Metaethical Studies and Moral Nihilism

(Detroit)

Most atheists I know want to be moral. They make strong moral claims, saying "_______ is wrong," or "We ought to do ________." Indeed, atheists like Richard Dawkins claim religious beliefs are morally repulsive and just plain false, and ought to be discarded. 

It is questionable if the worldview of atheism can take us this far. Atheism can support utilitarianism, and emotivist ethics, but atheists overreach when they claim things like Theists are morally repulsive. The atheist cannot, on a physicalist worldview, call certain acts "good" or "evil."

This is a metaethical issue. 

Here are four books that contribute to my metaethical studies. 

Metaethics: A Short Companion, by David Horner and J. P. Morfeland. An excellent introduction to the subject.

Atheist Overreach: What Atheism Can't Deliver,  by University of Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith. Smith argues that "the naturalistic cosmos that is the standard operating worldview of atheism cannot with rational warrant justify the received humanistic belief in universal benevolence and human rights." (P. 124)

Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality, by University of Virginia professors James Davison Hunter and Paul Nedelisky. They write:

"When it began, the quest for a moral science sought to discover the good. The new moral science has abandoned that quest and now, at best, tells us how to get what we want. With this turn, the new moral science, for all its recent fanfare, has produced a world picture that simply cannot bear the weight of the wide-ranging moral burdens of our time." (Kindle Location 112)

This, say Hunter and Nedelisky, is "moral nihilism."

Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology, by theistic philosopher J. P. Moreland. Moreland writes: "Given scientism, moral knowledge is impossible. And the loss of moral knowledge has meant a shift from a view in which duty and virtue are central to the moral life, to a minimalist ethical perspective." (Kindle Location 422)

See also William Lane Craig, "The Indispensability of Theological Meta-Ethical Foundations for Morality."

William Lane Craig's Moral Argument for God's Existence

Monroe County (MI)

See William Lane Craig's essay: The Indispensability of Theological Meta-Ethical Foundations for Morality.

Here's how I taught this argument in my philosophy of religion classes.

First, state the argument.


P1 – If there is no God, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
P2 – Objective moral values and duties exist.
C – Therefore, God exists.

Second, explain how Craig defends premise 1 (P1).

- Many atheists affirm P1.
- If there's no moral lawgiver, then we're just making moral values and duties up. Such things are only subjective. If they are only subjective, then they are not binding.

Third, explain how Craig defends premise 2 (P2).

- Objective moral values are properly basic beliefs.
- Moral duties logically imply that there is someone to whom we are morally responsible.


*****
How does Craig defend premise 1? 

Premise 1 (P1) of William Lane Craig's Metaethical Argument for God's existence is: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.

I explain this in my philosophy of religion classes using this example.

Imagine you are a student in a class where the professor is never seen. Every day you come to class and assignments are written on the board, such as: "Do problems 1-50 on p. 100." One day you ask, "Who is teaching this class?" Someone replies: "No one. This class does not have a teacher." At that point you respond: "Then I see no reason why I have to do these problems."

Analogically, if there is no God who issues moral commands, then moral values are only invented by "the students." Thus they are not binding on us. As Ivan Karamazov never said, "If there is no God, then everything is permitted." Craig cites ethicist Richard Taylor:

"A duty is something that is owed . . . . But something can be owed only to some person or persons. There can be no such thing as duty in isolation . . . . The idea of political or legal obligation is clear enough . . . . Similarly, the idea of an obligation higher than this, and referred to as moral obligation, is clear enough, provided reference to some lawmaker higher . . . . than those of the state is understood. In other words, our moral obligations can . . . be understood as those that are imposed by God. This does give a clear sense to the claim that our moral obligations are more binding upon us than our political obligations . . . . But what if this higher-than-human lawgiver is no longer taken into account? Does the concept of a moral obligation . . . still make sense? . . . . the concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart form the idea of God. The words remain, but their meaning is gone."

Conversely, if God exists, then God’s commands make things right and wrong. This view is called Divine Command Theory.

For an introduction to Alston's, Adams's, and Quinn's reasonings that Divine Command Theory does not fall by the sword of Plato's Euthyphro Dilemma, see this article in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

***
How does Craig defend premise 2?

NOTE HERE that evolutionary explanations claiming to explain how moral reasoning evolved do not affect Craig's argument, and if intended to they commit the genetic fallacy.

“Objective moral value” defined: a moral value that is valid independently of our apprehension of it. An OMV says is something that is good or evil independently of whether any human being believes it to be so.

• A moral value is about whether something is good or bad.
o This has to do with the worth of something.
• A moral duty is whether something is right or wrong.
o This has to do with the obligatoriness of something.
o Right and wrong are not the same as good and bad. Right and wrong have to do with moral obligation, what I ought or ought not to do.

“Objective”: to say that something is objective is to say that it is independent of what people say or perceive.

“Subjective”: to say that something is subjective is to say that it is not objective; that is, it is dependent on what human persons think or perceive.

If moral values are only subjective, then they function like personal tastes, such as, e.g.: I like Coke better than Pepsi.

If moral values are only subjective, then I have no moral obligation or duty to follow them.

Is P2 true? Do objective moral values exist?

I think so, for the following reasons.

Moral values are “properly basic.” Like, e.g., sense experience, or the laws of logic.

A “properly basic belief” is one that we assume to be true even though we cannot evidentially prove it to be so. (This is anti-W.K. Clifford stuff.)

