Is the bible the reason why certain things are right or wrong? This is one question that I have asked myself lately. A discerning eye can see the standoff existing between those who profess Christianity and those who don’t. That standoff appears even more ferocious with the Charismatics, Pentecostals, Evangelicals and other branches of Christianity. They see unbelieving contemporaries as people lost on their way to hell.
Why are they lost and on their way to hell? The response you get is, “Because the bible says so.” This response is one of the major reasons why we as believers have a hard time convincing our unbelieving contemporaries about our faith. It is obvious that the scriptures are grossly misused nowadays.
Why do we ask people to subscribe to a way of life that is in a book? Since we claim and further behave like the scriptures were written for us, why should unbelievers subscribe to something that was not written for them? It is clear to me, that it is for the same reason that we as believers do not see the Koran as written for us; the reason being that the Koran was written for Muslims. Yet, even though we believe that the bible was written for the church and by extension us, we judge the behavior of human beings against the scriptures that we claim are written for us.
I have also realized that without the bible, it seems that we are lost and unable to find our bearings for morality and why certain behaviors are right or wrong. When the situation at hand is not mentioned in the bible, we are completely lost.
What did that reflect to me about our approach and value of the scriptures? I realized that we interpret the Bible to be a world or era that existed in and of itself. We believe that God expects mankind to resurrect that world in each successive generations. You can hear that philosophy expressed when we use phrases like “In Bible times” or “in Bible days” this is how it used to be. That communicates to me a belief that there was actually a period in the history of the world called the “Bible Era.”
The contents of the scriptures have yet to be appreciated for its historical value. They have yet to be appreciated as the documentation of specific events in the lives of real human beings like ourselves. One of the good things I appreciate about it is that we can realize its unbiased approach in capturing both the good and bad in the lives of those whom it profiles. It captures the true nature of human life on earth.
One of the major values that is kept out of our appreciation of the scriptures is how the documentation of the events that transpired in those periods relate to or is connected to the documentation of the history of the human race and the demonstration of how that human race deviated from functioning by its created specification and the process employed to correct the problem that produced that deviation.
If we believe that the Bible is the basis for morality or why things are right or wrong, I have yet to hear a plausible reason why men like Noah, Abraham, Enoch, or Job, just four icons of different generations, knew right from wrong without having bibles. Why is it that it is documented that these men were actually characterized by God as upright, righteous, blameless, and just, in a period when they had no bibles to dictate to them what was right or wrong?
Now my question is only about these four individuals. What about the possibly tens of millions of human beings who lived and died in the earth before any scripture was written? What was responsible for their sense of right or wrong? Did they not understand morality? If they did, where did they get their sense of morality from?
What this evaluation caused me to realize is that we as believers do not truly understand the reason we believe what we believe. If the reason we believe that something is wrong, is because it is written in the bible, and there were people who had a sense of right or wrong millenniums before the bible was written, then it remains obvious then the scriptures are not the basis for morality or right or wrong.
I agree that we can make deductions based on the writings of the scriptures and things that God considers to be moral or immoral, right or wrong. But the fact remains that they were not right or wrong because they are documented in the scriptures. To base our sense of right or wrong solely on our knowledge of the scriptures, I think proves that we do not know the premise for things being either right or wrong.
When Cain killed his brother Abel, the bible was not the reason he knew his actions were wrong. As a matter of fact the commandment, “thou shalt not kill,” which was given to the Jews, came way over a thousand years later. Yet killing a man was already immoral. When Abraham lied about Sarah being his sister, the scriptures were not the reason he knew that his actions were wrong. The law that said “thou shalt not bear false witness” was not around either, yet his action was immoral. When David committed adultery, the bible was still not the reason he knew that his actions were wrong. So why is our reason for determining whether something is right or wrong, is because it is written in the Bible?
I am a believer like anyone who might claim to be. My awareness of this issue is especially heightened as I realize that in the context of finding answers to some of our plights as human beings, I see that the possible avenue to get mankind to understand the root of its existence and the principles that have been established to stabilize that existence and bring it into social prosperity, is hindered by our misuse of the documentation that would allow them to see the way and follow the path to social prosperity.
