I remember visiting a person and discussing the moral implications of abortion. My interlocutor held the position that abortion ought to be legal because a child is not considered to be living until the child is outside the mother’s womb.
So I proceeded to ask who has the authority to decide when a human person is to be considered a human person. Thinking for a moment he responded by saying it’s simply the secular law. “So, who is the lawgiver or law creator then? And by what authority does the lawgiver decide that a law is objectively just?” I asked. He responded “It just is?” What an odd answer.
The Crux of the Matter
I wish to discuss 2 questions in brief:
- What is secularity?
- Are secular values objectively always true and what is the standard by which we decide if they’re true?
Let’s start with the first question.
Coutesy of Unsplash.com by Claire Anderson
What is Secularity?
Put simply secularity is the abandonment and separation from the sacred (meaning supernatural).
The philosopher Charles Taylor wrote a fascinating book exploring secularity, titled, A Secular Age.
Now, some might be thinking, “Isn’t that a good thing? I don’t need to be told that there are gods and angels bowling when there is a thunderstorm or that God is angry at us whenever a natural disaster happens. Science provides a better explanation for natural phenomena.”
And you are absolutely correct. But that has nothing to do with secularity. If we are talking about science (the observation of phenomena in the natural physical world) then there is no such thing as secular science on the one hand and divine or Christian science on the other.
As I mentioned numerous times on my blog this debate between God and science is superficial. You don’t need to choose. There are several scientists who fall into atheist and believer categories. Whether scientists are atheists or Christians, they all observe the same objective material realities. It’s the philosophical deductions from their scientific observations that can vastly differ. Science is neutral by definition.
For instance the world renowned physicist Stephen Hawking famously wrote in his most recent book, The Grand Design, that God is not necessary for creation because the existence of the law of gravity. Ironically in the same book he mentions that philosophy is dead and then goes on to make a philosophical inference. On the other hand Oxford mathematician and Christian apologist, John Lennox, will argue that to have the law of gravity you need the law-giver. Hawking says that the law of gravity appeared out of nowhere and Lennox says God created the laws of gravity.
Secularity is more concerned with the philosophical underpinnings of life, such as political laws and morality.
An Oxymoron
How do we determine what are objective secular values? And most importantly how do we determine if these secular values are objectively just?
To answer the first question the materialist might respond by simply saying that secular values are value that are not rooted in religious belief systems or a higher power, such as the Logos or Christian understanding of God. Straightforward enough.
But then materialists are left with a major hurdle. By what or who’s authority do we decide if secular values or laws are just or unjust? Here are three possible answers:
- Majority acceptance – i.e. a majority vote or the dominant societal mood of the time
- Authoritative rule – a person or persons who are accepted as authoritative figures determine what values are just and unjust. Such as an unelected judge or politician or even a cultural icon.
- Personal preference
There’s a problem with these answers. First, is it always true that the values that a majority hold to be just are always objectively just? Does that mean that minority values can never be just unless accepted or deemed permissible by a majority? If that’s the case then we have no right to judge cultures that hold values supported by the majority that are in contradiction to our own values. If rape is an acceptable in one culture then we have no right to say to them that what they are doing is wrong….that is if we accept the first line of reasoning.
Second, just because people are viewed as authoritative figures do they have the right to determine if values are just or unjust with infallibility? I would say their job is to protect and uphold objective values not to redefine on their own accord because then the values are no longer objective, but subjective.
And finally, are secular values determined by the individual. A kind of “to each his own” mentality. There’s two problems with this reasoning. First, if it is true that that I have my own truth beliefs and you have your own then who’s to say that that secular law is true in itself? It’s a self-defeating argument. Second, if we all have our own “true” secular values, who determines which are the dominant secular values that are to be accepted? Is it the majority? Then we find ourselves at the tyranny of the majority answer, which was our first answer. Perhaps we have to admit that we live in a social Darwinist world where the values belonging to the politically “fittest” dominate.
The Law Giver
Let me be clear. I’m not against secular things. For instance, I enjoy secular movies. I don’t think every movie should have religious undertones. I also enjoy reading books with “secular” themes. I also think that there can be secular values that are objectively good, but only because in the past these values originated from the recognition that a Logos brought them into existence. Since people are created in the “image of God”, even those who outright reject the existence of God, can have a sense of what is objectively just or unjust.
So when I question “secular values” I am referring the values that lie at the heart of the human condition. In other words, the foundational values on which societies are built or eventually collapse on.
In my opinion, to label any secular value as objective is an oxymoron since secular values are not rooted in an ultimate Logos (an essence beyond space and time in which everything finds its beginning), but in subjective human reasoning of a collective or an individual. It’s a contradiction to say that values are objective when the only thing objective about them is that they are subjective.
For any value to be objective it needs to find its roots in the very Essence that brought the material reality into existence along with its mathematical laws and moral laws that make sense of reality.
Remember, to have any law you need always need a law-giver.
Question: How do you define secular values?
