Another part of a video series from Wordonfire.org. Bishop Barron will be commenting on subjects from modern day culture. For more visit www.wordonfire.org
"Running on the fumes", reminds me of a quote by Swiss theologian, Emil Brunner, "The feeling for the personal and the human which is the fruit of faith may outlive for a time the death of the roots from which it has grown. But this cannot last very long. As a rule the decay of religion works out in the second generation as moral rigidity and in the third generation as the breakdown of all morality. Humanity without religion has never been a historical force capable of resistance. "
Thank you, Fr. Barron, for this thoughtful reflection. I just want to add something that is implicit in what you said about drinking water=hydration of body=support of life, etc.: we do this because our bodies do not belong to us. They belong to God.
Right on - Fr. Barron - Right on. What some people are forgetting is that Faith is a form; that if missing from a person changes their perception on morality. And I am not saying the faithless can not have morality; it is just sharpened and more precise with the faithful. Thus, making the faithful more accountable in the end for their actions.
The Bishop's assertions amount to a logical fallacy and conjecture. Additionally, there are many examples within biblical scripture that call into question whether the God figure in the biblical narrative is actually behaving in a moral manner.
I like it that the notion of God here is very much like the philosopher's notion of God as that of the infinite or the unconditional or that which nothing greater can be thought of (the Anselmian name). A very beautiful and informative video, Father :)
Thank you, fr Barron for your great service! I want you to know that your videos have been used in classes at my school, st Paul's school, one of the very few catholic schools in Norway. I have learned a lot from them, and so I can forward the Truth wherever I can. Being a teacher for those who are to receive their first communion, I can for a fact say that your videos have done something for the little catholic part of Norway. Your videos explain matters very well, and they are reaching out to both believers and doubters, keeping catholic foothold in Norway for years to come. Thank you, father. Make a trip to Norway soon. To Selja, the birthplace of the catholic church in Norway, where we are trying to rebuild a benedictian monastery. To Trondheim, where holy Olav rested until the reformation - one of the five great pilgrim-trips from old - to the church Nidarosdomen, and to Stiklestad, where he died in battle 1033. He was baptized in 1014, 1000 years ago. The Church in Norway is doing a lot to grow. We have come far, but there is still a long way to go. Your lectures would give us a boost for sure. Thank you father. Bless you, your film crew and your work.
A very nice general introduction to Catholic Moral Theology, Fr. Barron. I'd like very much to see you build upon this video with another one exploring the more concrete, practical side of things. And by that, I mean not only the corporal, but also the spiritual works of mercy. In fact, the 14 works of mercy would be a great subject for a whole series. (Hint, hint...)
God and God alone determines whether acts are right or wrong good or bad. Why? because the Creator is the "umpire" and the creatures are the "players". We didn't create the "game" of life; we just "play" it. Great video Fr. Barron!
nitelite78 Only God, the source of all that is good, the source of perfect goodness can judge because He alone loves us without question and more than anyone else. The sacrifice of His only son is proof of that love. His laws lead us to all we seek, that is why He like any good father will admonish us when we seek what will do us harm. We are all his beloved children, and God wants us to choose to love Him. Heaven is choosing God, eternity with God. You are free to choose eternity without God, we call that hell. Satan and his fallen angels made such a choice. Hell never existed until they needed a place to spend eternity without God. But choosing God is more a Carrot & stick approach, you can avoid Hell, but you INHERIT Paradise. You are not to be a servant or a slave, you are called to be son or a daughter of the Most Royal King there shall ever be, and INHERIT all that is beyond human imagination to comprehend. You may want to turn away from that, but not me. I'll happily let God decide what is right. He hasn't been wrong yet.
Nitelite......You state....."Why should God alone decide what is right and wrong?" So you are going to leave that decision making up to mankind? You are kidding, right? Mankind....so full of evil and hate versus God....who is all love. Case closed.
In The Brothers Karamazov, The Devil appears to Ivan Fyodorovich in a nightmare, and describes what life will be like once God's existence has been completely denied. I just read part of the chapter again, thanks to Fr. Barron's quote, and what strikes me is how the Devil's description fits our modern times almost exactly.
Excellent video. If I'm understanding you correctly, it echoed some of my own understanding of how moral systems develop. Basically, morality is a function of what a person ultimately believes to be true. In a sense, it is truth put in verb form. John, I think, articulates this quite nicely in 1 John 4, in which he draws the connection between the truth of Christ which is the love of God, and actualizing that truth in one's own behaviour (i.e.: v.7-8: "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love."). But it also holds for every other philosophical and religious view. Buddha saw that our illusory expectations kept us from Enlightenment and mired in suffering, so he proposed an Eightfold Path to draw us out of our illusions. Ayn Rand proposed that the individual is the highest order of being and therefore selfishness is the highest virtue. Communism adheres to Marx's historical dialectic and so sees the global revolution as the highest good. And so on. I mentioned a couple atheist philosophies in there (actually all three are atheist philosophies), but general pop-atheism in our culture is sort of interesting in this respect. Most atheists are, I think, the banal kind. By that I mean to reference Hannah Arendt's "The Banality of Evil" in which she deconstructed the trial of Adolf Eichmann and came to the conclusion that what allows evil to happen is not that "good men do nothing" but rather that people just act normally when acting normally means shuffling millions of people into death camps. The banality of atheism is to just go with the cultural flow without any serious moral compass. In a society living off the fumes of Christianity that works out okay, but it could be disastrous when some more vile philosophy takes over, as we are seeing with emergence of Capitalism as our dominant religion. That would seem to be in keeping with the concept of a gradual moral degradation. New Atheism is put in a fun place of having moral precepts that are totally at odds with its fundamental worldview. Do New Atheists believe in morality? OH BOY DO THEY. They never f**king shut up about it... You can always rely on a New Atheist to have a ready condemnation of anyone who thinks or acts differently from themselves. The whole raison d'etre of their existence to is to complain about other people not reaching their own moral standards. Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens made a living doing that. And in New Atheism, the highest virtue is The Truth, at least as they perceive it to be. Thus the greatest moral offense is to be religious, since religion is The Lie. Dawkins even stated that raising a child religious (Catholic specifically) is a worse form of abuse than sexually molesting them, and that insanity only makes sense if you realize that to Dawkins, lying to a child is the worst possible thing you could do to them. However, an atheist worldview is ultimately nihilistic, which means that The Truth has no moral value at all. NOTHING has moral value. There is no ultimate stopping point of things that are intrinsically good unto themselves. The universe doesn't care if you believe The Truth or not. Nature doesn't care whether or not you're religious, or whether a child was raised religiously. Evolution only weighs in on the reproductive success of belief or unbelief in God, with no respect to its truth value. Existence is the highest order of banality. New Atheism is inherently self-contradictory every time one of them opens their mouth to vomit up more tedious accusations about what bad, stupid people we are. A cold, empty, mechanical, naturalistic cosmos doesn't give a damn about how bad and stupid we are. The only coherent atheist moral philosophy is nihilism, because it is the only one that respects the ultimate truth of the atheist claim. Whew, got off on a rant there. Thus, I would argue that belief in any kind of morality at all NECESSITATES belief in a Divinity as you describe, who is unconditioned Truth, unconditioned Goodness, unconditioned Beauty and unconditioned Love. I'm glad for banal atheists and as entertained by New Atheists as I am frustrated by them, but any serious concept of morality has to end up at a genuine Beginning.
Mark Esposito And typical of your behaviour, you've steamrolled into something without paying *any* attention whatsoever to the context, on top of which you've just heaped on the self-promoting mythology of Enlightenment rationalism. Good job.
Mark Esposito the notion of having any worth comes from a purpose which comes ultimately from a God, unreligious people can go from their conscience but that gets warped with the culture there is no solid grounding , other cultures that didn’t operate on individual human rights didn’t have any reason to do so except practical , so that feature was on arbitrary one which could easily went out the window and changed with the times, the lack of the movement being catholic literally has no impact on the points because this is specifically about theism and atheism , so his points are still solid
I would ask you all to pray for God’s help to lead His Church to end the Homelessness/Drug Addiction Crisis. This could be a public repentance for the priest sexual abuse scandal. People might give God a second chance if His faithful did good and publicly repented.
Father Barron, I've watched most of your videos and as a practicing, but somewhat (let's say) hesitant Catholic, I've mostly agreed. However, one thing that gnaws at me in these sort of morality videos is the following: Both a religious person and an atheist (or non-religious) can agree on moral truths that are good in themselves, e.g. we all have the right to live as free people (not slaves). As you would likely say, we agree because this society has been built around Christian values, and even those who do not believe are still "running on the fumes" of Christianity. But if some of us are practicing Christians and some of us are just "running on the fumes" wouldn't it be the case that we would see a more rapid devolution of civilization in those areas and among those people not running on "high test" Christianity (extending your metaphor a bit)? Yet, in places like northern New England, which you pointed out previously to be the most un-churched part of the country, society is not crumbling. It seems to me that they are doing relatively well. In countries like Finland, where people are largely non-religious, a culture of care and support seems to have emerged. Within academia (my field) people who are largely non-religious are very concerned with social justice and reaching out to the underprivileged. At a personal level some of my friends who are the most adamantly non-religious also have chosen social justice-aligned careers, like a friend of mine who is a public defender.but could be making five times her salary as a corporate lawyer. Now, I have some thoughts about this, but I wanted to get your perspective. It's very hard to make the case that we need God to support our moral beliefs to people who are, in fact, deeply moral. Thank you in advance. Jon
Becoming a religious person doesn't make you human. Becoming an atheist doesn't make you less human. the Image of God which we were created by is still within us. Saying that I'm not a Christian but still believe that murder is bad doesn't really mean anything or change anything, because either you acknowledge it or not that's just the image of God in you still at work. Saying Truth is good, or God is good, is basically saying the same thing. God didn't start existing when the Bible was written, God existed before everything, He simple revealed himself a lot clearer in the Bible.
I love how Father tries to simplify a difficult topic. The way I see it. If anyone is a history buff, it's easy to see how humans have been very destructive towards each other when they are allowed to determine what they deem "right" in their own views; which is now described as Moral relativism. And that's because of Man's tendency to be self serving. Look at all the different examples of genocide. Those committing genocide have determined that what they did was deemed "right". Man does not have a good track record for living harmoniously with each other which is exemplified by the first murder of Able by his brother Cain. From then till now, man has failed in creating a civilization free of actions that degrade, and destroy the value of their fellow neighbor. It's so clear to me that we need God...
Hello father barron I am from Guatemala one day curiously I saw a serie catolisismo on EWTN impressed me so much how you speak, i really investigate and find you, fortunately I know the English language, but sometimes there are words that i dont understand what I look on youtube its awesome!!! and there are super-extraordinary issues that could help me and I really would like to understand to share in this society that need to know what the church is, please double their videorecorders to Spanish and other languages that are very valuable. Greetings from Guatemala, and God bless you !
RB should reflect deeply on the notion of Platonic Realism. The problems of source and existence evaporate in the face of PR. There is no need for God in PR. Let there be light becomes an expression of the axioms underpinning our PR. It's a beautiful intuition that has likely been horribly disfigured and reconfigured into the edifice of religion.
His Excellency, Bishop Robert Barron does have a good and valid point. And I agree ☝️ with him 100 %. I don’t want atheists atheists to get the wrong idea. I’m not saying that atheists don’t have morals. Even his holiness, Pope Francis says that any atheist does a good thing like helping people out. Then they can gain access to Heaven. And I agree with Pope Francis also.
Also, Stephen Keillor, in Prisoners of Hope, says: The initial act of eliminating our Creator God from our thinking is so immoral and unethical in itself as to render the following concern with ethical fine points quite absurd. It's as if students were to murder the teacher and then sit down to have serious discussions about proper manners in the classroom.
That is silly. We are born without knowledge of God, it is our basic human function to think logically. If God has provided enough resources that are doubtful, the burden of blame is not us, it is God. Until God can rebuild his reputation, there is no reason why we cannot doubt his existence.
I think we need these disciplined conversations about moral principles. In so much discourse, people react based on their feelings and dump abuse on those who see things differently. I am concerned our society's moral sense is already eroding.
Father Baron could possibly in a future video shed some light on the demoralization of society that is being taught in some "Catholic" universities such as De Paul? And why nothing seems to be being done about it? And what should or could be done about it? Great video by the way, thanks.
The most recent issue of "New Scientist," (6 May 2016), the prestigious British publication that covers science for lay audiences, and for scientists interested in areas outside of their immediate areas of expertise, has published a most interesting article on the rise of "moralising" religions. In his article on page 34, evolutionary psychologist Nicolas Braumard discusses the evidence that those systems of supernaturalism that postulate a "watchful god" that oversees human actions and then rewards "good" people and punishes "bad" is a rather recent invention in human history. The article makes for fascinating reading. Even more interesting is the editorial on page 5. Quoting from it: "Some people worry that without moral guidance, anarchy will ensue. [Based on the Braumard evidence] They need not worry: we will do good without it." Fascinating. Again, SCIENCE INFORMS EVERYTHING!
Are you an atheist? I'm an agnostic. "Some people worry that without moral guidance, anarchy will ensue. They need not worry: we will do good without it." I do not worry, because there is no moral guidance to be had. It's funny, you're willing to load the gun but not pull the trigger on what you are suggesting, that if "evolution" put our morality in place, then there is no such thing. So close to not worshiping a god ... yet so far. This is why the religious charge atheists with believing in god, and they have a point.
If you look at someone like levinas, he affirms that "the priority of the Other" transpierces me without my choice, he even uses language like "the Other is holding me hostage" etc. but he locates that in subjectivity itself. In fact if you look at that relation from a third person perspective you've destroyed it and consigned yourself to instrumentality. Point being (and levinas was a theist of course) that the moral experience can be an "absolute fact" while still taking place in the horizon of subjective experience (Kant as well).
@@Lerian_V The dictionary defines guilt as "fact" or "feeling". I interpret "fact" as meaning in the Christian sense that we are endowed with consciences, and an innate sense of right or wrong; If we seek to follow Christ, we may(I emphasise may) have a more lively conscience than if we are non-believers. With guilt as "feeling" we are in the world of our senses: we feel guilt perhaps because we've been taught to; if we wish to be happy, we should divest ourselves of these feelings; we should live to "happiness", however individually we define it. There is a problem here: in Les Caves du Vatican, André Gide has his hero open the train door on a man leaning out of the w
@@jonathanstory6802 Do these touch on the subject? Conscience: th-cam.com/video/HYvbgOTGm7g/w-d-xo.html Judgement: th-cam.com/video/BWEi3sRoMUQ/w-d-xo.html God & Morality: th-cam.com/video/YgGxaEqlYhE/w-d-xo.html
Today folks can see all types of Truth, Justice, and The American Way. Corporate architecture has branded a homogenized modern day logo version of the 7 swords of the heart, the scales of justice, the infinite pillar's of 11. I saw this ASCII at a 7-11 when picking up a carbonated soda pop. Job 7:11 New King James Version (NKJV) 11 “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Excellent commentary as always Father. I noticed something too, in referencing Dostoyevsky to counter atheist arguments do I detect a hint of inspiration from Henri de Lubac's "The Drama of Atheist Humanism"? :-)
In my opinion this kind of discussion reduces spiritual life to mere morality in sense of avoiding moral transgressions. I think as Christians we are aiming higher for sanctity. This can not be achieved without God.