We assume, for example, sense experience to be veridical (true). We cannot evidentially “prove” it to be so. Because that would require using our sense experience to “prove” its own veridicality.

Likewise we assume, e.g., modus ponens to be logical. (“If P, therefore Q. P. Therefore Q.”) We can’t prove it to be so by using logic, since that would require we trust in logic to “prove” that we can trust in logic. The claim here is that we are to view our apprehension of objective moral values in just this way, and that it is reasonable to do so.

To further explain, we are wise to assume that our senses, our powers of reasoning (Plantinga calls this “our belief-forming mechanisms), and our most fundamental moral instincts are not systematically deceiving us. They are all to be trusted in the absence of a defeater. Even the most radical skeptic trusts in his sense experience and in logical reasoning. Thus statements like “I perceive a world external to myself” and “1+1=2” are “properly basic.” While it’s certainly true that we can misperceive things and make logical mistakes, such mistakes hardly call into question the general reliability of our sense or reasoning powers; indeed, they presuppose it. The ability to detect error presumes an awareness of truth.

Just as we can be mistaken re. our senses and our reasoning, so also we can by mistaken re. the making of moral judgments. In spite of this there still are certain moral truths that we can’t not know unless we suppress our conscience or engage in self-deception. We possess an inbuilt “yuck factor” – basic moral intuitions about the wrongness of torturing babies for fun, of raping, murdering, or abusing children. We can also recognize the virtue of kindness or selflessness.

Today, e.g., President Obama referred to the bombing in Boston as an act of "evil." That such an act is evil implies "for everyone." The statement bombing innocent people is evil is objectively true.

But what about the person or persons who did this evil act? What about people who can’t tell the moral difference between Mother Teresa and Joseph Stalin? Craig's (and others') answer is: Those not recognizing such truths as properly basic are simply wrong and morally dysfunctional, like someone who believes that “1+1=3.” Note: we imprison persons who like to rape little girls.

Are moral values, like sense experience and logical reasoning, properly basic? Is our moral awareness epistemically foundational and “bedrock?” Even some atheists think so. Atheist David O. Brink states: “Our commitment to the objectivity of ethics is a deep one.” Atheist Kai Neilsen writes:

“It is more reasonable to believe such elemental things [as wife-beating and child abuse] to be evil than to believe any skeptical theory that tells us we cannot know or reasonably believe any of these things to be evil… I firmly believe that this is bedrock and right and that anyone who does not believe it cannot have probed deeply enough into the grounds of his moral beliefs.”

If this is true, then basic moral beliefs are “discovered,” not “invented.” Just as a person who cannot understand the logic of a disjunctive syllogism is logically dysfunctional, and just as a person who is skeptical that they are now eating breakfast when they are, so also are persons morally dysfunctional who cannot see that torturing and raping little girls for fun is objectively wrong.

In my experience the person who protests against this usually does so because they think we have not discovered but invented moral values. The common explanation of the inventing of moral values is that of evolutionary theory. For example, atheist Michael Ruse states that “morality” has evolved as an aid to survival and allows our species to perpetuate itself? What can we say about this?

• At its worst, this kind of reasoning is an example of the genetic fallacy.
• At its best it only proves that our subjective perception of objective moral values has evolved.
• Craig – “If moral values are gradually discovered, not invented, then our gradual, fallible apprehension of the moral realm no more undermines the objective reality of that realm than our gradual, fallible perception of the physical world undermines the objectivity of that realm.”
• Many of us think we do apprehend objective moral values.
• Even Ruse writes: “The man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says, 2+2=5.” (Ib., 92)

What if there are objective moral values, and we evolved, without God guiding the process, to apprehend these moral values? Craig says that such an idea is “fantastically improbable.” The odds of blind evolutionary processes evolving creatures that perceive objective moral values is hard to believe. It is more reasonable to believe we are created by God to apprehend moral values.”

Atheist Daniel Dennett has written that, if there is no God and evolutionary naturalism is true, ethical decision-making “holds out scant hope of our ever discovering a formula or an algorithm for doing right.” (Copan, 145)

Someone who freaks out when I say that a person who can’t see that torturing and raping little girls for fun is morally wrong does so, I think, because they view such acts as personally invented subjective preferences, such as “I like Pepsi.” It would be arrogant of me to say that someone who likes Pepsi more than Coke is wrong. Surely the affinity for Pepsi is a subjective taste and not some objective truth.

But if the statement Torturing and raping little girls for fun is morally wrong is only someone’s subjective preference, then it is absurd to accuse people who disagree with this and engage in raping and torturing little girls for fun.

I also think it is odd, if not logically absurd, for someone to think I should not call someone “morally wrong and dysfunctional” if they think moral values are only subjective.

As for me, when I meet a person who thinks torturing and raping are only subjective preferences, I won’t let them near my kids. Philosopher Paul Copan puts it this way: “Although basic moral principles – to be kind, selfless, and compassionate; to avoid torturing for fun, raping, or taking innocent human life – are accessible and knowable to morally sensitive human beings, some improperly functioning individuals may be self-deceived or hard-hearted sophists.” (144)

Copan says: “Thus, we should reasonably believe what is apparent or obvious to us unless there are overriding reasons to dismiss it – a belief that applies to our sense perception, our reasoning faculty, and our moral intuitions/perceptions.” (144) Just as we perceive a world external to us, and intuit certain laws of logic that are properly basic, so also we apprehend certain moral truths to be objective.

