ubcgcu

Dr. Denis Alexander

Biomedical (Cancer) Researcher, Cambridge University 

Finding God Through Dawkins: a Dramatic Irony

Summer Regent College Course: Current Issues in Science & Theology with Denis Alexander

May 26–30 • 1:30–4:30 pm1–2 Credits (1 Audit) • INDS/THEO 548

How should we understand the relationship between theology and science? How should this understanding shape our daily lives and decisions? Gain fresh insights as we consider some key theological and ethical issues in the biological sciences. Together, we’ll explore questions around creation and evolution; the role of genetics in human behaviour; the relationship between brain, mind, and free will; and distinctions between healing and enhancement.

More Info: https://ubcgfcf.com

Next in the GFCF Lecture Series

JEREMY BEGBIE

Professor of Theology and the Arts, Duke & Cambridge Universities

Thursday, January 30, 2025 @ 4 PM   

C. S. Lewis and Unfulfilled Longing: An Exploration through Music

Abstract  

C. S. Lewis famously spoke of fleeting experiences of joy he had early in life, a longing for something this world cannot satisfy. Dr. Begbie will creatively explore this through music, comparing this pre-Christian unfulfilled desire with Christian hope. 

Biography 

Jeremy Begbie is the Thomas A. Langford Distinguished Research Professor of Theology at Duke Divinity School, and McDonald Agape Director of Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts. He teaches systematic theology, and specializes in the interface between theology and the arts. He is Senior Member at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Music at the University of Cambridge. His books include Theology, Music and Time (Cambridge University Press); Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music (Baker/SPCK); and Music, Modernity, and God (Oxford University Press); and Abundantly More (Baker). He is a very engaging speaker who has taught widely in the UK and North America, and delivered multimedia performance-lectures in many parts of the world.

Charles Taylor & the Myth of the Secular

Rethinking the Immanent Frame with Implications for the Moral Good

What is the nurturing river that runs through the human quest for moral health, wisdom, & sanity?

Many people seem to be hungry for fresh perspectives on the current Western cultural ethos. I argue that we urgently need to rethink our view of the ‘secular’. In this post, I reveal something quite astonishing in the work of eminent Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor that helps us see why robust morality is suppressed in our day. At stake is a more complex and creative discussion of the secular that opens the imagination to dialogue and discovery–even to new language and perspective. Taylor points out that many of our common assumptions about the relationship between science and secularity are shown to be quite naive and faulty–including bad leaps of faith. His critical analysis of the Immanent Frame, which heavily influences the social imaginary of contemporary Western thought, is nothing short of a brilliant contribution of insight. I offer a pertinent comparison between Taylor’s idea of a Closed versus an Open Immanent Frames. This blog post gives insights that could well alter your outlook on the world in which we seek our freedom, identity, purpose, and meaning. The articulate grasp of some of these concepts makes a world of difference.

Aside: Throughout this series of posts, The Qualities of Freedom of the Will, we remember that moral frameworks offer cultural escape from devastating, confusing relativism and isolating moral subjectivism, or even dangerous amorality/nihilism/malignant narcissism–>death is the conclusion. Such moral frameworks (including many moral goods) are taken as essential to human wellbeing; their loss entails a personal crisis and possible pathology and breakdown. Language is key to creative, life-giving moral sources; the right words create new worlds. Aristotle wrote: “Humans are animals with logos.” There are three key axes of such moral frameworks: a. The value of human life itself, and the cost or demand that this realization places upon us; b. The quest for a life that is worth living (the Good Life) which permeates our choices and actions; c. The dignity we afford ourselves and others as to our place within the human drama, and our overall contribution to life and culture (our calling). Such constitutive (meta-biological) language speaks of purpose, identity, moral understanding or wisdom. This is the high road of unselfishness (other-orientation) in life of which many heroic individuals speak. We are called to make sense of (interpret) various goods at play in our life story as we move on a trajectory of moral growth (David Brooks), growth in virtue (Mark McMinn). Moral sources contribute strongly to our identity and personal vision: they offer inspiration, imagination, reorientation, even reconfiguration of life. Indeed, what are we humans like at our highest, fullest moral/linguistic capacity? What resonates with our higher self, our house of meaning, the space with less inner conflict?

We are offered a particularly insightful analysis of our current cultural ethos by Emeritus Philosophy Professor Charles Taylor. It arises in his most recent Templeton Prize tome, A Secular Age. (2007).

Late modern philosopher Richard Rorty spoke of Taylor as one the top twelve living philosophers of our day. He captures the way in which we have located ourselves in the late modern world and the picture that has taken our minds captive: he calls it the immanent frame. This house of the mind and imagination constitutes a unique social imaginary (implicit understanding of the space in which we live) in human history. My focus here will be to exposit the key insights of chapter 15 in A Secular Age. In this critical analysis, he shows how religion along with its high ethics has been philosophically and culturally marginalized in Western culture, even while it is in resurgence. Taylor gives us tough insights and important tools to grapple with these issues. He leads us to think circumspectly about how we have arrived in this cultural space/moment. 

The core theme of this landmark book is to study the fate of religious faith in the strong sense in the West, meaning:  a. belief in a transcendent reality, and b. the connected aspiration of personal transformation, which goes beyond ordinary human flourishing. He is deconstructing or calling into question the subtraction story within the Western Master Narrative (one deeply embedded in our late modern consciousness), where science replaces religion after Christendom. Within this perspective, the growth of science entails the death of God and the recession of religion. Religion is taken to be replaced by science. But is this a fair claim, is it hermeneutically valid?, Taylor asks. When did science become equivalent to secularism in our minds and why? This is the crux of the investigation.

Ultimately, Taylor wants to explore with us the plausibility of the thick, life-nurturing, transcendent dimensions of human culture. He does not believe that all citizens of late modernity need to deny the possibility of the transcendent within this immanent frame, to live within a horizontal/flat dimension only. From his perspective, the story of the rise of modern social spaces doesn’t need to be given an anti-religious spin. The actual reality of Western culture is closer to the truth that “a whole gamut of positions, from the most militant atheism to the most orthodox traditional theisms, passing through every possible position on the way, are represented and defended somewhere in our society” (C. Taylor, 2007, 556). They are defended in various non-neutral contexts, institutions, and communities. This creates for citizens of late modernity the sense of being cross-pressured by the plurality of positions that they encounter in their daily lives. The dialogue and debate of these perceptions is still very robust, with endless potential options to find meaning (the so-called Nova Effect). Actually, he shows that both belief and unbelief in God co-exist within society (secularity 3). Taylor sees three views of the secular to help our discernment.

So, what does Taylor mean by the immanent frame? The buffered identity (as opposed to the porous pre-modern self) is a key part of such a mental frame. It operates within a disenchanted world where supernatural beings or forces with teleological goals or intentions are deemed close to impossible (C. Taylor, 2007, 539). Final causes are eliminated from the picture. With this immanent frame, there is a loss of a cosmic order; everything important is this-worldly, explicable on its own terms; it fits within the time-space-energy-matter dimensions. Social and political orders are constructed by humans solely for mutual benefit, not to please a divine entity, or follow a higher good. Society is made up of expressive individuals (the normative element). Each human is charged with finding her or his own way of being human (Nova Effect), their own individual spiritual path. Everyone has also become an individual measure of the good (auto-nomos).

