Christianity vs. atheism on objective morality: TAG-your it! vs. Pervy

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

This thread has been set up for a formal debate between TAG-your it! and Pervy who will debate the following resolution:

"Resolved: The Christian worldview provides an objective morality that an atheistic worldview is unable to provide."

TAG-your it! will affirm and Pervy will oppose. The debate will have 3 rounds and TAG-your it! will go first, per the parameters (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showpost.php?p=3732764&postcount=34).

A Peanut Gallery (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=3745152#post3745152) is set up in the Moral Foundations & Principles forum for the rest of us to comment on the debate.

Enjoy the debate!

- NS, FD Moderator

[TAG-your it!]

Opening statement

Before I begin, I would like to express my appreciation to “The Secular Web” for hosting this debate and to Pervy for agreeing to debate me on the following resolution. “The Christian worldview provides an Objective Morality that an atheistic worldview is unable to provide.”

There are four points of clarification that need addressing.

1.What is and is not the issue in the debate. The debate is about providing premises to form conclusions in support of one’s position on a given topic. It is not about personal verbal attacks. I believe that Pervy would agree that ad hominem argumentation would only undermine one’s position.
2.Expressed personal convictions are nice and might add flavor to the topic; but without supporting premises, they are in reality only opinions.
3.Since the debate centers only around the Christian and atheist world view, all other philosophical systems of thought will not be considered as valid points of argument.
4.Pervy in his #3594873 post in replying to “The AntiChris” stated: “I actually agree with Mr Average that atheism cannot provide an objective basis for morality.” For this reason I find it unnecessary to provide evidence to that end.

My opening statement will consist of the following:

1. Defining Terms.
2. Epistemological Problems and fallacies made.
3. Life applications
4. Summation

Defining Terms

It is important from the outset to define terms. You may not agree my linguistic use of the words, but at least you will be able to comprehend where I am coming from.

Objectivity – refers to such as based in a separate, distant, and unbiased point of view, such that concepts discussed are treated as objects. (It should be noted here that “The AntiChris”, had asked…. “Any chance you guys can define (in reasonably precise terms) what you mean by “objective basis for morality”? To which Pervy replied: (post #3594873) “Not really.”

So I wonder if Pervy, has a definition for “objective basis for morality?’ For there seems to be an impasse at this juncture; for how does he expect to intelligibly dialog on that which he is unable to define.)

Subjectivity – refers to the property of perceptions, arguments, and language as being based in a subject point of view, and hence influenced in accordance with a particular bias.

Assertion - A statement that asserts that a certain premise is true, and is useful for statements in proof. (If claims of assertions are made in regards to my posts; then it would be proper to ask Pervy to provide a pre-qualifier such as “non-supported” or “false”. My opponent would then be under obligation to show the error(s) within my alleged assertion. Any response short of this would be a non-supported assertion on my opponents’ part.)

Epistemological Problems

So how should we resolve the resolution before us? As I reflect on what my opponent as written in the past about ethics I see at least four epistemological problems.

1. In Replying to “InChristGE” post of: “God (the only being who can kill/severely punish sinful humans and still be good)”; Pervy had asked the question (post #3610559 ): “By what standard do you judge God to be good?” Pervy then rephrases the same question in his #3549776 post when he asks:” And by what objective moral standard can God's character be judged to be morally "perfect"?

We will call this the “external standard for God” fallacy. It is the Christian’s claim that God is the highest court of ethical appeal. The Christian doesn’t claim to go outside of God to validate God. Keep in mind that this is a philosophical discussion about the preconditions to make intelligible one’s experience in the realm of ethics. If Pervy wants to assert that Christians apply an external standard for God; then Pervy only needs to read a little more about the Christian world view to see that his position is unfounded.

2. The Guilt by Association Fallacy.

In Replying to “Wiploc” in his #3572685 post Pervy made the following statement: “My main argument is not intended to be that "mine is as good as theirs", but that "theirs is no better than mine". Logically speaking, Pervy has mistakenly assumed common ground. These opposing world views are not contingent on each other, but rather they are autonomous in nature. Therefore the question of ethical foundations either objective or subjective becomes an independent question; not being subject to the expressed views held by my opponent.

3.The law of non-contradiction Fallacy.

Maybe my opponent wishes to use the same argument that he used with Patriot7 (post# 3549776 ); stating that “An objective standard of good is one that simply is regardless of any authority”. Pervy falsely asserts that standards of goodness can exist in the universe apart from a mind. He has engaged in linguistic revision. He has made it impossible for any authority to create objective standards. For in the moment you add a mind to the equation (as he puts it); the standard becomes subjective and no longer objective. Logically speaking he has already violated the law of non-contradiction. A standard of “goodness”, either subjective or objective reflects the thinking of a mind. Molecules in motion only experience physics and not ethics. My opponent has mistaken stipulated the existence of standards apart from a mind. Ethical laws by definition constitute an article/author relationship.

4.The Point of View Fallacy

In order to illustrate this fallacy please consider the following example: You come to an intersection in the road and there you see a “stop sign”. Does the law require you to stop? One person might understand the law to require that you come to a full stop and wait for 3 sec. before you can proceed. Another might take the law to be more abstract in nature; only requiring you slow down to such a point as not to hit another car driving the same road. Still another might theorize the law to be philosophical; that we should stop and ponder our action at this crossroad. Now, no matter how each of these persons feels, acts, or responds to the law; it (the law) remains unchanged. The law, being un-bias wasn’t written for any one person in particular. From their point of view, the law objectively exists.

There are many things that objectively exist in the world. One example could be the information contained in any one of the many books that you have in your home. If you disagree with the author, you could: Yell at the book….Throw the book out of the window…Stomp up and down on top of the book…Or you could just destroy the book. Now, would any of the information that was contained within the book really be destroyed? Unless the author only printed one book the answer is obvious… no! FROM OUR VIEW POINT the information is unchanging. What if the book was about God and his espoused ethics? Once the information was ascribed to paper only our interpretation of it is changeable and potentially bias; but not the information itself. There is no man that can affect the ethics expressed by God. Nor is there any man great enough that God would seek his counsel on such issues. God is therefore non-bias in that He is not affected by the will or intellect of men. Maybe my opponent wants us to believe that the ethics expressed by God are based outside of God. He suggested this in his #4700 post with Patriot7: “If you want to say that God is Objectively Good, then this Objective Morality by which God can be judged must (by virtue of being objective) be independent of him…” The scriptures tell us that the ethical values are themselves an expression of the very character of God; and not an external guide that God somehow consults. That God is the final judge of all men. It should be noted here that the word “objective” is not being used in its proper contextual format in the above quote. The word “objective”, is always separate from the one it applies to; and not to the administrator of it. Let’s go back to the stop sign example. Your person #2 and had decided not to stop by reason of lack of traffic. A policeman sees your actions and gives you a ticket. Given your subjective view of the law, you decide to take the officer to court. While walking into the courtroom, you find that the judge is your best friend from school. Please consider the following points of view espoused by the patrolmen, defendant, and the judge. The patrolman hopes that the judge will maintain his objectivity by rendering an un-bias decision. The defendant hopes that the judge will subjectively interpret the law to his (the defendant’s) favor. The judge, even thou he is friends with the defendant comprehends that the law was not written for or against the defendant; but for all men. So to render a bias verdict would undermine the duty to his office. This judge is said to be un-bias, allowing for independent impartiality. In this world when you disagree with a judge; you can appeal to a higher court. But sooner or later you are going to run out of courts to appeal to. The United States Supreme Court is the highest court in the USA. These judges objectively examine the laws of the land to settle disputes. So why would we expect objectivity from an earthly judge and not expect this same objectivity from a Heavenly Judge?

Life applications

When you considers the philosophical world view held by the atheist; you will observe that the beliefs held by the atheist doesn’t comport to the lifestyles that they live. The atheist says that there is no objective base to morality, yet he presupposes an absolute standard in order to evaluate the actions of others. Before I give an example, please keep in mind that we are dealing with is contradictive world views and the preconditions to make one’s experience intelligible.

Example: While at a playground you see a larger boy picking on a smaller boy by a merry-go-round. So you tell the boy to “stop”. He looks at for you for a moment…..then smacks the smaller boy on the back of the head again…looks back at you once more and asks……..”Why should I listen to you? I feel like smacking this brat!” So you suffix your original command with an explanation. “What you are doing is wrong. You are hurting the other boy by your actions”.

Let us explore the actions by the adult above; and to which world view the action might fall into. If atheism were true then your response could only come from a subjective point of view. One presupposition you might have is: “What brings the most happiness is what is best for the group”. (This of course is what Dr. Stein used when he debated Dr. Bahnsen) So you tell the boy that it’s not nice to hit other people. On what rational bases should the boy consider your advice? Let us keep in mind that the boy is an autonomist creation just like you; not being culpable to the ethics of God. (Remember, this is the theoretic reality of atheism) Some atheists have claimed that it’s irrational to act in a negative manner. So the boy’s actions are irrational and need to change. This is nice; but once again it is an unsupported assertion on their part. The atheist can offer no connective path to go from the autonomist applied ethical lifestyles of one member within a group to the group as a whole. The reason for this is simple. For without God, ethics don’t necessarily apply to all people as a whole; they therefore lose their universality. Since there are no consequences either way; the boy is under no obligation to listen to you at all. Maybe at this point Pervy would assert that this is an appeal to force as he did in dialoging with Pariot7. Consider the following… Steal from a bank, expect to go to jail. Break the speed limit, expect a ticket. Why should we expect accountability in our social-political theorizing; and yet reject the notion of accountability on issue of ethics? Pervy says “no God”…. OK! No God, no accountability! No accountability, no rational reason to listen or to obey! Is that how we live and act? Of course not; but it gets worse! If atheism is true, then we are nothing more then bags of biological process go to and fro subject to the laws of physic. And what are ethics after all in the atheist world view? They are just subjective opinion about your world view. Well, why should your opinion be any better then mine, or those of the reader? So, why should the boy listen to you? That was the original question. He shouldn’t! In a world without God, ethics are irrational!

If theism were true, then the adult in the above situation might think to himself, “The Bible tells me to love my neighbor as myself”. So you could tell the boy that in the Bible, God wants us to treat each other as we would want to be treated. Within the Christian world view there is accountability for our actions. It is the Bible that tells us that we will stand before God someday and give an account for all of our actions. (Now I know that my opponent doesn’t adhere to this belief. But this is about a hypothetical what if.) Now, visualize a world in which there is no accountability. There would be no lawyers, no police, no jails, and no laws to burden the mind of men. But there would also be murder, stealing, rape, etc. So, again, why should the boy listen to the theist? Because there exist a standard apart from men, that bring all men into accountability.

Philosophically speaking, the Christian is able to give an account for the foundation to ethics. His world view provides an objective standard by which all men are held accountable. The atheist doesn’t have a workable world view; and therefore is unable to give an account for even the concept of ethic.