God is exactly what he is talking about . "God is Good" "Christ is the Truth" "God is Love" "God is Holy" are all scriptural. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
Ironically --- there IS a connection between morality and belief in God. Both are acts of human creation. My view as an atheist is that all along human beings have been creating things --- including ideas, art, values, methods of communication and representation of the world, theories, mathematics, etc. Language has fueled that creativity and made it possible for human beings to share their creativity and to build upon it collectively and forward in time across generations. Before the onset of scientific thinking and methods, the modes of thinking and expression were limited. Religion was the only "game" in town before science and provided the near entirety of the available concepts and notions with which to describe nature and Man. Morals and values were being created and constructed long before the scientific revolution (and the introduction of many new ideas and facts about the world --- and ways to probe it) --- so they necessarily were expressed in terms of the available language and framework of thinking, which was religion. It's understandable and natural that Mankind at this earlier stage would connect morality (and art and music and many other things) to religion and even go as far as positing that morality and values CAME FROM a supernatural source, not recognizing clearly the possibility that it was being fashioned from scratch by thinking creatures on-the-fly and iteratively across generations. This an utterly plausible scenario (I think even RB would have a hard time arguing that Man has NO capacity to create morals and values by thought alone --- as he would have trouble denying many other of Man's impressive creations) with FEWER GEARS. Enter Occam's Razor --- are morals and values the creation of thinking creatures (as above) or do we ADD the feature of a divine external source? The first is not only plausible, but more parsimonious. It isn't surprising that believers have a low view of human creativity and intelligence --- our limits and innate faultiness is literally written into the framework of their thinking. It's a small leap from this pessimism and under-rating of Mankind to the perspective the human beings could not possibly have invented morals and values on their own and that absent religion a toxic relativism will always prevail (and this forms part of the utilitarian argument for religion --- which is one of the weakest arguments overall vs the issues of objective reality of God and historical accuracy of religious texts like the Bible). The history of Man tells a different and more optimistic story. From the Atheist's perspective, Man has been formulating and iteratively adjusting morals and values all along --- beginning in a simple and poorly formed state and absolute relativism to much more finely tuned versions (present). The atheist also recognize the interplay of religious and moral concepts during that process (as above). That does not mean or prove, however, that the notion of a supernatural source of morality is correct --- all history shows us is that the evolution of religious thinking is tangled with the evolution of manmade morals and values. The two deliberately entangled by the religious to prop up the necessity of religion itself. It's true that relaxing a hard and enforced rule of thought that morals are absolute and divinely supplied can be a difficulty. If we strip away the mental machinery that links morality and values from religion (requiring humans to KNOW they are truly tasked to think for themselves), a sort of cognitive freefall results. Under those conditions it IS possible that humans latch onto destructive ideas and things crash --- but it also possible that they use their heads to arrive at a sane and beneficial framework of values ON THEIR OWN. Sure, it's a risky business (and we've been doing it all along with some success and many failures) --- but at least it's conducted FREELY and with our eyes open. And this gets to it: religion appeals to many because it excuses Man the task of determining his own rules of the game (and excuses Man's awareness that this is the reality of things -- a scary thing unto itself). It's understandable that human beings would prefer not to invent morality (fearing making mistakes --- and doing the hard work of achieving consensus) and just read commandments. But that's lazy and a form of submission and self-induced enslavement. Liberated human beings recognize that we are truly in freefall and have been from the start --- and realize that we must have the courage to face the wind and build our own parachutes, rise or fall -- but freely so.
Father, something that I struggle with is how can we assume that there is morality. If there were no God then nothing would have any moral value in any true sense. Only in the sense of something being for the betterment and survival of the species. For example you say that life is a good thing in itself. How can we draw that conclusion? What is goodness? If there is no God, "goodness" does not exist. Therefore no moral value can be attached to any action. I suppose what I am struggling with is more a question of God's existence and I am hoping in someway that it can be argued through moral truths. But can it?
I find that many atheists equate God being the source of morality as saying that Might makes right. I dont know how true this is, but I saw a Video that acknowledges is that Gods Trinitarian nature is the basis of his goodness. In the sense of the self giving love is the very essence of his goodness. However I think that much of how God is presented, particularly in Fundamentalist circles is just a pagan monotheism where God is no different than say Zeus. And the fruits of this false conception show in much of the self righteous behavior in their circles.
In my experience with atheists as well as fellow Catholics who follow the Church teachings they like and ignore those they dislike, I've found that their use of their own logic will, in fact, guide them to agreement with the Church... until that agreement becomes uncomfortable. So the Catholic mother who strongly feels that fornication is immoral will suddenly change her mind once her children move in with their partners and now proclaims that we all need to be more "Progressive" about life.
It's interesting to observe other faiths such as Islam or Buddism where the entire structure of ones faith begins from that faith in the center of ones life, and the community as a whole share in that. Unfortunately, American Christianity fail in the same thing that makes them great. The western mind compartmentalizes their religion as a "part" of them, rather than extending out from the core of which from every act is recognized to origin from. We've diversified so much that we leave only ourselves at the center and everything revolves around us and we allow that of each other. But in the midst, God is lost from that center.
Father Barron, if you could only say one thing about Catholicism, what would it be? I'm a cradle Catholic but sometimes it just seems too darn complicated!
Bishop Sheen wrote a number of books, in one I read awhile ago he said we seek God for three reasons. We want life so much that we will extend an arm in the darkness to lose it rather than our life. Life is found in perfection only in God, any life that ends is imperfect, God is eternal life. Bishop Sheen said. Reason 2 is knowledge, and the history of man is an unending search for wisdom, we travel into space or to the ocean depths to know. Total Knowledge, true wisdom is found only in God, and the last of course is Love, not lust, not the take what you want kind of love of this world, but the sacrificial kind that gives up being God to becoming a creature like man, and then dying, all to save the beloved and do the will of the beloved. Love is found in perfection only in God. Catholicism is the complete truth of God that leads to you getting these three things forever. Boiling it down to a simple sentence may be possible, but I've never heard of it. Fr. Barron offers much that helps, another excellent source Dr. Scott Hahn former Catholic Hater Bible scholar.
The discussion of morality leaves out the weakness of men morally. We seek the animal instinct, and self gratification for food, greed, sex, etc. The human may at times wish to reign in his own lusts and appetites, but finds himself incapable of controlling those lusts inevitably. One or the other ends up controlling the person. God the invisible source of good, and true morality grants to each the invisible but very powerful 'grace' needed to actually be good. This is what atheists miss, they think they don't need God, when in fact everyone needs grace to achieve good, even atheists. Believers seek God because it is from God that we become capable of anything, without God we are an unfinished work of art, grotesque because the hand of the artist left us unfinished.
By the way I want to say that I'm very impressed by the genial tone of the comments here. Perhaps its our pictures next to our names (having a kid in a photo probably makes it less likely to get flamed), or maybe it is Father Barron's thoughtful approach. Either way, cheers!
I'd ask RB -- is it possible that Mankind created morals, values, and the model of the universe that includes a God from scratch? If not --- why not? What is the convincing argument that none of it could be Man's creation? I don't see how this possibility can be firmly set aside and not doing so, leaving the door wide open to reinterpret the entire story of religion from start to present. It's not sufficient to say "The Bible Told Me So" --- that's a child's explanation. Let's hear something more substantial and disconnected from assumptions drawn from a book.
I wonder if it's possible to predict people's religious beliefs from their behavior. That seems to be what Fr B is implying. Say you're Big Brother (or the NSA) and you know everything everyone does but none of their thoughts or motives. Could you guess who's the non-believers & who's religious from their actions alone?
Thank you for your comments on natural law. I was wondering how these comments could be strengthened vis-a-vis anti-transhumanist arguments. Transhumanists posit that humanity just has to get beyond the natural to what we can be through technology (a possible cultural connection can be to Captain America movies).
the fact that God commanded his people to kill children with fire in Leviticus 21:9 creates a moral contradiction between the OT God and the NT Jesus, and the contradiction continues to exist whether or not atheists are unable to account for morality.
What I find fascinating, was when you said Good is the name given of your tradition to the good. This is exactly where I agree with you. I do not think most prior (including you fr.) get it. Christianity is no just theism that belongs to those that agree that Jesus died for them, it is the culture of western Europeans. Let me explain. Jesus himself who was a Jew, would have never condoned anyone creating a Deity out of him, nor moving away from Judaism. Judaism was the vehicle that his heavenly Father used to communicate with his people. The fact that some schmok partook in the eventual condemnation of Jesus that led to his being crucified, does not automatically mean he would condone anyone to begin another religion. He was a Jew and died as a Jew. The fact that Christians claim that Jesus died for our sins, implies that he (Jesus) actually came to due. It would not have mattered what anyone did to save themselves, Jesus was going to die for their sins anyway. Blaming the entire Jewish race for the death of Jesus that came to die for his petiole anyway, was wrong and disgusting. Add you know, it was the doctrine of the church that the Jews were to blame. This doctrine was not changed until the 60s. Well, let me not digress to much. Constantine of Rome was the one that integrated Christianity into Ronan political system. Majority of the different denominations of Christianity are basically European culture. Therefore, when we say Christianity, we are really talking about western European culture. Yorubas of Nigeria, West Africa have their own religion that speaks of their understanding of God. Moreover, their religion authenticates them and their ancestors. The Yoruba religion uses Yoruba language, Yorubas names, Yoruba ancestors. In essence, Yoruba religion makes the Yorubas complete. Yoruba religion says the black man is the most important. Now imagine the imposition of Christianity on the black person. Do you not think the black soul will be lost forever as he is trying desperately to live up to western European Christian culture? He is not white, then how can he be Christian. I am sure the good father will somehow rationalize why the black person should follow his European culture, which continues to erode his (the black person) soul. Now what is your answer.. , Father?
Fr., would I be right to say your position is that morality is inherent in human beings? If the ontology of God is inherently goodness itself, and we are made in the image of God, then no one can be separated from morality. The demand from the theist of the nonbeliever to profess the ontology of God does not change the fact that the nonbeliever is inherently moral. The demand from the believer, of the nonbeliever's thoughts and belief level is merely a means for the believer to take control of the mind of the nonbeliever. Is it not, farther?
I enjoyed this video very much. I largely agree that the belief in god has had a beneficial effect on the behaviour of people and its removal can have a negative effect. But this has little to do with morality and more to do with obedience for fear of reprisal. Fr Barrons stance that the removal of this belief will always have, in the long run, a relativising effect is unsubstantiated. Fr Barron refers to Peter Hitchens and I assume he means his book contra his brother’s position. In this book P Hitchens argues the case Barron is suggesting but actually manages only to demonstrate the dehumanising effects of prolonged exposure to a system which values the group over the individual and encourages loyalty to the hierarchy over empathy with our fellow humans. The regress of causation that Fr Barron suggest as an analysis of actions ends in a basic, or irreducible, value which has existence independent from us. The alternative view is found in his second example, of drinking water because we’re thirsty. In this example Fr Barron takes the regress past the simple point of survival to ask for a reason for our urge to survive and in doing so gives the game away. Try not drinking and you will easily see that the reason we drink is not found in any rationalisation for drinking but purely in the need to drink. Our actions can usually be traced back to either biological needs or emotional drives, which in turn are driven by chemical rewards in the brain. Through studying the behaviour of other species we can derive the possibility that our own species has developed along similar lines. Gradually the drives for certain behaviours have been selected for: the drive to nurture our young; the drive to favour family members; to favour group members; then nations and so on. All the time the species has been developing the ability to empathise. With this ability in place the basic values are easier to rationalise. It is also easier to understand history with respect to our clearly changing ideas of what constitutes moral behaviour and attitudes (for instance the killing of the innocent which Fr Barron cites.) Outwith this idea we must be seen as working our way *towards* a fixed, unchanging ideal. I don’t think that history bears this out; rather we work our way *away* from perceived ills and all the time we are working with a mixture of our own feelings of empathy and our own powers of reason. Fr Barron is painting a dichotomy of choice between basic values that have independent existence and complete relativism. I’m sure someone of Fr Barrons education knows this to be an inaccurate account of the possibilities. I can only assume that, like other apologists, it suits his purposes to do so. “God is the name we give to these fundamental moral goods in their unconditioned form.” (@ about 8min.) This is another way of saying “I acknowledge our basic drives as inherited by evolution but I choose to name them God.” This is much easier to grasp than the complexities of how we became the species we are (a study which is only really just beginning) but ease of understanding does no service to the desire for truth which Fr Barron espouses.
Your point about the drinking, I think, is spot on. We don't need to rationalize why drinking is good, we do it because we have a biological urge to. Similarly we probably don't need to rationalize why not killing an innocent child is bad, we have evolved such that this has become self-evident. But, I think there is a limit to this sort of reasoning. Even the most "nativist" of thinkers must concede that our biological constraints are certainly not sufficient for a robust morality. So, from a secular perspective, we might, from here take a utilitarian approach: find out what is important to people and create a system that maximizes that thing (happiness, satisfaction, joy, love, freedom, whatever) across as many people as possible. I mostly think this perspective is right, simply in terms of how we should create a well-functioning democracy. However, it is somewhat incomplete in that even a highly mechanistic utilitarian system must be built around some values and constraints. If we are trying to maximize people's satisfaction with life, is my satisfaction as important as yours? Does it have to be? What if your satisfaction is more likely to lead to other people's satisfaction, giving you a "bigger bang for your buck"? In the end what's the value in helping the homeless drug addict, or the disabled, or the elderly - they are sort of dead ends in the utilitarian scheme. Religion, in this system, represents a (valuable, I believe) kind of intuitive evaluation system that tells us that our utopian schemes are going out of wack. I don't mean to put words in your mouth about utlitarianism, you certainly could have other perspectives. But, I think the same could be applied to any constructed moral system (e.g. communism).
