What is the basis for your morality?

Ugh. This week has been rough and good all at the same time. In some ways I’ve gotten a lot of stuff done. *cough* Reading. *cough* In other ways, I have done less than I hoped. *cough* Writing. *cough* I haven’t shown my best side for many of these days. I wish I could say that this wasn’t true, but…that would be a lie. At some points, I’ve felt like giving up on the whole life thing. I know that I wouldn’t, but there are times when I just feel it. There are those times when I feel like I don’t care about anything in that moment, though I do.

Well, this has led me to contemplate and think about life and such. And I’ve found myself thinking about morality, about questions like what is right? What is good? What is wrong? What is bad?

The way we answer these questions defines us. How we answer these questions are at the core of what we do, the decisions we make. There’s no such thing as overlooking these questions. We face them in everyday life. In our homes, at our jobs, at our schools, and in our communities that we spend time with. There’s no escaping it because it is such an essential part of life. Even Adam and Eve faced such questions in the Garden of Eden.

How do we answer these questions?

As Christians, we take a strong stance on what is right and what is wrong. It is clear throughout the Bible that God clearly knew that we would need to know what was right and what was wrong. This is why there are the laws and commandments in the Bible. They give us a clear foundation on what the standard is. And because we know that the God of the Bible is the one and only true God, we also know that this foundation will never break.

And so it struck me recently how hard these questions are to answer without God. Because without God, what foundation, what proof are you able to put your answers to these questions in? The people who answer these questions must have a reason as to why they answer these questions the way that they do. But what are these reasons? Some people rely on their religion to supply the answers. Others on scientific facts. Others on the law. And still more that rely upon themselves and their judgment (which is like saying that you are god).

This can all lead to some sort of a foundation for your morality, but placing reliance in these things will eventually show you how weak and unstable foundations they are. In the end, you can’t rely on them, because they are not where the core of morality comes from. That core comes from the one true living God.

Let’s make sure that our foundation for our morality it where it should be. We can’t base our choices and decisions on science or some other religion and definitely not on ourselves. Our foundations will only crumble beneath us, if we do so. But with God, we’ll have a firm foundation that will last for all eternity.

-G. Paige