Can you be good without God?
Recently, I found an old article I clipped from a major publication’s “religious news” section. The piece was several years old, but that article’s implications are alarming. They should worry all of us. Should you wonder about the “why” of my anxiety, let me explain.
The article’s title, “Can we be ‘good’ without God – More Americans say ‘Amen’ to that,” ought to trouble you too. Should you wonder why I say this, think about something with me. If there are no absolutes designed and approved by a sovereign and transcendent being (namely, God), who will decide what is ultimately right or wrong or moral or immoral? What if we discard the Constitution as some now propose? What if the above determination of right or wrong is one day based on community standards? Presidential edict? Political dogma? The pope? A Muslim ayatollah? Those with the most guns? Or shall “every man do what is right in his own eyes?”
What happens when people have conflicting views on what should be legal or illegal? What if folks can’t agree on what is right or wrong or good or bad? Who prevails – the one with the hardest fists or the biggest gun, or who shoots first and straightest? Think about this. What happens should society decide that rape or stealing or assault and murder against certain people is proper? Is this, then, OK? How about if society someday decides that Jews or Black people or Muslims or Catholics or gays or transgender or liberals, or Baptists and other evangelical Christians, are not fit? What if the new morality believes these are not deserving of voting, owning property, holding an opinion, or even breathing?
You laugh and say, “That is ridiculous. It could never happen.” Have you ever heard about Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany? How about radical Muslim areas? How about the Catholic Inquisitions of the Middle Ages? Many folks are sure that we don’t need “the God of the Bible” to make the rules. I think of areas in Africa, ISIS-controlled areas, the inner-city in places like Detroit and Chicago, where this is already the way things are. If there is no biblical God, eternal absolutes, and unchanging values, who or what will ultimately decide what is good and therein moral? I am already appalled at what politicians, entertainers, celebrities, educational elitists, and progressives think about what is “good” for America. God help us when arbitrarily, they decide what is moral!
Pastor William “Ed” Nicholson
Dunbar