Jonathan Vitale I agree that this is not enough to account for morality by itself and I also agree that any constructed system of morality or set of laws must have some way of being checked and balanced. I see morality as an emergent phenomenon, as emerging “organically” out of our interactions with others in our group, our group’s interactions with other groups etc. It seems to me we are built of only our emotions, senses, imagination and reasoning. In nearly every case I can think of our senses come first, our reaction is emotional, our reasoning comes after and our imagination enables us to do something more with the results. When considering morality our emotional reaction is to our interactions with other people and social situations - without interaction it is hard to imagine something like morality developing. Whenever we attempt to rationalise why something is wrong it is always after the fact of having felt it to be wrong. When we attempt to discuss with someone the morality of a given situation we are trying to find a way of affecting a change in their feelings about it by use of example and reason, and they us. Similarly when someone acknowledges that some action is right but doesn’t understand why, it is usually possible to explain this to them in such a way as they will then feel that thing to be right. Only then can we say they morally agree with it; before that their following of the instruction was a matter of obedience. When we construct systems of morality we are doing it in the light of our already having feelings about what is correct behaviour and attempting to help ourselves analyse some new or puzzling scenario. If we were to rely solely on our reason to decide morality we could go, indeed have gone, very wrong. However if we were to rely solely on our own emotions to guide us we could go equally wrong. I believe the often forgotten part is that we are not solitary creatures and our morality is dependent on interactions with others. Morality appears to function as group behaviour (group = family, village, country, group of countries or a whole planet; basically any set of people that are in a position to have some influence on at least one other member.) Each member has their own set of reactions to situations. Within this group there will be out-liers (suffragettes, civil rights activists, vegetarians, sexists, socialists, fascists, psychopaths etc), people who have noticeably different opinions (based on their own reactions) about some issue or other. By interaction these opinions can affect the opinions of other members of the group. This can only happen on an individual basis; each person changes their opinion as they find their emotional reaction being changed by exposure to either the situation itself or to reasoned argument about the situation (or, unfortunately, the rhetoric of a gifted speaker.) So by its nature change is a gradual process but the ability to change is essential. In such a scenario the group morality has the built in ability to change and progress (or regress of course) and doesn’t rely on complete consistency to form its laws and guidelines, which ideally should be slightly “ahead of the curve” once the general direction of the drift has been recognised. It is possible to scrutinise the overall drift of morality and try to assemble guiding principles, like Equality or the Golden Rule or Kant’s Categorical Imperative, but each person’s opinion on each situation will still be guided firstly by their emotional reaction to it and only afterwards be rationalised to fit some outside rule, or checked against it. Constructed systems of morality tend to be attempts to describe and analyse how we already behave rather than prescribing how we should behave (although there have been exceptions to this.) Any set of laws must have in it the ability to change as the morality of the group they govern changes. A set of laws which doesn’t have this built into it or a system of morality which must be adhered to regardless of our shifting emotional and intellectual reaction to new data is a recipe for disaster. I apologise that this has been so long but it is a fascinating subject. I thank you for reading this far. : )
TabletopJoe33 I read your whole post - but please don't do that to me again, I'm supposed to be working! (As you can see, I have no right to complain...) I think in your second to last paragraph you implicitly highlight an issue which I Fr. Barron addresses. I think you are making the case that our morality is subjective and we tend to utilize some principle or idea to justify our actions retroactively. As our attitudes change our "principles" change with them. Yes, this is largely the case, but is it always healthy (for society) and it is it necessary? Couldn't it and shouldn't it be the case that some principles are not subject to change, even in the face of "new data"? It seems to me that if a principle can be changed, it was never a principle in the first place. What would change is our application of principles. For example, as we learn through neuroscience that animal brains are similar in function to human brains, we might begin to apply some of our moral principles to non-humans (e.g. it is right to ease suffering). The trouble is that if we chose to abandon principles because our interests change, we may drift in quite unhealthy directions. For example, our principle that each person is of equal value, I believe, is a fundamentally religious idea - certainly not scientific (or at least in any way measurable that I know of, I do educational research). While we might both agree in this principle the important question is what will keep us anchored to this idea? [edited for grammar]
Jonathan Vitale Interesting questions and difficult questions to articulate my thoughts on so again this may be long and my apologies for that. I don't think we go straight from our feelings about things to general principles. General principles can only be developed over time once we see a larger pattern of behaviour. To change a general principle we would need to change all those other smaller behaviours. We are regularly encouraged to make exceptions to our general principles, for instance in the case of certain races or certain groups within our society, but even if we succumb to this appeal the general principle still applies to the rest of society so can still be argued from by those who disagree. In effect it only takes one person to spread an idea. Can you imagine a situation where the principles of equality or empathy, for instance, were completely abandoned? Now that we've got here, I find it hard. If it happened it would be in response to dire circumstances. Have you read the book, or seen the film, The Road? The ending, where they speak of "carrying the light", is essentially religious imagery. When Fr Barron speaks of "fundamental moral goods in their unconditioned form" he is speaking in much the same way and I take it as another, symbolic way of describing the actual situation. In a way I do think it a benefit for many to be able to talk about the good in such a way. It is a difficult thing to express how we function in relation to morals. I personally find the "We don't work towards rights but away from wrongs" of Dershovitz to be a descriptively accurate way of expressing the actual function but it hasn't yet found its way into the public mind. As yet it is more descriptive for many people to think in terms of a fixed idea of good. If we were to have a body which represented the idea of good it would, I believe, have to be intrinsically part of the process by which we have arrived at our current position. This, at the moment, appears to be the system of democratic law. If the responsibility for upholding the good was put in the hands of a body which was intrinsically not part of this process there would be no way to argue that the goods we have decided on, or the interpretation of the good, are the ones to be defended. Another body could equally argue that it has the correct interpretation and by the same logic we used to agree to one body we couldn't disagree with the other. We would have to fall back on the idea of the collective working of morals. Which is where we currently are, I believe. The principle of universal equality is a quite recent achievement, not yet accepted everywhere and still quite fragile in the places where it is. There have been principles which were mostly held universally which have been usurped by our developing understanding of their inherent problems, for instance the divine right of kings. Would I have been a supporter of this at the time; depends on my place in the hierarchy I suppose. I certainly believe equal rights should be defended and spread as widely as possible and would never want to see the principle lost but what can we do, given the way morality appears to function, but to stand up for it. When the church does this it can only be a good thing. If the church chooses to say the good is something fixed and outside of us I can only say that that misrepresents how we have achieved the successes we have and misunderstands how we failed when we failed. Doing this I believe lays us open to making the same mistakes again. I wish I had more time to better consider your questions and edit this accordingly but if I don't send it now etc ..... work is a terrible inconvenience at times, much as I love it.
I enjoyed the video but I have a simpler take. Despite their unbelief, atheists were created in the image of God just as Christians were. God breathed life into Adam, and thus we have the essence of God within us. So God's truth's and moral values are ingrained in all of us, despite belief or non-belief. Therefore while an atheist may claim that people can act ethically and morally without belief in God, he/she simply cannot escape the framework of God's creation.
Firstly that would be implying that if the God exist, it would be a Christian God. Christianity is not the first religion to claim their God is the sole creator. Secondly, you are saying the God who set up a frame work is a God who wrote the bible which has some highly unreliable events (no other record of a man who can bring back life, or Egypt did not have slaves building pyramid etc). If that is so, the framework of a Christian God is highly unlikely to be even close to be reliable.
The Bishop claims "there is a strong and important connection between morality and belief in God", but this ignores the many examples of religious men who have committed horrible crimes. The clergy pedophilia scandal is a prime example. If Christianity can't save the clergy, who can it save?
I think you are right in that belief in God doesn't make you a good person, but I think the distinction lies in fact that objective morality is a product of God (Its an intellectual idea). Concupiscence, or the idea that people will be tempted/drawn towards evil is a reality that all people, including that of the clergy. Being a clergy member doesn't exclude you from this group or exclude you from doing evil. When he says "there is a strong and important connection between morality and belief in God", he is referring specifically to the intellectual notion that only a first principle (God) can be the source of an objective morality. Thats why he later goes on to say that a non-belief in God tends towards a relativisation of truth/morality. But good question, i hope this made a little sense and I hope you respond because I would like to know your thoughts as wonder about your question a lot!
@@johnmccaffrey5663 I reject the idea that "objective morality is a product of God". This can't be the case given that the morality in the Bible is not the morality of today. We don't kill a son for being disrespectful, and we don't sell a daughter to the suitor who offers the most goats. People have an idea of the morality that comes from the Bible, but they are actually projecting the morals of today onto the Bible. Morality actually comes from a sense of empathy. We learn to treat others the way we wish to be treated. The greater point is that the idea is completely wrong that there is a connection between morality and belief in God. I have no doubt that many of the pedophile priests had a strong belief in God, but that didn't stop them.
@@gregvassilakos You're conflating an immoral act and the punishment for an immoral act. Dishonoring one's parents is always disrespectful. It still is. The punishment we use for such act has changed. It does not meant that capital punishment for such immoral act is immoral, ceteris paribus. Today, we may not severely punish someone who betrayed the country. But let's say tomorrow we are in a hot war with another country and we find a traitor, we will charge such person with treason and it would be totally legitimate to impose capital punishment as penalty.
@@Lerian_V 1. Today it is not considered immoral to disagree with one's father, but that was the case in biblical times. 2. I can't say whether pedophilia perpetrated by clerics was considered immoral in biblical times. Within the Catholic church, It evidently wasn't considered much of a crime a few decades ago; however, it certainly is considered immoral today. I'll return to what I stated previously about this. " If Christianity can't save the clergy, who can it save?"
Dialogue with God Person: You give me this gift of life which I didn’t ask for but then expect me to do this, that and the other thing because of it. And if I don’t I’ll probably go to hell, right God? I mean, I can’t even turn the gift down (suicide) without some horrible consequence. God: I love you and want to have a relationship with you. Person: Well, what does it say about your love if the gift is flawed to begin with by original sin? I had nothing to do with any of that Adam & Eve stuff and now I’m at a considerable disadvantage. How just is that! Maybe you owe me an apology for creating me as a flawed human, God. God: Yes, original sin didn’t involve you. Person: Good, I can demand compensation… and maybe satisfaction. God: Look, according to Anselm, satisfaction usually applies to me. Person: Let me get this straight. You give me a severely flawed gift which I didn’t ask for, and then expect me to feel obliged to you and do everything you say. If I turn down this gift terrible things happen to me, right! But what you really want is a relationship with me, like the gift is some box of chocolates. I can’t say, “Thanks God, but I’m trying to cut back and I just got out of a bad relationship and need some space.” And if I don’t do what you say... I’m a goner. God: This is for your own good. Person: Of course you would say that… But see, you call all the shots, like some celestial dictator, and I either have to obey or suffer the terrible consequences. You say I’m free. Yes, I’m free to do what I want, but not free from the terrible repercussions that follow if I don’t do what you say. And what I want is to just live my life simply, without this added turmoil of whether I’m going to heaven or going to hell. I mean life is hard enough and I don’t need to complicate it with wondering if I’m bound for eternal damnation because I’m not in some lovey-dove relationship with a God that is pinning for me. God: You’ve over simplified this.
That's really bad theology. God: The gift I gave your ancestor he squandered, like your grandfather who had a fortune and then wasted it. Freedom is not nihilism. Free will is not anything goes and nothing counts. You: But why cant I have an infinite number of do overs? it not fair? God: because that always works in making you a petulant spoiled child. Hence you never develop character. Hence you never develop into a human being fully aware and alive. Check bios of the Saints for how do to this. You: Yes, I’m free to do what I want, but not free from the terrible repercussions that follow if I don’t do what you say. And what I want is to just live my life simply, without this added turmoil of whether I’m going to heaven or going to hell. I mean life is hard enough and I don’t need to complicate it with wondering if I’m bound for eternal damnation because I’m not in some lovey-dove relationship with a God that is pinning for me. God: What are you complaining about? Either you say to me "thy will be done" or I say to you "Thy will be done" don't whine that you are getting what you want.
A Escoto Did God say to Adam, "Look eat that apple and you and all your progeny will suffer horribly (original sin) for eons"? Did God say that to Adam so that Adam knew what the consequences of his actions were? No. Would a caring God or mother inflict this type harsh punishment on her son, on a son who ate an apple of all things? The crime doesn't match the punishment.
Blind Eye Jones its because your misunderstand the crime. It was not merely eating an apple. They were attempting to approbate for themselves the criteria of good and evil. To be like God, they were grasping at being like God
A Escoto And what Mother or Father wouldn't want their sons and daughters to be like them, or to exceed them? Kids are a reflection of parental glory. You don't keep your kids in a state of permanent ignorance -- it reflects poorly on you. And it is natural for the sons and daughters to want to be like the parents, and even do better, so that the parents are proud are of them. It is easy to imagine that the kids were ambitious to please God that they could be like him and knew of nothing of the terrible consequences that would follow. God should have told them how displeased he would be with them -- but he didn't.
the weren't ambitious to please God, but themselves and in so doing they wanted to usurp his position, especially when He gave them everything, they wanted for nothing. They were able to walk with God in the cool evening. He specifically told them that on the day they eat of that tree, they will die. That was explicit, they cant feign ignorance. Their act was defiant and rebellious, taking unto themselves that which belonged to God. Don't know any parent that is cool with a child taking the parent's rite to command the household. if you come home and discovered your child is trying to sell the house and they decided that your room is there room, and that they destroyed your furniture, There would be a serious issue
+I'm with HIM It's so much fun when supernaturalists argue and each of them has exactly the same amount of verifiable evidence for their position: ZERO. NADA. ZILCH. ZIP
To state to an atheist that there are absolute values, you are in for an argument. Plus, I dare say that 100% of these same people believe in evolution. Is it a fear of responsibility for one's actions and beliefs? Or is pride the bigger challenge to tame?
Perhaps I should have added a third expectation: These people are quick to be dis-respectful when they disagree with a religious belief system. So here is my challenge to you... prove scientifically using all the reasoning ability you claim to have that God does not exist.
The written testimony about the 30 year old man born crippled whom Jesus healed instantaneously...which was verified by his own parents who swore he was born a cripple, would meet the standard of truth in any court of law. Even so, without the eyes of faith, there is not way for you to see or accept the veracity revealed.
What evidence of correlation between religion & morality? Some of the most atheistic countries have the lowest crime, less unwanted pregnancy, highest standards of living etc. If God's existence is denied everything becomes permissible? No, it doesn't. At least not necessarily. Even if it did what of the atrocities committed by those who think they're acting on God's orders?
Christians have a different definition of good compared to what Atheists generally do. Many Atheists see a moral or immoral act is something based on how it affects an individual and whether that individual wants to be affected by that action. It stems from human consciousness and our ability to understand suffering. For Christians and other religions, an act is moral or immoral based on Gods nature and intent. Those affected aren't part of the equation. If God commands the slaughter of people (which according to the Christian world view he has often done) then that command and the action that follows to carry out the command is good by definition by God being defined as good. But good for who? I have no doubt which is the superior framework. So of course when you ask "what evidence of correlation is there between religion and morality", Christians would just say that morality and God cannot be separated because God is the source of good by definition. The state of countries with a high atheistic population isn't relevant. What matters is Gods intent. A country can be as happy and successful as can be but if a large part of that happiness/success is due to things that God doesn't like e.g. happy Gay couples adopting lots of children, people enjoying good sex, and people not worshiping God all the time, then that society is immoral by their definition of God being good. This is why Christians will claim a country is heading towards moral bankruptcy regardless of how well a country seems to be doing. If the book says it's wrong then it's wrong.
nitelite78 So without God everything is permissible. But with God everything is permissible so long as you convince yourself that it's God's will. Doesn't sound like objective morality to me.
Tin Man Like the word "good", Christians also use a different definition of "objective" too. Whereas generally objective is defined as being mind-independent, unbiased. To Christians it is "objective" because it doesn't come from a *human* mind. The fact that it comes from Gods mind is ignored because God is the source of all goodness. Or so it is claimed. Using a book written by subjective minds to learn what that "objective" goodness is doesn't seem to be a problem for Christians. I don't understand why. That's cognitive dissonance at work I guess.
Father Barron, I've heard it said that if everything has degrees of certain attributes then it would imply that God is also, for example, the smelliest and the craziest and the stupidest being etc. in addition to the highest good and the highest truth. Specifically, it was an attempted rebuttal of Thomas Aquinas' fourth way. Is this fallacious?
It's fallacious because the qualities you're mentioning are not modalities of being, but rather of non-being. Craziness is absence of sanity; stupidity is absence of intelligence; smelliness is an indication of corruption, etc.
Don't be so wooden (pun intended) in your reading of the Bible. You can't just take a verse out of context and say, "that's the word of God." One must attend to themes, patterns, and trajectories within the whole of Scripture.
+Kristina plays Many people find the bible to be absurd. One must remember that it was the product of peasants who believed that the earth revolved around the sun. It's purely an invention made by humans. Nothing more. Nothing less. Supernaturalists constantly try to "move the goal post" by "explaining" what THEY think those peasants meant. My question: How do the explainers know? Fortunately, most modern scholars discount the bible as nothing more than literary fabrication, and even doubt the existence of the Jewish rabbi of the "gospels."
David Alexander, I think the Midianites would've disagreed with you. Because of God's moral code, Moses had his men kill all of the Midianite men, women and children but spared the virgin women children to be passed around as the spoils of war. 32000 virgin girls by the way. What do you suppose they did with those virgin girls? Raped them and made them their sex slaves perhaps?
I love these vidoes because--I don't mean this negatively--it allows me to more tangibly see how limited non-Christian world views are. Its amazing. I always say that if the Israelites were wrong, they were the smartest philosophers to ever live: the Bible really does trump all.