Finally, philosopher Thomas Reid “claimed he did not know by what reasoning – demonstrative or probable – he could convince the epistemic or moral skeptic.” (Copan, 144)

SOURCES:

Paul Copan, “God, Naturalism, and the Foundations of Morality.” (In The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue, 141-161)

William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith; “The Indispensability of Theological Metaethical Foundations for the Existence of God”


***
William Lane Craig & Paul Copan on: Objective Moral Values Exist


(Some lecture notes for my Philosophy of Religion class)

William Lane Craig’s metaethical argument for the existence of God is:

1) If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.
2) Objective moral values (OMVs) do exist.
3) Therefore God exists.

How can we argue for the truth of the second premise?

How do we know there are OMVs?

We recognize them. Like we recognize (1) “The lights in this room are on.”

The truth or falsity of (1) is objective, not subjective.

Consider (2) Racism is wrong. Is (2) true or false? The correct answer is: true.

But how do we know this?

Philosophers like Craig and Paul Copan (as well as Alvin Plantinga and William P. Alson) say that we just recognize that (2) is wrong, in the same we that we recognize the truth or falsity of (1).

So, moral values are apprehended. Like we apprehend, by sense experience, that the lights are either on or off. Moral values function like Plantingian properly basic beliefs.

Objection: you can’t prove that (2) is right.

This argument does not claim to indubitably prove this.

There are very few things in this life about which we can be absolutely (deductively) certain.

E.g., Craig says, “How do you know you’re not just a body lying in the Matrix and that all you see and experience is an illusory, virtual reality?” (All Craig quotes from "How Can God Be the Ground of Morality?")

- Yes, it’s possible that is true.

- But I have no good reason to doubt what I see.

- “The mere possibility provides no warrant for denying what I clearly grasp.” (Craig)

So, while I cannot deductively prove that (2) is right, I have no good reason to doubt that (2) is right.

Objection: moral values differ from culture to culture.

This is partially true. Not entirely. Because nearly all cultures believe, e.g., (3): Stealing is wrong.

The truth that many moral values differ from culture to culture does not cause us to believe moral values are not objective. Just as, should we find a culture that believes the earth is flat, we should not thereby reject the objective truth that the earth is round.

What if some culture believes (2) is wrong?

- The answer is: that culture is wrong. The reason we can say “racism is wrong” and “racists are wrong” is because “the ability to detect error presupposes an awareness of truth.” (Paul Copan, “God, Naturalism, and the Foundations of Morality,” in The Future of Atheism; Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue, 142. Note: Copan's essay is one of the best I have ever read on this subject. He's an excellent writer and a very good thinker.)

- Copan writes: “Humans may misperceive or make logical missteps. However, such mistakes hardly call into question the general reliability of our sense or reasoning powers; indeed, they presuppose it.” (142)

Copan: “We possess an in-built “yuck factor” - basic moral intuitions about the wrongness of torturing babies for fun, of raping, murdering, or abusing children. We can also recognize the virtue of kindness or selflessness, the obligation to treat others as we would want to be treated, and the moral difference between Mother Teresa and Josef Stalin. Those not recognizing such truths as properly basic are simply wrong and morally dysfunctional.” (143)

Atheist Kai Neilsen writes: “It is more reasonable to believe such elemental things as [wife-beating and child abuse] to be evil than to believe any skeptical theory that tells us we cannot know or reasonably believe any of these things to be evil… I firmly believe that this is bedrock and right and that anyone who does not believe it cannot have probed deeply enough into the grounds of his moral beliefs.” (in Copan, 143)

Which means: basic moral principles are discovered, not invented.

We would expect this sort of thing if God exists. We would not expect this sort of thing “if humans have emerged from valueless, mindless processes.” (Copan, 143)

Objection: evolution has programmed us to believe in certain values. Therefore those values are not objective.

- This commits an informal logical fallacy - the genetic fallacy.

- Craig says it’s “at worst a textbook example of the genetic fallacy and at best only proves that our subjective perception of OMVs has evolved.”

- The “genetic fallacy”: when someone tries to invalidate a view by explaining how that view originated or came to be held.

- Such as: “You only believe in democracy because you were raised in a democratic society.”

- Compare: “You believe the earth is round because you were born in a scientific age.”

Objection: But if evolution is true why should I think moral values are objective?

- Answer: because you clearly apprehend them. Evolutionary theory gives you a reason to doubt the objectivity of moral values ONLY IF naturalism (atheism) is true.

- This objection “begs the question” (an informal logical fallacy) because it presupposes that naturalism is true.

- Craig agrees that, if naturalism is true (if there is no God), then our moral experience is illusory. That, precisely, is Craig’s first premise in his metaethical argument for God’s existence.

Which is: If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.

If God does not exist then a moral universe is far less likely.

But, as Copan writes, If humans are God’s image-bearers, then it’s not surprising that they are capable of recognizing or knowing the same sorts of moral values – whether theists or not. (142)

***

Rawls' Rejection of Utilitarianism

I found this article on John Rawls' interesting, especially regarding his attack on utilitarianism.

The pre-Rawls preference was utilitarianism, which seeks to answer the question: how can we maximize people's preferences. How can we achieve the most satisfaction possible for everyone. But utilitarian theory "has some odd consequences." Why, e.g., is rape "wrong?" The article states: "A utilitarian would have to answer that the pain to the victim outweighs the pleasure to the rapist. Surely, though, this is not why rape is wrong; the pleasure the rapist gets shouldn’t be counted at all, and the whole thing sounds ridiculous. (By the way, Judge Richard Posner, who might be called Jeremy Bentham redivivus, accepts just this view of rape in his Sex and Reason.)"