Summation

Now, let’s pull all of this together. Ultimately, what we are talking about are philosophical world views. A way of explain reality as a whole. Both the atheist and the theist have philosophical world views. But how do these world views comport to reality? When we look at the interactions of members within a group, we see applied ethics. As philosophers, we should ask ourselves the question; what precondition(s) are necessary in order to make intelligible, the ethical experiences as we encounter them? In order to answer this puzzling question let us consider what we know about the characteristics of ethics. We know that rocks, plants, and animals are not subject to the laws of ethics; only mankind is. We know that the laws of ethics come from a mind; that they don’t exist apart from, but rather that they are contingent on a mind. We also know that all men apply ethics when they evaluate and respond to the world around them; they are universal. Lastly, we know that you can’t change, rip-up, bend, or destroy the laws of ethics. They are not material, they are abstract in nature. Ethical laws exist apart from with will or intellect of men; they objectively exist.

There are two world views that are under consideration in this debate; atheism and theism. It is my contention that the facts about ethic do not comport to the values espoused by atheists. Atheists tell us that ethics are subjective, conventional, and come from the mind of men. Yet upon examination, we find the opposite. Pervy tried to hide this fact by telling us that the Christian world view was no better then the atheist’s world view. He also tried to use a strawman argument when he misrepresented how the Christian based his ethics in God. He then goes onto to use a deflection tactic by using the word “objective” in an incorrect point of view format. My opponent believes that the foundations to ethics are subjective in nature. If he had thought though his world view a little more; he would have realized that “subjective morality” is in effect an oxymoron. In order to call anything right or wrong you must first presuppose a set of standards by which to evaluate the experience. A standard that not only applies to you; but to all parties involved. Only a universal and absolute standard will allow for such an evaluation. Subjective points of view are contrary to universalism. The atheistic ethical ideology is debunked at this very point. Proving that the atheist world view is not able to provide the preconditions necessary to make ethical experiences intelligible; and therefore the atheistic position is irrational!

The Christian world view has always maintained from the outset that the foundations to ethics are objective in nature; being rooted in the character of God and not in the opinions of men. That these same ethical values being universal; are applied to all men. Pervy, wants to know if I can prove that the Christian world view is able to provide an objective bases for morality. Pervy stated in the resolution “The Christian worldview provides an Objective Morality that an atheistic worldview is unable to provide”. Since Christians maintain that God is the anchor in allowing for objective ethics; the resolution before us actually becomes a question. Is God a necessary precondition for objective morality? I have shown that God is necessary on two points. One, only the philosophy of life that incubuses the Christian God is able to make rational the ethical ideology as expressed by both the atheist and theist. Secondly, from the impossibility of the contrary; no other world view can account for the universal, abstract, and absolute quality as depleted in ethics. My opponent has called this type of argumentation rubbish in other posts. But before he can fault my world view, he will first have to make sense of his own world view. God is a necessary precondition; for without God you lose objective, absolute standards.

I know that the atheist loves his wife and children. I also know that he can be good or bad in his experiences. The same can also be said about the theist. The atheist and the Christian can be either good or rotten. All men are moral beings; not because of some external feel good ideology; but because God says that we were created in his image. God is a moral being and man was created as a moral being. The question regarding the foundations to ethics is not about “if” either the Christian or the atheist can or does experience them; but rather whose world view is able to account for them. The Christian is able to give a cogent and rational explanation for the existence of ethics. The atheist is not.

Know God, Know absolute standards: No God, no absolute standards!
(Tag-you’re it!)

[Dean Anderson]

Before we get started, let me welcome you to this debate. I would like to thank my opponent for offering to take up my debate challenge, and thank Nightshade for setting it up for us.

With that out of the way, let us jump straight in to the topic at hand without further ado.

The resolution that my opponent is arguing for is that:

The Christian worldview provides an objective morality that an atheistic worldview is unable to provide.

As can be plainly see, there three key issues here - and as the person making the assertion, the onus is on my opponent to demonstrate all three of them.

The first issue is of what, exactly, can be considered "objective" when talking about morality. Since both parties in the debate may not come to agreement over this first point, my opponent will need to argue that his definition of what is objective should be accepted by the readers of this debate.

The second issue is that the resolution asserts that the Christian worldview provides an objective morality. My opponent has the burden of proof here. He must demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the Christian worldview does indeed provide such an objective morality.

The third issue is that the resolution asserts that an atheistic worldview is unable to provide an objective morality. Since I will be arguing that there is no such thing as an objective morality, regardless of worldview, then this is something that we agree on and there is no further need for debate on this issue. However, it must still be borne in mind during the debate - because any morality system that my opponent proposes as being based in the Christian worldview must be one that is only valid in that worldview. If a morality that he proposes is just as valid in an atheistic worldview as a Christian one, then - even though I may not believe that morality to exist - his argument still fails because he will have failed to demonstrate that Christianity provides an objective morality that atheism cannot.

Given the above, for my opponent to claim victory in this debate, he will have to demonstrate - not just assert - that Christianity provides an objective morality that neither contradicts itself or the world we experience around us, and that that morality does not have an atheistic equivalent.

What is meant by an "objective" morality?

My opponent, defines objectivity as follows:

Objectivity - refers to such as based in a separate, distant, and unbiased point of view, such that concepts discussed are treated as objects.

And contrasts it to subjectivity as defined as follows:

Subjectivity - refers to the property of perceptions, arguments, and language as being based in a subject point of view, and hence influenced in accordance with a particular bias.

Although my opponent then talks about morality at length, he offers no such succinct working definition for how these concepts of subjectivity and objectivity apply to morality for purposes of this debate.

With this in mind, I propose the following definitions:

Objective Morality - a system of morality whereby moral precepts are treated as separate distant objects; a behaviour is defined as moral or immoral based on these separate distant objects, regardless of the bias of the moral agent that performs or witnesses the behaviour.

Subjective Morality - a system of morality whereby moral precepts are based on the point of view of the moral agent; a behaviour that is moral to one agent may be immoral to another depending in accordance with their particular bias

As can be seen from the portions of these definitions that I have bolded, the wording is taken directly from my opponent's own definitions of objectivity and subjectivity, so I trust that he will agree with these working definitions of Objective Morality and Subjective Morality.

A Digression

Rather than going straight away into defining what sort of objective morality Christianity can provide, my opponent chose to spend a few hundred words attacking things I have said outside of this debate, and claiming them to be various fallacies.

I can only assume that this is a blatant attempt to Poison the Well. However I will spend some effort correcting these claims, because doing so raises issues directly germane to this debate.

Firstly he invents an "external standard for God" fallacy, by which he takes my questioning where I ask by which objective standard God can be judged to be good or perfect and claims that this is a fallacy because Christians do not claim that there is an external standard for God, but claim that God is the "highest court of ethical appeal".

This was, of course, my entire reason for asking the question. By my opponent's own definition, objectivity refers to things that are "separate" and "distant" "objects". Therefore, the question can be rephrased as "What are these separate and distinct moral precepts by which we can judge God to be good?"

His answer - that God is the highest court of ethical appeal - directly contradicts his definition of objectivity, since by his answer the moral precepts are neither "separate" nor "distant" from God, the moral agent being judged, and by his answer they are certainly not separate objects from the "subject point of view" of God.

So in this case, he has dismissed my question by inventing a new "fallacy" and using it to hand-wave my question away - but in doing so has undermined his own position.

Secondly, and less importantly for this debate, he takes my assertion that Christian morality is "no better than" atheistic morality to mean that I have assumed that they are in some way connected. All I did was make a qualitative (on the scale of subjective -> objective) comparison. I made no claim that they were "contingent on each other". This is irrelevant to the debate at hand, and I can only assume that he brought it up merely to Poison the Well against me.

Thirdly, he takes a statement of mine about what constitutes an objective standard of morality; that it "is one that simply is regardless of any authority" and - rather bizarrely - says that this breaks the logical Law of Non-Contradiction.

He claims that this makes it impossible for any authority to create objective standards, which is making my point for me. An authority cannot create objective standards - since the standards it creates will be, by his definition subjective to the "point of view" of the authority. By his definition of objectivity, objective standards must be "distinct" and "separate" from the authority, and the authority is limited to enforcing the standards rather than creating them.

Once again, by attempting to answer previous comments of mine he has undermined his own position.

Christian Objective Morality

Once we are past these digressions, my opponent eventually gets to the point - that of how Christianity can supply an objective morality.

He first uses an example from laws. He points out that when someone writes a law - his example is that of a traffic law involving stop signs - then the law objectively exists, even though people may interpret it in different subjective ways.

Then he moves onto an example where someone writes a book, and you don't agree with what they have written. Throwing the book away or ignoring it does not change that both the book and the words written in it objectively exist.

These two examples are fine in and of themselves, but he then tries to connect the second example to Christianity and morality as follows:

What if the book was about God and his espoused ethics? Once the information was ascribed to paper only our interpretation of it is changeable and potentially bias; but not the information itself. There is no man that can affect the ethics expressed by God. Nor is there any man great enough that God would seek his counsel on such issues. God is therefore non-bias in that He is not affected by the will or intellect of men.

The first error here is that my opponent has jumped suddenly from a "book about God" to "ethics expressed by God".

The book about God may objectively exist, as do the words in it. However, just because these words objectively exist does not mean that they are true. Now that I have written this debate round, the words "Pervy is the King of Moldavia" objectively exist as part of it. This doesn't make it objectively true that I am the King of Moldavia1.

If my opponent wishes to claim that the second half of that paragraph is true, then he must show the epistemology that he uses in order to determine that the Bible's claims are true.

My opponent then goes on to continue presuppose the truth of the Bible without showing any epistemological reason why this presupposition is valid. In doing so, he says the following:

Maybe my opponent wants us to believe that the ethics expressed by God are based outside of God. He suggested this in his #4700 post with Patriot7: "If you want to say that God is Objectively Good, then this Objective Morality by which God can be judged must (by virtue of being objective) be independent of him..." The scriptures tell us that the ethical values are themselves an expression of the very character of God; and not an external guide that God somehow consults. That God is the final judge of all men. It should be noted here that the word "objective" is not being used in its proper contextual format in the above quote. The word "objective", is always separate from the one it applies to; and not to the administrator of it.

Here, my opponent has just stated flat out that the morality which he claims to be objective - defined by him as being "separate" and "distinct" - is neither separate nor distinct from God; the very moral agent which my question is using them to judge. This sort of morality - that which is "based in a subject point of view" (in this case, the subject being God) - is exactly what my opponent defines as subjective.

He then comes back to his example of the stop sign, pointing out that the law is objective despite differing interpretations - since it applies to all men. He claims, at the end of this:

In this world when you disagree with a judge; you can appeal to a higher court. But sooner or later you are going to run out of courts to appeal to. The United States Supreme Court is the highest court in the USA. These judges objectively examine the laws of the land to settle disputes. So why would we expect objectivity from an earthly judge and not expect this same objectivity from a Heavenly Judge?