Many bad, or evil people believe in God. The angel of light believed in the Power of God, but fell and became the dark angel Satan. To go beyond belief and be transformed by the grace of God and sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross and give thanks for this. This when we become not just believers in God, but followers of The Way as we were called before the term Christian came into being.. Love and blessings upon all.
I am sorry,but due to an acquired brain injury my short term memory is pretty poor, but I do know I may have been responding to someone elses comment and wrongly tagged it to you. Have a good day.
Peter Kimble Oh, I see. No worries, though. I agree with everything that you said. I was just surprised to see it written, as most Christians fail to see things that way. As the author of Hebrews would say, they try to nourish themselves with the milk of God's Word.
retsea1 I was browsing your page after seeing you on another thread and came across this. Honestly dude this is weak - do you really think this speaks to the "superiority" [sic] of Christian philosophy? First and for most this stuff is juvenile - stupendously simplistic. Secondly an awful lot of it flies directly in the face of the biblical story. Thirdly little to none of it is accounted for by theology and instead is just a very weak form of humanism. That's all I have for the moment, if you don't think this accurately represents your philosophic stance any more please ignore this comment
You put forward a false dichotomy here between relativism and religious based deontology. I hold to a secular, rational morality that is absolutely not relativistic. Something like utilitarianism/rule utilitarianism. A utilitarian formula produces objectively true and false moral norms with all relevant information. You also run into the euthyphro dilemma here by using God as the arbiter of basic goods.
"I hold a secular, rational morality that is *absolutely not relativistic."* "A utilitarian formula produces *true and false moral norms with all relevant information."* So it's all relative then? Lmao
I think we can all agree we don't get our morals from the bible. We know the bible is factually incorrect. Therefore the bible seems pretty useless to me so I can get rid of that. Morals need to be debated and argued between people to continually improve our society and try to maximize happiness for the maximum number of people. There is no need for God in this discussion.
But Pablo, how do you know whether a debate is moving toward greater moral truth unless you have some criterion beyond the debate itself by which the conversation is judged? There must, in a word, be fundamental ethical values that are simply given, just as there are logical principles that are not themselves the result of logical deliberations. What are these? Why are they absolute? And where finally do they come from? Those are the questions that lead to a consideration of God's relationship to the moral enterprise.
@@BishopBarron thanks for your reply, I appreciate your time. I have probably miss understood what you are saying, but If morality is not from God (because what me and you would call moral is in disagreement with the bible) then all that is left is for us come up with our own morals. God is redundant. I guess we do this by using the emotion empathy, which probably has Darwinian routes of holding groups of humans together. I.e. if we all go around stabbing each other our civilisation won't last very long.
Pablo M I’ll ignore your cheap shots at the Church and the Bible. But I will ask you how you know that discriminating against an entire people is wrong. If you follow the social Darwinism that you were advocating earlier, you could make a good case for it in fact, as the Nazis did.
@@BishopBarron no, I am definitely not advocating a society based on darwinism that would be awful. I said we should argue and debate what morality is and try to reach a position that would maximize human happiness. But the morals that I have come to stand by (and probably you) are different than the teachings of the bible. I therefore am not reaching these conclusions because of God, I must be getting this from elsewhere. It's an interesting discussion on where morality comes from but its definitely not God, or at least the God of the bible.
You are redefining god unfortunately. You are saying there is higher unconditional truth/good/beauty, and you define that as god. Well, then I'm not an atheist anymore, because that God is part of my subjective experience. If I was to deny and actively try to stop believing in that, I guess it would make me less moral. But I don't deny them, and I am still a moral subjectivism, because those things are subjective, they don't exist in real world. The definition of god that we use when we say that we are atheists is a bit different. In that case we talk about a being that created the universe, sent his son to dies for our sins, and will send us to hell if we don't believe in him. That's we don't believe in. Unconditioned beauty? Nah, we believe that. We just don't call it god, because it's needlessly confusing. Unless confusing people was your.intention, of course.
Aquinas saw a connection between the metaphysical existence of God and the values of morality in the sense that they are both grounded within His existence. In other words, Aquinas saw God as the basis for and to all we experience. From the theistic perspective, my question is if moral subjectivism is true, it seems to be self defeating as the concept of truth is fundamentally underwhelmed. There are plenty of atheistic and some theistic philosophers who see morality as independent of God. I wouldn't necessarily agree with them, but it's just a thought.
@@existential_o look, I'm not interested in "just a thought". If you want to say "everything is grounded in god" you _have_ to continue with "because", otherwise you are just wasting time. Everything might as well be grounded in universe creating pixies, and it's just a thought. Anyway, nothing what you are saying is relevant to the video or my comment.
@@Bradley_UA I guess I kind of assumed you were familiar with The First Way of Aquinas, but I see I'm mistaken. It's kind of a massively popular argument within the history of Western philosophy. Equivocation of pixies and God demonstrates you really are taking the real issues remotely seriously
@@existential_o why would I take you seriously, if you just say "everything is based in god" and provide no evidence? I can say that everything is based in pixies, and provide no evidence, and I'll be in equal footing with you. Or I can say that everything is based on Allah. How can anyone take this seriously? But in any case, we aren't discussing moral philosophers here, we are discussing the video, and the argument made in the video. It literally talks about our innate sense of morality or beauty, and claims that's God, and that atheists don't believe it that. And also that that subjective sense if morality is objective basis for morality. That's just factually incorrect, and you don't need to study any philosophy to understand why. That's why I don't want to get into "deep" topics, because you are struggling with basics already. Also also, the only place I keep hearing about Aquinas is this channel. So you might need to redefine what's "popular" means. EDIT okay, other theists bring him up a lot as well. However, I'm not hearing any original arguments.
We desire moral behavior. It is in our nature, regardless of beliefs. I think you are conflating liberalism and irreligiousness. They are correlated, but that does not imply causation. Liberalism believes in self-actualization. We should give people space to define for themselves what is right and wrong and not force our perceptions upon them. This actually works to some degree, but not as well as a slightly more structured instruction on morality. Indeed religion provides a structure for moral education, but the lack of participation of western Europeans in religious life has lead them to find suitable substitutes, namely the education system (it's compulsory). But really, any structure for education in morality will work. Erosion of religion does not cause moral fault in society, but is correlated.
But what if the one defining right and wrong for himself is a Nazi? What if he or she decides that slavery is okay? What would you say to members of the Man Boy Love Association, who have decided that sex with children is morally defensible? The kind of subjectivism you're advocating here is a short route to moral chaos.
Fr. Robert Barron Completely missing the point ! off course things like this show up their head from time to time but look around you - The Nazi's have been defeated, slavery has been abolished and all those Catholic Priests who abused children have been prosecuted, (deary, deary me you just walk into these things!!). Why? because the moral majority - which is the good people of this planet have made it so. Right and wrong is not defined by the actions of a small group of people but by inherent human goodness of us all.
splotsplot Well. What if we're wrong now? What if slavery is okay? What if exterminating is okay? what if for the next 100,000 years the collective human race decides on these things? Humans want to do good. But it is their desire to do good in itself that does not always lead them to good. They need a moral compass, a moral compass that cannot change. If you can just throw it away and make your own morality that's a recipe for complete destruction. At least for a Catholic. Maybe you like genocide I don't know.
***** We may well be! but the the new thoughts and systems will no doubt have a moral basis. Hard to understand now but that is just the way of things just as the proper way to understand history is to get into the minds of the people who existed at that time in the past. You can't really judge people in the past based on today's values - anyone who has studied history will tell you this. We can only hope that as time progresses our morals are refined. I would state that the good people of the earth have some sort of "averaging" affect which means that what we end up with is a group decision ironing out any extreme views. I doubt we will return to slavery but you never know - maybe slavery using synthetic life which is classed as unconscious.
splotsplot I should have refined my point closer to the mark. It is not possible to say we are wrong now because in the future we have a new way. We are right now and we will be right in the future even though what we have now and what we will have in the future might be opposites. Slavery can be retrospectively stated to be bad because we now have a different, (hopefully improved), modern view but I can assure you that at the time it was also regarded as ok! just as the lack of womens vote was ok even going back to say the feudal system was ok. The interesting point is to see by what process an old system is replaced by a new one. In France they cut of peoples heads - normally it is just a period of protest which gains momentum amongst the general population as they redefine their morals for a new modern time. That is why the Catholic Church fails. It is static and arrogant.
There is non such thing as an atheist. I AM WHO I AM. The atheist is god. A foolish person is one who has "no belief in God. Take your pick by opening your mouth and removing all doubt. This applies to both sides of the argument. Moral values are of God. A GoOD thing about and antheist is they say they do not believe in God. Which protects them from breaking the second commandment? I think??? Gnaw on the real flesh of this and you will see and believe.
Morality is not a thing that exist. Humans came up with words, including, the word morality. The word morality, is referring to humans actions. Most, but not all, would say morality is the well being. I would call a action moral, a action that increases the collective well being of everything in the universe. By this definition alone, I can determine what is moral, and unmoral. If, you thought what was moral was what the bible says is moral, you would say slavery is moral, stoning kids to death is moral, and many other things that you say are moral, you would say they are unmoral. I don't know if you believe in the god of the bible but if you do, you saying, you get the morality, from the bible god, is just being dishonest.
Matthew Mangiaracina words which humans, came up with can exist on a piece of paper, on a computer screen, etc.. words can refer to a thing that exist, a model of reality, a action, etc. The word birds, that humans came up with, refers to a thing that exist. The word morality that humans, came up with is not referring to a thing that exist. So again the word morality can exist on a piece of paper, on a computer screen, etc. Morality is not referring to a thing that exist, which is why I said, and why morality is a thing that exist Human also came up with the definition of words. Morality is referring human actions. A moral action is what ever you define a moral action to be. a unmoral action is a action that you define it to be, I would define a moral action as a action that increases the collective well being of everything in the universe. I would define a unmoral action as a action the decrease the collective well being of the universe. A action that is moral is determined by your definition or a moral action. Again you point to know evidence a god exist, a god came up with these words, or these definitions, or a method that confirms a conclusion, that a god came up with these word, or these definitions, match reality to any degree of certainty. The word, ideas are not referring to a thing that exist. Ideas as far as we know are a chemical reaction that occur in the brain. Chemical reactions are not referring to a thing that exist. Chemical reactions occur, but is not a thing that exist.
Rodney Burton Can you be any more dishonest. I never said a moral action was a action that had a larger positive effect on the majority. I never said a larger positive effect. I also never said anything about a majority. Again, and maybe you could actually not lie about what I said this time. I said I would define a moral action as a action that increases the collective well being of everything in the universe. So my question to you is, a action that would horribly degrade and harm, kill, and demean a portion of the population who had done nothing wrong increase of decrease the collective well being of everything in the universe. I would say it decrease well being, and by my definition of a moral action, that would not be a moral action. My next question did hitler's action in the holocaust increase or decrease the collective well being of everything in the universe. I would say it decrease the well being, and by my definition of a moral action, his actions in the holocaust were not moral actions. Regardless of what Hilter's logic was, In my opinion, it decrease the collective well being. In addition it does not really change anything if you believe a action is moral or unmoral. If I shoot you in the leg. All the scientific evidence, and scientific method confirm to a high degree of certainty, your well being will decrease. If you believe it is a moral action to just shoot someone in the leg, it still decrease the well being of that person. By your own bible, that you claim is the word of god, you believe slavery is moral, stoning kids to death is moral, genocide is moral, and a lot more unmoral things are moral. By your own logic, slavery, stoning kids to death, and a lot more is or was a moral action at one time, and it was moral because a god, that you have no evidence exist, says so. You have no method, no system of determining what is, or what is not a moral action. Maybe you should actually read the whole bible, and stop being dishonest about what it says.
Jason Roelle Please pardon my lack of clarity. What I meant to say is simply that if something is "moral" if it increases the "well being of the universe" then you can do absolutely anything so long as the final result is more "well being". The ends would justify any means. For example, let's say I do get shot in the leg for no reason; decreasing the well being of the universe by 1, however if my being shot for some reason has the end result of three other people being helped a lot, it could increase the well being of the universe by 3. So in the end, my being shot for no reason increased the universe's well being by two, making it a "moral" action by your definition. And of course, as we know, it would be a very immoral action.
Rodney Burton You said "let's say I do get shot in the leg for no reason". By you saying "no reason", without more detail, I would have to assume you were not decrease the well being of others, and in that case the action of shooting you in the leg for no reason, would decrease the collective well being, and by definition, which I should say guideline, instead of definition, would be a unmoral action. If you went into a bank, and started shooting people, and the police shot you in the leg so you would stop decreasing a greater number of peoples well being, then you already have at that time. that would not be decreasing the collective well being. So in this situation, The police shooting you in the leg to stop you from shooting more people, would not be a unmoral action. When talking about well being, we can form general guideline, like life in generally preferable to death, pleasure is generally preferable to death, etc. From these general guideline, we can form more complex, and more detailed guidelines, from looking at different situations. Regardless, what we call a action a moral or unmoral action, that action does increase or decrease the collective well being. Slavery is not illegal because a god said it was unmoral. Again if you believe that what the bible said we should do are moral actions, you would believe slavery is moral, beating your slave almost to death as long as they live for two days, believe stoning kids to death is moral, believe genocide is moral, and more actions of the god in the bible, that you would say is unmoral, is moral.
When I say that being shot in the leg resulted in others being helped, I don't mean for a direct reason; I mean for a random unrelated reason. Like the old example in chaos theory; a butterfly flaps its wings in Africa, causing a caribou to sneeze, causing a massive stampede, very slightly altering wind patterns, which changes the course of a cloud, causing it to rain in your town. Say someone shoots me, and this in a random chain of events leads to others being helped; that would then be a "moral action" by your definition. Or let's even be simpler. Stealing is wrong. However is "anything that increases well being" is "moral" then it would be "moral" to steal from a rich person and give it to the poor who need the money much more than he does.
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"Running on the fumes", reminds me of a quote by Swiss theologian, Emil Brunner, "The feeling for the personal and the human which is the fruit of faith may outlive for a time the death of the roots from which it has grown. But this cannot last very long. As a rule the decay of religion works out in the second generation as moral rigidity and in the third generation as the breakdown of all morality. Humanity without religion has never been a historical force capable of resistance. "
Thank you, Fr. Barron, for this thoughtful reflection. I just want to add something that is implicit in what you said about drinking water=hydration of body=support of life, etc.: we do this because our bodies do not belong to us. They belong to God.
Go father Barron,you rock !! Keep up the good work !!
Right on - Fr. Barron - Right on. What some people are forgetting is that Faith is a form; that if missing from a person changes their perception on morality. And I am not saying the faithless can not have morality; it is just sharpened and more precise with the faithful. Thus, making the faithful more accountable in the end for their actions.
The Bishop's assertions amount to a logical fallacy and conjecture. Additionally, there are many examples within biblical scripture that call into question whether the God figure in the biblical narrative is actually behaving in a moral manner.
It depends on the standard with which you begin your judgment.
@@Lerian_V
By the standards of logic and reason, not by the substandard associated with a unsubstantiated supernatural dimension and mysticism.
Keep up your videos father. :) love them all
Your very pretty:)
Blake Harvey Thank you :)
I love this .... My spirit continues to expand.... Please continue making videos!
Awesome comentary, Father!
It was the one that I was waiting for!!
I like it that the notion of God here is very much like the philosopher's notion of God as that of the infinite or the unconditional or that which nothing greater can be thought of (the Anselmian name). A very beautiful and informative video, Father :)
Thank you, fr Barron for your great service! I want you to know that your videos have been used in classes at my school, st Paul's school, one of the very few catholic schools in Norway. I have learned a lot from them, and so I can forward the Truth wherever I can. Being a teacher for those who are to receive their first communion, I can for a fact say that your videos have done something for the little catholic part of Norway. Your videos explain matters very well, and they are reaching out to both believers and doubters, keeping catholic foothold in Norway for years to come.