But the immanent frame is by no means ethically neutral or strictly objective. It includes some things (values such as secular time) and excludes others. It renders ‘vertical’ or ‘transcendent’ worlds as either inaccessible or unthinkable. Indeed, it takes a hard moral position, and it operates as a philosophically reductionistic stance (Jeremy Begbie, Abundantly More, 2023). These are strong claims of faith. Taylor refers to this moral position as exclusive humanism (naturalistic materialism). Here’s how he puts the narrative/plausibility structure in a nutshell:

So the buffered identity of the disciplined individual moves in a constructed social space, where instrumental rationality is a key value, and time is pervasively secular. All of this makes up what I want to call “the immanent frame”. There remains to add just one background idea: that this frame constitutes a “natural” order, to be contrasted with a supernatural one, an “immanent” world over against a possible “transcendent” one. (C. Taylor, 2007, 542)

Taylor points out two different ways of seeing the world within this immanent frame, one closed (Closed World System/CWS), and one Open. The individual still does have the choice in late modernity to open themselves to the beyond or the transcendent, that something more (Jeremy Begbie, Abundantly More, 2023). As per Wittgenstein, each is a picture that holds us captive (seems both natural and logically unavoidable).  It constitutes the horizon within which we observe, think and reason. But of course, it can black out (make us blind to) certain aspects of reality by the very nature of how it shapes our way of analyzing the world. It restricts our imagination. It involves an unquestioned background, something whose shape is not perceived, but which conditions, largely unnoticed, the way we think, infer, experience, process claims and arguments. For example, a major thesis in modernity is that science must bring secularity in its train, which for Taylor is a non-obvious, unproven, and biased claim (blik). But many of us do believe in the transcendent as a cultural assumption (David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God, 2013). Part One of this book is the most important. More on this later.

From within this mental and emotional picture, it just seems obvious to many who hold it that the order of “the argument proceeds from science to atheism” (C. Taylor, 2007, 565), that modernization brings secularization. The viewpoint is held passionately and defended fiercely. In the nineteenth century, Durkheim and others assumed that science would develop to the point where people no longer need to believe in God or religion. They would graduate from such superstition. This is parallel to the angry rhetoric of the New Atheists today, featured by Richard Dawkins of Oxford. But there is actually a hidden  leap of faith in this stance, notes Taylor. It carries with it a false aura that it is obvious, or a logical conclusion. It involves, however, a moral attraction to a materialistic spin on reality, a moral outlook (where God and religion is at the bottom of important things to consider). An alternative viewpoint is expressed in the stories contained within the twelve scintillating stories within Coming to Faith Through Dawkins, edited by Denis Alexander and Alister McGrath (2023). These travellers were once steeped in the discourse of New Atheism, but eventually saw through the contradictions and shallowness in its rhetoric to become sincere believers in Christianity. https://ubcgfcf.com/2024/10/01/denis-alexander-engages-new-atheism/

Moral truths are fully rational, but not proven by science. Science is descriptive but not prescriptive on what one ought to do with respect to another person.

This materialistic bias is not based on scientific facts as such (despite the fact that it takes some of its inspiration from the epistemological success of science). There is a heavy focus on human goods, on human flourishing: rights, welfare, equality, and democracy. Taylor writes:

We can come to see the growth of civilization, or modernity, as synonymous with laying out of a closed immanent frame; within this civilized values develop, and a single-minded focus on the human good aided by a fuller and fuller use of scientific reason, permits the greatest flourishing possible of human beings. Religion not only menaces these goals with its fanaticism, but it also undercuts reason, which comes to be seen as rigorously requiring scientific materialism. (C. Taylor, 2007, 548)

As already stated, we currently live in this cross-pressured space of belief and unbelief. Our culture pulls us in both directions: secular and religious. This tension is found in famous writers such as Blake, Goethe, Dostoyevski, or the Polish poet Milosz. The struggle for belief is ongoing, never definitively won or lost today. This is the major theme of the insightful CBC Ideas Series produced by David Cayley called After Atheism. We know of both:

1. Those who opt for the ordered, impersonal universe, whether in the scientistic-materialistic form, or in a more spiritualized variant, feel the imminent loss of a world of beauty, meaning, warmth, as well as of the perspective of self-transformation beyond the everyday (along with regrets about loss of its positive impact on society and nostalgia for a distant yesterday).

2. Those whose strongest leanings move them towards at least some search for spiritual meaning, and often towards God. (C. Taylor, 2007, 592-3)

Two Influential Approaches to How We Perceive Reality

In this light, it is helpful to understand the impact of two distinct ways of engaging the world intellectually and philosophically: aka, epistemological and hermeneutical. I also lay this out in more detail in my earlier 2016 book, The Great Escape from Nihilism: Rediscovering Our Passion in Late Modernity.

1. The Epistemological Approach (tradition of Descartes, Locke, Hume). The set of priority relations within this picture often tends towards a closed world position (CWS). Its assumptions include the following:

1. Knowledge of self and its status come before knowledge of the world of things and others.

2. Knowledge of reality is a neutral fact before we (the individual self) attribute value to it.

3. Knowledge of things of the natural order comes before any theoretical invocations or any transcendence (which is thereby problematized, doubted or repressed). This approach tends to write transcendence out of the equation.

Within this view, the individual and their freedom of choice is primary and certainty is within the mind. The self is an independent, disengaged subject, reflexively controlling its own thought processes self-responsibly. The oft-presumed neutrality of this view is actually false; it is in fact a heavily value-laiden approach. It offers a whole construction of identity and society with distinctive priorities and values. 

Materialism/Naturalism as a belief system, in point of fact, is a construction (not arising from science), a story we tell ourselves as late moderns, over and over again, about the entire cosmos and our place within it, our value, identity, trajectory and purpose. Humans have always had a way of placing themselves in the context of the cosmos and time. They have always had a creation narrative. It depends on a certain naturalistic metaphysics or worldview, which was not always as common as it is today. But how plausible is it? Taylor’s contention is that the power of materialism today comes not from scientific “facts”, but has rather to be explained in terms of the power of a certain package uniting materialism with a moral outlook, the package we call “atheistic humanism” or “exclusive humanism” (C.Taylor, 2007, 569). It works off an ontological thesis of materialism: everything which is, is based on “matter”, without explaining why this is taken as true.

Taylor rightly questions whether we are to logically conclude that everything is nothing but matter (reductionism) and that we should try to define our entire human and natural situation in terms of matter alone. Enlightenment of this sort is a kind of excarnation or out-of-body thinking. The self is radically abstracted from its socio-cultural embodiment and this in turn causes great harm, including an identity crisis. Cambridge theologian and advocate for the arts Jeremy Begbie lays out its reductive pressures clearly and beautifully in Abundantly More.

This approach employs a designative use of language which traps the pursuit of wisdom within language and confines it to immanence, where language and its relationship to truth are reduced to pointing. Language here primarily designates objects in the world. The object is observed, held at arms length, but not participated in.  It is impersonal. One assumes a use of language based on quantitative judgments that are non-subject dependant. This tradition also contributes to a mechanistic outlook on the universe, focusing on efficiency. It is committed to the primacy of epistemology (evidence and justified belief). It is not oriented to universals, transcendentals or essences. Taylor unpacks this in a more elaborate fashion in his 2016 tome, The Language Animal, chapters 4 and 5. There is a reduction of language capacity in this philosophical stance.

Ethics from this perspective goes something like this: Once upon a time, human beings took their norms, their goods, their standards of ultimate value from an authority outside themselves; from God, or the gods, or the nature of Being or the cosmos. But then they came to see that these higher authorities were their own fictions, and they realized they had to establish their norms and values for themselves, on their own authority. This is a radicalization of the coming to adulthood story as it figures in the science-driven argument for materialism (aka Scientism). The dramatic claim to establish our own standards comes down to the thought that we no longer receive those norms from an authority outside us, but rather from our own scientific investigations (C. Taylor, 2007, 580). We are, so to speak, morally self-authorized.

