Morality and Religion

For many people, far too many, the only moral thinking they engage in is through their religion.  The question “Why be Moral?” often never comes up, for some, outside religion.  Yet, morality and religion are different things in some sense.  One ought to be able to be moral without religion, after all civilized society needs atheists and agnostics to also be moral.  But for those who are religious, there is a very important question they ought to consider concerning the relation between their religion and their attempt to be moral.

“Is what is right what God commands by definition or does God command what is right?”  These are two different things.  Many people would hold to the notion that what God commands is by definition right,  but that makes God capricious.  But, if God commands what is right he must appeal to something other than his will namely some standard of right and wrong which is independent of him and his will.  God therefore is not, all-knowing, all-mighty and all-powerful because there is something other than himself or higher than himself which he appeals to when issuing a command.  There is a parallel here with the Euthyphro dilemma or question: "Is the pious (τὸ ὅσιον) loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" (Plato: Euthyphro 10a)  This is the real thrust of the question regarding religion and morality, it is not why people are religious, or depend on their religion for their morality.  Quite honestly for many, too many, people the threat of eternal damnation is the only thing that makes them moral and they therefore cling to their religion for fear of eternal punishment or even punishment by God in the present or near future.  In fact I would say that many of these people refuse to do any thinking other than responding to their religious training.  This is a fault of many religious thinkers and educators who do not wish to make philosophic reasoning a part of their religious training.  In fact until rather recently Religion and Philosophy were tied together in such a way that anyone studying Religion or Theology was required to take many courses in Philosophy.  Today many religious schools and colleges have divorced themselves from philosophic thinking.  But that doesn’t mean that Religion cannot be discussed philosophically, and if one did give his/her religion a philosophic scrutiny, one might be the stronger for it, because they would have reasons other than ”my religion dictates or teaches that…”.  Which of course is no better than “my mother told me…” as a moral theory.  Both are inadequate.

I often muse over this thought: that morality ought not be dependent on any particular religion, but at the same time the purpose of any religion is not to make someone a good, pious and obedient person to the commands of God.  The purpose of religion is to make a person a good citizen in God’s Kingdom, which by virtue of God’s creation, is right here and now  This requires us to not only treat others (other persons) morally, but also to treat all of God’s creation morally.  Exploitation of nature is therefore immoral if done improperly - for selfish and solely profit motives.  I am reminded of a sermon I once heard about God’s giving Mankind dominion over nature.

            “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28).

All depends to some degree on the meaning of ‘subdue’ and ‘dominion’.  If we think in exploitative terms it seems that mankind has the right to conquer nature and reap all profits that one can from her (Nature).  But if one considers that a dominion is a kind of protectorate, the meaning of the Genesis text becomes more one of protecting the environment (Nature) and subduing the reckless exploitation by maintaining Nature in some form of order.  I naturally prefer the latter interpretation over the exploitive. Thus our religion aims at making us good citizens and stewards of the gift of Nature.  As I watched the grass swaying in the wind the other day, I am also led to the opinion that plants also are included in “every living thing that moves on the earth.”  When I think of mountains and valleys, plains and prairies also changing over time, they likewise are included.