Thank you, father. Make a trip to Norway soon. To Selja, the birthplace of the catholic church in Norway, where we are trying to rebuild a benedictian monastery. To Trondheim, where holy Olav rested until the reformation - one of the five great pilgrim-trips from old - to the church Nidarosdomen, and to Stiklestad, where he died in battle 1033. He was baptized in 1014, 1000 years ago.
The Church in Norway is doing a lot to grow. We have come far, but there is still a long way to go. Your lectures would give us a boost for sure.
Thank you father. Bless you, your film crew and your work.
A very nice general introduction to Catholic Moral Theology, Fr. Barron. I'd like very much to see you build upon this video with another one exploring the more concrete, practical side of things. And by that, I mean not only the corporal, but also the spiritual works of mercy. In fact, the 14 works of mercy would be a great subject for a whole series. (Hint, hint...)
God and God alone determines whether acts are right or wrong good or bad. Why? because the Creator is the "umpire" and the creatures are the "players". We didn't create the "game" of life; we just "play" it. Great video Fr. Barron!
Why should God alone decide what is right and wrong? You are submitting to divine command theory, Might means right. That is not a moral frame work.
nitelite78 Only God, the source of all that is good, the source of perfect goodness can judge because He alone loves us without question and more than anyone else. The sacrifice of His only son is proof of that love. His laws lead us to all we seek, that is why He like any good father will admonish us when we seek what will do us harm. We are all his beloved children, and God wants us to choose to love Him. Heaven is choosing God, eternity with God. You are free to choose eternity without God, we call that hell. Satan and his fallen angels made such a choice. Hell never existed until they needed a place to spend eternity without God. But choosing God is more a Carrot & stick approach, you can avoid Hell, but you INHERIT Paradise. You are not to be a servant or a slave, you are called to be son or a daughter of the Most Royal King there shall ever be, and INHERIT all that is beyond human imagination to comprehend. You may want to turn away from that, but not me. I'll happily let God decide what is right. He hasn't been wrong yet.
Nitelite......You state....."Why should God alone decide what is right and wrong?" So you are going to leave that decision making up to mankind?
You are kidding, right? Mankind....so full of evil and hate versus God....who is all love. Case closed.
Hana Hou and Mahalo Nui Father Barron! Bravo on sharing the Light of Christ.
In The Brothers Karamazov, The Devil appears to Ivan Fyodorovich in a nightmare, and describes what life will be like once God's existence has been completely denied. I just read part of the chapter again, thanks to Fr. Barron's quote, and what strikes me is how the Devil's description fits our modern times almost exactly.
Insightful.
Excellent video. If I'm understanding you correctly, it echoed some of my own understanding of how moral systems develop. Basically, morality is a function of what a person ultimately believes to be true. In a sense, it is truth put in verb form.
John, I think, articulates this quite nicely in 1 John 4, in which he draws the connection between the truth of Christ which is the love of God, and actualizing that truth in one's own behaviour (i.e.: v.7-8: "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love."). But it also holds for every other philosophical and religious view. Buddha saw that our illusory expectations kept us from Enlightenment and mired in suffering, so he proposed an Eightfold Path to draw us out of our illusions. Ayn Rand proposed that the individual is the highest order of being and therefore selfishness is the highest virtue. Communism adheres to Marx's historical dialectic and so sees the global revolution as the highest good. And so on.
I mentioned a couple atheist philosophies in there (actually all three are atheist philosophies), but general pop-atheism in our culture is sort of interesting in this respect. Most atheists are, I think, the banal kind. By that I mean to reference Hannah Arendt's "The Banality of Evil" in which she deconstructed the trial of Adolf Eichmann and came to the conclusion that what allows evil to happen is not that "good men do nothing" but rather that people just act normally when acting normally means shuffling millions of people into death camps. The banality of atheism is to just go with the cultural flow without any serious moral compass. In a society living off the fumes of Christianity that works out okay, but it could be disastrous when some more vile philosophy takes over, as we are seeing with emergence of Capitalism as our dominant religion. That would seem to be in keeping with the concept of a gradual moral degradation.
New Atheism is put in a fun place of having moral precepts that are totally at odds with its fundamental worldview. Do New Atheists believe in morality? OH BOY DO THEY. They never f**king shut up about it... You can always rely on a New Atheist to have a ready condemnation of anyone who thinks or acts differently from themselves. The whole raison d'etre of their existence to is to complain about other people not reaching their own moral standards. Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens made a living doing that. And in New Atheism, the highest virtue is The Truth, at least as they perceive it to be. Thus the greatest moral offense is to be religious, since religion is The Lie. Dawkins even stated that raising a child religious (Catholic specifically) is a worse form of abuse than sexually molesting them, and that insanity only makes sense if you realize that to Dawkins, lying to a child is the worst possible thing you could do to them.
However, an atheist worldview is ultimately nihilistic, which means that The Truth has no moral value at all. NOTHING has moral value. There is no ultimate stopping point of things that are intrinsically good unto themselves. The universe doesn't care if you believe The Truth or not. Nature doesn't care whether or not you're religious, or whether a child was raised religiously. Evolution only weighs in on the reproductive success of belief or unbelief in God, with no respect to its truth value. Existence is the highest order of banality. New Atheism is inherently self-contradictory every time one of them opens their mouth to vomit up more tedious accusations about what bad, stupid people we are. A cold, empty, mechanical, naturalistic cosmos doesn't give a damn about how bad and stupid we are. The only coherent atheist moral philosophy is nihilism, because it is the only one that respects the ultimate truth of the atheist claim.
Whew, got off on a rant there. Thus, I would argue that belief in any kind of morality at all NECESSITATES belief in a Divinity as you describe, who is unconditioned Truth, unconditioned Goodness, unconditioned Beauty and unconditioned Love. I'm glad for banal atheists and as entertained by New Atheists as I am frustrated by them, but any serious concept of morality has to end up at a genuine Beginning.
Here, here!
***** Agreed: God is the only solid justification for liberalism and human rights.
Mark Esposito And typical of your behaviour, you've steamrolled into something without paying *any* attention whatsoever to the context, on top of which you've just heaped on the self-promoting mythology of Enlightenment rationalism. Good job.
Mark Esposito the notion of having any worth comes from a purpose which comes ultimately from a God, unreligious people can go from their conscience but that gets warped with the culture there is no solid grounding , other cultures that didn’t operate on individual human rights didn’t have any reason to do so except practical , so that feature was on arbitrary one which could easily went out the window and changed with the times, the lack of the movement being catholic literally has no impact on the points because this is specifically about theism and atheism , so his points are still solid
I would ask you all to pray for God’s help to lead His Church to end the Homelessness/Drug Addiction Crisis. This could be a public repentance for the priest sexual abuse scandal. People might give God a second chance if His faithful did good and publicly repented.
Father Barron, I've watched most of your videos and as a practicing, but somewhat (let's say) hesitant Catholic, I've mostly agreed. However, one thing that gnaws at me in these sort of morality videos is the following:
Both a religious person and an atheist (or non-religious) can agree on moral truths that are good in themselves, e.g. we all have the right to live as free people (not slaves). As you would likely say, we agree because this society has been built around Christian values, and even those who do not believe are still "running on the fumes" of Christianity.
But if some of us are practicing Christians and some of us are just "running on the fumes" wouldn't it be the case that we would see a more rapid devolution of civilization in those areas and among those people not running on "high test" Christianity (extending your metaphor a bit)? Yet, in places like northern New England, which you pointed out previously to be the most un-churched part of the country, society is not crumbling. It seems to me that they are doing relatively well. In countries like Finland, where people are largely non-religious, a culture of care and support seems to have emerged. Within academia (my field) people who are largely non-religious are very concerned with social justice and reaching out to the underprivileged. At a personal level some of my friends who are the most adamantly non-religious also have chosen social justice-aligned careers, like a friend of mine who is a public defender.but could be making five times her salary as a corporate lawyer.
Now, I have some thoughts about this, but I wanted to get your perspective. It's very hard to make the case that we need God to support our moral beliefs to people who are, in fact, deeply moral.
Thank you in advance.
Jon
Changing a societies moral system is slow. It takes a long time for morals to disintegrate
blablabubles Wow, cool that someone picked up on this four months later. Father Barron is clearly very busy, he hasn't released a video for a while.
Becoming a religious person doesn't make you human. Becoming an atheist doesn't make you less human. the Image of God which we were created by is still within us. Saying that I'm not a Christian but still believe that murder is bad doesn't really mean anything or change anything, because either you acknowledge it or not that's just the image of God in you still at work. Saying Truth is good, or God is good, is basically saying the same thing.
God didn't start existing when the Bible was written, God existed before everything, He simple revealed himself a lot clearer in the Bible.
Por favor, ponga más videos subtitulados en español... Me gusta mucho sus reflexiones. Saludos.
I love how Father tries to simplify a difficult topic. The way I see it. If anyone is a history buff, it's easy to see how humans have been very destructive towards each other when they are allowed to determine what they deem "right" in their own views; which is now described as Moral relativism. And that's because of Man's tendency to be self serving. Look at all the different examples of genocide. Those committing genocide have determined that what they did was deemed "right". Man does not have a good track record for living harmoniously with each other which is exemplified by the first murder of Able by his brother Cain. From then till now, man has failed in creating a civilization free of actions that degrade, and destroy the value of their fellow neighbor. It's so clear to me that we need God...
Hitler thought he was doing "right" and pope supported him. Idk, sound like an argument against religion.
Belief in a supernatural dimension and mysticism is a lighter form of psychosis.
It's a manifestation of anxiety and fear in a world we don't fully understand.
@@jholsapple2918
I agree with your comment but I would go even further than that.
Hello father barron
I am from Guatemala one day curiously I saw a serie catolisismo on EWTN impressed me so much how you speak, i really investigate and find you, fortunately I know the English language, but sometimes there are words that i dont understand what I look on youtube its awesome!!! and there are super-extraordinary issues that could help me and I really would like to understand to share in this society that need to know what the church is, please double their videorecorders to Spanish and other languages that are very valuable. Greetings from Guatemala, and God bless you !
RB should reflect deeply on the notion of Platonic Realism. The problems of source and existence evaporate in the face of PR.
There is no need for God in PR.
Let there be light becomes an expression of the axioms underpinning our PR. It's a beautiful intuition that has likely been horribly disfigured and reconfigured into the edifice of religion.
His Excellency, Bishop Robert Barron does have a good and valid point. And I agree ☝️ with him 100 %. I don’t want atheists atheists to get the wrong idea. I’m not saying that atheists don’t have morals. Even his holiness, Pope Francis says that any atheist does a good thing like helping people out. Then they can gain access to Heaven. And I agree with Pope Francis also.
Also, Stephen Keillor, in Prisoners of Hope, says:
The initial act of eliminating our Creator God from our thinking is so immoral and unethical in itself as to render the following concern with ethical fine points quite absurd. It's as if students were to murder the teacher and then sit down to have serious discussions about proper manners in the classroom.
That is silly.
We are born without knowledge of God, it is our basic human function to think logically.
If God has provided enough resources that are doubtful, the burden of blame is not us, it is God.
Until God can rebuild his reputation, there is no reason why we cannot doubt his existence.
I think we need these disciplined conversations about moral principles. In so much discourse, people react based on their feelings and dump abuse on those who see things differently. I am concerned our society's moral sense is already eroding.
Father Baron could possibly in a future video shed some light on the demoralization of society that is being taught in some "Catholic" universities such as De Paul? And why nothing seems to be being done about it? And what should or could be done about it? Great video by the way, thanks.
Father, I am not big philosophy guy. However, thought the video was well done and very thought out and brought to life in easy to understand manner.
The most recent issue of "New Scientist," (6 May 2016), the prestigious British publication that covers science for lay audiences, and for scientists interested in areas outside of their immediate areas of expertise, has published a most interesting article on the rise of "moralising" religions. In his article on page 34, evolutionary psychologist Nicolas Braumard discusses the evidence that those systems of supernaturalism that postulate a "watchful god" that oversees human actions and then rewards "good" people and punishes "bad" is a rather recent invention in human history.
The article makes for fascinating reading. Even more interesting is the editorial on page 5. Quoting from it: "Some people worry that without moral guidance, anarchy will ensue. [Based on the Braumard evidence] They need not worry: we will do good without it."
Fascinating. Again, SCIENCE INFORMS EVERYTHING!
Are you an atheist? I'm an agnostic.
"Some people worry that without moral guidance, anarchy will ensue. They need not worry: we will do good without it."
I do not worry, because there is no moral guidance to be had. It's funny, you're willing to load the gun but not pull the trigger on what you are suggesting, that if "evolution" put our morality in place, then there is no such thing. So close to not worshiping a god ... yet so far. This is why the religious charge atheists with believing in god, and they have a point.
If you look at someone like levinas, he affirms that "the priority of the Other" transpierces me without my choice, he even uses language like "the Other is holding me hostage" etc. but he locates that in subjectivity itself. In fact if you look at that relation from a third person perspective you've destroyed it and consigned yourself to instrumentality. Point being (and levinas was a theist of course) that the moral experience can be an "absolute fact" while still taking place in the horizon of subjective experience (Kant as well).
Dear Bishop, Many thanks for your many presentations. Could you do one on "guilt in a post-Christian world"?
Could you explain what you mean by that?
@@Lerian_V The dictionary defines guilt as "fact" or "feeling". I interpret "fact" as meaning in the Christian sense that we are endowed with consciences, and an innate sense of right or wrong; If we seek to follow Christ, we may(I emphasise may) have a more lively conscience than if we are non-believers. With guilt as "feeling" we are in the world of our senses: we feel guilt perhaps because we've been taught to; if we wish to be happy, we should divest ourselves of these feelings; we should live to "happiness", however individually we define it. There is a problem here: in Les Caves du Vatican, André Gide has his hero open the train door on a man leaning out of the w
Lerian V: am interested in the feedback. My name is my name, and you can find me on google;
@@jonathanstory6802 Do these touch on the subject?
Conscience: th-cam.com/video/HYvbgOTGm7g/w-d-xo.html
Judgement: th-cam.com/video/BWEi3sRoMUQ/w-d-xo.html
God & Morality: th-cam.com/video/YgGxaEqlYhE/w-d-xo.html
Today folks can see all types of Truth, Justice, and The American Way. Corporate architecture has branded a homogenized modern day logo version of the 7 swords of the heart, the scales of justice, the infinite pillar's of 11. I saw this ASCII at a 7-11 when picking up a carbonated soda pop.
Job 7:11
New King James Version (NKJV)
11 “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
what about the people who have never heard of jesus ? im curious
Excellent commentary as always Father. I noticed something too, in referencing Dostoyevsky to counter atheist arguments do I detect a hint of inspiration from Henri de Lubac's "The Drama of Atheist Humanism"? :-)
In my opinion this kind of discussion reduces spiritual life to mere morality in sense of avoiding moral transgressions. I think as Christians we are aiming higher for sanctity. This can not be achieved without God.
God is exactly what he is talking about . "God is Good" "Christ is the Truth" "God is Love" "God is Holy" are all scriptural. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
Ironically --- there IS a connection between morality and belief in God. Both are acts of human creation. My view as an atheist is that all along human beings have been creating things --- including ideas, art, values, methods of communication and representation of the world, theories, mathematics, etc. Language has fueled that creativity and made it possible for human beings to share their creativity and to build upon it collectively and forward in time across generations. Before the onset of scientific thinking and methods, the modes of thinking and expression were limited. Religion was the only "game" in town before science and provided the near entirety of the available concepts and notions with which to describe nature and Man. Morals and values were being created and constructed long before the scientific revolution (and the introduction of many new ideas and facts about the world --- and ways to probe it) --- so they necessarily were expressed in terms of the available language and framework of thinking, which was religion. It's understandable and natural that Mankind at this earlier stage would connect morality (and art and music and many other things) to religion and even go as far as positing that morality and values CAME FROM a supernatural source, not recognizing clearly the possibility that it was being fashioned from scratch by thinking creatures on-the-fly and iteratively across generations. This an utterly plausible scenario (I think even RB would have a hard time arguing that Man has NO capacity to create morals and values by thought alone --- as he would have trouble denying many other of Man's impressive creations) with FEWER GEARS. Enter Occam's Razor --- are morals and values the creation of thinking creatures (as above) or do we ADD the feature of a divine external source? The first is not only plausible, but more parsimonious.
It isn't surprising that believers have a low view of human creativity and intelligence --- our limits and innate faultiness is literally written into the framework of their thinking. It's a small leap from this pessimism and under-rating of Mankind to the perspective the human beings could not possibly have invented morals and values on their own and that absent religion a toxic relativism will always prevail (and this forms part of the utilitarian argument for religion --- which is one of the weakest arguments overall vs the issues of objective reality of God and historical accuracy of religious texts like the Bible).
The history of Man tells a different and more optimistic story. From the Atheist's perspective, Man has been formulating and iteratively adjusting morals and values all along --- beginning in a simple and poorly formed state and absolute relativism to much more finely tuned versions (present). The atheist also recognize the interplay of religious and moral concepts during that process (as above). That does not mean or prove, however, that the notion of a supernatural source of morality is correct --- all history shows us is that the evolution of religious thinking is tangled with the evolution of manmade morals and values. The two deliberately entangled by the religious to prop up the necessity of religion itself.
It's true that relaxing a hard and enforced rule of thought that morals are absolute and divinely supplied can be a difficulty. If we strip away the mental machinery that links morality and values from religion (requiring humans to KNOW they are truly tasked to think for themselves), a sort of cognitive freefall results. Under those conditions it IS possible that humans latch onto destructive ideas and things crash --- but it also possible that they use their heads to arrive at a sane and beneficial framework of values ON THEIR OWN. Sure, it's a risky business (and we've been doing it all along with some success and many failures) --- but at least it's conducted FREELY and with our eyes open.
And this gets to it: religion appeals to many because it excuses Man the task of determining his own rules of the game (and excuses Man's awareness that this is the reality of things -- a scary thing unto itself). It's understandable that human beings would prefer not to invent morality (fearing making mistakes --- and doing the hard work of achieving consensus) and just read commandments. But that's lazy and a form of submission and self-induced enslavement. Liberated human beings recognize that we are truly in freefall and have been from the start --- and realize that we must have the courage to face the wind and build our own parachutes, rise or fall -- but freely so.
Father, something that I struggle with is how can we assume that there is morality. If there were no God then nothing would have any moral value in any true sense. Only in the sense of something being for the betterment and survival of the species. For example you say that life is a good thing in itself. How can we draw that conclusion? What is goodness? If there is no God, "goodness" does not exist.
Therefore no moral value can be attached to any action. I suppose what I am struggling with is more a question of God's existence and I am hoping in someway that it can be argued through moral truths. But can it?
please watch th-cam.com/video/dWNW-NXEudk/w-d-xo.html
Father, how would you respond to Euthyphro's dilemma?
I find that many atheists equate God being the source of morality as saying that Might makes right. I dont know how true this is, but I saw a Video that acknowledges is that Gods Trinitarian nature is the basis of his goodness. In the sense of the self giving love is the very essence of his goodness. However I think that much of how God is presented, particularly in Fundamentalist circles is just a pagan monotheism where God is no different than say Zeus. And the fruits of this false conception show in much of the self righteous behavior in their circles.
In my experience with atheists as well as fellow Catholics who follow the Church teachings they like and ignore those they dislike, I've found that their use of their own logic will, in fact, guide them to agreement with the Church... until that agreement becomes uncomfortable. So the Catholic mother who strongly feels that fornication is immoral will suddenly change her mind once her children move in with their partners and now proclaims that we all need to be more "Progressive" about life.
It's interesting to observe other faiths such as Islam or Buddism where the entire structure of ones faith begins from that faith in the center of ones life, and the community as a whole share in that. Unfortunately, American Christianity fail in the same thing that makes them great. The western mind compartmentalizes their religion as a "part" of them, rather than extending out from the core of which from every act is recognized to origin from. We've diversified so much that we leave only ourselves at the center and everything revolves around us and we allow that of each other. But in the midst, God is lost from that center.
Father Barron, if you could only say one thing about Catholicism, what would it be? I'm a cradle Catholic but sometimes it just seems too darn complicated!
Bishop Sheen wrote a number of books, in one I read awhile ago he said we seek God for three reasons. We want life so much that we will extend an arm in the darkness to lose it rather than our life. Life is found in perfection only in God, any life that ends is imperfect, God is eternal life. Bishop Sheen said. Reason 2 is knowledge, and the history of man is an unending search for wisdom, we travel into space or to the ocean depths to know. Total Knowledge, true wisdom is found only in God, and the last of course is Love, not lust, not the take what you want kind of love of this world, but the sacrificial kind that gives up being God to becoming a creature like man, and then dying, all to save the beloved and do the will of the beloved. Love is found in perfection only in God. Catholicism is the complete truth of God that leads to you getting these three things forever. Boiling it down to a simple sentence may be possible, but I've never heard of it. Fr. Barron offers much that helps, another excellent source Dr. Scott Hahn former Catholic Hater Bible scholar.
Thanks buddy! Appreciate it.
One can believe in irreducible foundational values without the unnecessary add-on of anything supernatural.
The discussion of morality leaves out the weakness of men morally. We seek the animal instinct, and self gratification for food, greed, sex, etc. The human may at times wish to reign in his own lusts and appetites, but finds himself incapable of controlling those lusts inevitably. One or the other ends up controlling the person. God the invisible source of good, and true morality grants to each the invisible but very powerful 'grace' needed to actually be good. This is what atheists miss, they think they don't need God, when in fact everyone needs grace to achieve good, even atheists. Believers seek God because it is from God that we become capable of anything, without God we are an unfinished work of art, grotesque because the hand of the artist left us unfinished.
By the way I want to say that I'm very impressed by the genial tone of the comments here. Perhaps its our pictures next to our names (having a kid in a photo probably makes it less likely to get flamed), or maybe it is Father Barron's thoughtful approach. Either way, cheers!
I'd ask RB -- is it possible that Mankind created morals, values, and the model of the universe that includes a God from scratch? If not --- why not? What is the convincing argument that none of it could be Man's creation? I don't see how this possibility can be firmly set aside and not doing so, leaving the door wide open to reinterpret the entire story of religion from start to present.
It's not sufficient to say "The Bible Told Me So" --- that's a child's explanation. Let's hear something more substantial and disconnected from assumptions drawn from a book.
I wonder if it's possible to predict people's religious beliefs from their behavior. That seems to be what Fr B is implying. Say you're Big Brother (or the NSA) and you know everything everyone does but none of their thoughts or motives. Could you guess who's the non-believers & who's religious from their actions alone?
Thank you for your comments on natural law. I was wondering how these comments could be strengthened vis-a-vis anti-transhumanist arguments. Transhumanists posit that humanity just has to get beyond the natural to what we can be through technology (a possible cultural connection can be to Captain America movies).
the fact that God commanded his people to kill children with fire in Leviticus 21:9 creates a moral contradiction between the OT God and the NT Jesus, and the contradiction continues to exist whether or not atheists are unable to account for morality.
What I find fascinating, was when you said Good is the name given of your tradition to the good. This is exactly where I agree with you. I do not think most prior (including you fr.) get it. Christianity is no just theism that belongs to those that agree that Jesus died for them, it is the culture of western Europeans. Let me explain.
Jesus himself who was a Jew, would have never condoned anyone creating a Deity out of him, nor moving away from Judaism. Judaism was the vehicle that his heavenly Father used to communicate with his people.
The fact that some schmok partook in the eventual condemnation of Jesus that led to his being crucified, does not automatically mean he would condone anyone to begin another religion. He was a Jew and died as a Jew. The fact that Christians claim that Jesus died for our sins, implies that he (Jesus) actually came to due. It would not have mattered what anyone did to save themselves, Jesus was going to die for their sins anyway. Blaming the entire Jewish race for the death of Jesus that came to die for his petiole anyway, was wrong and disgusting.
Add you know, it was the doctrine of the church that the Jews were to blame. This doctrine was not changed until the 60s. Well, let me not digress to much.
Constantine of Rome was the one that integrated Christianity into Ronan political system. Majority of the different denominations of Christianity are basically European culture. Therefore, when we say Christianity, we are really talking about western European culture.
Yorubas of Nigeria, West Africa have their own religion that speaks of their understanding of God. Moreover, their religion authenticates them and their ancestors. The Yoruba religion uses Yoruba language, Yorubas names, Yoruba ancestors. In essence, Yoruba religion makes the Yorubas complete. Yoruba religion says the black man is the most important.
Now imagine the imposition of Christianity on the black person. Do you not think the black soul will be lost forever as he is trying desperately to live up to western European Christian culture? He is not white, then how can he be Christian.
I am sure the good father will somehow rationalize why the black person should follow his European culture, which continues to erode his (the black person) soul.
Now what is your answer.. , Father?
+Akindele Bankole too much dang writing to read
+Elias Lucero No problem. Simply ignore it if it is too long for you.
Glad you realised it sooner than later.
Thanks
lol. thanks
Giggity Giggity
Heck of a sweater.
SIN is the problem. Always has been, always will be.
Fr., would I be right to say your position is that morality is inherent in human beings?
If the ontology of God is inherently goodness itself, and we are made in the image of God, then no one can be separated from morality. The demand from the theist of the nonbeliever to profess the ontology of God does not change the fact that the nonbeliever is inherently moral.
The demand from the believer, of the nonbeliever's thoughts and belief level is merely a means for the believer to take control of the mind of the nonbeliever.
Is it not, farther?
I enjoyed this video very much. I largely agree that the belief in god has had a beneficial effect on the behaviour of people and its removal can have a negative effect. But this has little to do with morality and more to do with obedience for fear of reprisal. Fr Barrons stance that the removal of this belief will always have, in the long run, a relativising effect is unsubstantiated. Fr Barron refers to Peter Hitchens and I assume he means his book contra his brother’s position. In this book P Hitchens argues the case Barron is suggesting but actually manages only to demonstrate the dehumanising effects of prolonged exposure to a system which values the group over the individual and encourages loyalty to the hierarchy over empathy with our fellow humans.
The regress of causation that Fr Barron suggest as an analysis of actions ends in a basic, or irreducible, value which has existence independent from us. The alternative view is found in his second example, of drinking water because we’re thirsty. In this example Fr Barron takes the regress past the simple point of survival to ask for a reason for our urge to survive and in doing so gives the game away. Try not drinking and you will easily see that the reason we drink is not found in any rationalisation for drinking but purely in the need to drink. Our actions can usually be traced back to either biological needs or emotional drives, which in turn are driven by chemical rewards in the brain.
Through studying the behaviour of other species we can derive the possibility that our own species has developed along similar lines. Gradually the drives for certain behaviours have been selected for: the drive to nurture our young; the drive to favour family members; to favour group members; then nations and so on. All the time the species has been developing the ability to empathise. With this ability in place the basic values are easier to rationalise. It is also easier to understand history with respect to our clearly changing ideas of what constitutes moral behaviour and attitudes (for instance the killing of the innocent which Fr Barron cites.) Outwith this idea we must be seen as working our way *towards* a fixed, unchanging ideal. I don’t think that history bears this out; rather we work our way *away* from perceived ills and all the time we are working with a mixture of our own feelings of empathy and our own powers of reason.
Fr Barron is painting a dichotomy of choice between basic values that have independent existence and complete relativism. I’m sure someone of Fr Barrons education knows this to be an inaccurate account of the possibilities. I can only assume that, like other apologists, it suits his purposes to do so.
“God is the name we give to these fundamental moral goods in their unconditioned form.” (@ about 8min.) This is another way of saying “I acknowledge our basic drives as inherited by evolution but I choose to name them God.” This is much easier to grasp than the complexities of how we became the species we are (a study which is only really just beginning) but ease of understanding does no service to the desire for truth which Fr Barron espouses.
Your point about the drinking, I think, is spot on. We don't need to rationalize why drinking is good, we do it because we have a biological urge to. Similarly we probably don't need to rationalize why not killing an innocent child is bad, we have evolved such that this has become self-evident.
But, I think there is a limit to this sort of reasoning. Even the most "nativist" of thinkers must concede that our biological constraints are certainly not sufficient for a robust morality. So, from a secular perspective, we might, from here take a utilitarian approach: find out what is important to people and create a system that maximizes that thing (happiness, satisfaction, joy, love, freedom, whatever) across as many people as possible.
I mostly think this perspective is right, simply in terms of how we should create a well-functioning democracy. However, it is somewhat incomplete in that even a highly mechanistic utilitarian system must be built around some values and constraints. If we are trying to maximize people's satisfaction with life, is my satisfaction as important as yours? Does it have to be? What if your satisfaction is more likely to lead to other people's satisfaction, giving you a "bigger bang for your buck"? In the end what's the value in helping the homeless drug addict, or the disabled, or the elderly - they are sort of dead ends in the utilitarian scheme. Religion, in this system, represents a (valuable, I believe) kind of intuitive evaluation system that tells us that our utopian schemes are going out of wack.
I don't mean to put words in your mouth about utlitarianism, you certainly could have other perspectives. But, I think the same could be applied to any constructed moral system (e.g. communism).
Jonathan Vitale I agree that this is not enough to account for morality by itself and I also agree that any constructed system of morality or set of laws must have some way of being checked and balanced.
I see morality as an emergent phenomenon, as emerging “organically” out of our interactions with others in our group, our group’s interactions with other groups etc.
It seems to me we are built of only our emotions, senses, imagination and reasoning. In nearly every case I can think of our senses come first, our reaction is emotional, our reasoning comes after and our imagination enables us to do something more with the results.
When considering morality our emotional reaction is to our interactions with other people and social situations - without interaction it is hard to imagine something like morality developing. Whenever we attempt to rationalise why something is wrong it is always after the fact of having felt it to be wrong. When we attempt to discuss with someone the morality of a given situation we are trying to find a way of affecting a change in their feelings about it by use of example and reason, and they us. Similarly when someone acknowledges that some action is right but doesn’t understand why, it is usually possible to explain this to them in such a way as they will then feel that thing to be right. Only then can we say they morally agree with it; before that their following of the instruction was a matter of obedience. When we construct systems of morality we are doing it in the light of our already having feelings about what is correct behaviour and attempting to help ourselves analyse some new or puzzling scenario. If we were to rely solely on our reason to decide morality we could go, indeed have gone, very wrong. However if we were to rely solely on our own emotions to guide us we could go equally wrong. I believe the often forgotten part is that we are not solitary creatures and our morality is dependent on interactions with others.
Morality appears to function as group behaviour (group = family, village, country, group of countries or a whole planet; basically any set of people that are in a position to have some influence on at least one other member.) Each member has their own set of reactions to situations. Within this group there will be out-liers (suffragettes, civil rights activists, vegetarians, sexists, socialists, fascists, psychopaths etc), people who have noticeably different opinions (based on their own reactions) about some issue or other. By interaction these opinions can affect the opinions of other members of the group. This can only happen on an individual basis; each person changes their opinion as they find their emotional reaction being changed by exposure to either the situation itself or to reasoned argument about the situation (or, unfortunately, the rhetoric of a gifted speaker.) So by its nature change is a gradual process but the ability to change is essential. In such a scenario the group morality has the built in ability to change and progress (or regress of course) and doesn’t rely on complete consistency to form its laws and guidelines, which ideally should be slightly “ahead of the curve” once the general direction of the drift has been recognised.