There are two things wrong with this analogy that make it fail to apply to the subject of the debate. Firstly, as he points out, the judges "objectively examine the law of the land" to settle disputes. The Law of the Land objectively exists as a set of written statutes, and as such the judges are examining a "separate" and "distinct" "object. For this to apply to God, as he tries to claim at the end, God would also have to be examining a "separate" and "distinct" "object" in order to settle disputes - exactly the thing that insists does not exist.

The second thing wrong with the analogy is that laws and morality are two completely different things.

Morality is a system of right and wrong - it tells us what we ought to do and not do. It distinguishes between good and bad.

Law, on the other hand, is merely a set of commands given by someone that are enforced by the might of those who can enforce them and have no inherent moral basis (although some things that are immoral are also illegal).

Similarly, the application of laws is always subjective. The existence of the law might be objective, but the application of it is not. That it was legal to own slaves in 19th century America is an objective fact. The law objectively existed. However, the law only subjectively applied to citizens of the America at that time. This is very different from what is needed by a morality for it to be objective.
The objective existence of a law allowing slavery does not mean that slavery is objectively moral, or indeed, even objectively legal - since the law only applies from the "subject point of view" of the people in the society in which the law is enacted.

Atheistic Morality

Despite my opponent saying at the beginning of his opening statement that there was no need to go into atheist morality, since we both agree that it is subjective, he still went on to spending almost a quarter of the same opening statement attacking it for being subjective.

In it, he claims that subjective morality is of no use to us and is the equivalent of no morality. Naturally, I disagree with this claim - the subjective morality that we all base on the innate (and some would say objective) sense of empathy that millions of years of evolution has given us does fine.

However, I am not going to be drawn into a long discussion of atheistic morality. We both agree that it is subjective, and that is all that is necessary in the scope of this debate.

Transcendental Argument

My opponent then moves on to the standard Transcendental Argument for God, as expected.

Firstly, he baldly asserts "we know" that the ethics must come from a mind.

I fully agree with this statement. That is why they must be subjective. I fully agree that "we know" that objective morals - morals precepts being "separate" "distinct" "objects", to use my opponent's definition of objective once again - are an impossibility.

Now that we have agreed on that basic principle, the rest of the debate is superfluous. If my opponent agrees that "we know" that there can be no objective morality, then Christianity is obviously not capable of supplying one and he may as well pack up now and concede the debate.

Of course, despite my opponent agreeing this, he then goes on to assert the contrary - with absolutely no evidence - thus:

Ethical laws exist apart from with will or intellect of men; they objectively exist.

His support for that assertion is:

In order to call anything right or wrong you must first presuppose a set of standards by which to evaluate the experience. A standard that not only applies to you; but to all parties involved. Only a universal and absolute standard will allow for such an evaluation.

Unfortunately, this is simply another unsupported assertion. My opponent gives no reason why a universal and absolute standard is the only standard which one can apply to people in order to call anything right or wrong.

Within my social grouping, I can take the subjective set of standards agreed by that group and apply them in order to evaluate the behaviour of the people within that group. Such standards would indeed apply to all parties involved.

Indeed, I can take those same subjective standards and apply them even to people outside the group who do not agree with them. The person being judged may not agree with our judgement, but that is irrelevant.

There is no need to address the rest of the Transcendental Argument for God that my opponent espouses, since it all relies on this first premise of my opponent's - the premise that there must be objective laws of ethics.

Formally Formatting The Argument

Throughout his opening post, my opponent has made a number of assertions, and then made a number of arguments based on those assertions. However, most of these arguments have not been relevant to the debate topic. Arguments about whether it is necessary for morality to be objective, or whether subjective morality is an oxymoron, or whether subjective morality can carry authority, or whether atheistic morality can be objective are all irrelevant until my opponent can demonstrate his basic premise. What matters is simply this: can Christianity provide an objective morality?

The assertions and the arguments that are directly related to this have not necessarily been placed together by my opponent. Taking these arguments (that my opponent has expressed throughout his post) and expressing them together formally as a set of propositions and conclusions, we get the following:

P1) Objectivity entails being separate from and distinct from any individual point of view, it entails being a separate object.

P2) According to the Christian worldview, morality comes from God - as it is "part of" him.

P3) Since, according to the Christian worldview, no human is "great enough" for God to consult on ethics, God is not biased.

C1) Therefore, morality that comes from God (by the Christian worldview) is objective.

This is the crux of the matter. It is the central point of my opponent's argument for Christianity being able to supply objective morality.

However, by my opponent's own definition of objectivity, his argument fails. God is a moral agent. He acts according to morality. If, as my opponent claims, the Christian worldview is that morality comes from God as part of his nature - then morality is subjective since it relies on God's point of view.

My opponent has repeatedly handwaved away a question that I have asked previously. The Question is this.

By what objective morality can we judge God to be good?

My opponent claims that this is a fallacy because it assumes that morality is separate from God, but in fact it does no such thing. It merely asks if such a thing exists, and in doing so it drives a stake straight through the heart of his own argument.

If there is an objective morality external to God by which we can judge him to be good, then such a morality is (by my opponent's definition of objectivity) separate from God and is equally valid for a Christian or an atheist worldview.

If there is no morality external to God by which we can judge him to be good, them whatever morality there is is not separate from God, and therefore is (by my opponent's definition of objectivity) subjective to God's point of view.

In either case, my opponent's argument fails. Either morality is subjective, or it is objective and worldview-independent.

Conclusion

By taking on this debate, my opponent has assumed the burden of proof. He needs to prove that Christianity can provide an objective morality, and that this objective morality is not available in an atheistic worldview.

Despite much attacking of the atheist position and of subjective morality, my opponent has so far done no such thing. His big claim is that morality comes from God and that this makes it objective.

However, by his own definition of objectivity and his own description of how God provides (rather than merely reveals) morality, this claim is patently not true.


1 I'm not, to my knowledge, by the way. I don't even know whether or not Moldavia is a monarchy.

[TAG-your it!]

Pervy defines Objective Morality:


Objective Morality - a system of morality whereby moral precepts are treated as separate distant objects; a behaviour is defined as moral or immoral based on these separate distant objects, regardless of the bias of the moral agent that performs or witnesses the behaviour.

Let’s examine what my opponent has declared as definitional for the word “objective”. Just base on Pervy’s own definition I believe I can win this debate. What we are comparing are the actions of a person against an ethical standard to draw out a conclusion. “Is this person action moral or immoral?”
Since I am a Christian lets talk about me for an example:
To start, let’s plug me into the equation….. “Mike’s behavior (moral or immoral), is based on a separate distant object (moral precepts), regardless of any bias that I (the moral agent) might have”. This is what my opponent has called “objective morality”. Understand what’s going on? It’s my actions that are under consideration, not those of the author who imposes the standards by which I adhere myself. You’re the reader…. Pervy is making my case for me! Here is the twist. Pervy, in proposing the resolution before us wants to know if the Christian world view is able to provide objective morality. When the Christian proclaims that they have an objective base to their morality; Pervy cries foul! “Since God created ethics, God is subjective. So your moral base is not really objective; but rather subjective in nature”. Well, let’s add God to the equation to see if this ideology holds true. But first a recap:

“Mike’s behavior (moral or immoral), is based on a separate distant object (moral precepts), regardless of any bias that I (the moral agent) might have”.

Now, let’s place God into the equation from Pervy’s point of view.

“God’s behavior (moral or immoral), is based on a separate distant object (moral precepts), regardless of any bias that God (the moral agent) might have”.

What has happen? The subject of the sentence has changed from Mike to God. My ethics are no longer under consideration; but those of God. Maybe my opponent has forgotten that the resolution before us is about the Christian world view; and not the actions of God. If Pervy wants to debate me on the ethics of God; he will first have to produce a standard by which to judge God. But that’s a different debate. Just so there is clarity of thought at this point. The ethics expressed by God are not under consideration; being a separate debate. The foundations of ethics as expressed by the Christian are the topic of the debate. So, let’s place God into the equation again; but in the right perspective:

“Mike’s behavior (moral or immoral), is based on a separate distant object (the Character of God), regardless of any bias that I (the moral agent) might have”.

Since we are discussing my actions based on the standards found in the character of God; it is proper to call those standards objective. It is the Christian world view (not opinions about my world view), that our actions are moral or immoral based on the character of God. The next time you find yourself in a court of law, try telling the Judge that before he can place verdict on your case, he will first have to prove that he, the judge is without prejudice. Wouldn’t that be a laugh! Why? I have said this before, but I feel the need to hammer this point home! It’s my actions that are under consideration and not those of the judge. Later in my opponent’s post he asserts that I am sidestepping his question on the morality of God:


My opponent has repeatedly handwaved away a question that I have asked previously. The Question is this.

By what objective morality can we judge God to be good?

My opponent expects an answer to this question. Yet this is impossible, for there are three false premises built into the questions.

1.That we can judge that actions of God
2.That there is a standard to judge God by
3.That the standard that we would use would be objective and/or subjective

It would be the same as asking “Have you stopped drinking yet?” Does the room see the premises that are built in?

He then goes on to declare:

My opponent claims that this is a fallacy because it assumes that morality is separate from God, but in fact it does no such thing. It merely asks if such a thing exists, and in doing so it drives a stake straight through the heart of his own argument.

The later half of this quote is a nice impression of Eddie Tabash (an atheist lawyer who debated Dr. Grey Bahnsen on a related issue). The first half is not misleading, it is mistaken. I never said that morality is separate from God; I said that it is separate from men. My opponent in this debate so far has not seemed to grasp the concept of perspectives. He continually applies God’s perspective to that of mine. He bounces from one reference point (me) to another reference point (God), all in the same sentence. There is no cohesion in forming thoughts about ethical foundations.

Pervy defines Subjective Morality:


Subjective Morality - a system of morality whereby moral precepts are based on the point of view of the moral agent; a behaviour that is moral to one agent may be immoral to another depending in accordance with their particular bias

In my opening statement I had discussed the fatality of “subjective morality”. Based on the definition provided by Pervy; allow me to once again demonstrate the error of such false ideology.

Again let’s plug a name into the equation:
Moral precepts (ethical standards), are base on Bob’s point of view foundational within his particular bias. James, another individual see the actions of Bob and declares to himself that Bob’s actions are immoral. This of course is base on James own set of moral precepts. Mark walks in and is not troubled by the actions of Bob, but rather by the actions of James. Again, this of course is base on Marks own set of moral precepts. See what’s going on? In Pervy’s world view all action are relative to one’s own internal set of standards. Pervy tires to hide the fact by telling us later in his post that subjective morality has an innate (intrinsic) sense of empathy (understanding).


In it, he claims that subjective morality is of no use to us and is the equivalent of no morality. Naturally, I disagree with this claim - the subjective morality that we all base on the innate (and some would say objective) sense of empathy that millions of years of evolution has given us does fine.