Consider this. Executing a few Danish cartoonists may bring pleasure to a Muslim mob, giving them pleasure. Doing this would achieve greater satisfaction for a greater number of people. "A utilitarian would have to endorse the execution." Herein lies the problem. "As Rawls says, “there is a sense in which classical utilitarianism fails to take seriously the distinction between persons.”"
Rawls, thus, rejects utilitarianism, and puts forth his own theory in his famous book A Theory of Justice. The rest of this essay presents Rawls' theory and objections to it.

Does utilitarianism give us a metaethical foundation for objective moral values? I dont think so, for a number of reasons. Here's one post I made, where Rawls rejects utilitarianism.

***
And one more, related to this discussion...

The Return of Goodness; The Return of God

Edward Skidelsky has written an intelligent essay on virtue ethics - "The Return of Goodness." It's a call for an ethic based on goodness rather than a utilitarian ethic. For example, utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote: "Neither one person, nor any number of persons," declared John Stuart Mill, the originator of this principle, "is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years, that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it." In other words, do what you want as long as you don't hurt someone else.

"Mill's principle has come to shape Western public doctrine. It lies behind the social legislation of the 1960s and the anti-discriminatory legislation of the past four decades. Neither left nor right dares reject it openly. Yet in historical terms, it is an anomaly, a departure from the common sense of our species." So, "a man who, having fulfilled his obligations to others, settles down with a six-pack to watch porn on television all day may be foolish, disgusting, vulgar and so forth, but he is not strictly speaking immoral. For he is, as the saying goes, "within his rights.""

"Virtue" has no place in this philosophy of morality. So? Skidelsky, who also cites the support of Richard Reeves, suggests that our real problems in our nation are not economic, but moral. We lack the moral resources to better our lot in life.

Virtue ethics argues that some choices really are better than others. There is such a thing as "goodness." "Goodness" sounds like it's an objective moral value, contra utilitarian subjectivism. Skidelsky thinks we can agree to this without belief in God. He says "it is a religion - a religion without God."

Can we be good without God? Yes, I think we can. Does goodness make any sense without God? No, I don't think so. We need a metaphyscial foundation to be able to claim that there is such a thing as "goodness." It is precisely the loss of God that led atheistic philosophers to try to find an ethical theory without God. Hence utilitarianism. So it seems our real problems are not essentially moral, but religious.

***
Re. Craig, he considers, unsurprisingly, utilitarianism. See, for starters, Craig and Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview.

Overcoming Fear - Resources

 

Here are some blog posts I have made, on overcoming fear.

https://www.johnpiippo.com/2018/08/fear.html

https://www.johnpiippo.com/2022/06/31-declarations-that-defeat-fear.html

https://www.johnpiippo.com/2010/03/trust-as-cure-for-anxiety-fear.html

https://www.johnpiippo.com/2020/03/overcoming-fear-two-sermons.html

https://www.johnpiippo.com/2021/01/overcoming-fearfulness.html?m=0

https://www.johnpiippo.com/2018/05/remembering-as-cure-for-fear.html

https://www.johnpiippo.com/2020/03/fear-cannot-survive-in-atmosphere-of.html

https://www.johnpiippo.com/2020/07/to-defeat-fear-grow.html

https://www.johnpiippo.com/2020/08/overcoming-fear-of-unknown.html

Universal Salvation?

 

Several years ago I was with Craig Keener in his office. I remember asking him some questions, to tap into his exhaustive biblical and theological knowledge.

One question was this: What would be good books you would recommend to more deeply study the person of Jesus?  He walked me around his library, and pointed out some books. One of them was Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth , by scholar Michael McClymond. Craig simply said, "McClymond is very good."

I bought and read it. 

McClymond became a scholar for me to pay attention to.

One of his more recent books is The Devil's Redemption: A New History and Interpretation of Christian Universalism. McClymond "explores what the church has taught about universal salvation and hell and critiques universalism from a biblical, philosophical, and theological standpoint. He shows that the effort to extend grace to everyone undermines the principle of grace for anyone."

Craig Keener says: "A timely and fascinating book on a crucial topic that probably only an omnicompetent historical theologian like Michael McClymond could write. McClymond shows that while the notion of universal salvation has attractive features, it does not have a very encouraging spiritual or theological track record in the history of the church."

Amos Yong (Fuller Sem.) says: "Erudite! Encyclopedic! Exhaustive! A universal discussion that leaves no stone unturned, no stream uncharted, and no argument untouched. Even as McClymond is unflinching in defending the historic orthodox consensus against the idea of universal salvation, his is a generous orthodoxy, the persuasiveness of which undoubtedly rests at least in part on his having taken time to listen to marginal voices and seriously grapple with the broadest extent of their claims within local and even global contexts. It will be a long time before universalist theologians will be able to make a compelling case that is as comprehensive as that of The Devil's Redemption."

Here is Paul Copan's Christianity Today interview with McClymond: "How Universalism, ‘the Opiate of the Theologians,’ Went Mainstream."

Solitary Praying and the Great Encounter with God

 

                                           (My old praying chair, by the river in our backyard.)

I am writing this on a Monday.

Yesterday, on Sunday, Linda and I spent the morning and afternoon in community with our church family. 

This morning I am reading Revelation 1:4-8. The word 'revelation' (apocalypse) means "an unveiling." Like when you take the lid off a simmering pot of stew and look inside at the ingredients.