Part of this immanent frame Master Narrative is that for proponents of the death of God, they want to see God-absence as a property of the universe which science lays bare. Taylor notes: “It is only within some understanding of agency, in which disengaged scientific inquiry is woven into a story of courageous adulthood, to be attained through a renunciation of the more ‘childish’ comforts in meaning and beatitude, that the death of God story appears obvious” (C. Taylor, 2007, 565). He questions this narrative, this particular secularization thesis, and holds it up for serious scrutiny. 

The claim is that religious belief is a childish temptation and a beautiful world, lacking courage to face reality and grow up into a more complex, harsh world. Maturing into adulthood implies leaving faith in God behind. But loss of faith in adulthood is not an obvious fact of observable reality, but a construction of human identity and our place in the world. Taylor questions whether it has a fulsome hermeneutical adequacy. (C. Taylor, 2007, 567). He is not at all convinced that the arguments from natural science to atheism are strong; they seem to include bad reason, inconclusive arguments, and are based on faulty assumptions. David Bentley Hart agrees (The Experience of God). A fair critique of the epistemological approach allows for the emergence of a more robust ethical discourse.

2. The Second Way of Perceiving Reality: the Hermeneutical Approach (tradition of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer). Taylor relays that it was a revelation for him to pick up on phenomenology philosophers like Merleau-Ponty. Note also Jens Zimmermann’s hermeneutical analysis in his Hermeneutics: A Very Short Introduction (OUP 2015). One could also draw on the brilliant Anthony Thiselton, a specialist on Gadamer. The language game is Constitutive (C. Taylor, The Language Animal, 2016, chapters 6 & 7). The presuppositions of the hermeneutical approach are:

a. Self is not the first priority; the world, society and the game of life come first. We only have knowledge as agents coping with the world, and it makes no sense to doubt that world.

b. There is no priority of a neutral grasp of things over and above their value.

c. Our primordial identity is as a new player inducted into an old game.

d. Transcendence or the divine horizon is a possible larger context of this game (radical skepticism is not as strong). There is a smaller likelihood of a closed world system (CWS) view in the hermeneutical approach to the world. In a sense, it is a more humble and nuanced view. It is open to larger horizons.

Within this view, therefore, one is not so boxed in regarding the parameters of thinking. Within this Open Immanent Frame, certain hard features of the first approach to reality can be deconstructed and the weakness of such features exposed. Enlightenment could and does mean an engaging belief in God for millions if not billions around the world in late modernity. The first view is definitely a more restrictive possibility for making sense of the world. Thomas Nagel questions its reductionism in making sense of consciousness, purpose or teleology and moral value (Mind & Cosmos). We may well ask: Is it actually a progressive environment for thought, or is it intellectually stifling? I propose that one gets more purchase from the hermeneutical approach, especially as one moves beyond the very restrictive purview of science itself. At the end of the day, science the methodology was never meant to be turned into an ontology (reductive materialism). David Bentley Hart offers an amazing follow through from this discussion and helps late modern culture avoid implosion into nihilsim through circular reasoning (see above quote). John Milbank also suggests this point in his Theology and Social Theory.

Some Reflective Conclusions

This discussion on secularity and the immanent frame has been quite revealing regarding the background of our thinking, how we infer, experience, and process claims and arguments–including our biases. Despite the existence of closed versions of the immanent frame, Taylor claims that we are in pursuit of more spirituality today than ever (Nova Effect). We are all quite religious in our own way. This is partly a reaction to the reductionism and stifling nature of contemporary nihilisms and posthumanism, the dangers of lost dignity to being human, even dire threats to human rights. He believes, as does William T. Cavanaugh in The Uses of Idolatry (2024), that human beings are religious animals all the way down. Taylor brings an indictment to the Closed Immanent Frame which harmfully eclipses dialogue about other significant dimensions of reality. It renders us inarticulate, or autistic, concerning very pertinent matters, robbing us of our fullest language capacity (C. Taylor, The Language Animal, 2016). Religion and belief in God have a very significant role to play in ethics, culture, and in late modern society. This is recognized by many intellectuals and regular people, even though contested by others. But in fact, secularity 2 is also a contested stance, involving much faith; it cannot be proven. Taylor has exposed the myth of secularity 2, and deconstructed the subtraction story that science has replaced religion in the contemporary world. Science is a good and fruitful, but limited, epistemological approach to reality. But it is pathetic and weak as a worldview. This makes room for the recovery of ethics that is connected to strong transcendence. At the end of Sources of the Self, Taylor suggests that there is a possibility of a transcendent turn towards the very profound, identity-enriching agape love.

A Critical Point of Application: In our globalized world, given the huge military, technological, and environmental challenges of our day, massive kleptocracy, leader idolatry and corruption, the very survival of our species depends on the imperative of a fresh vision of how we can live together wisely, honestly, fairly, and peacefully. We need deep solutions to contemporary problems and threats to human wellbeing. We need to find ways of coming together in mutual benevolence.

Roger Scrutin Muses on Virtue, Freedom, and Accountability

Virtue consists in the ability take full responsibility for one’s acts, intentions, and avowals, in the face of all the motives for renouncing or denouncing them. It is the ability to retain and sustain the first-personal centre of one’s life and emotions, in the face of decentering temptations with which we are surrounded and which reflect the fact that we are human beings, with animal fears and appetites, and not transcendental subjects, motivated by reason alone….. Virtues are dispositions that we praise, and their absence is the object of shame…. It is through virtue that our actions and emotions remain centred in the self, and vice means the decentering of action and emotion…. Vice is literally a loss of self-control, and the vicious person is the one on whom we cannot rely in matters of obligation and commitment…. Freedom and accountability are co-extensive in the human agent…. Freedom and community are linked by their very nature, and the truly free being is always taking account of others in order to coordinate his or her presence with theirs…. We need the virtues that transfer our motives from the animal to the personal centre of our being–the virtues that put us in charge of our passions [because] we exist within a tightly woven social context. Human beings find their fulfilment in mutual love and self-giving, but they get to this point via a long path of self-development, in which imitation, obedience and self-control are necessary moments….. Let’s put virtue and good habits back at the centre of personal life.” (R. Scrutin, On Human Nature, 100, 103, 104, 111, 112)

Sittlichkeit is the German word (Hegel) for the concept of the ethical life or ethical order. There is family life, civic society, state laws, community laws, strata laws. Ethical behaviour is grounded in customs and traditions; it is developed through habit and imitation in accord with the objective laws of the community. This is what we call healthy normativity. The question today is whether we are losing this sense of normativity, groundedness, and balance in an age of deconstruction and revolution–late modernity. I recently heard a Harvard professor of European Law intensely focused on deconstruction, but with no alternative to replace it. Our response to the ethos of our age is of highest importance if we want to preserve what is good, wise, true, and beautiful. Listen to Justin Brierly on The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God: https://open.spotify.com/show/7lovL2tXCyAGkbWZM9F9hg?si=PGZddmZZSLyv5REMaLIZ7g

~Dr. Gordon E. Carkner PhD, Author, Blogger, YouTube Webinar Producer, Meta-Educator with UBC Postgraduate Students

See also GCU/GFCF Webinars & Lectures

Charles Taylor and the Myth of the Secular https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4KZhWc2TDY

My Recent Webinar: Rethinking Identity Through The Lens of Incarnation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRpC9f0J6WM

September Lecture: Secularization and Idolatry in Amazon’s World with William T. Cavanaugh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S58kwfHXFr0

Stay Posted on Our Scholarly Lecture Series at UBC https://ubcgfcf.com Next is Denis Alexander on Finding God Through Dawkins

Bibliography

Denis Alexander & Alister McGrath (eds.) (2023). Coming to Faith Through Dawkins: 12 Essays on the Pathway from Atheism to Christianity. Kregel.