Pervy has not thought through his world view. For when actions have an intrinsic property to them; they lose the ability to be subjectively qualified. But it gets worse! We haven’t meet Chris yet! Christ walks in and sees the actions of Bob, James, and Mark; and thinks that they are all insane. It can go on and on…. So in the end, what we see is a world in which all actions are relative to each person’s own sense of right and wrong. No one is right and no one is wrong; GIVEN THEIR OWN SET OF STANDARDS!! Again, please look at the above quote from Pervy. He told you that I said “subjective morality is of no use…”. Given Pervy’s world view, how can he call the actions of others right or wrong? He can’t! Actions are not “right” or “wrong” when all actions are subjectively qualified. Pervy’s “Point of view” argument will not help the issue. He might as well look in the mirror and tell himself, “well at least we agree!”


Reviewing Pervy’s digression


Firstly he invents an "external standard for God" fallacy, by which he takes my questioning where I ask by which objective standard God can be judged to be good or perfect and claims that this is a fallacy because Christians do not claim that there is an external standard for God, but claim that God is the "highest court of ethical appeal".

This was, of course, my entire reason for asking the question. By my opponent's own definition, objectivity refers to things that are "separate" and "distant" "objects". Therefore, the question can be rephrased as "What are these separate and distinct moral precepts by which we can judge God to be good?"

The debate is about the ethical foundation within the world view held by Christians. I think that the reader knows where this is going. If Pervy had wanted to debate about the ethical foundation found within the character of God; he should have included it in the resolution. But the resolution before us is about the foundations to ethical standards within the Christian world view. Are they objective or are they subjective? Pervy needs to decide to whom he wishes to speak; me or God? I included his question in my opening statement to show that Pervy superimposed a theological precursor onto questions meant to qualify positions held by the Christian. If Pervy had asked me about the foundations of ethics in respect to God; I would had said; since ethics are based on the character of God; they are from, God’s perspective neither objective nor subjective. They exist because God exist. This statement is an intrinsic part of my world view; and therefore is not directly falsifiable. So if Pervy plans to question my claims to an objective base to morality; he will have to examine the claim from my point of view. Also, if my opponent wishes to falsify my claims about the foundations of morality; he will have to demonstrate: One, that my view on morality doesn’t comport to reality. Second, to offer a view that does. This is not a “Burden of Proof fallacy; for my opponent has a separate distinct view of reality. The Christian has given proof in support of his working model that explains the universal qualities found within ethics. We haven’t heard much as counter argument from my opponent other then I don’t like yours.

Pervy posted:


He claims that this makes it impossible for any authority to create objective standards, which is making my point for me. An authority cannot create objective standards - since the standards it creates will be, by his definition subjective to the "point of view" of the authority. By his definition of objectivity, objective standards must be "distinct" and "separate" from the authority, and the authority is limited to enforcing the standards rather than creating them.

Pervy should go back and reread what I said on the law of non-contradiction. This is what I wrote:


He has engaged in linguistic revision. He has made it impossible for any authority to create objective standards. For in the moment you add a mind to the equation (as he puts it); the standard becomes subjective and no longer objective.

I said that Pervy has made it impossible; not I. Objective standards are distinct and separate from the one it applies too; not to the author of it.

Pervy’s view of Christian Objective Morality


The book about God may objectively exist, as do the words in it. However, just because these words objectively exist does not mean that they are true.

The resolution is not about “are the Scriptures true”. It is about the philosophy within a world view being able to provide an ethical foundation. I wonder if Pervy understands just what a world view is. As Dr. Bahnsen puts it; a world view is made up of presuppositions, fundamental beliefs about the world around us. These beliefs are not autonomist in nature; but contingent on other beliefs. They form a “web” of beliefs that we use to filter our experiences in life. Pervy, I, and all of you who read this post have fundamental beliefs about man, God, and our conduct. Pervy’s question would have been justified if it were designed to show an internal incontinency or an external non-conformity on my part. But as such, it’s only an attempt discredit the word of God; which is not connected to the topic or resolution.

Pervy’s view on Law and Morality


The second thing wrong with the analogy is that laws and morality are two completely different things.

Morality is a system of right and wrong - it tells us what we ought to do and not do. It distinguishes between good and bad.

Law, on the other hand, is merely a set of commands given by someone that are enforced by the might of those who can enforce them and have no inherent moral basis (although some things that are immoral are also illegal).

One….I believe that Pervy should look up the word “ought” online. Some synonyms for the word ought are “have to”, “must”, and “should”. Now, please explain how these synonyms fit into an atheistic world view on ethics. Two…. Pervy should read the Bible in preparation for the debate. God doesn’t say, “Try not to steal, please!” God says, “You shall not steal” It is the Christians contention that morality comes with accountability. Pervy said that the child in the playground didn’t have to listen to either the Christian or the atheist. From an atheist point of view I can understand that construct. No God, no accountability. But the Christian world view does bring to account the actions of others. The word of God says that all men are accountable to Him. The atheist doesn’t like this view. They would rather enjoy autonomy. Interestingly, the word autonomy is made from two root words meaning “self” and “law”. So law and morality are not separate like Pervy suggest; they are contingent. Morality devoid of its accountability is like opinions; we all have one….. So what!

Pervy’s views on Atheistic Morality


Despite my opponent saying at the beginning of his opening statement that there was no need to go into atheist morality, since we both agree that it is subjective, he still went on to spending almost a quarter of the same opening statement attacking it for being subjective.

At this point let me give the benefit of doubt to my opponent. In my opening statement I wanted to convey to the readers and Pervy that there was no reason to discuss any atheists’ claims to objective morality; for Pervy had already stated that he believed that there was only subjective morality. I never state that I wouldn’t discuss his views on subjective morality.



In it, he claims that subjective morality is of no use to us and is the equivalent of no morality. Naturally, I disagree with this claim - the subjective morality that we all base on the innate (and some would say objective) sense of empathy that millions of years of evolution has given us does fine.

My opponent’s epistemological view of the world is that all ethical experiences are subjectively based. He tells us that there is no absolute standard by which to evaluate ethics. He does however offer a universal binder by stipulating “innate sense of empathy” as a morally imperative. He tells us that this innate (intrinsic) sense of empathy (understanding) has developed over millions of years. Yet he is unable to offer any connecting link between his universal property “innate sense of empathy” and his non-universal foundational qualifier in ethics “subjective”. If atheism were true, would we expect to see this type of ideology universally applied? We do see in time of trouble, people helping other people; people who care and have much to offer. But what about the man who murders, or steals from others? He has not subjectively adhered himself to this particular school of thought. Remember, in order to judge the actions of others you need a common ethical foundation. Here in lies the problem! In the atheist world view, there is no common ethical foundation. There are only perspectives on social issues. So who is it to say that your ethical views are more cogent then those of the person next you; or anyone who is reading this post? In the atheistic world, there is, after all no finally perspective. Everyone is a free agent to do as they desire. It’s at this very juncture that my opponent’s world view falls apart. For you can’t say….your are right or you are wrong without holding all parties to a universal binder. The Christian world view does offer that universal binder. The truth of falsity of such a claim is not in question in this debate. For what we are talking about is polices within a particular persons world view. “Does the Christian world view provide…..” Yes, it does! My opponent’s world view offers no such binder and as such is unable to explain ethical ideology as express by men. But it more than that! Since the Christian world view incubus all of reality; the Christian’s ideology explains even the actions of the atheist. For the word of God says that all men were created in his image. In other words…. We are moral beings because God made us that way. You can say there is no God; but you can’t live that way!

Conclusion

I would have to say that I am a little disappointed in my opponent’s method of argumentation. One of his points before the debate was in looking forward to my use of the Transcendental Argument for the existence of God. Since we didn’t debate about God, you might say that I use the transcendental Argument for the existence of Christian Ethics. (TACE) At this point let me clarify a point. When arguing for TACE, the transcendental reasoning argues from the impossibility of the contrary. My opponent should have expected an internal critique of his world view. When I argued that his view on a subjective foundation doesn’t comport to reality; I waited for “Oh No! It’s not like that at all” then expect that he would have gone on to explain how in an atheist world there can be subjectively based morality. But that was not to be the case. Instead, he changes the meaning of the words that I use, misrepresented my position by using words in an improper perspective. It must be easy to sit on the side lines and pick at another person’s argument. What I had hoped for was a debate on the objective foundations to ethics. Pervy said that he would argue the negative. What is the negative after all when dialoging on objective morality? It subjective morality! Well, unless his position is that of chaos. I expected an argument that stated subjective morality comports to reality in a rational manor. This is what we see and this is how it fits in. It’s a working model, so objective morality is false. If Pervy really wanted to win the debate this would have been his best argument. I even left open doors for rebuttal on my first post:


If he had thought though his world view a little more; he would have realized that “subjective morality” is in effect an oxymoron. In order to call anything right or wrong you must first presuppose a set of standards by which to evaluate the experience.


The atheist says that there is no objective base to morality, yet he presupposes an absolute standard in order to evaluate the actions of others.

My opponent used his first round to rebuttal my opening statement; even thou I agree to round one was to be an opening statement, round two to be rebuttal, and round three closing statements. I hope that he will use his second round to make a case for subjective morality as comporting to reality. I am sure that he will retort that the debate is about whether the Christian worldview provides an objective moral base. I have given many examples as proof. I have defined my position. I have shown that the Christian philosophy has a working model on morality. I have shown that the atheist philosophy is does not comport to what we see in the world around us. (TACE as Expected). All this I have shown Q.E.D.

In developing my second round for the debate I highlight points on his opening statement in order to look for arguments within his post. I don’t normally do this; but I’m going to provide you with a copy of what I wrote down.

1.Definitions
a.Defines Objective morality
i.See above!
ii.Confused on subject/object relationships
b.Defines Subjective Morality
i.The subjective morality that we all base on the innate (and some would say objective) sense of empathy that millions of years of evolution has given us does fine.
1.doesn’t discuss how innate (universal) go with subjective (non-universal)
c.Assumes agreement based on similar word use in defining the words “objective” and “subjective”
2.Digression
a.Thought it was an attempt to Poison the well
i.I intended to clarify his position
b.External standard for God” fallacy
i.Reasserts his views about the Christian world view:
1.Pervy never stated that my philosophy on tying ethics to the character of God was incorrect. That it didn’t comport to views held by the church as a whole.
c.Doesn’t understand that “objective” has a point of view element to it.
i.Thrust Pervy is trying to make is that I contradict my own definition (point of view fallacy on his part)
d.Law of non-contradiction
i.Pervy: “He claims that this makes it impossible for any authority to create objective standards…”
1.Pervy didn’t understand that I was writing that about HIS claims to objective foundations.
ii.Misrepresents my definition for the word Objective.
3.Pervy then attacks the validity of the Word of God.
a.I’m a Christian….What did he expect?
b.“……just because these words objectively exist does not mean that they are true.”
c.Goes on to state I need to prove the Bible true before using it in argumentation.
d.Misapplies my definition of the objective to suggest that the ethics of God are subjective.
i.Uses a definition based on my perspective and applies it to God
4.Attacks quote.” So why would we expect objectivity from an earthly judge and not expect this same objectivity from a Heavenly Judge?
a.His arguments applies the definition from the word “objective” to the word “objectively” and says that I say God has to use an external standard to judge men
b.Pervy uses how men applied laws in a subjective manor to develop the idea that all men are bias in handling issues of law. Then transposes that ideology onto an eternal sovereign God.
5.Attacks TAG
a.Says that since ethics come from a mind it must be subjective
i.Doesn’t explain a universal (innate ethics) in a godless universal
b.Asserts that since morals that are separate and distinct are objective, then objective morals are impossible
c.Asserts that my conclusion, “Only a universal and absolute standard will allow for such an evaluation”, based on two premises; is unsupported.
i.Premise one: In order to call anything right or wrong you must first presuppose a set of standards by which to evaluate the experience.
ii.Premise two: A standard that not only applies to you; but to all parties involved.
6.Formatting the argument
a.Pervy: “In either case, my opponent's argument fails. Either morality is subjective, or it is objective and worldview-independent.”
i.Pervy never discuses perspectives in regards to ethical foundations.