In the book of Revelation God takes the lid off the pot, and John the Revelator looks inside. What does he see? Scot McKnight writes:

“Revelation symbolically transforms the world into a battlefield in which the forces of the dragon are assembled against the forces of God.”

Craig Keener writes: “God has a plan larger than the details that we can see, and that we fit into his plan for history, the goal of which is a people who will constitute a kingdom and priests.”

John writes Revelation from the position of solitariness. Henri Nouwen says that solitude with God is the place of "the great encounter." He writes:

"Every time we enter into solitude we withdraw from our windy, earthquaking, fiery lives and open ourselves to the great encounter. The first thing we often discover in solitude is our own restlessness, our drivenness, and compulsiveness, our urge to act quickly, to make an impact, and to have influence; and often we find it very hard to withstand the temptation to return as quickly as possible to the world of “relevance.” But when we persevere with the help of a gentle discipline, we slowly come to hear the still, small voice and to feel the gentle breeze, and so come to know the Lord of our heart, soul, and mind, the Lord who makes us see who we really are." (Nouwen, Clowning in Rome)

Tomorrow is Tuesday. As is my habit, I'll find a quiet place, alone with God, and pray. I've been doing these alone-times with God since 1977. I write about my experiences and encounters and understanding in my book Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God. 

In this quiet place, I experience the Great Encounter.

Presence-Driven Pastors Tend, Not Run, the Garden

 

                                                                 (Redeemer Church building, Monroe, MI)

A Presence-Driven Church is a garden, not a factory. Gardens are tended. Factories are "run."

The garden soil is the hearts of the people.

God is the seed planter.

The people are taught to abide in Christ.

They bear much fruit.

Presence-Driven Pastors tend the fruit.

In the Christ-abiding connection, God sows dreams and visions, course correction and direction, into the hearts of the people.

The Presence-Driven Pastor is not threatened by this. They separate the good from the bad. They welcome and nurture good produce, like parents caring for a newborn baby. The Presence-Driven Pastor is an expectant parent who prays for the child to be born, prepares a room for it to flourish, and celebrates its arrival.

This is Real Church, a community where everyone (not just the pastor) gets to play. Everyone becomes part of the movement. Everyone is a leader. This is anti-top-down leadership.

As Scripture tells us,

When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. (1 Corinthians 14:26)

To allow this you must let go of control. Which is hard for an Entertainment-Driven Pastor to do. (Hard for many of us, right?) These pastors control the Studio Church. The many are not as talented or as beautiful or as camera-friendly as the few. So they run the garden, rather than tend it. The people become an audience of outsiders. The Entertainment-Driven Pastor of the Consumer Church has been seduced and trafficked by the American honor-shame hierarchy.

This, Eugene Peterson writes, is a dark vocational shift. It is the "radical fall from vocational holiness to career idolatry," which "goes undetected by all but the serpent." (Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness, p. 7)

***

I write more about this in my book Leading the Presence-Driven Church.

15 Things About Identity

(Rift Valley in Kenya)

I (and others) have been saying for some time that identity is the issue of our time.

Here are some things I have written about human identity.

IDENTITY #1 - I Find My Identity in Giving Myself to My Maker

Until you have given up your self to Him

you will not have a real self.

C.S. Lewis

Allow me to get hypothetical.

If...   there is a God..., and...

If...   God is a personal agent..., and

If...   God is the cause of us...,  and

If...   God has made us in His image..., then

My identity is: child of God.

If...   my identity is given to me...,  and

I am not left to create my own identity..., then

I will find my meaning and purpose in life in giving myself to my Maker.

(See, e.g., J. P. Moreland, The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism.)

Identity (#2) - Don't Let Your Sufferings Define You

Some people, even Christians, define themselves by sufferings they have undergone. They refuse to let go of their painful past, since to do so would be to lose their identity. They have become, they are, their sufferings. 

In this, they feel unique. No one really understands them. Howard Thurman writes: 

"There are many people who would feel cheated if suddenly they were deprived of the ego definition that their suffering gives them." (Howard Thurman: Essential Writings, 56)

Some are self-defined by their suffering. They are men and women of sorrows, and little more. To free them of their sufferings, to redeem them, would be to deprive them of their core identity.

Such people resist the redemptive activity of God. They need their sufferings. They will feel like a nobody should their being-abused cease. Prisonhood is their "normal"; freedom is abnormal and threatening to them.

Their chains define and delimit them. To escape this horrible life-condition requires a revelation of their true self, their true identity, as children of God and made in God's image. Only then will they be horrified by the chains and suffering and cry out for release and redemption.

If that happens, they will be free of the idea that no one understands them, and therefore free to understand and love others.

If you are a Jesus-follower and relate to this, read this and apply. 

Identity (#3) - Masks & Authenticity

One of my seminary students, in their spiritual journal, wrote that God was speaking to them about their inauthenticity before others. They spend a lot of energy performing and acting before others, and not allowing others to see the "real them." 

A few days later, in another journal entry, God began speaking to them about their "fear of man"; i.e., the fear of what others think of them, or of what others might do to them. 

Fear of others is the root of mask-wearing inauthenticity. This is why people wear "masks," and don't let others inside of them.

The key to authentic existence is to bring one's fear of others before God and let God get his hands on this. The way God frees people of the fear of others is through his love of us, as our Father. This is what it means to say that God is perfect love, and perfect love casts out fear. (1 John 4:18)

As the truth of how much and why God loves us becomes less theory and more experienced reality, authentic existence begins.

