Book Review
More Solid Ground
The Morals of the Story: Good News About a Good God
by David and Marybeth Baggett
Intervarsity Press, 2018
(260 pages, $24.79, paperback)
reviewed by Jeremy S. Neill
One of the more perplexing things about the new progressivism is the great confidence of its adherents in the correctness of their moral claims. In one sense, the new progressives have been advancing their claims with ever-increasing levels of certainty. But they have also, at the same time, become less and less confident about the foundations of their claims. Such trends are especially paradoxical when on display among progressive churchmen: they make ever-stronger assertions about what the world's moral structure ought to be, while holding ever-weakening convictions about God's existence or about why their moral claims ought to be taken as authoritative.
For instance, several years ago, Gary Hall, then the Dean of Washington National Cathedral, asserted that "heterosexism is a sin. Shaming people for who they love is a sin. . . . [S]exual orientation is a gift, and the religious question should be about how [people] responsibly use that gift" (ChristianNews.net, October 8, 2013). But just a couple of months earlier, Hall had described himself in a Washington Post interview as a "non-theistic Christian," and asserted that "Jesus doesn't use the word God very much. . . . He talks about his Father" ("From Comedy to National Cathedral," The Washington Post, August 1, 2013). For Hall, "God is present in all human beings," and "Jesus was an extraordinary human being."
The increasing certainty among progressive churchmen about the correctness of their moral assertions, alongside their increasing hesitation about core matters like God's existence, is something that would have baffled their ecclesiastical ancestors. Earlier generations of Christians believed God's existence to be a necessary condition for morality. Without God, how could their moral claims ever be obligatory or authoritative? Wouldn't morality just fall apart?
God Behind the Scenes
In The Morals of the Story, David and Marybeth Baggett argue for a close connection between morality and God. In fact, they think that morality's existence demonstrates God's existence. Among the major figures cited in their history of the moral argument are Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, and C. S. Lewis. Contemporary Christian philosophers whom they survey include Alvin Plantinga, Robert Adams, George Mavrodes, and William Lane Craig.
The Baggetts start by recollecting (and answering) some of the difficulties that have plagued the moral argument down through the centuries—including especially the Euthyphro problem: "Is something commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?" They then reflect on the puzzling nature of a world in which there are moral obligations but no God.
Think, for instance, of the ideas of Richard Dawkins. For Dawkins, a promising way for atheists to explain their moral obligations and claims is via Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism tells us that we ought always to act for the greatest good of the greatest number of people. But here the 'oomph' of moral obligation breaks down because a sensible responder might ask why he, personally, should act for the sake of the greatest number of people when doing so might not be of any (or much) benefit to himself.
Ultimately, for the Baggetts, all secular attempts to explain moral obligation are unconvincing. It is theism that best accounts for our moral convictions and explains why they are binding. God has to stand behind the scenes, as it were, giving morality its obligatory 'oomph': "God . . . [is] the one with the requisite authority to invest morality with the sort of clout most intuitively think it has" (p. 147). Hence, the existence of morality suggests the existence of God.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on Christianity from the online archives
30.6—Nov/Dec 2017
on Benedict XVI on the Fairest of the Sons of Men by Michael Martin De Sapio
22.6—July/August 2009
on the Integration of Anger into the Virtuous Life by Leon J. Podles
more from the online archives
21.6—July/August 2008
Benedict XVI on the Crisis of Faith & Reason by Samuel Gregg
24.6—Nov/Dec 2011
on the Tyranny of Modern Freedom versus the Freedom of Jesus by Gillis J. Harp
27.3—May/June 2014
Religious Freedom & Why It Matters
Working in the Spirit of John Leland by Robert P. George
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