Time running out…. Will you support your negative view when you asserted subjective morality comports to reality? If subjectivism is, objectivism is not!

[Dean Anderson]

Introduction

Welcome to round 2 of this debate.

In the last round, my opponent stated his case for why: The Christian worldview provides an objective morality that an atheistic worldview is unable to provide. I then replied making my initial argument for why his case is wrong.

In this round, my opponent is attempting to rebut my criticism of his case, and I will be attempting to rebut his rebuttal.

My opponent is the one making the case, here. He is proposing two things:

(1) That the Christian worldview provides an objective morality.

(2) That this objective morality provided in (1) is not one that could be equally valid in an atheistic worldview.

That is what this debate is about, and that is what my opponent's case must stand or fall on. My opponent seems to want to stretch this debate into one about the relative merits of objective vs. subjective morality systems. Indeed, he even says the following:

My opponent used his first round to rebuttal my opening statement; even thou I agree to round one was to be an opening statement, round two to be rebuttal, and round three closing statements. I hope that he will use his second round to make a case for subjective morality as comporting to reality.

Whether or not subjective morality comports to reality is not, and never has been, within scope of this debate.

Unfortunately, that has not stopped my opponent from wasting a good portion of this round attacking subjective morality (and atheism in general) once again.

Double Standards

In this round, my opponent starts by artificially distinguishing between moral agents. He freely admits that by his worldview morality is only external to some moral agents and not to others, yet still claims that this is "objective". Let's look at what he says.

Since I am a Christian lets talk about me for an example:
To start, let's plug me into the equation..... "Mike's behavior (moral or immoral), is based on a separate distant object (moral precepts), regardless of any bias that I (the moral agent) might have".

So far, so good. By my opponent's worldview he gets his moral precepts from a source external to himself.

However, he then goes on to say:

This is what my opponent has called "objective morality".

This is simply false. A system of morality isn't objective simply because it external to one moral agent. It is objective because it is external to all moral agents.

Then my opponent shows a similar example, but with a different moral agent:

Well, let's add God to the equation to see if this ideology holds true. But first a recap:

"Mike's behavior (moral or immoral), is based on a separate distant object (moral precepts), regardless of any bias that I (the moral agent) might have".

Now, let's place God into the equation from Pervy's point of view.

"God's behavior (moral or immoral), is based on a separate distant object (moral precepts), regardless of any bias that God (the moral agent) might have".

What has happen? The subject of the sentence has changed from Mike to God. My ethics are no longer under consideration; but those of God.

My opponent is quite correct here, and it is fatal to his argument. For a system of morality to be objective, it must be external to all moral agents. If a system of morality is only external to some moral agents and not others, then it is - by both our definitions - subjective.

Of course, my opponent can only try to weasel out of this trap by claiming that we can't judge God and that "The ethics expressed by God are not under consideration; being a separate debate. The foundations of ethics as expressed by the Christian are the topic of the debate." This, of course, simply won't wash. If a system of morality is objective, then it applies equally to everyone - and no-one's ethics are "not under consideration".

My opponent is free to claim that according to the Christian worldview, morality only applies to humans and not to God. But if he insists on doing so then he loses the debate, since morality that only applies to some moral agents and not to others can not be described as objective.

We can see his dilemma by looking at his second example, where he "place[s] God into the equation again; but in the right perspective":

"Mike's behavior (moral or immoral), is based on a separate distant object (the Character of God), regardless of any bias that I (the moral agent) might have".

And what happens if we see how this applies to God (something my opponent was naturally reluctant to do):

God's behavior (moral or immoral), is based on a separate distant object (the Character of God), regardless of any bias that God (the moral agent) might have".

As is obvious in the above, this is patent nonsense.

There is little more that needs to be said on this point, although I do feel the need to correct one of my opponent's more egregious errors. My opponent says:

My opponent claims that this is a fallacy because it assumes that morality is separate from God, but in fact it does no such thing. It merely asks if such a thing exists, and in doing so it drives a stake straight through the heart of his own argument.

The later half of this quote is a nice impression of Eddie Tabash (an atheist lawyer who debated Dr. Grey Bahnsen on a related issue). The first half is not misleading, it is mistaken. I never said that morality is separate from God; I said that it is separate from men.

Here, my opponent seems very confused. I never said that he declared morality to be separate from God. I said that he accused me of assuming that it was - and pointed out that I made no such assumption but asked the question whether it was or not.

He follows this with:

My opponent in this debate so far has not seemed to grasp the concept of perspectives. He continually applies God's perspective to that of mine. He bounces from one reference point (me) to another reference point (God), all in the same sentence. There is no cohesion in forming thoughts about ethical foundations.

With apologies to readers of this debate for stating the bleeding obvious once again, my opponent is killing his own argument again here.

He accuses me of "bouncing from one reference point to another" as if that makes my argument invalid, when the whole point is that for morality to be objective then it must be equally valid from everyone's point of view.

Judging God Within Christianity

My opponent's claims that God cannot be morally judged within the Christian worldview might suit his purpose - to exclude God from the argument and therefore claim that a standard of morality that applies to all moral agents except God actually applies to all moral agents - but unfortunately for him, this argument does not work.

Christianity judges God's moral character all the time. He is judged as being "good", as being "just", as being "merciful", as being "loving" and so on. Even the Bible tells us that ever since Adam and Eve ate the fruit of knowledge we have had the same ability to morally judge that God does:

Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil:

Of course, my opponent may declare that just because Christians judge God constantly, they are wrong - and that in his "True Christian" worldview, God cannot indeed be judged.

The obvious response to that would be to point out that in this very debate, he has constantly asserted that "good" is the "Character of God" - so he is judging God's character to be good himself, even whilst claiming that no-one can judge God.

Should he say that it is the Bible ("God's Word") that judges God's character to be good rather than him then he runs into even greater trouble. If it is God that declares God's own character to be good then this is the height of subjectivity and bias.

More Attacks on Subjective Morality

My opponent then moves back onto the subject of subjective morality, once again claiming that it is of no use because people might disagree with each other about what is right and what is wrong.

Fair enough. He is entitled that subjective opinion of its usefulness. His opinion of how useful something is bears no relationship to whether it exists or not.

It is still irrelevant to this debate, though.

More Digressions

In reviewing my correction of his digressions, my opponent says the following:

If Pervy had asked me about the foundations of ethics in respect to God; I would had said; since ethics are based on the character of God; they are from, God's perspective neither objective nor subjective. They exist because God exist. This statement is an intrinsic part of my world view; and therefore is not directly falsifiable. So if Pervy plans to question my claims to an objective base to morality; he will have to examine the claim from my point of view.

So there you have it. By my opponent's own words, an intrinsic part of his worldview is that ethics are explicitly not objective as far as God is concerned. Since the whole distinction between "objective" and "subjective" is that for something to be objective it must be objective as far as everyone is concerned, I see no way that my opponent can now win this debate.

He has now said outright that an intrinsic part of his worldview (which is implicitly the "Christian Worldview" of the debate proposal) is that morality is not objective with respect to all moral agents.

Of course, he has also said that it is not subjective, either - which forces me to ask my opponent:

If something is "based on your point of view or bias" then it is "subjective". If something is external to you, then it is "objective". If something is "based on your character" then you claim it is neither "subjective" nor "objective" - so what is it, then? What is this third category? And how is something that is "based on your character" different to something that is "based on your point of view or bias"?

Naturally, he continues this digression by once again asserting that I must defend subjective morality in order to win this debate:

Also, if my opponent wishes to falsify my claims about the foundations of morality; he will have to demonstrate: One, that my view on morality doesn't comport to reality. Second, to offer a view that does. This is not a "Burden of Proof fallacy; for my opponent has a separate distinct view of reality. The Christian has given proof in support of his working model that explains the universal qualities found within ethics. We haven't heard much as counter argument from my opponent other then I don't like yours.

This is, of course, hogwash. I am under no obligation to provide and defend a view on morality.

My opponent is making a claim. All I need to do is to demonstrate that his claim is wrong. I have no need to make a counterclaim of my own.

To use an analogy, if my opponent claimed that the square root of 54,578,237 was 9,263,211,873,345 then I do not need to provide (or even be able to calculate) the correct square root of 54,578,237 in order to be able to prove him wrong. All I need to do is multiply 9,263,211,873,345 by itself and show that it does not, in fact, equal 54,578,237.

Similarly, my opponent is claiming that his Christian worldview provides objective morality - more specifically, that it provides an objective morality unavailable to atheistic worldviews. I don't need to demonstrate (or even have1) a coherent worldview of my own in order to prove him wrong. All I have to do is show that his worldview does not provide what he claims that it does.

Finally (and this is the last of the digression) my opponent still seems to be misreading me when it comes to whether an authority can create objective standards without them being merely subjective to the authority's point of view.

Here is the exchange:

Pervy: An objective standard of good is one that simply is, regardless of any authority

TYI: [Pervy] has made it impossible for any authority to create objective standards. For in the moment you add a mind to the equation (as he puts it); the standard becomes subjective and no longer objective.

Pervy: [TYI] claims that [my argument] makes it impossible for any authority to create objective standards, which is making my point for me.

TYI: Pervy should go back and reread what I said on the law of non-contradiction. I said that Pervy has made it impossible; not I.

As you can see, my opponent seems to be merely confused here about who has said what - and has still not explained what the Law of Non-Contradiction has to do with anything.

Law and Morality

My opponent continues to maintain that law and morality are the same thing. They are, of course, completely different.

His support for his conflation of law and morality is that he says that in the Christian worldview, "morality comes with accountability".

Of course, this statement is self defeating. The whole difference between law and morality is that morality says "You ought to do X because it is the right thing to do" and law says "If you do not do X then we will do Y to you."

Law is purely accountability. There is no moral "ought" involved in law. It is simply a set of morally neutral rules imposed either by force or by mutual agreement.

That my opponent has to specify that in the Christian worldview "morality comes with accountability" shows that he knows that they are two fundamentally different things.

