MORALITY, ELECTRONIC MEDIA AND THE GOD WHO IS THERE AND NOT SILENT
A couple of months ago, I picked up a copy of The Francis Schaeffer Trilogy, which contains The God Who is There, Escape from Reason, and He is There and He is Not Silent, in a single volume.
Reading through Schaeffer’s 1970s classic He is There and He is Not Silent, which explores the philosophical arenas of metaphysics, morals, and epistemology, particularly that there is a difference in our understanding the world in light of the reality of God being there and not silent, I came across the most haunting statement in his section on morality, wherein he contended that those who hold to an impersonal beginning, whether modern science, or neo-orthodox theology, one must face the inevitable problem of there being no basis for any moral absolutes. Picking up on Marshall McLuhan’s point that democracy is finished, Schaeffer writes:
There is coming a time in the global village (not far ahead, in the area of electronics) where we will be able to wire everybody up to a giant computer, and what the computer stokes as the average at a given moment will be what is right and wrong. You may say that is far-fetched and there may never be such a worldwide computer system. But the concept of morals only being the average of what people are thinking and doing at a given time is a present reality.[1]
Realizing these words were written over thirty years ago, I was amazed to see how spot on Schaeffer was in seeing where the path of relativism would eventually lead in morality by majority rule, particularly in the area of electronic media. Of course, Schaeffer’s giant compute taking the poll, may have been a by product of the science fiction of his own day; nevertheless, today people are interconnected via a web of computers on a global scale, and their opinions can be voiced in real time via the magic of Web 2.0.
Electronic media has also become a means of taking public opinion pools in determining whether or not something is right or wrong and good or bad.
Additionally, many of the people in twenty-first century Western civilization accept the reality of an impersonal beginning of the universe, whether it be a strictly materialistic Darwinian naturalism, or adopting one of the various forms of Eastern pantheistic origins (e.g. Hinduism, New Age, New Thought, etc), and embrace the idea that good and evil; right and wrong; moral and immoral is relative. So, Obi Wan Kenobi is, according to moral relativism, correct in telling Luke Skywalker that Darth Vader killed his father—from a certain point of view. (There is no error in the old wizard, neither a need to blame Lucas for trying to cover up a potential plot hole between episodes IV and VI).
The problem of the idea of a morality by majority is that morality is not always best determined by a majority vote. Many can understand how a majority can abuse its power in numbers to oppress a weaker minority. Yet, giving power over to an elite group or enlightened individual is also a utopian fantasy, which can quickly become a real totalitarian nightmare. A minority of people can also use various power tactics to control and subjugate a majority. Determining morals in the society must come by a higher law than the majority rule. It must also be beyond what the elite can impose on the masses, since the elite can be corrupted to the extent they allow themselves to act above the law.
Christian theism solves the problem in affirming the reality of moral absolutes. In other words, right and wrong does exists, and is not a matter of opinion. “Torturing babies” is a moral statement, which is defines something that is wrong across the board. All tribes, tongues, and nations can accept it as true. Christians also accept the idea of special revelation, which means God has spoken to man, particularly in Jesus Christ—God incarnate, and Scripture—the Holy Spirit inspired text. Although all people have a inherent sense of morality with a capacity to know right and wrong, the Word of God gives us a refined sense of the moral absolutes that do exists.
[1] Francis Schaeffer, The Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy: The Three Essential Books in One Volume (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1990), 295
Reading through Schaeffer’s 1970s classic He is There and He is Not Silent, which explores the philosophical arenas of metaphysics, morals, and epistemology, particularly that there is a difference in our understanding the world in light of the reality of God being there and not silent, I came across the most haunting statement in his section on morality, wherein he contended that those who hold to an impersonal beginning, whether modern science, or neo-orthodox theology, one must face the inevitable problem of there being no basis for any moral absolutes. Picking up on Marshall McLuhan’s point that democracy is finished, Schaeffer writes:
There is coming a time in the global village (not far ahead, in the area of electronics) where we will be able to wire everybody up to a giant computer, and what the computer stokes as the average at a given moment will be what is right and wrong. You may say that is far-fetched and there may never be such a worldwide computer system. But the concept of morals only being the average of what people are thinking and doing at a given time is a present reality.[1]
Realizing these words were written over thirty years ago, I was amazed to see how spot on Schaeffer was in seeing where the path of relativism would eventually lead in morality by majority rule, particularly in the area of electronic media. Of course, Schaeffer’s giant compute taking the poll, may have been a by product of the science fiction of his own day; nevertheless, today people are interconnected via a web of computers on a global scale, and their opinions can be voiced in real time via the magic of Web 2.0.
Electronic media has also become a means of taking public opinion pools in determining whether or not something is right or wrong and good or bad.
Additionally, many of the people in twenty-first century Western civilization accept the reality of an impersonal beginning of the universe, whether it be a strictly materialistic Darwinian naturalism, or adopting one of the various forms of Eastern pantheistic origins (e.g. Hinduism, New Age, New Thought, etc), and embrace the idea that good and evil; right and wrong; moral and immoral is relative. So, Obi Wan Kenobi is, according to moral relativism, correct in telling Luke Skywalker that Darth Vader killed his father—from a certain point of view. (There is no error in the old wizard, neither a need to blame Lucas for trying to cover up a potential plot hole between episodes IV and VI).
The problem of the idea of a morality by majority is that morality is not always best determined by a majority vote. Many can understand how a majority can abuse its power in numbers to oppress a weaker minority. Yet, giving power over to an elite group or enlightened individual is also a utopian fantasy, which can quickly become a real totalitarian nightmare. A minority of people can also use various power tactics to control and subjugate a majority. Determining morals in the society must come by a higher law than the majority rule. It must also be beyond what the elite can impose on the masses, since the elite can be corrupted to the extent they allow themselves to act above the law.
Christian theism solves the problem in affirming the reality of moral absolutes. In other words, right and wrong does exists, and is not a matter of opinion. “Torturing babies” is a moral statement, which is defines something that is wrong across the board. All tribes, tongues, and nations can accept it as true. Christians also accept the idea of special revelation, which means God has spoken to man, particularly in Jesus Christ—God incarnate, and Scripture—the Holy Spirit inspired text. Although all people have a inherent sense of morality with a capacity to know right and wrong, the Word of God gives us a refined sense of the moral absolutes that do exists.
[1] Francis Schaeffer, The Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy: The Three Essential Books in One Volume (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1990), 295
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