On Morality (Sixth Article), Whether we may know moral truths without God?

SITH ARTICLE

Whether we may Know Moral Truths Without God?

Objection 1. According to the skeptic, man may not know any moral truths with any amount of certainty. Heracleitus, for example, said there is nothing static in the universe, only endless transformations. Nothing is; everything becomes. No condition persists unaltered, even for the smallest moment; everything is ceasing to be what it was, and is becoming what it will be. Because of this endless transformation there is a unity of opposites. Good and bad are the same, so are life and death. They are merely stages in a fluctuating movement. Given the changing nature of all things, the distinction between good and evil is to man an impenetrable mystery to man. Ergo, man in no way may know any moral truths.

Objection 2. According to Martin Luther, reason is a whore. It is dishonest and not to be trusted for it is generally used by evil powers. In other words, during the fall man’s reason became so corrupted and depraved that it cannot lead us to any truth. The only truth that we may know is the truth that God revealed to us, in His great mercy, in the Bible.

Objection 3. By our reason we may know all moral truths. Just as we may know mathematical truths fully and completely we may know moral truths. There was no reason for God to give us the Bible for all that we need to know we may discover by means of our natural faculties.

On the contrary, C.S. Lewis says that in the fall man’s reason was corrupted, but not to the point where man lost the ability to know good from evil. Indeed this could not be. For if man could know not how to act it would be unjust of God to hold all accountable and punish those who act in evil ways.

I answer that, as with many things, the truth lies in the middle of two extremes. It is true that by means of our reason we may discover moral truths. St. Paul discusses this in the beginning of his letter to the Romans. All men know the difference between right and wrong. In the fall man did not lose his ability to know the difference between these things, the lost his ability to do them. All men know the difference between right and wrong, but no man is able to do only good. It was the will of man that was bent in the fall.

However, though man may know good and evil, man may not know them absolutely. Because man cannot perfectly discover moral truth God revealed the entire moral law to man in the Bible. Ultimately our knowledge rests on the merciful revelation that God provided to us in His Word.

Reply Obj. 1. If the skeptic is right, what is the point of anything? If we cannot know good from evil, what is the point of trying to do good? And what is the point of punishing crime? If evil is only an illusion it is unjust to punish people for their crimes. But this is all nonsense. Each one of us knows the difference between good and evil; each one of us knows the necessity of punishing those who do evil. There is a knowable difference between good and evil.

Reply Obj. 2. Man’s reason is not so corrupted as to prevent him from knowing mathematical or scientific truths; if man may know these truths by means of his reason how can we assume he may know not moral truths by means of his reason? Indeed Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Hammurabi and many others came to understand and recognize moral truths contained in the Bible without ever having read any part of God’s Word themselves. This agreement of many wise men regarding moral truths with the Bible shows that man may discover moral truths without reference to the Bible.

Reply Obj. 3. As St. Thomas Aquinas says (Sum. Theol. I, II Q. 91, A. 4), even though all law is knowable by reason, there was and is a need for Divine law. Man’s end is eternal happiness. If man’s end was natural, no Divine law would be needed, but since his end is eternal and divine, this law is needed.

Further, human judgment is uncertain. Though all men may know morality, no man may know it perfectly. The wise men of history agreed on the essentials of morality, but disagreed on a few minor particulars. All men have reason by which they may discover moral truths; but all men have sinful passions within them which corrupt their reason and prevent them from perfectly reaching the truth. It was for this reason that God revealed the perfect moral truth. It is our plum line, our absolute by which we may measure our imperfect thought and action. It is by God’s revelation as revealed in the Bible that we may have certainty in the moral, that we may know things beyond a doubt.