He then yet again goes into the usual off-topic polemic against atheism that we have come to expect; once again claiming that atheism is merely a mechanism for avoiding accountability - even putting words in my mouth that I never said in order to attack the viewpoint that he imagines I have:

Pervy said that the child in the playground didn't have to listen to either the Christian or the atheist. From an atheist point of view I can understand that construct. No God, no accountability. But the Christian world view does bring to account the actions of others. The word of God says that all men are accountable to Him. The atheist doesn't like this view. They would rather enjoy autonomy.

I did, of course, never even mention his "child in the playground" parable, let alone make the comments on it that my opponent ascribes to me - but you shouldn't let facts like that get in the way of such an entertaining rant...

He finishes this section with a nice little "Argument From Etymology":

Interestingly, the word autonomy is made from two root words meaning "self" and "law". So law and morality are not separate like Pervy suggest; they are contingent.

Quite how the first sentence in this quote leads to the second, my opponent never explains. As far as I can tell, his argument in this section seems to be:

P1) The Christian worldview provides morality with accountability.

P2) Atheists do not want accountability. They want autonomy.

P3) The word "autonomy" comes from the Greek meaning "self rule" or "self law".

C1) Therefore, law and morality are the same thing.

I completely fail to see how this conclusion could follow from any combination of the premises. It is a complete non-sequitur.

Atheistic Morality (Again)

My opponent next attempts to divert the debate back onto atheistic and / or subjective morality (he assumes that the two are the same thing).

He spends nearly 600 words on this, making classic TAGist assertions about how subjective morality leads to The Land of Do-As-You-Please and how:

"It's at this very juncture that my opponent's world view falls apart. For you can't say....your are right or you are wrong without holding all parties to a universal binder."

My response to this is to simply shrug and say "Well, it seems to work okay in practise. Although it is possible for people to subjectively disagree, mostly they agree."

And, of course, to once again reiterate that this is irrelevant to the discussion at hand - which is about whether Christianity is capable of providing an objective morality; not about how useful a subjective morality is.

TAG and TACE

In my opponent's conclusion, he bemoans the fact that even though I expressed that I was looking forward to him trying to use TAG (the Transcendental Argument for God) I don't appear to be following the "rules" of TAG debates.

This is intentional.

The whole premise of TAG (and my opponent's related Transcendental Argument for Christian Ethics variant) is that it is a purely offensive argument. Rather than making claims and defending them, it presupposes its claims and then proceeds to attack any rival claims. The TAGist relies on being able to manipulate the argument so that their opponent is constantly defending their own claims and thus the TAGist's claims never get examined.

That is why I carefully worded the debate proposal the way I did, and that is why I was looking forward to my opponent trying to use TAG or some variant.

As my opponent admits:

When arguing for TACE, the transcendental reasoning argues from the impossibility of the contrary. My opponent should have expected an internal critique of his world view.

His argument is based on the "Impossibility of the Contrary" - in other words, if not-X is impossible then X must be true. His argument is entirely based upon attacking any alternate worldview that I might put forward, and then declaring that because mine was impossible (by his presupposed standards) then his must be true. This is, of course, not true. The two worldviews might, for example, be both equally false; the truth might be something else entirely that neither of us have thought of.

That is why I deliberately worded the proposal in such a way that my worldview is not under discussion. The proposal makes a positive claim about my opponent's worldview, and for my opponent to effectively win the debate he must actually defend his worldview and demonstrate that this positive claim is correct.

So, yes - I did expect an internal critique of my worldview, and my opponent has not disappointed me. Despite such a critique being explicitly off-topic for this debate, he still tries to come back to it time and time again - because that is what TAG is designed to do.

As my opponent says:

It must be easy to sit on the side lines and pick at another person's argument.

This is the modus operandi of TAG, and this is what I can only assume that my opponent was hoping to spend this debate doing. No wonder he is "a little disappointed in [my] method of argumentation" because it hasn't given him the opportunity to do this.

Further, my opponent claims that:
What I had hoped for was a debate on the objective foundations to ethics. Pervy said that he would argue the negative. What is the negative after all when dialoging on objective morality? It subjective morality!

This is, of course, misleading. The subject of this debate is not objective morality in general. It is whether Christianity can provide an objective morality. The positive claim is that my opponent's worldview can provide an objective morality. The negative to this is that my opponent's worldview cannot provide an objective morality.

Arguing the merits of subjective morality would be arguing an alternate positive position - not arguing the negative of my opponent's position.

Conclusion

My opponent's rebuttal to my criticism of his argument has failed on all counts.

- He has failed to show that Christianity can provide a morality that is objective (i.e. external to the points of view of all moral agents), since he admits that the morality in his worldview is not external to (or objective with respect to) God, who is a moral agent.

- He has tried to claim that within the Christian worldview, God is a special case and cannot be morally judged; even though this flies in the face of both the claims of Christianity and what the Bible says - both of which morally judge God to be "good" and claim that humans have been given the ability to discern good from evil (i.e. morally judge).

- He has tried to claim that an objective morality should not apply to God because of God's perspective as the "author" of morality - but this is the very distinction of objectivity vs. subjectivity; that something objective applies to everyone, regardless of their perspective.

My opponent now has but a single round left in order to support his claim that Christianity can provide an objective morality that atheism can't.

Awaiting the next round makes me shiver with antici...






1 I do, of course, have one - but discussing and analysing it is outside the scope of this debate.

[TAG-your it!]

Prier to closing, I would like to thank Pervy for debating me on the resolution: The Christian worldview provides an objective morality that an atheistic worldview is unable to provide; and to Nightshade for moderating the debate. I would also like to thank IIdb.org. For without IIdb.org we would have been reduced to snail mail.

There are however, a few minor remarks that Pervy made during his second round of debates that need to be dealt with first.

Pervy feels that his premises about subjective morality are not an issue within the debate; yet he tells us that (from his view point) that God’s subjective ideology is. Let us remember that we are dialoging on my actions, and not the actions of God. Pervy, doesn’t like my definition for the word objective. So he has used his own definition, despite the fact that it (his definition) gives rise to a semantic error. Pervy then go on to tell the readers that Chirstians judge the actions of God in order to say that God is good; EVEN AFTER ADMITING THAT I SAID GOD IS NOT JUDGE AND IS CONSIDERED A STANDARD OF GOODNESS!!!

Pervy in his introduction has presupposed an invalid premise on a conclusion. He says:


My opponent is the one making the case, here. He is proposing two things:

(1) That the Christian worldview provides an objective morality.

(2) That this objective morality provided in (1) is not one that could be equally valid in an atheistic worldview.

Pervy’s point (2) is not contextually correct and therefore presupposes a false premise. The premise is NOT that since objective morality is provided for in the Christian world view; it is not valid in the atheist world view. The correct premise is that since the philosophical view of the atheist is that all experiences are subjectively qualified; objective morality is not possible. Ergo, “…atheistic world view is unable to provide” an objective base. If my opponent is trying to frame the debate, he should at least understand what is being proposed. If Pervy had thought through the resolution a little further; he would have discovered a third point to be made.

(3) Since the resolution is formed as a statement and not as a question; then argumentation is required to demonstrate the proof or fallacy of all underlining premises.

Pervy retorts his unsupported premise


Whether or not subjective morality comports to reality is not, and never has been, within scope of this debate.


This is, of course, hogwash. I am under no obligation to provide and defend a view on morality.

My opponent is making a claim. All I need to do is to demonstrate that his claim is wrong. I have no need to make a counterclaim of my own.

Does Pervy believe that he and I have come into this debate neutral? That all Pervy has to do is find faults within my arguments? Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought that a debate was about apposing points of view. The first half of the resolution deals with the philosophical outlook of the Christian. You might say his view of reality based on an internal set of premises. The second half of the resolution deals with a philosophical conclusion also based on an internal set of premises. The Christian in this debate is declaring that in ethics; the reality of the situation is that all of mankind’s experiences are objectively qualified. That even thou the atheist world view claims that objective morality is not possible; the Christian knows that it is based on a lie; that this idea of subjective morality doesn’t comport to reality.
So the Christian in this debate asserts two premises:
(1.) objective morality comports to what we all see around us
(2.) that atheist’s view on objective morality is base on a false premise

Pervy might not like this second half seeing the light of day. Well, Pervy will need to build a bridge and get over it. The cohesion of his world view is falling apart when held against the reality of what we all take for granted. Do you know why the atheist’s world view is unable to provide objective morality? Because atheism embraces subjective morality as being fact! Pervy needs to debate the second half of the resolution or give up. Your opponent is accusing you of building your case on a false premise!


Unfortunately, that has not stopped my opponent from wasting a good portion of this round attacking subjective morality (and atheism in general) once again.

Pervy should again, go back and read both my opening statement and the second round statement. What we see is his attacks against the scriptures. Digs against my “Taggers” use of TACE; even thou he hinted at the use of it from the outset. You will never find that I made sport of the atheist’s views on reality. Just to let you know; you are all free to believe whatever you want. It’s just that everything comes with a price. All I ever said is that; “this is what the atheist believes”, “this is what I see in the world around me”, and that these two world views don’t comport with each other. I had actually hoped that Pervy would have shed some light on the issues at hand. Instead all I got was pot-shots at my epistemology.

Pervy talking about Double Standards


This is simply false. A system of morality isn't objective simply because it external to one moral agent. It is objective because it is external to all moral agents.

Lets look again at Pervy's definition for objective morality:


Objective Morality - a system of morality whereby moral precepts are treated as separate distant objects; a behaviour is defined as moral or immoral based on these separate distant objects, regardless of the bias of the moral agent that performs or witnesses the behaviour.

Pervy forgot to use the word “ALL” or "Author" in his definition for “objective morality”. All I did was to use his definition: then fill in my information. Look again:


Since I am a Christian lets talk about me for an example:
To start, let's plug me into the equation..... "Mike's behavior (moral or immoral), is based on a separate distant object (moral precepts), regardless of any bias that I (the moral agent) might have".

It is not that Pervy doesn’t get it; he doesn’t like the answer. A standard is not objective to you; because it’s objective to someone else. That is not the bases by which the word is applied. The word is ALWAYS APPLIED from the subject point of view. When a person looks at a standard that he didn’t create, doesn’t have any control over, he calls that standard objective. THE NEXT SENTENCE IS A HYPERTHICAL WHAT IF!!!! Even if you grant that God could be the subjective qualifier of the foundations to ethics. The person to whom the ethical standards are applied will STILL LOOK AT THOSE STANDARDS AS BEING OBJECTIVE. Pervy simple refuses to admit this very fact! Pevy wants to encage in linguistic revision. Do you ever wonder why we use the words subjective and objective? They have definitions to them. We use them in language to convey points of perspective. But they are ALWAYS USED contextually from the subject’s point of view. If we’re to question the bias of a particular person’ s reasoning; we might say that their statements are either subjective or objective. Pervy questions the bias of God; calling it subjective. Then Pervy says that since God is subjective, men reasoning based on God’s ethical standards are NOW also subjectively bias. It’s a bait and switch tactic. He pulls you away from man to consider the ethics of God. Once you are focused on God; he throws the conclusion of one consideration (the subjective foundations Pervy sees in God) onto the consideration of man’s ethical standards. His reasoning is a lie! He has said “all”, but never connects “all” to the creator of the standard. He only asserted his unsupported opinions. He says objective applies to “all moral agents”; but doesn’t tell you that “agents” are the one’s under consideration; not the author of the standard itself. If Pervy wishes to continue this type of reasoning; he will need to produce proof that such reasoning is allowable.


