent

that's the

deepest moral

obligation of

every human

being

to acknowledge

the son

jesus christ

knowing him

through knowing

him through a

personal love

relation with

him we come

to the heart

of the universe

christians believe

that we are not

good or saved

by living up to

some abstract

moral code

moral standards

we are saved

by jesus christ

the logos

coming into

his creation

to die on a

cross for

for us

not living

up to

our deepest

deepest

moral obligation

as people

and that is

knowing and

loving and

worshipping the

creator god

christian declares

that god has

set the

perfect moral

standard

and jesus christ

god himself

has come into

this world

in order

to achieve

it for us

he lived

the perfect

life for

us

and he

died

the perfect

death

for us

a christian

is someone

who trusts

in the goodness

and the grace

of jesus christ

and so

brothers and

sisters

if you're a

christian here

at the moment

to the degree

that you

really

really

understand

the very

heart of

the faith

is that

jesus christ

is the

logos

who came

into this

world

onto this

earth

he died

for you

to cover

over all

of your

wrongdoing

all of your

moral failure

so that you

live by grace

and love

is to the

degree

that you

as a christian

will in fact

live by grace

and love

in this world

the goodness

of jesus

what it does

more than

anything else

it does not

turn you into

an oppression

we're going

to see

this a

little bit

later on

in this

series

the goodness

of jesus

humbles

you

it does

not say

that you

are good

it says

that he

is good

it humbles

you in

such a way

that as

you pursue

the moral

absolutes

of this

bible

it turns

you

it doesn't

turn you

into some

self-righteous

legalist

who waves

their finger

at the

rest of

the world

it doesn't

make you

an oppressor

of others

as you

embrace the

goodness of

jesus

it turns

you into

a person

of goodness

that's the

unique

contribution

of the

christian

faith

in our

society

right now

and we

need it

to

listen

so

um

well

well

well

well