Brad Alles

What is right and wrong?  How do we decide?  Is there anything wrong with anything?  As we continue to examine worldview components, we come upon their ethical stance.  All worldviews have beliefs about how to live. Recall that according to atheism, no God exists. Furthermore, Secular Humanism believes that there is no supernatural realm, just this natural world in which we live. When it comes to answering questions on how we should behave, the final authority doesn’t exist. Since there is no God, we each decide (or the government decides) what is good and bad. This is called moral relativism. The assumption that we’re qualified to do this lies in the belief that man is basically good, or neutral at worst, but not sinful as the Bible teaches. And this has huge implications. Consider Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University and the issue of killing newborn babies, or infanticide. In his books, Professor Singer has said that children less than one month old have no human consciousness and do not have the same rights as others. “Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person,” he wrote in one book. “Sometimes it is not wrong at all.”

There can be no understating the importance of worldviews and their resulting ethical stands. A person doesn’t just get up one morning and suddenly think that it is okay to kill babies. The worldviews that people are exposed to are comprised of ideas, and ideas have consequences. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we are influenced by these worldview concepts. And these maps can literally lead us in deadly directions.

Christianity, on the other hand, leads us to life—eternal life in heaven through faith in Jesus’ perfect life and sacrificial death for us. It also leads us in life—living in accordance with God’s will. Christianity’s ethical stance is moral absolutes: God has declared what is permissible and what is not according to His holy and perfect character. He knows what is best for us since He created us, and reveals that in the Bible—like a carmaker gives you an owner’s manual for your car. Returning to the map analogy, the Christian worldview will allow you to navigate through life best until you reach your destination, heaven. This is promised through Jesus, who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6).