What is truth?
What is knowledge?
What is goodness?
What is right and wrong?
These are all questions which surface in daily life. Some answer that truth, knowledge, goodness, and morality are all determined by each individual person on a case-by-case basis. Others profess that a particular set of knowledge is superior to all else. To some, goodness consists primarily in bestowing kindness upon others and caring for the environment.
The questions all get to the heart of how we can know something is true, wise, good, or moral. Apart from God, we want to claim that these all exist either in the human mind or in the universe itself but were not determined or defined by God.
In John 18:38, Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” It is a question we have been asking for centuries.
Mao Zedong interpreted good to consist in eliminating any human being he felt did not meet his definition for good or fit. He adapted Charles Darwin’s theory on the survival of the fittest to justify a proactive elimination of people, rather than wait for Darwin’s theory to play out in nature over time. If survival of the fittest represents truth, then it is hard to claim that Mao Zedong was wrong.
Slave traders in the 1600s and 1700s believed owning slaves was acceptable on two grounds. The first was that the slaves were inferior people and the second was that by becoming slaves they were being granted a better life. Slavery became embedded in various cultures around the world, even to the point of becoming morally acceptable. To slave owners and traders, slavery was good. If superiority represents truth, then we will always struggle with determining who is inferior and must be subjected to superior rule. In our own minds, this is an easy one because we are always superior to everyone else.
Proponents of modern eugenics believe that it is appropriate to selectively eliminate “bad genes” from society, such as through in vitro fertilization. The driving forces behind eugenics are that we can reduce health care costs, increase wisdom and talent, reduce crime, and create a more perfect society. While the ends of eugenics are noble, the means which involve eliminating human life are only justified in the minds of those who embrace the end result. To them, eugenics is good. If it is good to selectively weed out unwanted genes, then life itself holds no value.
When we take the position that morality, truth, knowledge, and goodness lie only within the framework of humanity, the definitions are often developed by the most powerful or those with the most resources. It also becomes very difficult to claim that anything is wrong or evil. In other words, the definitions serve their own interests rather than the interests of humanity as a whole. There is no benchmark against an objective, transcendent standard to regulate behavior. Everything lies within the human mind and heart.
As we have seen, God wrote eternity on our hearts and revealed Himself to us through nature. The whole of the Bible represents God revealing Himself to humanity. The Holy Spirit is actively at work in us through the conscience. Thus, whatever truth, knowledge, goodness, and morality we profess to have ultimately came from God. In that regard, it is collectively an objective, transcendent standard.
For humanity to exist in society and culture, there must be an objective, transcendent, and measurable standard of morality. If it is not transcendent, chaos will ensue because everyone will do what is right in their own eyes.
“There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” Proverbs 14:12
Behind a proper understanding of truth, knowledge, goodness, and morality lies a proper understanding of the intrinsic value of human life.
The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” In other words, there is intrinsic value in human life and the right to life. When life is only measured by potential and experience, as eugenics proposes, then the selection of those with the most potential and the opportunity for the greatest experiences is assigned greater value over all others. Eugenics assigns value to the potential and experience but not to life itself.
When we take the position that there is no intrinsic value in human life, all arguments against objective, transcendent morality become inherently discriminatory against certain people.
Intrinsic value represents the actual value. In financial terms, intrinsic value often represents the amount a willing buyer will pay a willing seller, given information on the risks involved. For example, pure gold has intrinsic value which we measure in dollars. A stock in a company has intrinsic value based on its cash flow, assets, and debts.
In ethics, the definition of intrinsic value “is an inherent property of the thing itself, and does not depend on its function, utility, or potential for something else. This means that something can have intrinsic value even if it does not have any particular function or use, or even if it has no external benefits… Each human life has intrinsic value because it is a unique existence that cannot be replicated. The value of a human life is not derived from its potential, function, or utility, but simply because it is.” https://www.clrn.org/what-is-intrinsic-value-in-ethics/
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