Thought for the Day: The Value of Morality

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

You’ve undoubtedly heard the Leftist claim that morality is relative, i.e. “What’s wrong for you may not be wrong for me,” implying that morality is simply a matter of preference and feeling.

This pernicious lie is easily debunked, as my favorite thinker and theologian Ravi Zacharias demonstrates when he brings it home by saying: “In some cultures they love their neighbors; in other cultures they eat them, both on the basis of feeling. Do you have any preference?”

So you see, even Leftists and atheists are not consistent and logical when the rubber meets the road. They like to claim morality is “preference” when you point out that something they want to do is wrong, but when a wrong is proposed that affects them, suddenly relativism and preference goes flying out the window at mach 6, and morality is suddenly supposed to be fixed and transcendent.

Nice double standard, eh?

That’s life in the Leftist universe–inconsistency.

On one hand, Leftists expect us to believe that there is no objective moral truth, and on the other they insist they be allowed to hold everyone else to their own standard of right and wrong.

Woodrow Wilcox


They insist that our rights do not come from God but rather from the state, and the state can give and the state can take away blessed be the name of the state…but invite them to consider living under such a “might makes right” standard as we see and have seen in Marxist enclaves like North Korea and the former Soviet Union, and suddenly the idea of the state bestowing and withholding rights becomes less attractive.

Maybe they just want the kind of “the state gives and the state taketh away” philosophy in a country like America (where our laws and value system was founded on the Judeo-Christian worldview). How convenient. They want the license of a Godless culture with the security that only comes from a God-fearing culture.


In other words, they want to  have their cake and eat it, too.

Which brings us to the thought of the day from Ravi.

Remember how I just pointed out that, in the relativist’s universe, there is really no logical reason why one person should not be able to do whatever he wants to another person (i.e. steal from them, harm them, kill them, etc.)?  After all, if people are just highly evolved animals, with no immortal soul and no eternal accountability to a Creator, then what does it matter what one animal does to another? Do we get bent out of shape when a wolf eats a rabbit, or when a whale eats a whole school of smaller fish?

From whence do we get the moral basis to say doing this or that is acceptable, or this or that is unacceptable?

From “Ravi Answers Atheists, Part 2,”

Morality has no value unless it has something transcending itself that gives itself the value. And every time you raise the question of evil–follow me now–every time you raise the question of evil, it is either raised by a person or about persons.

You don’t ask a question like, “You know, why does this wood rot? It’s terrible that this wood rots. I feel so badly for this wood.”

No. Why did 10,000 people die? Why the tsunami? It is always raised by a person or about persons. And if the question is of any value, it can only be of value if persons are of value.

And the only way a person can have value is if there is a transcendent being of infinite worth who has given you that intrinsic worth not given to you by state or law or by any other fiat will or something else.

Which means: morality is not an abstraction, it is woven into personhood. The moral law has no value in and of itself unless there is a moral law giver of intrinsic worth, by virtue of which all other value pertains.

Something to think about today…



Bob Ellis has been the owner of media company Dakota Voice, LLC since 2005. He is a 10-year U.S. Air Force veteran, a political reporter and commentator for the past decade, and has been involved in numerous election and public policy campaigns for over 20 years. He was a founding member and board member of the Tea Party groups Citizens for Liberty and the South Dakota Tea Party Alliance. He lives in Rapid City, South Dakota with his wife and two children.
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