As we discover the freedom and acceptance of an unmasked relationship with God, the mask comes off.

Identity (#4) - Our Masks Are Not Our Reality

What level of wisdom could come from a person dedicated to dwelling in God's presence, from someone not captured by the idols of technology and media? We see wisdom in Thomas Merton. Merton never watched television! What could he have to tell us? 

Merton exudes prophetic words of ontological realities. One ever-relevant Merton-theme is the stripping away of the false self, accomplished by God, in God's presence. He writes: 

"If we take our vulnerable shell to be our true identity, if we think our mask is our true face, we will protect it with fabrications even at the cost of violating our own truth. This seems to be the collective endeavor of society: the more busily men dedicate themselves to it, the more certainly it becomes a collective illusion, until in the end we have the enormous, obsessive, uncontrollable dynamic of fabrications designed to protect mere fictitious identities - "selves," that is to say, regarded as objects. Selves that can stand back and see themselves having fun (an illusion which reassures them that they are real)." (Merton, Raids On the Unspeakable, 15)

Merton published Raids in 1965. That's sixty-one years ago. He discerned the creeping shallowness of American culture. Were he alive today he would see the same, only multiplied, magnified, and glorified. 

The American social milieu profits on sustaining hypocrisy. A "hypocrite" (Greek ὑποκρίτης) is: an "actor," a "mask-wearer." We are a world of false personas who don't merely hide behind culturally constructed masks but who believe our masks are our reality. Halloween, our preferred holy day, has become every day.

Identity (#5) - In Solitude God Peels Off the Mask

My spiritual life is a dialectical movement between solitude and community, solitude and community, solitude and community... Solitude with God, koinonia, alone with God, together with the Jesus-community...  I need both.

Ontologically, solitude comes first. Solitude is, as Nouwen has said, the "furnace of spiritual transformation." In solitude God purges my soul. This is good. 

I experience this, I know this, as a good thing. 

Without time alone with God "community" (koinonia) becomes a costume party. 

In solitude the mask gets peeled away to reveal the true self. Spend much time in solitude with God and the masks will get removed by the Holy Spirit. "You" will then go to the party, interact with people, in authentic ways. 

This is all about true freedom, who God has made you to be, who you truly are in Christ.

Thomas Merton has written:

"The truest solitude is not something outside you, not an absence of men or of sound around you: it is an abyss opening up in the center of your own soul. And this abyss of interior solitude is a hunger that will never be satisfied with any created thing. The only way to find solitude is by hunger and thirst and sorrow and poverty and desire. The man who has found solitude is empty, as if he had been emptied by death." (New Seeds of Contemplation, pp. 80-81)

Learn these things and live:

• Redemptive solitude is a condition of the heart.
• In solitude God morphs the human heart.
• All persons have a hunger within that cannot be satisfied by created things. That includes you.
• Stop questing after created things.
• Hunger and thirst for the real thing. In this way consider yourself impoverished and needy.
• What you and I need is God.
• Therefore, meet often with God.
• He loves you. So, in his presence, you won't need the mask.

Identity (#6) - Followers of Jesus Have Been Given an Identity

When Linda and I were in Columbus we entered a store and saw this sign on the wall.



A person's identity is either given, hence to be discovered and grown into, or self-created, like an avatar in a video game. If someone fails to believe in a God who is their Creator, they will be left on their own to invent themselves. The implications of what you believe here will determine the life you live.

James Houston says:

“What we face in the world today is a self-achieved identity. As Christians, we believe in a given identity, not an achieved one. The Christian is found in Christ. The self-achieved identity is very fragile because we have to sustain it. Nobody else is going to sustain it for me when I have built it up myself. The result of this is a tendency toward narcissism, because there is a depleted sense of self. This is not what God ordained that we should have for an identity.”

(In Jamin Goggin and Kyle Strobel, The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb, p. 41)

Identity (#7) - Who You Are, and Who You Are Not

In my spiritual formation classes for pastors and Christian leaders I begin by sending the students out to pray for an hour, using Psalm 23 as their meditative focus. My instruction to them is: when God speaks to you, write it down.

Upon returning from their hour with God, I have found many have heard God tell them, "I love you." Some have not heard those words in a long time.

Henri Nouwen wrote that he was "firmly convinced that the decisive moment of Jesus's public life was his baptism, when he heard the divine affirmation, "You are my Beloved on whom my favor rests." (Spiritual Direction, 28) When God tells someone "You are my beloved," or "I love you," the most intimate truth about that person is revealed. 

God loves you: this is the ultimate truth about you. 

Nouwen says "the ultimate spiritual temptation is to doubt this fundamental truth about ourselves and trust in alternative identities." (28)

Who are you? Nouwen counsels us not to define ourselves by the following alternative identities.

1. Do not define yourself as: "I am what I do." He writes: "When I do good things and have a little success in life, I feel good about myself. But when I fail, I start getting depressed." (Ib.) To define yourself by what you do is to live on a spiritual and emotional roller coaster that is a function of your accomplishments.

2. Do not define yourself as: "I am what other people say about me." "What people say about you has great power. When people speak well of you, you can walk around quite freely. But when somebody starts saying negative things about you, you might start feeling sad. When someone talks against you, it can cut deep into your heart. Why let what others say about you - good or ill - determine what you are?" (Ib., 29)

3. Do not define yourself as: "I am what I have." Don't let your things and your stuff determine your identity. Nouwen writes: "As soon as I lose any of it, if a family member dies, if my health goes, or if I lose my property, then I can slip into inner darkness." (Ib.)