Anne Applebaum (2024). Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Rule the World. Penguin Random House Canada.

Jeremy Bebie (2023). Abundantly More: The Theological Promise of the Arts in a Reductionist World. Baker Academic.

Gordon E. Carkner (2016). The Great Escape from Nihilism: Rediscovering Our Passion in Late Modernity. InFocus Publishing.

Gordon E. Carkner (2024). Towards an Incarnational Spiritual Culture: Grounding Our Identity in Christ. Wipf & Stock Publishing.

William T. Cavanaugh (2024). The Uses of Idolatry. Oxford University Press. (see especially chapter 6. “The Splendid Idolatry of Nationalism”)

David Bentley Hart (2013). The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss. Yale University Press.

David Bentley Hart (2024). All Things Are Full of Gods: The Mysteries of Mind and Life. Yale University Press.

Timothy Snyder (2024). On Freedom. Penguin Random House.

Charles Taylor (2007). A Secular Age. Harvard University Press.

Charles Taylor (2016). The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity. Harvard University Press.

Charles Taylor (2024). Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment. Harvard University Press.

James K. A. Smith (2014). How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor. Eerdmans.

Jens Zimmermann (2015). Hermeneutics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.

What’s the Alternative to Relativism?

What kind of moral universe do we inhabit?

One of the big problems in today’s late modern age is a sense that morality is up for grabs, that moral values are relative to each individual, like one’s taste in music or coffee. I have raised questions about this posture through this blog series on The Qualities of Freedom of the Will, where I attempt to apply a hermeneutics of liberation and reconciliation (community healing). Our quest is to discover freedom in the context of responsible relationships and mutual obligations for the common good. I see genuine hope in Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor and his retrieval of the language of the good–within his critical moral realism.  For him, moral reality is given rather than merely constructed. Ethical relativism, on the opposite end of the spectrum, denies that any objective, universal moral properties or principles exist. Such relativism arose in the philosophical context of the dominance of empiricism and naturalism (early modernity) and the rejection of metaphysically abstract universals or transcendentals like Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Relativism perpetuates the mindset that we know how things really are for all people: i.e., that morals are relative to individuals, cultures, or sub-cultures. Paradoxically, it is a ‘universal claim’ that there are no universal standards of human behaviour. Nietzsche saw very clearly that if there was an end to God and traditional values, then the strong could impose their values on the masses. Domination would be widespread. Thus came his model of the ubermensch (superman) and the ethics of will-to-power.  There is a natural progression from relativism to will-to-power ethics (with the assumption that a human is just another thing in the world to be manipulated). This is why ideologies of various kinds (especially the far right and far left, Fascism and Communism) are so powerful today. Personhood, dignity, and freedom are all under threat in a relativistic world. There are serious personal and social consequences of a commitment to relativistic ethics and morality.

William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, which many studied in secondary school, is a graphic, heart-wrenching picture of unrestrained evil, where might makes right and bullying and scapegoating is the accepted social order. A group of boys, marooned on a remote island, are forced to make up their own society, and the results are both shocking and mesmerizing. The most powerful boys asserted domination. The twentieth century has trembled at the great atrocities and abuse of power by those who are without any fear of a transcendent being or any sense of obligation to a code of conduct, higher ideals, or even a set of norms. They operated without moral accountability, except to their own ideology or self-idolatry (malignant narcissism).

Moral philosopher R. Scott Smith argues in his book, In Search of Moral Knowledge, that ethical relativism or moral subjectivism is in fact a bankrupt view of the nature of morality. It fails as a moral theory and a guide to the moral life and civilized society. It results in morally inconsistent and untrustworthy behaviour and a breakdown of the social order. In effect, it leads to the corrosion/corruption of morality itself:

We should not settle for a relativistically based tolerance, since it will not succeed in building a moral society or in helping people be moral. That kind of morality forces us to consider all ideas and ways of life as being equally valid, yet we can know that this is not the case.… Nevertheless, tolerance (as respect  of people as having equal moral value) would make sense if a universal, objective moral basis exists for that equality. (R. S. Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, 162)

Yale Professor of Law and History, Samuel Moyn, agrees in his 2015 book, Christian Human Rights, where he reminds us that there was once a Christian understanding of basic rights. Relativism in the twentieth and early twenty-first century has led us into some very dangerous political experiments. Untold billions have been spent on war-making, with severe consequences on human wellbeing. Human rights have been violated in terrible ways; imperialism ran rampant; multiple millions of persons have perished amidst the brutality. Millions died. Need I mention the death camps of German Naziism or the Russian Gulag? The amount of suffering and destruction of property was unprecedented, giving twentieth the legacy the bloodiest century in history.  British journalist Paul Johnson (A History of the Modern World: from 1917 to the 1980s) graphically illustrates the way in which the ethic of will-to-power has flourished in the soil of relativism during the twentieth century. In fact, we may well ask: Do we have one example in history of benevolent leadership without the restraint of traditional morality and the rule of law? Indeed, can we find a historical-political context where the governing authorities who have absolute power (whether king, dictator, tzar, or proletariat leader) actually do not become corrupt and abuse their power? Andy Crouch captures it:

In a Nietzschean world, we are all reduced to waiting for Superman—or, just perhaps, acquiring enough power that we ourselves can thrust back all that resists us, achieving the domination we believe is necessary for the triumph of the good…. The quest to become Superman does not produce strength adequate to master reality–it undermines it. For in his commitment to power as godlike domination over all space and over all other beings, it is idolatry. When idolatry seems to work, it is radically unstable … the injustice that flows from idolatry ultimately ruins not just its victims but its perpetrators. (A. Crouch, 2013, 50, 52)

Relativism and the Quest for a Stable and Free Society

Without a moral plumb line, societies seem headed for personal nihilism or political tyranny. This dilemma was admitted by an atheist blogger: RationalSkepticism.org. The ultimate end point is despair and ugly oppression, propaganda and control from the top (Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works). We get the splendid idolatry of nationalism where a celebrity or the state is worshipped (W. T. Cavanaugh, The Uses of Idolatry, chapter 6.). A subjectivist ethic is no ethic at all and offers no hope for society or for psychologically healthy people’s relationships–it runs from reality and responsibility. It will encourage more people to become sociopathic and narcissistic.

Relativism is very unstable ground for ethics. It offers no motive reason to get along in society, no moral basis for law, no place to appeal when there is a dispute between parties. There entails a loss of human rights and freedoms. If an individual truly lives on the assumption of moral relativism, no one will trust them or like them. That says a lot at a practical level. It encourages élitism, arrogance, and cheating. We need much higher standards to arbitrate the variety of human desires and goals. Robust morality must address the proper resolution of conflicts and call unjust behaviour to account, as in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which has produced so much good in the world. We have to treat others like they really matter, like they are worthy of love and respect (imago Dei). Moral relativism leads us into some frightening conclusions (amidst its moral ambivalence)–intellectually, sociologically, and experientially. We must ask whether there is not another paradigm that can be more intellectually sound, sane, and just for all, something that will lead to better human flourishing . Despite its popularity (more than 50% of Americans; many college students) and its role as an opiate for the unreflective masses, relativism is both incoherent and dangerous. It corrupts society and prepares the way for bullies to assert their leadership, boosting injustice and challenging liberal democracy. Unscrupulous people take advantage of it all the time.

