I will briefly sketch out some key propositions which I hold to be fundamental foundations of my world-view. However, I do not think these are fundamental foundations of only my world-view. Rather, I think that anybody raised in a culture which, even if no longer dominantly Judeo-Christian, has been formed and influenced, to some extent, by Judeo-Christian morality, will recognize these propositions as shaping their outlook on the meaning of life, politics, etc.
1. "Human life has inherent dignity". Whether a person is an atheist, an agnostic, a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or a Vegan (just kidding), the idea that human life has inherent dignity so saturates our culture that identifying it as a fundamental foundation of said person's world-view is akin to a fish discovering it's in water. It's simply taken for granted. However, this has not historically been the case in non-Christian cultures, and even nominally Christian cultures struggled greatly with dehumanizing practices such as slavery – although the authentically Christian elements always interacted with such evils to produce grave moral tension which, eventually, led, uniquely among world cultures, the Christian West to abolish slavery absolutely.
However, the naturalism, materialism, and anti-humanism which is prevalent in our culture and intelligentsia today, of their very natures, lend themselves to a rejection of this fundamental proposition. Indeed, one cannot defend the proposition that "Human life has inherent dignity" without first defending the proposition that "Human beings are, clearly, in some way exceptional among the beings in the universe." One of the most common beliefs among "thinkers" in our age is that human beings aren't exceptional.
Instead, "nothing more"-ism abounds (the sophisticated term is "materialist reductionism"). It's claimed that "human beings are nothing more than apes with highly developed frontal cortexes" or that "human minds are nothing more than human brains, which themselves are nothing more than collections of atoms randomly bouncing around". Another stock "nothing more"-ism: "morality is nothing more than the evolution of social norms to encourage behavior successful to the transmission of genes within a social group".
It seems that the modern thinker uses this "nothing more"-ism not as a tangible starting point for developing a rational, coherent world-view, but rather as a sort of universal acid to dismantle any possibility of a rational, coherent world-view. Oftentimes, this is most prevalent in discussions of sexual morality. Whereas religious people – and other people who, in general, are in love with love – proclaim the beauty and the sacredness of the marital act, those who would rather have no bounds or limits on their sexual powers or faculties often devolve themselves into defending an interpretation of the marital act as "nothing more than two people exchanging oxytocin".
However, we all immediately revolt against this universal acid of materialist reductionism the moment it is applied to something we care about. Tell a committed leftist that his political opinions are nothing more than "random collections of neuron firing which don't actually mean anything because, well, nothing really means anything, really, since all anything is mindless matter engaging in an undirected, deterministic causal chain which nothing can change". Either the socialist will agree and therefore put down her hammer and sickle-emblazoned flag and join in your nihilism or she will immediately react against it, insisting on some fundamental principle that gives meaning to her life.
In other words, materialist reductionism, which is nothing more than the logical consequence of the belief that "all that exists is mindless matter", is a view nobody actually holds; nobody lives out materialist reductionism because there simply is nothing to live out.
And yet, this kind of language is often used to react against uses of the mind to come to certain truths about the existence of God, the existence of a natural, universal, and objective moral law, and the existence of applications of said moral law to the realm of human sexuality.
Thus, what I hope I have made clear is that such reductionism is simply intellectually feeble. And thus, objections to human exceptionalism based on reductionism fail.
Indeed, that the human person is truly exceptional among the things and beings in the universe is a truth which requires no extensive tome; it's perhaps the most obvious fact of existence (aside from the fact that existence is). Human persons, unique in the universe, have immaterial minds and immaterial free wills. Our intuition that human life possesses inherent dignity stems precisely from this most obvious fact of existence. The human person, in short, is a miracle. The human mind can grasp intentions, meaning, universals, propositions, mathematics, logic, etc. – all of which go into that most human, most ingenious, property: language. The human will can redirect causal chains of determinate matter in accordance with it.
It is from these two traits of the human being, his mind and his free will, that we can begin to sketch out an objective moral code, because it is from the human being's mind and will, whether fully actualized in development or not, that the human being possesses inherent and objective moral worth.
Thus, one can deduce objective moral truths from this fact of existence – that man possesses an immaterial mind capable of attaining truth and a genuinely free will – without ever invoking God.
However, man is a curious animal. He always wants to delve deeper into the mystery of existence and so he asks how it is possible that man possesses properties which are utterly distinct from the material world, although obviously, in some sense, dependent on and capable of an influence of, the material world. Indeed, this is where the Judeo-Christian understanding of the human person comes into view: man is made in the image and likeness of God. No other solution suffices. Immaterial things cannot come from material things, and so any attempt at a sort of "emergentist" explanation ("evolution and natural selection somehow led to collections of matter which are capable are immaterial properties") is dead-on-arrival. However, that the human person is made in the image and likeness of God gives an answer to this great mystery, and, combined with the necessity of a moral lawgiver for a moral law, connects man and God in a unique relationship, that of two persons, two minds interacting.
Thus, the argument being sketched out here is as follows:
1. Materialist reductionist attempts to disprove human exceptionalism fail.
2. Human life has an inherent dignity because humans are exceptional.
3. Human exceptionalism is true because humans uniquely, in the universe, possess immaterial minds and free wills.
4. Being immaterial, minds and wills, cannot come from material causes.
5. Therefore, minds and wills come from immaterial causes.
6. God is an immaterial cause. Furthermore, it can be shown via various arguments that God is the ultimate cause, of things both immaterial and material.