Because the true values of the scriptures are not applied by the church, it becomes an offensive tool to those who would much benefit from its true value. There has to be a position from which we must understand the basis upon which certain acts, situations or behavior which were documented in the scriptures as immoral were declared so in the first place.
For example, fornication or sexual promiscuity did not become immorality because the apostle Paul cautioned the church against it. Paul had a reason for letting the believers know why such behaviors were considered immoral. They were a people who had recently subscribed to Jesus’ philosophy of life because they believed the report of man’s condition before God and what God did to correct that problem and secure salvation for man.
To express faith in God is also to express faith in His wisdom in creating certain things including man, and the purpose why certain things were created the way they were. To express faith in God is also to understand and believe that things are to be used for the purpose for which they were created, and in the right context.
Once a person subscribes to that philosophy, they then agree with God that to have sex in a committed relationship between a man and a woman through a covenant with each other is the right way to use sex. It would also mean that they agree that in order for the species to proliferate themselves God created the dynamic of sexual activity through which that can be accommodated.
If animals and human beings do not experience sexual desires, they will not have sex. If they do not have sex then both species will die out. That is the primary purpose for sexual activity. Therefore, sex being used in those two contexts is right and moral. The same goes true for the reason we experience hunger. If we don’t experience hunger we will not eat to nourish our bodies and that will produce death. Every created thing pertaining to humanity has its strategic purpose in the whole circle of life.
If we take the issue back to sexual activity, that would mean that any other use of sex, either through prostitution, homosexuality, bestiality, incest, sodomy, rape or the likes, are both a misuse or abuse of the sexual act and that constitutes sexual immorality. It is not immoral because the bible says so, or because the apostles did not condone it. It is immoral because it is not used in the context and for the purpose for which it was created.
When we just repeat things because someone else says it and cannot determine the position from which they say it, we demonstrate that we really do not understand what we are talking about. We are only conveying words and not the truth. That is exactly what we as believers have inadvertently done with the scriptures. We have tried to impose written words on human beings without understanding for ourselves the basis for which the things that are documented in the scriptures, were spoken or written in the first place.
Why would God establish the principles of right and wrong and only disclose it thousands of years later in the Bible? By what would the actions of the human beings who lived before that period be judged then, if they did not have the Bible to tell them what was right or wrong? What basis would God have to declare the acts of some unrighteous and others righteous, if the Bible was not around for them to judge their actions by?
It is obvious to me then that the basis upon which some of the icons of our faith, Noah, Abraham, Enoch, and Job, were declared righteous was that they found a way to understand who God was by learning about the creation itself and the purpose for the creation of the elements of the earth.
Once they understood those things, out of respect and consideration for God, they used those things according to the purpose for which they were created and that resulted in their actions and behaviors being righteous and just. Respect for God and the purpose for the things He created were the primary positions of their hearts and that guided their actions and behaviors.
This confirms the words of Paul that the invisible attributes of God like His nature, His character, and His philosophy of life, and how human beings should conduct themselves on earth, can be extrapolated by the things which are created. It is by those visible created things along with his conscience that men have for millenniums been able to determine right from wrong or what was moral from what was immoral.
The Bible itself then, as a book with all its tremendous historical values cannot be the basis for why things are right or wrong. Nature itself can speak volumes of that to us if we pay more careful attention, just as it did to those who lived many millenniums before us. In order for us to better understand the basis for morality, or the basis for why certain things are right or wrong, we have to look beyond the pages of the Bible and into the heart of the creator Himself.
- but some of the violence in the Old Testament scriptures is truly hideous, often too uncomfortable to bear (at least for me). There was almost certainly a need for punishment of some sort in all these cases, even severe, for the reasons you mentioned and more. The problem for many is the brutality of it; in some cases, the violence seems unjustifiable. If you grant that it is done for sufficient reasons, even in view of repentance for those the violence is carried out against, then I believe you could justify it - if these people were so depraved, so evil and wicked in their hearts that only such a terribly violent act leading to death would cause them to realise their sin, then I think it would be legitimate. The problem is whether it really was the case that this was the best thing that could be done and even if so, would this be the end or just the beginning for the ‘victims’ of such violence? Believe they get sent to hell for all eternity, then it hardly seems reasonable - God could just kill them himself instead of making other human beings carry out such a punishment. However, if you believe they could repent afterwards, then I think it is possible to rationalise it.