I agree with Charles Taylor that beliefs are not merely objective, and that one is subjectively tied in with her beliefs (C. Taylor, Sources of the Self). Our value convictions are partly a matter of resonance, and they are precious to us, to our identity and sense of self. We own them personally. Think of the amazing passion of Greta Thurnberg on saving the planet from climate disasters. But they are not as arbitrary as some often superficially claim. There is both an objective and subjective pole of the moral good. Charles Taylor as stated in an earlier post is a falsifiable moral realist. What he disavows is the conclusion that all moral beliefs are of equal value or strictly relative to the individual or the culture at hand, such that we cannot call them to account. This view has been shown to be unworkable and riddled with a nasty trail of racism, Dionysian cruelty, and violence. All humans, all leaders, all cultures are accountable to high standards, to high virtue, to responsible behaviour and speech. It seems counter-cultural today, but the conviction this blog series demonstrates and promotes is that we do not have a right to our own individual morality (radical autonomy/autonomos), unless we live on a desert island far from all other human beings. That view has proven to be a fantasy, socially inadequate, and vacuous: hollowing out the self, producing a thin ineffectual self with a tepid, self-centred character. In this sense, we were not born to be happy–to just live out of our own desires of self-fulfilment.

Some values have a better fitness with what we aspire to be as a human community and as high-minded individuals. They are nobler, more life-nurturing, pro-human, pro-justice, and pro-community. Other values are lower, demeaning, death-dealing, repressive of others, disrespectful towards minorities or the marginalized. Many people indeed are not living up to their full potential. I argue that the way forward is a theo-anthropological move, which involves a recovery of the ancient idea of the good as championed by philosopher Charles Taylor. He offers a more fully nuanced version of moral realism than many. Taylor believes, against the grain of much contemporary moral philosophy and the current moral revolution, that there is a hierarchy of values well worth attending to. A number of top moral and anthropological scholars agree with him (Nicholas Wolterstorff, Miraslov Volf, Richard J. Mouw, J. Budziszewski, Alasdair McIntyre, R. Scott Smith, Oliver O’Donovan, Nigel Biggar, D. Stephen Long).  If ethical relativism were correct, there could be no such thing as moral growth or purpose in culture or in a person’s life. But we know instinctively that it is not appropriate to remain childish and self-centred into our thirties. Everything would settle down to the lowest common denominator of relational chaos, and mutually assured destruction. Narrative growth, discussed in Blog 8 of this series, would be stifled. David Brooks (The Road to Character) argues convincingly that moral growth is indeed necessary for moral health and the future of sound leadership. To have improvement, one must have a standard of rightness or goodness by which to judge and discern the difference in moral values, and to expose moral vices, calling them to account. Nietzsche and Weber do not get the last word on our values.

It is my conviction that objects and healthy relationships have independent existence and innate value, that there is something true, good, and beautiful about the world and people, despite what we may want to think (realism). Life is hard and there is a  proper and responsible way to live together unselfishly in late modernity. Plurality of convictions do exist in today’s world, and we need patience with each other, but that observation definitely need not imply complete relativism, nor does it imply that one should slide into personal subjectivism. It does mean that we have to drill down in understanding different ethical frameworks and worldview (social imaginary) options. We have to critically separate the true and authentic, noble and integrated, from that which makes us feel good, that which we desire, or even that on which we were raised. Philosopher Arthur Holmes says it well:

Neither the plurality of different worldview perspectives nor the different elaborations given any one perspective imply that worldviews are entirely relative. Truth-claims can still be made and ways must be found for evaluating the claim that a certain worldview is objectively true.

Holmes is saying that it is possible to wisely discern truth, move towards it, embrace it. It is vitally important that we do so. Ethical systems are always tied to worldviews or what Taylor calls a way of seeing and experiencing the world, a social imaginary. Ethical relativism is actually tied into materialistic naturalism, a worldview outlook that honest atheist Thomas Nagel (Mind and Cosmos) says is inadequate for understanding or living the moral life. It cannot even offer proper explanatory gravitas for the complex phenomenon that is human morality. We all need a posture, a world-life perspective or story, to give structure and meaning to our lives and our society, and to set appropriate moral goals. Thus, worldview discernment is foundational to finding a way forward out of corrupt, painful, and debilitating relativism. We need to test our beliefs on the anvil of reality and be open for correction and for transformation to a better outlook. Indeed, we need a better narrative or plausibility structure.

What would it look like to paint an alternative to Nietzsche’s dark vision of bodies in competition?

The real danger, the real intellectual misfit here is ontological subjectivity. This is the conviction that an object or idea has no reality outside a person’s mind or heart. In this view, truth lacks a transcendent quality; it is all within me, according to my choice. Truth depends on me and my take on reality. This is the strict social constructionist view which we find in Neo-Nietzschean philosophers like Michel Foucault. Relativism reduces ethics to perceived experience. In fact, humans are subjectively involved in coming to know the world, but there must be a world objectively there and a community/culture to dialogue with, in order for the knowledge to emerge. Just believing something does not make it so. That can be nothing more than fantasy, fideism, hypocrisy, or cowardice. We must check our motives. There are important objective criteria which are used to critically examine the validity or plausibility of a worldview (James Sire, The Universe Next Door).

There are three dominant, competing worldview options in the early twenty-first century in the West: Naturalism (atheism/materialism), Pantheism, and Christian Theism. Naturalism and Theism are the two key competitors. A relativistic view of morality derives either from Naturalism or Pantheism. The Naturalist view holds that there is no God, and therefore no derived transcendent source of right and wrong, no transcendent goodness from which to derive or define human goods, pursue righteousness, or the common social good. Thus, moral choices are individualistic and subjective (or made by a group ruled by an élite). Again, philosopher Thomas Nagel (Mind and Cosmos), although an atheist, does not believe that naturalism can offer the explanatory power necessary for what we know as human ethics. Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are wrong at a fundamental level: atheistic scientism and a stable moral society (where we treat each other fairly) are incompatible (J. D. Hunter & P. Nedelisky, Science and the Good). Honoured Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga added his critique to this view in Where the Conflict Really Lies. Pantheism promotes the idea that good and evil are part of the system, the colours of life, even part of god or ultimate reality (good & evil are one). This makes moral discernment really tough, if not impossible. The waters become quite murky. That doesn’t seem like the way to go for wisdom on human relations either.

Tim Keller has an important insight at this juncture. I paraphrase: “All worldviews are embedded in a combination of reason, faith, emotions, and a particular social context. No one is neutral philosophically, spiritually, or ethically. To move from one social imaginary to another means moving from one standard set of beliefs to another, one community of faith to another, one standard of orthodoxy and heresy to another. For example, it is a huge leap of faith from the doctrine of atheism to humanism.” We have to judge their plausibility and their consequences/outcomes. This video below contains quite a good dialogue at Google on the topic.

Christian Theism, on the other hand, roots its ethical framework in the infinite goodness of personal God, who transcends human and creational reality. God is not just another entity in the world, but the very ground of being, the Creator of all things. In this scenario/paradigm, the good is sourced in a God who is infinite goodness in a person. Ethics, including the capital virtues, is oriented to what pleases God and benefits one’s fellow humans (D. Stephen Long, The Goodness of God). Humans are called to mediate this goodness to society and to the biosphere through good stewardship and practice of the virtues (righteousness, fruits of the Spirit, 2 Peter 1:3-11). Evil is that which detracts people from these goals and twists the true, perverts the beautiful and the good. It divides people via selfishness, covetousness, pride, hatred, and greed among other capital vices. It is often a matter of misplaced loves: finding love in all the wrong places or meeting one’s needs/longings/filling that existential void in all the wrong ways. This often happens at the direct expense of others, even those we love and admire. Evil is cowardly, irresponsible behaviour and it should be resisted. It divides us, alienates us from one another, destroys precious lives.

