Graded Notes and Story Assignment on Moral Absolutes due 5.3.23

Assignment

2 Things

1. Read/skim sections 13.8-13.9 and catch up on the notes document.
2. The story assignment must be…
   1. at least half a page, single-spaced.
   2. Can be a script, news report, regular story.
   3. You must have someone read it in class Weds.

 

Lecture

13.6 (Summarized in class.) This section looks at some of the problems Christians have with pluralism. In one sense, pluralism is just a society with many cultures, religions, and views tolerating each other well. However, nowadays Christians are expected to forfeit the traditional sense of the word, “tolerance” for a newer one. By the new definition, everyone can be right, so long is you aren’t claiming to be exclusively right.

13.7 (Summarized in class.) It’s a chapter that reviews objective truth claims –>”Sally’s hair is red” vs subjective truth claims -> “Sally’s hair is pretty.” Christians hold to the Correspondence Theory of Truth which says that for something to be true means it needs to line up with reality. God made reality and we take it pretty seriously.

13.8 (Read in Class.) We have no good reason to believe that there are pink flying elephants. But what if someone believes it very sincerely? We may care for them, but we do not affirm the idea just because someone holds it dearly. There have been many excellent explanations and justifications given for why God exists, not so for pink flying elephants. There is simply no reason to believe they exist.

13.9 (Read in class.) Frances Schaeffer said that people need an absolute beyond man’s ideas, otherwise there is no moral judgement between people when they differ on moral matters.

C.S. Lewis takes it a step further and says that if moral judgement is impossible, then our values are only impulses and whoever believes the strongest -or has the most power- gets to say what the morals are.

However, on page 335-336 we see a list of “moral absolutes.” The list contains many behaviors that are considered morally wrong in every single culture we’ve studied, from the wealthiest of nations to the smallest hunter-gatherers.