UNI Freethinkers and Inquirers: An Examination of Morals

UNI Freethinkers and Inquirers: An Examination of Morals

From guest blogger, Cory Derringer:

When arguing for the validity and justice of infinite punishment for finite crimes, Christians often appeal to the reasoning that sins against a higher authority are more serious than sins against a lesser authority. Since God’s authority is infinite, they claim, we deserve infinite punishment for transgressions against Him. There are two reasons why this line of reasoning does not pass my smell test: first, the standard by which we are judged is not the standard by which we were created. Second, the application of infinite punishment counteracts what should be the end goal of punishment to begin with.

I am sure many of you will find yourself disagreeing with my first statement, thinking something along the lines of: “Of course we should be judged by God’s standard of morality.” But this is merely a statement of your position, and doesn’t really solve anything. Let’s get to the root of the matter: WHY should we be judged by God’s standard of morality? One argument is that God decides justice, and so actions or decisions He makes are just by definition. This “Richard Nixon” God is always just, even when he violates our own moral compass. In short, proponents of this argument believe that we must trust the Bible’s morality over our own. I would echo Sam Harris in contending that the reason Christianity is so popular in our modern world is not that it boasts an omnipotent God, but that in general, it is morally in tune with the majority of the population. (This is especially convenient because the majority of the population does not read the fine print, I am sure. However, that is the topic of a different conversation) In short, most Christians use their moral compass to decide that the morals advocated by Christianity are valid. They conclude from their moral compass that the Bible is true, and then to decide from the Bible that the Bible is more valid than their own moral compass. This reasoning manages to be both circular and contradictory. The only way to avoid unnecessary circular reasoning at this point is to judge the Bible based solely on one’s own moral sense. If this is true, then it is reasonable to make a conclusion on the morality of the Biblical God based on whether or not God outrages the moral compass.

Another popular argument is that God’s justice is preserved because he gives humanity a way out: all those who accept Christ escape judgment. To counter this, we must only be reminded that it is God who put us into this dilemma in the first place. The idea of sending a “savior” so that the credulous may escape punishment does not even come close to making up for sending even a single person to everlasting anguish in Hell, much less sending the overwhelming majority of humanity there. It is unjust to place humanity in this crisis of free will in the first place (assuming for the sake of argument that we do indeed have free will). This point is one that I will later expand on: infinite punishment for a finite crime is never just.

Now that we have concluded that the “savior” is insufficient to justify sending the great majority of humanity to everlasting punishment for comparably insignificant crimes, we must again ask why our actions should be judged by God’s perfect standard rather than our own imperfect one. The only conclusion I have been able to come to is that God’s standard of perfection is unachievable, which is a point that many of my Christian friends will agree on. Where we disagree is my second conclusion: that it is immoral to hold an imperfect being to a perfect standard.

We were given the ability to achieve the human standard of morality, but we are to be judged by the Godly standard of morality. That is unjust in itself. If God wanted to judge us on the basis of perfection, he should have thought to invent a perfect species. In short, the fact that God creates us with shortcomings and then condemns us for possessing them is unjust, much more so when you take into account the fact that we are condemned to eternal suffering on this basis. In my next section, I will explain how eternal punishment is unjust in any circumstance.
In order to evaluate the justice of infinite punishment, let us examine the purpose of punishment. When a small child steals a candy bar from a convenience store, a concerned parent may make the child apologize to the store owner and repay the cost of the stolen item in some way. The parent may take away privileges or even resort to corporeal punishment. When someone steals a car, our society thinks it appropriate to send them to jail for a period of time. When a drug addict is caught, they may serve prison time accompanied by rehab. The vast majority of punishments (with the exception of the death penalty or a lifetime prison sentence without the possibility of parole) have the goal of reforming the convict, or at least deterring them from committing the offense again. When we punish our children, it is not for the sake of their suffering, but so that they may learn not only that stealing (or lying, or cheating) is wrong, but why it is wrong as well. This is the goal of punishment, and it is the reason infinite punishment for finite crimes is ultimately immoral. An eternal punishment in Hell offers no chance of reformation or improvement for the guilty party, and thus defeats the primary purpose of punishment in the first place. Infinite punishment is punishment for the sake of punishment, not for the sake of justice. This is sadism by definition.

To conclude, the God of the Bible uses neither a just system for judging humanity, nor a just punishment for those who are found guilty of breaking His laws. If the Bible is true, He creates mankind without the ability to be perfect, and then judges them to be worthy of eternal punishment on the basis of this imperfection. Because of this, and because eternal punishment is by definition unjust and sadistic, the Christian God, if He exists, can and should be considered a tyrannical and malevolent God.