Expressing late nineteenth century ambivalence about God and ethics, atheist existentialist Albert Camus recognized the need for God regarding the social good. He realized the consequences of losing God in moral discourse, even though he himself believed that no God was available to us. In his book, The Rebel, Camus writes:

When man submits God to moral judgement he kills Him in his own heart. And then what is the basis of morality? God is denied in the name of justice, but can the idea of justice be understood without the idea of God?

His thoughts were ironically prophetic. Tom Holland has continued this theme today in his book Dominion. Many are unaware of the dire cultural consequences of rejecting God, denying God’s existence. The rejection of God has proved a terrible mistake for the world, producing incipient narcissism, self-trivialization, and despair. It leads to various forms of self-destruction/self-harm and destruction of others through terrible violence and theft. It has resulted in our late capitalist obsession with productivity, efficiency, and consumption, acquisitiveness and greed that so dominates the consumer economy (William Cavanaugh, The Uses of Idolatry). Cavanaugh sees the consumer economy as a kind of religion or secular worship. Many people still long for God and the higher goods deep within to help reshape human relations even though they cannot personally understand how to believe in his existence once again. Many people today find that they miss God deeply, the idea of agape love and the economy of grace, a world where charity and generosity are the dominant aspirations for human wellbeing. What kind of moral universe do we want to inhabit going forward?

What are the robust sources of morality in our day?

At its heart, Christianity is concerned about an historical event/nrrative: the Jesus Story. It is actually based on a series of events culminating in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The story is mediated through the Bible and a living community of faith that has grown and flourished for two thousand years. It has roots in Judaism and the Hebrew prophets, the calling of Abraham and Moses, the wisdom of the Psalms. This is public information available for investigation and scrutiny by anyone interested (Leslie Newbigin). Embodied in Jesus is a fresh, livable and life-giving ethic: concern for the marginalized, for women and children, the poor and weak, just political relationships and human rights, reconciliation and love for enemies, economic equality of opportunity (Jim Wallis, The (Un)Common Good). Jesus revealed a strong vision for humanity that changed the ancient world in fundamental ways. In Jesus, we find a major truth ­claim: he claimed to be God in human flesh (John 14:6 and 7), in effect to be the Transcendent Good Embodied in a Person, showing us by example how the compassionate/good life could be lived. The incarnation is a core belief in Christianity. It is articulated in the Sermon on the Mount which was highly appreciated by social reformers like Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. This can and should be tested for its authenticity and robustness. If it is correct, gripping and authentic, it has the deepest possible relevance to people today, offering rich hope for personal transformation. Christians believe that his call and invitation is to all humans from all backgrounds and religions and viewpoints to explore a higher ethic and a healthier humanism (Jens Zimmermann, Incarnational Humanism). It is a universal invitation to the existential depths of a person. Tim Keller claims that Christianity makes better sense of the world than the alternatives because it can account for more of the phenomena; more of human complexity and identity; more cultural diversity; more of our experiences of longing, fullness and hope; and more of our desire for justice, satisfaction and wholeness (T. Keller, Making Sense of God). The biblical story is a living and active agent of humanization for so many people today (Dr. Jordan Peterson). It provides a great set of lenses by which to understand culture and ourselves at depth. It connects.

The Relevance Question, although very important, should always be secondary to the truth question. Pragmatism can block the full truth of a situation, and cloud our judgment. We become confused intellectually, spiritually, and morally. Humans share more basic values across cultures and centuries than is often perceived, and have quite similar aspirations for their children. Oxford literary scholar C. S. Lewis argues very strongly in his important book The Abolition of Man for what he calls the “Tao” or the doctrine of objective, shared values in all cultures around the world, the belief that certain attitudes are really true and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of beings that we humans are. Dennis Danielson did a modern rewrite (The Tao of Right & Wrong) of the ideas of Lewis in this book. There is truth, as he sees it, that transcends cultural plurality, individual bias or choice. He sees in the Tao a way to avoid the abyss of relativism with its consequential nihilism/nothingness. Those who aspire to high values (justice, respect, concern for family, sexual fidelity, consistent behaviour, covenant, honest business practices, just government, truthfulness, compassion, mercy) do have something important in common and this can offer support to others who don’t yet see such a vision, or believe that it is possible. All people need inspiration from moral exemplars who embody such high ideals and standards of behaviour.

The question of the good takes us into deeper reflection on our identity and what makes us truly human. The questions raised within the Jewish-Christian scriptures help us discern the foundations of who we are and how we might live a kind, dignified, sane, and noble communal existence. There is something intrinsically personal about the nature of obligation, the value of persons. Moral claims are made by someone within a web of obligations, and grounded in some objective value. All of us want to be treated with dignity and respect. Our freedom needs the content and moral horizon of the good that Taylor writes about in order to provide meaning that will endure the stressors of life and provide a thick identity.

Love transfigures power. Absolute love transfigures absolute power. And power transfigured by love is the power that made and saves the world (This is the Biblical Narrative in Essence).

Psychologist Erich Fromm has some profound insight on moral decision-making:

“Our capacity to choose changes constantly with our practice of life. The longer we continue to make the wrong decisions, the more our heart hardens; the more often we make the right decisions, the more our heart softens–or perhaps comes alive…. Each step in life which increases my self-confidence, my integrity, my courage, my conviction, also increases my capacity to choose the desirable alternative…. Each act of surrender and cowardice weakens me, opens the path for more surrender, and eventually freedom is lost.”

Step up with Courage for the Good and the Common Good.

Instead of the toxic opioid of relativism that confuses us and puts us to sleep morally, there exists a tremendous need for the courage of deep, positive conviction. Society will not avoid anarchy if an appropriate moral and spiritual source and glue is not found (Brad Gregory, The Unintended Reformation). It has to be more substantial than consumerism or personal desire, self-interest or appetite, or just fighting for my interests and individual rights. We need a platform for healthy debate and substantial answers to real moral and ethical questions, as sociologist Jurgen Habermas adjures us: “It is not first technology, but rather moral decision-making, that will determine what kind of future we will have.” It must be grounded in the love of one’s neighbour and human generosity and care for the weak and the vulnerable, rather than acquisition of the most wealth and pleasurable experiences possible (radical expressivism and self-indulgence).

What is the deepest truth about the world? Is the deepest truth a struggle for mastery and domination? Or is the deepest truth collaboration, cooperation, and ultimately love? Andy Crouch, Playing God.

People need a proper paradigm, a moral map, to learn how to live from the inside out according to their higher self, higher motives of truth, beauty, and goodness that promote good personhood, longevity for the human race and for the planet. The book Integrity by Henry Cloud reinforces this theme. Ethical relativism leads down a dark path to ideology, and into the abyss of nihilism. Christian principles (Sermon on the Mount; Romans 12 and Ephesians 4 and 5 idea of giftedness, agape love, the pedagogy of charity) offer the kind of parameters and stability that we need to value others highly, mentor our children, make the tough choices in life and to build a better world, a better moral infrastructure for civil political discourse. We can face head on some of our toughest ethical and political challenges (Glenn Tinder, The Political Meaning of Christianity). We ignore the moral and spiritual insights of Christianity to our own peril. Nobody is perfect or always consistent, but responsible freedom is the quality of attitude we need for a healthy local and world community, a just, non-violent, functional society which creates opportunities for all, not just the wealthy and privileged. I believe at a deep level and from experience that humans will flourishing and experience joy in new ways as they discover and live by and through high, God-inspired principles. Let me close with one more quote from wise author Andy Crouch:

All true beings strive to create room for more being and to expand its power in the creation of flourishing environments for variety and life, and to thrust back the chaos that limits true being. In doing so it creates other bodies and invites them into mutual creation and tending to the world, building relationships where there had been none: thus they then cooperate together in creating more power for more creation. And the process goes on. There is a kind of being that delights in sharing space and a deeper, truer being that is able to create more than enough space–room for more being. (A. Crouch, 2013, 51)

Application to Responsible Moral Living: Mentally Strong People Do These Things Consistently

1. Reflect on their progress; they are willing to pivot to improve outcomes; they develop healthy self-critical skills.

2. Tolerate discomfort, fear and even suffering for the long goal. They are willing to take the necessary, but not foolish, risks to grow or improve the world.

