Morality: a stowaway, onboard for the entire journey

It is interesting to note the lengths with which those who adhere to naturalistic evolution will go to defend their worldview against a worldview which claims that abstract reality exists - and, by abstract reality, I'm speaking of thought, morality, moral obligations, love, ideas, etc., all of which are not reducible to mere physical elements.* Indeed, if our entire essence - the totality of who we are, was reducible solely to particles in motion, then what justification would there be for any concept of an objective morality? What grounding** would there be for any application - or imposition - of morality from one human being to another? Survival of the fittest? Perpetuation of our species? The selfish gene?

Sorry. If any of the naturalistic evolutionary explanations utilize language that states or implies that the process of moral evolution occurred because it provided a better pathway, then the explanation is rot. It is inconsistent for a naturalistic explanation to utilize an abstract foundation. Particles in motion do not react or interact for "better" or "good" reasons ("good", in the moral sense), they simply react or interact for physical reasons. Water boiling at a prescribed temperature, a bear killing and eating a salmon, or one species perpetuating itself at the expense of another species are not - cannot be - examples of an abstract or caused by an abstract.

Some who adhere to an atheistic worldview persist in inconsistently holding on to the myth that humans have the ability to engage in free will thought. Such an inconsistency also betrays the very notion of pure naturalism. If you insult an atheist who believes that nature is all there is you will no doubt get a stern rebuke - a "how dare you!" type of response. You see, they feel wronged and, in the process, have smuggled in the very notions their worldview mandates cannot exist - the abstract realities of morality. C.S. Lewis wrote,

The Naturalist can, if he chooses, brazen it out. He can say... "all ideas of good and evil are hallucinations - shadows cast on the outer world by the impulses which we have been conditioned to feel." Indeed many Naturalists are delighted to say this.

But then they must stick to it; and fortunately (though inconsistently) most real Naturalists do not. A moment after they have admitted that good and evil are illusions, you will find them exhorting us to work for posterity, to educate, revolutionise, liquidate, live and die for the good of the human race... They write with indignation like men proclaiming what is good in itself and denouncing what is evil in itself, and not at all like men recording that they personally like mild beer but some people prefer bitter. Yet if the "oughts" of Mr. H.G. Wells and, say Franco are both equally the impulses which Nature has conditioned each to have and both tell us nothing about any objective right or wrong, whence is all the fervour? Do they remember while they are writing thus that when they tell us we "ought to make a better world" the words "ought" and "better" must, on their own showing, refer to an irrationally conditioned impulse which cannot be true or false any more than a vomit or a yawn?

My idea is that sometimes they do forget. That is their glory. Holding a philosophy which excludes humanity, they yet remain human. At the sight of injustice they throw all their Naturalism to the winds and speak like men.

- Miracles

Adherents to naturalism really should read Lewis or, for the other side of the coin, listen to Will Provine, hard determinist (and consistent atheist). 

In the journey of life, humans traverse a world made up of the concrete and the abstract and, hidden in claims to the contrary, objective morality is a stowaway that always tags along.


* And let's not make the mistake of equating the abstract element with a physical property, which may or may not correspond to the expression of the abstract. For example, while electrical impulses may occur when a person has particluar thoughts or feelings (or propositional qualities, per Greg Koukl), the impulses themselves are not the thoughts or feelings. Or, when one understands that he ought to do, or not do some act, the oughtness is not in and of itself reducible to physical elements.

** The title of a book on moral relativism, by Beckwith & Koukl, sums this up very nicely - "Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air"

Comments

[wrf3]

FWIW, I posted a rebuttal here.

[Rusty]

Thanks for stopping by, wrf3. Life's been busy, so I may not get to comment on your post.

[James]

Thanks for this. I always appreciate a Lewis quote. (In fact, the * footnote is not so much form Koukl as it is from Lewis)
I'm glad there was a link to this on STR. I've found a new blog to read as well.
God bless and bless God.

[Rusty]

Thanks, James!