There have been many attempts to articulate a system of morality in the absence of religion. Since we know how critical the Hebrew philosophy was to the creation of Western Civilization, it is also critical to attempt to understand the critiques of those same philosophies.
In the postmodern philosophy there is no God, the individual reigns supreme. Because as both Plato and Aristotle said, civilization requires morality to survive, there have been many attempts to come up with an alternative to religious morality. Most famously the philosopher Bertrand Russell came up with his own commandments.[1] His include:
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
I would make two observations about these commands. The first is that they are routinely violated by the people that profess to believe in them. The suppression of ideas, for instance, is so commonplace as to be unremarkable. That said, those who believe in the Hebrew 10 Commandments would be careful not to be too smug about fidelity to the law. The second is that they lack the “natural” authority of the ones given to Moses. Clearly, man could follow every one of these commandments and society could still be disordered. But in them you can see the modern philosophy of elevating the individual, and his perception, to the highest level. Remember that Plato taught us to distrust our perceptions because they are, by definition, limited by our views. [2]
The deification of the individual is a key characteristic of modern liberal thought (as opposed to classical liberalism). As we discussed in the Ten Commandments of the Hebrews, one of their key philosophies was that God takes the place of “ought”. We ought not to steal but we do not because God commands us not to. Once we eliminate God and elevate man, all virtue is relative. Consider the effect of following Bertrand’s fifth commandment (not to bow to authority of any kind) to its logical conclusion with regard to property. The Hebrews contemplated this possibility in the story of David and Bathsheba. David covets her, steals her, and then sends her husband to his certain death. In the absence of God there is nothing to stop David. Even if we did not believe in the divinity of the original Commandments, we can see how they help prevent tyranny, a key concept in our modern western civilization.
In the absence of God, it is perfectly reasonable to turn on our enemies when we are in power. As modern liberals deify themselves, they pursue the very things they criticized in the past as being the antithesis of logic such as the inquisitions and the pursuit of witches, even as they come up with better words for the same actions. Of course, the Hebrews predicted this because, as Isiah warned us, “Their land is full of idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made.” As the First Hebrew Commandment tells us, we have no God but Him, and to worship that which we create, even if we believe it to be created for good, is a violation of that key concept. Part of that commandment is designed precisely to protect us from postmodernism. We could easily walk through the Hebrew commandments and think of how often they are violated for “our own good”. At first the compromises seem small and reasonable, but they tend to compound until lies are commonplace if they serve the “greater good”, and murder itself is now unremarkable if that which we are killing is either too small to defend itself, or too old to be a productive slave.
In the Middle Ages, even the worst kings understood that they derived their power from God and would answer to Him. Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, did not. As postmodern liberals, they worshiped themselves. But also, the power that one gets in a democracy requires that person in power to flatter, lie, and keep the mob happy to remain in power. That is its own perverted form of bondage. The politician re-enters the life of slavery by begging for money and manipulating the passions of the mindless. If there is one advantage of post modernism, it is that it has shown us that, once you strip away God, there is nothing but nihilism and power. Politics has become a blood sport because it is the highest good instead of a necessary evil that should exist only after man contemplates what is good, moral, and true.
In the post-modernist view of the world where there is no longer good and evil, we are left with the oppressed and the oppressor, the exploiter and the exploited. The Judeo-Christian ideology would say that when the exploited gain their freedom they also gain the ability to choose good and evil. They are slaves who have been brought out of Egypt and now have the ability to make choices as opposed to being subject to the will of their masters. The postmodern philosophy does not allow for that construct. The exploited are incapable of doing evil. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Pope John Paul II went back to Poland and everyone expected a glorious victory speech. But that is not what happened. The Pope cautioned the Polish people not to trade the tyranny of the Soviet occupation for the tyranny of unfettered capitalism. He warned them not to return to bondage. Remember that in apartheid South Africa blacks went from being tyrannized to being tyrannical. Of course we should have felt sympathy for the oppressed blacks there, and a more Hebrew view of the world would easily have predicted what came next, because human nature is immutable.
The key issue with identity politics is that it ignores what we know about human nature. The knowledge that all humans have good and evil within them is a core tenant of western civilization and the reason for it being designed to limit the accumulation of power. If an “angel” class of people existed, it would be reasonable to give them power. That was Plato’s desire and a key disagreement between him and Aristotle. Aristotle did not believe in man’s fallen state because he studied Hebrew philosophy, he did so because he observed the world around him. Yet we keep thinking that if the right people are in charge things will change. The Hebrews, the Stoics, Marcus Aurelias, and our simple power of observation, rightly tell us that they will not.
Western civilization is possible because Christ told us to “render unto Caesar”. It is possible to live by man’s laws and biblical laws as long as we understand that those of God are supreme. That “rendering unto Caesar” anticipates that we will honor God’s laws because if we do not, human justice is impossible. When we allow an innocent person to suffer because it fits an agenda that gets a result we want, we are lying for the “right” reason. When we fuel the delusions of others because it fits a political agenda in order to get a result we want, we are lying for the “right” reason. What the National Socialists did in Germany started with lying about their problems and lying about the role of the Jews in their country. And I am certain that many believed in the righteousness of their lies. We should not bear false witness because it is both wrong morally, and seeds the destruction of our civilization.
And finally, as CS Lewis reminds us, a person who torments you out of greed will be satisfied when he takes what is yours. A person who torments you for your own good will never be satisfied.
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