3. They think big; think productively; watch for new opportunities; open doors; associate with eagles.

4. Examine their core beliefs with a view to staying in touch with reality, and doing what is best for others as well. They take time out to rest and reflect on what is really important in life, to gain clarity, peace, and composure. They care for their family and friends and don’t let work devour them or become an idol.

5. They do not play the victim or complain about circumstances or colleagues; they are prepared to work and succeed on their own merits, while being open to grace and gifts from others who like their project and vision. They have staying power (resilience) because they know what they want and are bigger than (transcend) their problems. They are reliable, accountable, fruitful people.

6. Practice kindness and discretion; they manage emotions, thoughts and behaviour despite success or failures of the moment. They accept full responsibility for their past behaviour (good or bad) and are willing to reconcile wherever possible.

7. They are outrageously generous to the less fortunate and care about and celebrate the success of others.

8. They are constantly learning new things that improve their skill set and make themselves into better human beings. They aspire to wholeness and balance.

9. Stay out of debt which enslaves, oppresses, and depresses many people; it can even lead to crime and bankruptcy. They take care of their health, get exercise, eat well, and get regular medical checkups.

10. Develop healthy habits: prayer, Bible reading, worship, compassion, good friendships, community building. They are more than willing to go the extra mile to help others.

~Gordon E. Carkner PhD, Philosophical Theology, University of Wales. Meta-Educator with UBC Postgrad Students, Author, Blogger, YouTube Webinars and Lectures

See Gordon’s newest book on the renewal of culture: Towards an Incarnational Spiritual Culture: Grounding Our identity in Christ, Wipf & Stock, 2024; and his recent YouTube Video “Rethinking identity Through the Lens of Incarnation” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRpC9f0J6WM.

Bibliography

Applebaum, A. (2024). Autocracy Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. Penguin.

Begbie, J. (2023). Abundantly More: The Theological promise of the Arts in a Reductionist Age. Baker Academic.

Cavanaugh, W.T. (2024). The Uses of Idolatry. Oxford University Press.

Crawford, M. B. (2015). The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.

Crouch, A. (2013). Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power. IVP.

Gregory, B. S. (2012). The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society. Harvard University Press.

Holland, T. (2019). Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World. Basic Books.

Hunter, J.D. & Nedelisky, P. (2018). Science & the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality. Yale University Press.

Johnson, P. (1983). The History of the Modern World from 1917 to the 1990s. Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Keller, T. (2016). Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical.

Long, D. S. (2001). The Goodness of God: Theology, Church and the Social Order.

Moyne, S. (2015). Christian Human Rights. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Smith, R. S. (2014).  In Search of Moral Knowledge: Overcoming the Fact-Value Dichotomy. IVP Academic.

Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the Self: the Making of the Modern Identity. Harvard University Press.

Tinder, G. (1991). The Political Meaning of Christianity: The Prophetic Stance. Harper San Francisco.

Wallis, J. (2013). The (Un)Common Good: How the Gospel Brings Hope to a World Divided. Brazos

Zimmermann, J. (2012). Incarnational Humanism: A Philosophy of Culture for the Church in the World. IVP Academic. See also 2024 edition by Regent Publishing.

David Bentley Hart on Ethics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC2SpvYboC

Further Resources on Morality & Ethics

Oxford Ethics Scholars: Oliver O’Donovan and Nigel Biggar

Bibliography on Scriptural Ethics by James T. Bretzke, S.J., S.T.D., Professor of Moral Theology, Boston College

Talks on Alternatives to Relativism by Jerry Root, Wheaton College : http://www.cslewis.org

John E. Hare at Yale, The Moral Gap: Kantian Ethics, Human Limits and God’s Assistance. OUP

Alasdair McIntyre, Three Versions of Moral Inquiry.

J. Budziszewski, Written on the Heart: the case for natural law. (IVP, 1997)

Narrative Contours of the Free & Responsible Moral Self

What is My Story?

We continue our quest to reflect deeply on the moral self with Charles Taylor, seeking wisdom for cultural and personal renewal. But how is our freedom situated in order to avoid chaos in our life? In his articulation of moral mapping, Taylor looks to narrative depth as a defining feature of the self, identity, and agency. Narrative is very consequential to the stability and continuity of the healthy individual over time. This dimension is in the shape of a personal quest. Taylor acquires this notion of self involved in a narrative quest from Alasdair MacIntyre (C. Taylor, 1989, 17, 48). MacIntyre writes: “The unity of a human life is the unity of a narrative quest” (A. MacIntyre, 1984, 219). Narration of the quest for the good allows one to discover a unity amidst the diversity of goods that demand one’s attention. The continuity in the self is a necessary part of a life lived well in moral space. Taylor sees narrative as a deep structure (a temporal depth) in his thick concept of self, adding another texture to its communal and linguistic richness of moral language. The good is more than a concept outside the self, an ideal of life lived well, or a virtue in the sky. It is something embodied/incarnated, embedded in a life, carried in one’s story and the story of one’s community. Narrative community is an important way to understand and mediate the good. Taylor (1989) writes:

This sense of the good has to be woven into my understanding of my life as an unfolding story…. Making sense of my life as a story is not an optional extra…. There is a space of questions which only a coherent narrative can answer. (C. Taylor, 1989, 47) 

The key issue here for Taylor is the unity and past-present-future continuity of a life, over against a strong focus of the self-as-discontinuity promoted by Michel Foucault, where the quest is to get free of oneself, to get free of societal influences and one’s past. Foucault focuses on ‘freedom from’ obligations and ties to the other; Taylor focus on ‘freedom to’ assist the other, with a view to mutual growth and a better society.

The movement for Foucault is towards the ever-new, aesthetic, Romantic, re-invented self, a self which dislikes vulnerability, and tries to avoid being known by others, wedging itself free from history and community. For him and his ideology of care of self, narrative depth is not a priority, and there is a minimal interest in continuity of life with the past. Foucault is very future-oriented, he desires to escape the self of ‘oppressive history’, the normalized self. Taylor disagrees with this extreme approach, believing that one’s story, properly understood, is an essential and highly valued part of one’s identity. Thus, for him it becomes relevant to ask, “What has ‘shaped me thus far?” and “What direction is my life taking in terms of the good?”, “Does my life have weight and substance?” (C. Taylor, 1989, 50). Taylor suggests that a healthy self asks these important questions about the span of one’s life. He is not only interested in the immediate present, bemoaning the past, or escaping the painful past into a fantastic future of one’s own creation: “My sense of the good has to be woven into my life as an unfolding story” (C. Taylor, 1989, 47). This also includes a sense of calling. The pressing question between Taylor and Foucault is: What is the way to substantial freedom, to healthy character of freedom? Is it denial or deconstruction of the burdensome past, or is it fathoming one’s narrative depth of identity and marking out the trajectory of one’s narrative quest, in order to make sense of one’s story? Meaning of one’s life is at the heart of the narrative quest. Taylor would agree with counsellors and psychiatrists who respect the nuances of a person’s broken past/trauma in their therapy. Otherwise, the client is paralyzed/emotionally frozen from the start. We see this played out dramatically in the Netflix Series Transplant. A Syrian doctor emigrated to Toronto is experiencing many flashbacks to the war in Syria and the loss of his parents. The issues are deep and painful.

