Q and A

Email from one of last year's seniors:

Hey this is B-----! I just started a new class; it's called An Introduction to Ethics and each week our teacher asks us a question. This week it's about religion: Is religion necessary for morality? I think that it is because without religion or God plus the Bible we wouldn't know about it, but also people who don't know about Christianity but know about Bhudda know about a different kind of morality. What do you think?

My response:

Remember the Moral Law? :) According to C.S. Lewis, the very fact that people have consciences and a (mostly) common appreciation of what actions are “right” and what are “wrong,” indicates that something beyond ourselves put that “moral law” in us. Especially since our understanding of what is RIGHT so often goes against our desires or instincts (remember the drowning man analogy?)... we know that something ABOVE the coarser human nature instilled this higher sense of morality within us.

Lewis uses this point to argue in favor of God-- the higher being. Different religions, of course, provide various interpretations of this higher being. We believe that Christianity is the religion that most resoundingly speaks truth. That’s the rest of Mere Christianity. :)

In considering the logic and sense that other religions bring to the table, my faith in Christianity has been confirmed above those others because of the incredible story of Jesus. In no other religion does that religion’s god come down, live among his people, and die for them so that they can be saved. Most gods in other religions remain removed-- they remain high up on their seats of power and demand sacrifices or stringent living standards from their followers. Buddhism believes in reincarnation, and I think Buddha was supposed to be a real man—- but the story of the cross is completely unique. It’s unheard of. That’s one reason why the Bible is, to me, so profoundly compelling-- it provides a narrative NO ONE would have made up. To think that the God of all things, the creator and formidable wielder of power would enter into such SQUALOR... and then allow Himself to be humiliated, beaten, and spit upon, tortured to DEATH… so that he could enable us to live...?

Unbelievable.

No other religion illustrates such extravagant, preposterous love from a god, for his people. Furthermore, Jesus is practically the last word on what it means to live morally. Even atheists who disregard his claim as God agree that the moral teachings of Jesus are profound-- I’ve spoken to several atheists who don’t believe in him, but believe in the veracity of his moral teachings. (Lewis would say this claim is impossible; how could Jesus be a good moral teacher if he was a human that was claiming to be God?? That would make him a mad-man, or a liar. Unless-- of course-- he WAS God.)

So do I believe religion is necessary for morality? No. Religion, no. I understand religion to be the practicing of rituals which are meant to honor a god. Religion can be a beautiful thing, but I don’t think it’s the religious rituals that lead to morality, per se.

But God? Absolutely. Jesus? No question. Faith in this incredible God, which shows itself through consistent moral living? Yes. We need all those things for morality.

Writing this email made me fall in love with God a little bit more. Thanks for giving me the excuse to write it. :)

Love to you,
Greta