Too much energy goes into defining ourselves by deciding "I am what I do," "I am what others say about me," or "I am what I have." Nouwen writes: "This whole zig-zag approach is wrong." You are not, fundamentally, what you do, what other people say about you, or what you have. You are loved by God.

Today, God speaks to the deep waters of your heart and says, "You are my beloved son or daughter, and on you my favor rests." To hear that voice and trust in it is to reject the three alternative ways of self-definition and enter into freedom and joy.

Identity #8 - A Way to Authentic Self-Knowledge

(Monroe County)

It is good to know the truth about one's own self. The Jesus-POV is that self-truth lies inside a person, in "the heart." The heart is what Jesus is going after, not the appearance.

While the outside of a cup may look nice, we want the inside to be clean. A tomb may be white-washed to look pure, but the bones of a dead person lie inside. It's what's inside that counts. The "inside" defines the real you.

Many convince themselves that their persona ("mask," "false self") is a manifestation of their inner person. Occasionally, the smiley mask or confident mask or hard mask slips off, and there is a moment of rage or weakness or tenderness. At that moment we have a window into the heart, a glimpse of who that person really is. What is in the heart is the person's "normal"; the mask is the person's "false normal."

C.S. Lewis shows us how this can work in an opposite way. He writes:

"We imply, and often believe, that habitual vices are exceptional single acts, and make the opposite mistake about our virtues - like the bad tennis player who calls his normal form his "bad days" and mistakes his rare successes for his normal. I do not think it is our fault that we cannot tell the real truth about ourselves; the persistent, life-long, inner murmur of spite, jealousy, prurience, greed and self-complacence, simply will not go into words. But the important thing is that we should not mistake our inevitably limited utterances for a full account of the worst that is inside." (The Problem of Pain, 53-54, emphasis mine.)

Here are two inauthentic conditions.

1. Wear a false-self mask to hide who you really are.
2. Mistake a rare spiritual or moral success for who you really are.

Think of yourself as a patient in the doctor's office. You smile and say, "Everything's fine," but the doctor says, "Let's take the MRI to make sure." Or, you say "I felt great for an hour yesterday!" The doctor says, "Let's take the MRI to make sure." We may be afraid to know the truth of our physical condition, but I hope you agree that we need to know this, and it will be best to get it treated.

Who are you, really? God knows, surely. 

A way to authentic self-knowledge is this. Make it your habit to enter God's office regularly. Sit before God and pray, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." (Psalm 139:23-24) God will show you the truth about your real self, and begin restoring your heart (removing layers of veneer to get at the original finish), and then transforming it (meta-morphing it; changing its form into Christlikeness).

This is who you are. This is who were were always meant to be.

Identity #9 - Don't Doubt Who You Really Are

I'm sitting on my back porch with a hoodie on over my head and my legs wrapped in a blanket. There's food in my various bird feeders, nectar in my hummingbird feeder, a few snacks, a cup of coffee in my favorite mug, my journal, a pen, James Cone's God of the Oppressed, Henri Nouwen's Spiritual Direction, my Bible, and my laptop. I've got a few hours to dwell closely in God's presence, listening, praying, writing, as God leads me.

Nouwen's book is spectacular. I'm reading what he says about self-rejection, and acceptance of our core identity, which is: I am a son of God, and God finds favor with me. Self-rejection concerns "the darkness of not feeling truly welcome in human existence. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that declares we are loved." (31)

Self-rejection manifests itself as either shame or pride. Either arrogance or low self-esteem. Nouwen writes: 

"Self-rejection can show itself in either a lack of confidence or a surplus of pride." (31) 

"The greatest trap in life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection, doubting who we really are." (31)

It has taken me a long time to experience this great truth in my heart. I've known it in my mind. But what's needed here is not theory, but experience.

Identity #10 - The Myth of Ontological Uniqueness

The young woman, in her twenties, told me she was a Jesus-follower. I think she was, and anyway, I'm not the ultimate judge of such things.

She struggled with others, and herself. She smiled and said, "The reason people can't deal with me is because they've never met anyone like me before."

I told him I've met many people like her. This upset her. 

She insisted on her ontological uniqueness. This was the heart of her problem; viz., believing she was different, in essence, from anyone else on the planet. 

Her false sense of ontological uniqueness isolated her. If there's no one else on earth like you, then you are alone. You are an alien, one of the X-men, and everyone else is a stranger. This is the myth of ontological uniqueness. It was this young woman's prison.

Ontological uniqueness is not the same as saying, "No two snowflakes are alike." But of course. And of course they are alike in that they are both snowflakes. My young friend saw all of humanity as snowflakes, except for her own self. If that were true, then community (koinonia; what we have in common) would be impossible. No wonder she felt isolated. No wonder others could not get near to her.

The truth is, the deeper we go inside persons, the more we are all the same. I refer to the elements of our ultimate same-ness as "ontological dualities." Everyone struggles with things like Life vs. Death, and Trust vs. Control.

One of Satan's strategies is to persuade us that our sin, our failure, is so horrible that no one could ever relate to it. Thus no one could understand or have compassion towards us. Or, the enemy could persuade us of having an other-worldly giftedness, so we would think we are above all the rest of failing humanity.

The truth is that, in a deep, ontological way, we are "Everyman." Christ died for us all. God became one of us.

That is the cure for our isolation. 

