Appeals to Authority

To begin, I’d like to address the idea of an appeal to authority. If you’ve engaged with atheists (or really anyone) on theological and philosophical issues, it’s not unlikely that you’ve seen people attempt to apply logical fallacies outside of their proper context. Recently, I was talking to someone who asserted that any appeal to the Bible or even God is just an “appeal to authority.” Therefore, they claimed, because I appealed to an authority, my argument was fallacious. This is absurd, of course, as we cannot make any arguments without appealing to authorities. Every argument we make, if it includes any logical progression, without which it would be tautological, appeals to logic. Every time we operate science we appeal to many things such as the uniformity of nature, our ability to reliably witness the procession of nature, etc. It’s common for people to appeal to the scientific consensus.

Clearly this informal fallacy does not bear the same weight when applied to these standards and truths which are regarded as plainly or even infallibly authoritative. This is because it only makes sense to call a deductive argument fallacious for this reason when the authority to which the person is appealing is fallible. If there is no potential for a source to be wrong, how could someone fault another for appealing to it? So we see that there is a proper context for this fallacy.

God and Subjectivity

The same is true for another argument which is perhaps more common than the one referenced above. It’s as follows: if morality is based upon the opinion or declaration of God, then it is subjective rather than objective. Therefore, they say, Christians cannot appeal to any objective standard. This is superficially valid. However, when people attack subjective morality, they attack it for a deficiency which is not found in the Christian moral scheme.

For something to be subjective, it must be true or existent solely on the basis of the mind which conceives of it. In other words, it is mind-dependent. Objectivity is therefore mind-independence. By this definition, Christian morality is indeed subjective, for all moral facts are dependent upon and entirely grounded in the mind of God. Further, all of logic is subjective. Mathematics. Truth. This is because, according to the Christian worldview, everything is grounded in God’s mind. To be correct, to believe truth, is to think God’s thoughts after Him. Consider the words of Cornelius Van Til:

“True human knowledge corresponds to the knowledge which God has of himself and his world. Suppose that I am a scientist investigating the life and ways of a cow. What is this cow? I say it is an animal. But that only pushes the question back. What is an animal? To answer that question I must know what life is. But again, to know what life is I must know how it is related to the inorganic world. And so I may and must continue till I reach the borders of the universe. And even when I have reached the borders of the universe, I do not yet know what the cow is. Complete knowledge of what a cow is call be had only by an absolute intelligence, i.e., by one who has, so to speak, the blueprint of the whole universe. But it does not follow from this that the knowledge of the cow that I have is not true as far as it goes. It is true if it corresponds to the knowledge that God has of the cow.” (Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology, pg. 11)

So this definition would mean that within the Christian worldview, all things are subjective. However, do we really attack subjective morality as it is consistently applied within a naturalistic materialist framework on the basis of its dependence on any mind whatsoever? I think not. Rather, the deficiency in this position lies in the fallibility and equal authority of consistently contradictory moral agents. Every person makes their own moral judgments, yet no person is more authoritative than another with regard to morality, as there is no truth independent of human minds to appeal to. There is no justification found outside of humans themselves for any moral convictions. So how can one deal with contradictory convictions within this worldview? Neither conviction ultimately has a justification which is more authoritative than the other. Neither conviction has a justification which is external to the human being. It is silly to claim that one can ground morality itself in a horribly fallible moral agent.

The ironic flaw with the plurality of minds being posited is that it fails to pass the question Socrates asked Euthyphro before the dilemma was even reached. Euthyphro claimed that that which was good was that which was loved by the gods. Similarly, many today would claim that that which is good is that which is loved by humanity. Socrates challenged this notion, suggesting that the gods could disagree with each other. At this point, the Christian worldview has an answer. There is one God, one ultimately authoritative moral commander. The naturalistic materialist cannot even suppose that humans could ever agree, because we experience their disagreement on a daily basis. This is when Euthyphro was asked the famous dilemma. He asked whether good was good because God loved it, or whether God loved good because it was good. Loved here can be understood as supports or commands. Is this not also a dilemma for the common atheistic worldview? They cannot say that humans love good because it is good, for they posit that morality is dependent upon human minds and not external to it. Why then do humans ever make moral judgments? To say that moral values are grounded in humans is to claim that good is good because of the word of humans. But because of the contradictory plurality of minds (the preceding aspect of the Euthyphro dilemma which most people are unaware of) they cannot make this claim without nullifying any meaning that goodness might have. What was the solution of Socrates? To say that the standard of goodness existed outside of the gods. This is a solution the humanists cannot accept from the outset, that the standard lies outside of humans.

The Christian solution to this dilemma is that goodness is not simply identified with God’s commands, but His nature. His immutable, aseitous nature is the basis for goodness. You see, that which is good is good because it is considered so by God. Yet, at the same time, God considers it good because it is good. Is this necessarily a vicious circle, as Socrates posits? Surely not. The two horns are reconciled in that God loves good because it is according to His nature, which is good, and it is good because it is according to His nature, which is good. Goodness is grounded ontologically in the invariable and self-sufficient nature of God. The objection is sometimes raised at this point that it’s just pushing the dilemma one step back. Does God choose His nature because it is good, or is God’s nature good because He chooses it? However, this is based upon a false premise, which is the idea that we choose our natures. That’s incoherent, as our natures are the origins and preconditions of our decisions. We make moral decisions according to our natures as moral beings. So if God is by nature good, to ask if He chose His nature because it was good is to confuse the very idea of choice. He is good.

So, the weakness of subjective morality as it exists within the naturalistic materialist worldview is the mind, or rather minds, which are being posited. These minds, human minds, are fallible, whimsical, arbitrary, contradictory, etc., although the fallibility is less relevant when they are considered to be, themselves, the grounds of morality. Clearly, this mind is incapable of serving as the basis for a consistent moral framework (especially one which comports with our actual behavior). The mind of God is not so. The mind of God is infallible, because the mind of God determines the very nature of reality. The mind of God is invariant. All proceeds according to His sovereign decree.  The mind of God is unrivaled by any, as the only other minds are possessed by us, the creation. His authority, therefore, is unique and none can be supposed equal in position such that they might contradict Him. His commands are good because He is good.

If someone wants to call something subjective on the basis of its dependence upon the mind of God, so be it. I will then read His Word so that I can think those same thoughts and agree with that mind, and I suggest you do the same, as there is no other mind as self-sufficient, authoritative, consistent, and limitless in its knowledge as the mind of God. But, may man never suppose that his mind is ever even close to comparable. The duty of man is to submit his mind to God’s and His Word that he may come to think God’s thoughts after Him.

Grace and Peace