A Society Convinced that Human Rights Are Granted by the Government Is a Doomed Population
A House Built in the Air: A Secular Age Subverts any Secure Morality
R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
The Briefing
09/30/2021
How many laws are actually theological in nature? How many laws look back to a theological worldview for their grounding? What about legislating morality? Is that right or wrong? When does a moral principle become a statutory law that invokes the question as to whether or not it is constitutional? Well, these are huge questions these days. They're not entirely new. Some of these go all the way back to the American founding, but they are certainly urgent now. And this was made very clear in a recent column at the Washington Post by Kate Cohen. The headline is this, "If they're going to keep passing religious laws, we're going to need exemptions." Kate Cohen is writing a bit tongue in cheek here. She's being a bit sarcastic. She's writing about the fact that there are so many people who are claiming religious exemptions to certain laws.
She doesn't like it. She writes this, "A person can claim a religious exemption to the equal opportunity clause as required in all federal contracts." Now, that is not an absolutely blanket reality, but nonetheless, just consider the fact that when you think about title nine coverage of institutions, higher education institutions, those institutions are told they cannot discriminate on the basis of sex and that means male or female. There is that old language coming back to us. But as you think about this, you have theological seminaries, you have Christian institutions that limit some admissions and some programs to men rather than to women based upon theological qualifications for ministry, biblical understandings of ministry. And she is saying, that's an exemption and thus it ought to be suspect. But again, remember, she's writing a bit tongue in cheek. She says that in some states, religious believers can object to and claim an exemption to the requirement that a child be immunized to attend public school.
In her view, she says, "This thing is crazy. Obviously not everyone agrees with every law, but that's the bummer about living in a society." She writes, "In a democracy, if you feel strongly enough, you can set about finding like-minded people and try to change the law." Or she says, "If that doesn't work and you truly believe it's a sin to say, fill contraceptive prescriptions than A, don't be a pharmacist or B, risk getting fired, wouldn't God," she asks, "appreciate the gesture?" Later she says, "Martyrdom is supposed to be hard." In other words, Christian believers, just take it on the chin. Now we're going to come back to that basic analysis that she offers, but the tongue in cheek part comes where she says, "If religious people can opt out of secular laws they find sinful then maybe the rest of us should be able to opt out of religious laws we find immoral."
Okay. That sounds interesting. Where is she going with this? Well here is what she writes, "That's right immoral. We act as if religious people are the only ones who follow a moral compass and the rest of us just wonder around like sheep in search of avocado toast." But she says, "You don't need to believe in God or a particular religious tenents to have a strong sense of right and wrong." She says, "I'm not a believer, but I have beliefs, strong, sincerely held beliefs such as," and here's where you get to the very essence of her arguments, "such as," she says, "a seven week old embryo, which is a week too old to abort. According to the Texas law is not a person. It's the blueberry sized potential for a person." Well, if you're looking for the clash of worldviews, there it is.
And in this case, the clash of worldviews is over the reality of what is. Indeed Christians would say, who is a seven week old embryo? But you'll notice the argument she's making in this article. And she goes on to give other illustrations. The point is this, there are secular laws and there are laws that are explained only by some kind of religious morality. The secular laws well, they should be accepted by all people. And the religious people should simply come to terms with the fact that if you live in a democracy, you're going to have to live with those secular laws. You have no right to bring your religious worldview into any public policy or legislation. Now, what's our response to that. Number one, in one sense, we can say, tongue in cheek, satirically, good luck with that. Good luck to finding any way to have an adequate moral structure that is completely without reference to God.
Now for one thing, you could say, well, let's just take those laws and principles and legal standards and moral judgments that come from the history of Western civilization. Let's just call them something secular like the common law or positive law. We just came up with these laws, but how are you going to explain why these laws are right or wrong? Well, the left, the secular left, for a number of decades in the United States has been arguing that the only justification for a legislation must be a publicly accessible secular logic. There must be a purely secular rationale. Well, here's a big problem. When you look at a nation like the United States, especially in its history, but even now, the moral judgments of the people who democratically make up the United States of America, those moral convictions are profoundly not secular. They come from somewhere. That's where Christians understand that those moral judgments, those moral principles, what a society believes is right and what a society believes is wrong that judgment comes from somewhere.
