I’ve spent the last week-and-a-half exploring this concept of why we believe the things that we do, and which justifications for our moral alignment are reasonable and which ones are not. Today I’ll wrap things up by reviewing all of the things that I’ve covered.

Our Basis for Right and Wrong)

After contemplating the different foundations people set their judgment of right and wrong upon, I concluded that there were three main bases. A person judges what is right and wrong based on what God has said, or what society has said, or what he, himself has said.

I observed that people in our society have adopted a principle that they must listen to their own heart, determining their own right and wrong to live by. I also noted that usually what we think comes from our own self, has actually come from the society we live in. We tend to absorb the ideas we are surrounded by osmosis and then have those ideas come out of us word-for-word the same as we heard in the public square. Thus, most people end up basing their morals on what society has said, but they think they have based it upon themselves.

But neither individual whim or society’s favor are reliable bases for determining what is right or wrong. Both of them have too much variance and transformation to reflect any sort of objective, universal truth. What is “right” in society today was wrong yesterday, and likely will be wrong again in the future. A cursory glance at history shows us that it’s not as if society only improves, either. Sometimes it gets better, but sometimes it gets worse. Things have been brighter since the dark ages, but things were also brighter before them. Who is to say whether society today is at a local maxima or minima? We might think we know, but some future generation somewhere will surely disagree.

Sooner or later, any who believes that truth is defined by the individual or the society and pursues that logic to its end must come to the only possible conclusion: there actually is no absolute truth, no ideal, no sacred or unchanging standard by which our actions can be judged. Morality is transient and subjective, and any attempt to censure another person as being “wrong” is both hypocritical and vain.

The Proper Basis)

The only logical and consistent basis for moral judgment is God. Only a being that exists outside of the individual or society, one that is constant through all ages, one that is greater than the created world could lay down a law and a morality and a truth that would be consistent and objectively right.

Of course, the identity and exact opinion of that God would still be up for debate, but at least we would accept that truth could only come from some sort of theology. Of course, it would be important to acknowledge that whatever god was the true God, our knowledge of His universal law must transcend from heaven itself. It cannot simply be the idea of some man that this is what God must want, God Himself needs to have dictated it to some persons, and those persons need to have written it down as directed. Again, if such a thing were to occur, it would still be a matter of opinion as to which sacred book actually represents the mind of God, but at least we would accept that the truth could only be read out of the scripture He had given us.

And then, once we felt that we had identified that true scripture, from that true God, describing that universal truth that we are all beholden to, then all competing ideas and philosophies would have to be discarded. Never mind if your loved ones thought you were crazy, or your friends reviled you, or society persecuted you, or the great enemy destroyed you. Because, as we have established, none of those other voices have any foundation to stand upon as they oppose you. Let them think, say, and do what they will, their logic and methods are self-defeating, and all of them will crumble in time.

You, however, will have made yourself an acolyte of genuine truth, and having laid hold of it, you will be united with the only thing that is permanent, the only thing that can stay with you through all of life, and even into the world that lies beyond. Whether you be a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, or any other believer of divinely-inspired words, hold to that inspired truth above all others, and your existence will surely work out better for you than chasing the ever-changing goalposts of society’s latest fad.