7. Therefore, God is the ultimate cause of minds and will.
8. Putting 3 and 7 together, God is the ultimate cause of human exceptionalism.
9. Putting 2 and 8 together, God is the ultimate reason why human life has inherent dignity.
10. Rejecting God has led modern man to, ultimately, reject the inherent dignity of human life.
1. "Human life has inherent dignity". Whether a person is an atheist, an agnostic, a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or a Vegan (just kidding), the idea that human life has inherent dignity so saturates our culture that identifying it as a fundamental foundation of said person's world-view is akin to a fish discovering it's in water. It's simply taken for granted. However, this has not historically been the case in non-Christian cultures, and even nominally Christian cultures struggled greatly with dehumanizing practices such as slavery – although the authentically Christian elements always interacted with such evils to produce grave moral tension which, eventually, led, uniquely among world cultures, the Christian West to abolish slavery absolutely.
However, the naturalism, materialism, and anti-humanism which is prevalent in our culture and intelligentsia today, of their very natures, lend themselves to a rejection of this fundamental proposition. Indeed, one cannot defend the proposition that "Human life has inherent dignity" without first defending the proposition that "Human beings are, clearly, in some way exceptional among the beings in the universe." One of the most common beliefs among "thinkers" in our age is that human beings aren't exceptional.
Instead, "nothing more"-ism abounds (the sophisticated term is "materialist reductionism"). It's claimed that "human beings are nothing more than apes with highly developed frontal cortexes" or that "human minds are nothing more than human brains, which themselves are nothing more than collections of atoms randomly bouncing around". Another stock "nothing more"-ism: "morality is nothing more than the evolution of social norms to encourage behavior successful to the transmission of genes within a social group".
It seems that the modern thinker uses this "nothing more"-ism not as a tangible starting point for developing a rational, coherent world-view, but rather as a sort of universal acid to dismantle any possibility of a rational, coherent world-view. Oftentimes, this is most prevalent in discussions of sexual morality. Whereas religious people – and other people who, in general, are in love with love – proclaim the beauty and the sacredness of the marital act, those who would rather have no bounds or limits on their sexual powers or faculties often devolve themselves into defending an interpretation of the marital act as "nothing more than two people exchanging oxytocin".
However, we all immediately revolt against this universal acid of materialist reductionism the moment it is applied to something we care about. Tell a committed leftist that his political opinions are nothing more than "random collections of neuron firing which don't actually mean anything because, well, nothing really means anything, really, since all anything is mindless matter engaging in an undirected, deterministic causal chain which nothing can change". Either the socialist will agree and therefore put down her hammer and sickle-emblazoned flag and join in your nihilism or she will immediately react against it, insisting on some fundamental principle that gives meaning to her life.
In other words, materialist reductionism, which is nothing more than the logical consequence of the belief that "all that exists is mindless matter", is a view nobody actually holds; nobody lives out materialist reductionism because there simply is nothing to live out.
And yet, this kind of language is often used to react against uses of the mind to come to certain truths about the existence of God, the existence of a natural, universal, and objective moral law, and the existence of applications of said moral law to the realm of human sexuality.
Thus, what I hope I have made clear is that such reductionism is simply intellectually feeble. And thus, objections to human exceptionalism based on reductionism fail.
Indeed, that the human person is truly exceptional among the things and beings in the universe is a truth which requires no extensive tome; it's perhaps the most obvious fact of existence (aside from the fact that existence is). Human persons, unique in the universe, have immaterial minds and immaterial free wills. Our intuition that human life possesses inherent dignity stems precisely from this most obvious fact of existence. The human person, in short, is a miracle. The human mind can grasp intentions, meaning, universals, propositions, mathematics, logic, etc. – all of which go into that most human, most ingenious, property: language. The human will can redirect causal chains of determinate matter in accordance with it.
It is from these two traits of the human being, his mind and his free will, that we can begin to sketch out an objective moral code, because it is from the human being's mind and will, whether fully actualized in development or not, that the human being possesses inherent and objective moral worth.
Thus, one can deduce objective moral truths from this fact of existence – that man possesses an immaterial mind capable of attaining truth and a genuinely free will – without ever invoking God.
However, man is a curious animal. He always wants to delve deeper into the mystery of existence and so he asks how it is possible that man possesses properties which are utterly distinct from the material world, although obviously, in some sense, dependent on and capable of an influence of, the material world. Indeed, this is where the Judeo-Christian understanding of the human person comes into view: man is made in the image and likeness of God. No other solution suffices. Immaterial things cannot come from material things, and so any attempt at a sort of "emergentist" explanation ("evolution and natural selection somehow led to collections of matter which are capable are immaterial properties") is dead-on-arrival. However, that the human person is made in the image and likeness of God gives an answer to this great mystery, and, combined with the necessity of a moral lawgiver for a moral law, connects man and God in a unique relationship, that of two persons, two minds interacting.
Thus, the argument being sketched out here is as follows:
1. Materialist reductionist attempts to disprove human exceptionalism fail.
2. Human life has an inherent dignity because humans are exceptional.
3. Human exceptionalism is true because humans uniquely, in the universe, possess immaterial minds and free wills.
4. Being immaterial, minds and wills, cannot come from material causes.
5. Therefore, minds and wills come from immaterial causes.
6. God is an immaterial cause. Furthermore, it can be shown via various arguments that God is the ultimate cause, of things both immaterial and material.
7. Therefore, God is the ultimate cause of minds and will.
8. Putting 3 and 7 together, God is the ultimate cause of human exceptionalism.
9. Putting 2 and 8 together, God is the ultimate reason why human life has inherent dignity.
10. Rejecting God has led modern man to, ultimately, reject the inherent dignity of human life.
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