It is possible to scrutinise the overall drift of morality and try to assemble guiding principles, like Equality or the Golden Rule or Kant’s Categorical Imperative, but each person’s opinion on each situation will still be guided firstly by their emotional reaction to it and only afterwards be rationalised to fit some outside rule, or checked against it. Constructed systems of morality tend to be attempts to describe and analyse how we already behave rather than prescribing how we should behave (although there have been exceptions to this.) Any set of laws must have in it the ability to change as the morality of the group they govern changes. A set of laws which doesn’t have this built into it or a system of morality which must be adhered to regardless of our shifting emotional and intellectual reaction to new data is a recipe for disaster.
I apologise that this has been so long but it is a fascinating subject. I thank you for reading this far. : )
TabletopJoe33 I read your whole post - but please don't do that to me again, I'm supposed to be working! (As you can see, I have no right to complain...)
I think in your second to last paragraph you implicitly highlight an issue which I Fr. Barron addresses. I think you are making the case that our morality is subjective and we tend to utilize some principle or idea to justify our actions retroactively. As our attitudes change our "principles" change with them. Yes, this is largely the case, but is it always healthy (for society) and it is it necessary?
Couldn't it and shouldn't it be the case that some principles are not subject to change, even in the face of "new data"? It seems to me that if a principle can be changed, it was never a principle in the first place. What would change is our application of principles. For example, as we learn through neuroscience that animal brains are similar in function to human brains, we might begin to apply some of our moral principles to non-humans (e.g. it is right to ease suffering).
The trouble is that if we chose to abandon principles because our interests change, we may drift in quite unhealthy directions. For example, our principle that each person is of equal value, I believe, is a fundamentally religious idea - certainly not scientific (or at least in any way measurable that I know of, I do educational research). While we might both agree in this principle the important question is what will keep us anchored to this idea?
[edited for grammar]
Jonathan Vitale Interesting questions and difficult questions to articulate my thoughts on so again this may be long and my apologies for that.
I don't think we go straight from our feelings about things to general principles. General principles can only be developed over time once we see a larger pattern of behaviour. To change a general principle we would need to change all those other smaller behaviours.
We are regularly encouraged to make exceptions to our general principles, for instance in the case of certain races or certain groups within our society, but even if we succumb to this appeal the general principle still applies to the rest of society so can still be argued from by those who disagree. In effect it only takes one person to spread an idea.
Can you imagine a situation where the principles of equality or empathy, for instance, were completely abandoned? Now that we've got here, I find it hard. If it happened it would be in response to dire circumstances. Have you read the book, or seen the film, The Road? The ending, where they speak of "carrying the light", is essentially religious imagery. When Fr Barron speaks of "fundamental moral goods in their unconditioned form" he is speaking in much the same way and I take it as another, symbolic way of describing the actual situation.
In a way I do think it a benefit for many to be able to talk about the good in such a way. It is a difficult thing to express how we function in relation to morals. I personally find the "We don't work towards rights but away from wrongs" of Dershovitz to be a descriptively accurate way of expressing the actual function but it hasn't yet found its way into the public mind. As yet it is more descriptive for many people to think in terms of a fixed idea of good.
If we were to have a body which represented the idea of good it would, I believe, have to be intrinsically part of the process by which we have arrived at our current position. This, at the moment, appears to be the system of democratic law. If the responsibility for upholding the good was put in the hands of a body which was intrinsically not part of this process there would be no way to argue that the goods we have decided on, or the interpretation of the good, are the ones to be defended. Another body could equally argue that it has the correct interpretation and by the same logic we used to agree to one body we couldn't disagree with the other. We would have to fall back on the idea of the collective working of morals. Which is where we currently are, I believe.
The principle of universal equality is a quite recent achievement, not yet accepted everywhere and still quite fragile in the places where it is. There have been principles which were mostly held universally which have been usurped by our developing understanding of their inherent problems, for instance the divine right of kings. Would I have been a supporter of this at the time; depends on my place in the hierarchy I suppose. I certainly believe equal rights should be defended and spread as widely as possible and would never want to see the principle lost but what can we do, given the way morality appears to function, but to stand up for it. When the church does this it can only be a good thing. If the church chooses to say the good is something fixed and outside of us I can only say that that misrepresents how we have achieved the successes we have and misunderstands how we failed when we failed. Doing this I believe lays us open to making the same mistakes again.
I wish I had more time to better consider your questions and edit this accordingly but if I don't send it now etc ..... work is a terrible inconvenience at times, much as I love it.
Thank you 1140Cecile that was a very generous comment and I appreciate it.
I enjoyed the video but I have a simpler take. Despite their unbelief, atheists were created in the image of God just as Christians were. God breathed life into Adam, and thus we have the essence of God within us. So God's truth's and moral values are ingrained in all of us, despite belief or non-belief. Therefore while an atheist may claim that people can act ethically and morally without belief in God, he/she simply cannot escape the framework of God's creation.
Firstly that would be implying that if the God exist, it would be a Christian God.
Christianity is not the first religion to claim their God is the sole creator.
Secondly, you are saying the God who set up a frame work is a God who wrote the bible which has some highly unreliable events (no other record of a man who can bring back life, or Egypt did not have slaves building pyramid etc).
If that is so, the framework of a Christian God is highly unlikely to be even close to be reliable.
The Bishop claims "there is a strong and important connection between morality and belief in God", but this ignores the many examples of religious men who have committed horrible crimes. The clergy pedophilia scandal is a prime example. If Christianity can't save the clergy, who can it save?
I think you are right in that belief in God doesn't make you a good person, but I think the distinction lies in fact that objective morality is a product of God (Its an intellectual idea). Concupiscence, or the idea that people will be tempted/drawn towards evil is a reality that all people, including that of the clergy. Being a clergy member doesn't exclude you from this group or exclude you from doing evil. When he says "there is a strong and important connection between morality and belief in God", he is referring specifically to the intellectual notion that only a first principle (God) can be the source of an objective morality. Thats why he later goes on to say that a non-belief in God tends towards a relativisation of truth/morality. But good question, i hope this made a little sense and I hope you respond because I would like to know your thoughts as wonder about your question a lot!
@@johnmccaffrey5663 I reject the idea that "objective morality is a product of God". This can't be the case given that the morality in the Bible is not the morality of today. We don't kill a son for being disrespectful, and we don't sell a daughter to the suitor who offers the most goats. People have an idea of the morality that comes from the Bible, but they are actually projecting the morals of today onto the Bible. Morality actually comes from a sense of empathy. We learn to treat others the way we wish to be treated. The greater point is that the idea is completely wrong that there is a connection between morality and belief in God. I have no doubt that many of the pedophile priests had a strong belief in God, but that didn't stop them.
@@gregvassilakos You're conflating an immoral act and the punishment for an immoral act. Dishonoring one's parents is always disrespectful. It still is. The punishment we use for such act has changed. It does not meant that capital punishment for such immoral act is immoral, ceteris paribus. Today, we may not severely punish someone who betrayed the country. But let's say tomorrow we are in a hot war with another country and we find a traitor, we will charge such person with treason and it would be totally legitimate to impose capital punishment as penalty.
@@Lerian_V 1. Today it is not considered immoral to disagree with one's father, but that was the case in biblical times. 2. I can't say whether pedophilia perpetrated by clerics was considered immoral in biblical times. Within the Catholic church, It evidently wasn't considered much of a crime a few decades ago; however, it certainly is considered immoral today. I'll return to what I stated previously about this. " If Christianity can't save the clergy, who can it save?"
Dialogue with God
Person: You give me this gift of life which I didn’t ask for but then expect me to do this, that and the other thing because of it. And if I don’t I’ll probably go to hell, right God? I mean, I can’t even turn the gift down (suicide) without some horrible consequence.
God: I love you and want to have a relationship with you.
Person: Well, what does it say about your love if the gift is flawed to begin with by original sin? I had nothing to do with any of that Adam & Eve stuff and now I’m at a considerable disadvantage. How just is that! Maybe you owe me an apology for creating me as a flawed human, God.
God: Yes, original sin didn’t involve you.
Person: Good, I can demand compensation… and maybe satisfaction.
God: Look, according to Anselm, satisfaction usually applies to me.
Person: Let me get this straight. You give me a severely flawed gift which I didn’t ask for, and then expect me to feel obliged to you and do everything you say. If I turn down this gift terrible things happen to me, right! But what you really want is a relationship with me, like the gift is some box of chocolates. I can’t say, “Thanks God, but I’m trying to cut back and I just got out of a bad relationship and need some space.” And if I don’t do what you say... I’m a goner.
God: This is for your own good.
Person: Of course you would say that… But see, you call all the shots, like some celestial dictator, and I either have to obey or suffer the terrible consequences. You say I’m free. Yes, I’m free to do what I want, but not free from the terrible repercussions that follow if I don’t do what you say. And what I want is to just live my life simply, without this added turmoil of whether I’m going to heaven or going to hell. I mean life is hard enough and I don’t need to complicate it with wondering if I’m bound for eternal damnation because I’m not in some lovey-dove relationship with a God that is pinning for me.
God: You’ve over simplified this.
That's really bad theology.
God: The gift I gave your ancestor he squandered, like your grandfather who had a fortune and then wasted it. Freedom is not nihilism. Free will is not anything goes and nothing counts.
You: But why cant I have an infinite number of do overs? it not fair?
God: because that always works in making you a petulant spoiled child. Hence you never develop character. Hence you never develop into a human being fully aware and alive. Check bios of the Saints for how do to this.
You: Yes, I’m free to do what I want, but not free from the terrible repercussions that follow if I don’t do what you say. And what I want is to just live my life simply, without this added turmoil of whether I’m going to heaven or going to hell. I mean life is hard enough and I don’t need to complicate it with wondering if I’m bound for eternal damnation because I’m not in some lovey-dove relationship with a God that is pinning for me.
God: What are you complaining about? Either you say to me "thy will be done" or I say to you "Thy will be done" don't whine that you are getting what you want.
A Escoto Did God say to Adam, "Look eat that apple and you and all your progeny will suffer horribly (original sin) for eons"? Did God say that to Adam so that Adam knew what the consequences of his actions were? No. Would a caring God or mother inflict this type harsh punishment on her son, on a son who ate an apple of all things? The crime doesn't match the punishment.
Blind Eye Jones its because your misunderstand the crime. It was not merely eating an apple. They were attempting to approbate for themselves the criteria of good and evil. To be like God, they were grasping at being like God
A Escoto
And what Mother or Father wouldn't want their sons and daughters to be like them, or to exceed them? Kids are a reflection of parental glory. You don't keep your kids in a state of permanent ignorance -- it reflects poorly on you. And it is natural for the sons and daughters to want to be like the parents, and even do better, so that the parents are proud are of them. It is easy to imagine that the kids were ambitious to please God that they could be like him and knew of nothing of the terrible consequences that would follow. God should have told them how displeased he would be with them -- but he didn't.
the weren't ambitious to please God, but themselves and in so doing they wanted to usurp his position, especially when He gave them everything, they wanted for nothing. They were able to walk with God in the cool evening. He specifically told them that on the day they eat of that tree, they will die. That was explicit, they cant feign ignorance. Their act was defiant and rebellious, taking unto themselves that which belonged to God.
Don't know any parent that is cool with a child taking the parent's rite to command the household. if you come home and discovered your child is trying to sell the house and they decided that your room is there room, and that they destroyed your furniture, There would be a serious issue
can you comment on Churchmilitant.TV's video "Father Barron is Wrong" ? I'm sure you've seen it.
I've responded to it over and over. Take a look at my videos on Hell.
+I'm with HIM It's so much fun when supernaturalists argue and each of them has exactly the same amount of verifiable evidence for their position: ZERO. NADA. ZILCH. ZIP
Don't take verses out of the context of the Bible. And don't take the Bible out of context of the society that gave birth to it.
To state to an atheist that there are absolute values, you are in for an argument. Plus, I dare say that 100% of these same people believe in evolution. Is it a fear of responsibility for one's actions and beliefs? Or is pride the bigger challenge to tame?
Perhaps I should have added a third expectation: These people are quick to be dis-respectful when they disagree with a religious belief system. So here is my challenge to you... prove scientifically using all the reasoning ability you claim to have that God does not exist.
The best evidence of a miracle is the resurrection of Jesus Christ witnessed by over 500 people.
The written testimony about the 30 year old man born crippled whom Jesus healed instantaneously...which was verified by his own parents who swore he was born a cripple, would meet the standard of truth in any court of law. Even so, without the eyes of faith, there is not way for you to see or accept the veracity revealed.
What evidence of correlation between religion & morality? Some of the most atheistic countries have the lowest crime, less unwanted pregnancy, highest standards of living etc.
If God's existence is denied everything becomes permissible? No, it doesn't. At least not necessarily. Even if it did what of the atrocities committed by those who think they're acting on God's orders?
Christians have a different definition of good compared to what Atheists generally do.
Many Atheists see a moral or immoral act is something based on how it affects an individual and whether that individual wants to be affected by that action. It stems from human consciousness and our ability to understand suffering.
For Christians and other religions, an act is moral or immoral based on Gods nature and intent. Those affected aren't part of the equation. If God commands the slaughter of people (which according to the Christian world view he has often done) then that command and the action that follows to carry out the command is good by definition by God being defined as good. But good for who?
I have no doubt which is the superior framework.
So of course when you ask "what evidence of correlation is there between religion and morality", Christians would just say that morality and God cannot be separated because God is the source of good by definition. The state of countries with a high atheistic population isn't relevant. What matters is Gods intent. A country can be as happy and successful as can be but if a large part of that happiness/success is due to things that God doesn't like e.g. happy Gay couples adopting lots of children, people enjoying good sex, and people not worshiping God all the time, then that society is immoral by their definition of God being good.
This is why Christians will claim a country is heading towards moral bankruptcy regardless of how well a country seems to be doing. If the book says it's wrong then it's wrong.
nitelite78 So without God everything is permissible. But with God everything is permissible so long as you convince yourself that it's God's will. Doesn't sound like objective morality to me.
Tin Man Like the word "good", Christians also use a different definition of "objective" too. Whereas generally objective is defined as being mind-independent, unbiased. To Christians it is "objective" because it doesn't come from a *human* mind. The fact that it comes from Gods mind is ignored because God is the source of all goodness. Or so it is claimed. Using a book written by subjective minds to learn what that "objective" goodness is doesn't seem to be a problem for Christians. I don't understand why. That's cognitive dissonance at work I guess.
I'm still not SURE?
U THINK too much. U R scaring me...
I don't know what you are talking ABOUT!!!
I feel dumb.
Father Barron, I've heard it said that if everything has degrees of certain attributes then it would imply that God is also, for example, the smelliest and the craziest and the stupidest being etc. in addition to the highest good and the highest truth. Specifically, it was an attempted rebuttal of Thomas Aquinas' fourth way. Is this fallacious?
It's fallacious because the qualities you're mentioning are not modalities of being, but rather of non-being. Craziness is absence of sanity; stupidity is absence of intelligence; smelliness is an indication of corruption, etc.
I’m more atheist than a rock, but I completely agree with you.
morals existed before the Bible. Look at Egypt and ancient mesoamerica.one can argue that morals existed before written language
did he say that morality is based in the bible?
Yes you are very right and so did God.