Identity #11 - The Identity That Makes You Free

Our freedom is a function of our anchorage. 

The more we are attached (addicted; French attache) to the affirmation and rejection of other people, the less free we are. 

I know this from personal experience. I have been too attached, too connected, to what people think of me. This has prevented me from thinking of other people, without conditions. Which is how Jesus thinks about us.

The way out of this bondage is to discover your true self, who you are, and what you are intended to be. Which is: a child of God, forgiven, loved, and restored to community with God. 

You are beloved of God. The more this truth has descended from my mind into my heart and has become my being, my core identity, the more I experience the freedom Christ has called me to. Included in this is freedom to love others as God loves me. One sign of this true experiential freedom is: compassion towards others.

I love the way Henri Nouwen expresses this. He writes: "The identity that makes you free is anchored beyond all human praise and blame. (Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love, 70)

Identity #12 - Do Not Let This World Interpret You

The prescient, prophetic, praying follower of Jesus, Thomas Merton, wrote: 

"We have a vocation not to be disturbed by the turmoil and wreckage 

of the great fabric of illusions." 

(A Book of Hours, 56)

We have a vocation... 

A calling. 

We have a calling.

From God. 

God calls us.

... not to be disturbed...

To not be agitated.

This is about the heart.

Washing machines have "agitators." They move back and forth, back and forth, with force. They are going nowhere. They make no forward progress.

Disturbances halt forward progress. Disturbances interrupt the calling.

Jesus said, "Let not your hearts be agitated."

ταράσσω,v  \{tar-as'-so}
1) to agitate, trouble (a thing, by the movement of its parts to and fro)  1a) to cause one inward commotion, take away his calmness of  mind, disturb his equanimity  1b) to disquiet, make restless  1c) to stir up  1d) to trouble  1d1) to strike one's spirit with fear and dread  1e) to render anxious or distressed  1f) to perplex the mind of one by suggesting scruples or doubts.

...by the turmoil...

Let not your hearts be agitated by the agitation. By the upheaval. By the irruptions. By the roiling waters.

Let not your hearts be arrested by the peace-thieves.

...by the wreckage...

Do not be captivated by the incessant effluence of cultural carnage.

Put a compress on the bleeding media.

...the great fabric of illusions.

The systematic sham that is "the world."

With all its pretension and arrogance.

Do not let this world interpret you.

We have a calling from God to remain in Christ where agitation and turmoil are not to be found and the great fabric of systemic spell-casting is broken.

Identity # 13 - Love Is the Measure of Our Identity

"The measure of our identity, of our being (the two are the same), is the amount of our love for God. The more we love earthly things, reputation, importance, pleasures, ease, and success, 

the less we love God." 

Thomas Merton

The more things we love, the more our love, and hence, our identity, is dissipated. Our love, and our self, gets spread thin. We become dissipated among things that have no real value. "Then," wrote Merton, "when we come to die, we find we have squandered all our love (that is, our being) on things of nothingness, and that we are nothing, we are death."

Because we have wasted our lives; we have squandered our love.

Sometimes, when I read an obituary, I see that the deceased, John Doe, "loved to hunt and fish, and loved his sports teams." So, who was John Doe? He was an avid hunter, fisherman, and sports lover. Are these wrong? No. But if they are the things that define John Doe and nothing more, then how sad and meaningless a life he led. Especially if John Doe has been a Detroit Lions fan.

Merton wanted his life to be measured by his love of God, and from that, measured by his love for the least of His children.

Devote yourself fully to loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Out of this great love, discern how to dispense this love to others, in both word and action. 

You are what you love. (See here.)

Identity # 14 - The Identity That Makes You Free

Our freedom is a function of our attachment. The more we are attached (addicted; French attache) to the affirmation and rejection of other people, the less free we are. 

I know this too well from personal experience. I have been too attached, too connected, to what other people think of me. This attachment has prevented me from thinking of other people, without conditions. Which is how Jesus thought and thinks about us.

The way out of this bondage is to discover your true self, who you are, and what you are intended to be. Which is: a child of God, forgiven, loved, and restored to community with God. 

You are the beloved of God. The more this truth has descended from my mind into my heart and has become my very being, my core identity, the more I experience the freedom Christ has called us to. Included in this freedom is: freedom to love others as God loves them. One sign of this is compassion towards others.

I love the way Henri Nouwen expresses this. He writes: "The identity that makes you free is anchored beyond all human praise and blame. (Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love, 70)

The amazing love of God transcends all earthly loves, refers to us as loved by God, and sets us free.

Identity #15 - C.S. Lewis On the Real Self

Here's a quote from C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity on the "real self." I'll add some parenthetical comments.

"There are no real personalities apart from God. Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self. [In Jesus, we see what humanity is. Some say, "Well, I'm only human." If only that were true! The Jesus-idea is that, without God's kingdom-rule in our lives, we're sub-human.] 

Sameness is to be found most among the most 'natural' men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerers have been; how gloriously different are the saints. 

But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away 'blindly' so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality; but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. [This is the Jesus-paradox; viz., that to live the truly good life one must not focus on living the good life. Or, as Lewis wrote elsewhere, if one goes into a beautiful garden expecting to be blown away by its beauty, this will not often happen. But go into the same garden to say your prayers, and nine times out of ten the result will be to be stunned by the beauty. Call this the way of indirection.] 

It will come when you are looking for Him... Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in." [We find ourselves in losing ourselves; we find our true selves by losing ourselves in God.]