We dare not let our lives be reduced to a log thrown up onto the beach.

In this argument for narrative dimensions of the self, Taylor also draws on Paul Ricoeur (P. Ricoeur, 1992, 113-68) who has written on the important difference between ipse and idem-identity. Idem-identity refers to the objective stability of one’s identity (character) over time (read as a succession of moments) and outside time, character traits that don’t change with time. One might call it the ‘what’ of identity. Ipse-identity is more fluid and dynamic, as per one’s personal identity as an unfolding character in a novel–it is more future oriented. Ipse is the ‘who’ of identity. It develops over time and with experience and education in the temporal becoming of the self. One is a different self after an undergraduate degree, or the birth of one’s first child, for example. The narrative is carried through memory and anticipation, and linked with temporality. Crucial to ipse-identity is the ongoing integration of past, present, and future in a unified fashion, crucial to a healthy narrative unity (C. Taylor, 1989, 50). Ricoeur believes that narrative is the key genre for description of the self in time and space. The dialectic between ipse and idem identity is rooted in narrative. Telling one’s story is being able to track the dynamic relation of character and action over the course of one’s life.

There are two significant implications of these two features of identity through time. One is the possibility of the future as different from the present and past, also the possibility of redeeming the past, to make it a part of the positive meaning of one’s life story (C. Taylor, 1989, 51). Recently, I heard a person of thirty-something years say that he hates his parents and wants nothing to do with them. This is tragic! Taylor would encourage this person to seek out a fresh interpretation of, for instance, his suffering, parental neglect, hurts, and disappointments. Where is forgiveness in all this turmoil and angst? Narrative depth does not allow for such a discontinuity with the past, a refusal of past identity or origins. Taylor cautions against avoidance of/rejection of the past: 

To repudiate my childhood as unredeemable in this sense is to accept a kind of mutilation as a person; it is to fail to meet the full challenge involved in making sense of my life. This is the sense in which it is not up for arbitrary determination what the temporal limits of my personhood are. (C. Taylor, 1989, 51) 

This is deeply profound and true. The past, grappling with the meaning of the past, seeking healing from past hurts and failures, is vital to a healthy, resilient , stable identity. A whole culture (we in the West) can also cut itself off from its own past, to its detriment (Tom Holland, Dominion).

Taylor agrees with Foucault that it makes sense to set a future trajectory for one’s life, to project/prospect a future story, to have what MacIntyre calls ‘a quest’. This promotes the sense that one’s life has direction and a mission, rather than just working until exhaustion. Taylor says,

Because we cannot but orient ourselves to the good, and thus determine our place relative to it and hence the direction of our lives, we must inescapably understand our lives in narrative form, as a ‘quest’. (C. Taylor, 1989, 51, 52) 

This quest requires a telos or goal. For this to be effective of change, some knowledge of the good is required. Taylor believes in narrative in the strong sense—a structure inherent in human experience and action, narrative as a human given, part of reflection and self-interpretation in the moral animal. One begins to experience transcendence above the circumstances and struggles of one’s life. This narrative is embedded in community where one is accountable to other such narratives. This adds depth to our relationships. Taylor sees these conditions as connected facets of the same reality.

There is, in Foucault’s constitution or discovery of self, the will to escape the past, especially with his heavy emphasis on the continual, radical reinvention of self from the ground up. He has left us this heritage in the early twenty-first century (Abigail Favale). He does not want to leave a trail in the character of the self; it is a very abstract and limited relationship to narrative. This is where Taylor can both correct and complement Foucault. Taylor presses the question as to whether one can so easily accomplish this ‘great escape’ from one’s past self history There is a deficit in the narrative unity and continuity of the self that is endemic to Foucault’s liberation strategy (freedom from). 

In Taylor’s sense of the moral self, Foucault is suggesting a self-articulation that attempts to escape one’s earlier, historical self, untying the present and future self from a past identity. The assumption is that the earlier self is in the confines or grip of power/knowledge. Foucault’s focus of concern is the becoming of the self (ipse-identity), the re-scripting of the self. There is a common interest, in both Taylor and Foucault, in the future of the self, but a sharp disagreement on the relationship with the past. This reveals a major difference in the possibilities for the future or one’s life. Taylor maintains continuity with the past, with a view to carefully and sensitively resolving past issues. Foucault, on the other hand, maintains a radical break with the past, seeing a need to deconstruct it, escape it, disrupt its hold. One can also attempt to change one’s identity in order to hide from the pain of the past. But, the pursuit of a complete, discontinuous re-invention of self courts psychosis and the lively possibly of doing oneself damage (C. Taylor, 1989, 51). It is easy to imagine that some very extreme (even criminal or anarchistic) forms of life could emerge out of assuming such experimentation. In Taylor, on the other hand, the good is interlaced with narrative and community in order to provide the self with more infrastructure, roots, and depth of meaning. 

What are we to conclude? With Taylor’s vision as a corrective to Foucault, one can build on Foucault’s strengths in the arts of escaping domination with its strong sense of responsibility for one’s self-creativity and self-empowerment, and moderate his extremes (the strongest being social anarchy). In his revolutionary fervour, Foucault seems to miss the point of the idem-identity (the continuous aspect of the moral self) as an essential part of the unifying aspect of one’s character, story, and identity. He dos not have a full grasp of Ricoeur’s concept of narrative. Both philosophers agree that taking responsibility for one’s self-constitution is a mature strategy. Nevertheless, the two disagree dramatically on the importance of a thoroughly situated self with a freedom that is also intimately contextualized in a relationship to the good, to community, and narrative. Taylor does offer insights on the contours of the self to which Foucault was philosophically blind. Ricoeur believed that it was in accountability/carrying out one’s promises that one realizes a true, authentic self. These insights seem to be important in making intelligible sense of the meaning of life, and also in offering a dimension of normative accountability. In general, Foucault over-plays the factor of power to exclusion of the good and a healthy narrative; his moral self is consciously very power-laden. New York Times journalist David Brooks follows more in the intellectual path of Taylor in his fine book on his emergent moral growth over time: The Second Mountain.

~Gordon E. Carkner, PhD Philosophical Theology, University of Wales, Author, Blogger, YouTube Webinar Producer, Meta-Educator with UBC Postgraduate Students.

Application See also a critique of freedom as designated by the consumer culture: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/09/the-metaphysical-promise-of-the-consumer-society

Brooks, D. (2019). The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life..

Favale, A. (2022). The Genesis of Gender: a Christian Theory. Ignatius Press.

Holland, T. (2019). Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World. Basic Books.

MacIntyre, A. (1984). After Virtue: A study in moral theory. (2^nd Edition) Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press 

Ricoeur, P. (1992). Oneself as Another. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, Harvard University Press.

Thiselton, A. (1995). Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self: On Meaning, Manipulation and Promise. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Side Note from Wikipedia: The theory of narrative identity postulates that individuals form an identity by integrating their life experiences into an internalized, evolving story of the self that provides the individual with a sense of unity and purpose in life. This life narrative integrates one’s reconstructed past, perceived present, and imagined future. Furthermore, this narrative is a story – it has characters, episodes, imagery, a setting, plots, and themes and often follows the traditional model of a story, having a beginning (initiating event), middle (an attempt and a consequence), and an end (denouement). Narrative identity is the focus of interdisciplinary research. In recent decades, a proliferation of psychological research on narrative identity has provided a strong empirical basis for the construct, cutting across the field, including personality psychology, social psychology, developmental and life-span psychology, cognitive psychology, cultural psychology, and clinical and counseling psychology.

My 2020 audio podcast on The Existential Identity Crisis of Millennials: