ENCOUNTER
Master and Masterpiece
2. Case for Imago Dei
THE FOUNDATION OF OUR VALUE
That song captures this powerful hope inside of all of us. We hope that human beings are deeply, inherently precious. We hope we are beautiful and sacred and lovable. That’s why people come to church. Here, we really believe all those hopes are true because we believe that humans are made in the Image of God.
The Bible says,
- “and so God created people in his own image; God patterned them after himself; male and female he created them.” Gen 1:27
- So we believe we are creative masterpieces. Every human being. We have value.
- AND because we have value,
we ought to be treated in certain ways and
we ought to behave in certain ways so that ourselves and others can be treated with the dignity that is due image bearers like us.
THE CONUNDRUM
But people in our secular culture look at it differently. As a result, we live out an awkward contradiction in terms when it comes to how we see human value and moral behavior. No, let me say it stronger than that… when it comes to this issue we are big, fat hypocrites.
I say that because we hold two mutually contradictory ideas in our heads and we won’t let go of either one of them. Here are the two ideas:
1. RELATIVISM. We believe that one of the fundamental axioms of life is that we should not impose our moral views on others. We say, “everyone has the right to figure out truth for themselves.”
a. In a 10 year old survey of CHURCH kids, they were asked if they believed whether an objective standard of truth exists. 57% of CHURCHED kids said they did not.
b. Same survey, only 15% of church youth disagree with the statement: “what is right for one person might not be right for another person in the same situation.”
c. In other words, our ideas of right and wrong are fluid. Culturally relative. Not constant and not universal. If 85% of churched youth think like this, we can safely assume overall the numbers are higher society wide.
d. So we hold tenaciously to this idea of cultural relativism.
2. RIGHTS. Meanwhile, the same culture, the same people hold to another idea… it’s the belief that humans are sacred. It’s the belief embedded in our constitution: “all men are endowed with certain unalienable rights.” That we are equal and these rights cannot be bestowed by majority vote or taken away. And where these rights are being trampled, we should rightfully be appalled and fight for justice.
a. Like in the growing sex trafficking trade where girls are kidnapped and turned into drug addicts and prostitutes at a rate of 1.2 million a year.
b. Or the situation in Uganda where more than 2 million people have been killed, maimed, imprisoned, or forced into exile.
So, we hold to this idea of RIGHTS on one hand, and equally powerfully we hold to this idea of RELATIVISM on the other. And now some of you know exactly where I’m going and will agree: We are big fat hypocrites.
I’ll tell you a story that illustrates, in case you’re not getting it yet. Dr Carolyn Lobban is an anthropologist who studies cultures around the world, mostly in Africa.
- Being trained in the West of course, she carried this idea of individual rights. Specifically women’s rights were of major concern to her.
- But also being educated in the secular schools of the west, she was a cultural relativist.
That means that she believed as most of our youth believe that there’s no objective standard to judge one culture’s morality as better or worse than another.
Dr Lobban did much of her research in Africa and observed the ancient practice of female circumcision, which happens to 13 year old girls, against their will, and is designed to limit promiscuity by eliminating the ability for sexual pleasure. This turns wives into the chattel of their husbands and married sex becomes essentially rape.
Now, would you be horrified by this? If you could do something about it, would you? That was Dr Lobban’s feeling until she realized that she was a big fat hypocrite. She had to admit that her belief in a woman’s equality was a product of western society which learned it’s values from Christianity and the Enlightenment.
SO, by what right would she promote her views over those of the non-Western cultures which she studied and in which worked? This presented a huge conundrum for her. Here’s how she sorted it out. She writes:
What authority do we westerners have to impose our own concept of universal rights on the rest of humanity… But… when there is a choice between defending human rights and defending cultural relativism, anthropologists should choose to protect and promote human rights. We cannot be bystanders.
Wow! Just listen to her confusing rationale:
“If all morals are relative then how can I impose my subjective values on this culture? But I’m going to do it anyhow.”
What’s my point? I’m saying that to be intellectual honest, to have integrity and to make her life coherent, Dr Lobban has to pick one or the other. She can’t have it both ways. She must either
- Choose to believe that morals are relative and that female circumcision and genocide and rape and murder and tyranny and abuse are not REALLY wrong, they’re just what some cultures do. OR she must
- Choose to believe that some things are right for everyone and it’s not arrogant or insensitive or narrow minded to promote the right and judge the wrong.
The thing is, Dr Lobban has chosen the latter, but still accepts to former. This is the true problem with our youth today. People say that young people don’t believe in right and wrong. The fact is they DO believe in right and wrong they just have no reason why they do. Ask them:
- Is it wrong to believe that women are inferior to men?
They would heartily agree, and more than that, they would tell you everyone should agree with this position.
- Try to tell them that it’s right to force your religion on the minority and you will discover they very much still believe in right and wrong. Here’s what’s changed:
we don’t know why! Feet planted firmly in midair!
THE WHY BEHIND MORALS
Why are some things really wrong? Why are you precious and why do you have intrinsic worth and dignity? Why is it wrong, therefore, to trample on your rights, to take your life or liberty or property without consent?
I’m going to give you the simple answer which you know is coming – and them I’m going to deal with common objections to that answer:
- The answer is God.
- God is the Source of the Moral Law.
- Therefore, morals are not relative, precisely because they come from a God who is good and who made us in his IMAGE.
The Bible describes how God has revealed himself in our moral sense in this words:
Rom 2:14-15 Even when Gentiles, who do not have God's written law, instinctively follow what the law says, they show that in their hearts they know right from wrong. They demonstrate that God's law is written within them, for their own consciences either accuse them or tell them they are doing what is right.
When you think about it, this moral sense is probably the biggest evidence God has left us of himself – even bigger than the clues we discussed last week from the study of the universe.
Imagine the universe as a house designed by an architect. Just by looking at the house, you can find out some stuff about the architect. He likes straight lines. He likes a lot of light. But there’s so much more to know. And if the house has fallen into disrepair, we might also get some false information about the architect if we ONLY look at the shape the house is in.
We need something more. But what if the walls could talk! What if the banisters and the fireplace and the doors could talk! What if you could ask them about their design and function? Then, wouldn’t we get some inside information about the DESIGNER?
Well it just so happens that we have this information about God, when we look inside ourselves. By looking through this microscope we call Mankind, we can know God is Good. Why? Because when we look inside every person from Timbuktu to New York you see a code of right and wrong.
It is evidence of God’s existence and it defies any other explanation.
OBJECTIONS
a. BIOLOGY
But some people do try to explain our moral sense without appealing to God. Instead they appeal to biology. The premise here is that through natural selection, people who were selfless and loving survived in greater numbers than those who were cruel and selfish. So they passed those selfless genes on and they gradually became hardwired into us, and that’s why unselfishness feels right.
- “Right” is just a biological urge. A chemical reaction in the brain to enhance survival
There’s huge problems with this. First, it doesn’t follow it’s own predictions. Altruism often doesn’t enhance survival, it decreases it. Have you ever seen someone get more attention, more money, more women, more power because they were selfish and cruel? So in an evolutionary sense that person is “surviving” better. And he will pass on his genes to more offspring.
Yet our moral codes do not promote selfishness and cruelty.
- So why does our conscience urge us to live more like Mother Teresa than Howard Hughes, when Howard Hughes gets the most food and the most women?
- Why is it that when Jesus says, “love your enemies” we know instinctively that while this might not enhance our survival, somehow it expresses one of the highest goods a person can attain to?
- Why is it that protecting the vulnerable like the poor is considered right, when we were raised in a dog eat dog world of fierce competition where only the fit survive?
In nature the young and old are routinely cannibalized or abandoned – to help survival. But ask any human from any culture in any era of history about cannibalizing or abandoning the vulnerable and they will likely say two simple words: “that’s wrong.”
It’s fine to talk about instincts that nature put in us, the sex instinct, the herd instinct, the mother love instinct… but have you noticed we’re free to not follow our instincts if we don’t want to? What is the voice that urges you to follow one and not another? That can’t be itself an instinct, can it? No.
- You don’t HAVE to have sex with that person who is not your spouse, not matter how strongly nature is telling you to go for it.
- You don’t HAVE to follow your impulse to run away from conflict, you can stand and tell the truth courageously.
