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A fact is something that actually exists. It is reality. It is truth.[1] Why is fact important? Every Spring we celebrate the two most significant events in history: the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The Apostle Paul valued them as “first importance” (1 Cor 15:3). What was Jesus’ attitude toward truth? On Good Friday, we commemorate that when Jesus stood on trial before Pilate, he stated the significance of truth. He said, “…for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth” (Jn 18:37). Therefore, the weight of truth was of such value that he stepped into humanity’s courtroom to reveal ultimate reality.
We measured the importance of fact as valuable, but let us now discuss “human values, of how we ought to live, and of what constitutes right conduct” [2] “How shall we then live?” is the question that each person must ask. On what basis in truth can we ground our lives upon?
The basis of truth for the ancient Greek Sophists of the fifth century BC was themselves. Of them, Protagoras held that “man is the measure of all things” [3] His moral relativism asserted that whatever is thought right in a particular society is right for that society. Every society needs a set of moral conventions in order to function as a community. In 1967, one of Protagoras’ disciples, Thomas Harris, wrote the book, I'm OK You're OK, which influenced the Boomer generation to have a more tolerant view of a widening global community. Young Ryan Dobson, Dr. James Dobson’s adopted son, counters this thinking with the book whose title says it all, Be Intolerant: Because Some Things Are Just Stupid (2003).
Over history, the secular philosophers pondered the meaning of the value of “good.” Some argued ethical conduct is expressed by what a person is. One person whose name kept popping up in my management courses was Abraham Maslow. His hierarchy of needs pyramid shows self-actualization as our highest goal. He would have clashed with Max Lucado, who wrote, It’s Not About Me (2004).
In another vein, secular ethics can be found in an attempt to please the greatest number of people. This is called teleological ethics. Our U.S. political system appears to function this way as demonstrated by this election year process. However, this ethic can be manipulated and find its basis in lies, which is also demonstrated by this election year process. And what of the ethics of the Cynics and Stoics, whose disciples appear to be Immanuel Kant, David Hume, and G. E. Moore? We have been experimenting with these secular ethics for thousands of years and have discovered that they are not coherent, complete, or consistent.
As a former quality assurance manager for a large government program, my concern was to answer the question of the value for our products and services. The definition was sometimes obscured by unrealistic expectations, but the definition always returned to what the contract and the quality assurance manual stated.
As Christians, our definition of truth and value also come down to basically the same thing. In place of the contract, we have a covenant, and in place of the quality assurance manual, we have the Bible. What kind of foundation do we offer the world? Jesus said, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matt 7:24). How,then, are you building your ethical house?
--Al
1 "fact." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 19 Mar. 2008.http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fact>.
2 Richard Norman. The Moral Philosophers: An Introduction to Ethics. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 1.
3 Ibid, 7.
We measured the importance of fact as valuable, but let us now discuss “human values, of how we ought to live, and of what constitutes right conduct” [2] “How shall we then live?” is the question that each person must ask. On what basis in truth can we ground our lives upon?
The basis of truth for the ancient Greek Sophists of the fifth century BC was themselves. Of them, Protagoras held that “man is the measure of all things” [3] His moral relativism asserted that whatever is thought right in a particular society is right for that society. Every society needs a set of moral conventions in order to function as a community. In 1967, one of Protagoras’ disciples, Thomas Harris, wrote the book, I'm OK You're OK, which influenced the Boomer generation to have a more tolerant view of a widening global community. Young Ryan Dobson, Dr. James Dobson’s adopted son, counters this thinking with the book whose title says it all, Be Intolerant: Because Some Things Are Just Stupid (2003).
Over history, the secular philosophers pondered the meaning of the value of “good.” Some argued ethical conduct is expressed by what a person is. One person whose name kept popping up in my management courses was Abraham Maslow. His hierarchy of needs pyramid shows self-actualization as our highest goal. He would have clashed with Max Lucado, who wrote, It’s Not About Me (2004).
In another vein, secular ethics can be found in an attempt to please the greatest number of people. This is called teleological ethics. Our U.S. political system appears to function this way as demonstrated by this election year process. However, this ethic can be manipulated and find its basis in lies, which is also demonstrated by this election year process. And what of the ethics of the Cynics and Stoics, whose disciples appear to be Immanuel Kant, David Hume, and G. E. Moore? We have been experimenting with these secular ethics for thousands of years and have discovered that they are not coherent, complete, or consistent.
As a former quality assurance manager for a large government program, my concern was to answer the question of the value for our products and services. The definition was sometimes obscured by unrealistic expectations, but the definition always returned to what the contract and the quality assurance manual stated.
As Christians, our definition of truth and value also come down to basically the same thing. In place of the contract, we have a covenant, and in place of the quality assurance manual, we have the Bible. What kind of foundation do we offer the world? Jesus said, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matt 7:24). How,then, are you building your ethical house?
--Al
1 "fact." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 19 Mar. 2008.
2 Richard Norman. The Moral Philosophers: An Introduction to Ethics. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 1.
3 Ibid, 7.
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