The Bible and Moral Principles
I have spoken to more than one friend recently who have employed some argument against using the Bible to derive objective moral values. These are my thoughts that emerged from one of those discussions, particularly about the gay marriage issue. First, I think it is important to point out that there are objective moral values. "Objective" in this context means that something is right or wrong regardless of whether a person accepts it or not. I take it to be true, for example that torturing children for sport is objectively wrong, and that loving your neighbor as yourself is objectively right. The rightness or wrongness of these principles is not dependent on any person's perspective. Of course, how the principles are applied or expressed is necessarily context specific. So, love for neighbor will look very different in Ankara and in Llanelli, but people in both locations have a moral obligation to love their neighbors. Ultimately any attempt to deny that there are objecti...