What is that Voice urging go against our instincts at times?
b. NOT UNIVERSAL
Another rebuttal is that MORALITY is different everywhere you go. If there were some Natural Law from God wouldn’t it be the same everywhere? Cultures have wildly conflicting moralities. Two things to say in response to that:
- One is that the conflicts are not nearly so diverse as they say. To imagine a really different morality you have to imagine a world where it’s considered appropriate to lie and deceive all your best friends. Or where it’s cool to run away in battle. Or where it’s considered saintly to have sex with any person, any time anywhere. You might as well imagine a world without gravity!
Sure, people have debated about how many wives to have, but no culture ever said you could have any woman you want.
Sure, people have differed on WHO you should show kindness to, your family only, your tribe or your enemies too. But no one thinks that selfish cruelty is good and right.
- Secondly, this cycles back around to the problem Dr Lobban had. There ARE differences in cultural moralities but we are not INDIFFERENT to them.
Do we think Nazi morality was superior or inferior to our own?
Do we think our morality is perfect or are we also deficient in some way?
As soon as we start making these judgments, we’re admitting to a higher LAW – an objective Standard outside both our culture and the other culture to which it is RIGHT for both of us to conform.
Friends, all arguments against the Divine Source of MORAL LAW fail.
- You say, right is merely what’s convenient to me.
But a traitor is convenient to me (IE helps me “survive”), yet I happen to think morally, he’s the lowest form of vermin.
- You say, right is merely what serves my enlightened self interest.
But why not hurt people to get ahead? That’s in my self interest!
We Christians say, this is not mere nature. This is Revelation from the Outside. This is evidence for God’s existence; evidence of his fingerprint on our very make up. It proves we are made in His image.
MISUNDERSTANDING THE ARGUMENT
The atheist has no counter for that except to say,
“we’ll I don’t need a Father in the sky to make me want to be good. If you do that’s your business, I’m a good person WITHOUT God.”
But this is a total misunderstanding of the argument. The point is not atheists are bad people. Most atheists I know live exemplary moral lives. THAT’S the POINT!
- You believe morality is a total illusion,
- and yet, you still want to be a good person… why? Why can you not be separated from this primal instinct?
Remember, you don’t believe has God anything to do with it.
Remember you pulled the curtain back to see the man behind the machine – there is no wizard of Oz, there is no law, and you are free!
Remember, you’re not a masterpiece, your sense of beauty and truth and morality is just biology, an irrational chemical twist in the brain, which has no more authority over you than your dog! So why are you still beholden to it?
- You say, because it’s not convenient to be immoral.
But at times it IS convenient and pleasurable!
- You say because it’s not expedient in the long run.
But immorality IS expedient to get you want you want as quickly as possible. So why don’t you just go for it?
- You say because I’ll get caught and that will diminish my freedom.
So that’s it? That’s all that’s holding you back from doing whatever the heck you want?
That doesn’t make you a good person, that’s makes you a pathetic criminal. You’re just too stupid or too afraid to rob a bank. You’re too afraid to cheat on your husband because “you might get caught!”. What a woos you are! You’re just too weak. You’re too bullied by peer pressure. So you obey the rules like a meek lamb even though you know no God is watching.
That doesn’t make you a great person, that makes you a great wimp!
Even as I’m ranting like this, something inside each of us is pushing back, isn’t it? Something is pushing past all talk of biology and convenience and expedience and is saying:
- I OUGHT to be good.
- I’m OBLIGATED to do what is right.
And I don’t’ do it. I don’t measure up.
CONCLUSION
Now, friend, grab hold of that thought and ask yourself like you’ve never asked it before.. WHY? Why OUGHT you to be good? Why are you obligated? Why do you believe down to your marrow in human rights? Why do you believe it’s wrong for a majority to exterminate a minority? WHY?
If you cling to the secular explanation, I hope you see how hypocritical it is to insist on things like human rights. If you throw God out of the picture and still say that something is REALLY wrong and other things REALLY right, you’re living a contradiction. So Friends, if a premise (there is no Creator) leads to an absurdity (napalming babies is culturally relative) then why not change the premise?
God exists… he made us in his image… and we have value… and because others have value, we ought to behave in certain ways. This is God’s LAW. You know it inside. It’s a Judge in your brain… and you know some things are right to do… and you know you haven’t done the very things you know are right and good to do.
- What will you do with that?
God exists
- Eternal
- All powerful
- MORAL
And we freely violate this good order.
What are you going to do when you face this Power someday?
You won’t understand Christianity until you get here.