So when a guy gets stoned for gathering wood on a sunday, that's not justifiable at all? That's the exact point where I stopped reading the bible
Don't be so wooden (pun intended) in your reading of the Bible. You can't just take a verse out of context and say, "that's the word of God." One must attend to themes, patterns, and trajectories within the whole of Scripture.
+Kristina plays Many people find the bible to be absurd. One must remember that it was the product of peasants who believed that the earth revolved around the sun. It's purely an invention made by humans. Nothing more. Nothing less. Supernaturalists constantly try to "move the goal post" by "explaining" what THEY think those peasants meant. My question: How do the explainers know?
Fortunately, most modern scholars discount the bible as nothing more than literary fabrication, and even doubt the existence of the Jewish rabbi of the "gospels."
Are you saying the earth doesn't revolve around the sun?
I don't think that objective moral values and duties can exist in the absence of a transcendent criteria, which is God.
David Alexander, I think the Midianites would've disagreed with you. Because of God's moral code, Moses had his men kill all of the Midianite men, women and children but spared the virgin women children to be passed around as the spoils of war. 32000 virgin girls by the way.
What do you suppose they did with those virgin girls? Raped them and made them their sex slaves perhaps?
I love these vidoes because--I don't mean this negatively--it allows me to more tangibly see how limited non-Christian world views are. Its amazing. I always say that if the Israelites were wrong, they were the smartest philosophers to ever live: the Bible really does trump all.
Many bad, or evil people believe in God. The angel of light believed in the Power of God, but fell and became the dark angel Satan. To go beyond belief and be transformed by the grace of God and sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross and give thanks for this. This when we become not just believers in God, but followers of The Way as we were called before the term Christian came into being.. Love and blessings upon all.
Peter Kimble
If you don't mind me asking, how does your comment relate to mine?
I am sorry,but due to an acquired brain injury my short term memory is pretty poor, but I do know I may have been responding to someone elses comment and wrongly tagged it to you. Have a good day.
Peter Kimble
Oh, I see. No worries, though. I agree with everything that you said. I was just surprised to see it written, as most Christians fail to see things that way. As the author of Hebrews would say, they try to nourish themselves with the milk of God's Word.
retsea1
I was browsing your page after seeing you on another thread and came across this.
Honestly dude this is weak - do you really think this speaks to the "superiority" [sic] of Christian philosophy?
First and for most this stuff is juvenile - stupendously simplistic.
Secondly an awful lot of it flies directly in the face of the biblical story.
Thirdly little to none of it is accounted for by theology and instead is just a very weak form of humanism.
That's all I have for the moment, if you don't think this accurately represents your philosophic stance any more please ignore this comment
You put forward a false dichotomy here between relativism and religious based deontology. I hold to a secular, rational morality that is absolutely not relativistic. Something like utilitarianism/rule utilitarianism. A utilitarian formula produces objectively true and false moral norms with all relevant information.
You also run into the euthyphro dilemma here by using God as the arbiter of basic goods.
"I hold a secular, rational morality that is *absolutely not relativistic."*
"A utilitarian formula produces *true and false moral norms with all relevant information."*
So it's all relative then? Lmao
I think we can all agree we don't get our morals from the bible.
We know the bible is factually incorrect.
Therefore the bible seems pretty useless to me so I can get rid of that.
Morals need to be debated and argued between people to continually improve our society and try to maximize happiness for the maximum number of people. There is no need for God in this discussion.
But Pablo, how do you know whether a debate is moving toward greater moral truth unless you have some criterion beyond the debate itself by which the conversation is judged? There must, in a word, be fundamental ethical values that are simply given, just as there are logical principles that are not themselves the result of logical deliberations. What are these? Why are they absolute? And where finally do they come from? Those are the questions that lead to a consideration of God's relationship to the moral enterprise.
@@BishopBarron thanks for your reply, I appreciate your time.
I have probably miss understood what you are saying, but If morality is not from God (because what me and you would call moral is in disagreement with the bible) then all that is left is for us come up with our own morals. God is redundant. I guess we do this by using the emotion empathy, which probably has Darwinian routes of holding groups of humans together. I.e. if we all go around stabbing each other our civilisation won't last very long.
Pablo M But Hitler came up with his own moral system. How can we tell that it was objectively wrong?
Pablo M I’ll ignore your cheap shots at the Church and the Bible. But I will ask you how you know that discriminating against an entire people is wrong. If you follow the social Darwinism that you were advocating earlier, you could make a good case for it in fact, as the Nazis did.
@@BishopBarron no, I am definitely not advocating a society based on darwinism that would be awful. I said we should argue and debate what morality is and try to reach a position that would maximize human happiness.
But the morals that I have come to stand by (and probably you) are different than the teachings of the bible. I therefore am not reaching these conclusions because of God, I must be getting this from elsewhere. It's an interesting discussion on where morality comes from but its definitely not God, or at least the God of the bible.
You are redefining god unfortunately. You are saying there is higher unconditional truth/good/beauty, and you define that as god. Well, then I'm not an atheist anymore, because that God is part of my subjective experience. If I was to deny and actively try to stop believing in that, I guess it would make me less moral. But I don't deny them, and I am still a moral subjectivism, because those things are subjective, they don't exist in real world.
The definition of god that we use when we say that we are atheists is a bit different. In that case we talk about a being that created the universe, sent his son to dies for our sins, and will send us to hell if we don't believe in him. That's we don't believe in.
Unconditioned beauty? Nah, we believe that. We just don't call it god, because it's needlessly confusing. Unless confusing people was your.intention, of course.
Aquinas saw a connection between the metaphysical existence of God and the values of morality in the sense that they are both grounded within His existence. In other words, Aquinas saw God as the basis for and to all we experience. From the theistic perspective, my question is if moral subjectivism is true, it seems to be self defeating as the concept of truth is fundamentally underwhelmed. There are plenty of atheistic and some theistic philosophers who see morality as independent of God. I wouldn't necessarily agree with them, but it's just a thought.
@@existential_o look, I'm not interested in "just a thought". If you want to say "everything is grounded in god" you _have_ to continue with "because", otherwise you are just wasting time. Everything might as well be grounded in universe creating pixies, and it's just a thought.
Anyway, nothing what you are saying is relevant to the video or my comment.
@@Bradley_UA I guess I kind of assumed you were familiar with The First Way of Aquinas, but I see I'm mistaken. It's kind of a massively popular argument within the history of Western philosophy.
Equivocation of pixies and God demonstrates you really are taking the real issues remotely seriously
@@existential_o why would I take you seriously, if you just say "everything is based in god" and provide no evidence? I can say that everything is based in pixies, and provide no evidence, and I'll be in equal footing with you. Or I can say that everything is based on Allah. How can anyone take this seriously?
But in any case, we aren't discussing moral philosophers here, we are discussing the video, and the argument made in the video. It literally talks about our innate sense of morality or beauty, and claims that's God, and that atheists don't believe it that. And also that that subjective sense if morality is objective basis for morality. That's just factually incorrect, and you don't need to study any philosophy to understand why. That's why I don't want to get into "deep" topics, because you are struggling with basics already.
Also also, the only place I keep hearing about Aquinas is this channel. So you might need to redefine what's "popular" means. EDIT okay, other theists bring him up a lot as well. However, I'm not hearing any original arguments.
@@Bradley_UA you have that "subjective God," that's not God. If good and bad is relative then this "God" you have doesn't exist.
CCHS??
We desire moral behavior. It is in our nature, regardless of beliefs. I think you are conflating liberalism and irreligiousness. They are correlated, but that does not imply causation.
Liberalism believes in self-actualization. We should give people space to define for themselves what is right and wrong and not force our perceptions upon them. This actually works to some degree, but not as well as a slightly more structured instruction on morality. Indeed religion provides a structure for moral education, but the lack of participation of western Europeans in religious life has lead them to find suitable substitutes, namely the education system (it's compulsory). But really, any structure for education in morality will work. Erosion of religion does not cause moral fault in society, but is correlated.
But what if the one defining right and wrong for himself is a Nazi? What if he or she decides that slavery is okay? What would you say to members of the Man Boy Love Association, who have decided that sex with children is morally defensible? The kind of subjectivism you're advocating here is a short route to moral chaos.
Fr. Robert Barron Completely missing the point ! off course things like this show up their head from time to time but look around you - The Nazi's have been defeated, slavery has been abolished and all those Catholic Priests who abused children have been prosecuted, (deary, deary me you just walk into these things!!). Why? because the moral majority - which is the good people of this planet have made it so. Right and wrong is not defined by the actions of a small group of people but by inherent human goodness of us all.
splotsplot Well. What if we're wrong now? What if slavery is okay? What if exterminating is okay? what if for the next 100,000 years the collective human race decides on these things?
Humans want to do good. But it is their desire to do good in itself that does not always lead them to good. They need a moral compass, a moral compass that cannot change. If you can just throw it away and make your own morality that's a recipe for complete destruction.
At least for a Catholic. Maybe you like genocide I don't know.
***** We may well be! but the the new thoughts and systems will no doubt have a moral basis. Hard to understand now but that is just the way of things just as the proper way to understand history is to get into the minds of the people who existed at that time in the past. You can't really judge people in the past based on today's values - anyone who has studied history will tell you this. We can only hope that as time progresses our morals are refined. I would state that the good people of the earth have some sort of "averaging" affect which means that what we end up with is a group decision ironing out any extreme views. I doubt we will return to slavery but you never know - maybe slavery using synthetic life which is classed as unconscious.
splotsplot I should have refined my point closer to the mark. It is not possible to say we are wrong now because in the future we have a new way. We are right now and we will be right in the future even though what we have now and what we will have in the future might be opposites. Slavery can be retrospectively stated to be bad because we now have a different, (hopefully improved), modern view but I can assure you that at the time it was also regarded as ok! just as the lack of womens vote was ok even going back to say the feudal system was ok. The interesting point is to see by what process an old system is replaced by a new one. In France they cut of peoples heads - normally it is just a period of protest which gains momentum amongst the general population as they redefine their morals for a new modern time. That is why the Catholic Church fails. It is static and arrogant.
Omg , Self legislating ego!
There is non such thing as an atheist. I AM WHO I AM.
The atheist is god. A foolish person is one who has "no belief in God. Take your pick by opening your mouth and removing all doubt. This applies to both sides of the argument.
Moral values are of God. A GoOD thing about and antheist is they say they do not believe in God. Which protects them from breaking the second commandment? I think??? Gnaw on the real flesh of this and you will see and believe.
Idk how any of you understand what he says lmfao
Morality is not a thing that exist. Humans came up with words, including, the word morality. The word morality, is referring to humans actions. Most, but not all, would say morality is the well being. I would call a action moral, a action that increases the collective well being of everything in the universe. By this definition alone, I can determine what is moral, and unmoral.
If, you thought what was moral was what the bible says is moral, you would say slavery is moral, stoning kids to death is moral, and many other things that you say are moral, you would say they are unmoral. I don't know if you believe in the god of the bible but if you do, you saying, you get the morality, from the bible god, is just being dishonest.
Matthew Mangiaracina
words which humans, came up with can exist on a piece of paper, on a computer screen, etc.. words can refer to a thing that exist, a model of reality, a action, etc. The word birds, that humans came up with, refers to a thing that exist. The word morality that humans, came up with is not referring to a thing that exist.
So again the word morality can exist on a piece of paper, on a computer screen, etc. Morality is not referring to a thing that exist, which is why I said, and why morality is a thing that exist
Human also came up with the definition of words. Morality is referring human actions. A moral action is what ever you define a moral action to be. a unmoral action is a action that you define it to be,
I would define a moral action as a action that increases the collective well being of everything in the universe. I would define a unmoral action as a action the decrease the collective well being of the universe. A action that is moral is determined by your definition or a moral action. Again you point to know evidence a god exist, a god came up with these words, or these definitions, or a method that confirms a conclusion, that a god came up with these word, or these definitions, match reality to any degree of certainty.
The word, ideas are not referring to a thing that exist. Ideas as far as we know are a chemical reaction that occur in the brain. Chemical reactions are not referring to a thing that exist. Chemical reactions occur, but is not a thing that exist.
Rodney Burton
Can you be any more dishonest. I never said a moral action was a action that had a larger positive effect on the majority. I never said a larger positive effect. I also never said anything about a majority.
Again, and maybe you could actually not lie about what I said this time. I said I would define a moral action as a action that increases the collective well being of everything in the universe.
So my question to you is, a action that would horribly degrade and harm, kill, and demean a portion of the population who had done nothing wrong increase of decrease the collective well being of everything in the universe.
I would say it decrease well being, and by my definition of a moral action, that would not be a moral action.
My next question did hitler's action in the holocaust increase or decrease the collective well being of everything in the universe.
I would say it decrease the well being, and by my definition of a moral action, his actions in the holocaust were not moral actions. Regardless of what Hilter's logic was, In my opinion, it decrease the collective well being.
In addition it does not really change anything if you believe a action is moral or unmoral. If I shoot you in the leg. All the scientific evidence, and scientific method confirm to a high degree of certainty, your well being will decrease. If you believe it is a moral action to just shoot someone in the leg, it still decrease the well being of that person.
By your own bible, that you claim is the word of god, you believe slavery is moral, stoning kids to death is moral, genocide is moral, and a lot more unmoral things are moral. By your own logic, slavery, stoning kids to death, and a lot more is or was a moral action at one time, and it was moral because a god, that you have no evidence exist, says so. You have no method, no system of determining what is, or what is not a moral action. Maybe you should actually read the whole bible, and stop being dishonest about what it says.
Jason Roelle Please pardon my lack of clarity. What I meant to say is simply that if something is "moral" if it increases the "well being of the universe" then you can do absolutely anything so long as the final result is more "well being". The ends would justify any means.
For example, let's say I do get shot in the leg for no reason; decreasing the well being of the universe by 1, however if my being shot for some reason has the end result of three other people being helped a lot, it could increase the well being of the universe by 3. So in the end, my being shot for no reason increased the universe's well being by two, making it a "moral" action by your definition. And of course, as we know, it would be a very immoral action.
Rodney Burton
You said "let's say I do get shot in the leg for no reason". By you saying "no reason", without more detail, I would have to assume you were not decrease the well being of others, and in that case the action of shooting you in the leg for no reason, would decrease the collective well being, and by definition, which I should say guideline, instead of definition, would be a unmoral action.
If you went into a bank, and started shooting people, and the police shot you in the leg so you would stop decreasing a greater number of peoples well being, then you already have at that time. that would not be decreasing the collective well being. So in this situation, The police shooting you in the leg to stop you from shooting more people, would not be a unmoral action.
When talking about well being, we can form general guideline, like life in generally preferable to death, pleasure is generally preferable to death, etc. From these general guideline, we can form more complex, and more detailed guidelines, from looking at different situations.
Regardless, what we call a action a moral or unmoral action, that action does increase or decrease the collective well being. Slavery is not illegal because a god said it was unmoral.
Again if you believe that what the bible said we should do are moral actions, you would believe slavery is moral, beating your slave almost to death as long as they live for two days, believe stoning kids to death is moral, believe genocide is moral, and more actions of the god in the bible, that you would say is unmoral, is moral.
When I say that being shot in the leg resulted in others being helped, I don't mean for a direct reason; I mean for a random unrelated reason. Like the old example in chaos theory; a butterfly flaps its wings in Africa, causing a caribou to sneeze, causing a massive stampede, very slightly altering wind patterns, which changes the course of a cloud, causing it to rain in your town.
Say someone shoots me, and this in a random chain of events leads to others being helped; that would then be a "moral action" by your definition.
Or let's even be simpler. Stealing is wrong. However is "anything that increases well being" is "moral" then it would be "moral" to steal from a rich person and give it to the poor who need the money much more than he does.