It isn't developed merely in secular terms, as an experiment as if trying to build a house in the middle of the air, it doesn't work. But notice something else just in terms of her argument. As I said early on, she says obviously, not everyone agrees with every law, but she says, that's the bummer about living in a society. Then she says this, "In a democracy, if you feel strongly enough, you can set about finding like-minded people and try to change the law." Well, Ms. Cohen, that is exactly what happened in the state of Texas in the law that you find so objectionable. The Christians in that case, the citizens of Texas actually followed the very process you call for. That law was not imposed by some kind of religious authority in Rome or in Wittenberg or in London, or for that matter in Beijing or anywhere else.
It wasn't imposed upon the state of Texas and furthermore, as you look at the democratic process in Texas, there is no doubt that through the legislative process, a duly elected governor, that law, which this columnist finds so objectionable came through what is unquestionably, a democratic process, a constitutional process, but we should appreciate Kate Cohen's candor here. She really does set out for us. A good deal for us to think about very helpful consideration. Later in the article, she says, "Around the country, people are claiming religious exemptions from mandates that they be vaccinated. They want to opt out of laws that seek to protect their health and that of their neighbors." But then she goes on to say, "Surely people should be able to opt out of a law that forces them to risk their health." She says, "Let's call it an unreligious exemption or no," she says, "since there are plenty of religious folk who object to the Texas law, let's call it a rational exemption."
Well again, here is where you see a part of the secular conceit. A part of the modern secular conceit is that secular people operate out of a very clear sense of logic that should be compelling to everyone. And if anyone such as religious believers disagrees with that rationality, they are being irrational. Or you might say even sub rational. In this case, she goes on to write, "Rational exemptions could be used for religion-based laws with which people strongly, sincerely disagree." She says, "Again, for example, a law that values the life of a quarter inch embryo more than the life of a person carrying that embryo." Now let's just think for a moment. She is arguing here that if you are going to state as a matter of law, that an unborn human being, whether a zygote or an embryo or a fetus, whatever stage, if you take her argument seriously, she's making the argument that it is simply a religious imposition to declare the personhood of that unborn human being because there is no secular basis for it.
Well, let's just follow her logic. We'll then when does a secular basis for defending human rights and human dignity begin? Does it begin at birth? What's the qualification? What makes a human life after birth actually worthy of the sanctity and dignity of life and thus its protection? How do you decide why human beings have such dignity? Where does that dignity come from? And is that dignity something that human beings achieve? Are there certain hallmarks, like consciousness, ability to use language, ability to anticipate the future, ability to create and to enjoy social relationships, are those necessary markers of personhood? Well, let's just note. And here we need to note very chillingly that that argument has already been made. I did not draw those criteria out of thin air. Those are the very criteria given by Princeton bioethicist, Peter Singer, in explaining why it should be legal under some, indeed many circumstances, to practice, not merely abortion, but infanticide, to kill living, born human beings.
On what basis would he make that argument? He says, and he's very blunt about this, and remember he teaches bioethics at Princeton University. He is very blunt about the fact that there are certain pigs that have a higher consciousness and mental ability than certain humans. He says there are humans who are in a state such that they are not linguistic, they are not able to anticipate the future, they do not have a web of social relationships therefore they are not bearing any kind of inherent dignity that needs to be respected. They are life of some form, but they are not human persons who demand legal protection. And here is where Christians have to understand that there is a huge problem. And that is, given the metaphor I used before, that attempting to build a merely secular ethic is like trying to build a house on a foundation of air. A house being built simply up in the atmosphere.
The impossibility of that is clear. But as you think about it, you come to understand that if you are going to try to create an entirely secular system of laws, an entirely secular moral structure for a society, an entirely secular defense, even of something like human life and human dignity, you are in very big trouble, that kind of logic is what inevitably leads to the kind of medicine you saw during the Weimar Republican Germany. And later the so-called Nazi doctors. Again, you heard me use this phrase, Lebensunwertes Leben, life unworthy of life. You had the German argument. Yes, it's life of some sort, but it's not human life. This is not a human person. This might be even a potential human person, but it's not an actual human person. Whether you say that that potentiality is an actuality, the moment of birth, or if you say that that potentiality is truly an actuality only when there is the achievement of certain kinds of qualifications, such as the ability to use language, to anticipate the future and to develop social relationships.
But this gets back to another fundamental question and Christians really need to think about this. Of course, secular folk need to think about this. They don't really want to think about this. They don't want to really answer many fundamental, moral questions. They undoubtedly, many of them actually live very moral lives in terms of a conventional morality and their lifestyle. And they'll say look, atheist could be good people too but the question is, how does atheism have any clue what good is? You might come up with a merely human calculation, such as utilitarianism. Good is what leads to the greatest enjoyment for the greatest number of people but frankly, that turns out to be an extremely thin morality. It's a worldview that doesn't actually defend human life.
