In this post I would like to make one point: the theistic position does not provide a sufficient explanation for morality. Debates on the origin of morality have tended to leave the theists position unquestioned. This is a mistake, for what is really the case is that though it has commonly been assumed that God provides and adaquate explanation for morality, the most that we can assume is that God probably could form an adaquate basis because, to this point, the supposed explanation that God provides has been left carefully unexplained.

It seems unwise to base my position on an existential negative, since I cannot prove that there can be no explanation of morality that necessitates God, however, I think it only fair to challenge the theist to do at least that, since a common argument has been that God must be necessary because we have not figured out how to explain morality without God.

Now I will take a brief look at the sorts of discussion that theists have provided on the subject so far. I think to clarify the nature of my critique I need to admit that the traditional, Christian, theistic explanation of morality has not be inconsistent but inadequate. The theological answers to questions prove to be to simple to deal with the complex issues that we face in the real practice of morality. This is because God has not provided an explanation, but instead has actually been the explanation. On even the most complex questions the answer, instead of being profound, instead of being detailed, they have consisted of three letter answers, not discussions of how the character of God's infinite being, but merely, "G-O-D." That might be it, but can't we at least talk about what God might be like, and why we think that?

This is justified by the fact that God's character is a self sufficient necessity. It simply is the way it is, with no need for explanation, and leads every traditional Christian argument to the same unquestionable and firm, circular foundation that God is the way God is.

Now please don't misunderstand me, and can understand the notion that God could be the final unquestionable foundation for everything, but I do not think that justifies us to answer every question that we do not know the answer to with, "God." If wherever there is a question about why something is the way it is we answer, "God," then what we really mean when we say, "God," is not anything to do with the infinite being we claim to be talking about, but rather, "I don't know."

With this in mind, I would ask three questions. One: what is sin? Two: what is good? And three: what is the nature of God's authority? This last one is of particular import, for in the circular answer that we seem almost bound to as religious thinkers, this last one is the final justification for the rest: if God says it then it is the case. Here we see the end of discussion, thought, reason, freedom, and maybe even love. Its just the way it is because God's in charge and that's the way he's decided.

Now the answers that I have heard before are perfectly sound. Sin is what is contrary to God's will, what is good is whatever God says or does, or what is good is what brings Glory to God, and God's authority is the fundamental reality that he is in charge. All of these make sense, but they do not give us any information, and only displace the real question. Listening to a ten year old talk about evil gives us a better notion of what we are talking about then listening to a theologian.

Here is the case with the answers that theologians have provided: they make sense, and they make even more sense assuming a certain kind of Christianity, but they are simplistic, maleable, and useless for providing the sort of ethical vision that I think Christ wants us to have when we attempt to live by the Spirit and bring God's kingdom to earth. I will not even bother talking about how the most thorough of Christian explanations of the nature of good and evil (Calvanism), leads us finally to wonder how, when trying to define what good actually is, we start calling what we know to be bad, "good," nor how circular arguments like these have had nothing to say against all the Christian attrocities through history but instead actually functioned as a sort of justification.

And so I challenge the theist to show not just that we need God for ethics, but that God can provide a meaningful and significant ethics at all. Following this, I will provide an natural ethical theory that will not only provide an objective morality, it will be profoundly significant, and intimately tied to what it means to be a human being. It will illuminate the complexities of our experience of morality and, now listen to this and take it as a challenge, will be more consistent with the profound moral truths of the Christian scriptures than the many Christian theological positions and creeds that seem so distantly to the narratives that they claim are their foundation.

While I guarantee that my position will have a foundation that is vulnerable to criticism, that is the risk in non-circularity. Let me suggest that theology is not truth, Christ is. Theology is theory, and when a theory fails it is not for nothing. In our recognition of each failure we have a chance to take a step closer to the truth.