A Little Philosophy

I am going to change direction a little bit and write a little philosophy. Normally my blog posts are based on my thoughts on the Bible, well here is a little theology and philosophy thrown into the mix. I’ve heard a lot about morality, how it can be described as a set of laws, how each culture has different laws, how each culture has the same laws, even that ethics do not exist! Well I believe that ethics do exist, and here is my reasoning. We all feel a certain way about the way the world should be run, I don’t know how many times I have heard someone say “That’s not fair.” We all have a sense of fairness, and ideal that we feel should be kept. Theft, murder, cheating, and lying are all “wrong” things to do. Well if there is no such thing as ethics why can’t I steal a few dollars from my parents, or cheat on my exams, if there are no ethical standards there is no reason to be “good” whatever that means. But our world is different; we live in a society where we must obey the rules of “fair play”, where when someone breaks them we get upset, thus showing we all feel that there is some sort of ethical system whether we admit it or not. In this case our own words betray us. Now to the next part of the question, where did this ethical system come from? Well many people say it comes from laws passed down through the ages, modified through time. But here is the problem, if we assume ethics were just a genetic mutation, or a prerequisite for civilization how do we know they are right? How do I know the laws I am following are the right ones, could you imagine a world where cowardice, dishonesty, and cruelty were admired? The answer is no because something inside of us, not outside, abhors those values, we have such a strong reaction to the evil acts of others that it cannot possibly be forced upon us, it is inside of us. That makes it seem more like ethics is a personal taste, but that is not true as every civilization (as far as I know) has the basic outline of ethics that we have today, if you look at the Romans, Buddhists, Hindus, various African societies, Judaism, and Christianity, we all have the same sense of justice. Thus this ethical law system did not come from us, unless everyone in the world got together at one point in time and decided this is how it would be. So I come to the conclusion that our ethical laws had to come from God, now, did morality begin with the Ten Commandments? No, but that is an outline which leads to God’s law in full. But even without the law we still have a sense of justice and fairness that is instilled in us in our creation. Note, a lot of this is based off of C.S. Lewis’ book Mere Christianity, I can’t take credit for all of it.