My opponent is quite correct here, and it is fatal to his argument. For a system of morality to be objective, it must be external to all moral agents. If a system of morality is only external to some moral agents and not others, then it is - by both our definitions - subjective.

Pervy has again failed to show that objective morals are objective to the creator of them. Pervy just keeps on asserting that “all moral agents” includes the creator of the moral value itself. I challenge the readers of the debate to produce for discussion later; competent authorship showing that the creator of an ethical value is simultaneously under consideration when he/she is not the actual subject under consideration.


What has happen? The subject of the sentence has changed from Mike to God. My ethics are no longer under consideration; but those of God.

All though his opening statement and this rebuttal the main thrust of Pervy’s argument has been a different definition for the word “objective”. So I went online and searched for support for the definition Pervy claims as truth. A definition that allows for the grammatical construction as described above. What I found was completely different to what Pervy wants us all to believe a fact.

Please follow along:

The Christian world view provides for objective morality….
The (Christian world view) is the noun…..
(Provides) is the verb
(Morality) is the object of the sentence
(Objective) is the quantifier for the word morality

The Subject of the sentence is “the Christian world view”. It’s not Pervy! It’s not God! It’s not anyone who reads this post; unless you’re a Christian. Pervy can of course make inquires into whither God’s ethics are subjective; but it becomes an error in semantics when he tries to merge the two sentences together. Why? Because Pervy want to quantify my perspectivess on morality by a perspective external to me.

Closing Thoughts

I have made several points over the course of the debate that Pervy has never retorted or touched on. I have made points on or about the foundations to morality. I said that the Christian world view comports to what we see around us. Pervy has never addressed that issue. I had said that morality has universal properties; Pervy never addresses that issue. I have given real world examples of the Christian world view in action; yet Pervy never tells us that my examples don’t reflect the facts pertaining to reality. When I made the claim that Pervy didn’t comprehend the idea of perspectives; Pervy again side slipped the issue. I said that the word “objective” has particular properties only found in the Christian world view; yet Pervy never addresses those properties. Pervy never once said that when he looked at the world around him, what he sees comports to the subjective ideology he espouses as truth. When I used TACE, which Pervy asserted was off topic because it left him dealing with his own world view; I said that we don’t see universal qualities in subjectivism. Pervy has never denied my claims. When I argued from the impossibility of the contrary; Pervy drops the ball by telling the room that the “impossibility of the contrary” was not the topic.
What did Pervy have to say after all! He didn’t like my definition for the word objective. He thought that you could define the word “objective”, and then apply it to the word “objectively”. He said that in his world, all experiences are subjective; then apply a universal quality to his experiences by telling us that they are intrinsic. Pervy never addresses the second half of the resolution. He tells us that it’s not necessary for me to discuss his subjectivism; I wonder why. Pervy says that I and I alone have the burden of proof because I’m affirming the positive position. Pervy then goes on to tell the room that his position is that objective morality doesn’t exist because (by his definition) there is no such thing as objective morality. Yet he then asserts his belief in subjective morality; even to given it intrinsic prosperities that have developed by evolution over long periods of time. So I didn’t ask for proof for his negative position (proof to affirm no objective morality); but proof of an alternate claim to moral foundations to dislodge his false premise. I had asked for proof that subjective morality comports with reality. So this is not an issue of “burden of proof fallacy” on my part. It is just another example of how Pervy justifies side stepping issues he won’t, or can’t respond to. Remember, the second half of the resolution deals with Pervy’s underlining premise that rebuffs objective morality. Where is the proof for his premise? I’m still waiting!


I think we will all walk away from this debate with the following:
Did Pervy counter my arguments? No! Did Pervy invalidate my supporting premises? No! Did Pervy show that objective morality doesn’t comport with reality? No! Did Pervy show that “all” agents apply to the author of the standard itself? No! So what did Pervy actually do… he completely failed to nullify my perspective. He resorted to linguistic revision as a means to enforce his position. He has attacked the truthfulness in regards to the scriptures without purpose. And he has grammatically killed the English language by cramming perspective constructs found within one sentence into those of another sentence.

There is however, one last issue…. And really the death nail for Pervy. What was the resolution under consideration? “The Christian worldview provides an objective morality that an atheistic worldview is unable to provide.” Does my world view provide objective morality? Of course it does! Just like Pervy’s world view provide for him subjective morality! Just like there are many gods for the Mormons within their world view. Just like there only one God for the Jews within their world view. Given the wording of the resolution…..it is IMPOSSIBLE for Pervy to win the debate.The debate is focusing around “world views”; how we see and understand the world in which we live. I hinted at this in my second round.


I wonder if Pervy understands just what a world view is. As Dr. Bahnsen puts it; a world view is made up of presuppositions, fundamental beliefs about the world around us. These beliefs are not autonomist in nature; but contingent on other beliefs. They form a “web” of beliefs that we use to filter our experiences in life. Pervy, I, and all of you who read this post have fundamental beliefs about man, God, and our conduct.

When Pervy attacked my use of the scriptures; I had thought that Pervy was trying to state that my “world view” didn’t comport with the word of God; but he didn’t. Pervy’s position has become analogist to that of a clerk dealing with a costumer. After the costumer has stated that they like vanilla ice cream; the clerk declares “Oh no, you don’t like vanilla; you actually like chocolate.” The Christian world view as a philosophical system of thought does provide for an objective base to morality. The philosophy of Christianity in ethics has never been an internal; but rather of external conformity. Christianity doesn’t turn to the subjective ideology of men; but to the objective nature of God. For the purposes of this debate; it doesn’t matter if you believe it or not. From a Christian’s perspective, God’s objective standards are an intrinsic component within the totality of the Christian world view and therefore they are not falsifiable. My opponent is not able to declare as the clerk, “You are wrong; your God’s ethics are in reality subjective”. In the very framing of the debate, my opponent has already lost the debate. This is what the Christian believes!

Know God, Know absolute standards: No God, no absolute standards!
(Tag-your it!)

[Dean Anderson]

...pation.

Closing Statement

Welcome to the closing round of this debate.

Without further ado, I would like jump straight in and start addressing the accusations that my opponent makes in his final round.

Firstly, my opponent once again tries to exclude God from his argument:

Pervy feels that his premises about subjective morality are not an issue within the debate; yet he tells us that (from his view point) that God's subjective ideology is. Let us remember that we are dialoging on my actions, and not the actions of God.

This is, of course, false. We are discussing whether a Christian worldview can provide an objective morality. Since an objective morality is one that applies to everyone, any potential objective morality my opponent has proposed must - by definition - apply to everyone. My opponent wants to claim that the morality described by him, one that applies to humans but not God, is objective; and that is why he is trying to exclude discussion of God from the debate - he knows that his morality can't be applied to God and therefore is not objective.

Interestingly, my opponent takes issue with my definition of "objective morality" as follows:

Pervy, doesn't like my definition for the word objective. So he has used his own definition, despite the fact that it (his definition) gives rise to a semantic error.

I say "interestingly", for a number of reasons...

1) My opponent is simply wrong here. If you re-read round 1 of the debate, you will see that my opponent gave definitions of the words "objective" and "subjective" in isolation. He did not, however, apply these definitions to morality, to provide working (for the sake of this debate) definitions of what is meant by "objective morality" and "subjective morality".

Contrary to what my opponent claims, I have never expressed dislike for the definitions that he gave, and I have never supplied an alternate definition of the word "objective". Indeed, I am happy with the definitions that he supplied. However, I commented at the time that he had not applied these isolated definitions of words to the concept of morality, and so I did so. I did so using the exact words and phrases that he had used in his definitions wherever possible - so that they would match his definitions as closely as possible.

2) My opponent says now that my definitions "give rise to a semantic error", but we have both been happily using these definitions throughout the previous rounds and this is the first time that he has mentioned a semantic error of any kind. If my opponent is really unhappy with my expansion of his definitions, then why did he not say so earlier?

3) Although my opponent now says that my application of his definitions to the concept of morality "gives rise to a semantic error", he does not indicate what this alleged semantic error is, or why it arises from my application of his definitions but not from his definitions themselves.

In short - my opponent's complaint here is both wildly inaccurate and unsupported, so I shall summarily ignore it and continue to use the definitions that we have both happily been using since the start of the debate.


Dissecting the Resolution

My opponent claims my introduction presupposes an invalid premise on a conclusion when describing the resolution.

Here, as a reminder, is the resolution:
Resolved: The Christian worldview provides an objective morality that an atheistic worldview is unable to provide.

Now let's see what my opponent says about it:

The premise is NOT that since objective morality is provided for in the Christian world view; it is not valid in the atheist world view. The correct premise is that since the philosophical view of the atheist is that all experiences are subjectively qualified; objective morality is not possible. Ergo, "...atheistic world view is unable to provide" an objective base. If my opponent is trying to frame the debate, he should at least understand what is being proposed.

The first sentence of my opponent's quote is correct. That is indeed not the premise. The rest of his statement is, unfortunately, completely incorrect.

The resolution was very specifically and carefully worded by me. If I had intended the resolution to state what my opponent claims it states, then it would have been worded differently. If the resolution was intended to state that objective morality is not possible in an atheistic worldview it would have said something like:

Resolved: The Christian worldview can provide an objective morality but an atheistic worldview can not provide one.

It clearly does not say that.

It is in two parts, the first part is:

The Christian worldview provides an objective morality

This is the most important part of the resolution and the part that we have been debating. The central point of the debate is the positive claim by my opponent that Christianity can provide an objective morality.

So what is the second part?

that an atheistic worldview is unable to provide.

The crucial word her is "that". This is a qualifier. It is qualifying the type of objective morality that Christianity must be shown to provide. It can't be shown to provide just any old objective morality. It must be shown to provide one that an atheistic worldview cannot provide.

Basically, the qualifier is there because if it were not there then a Christian could accept the debate and propose some kind of objective morality that is valid in all worldviews. This was not something which I wished to debate. So I put the qualifier in; whatever standard of objective morality my Christian opponent wished to claim, it must be one that is exclusively Christian - or at least exclusively theistic. I.e. it must be one "that an atheistic worldview is unable to provide".

Now this resolution says absolutely nothing about whether an atheistic worldview can also provide an objective morality or not. Indeed, there are many atheistic worldviews and some of them claim to provide such and others don't.

This is why the details of an atheistic worldview are not and never have been within the scope of this debate. The only time an atheistic worldview comes into scope of the debate is to answer the specific question of whether the source of objective morality proposed by the Christian is one that is valid in such an atheistic worldview. Since my opponent is proposing that the source of morality in his Christian worldview is God, then naturally, this is indeed not one that is valid in an atheistic worldview - since an atheistic worldview by definition contains no gods. This is the only way in which the resolution mentions atheistic worldviews, and the only comment about an atheistic worldview that it is within the scope of the debate to make.

My opponent says:

Does Pervy believe that he and I have come into this debate neutral? That all Pervy has to do is find faults within my arguments? Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought that a debate was about apposing points of view.

This is, indeed, all I have to do. My opponent is asserting that a Christian worldview can provide an objective morality. He is describing the system of morality that his worldview provides (morality comes from God's nature).

His view is that his system of morality is objective and is not a system that is valid in an atheistic worldview - and therefore it meets the criteria of the resolution.

My view is that his system of morality is subjective, and therefore it does not meet the criteria of the resolution regardless of whether it is valid in an atheistic worldview or not.

Those are the two opposing points of view that we are arguing - and the burden of proof is on my opponent. He must be able to demonstrate that his system of morality is objective in order to win the debate.


Trying to get God off the Hook

The main thrust of my opponent's argument in this round is an attempt to exempt God from scrutiny.

The reasons for this are clear. My opponent's Christian worldview asserts that morality comes from "God's nature".

Now this leaves him with two possibilities:

1) The actions of all moral agents can be judged by this morality.

2) The actions of all moral agents except God can be judged by this morality.

My opponent could have chosen to assert that the first possibility is how his worldview works. This would have left him in the impossible position of explaining how God can be judged by his own nature in an objective manner - since anything God does is because it is his nature to do it, then anything God does would be moral by definition. This, of course, would make the morality of his worldview highly subjective - since it is simply based on God's whim.

So, my opponent is left with the second option. He asserts that by his worldview God cannot be morally judged. However, this also makes the morality of his worldview subjective. For something to be objective - by his own definition - it must be separate from bias or point of view. If, in my opponent's worldview, morality applies to some moral agents (us) but not other moral agents (God) then it is not separate from point of view, since whether it applies to an act or not changes depending on the point of view of the moral entity performing the act.

Of course, the fact that the Bible is against my opponent - since it clearly judges God's and his acts to be "good" or "loving" or "merciful" and clearly says that we have the ability to morally discern just like God does; demonstrating that even if my opponent thinks that morality cannot apply to God, then the Bible does.

That aside, this leaves my opponent in a sticky situation. He has given his worldview and - using the definitions of "objective" and "subjective" that he himself gave in the opening round - it cannot be objective.

His only option other than simply throwing in the towel and admitting that his Christian worldview does not provide an objective morality is the unenviable task of arguing that the actions of God are exempt from being morally judged yet somehow morality is still objective and applies to all.

This he tries to do:


Objective Morality - a system of morality whereby moral precepts are treated as separate distant objects; a behaviour is defined as moral or immoral based on these separate distant objects, regardless of the bias of the moral agent that performs or witnesses the behaviour.

Pervy forgot to use the word "ALL" or "Author" in his definition for "objective morality".

This is simple special pleading by my opponent. The definition specifically says that the moral precepts need to be separate from the moral agent who performs or witnesses the behaviour. He wishes to say that the moral precepts need to be separate from the moral agent who performs or witnesses the behaviour unless that moral agent is God in which case they may be part of his nature. He is trying to claim that such an exception is warranted because the definition did not explicitly say that such an exception was not allowed. That is patently ridiculous. He may as well say that the moral precepts need to be separate from the moral agent who performs or witnesses the behaviour except on a Thursday. After all, the definition did not explicitly say that that exception was not allowed either.

Next, he tries to mangle the definition of "objective":

A standard is not objective to you; because it's objective to someone else. That is not the bases by which the word is applied. The word is ALWAYS APPLIED from the subject point of view. When a person looks at a standard that he didn't create, doesn't have any control over, he calls that standard objective.

This is nonsense. If I claim that raping babies is good, this is a standard that my opponent didn't create and has no control over. However, this does not make it objectively true that raping babies would be a good thing for my opponent to do, since it is still merely subjectively my standard that says it is.

Merely being external to the person who has the subject point of view is - as we can see not enough to make something objective.

Even if you grant that God could be the subjective qualifier of the foundations to ethics. The person to whom the ethical standards are applied will STILL LOOK AT THOSE STANDARDS AS BEING OBJECTIVE.

MY opponent gives no reason why God should have this special treatment. If my opponent would consider my moral standard to be subjective when I declare that for him to rape babies would be good, why would we look at Gods moral standard as anything other than subjective when he declares that for my opponent to rape babies would be good?

Pervy questions the bias of God; calling it subjective. Then Pervy says that since God is subjective, men reasoning based on God's ethical standards are NOW also subjectively bias. It's a bait and switch tactic. He pulls you away from man to consider the ethics of God. Once you are focused on God; he throws the conclusion of one consideration (the subjective foundations Pervy sees in God) onto the consideration of man's ethical standards. His reasoning is a lie! He has said "all", but never connects "all" to the creator of the standard.

This is, of course, utter hogwash. The "creator" of the standard is a moral agent. Therefore whatever morals there are must apply to him as much as they apply to anyone else if they are to be objective. Otherwise, they are dependant on the point of view of the moral agent ("is this agent the creator of the morals or not?") and are subjective according to my opponent's own definition.

Pervy just keeps on asserting that "all moral agents" includes the creator of the moral value itself. I challenge the readers of the debate to produce for discussion later; competent authorship showing that the creator of an ethical value is simultaneously under consideration when he/she is not the actual subject under consideration.

This is misdirection from my opponent, plain and simple.

My opponent asks for it to be shown that the creator of an ethical value is "simultaneously under consideration when he/she is not the actual subject under consideration" as if that is somehow part of my argument.

What this does is serve to distract from my actual argument, which is about when the creator of an ethical value is is the actual subject, not when he/she is not the subject.

It is precisely when the creator of the ethical value is the actual subject under consideration that the subjective nature of this system of morality is visible.

Finally, my opponent makes a rather bizarre appeal to grammar:

The Christian world view provides for objective morality...
The (Christian world view) is the noun...
(Provides) is the verb
(Morality) is the object of the sentence
(Objective) is the quantifier for the word morality

The Subject of the sentence is "the Christian world view". It's not Pervy! It's not God! It's not anyone who reads this post; unless you're a Christian. Pervy can of course make inquires into whither God's ethics are subjective; but it becomes an error in semantics when he tries to merge the two sentences together. Why? Because Pervy want to quantify my perspectivess on morality by a perspective external to me.


Here, he is trying to say that because we are examining what his Christian worldview claims, we are only allowed to look at things from his perspective.

This is ridiculous. We are looking at what his worldview claims about morality as it applies to everyone not just looking at what his worldview claims about himself.

Final Mischaracterisations

My opponent then concludes with his "closing thoughts". In this, he lists lots of issues that I have "never retorted or touched on" as if this was a failing on my part.

On the contrary, as I have made clear, these "issues" that my opponent has brought up are off topic to this debate in that they have no bearing on whether the Christian worldview can supply an objective morality.

So rather than being failings on my part, my lack of response to these issues has been a success, not allowing my opponent to drag the debate down rabbitholes into Wonderland territory and forcing the debate to stay on topic.

My opponent says that he thinks we will walk away with a particular set of conclusions. I beg to differ:

Did Pervy counter my arguments? No!

I pointed out the flaws in his argument, demonstrating that the morality that the Christian worldview he espouses provides is not in fact objective.

Did Pervy invalidate my supporting premises? No!

His "supporting premises" were diversions from the topic of the debate, so they were ignored.

Did Pervy show that objective morality doesn't comport with reality? No!

This was never part of the debate, so I ignored the subject when my opponent tried to introduce it.

Did Pervy show that "all" agents apply to the author of the standard itself? No!

There is nothing to show. "All" naturally includes everyone by its very definition. Conversely, my opponent completely failed to show any good reason why the author of a standard should be specifically exempted from being held to it (but only when that author is God) and not counted in the list of "all" moral agents.

What was the resolution under consideration? "The Christian worldview provides an objective morality that an atheistic worldview is unable to provide." Does my world view provide objective morality? Of course it does! Just like Pervy's world view provide for him subjective morality!

My opponent says that "of course" his worldview provides objective morality, but as we have repeatedly seen - in order for him to claim that the morality his worldview provides is objective he needs to engage in all sorts of special pleading and exemptions. Special pleading and exemptions that themselves make the morality his worldview provides fail to stand up to his own definition of "objective".

When Pervy attacked my use of the scriptures; I had thought that Pervy was trying to state that my "world view" didn't comport with the word of God; but he didn't.

Actually, my opponent is incorrect here. I did point out that the part of his "world view" that said that God could not be judged by us does not comport with the frequent judging of God's character within the Bible and with the Bible's claims that we have the same moral discernment that God has.

My opponent never addressed this criticism.

Christianity doesn't turn to the subjective ideology of men; but to the objective nature of God. For the purposes of this debate; it doesn't matter if you believe it or not. From a Christian's perspective, God's objective standards are an intrinsic component within the totality of the Christian world view and therefore they are not falsifiable.

The problem for my opponent is that "God's objective standards" are shown, in fact, not to be any less subjective than anyone else's arbitrary standards.

Closing Thoughts

This debate has, right from the start, been about the morality provided by the Christian worldview; specifically, whether or not this morality can be considered objective.

My opponent chose to affirm the resolution, and thus - no matter how much he may have wished to take the debate in other directions - that is what this debate must be judged on.

When it comes down to it, was my opponent able to show that the morality provided by his Christian worldview is in fact objective?

The answer would appear to be a resounding "No!"

By his own definition of objectivity, the morality provided by his worldview fails to be objective.

By his worldview, morality is a product of the "nature of God's character". As such, they are completely subjective when it comes to God's own actions.

Whatever action God takes is considered to be "good", since God cannot take any action contrary to his own character. This is bias and subjectivity, a fact which my opponent clearly recognizes - as evidenced by the lengths he will go to in order to claim that God must get special treatment as the "author" of the morals in question.

However, my opponent fails to make any good argument why God should get this special treatment that would not be given to any human author of moral precepts.

He uses the analogy of a judge repeatedly, but is a judge exempt from the laws by which he judges? Is a judge who finds people guilty of speeding allowed to drive at any speed he likes? Of course not. In this way, my opponent's analogy fails.

Acknowledgements and Final Word

I would like to thank my opponent for this debate, which has been both frustrating and amusing for me in approximately equal measure. I would also like to than IIDB for hosting it, and to thank you for having the perseverance to have read this far.

On multiple occasions, I have presented my opponent with a derivative of Euthyphro's Dilemma in this debate, and he has never answered it. I present it again, now as a final word.

If morality derives from God's character, by what objective standard of morality can we judge God's character to be good?

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

The formal debate is now complete. We would like to thank TAG-your it! and Pervy for their participation. Discussion can be continued in the peanut gallery.

- NS, FD Moderator