Book Review: Morality: Religious and Secular, by Patrick Nowell-Smith

INTRODUCTION

The Purpose of This Article

This article will offer, from a distinctly Christian perspective, a critique of Patrick Nowell-Smith’s work, “Morality: Religious and Secular.” This article will show that Nowell-Smith has developed, or at least has drawn from other sources so developed, a theory about Christian morality which belies his a) basic lack of understanding of both the major doctrines of Christianity and the nature of God as described in the Bible, b) faulty scholarship, c) limited knowledge of scriptures pertinent to his own arguments, and d) ignorance of the general storytelling methods and literary devices employed by many of the Bible’s writers. As is often the case among secular philosophers who write about Christian doctrine and the nature of the God, Nowell-Smith arrives at conclusions that are based upon false premises, invalid comparisons and erroneous assumptions.

Throughout this article, the terms “Christian,” “Christianity” and “Christian doctrine” will always refer specifically to those persons, beliefs and doctrines which have long been held as being well within the pale of traditional Christian orthodoxy and which are regarded within the church as being conservative, evangelical and Protestant.

Human Nature

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”[1] This Bible verse well articulates the condition of the human heart. It also underscores a fundamental difference between Christian and secular views regarding human nature. Christians tend to see people as basically evil, while secularists tend to see them as basically good, the latter preferring a view of people that entails their doing wrong only occasionally and even then under some special set of unfortunate circumstances. Even when a person is seen as having committed some “wrong,” the secularist is confident that, had offender only been given the proper education, the right breaks in life or the chance to do it all over again, the offender would never had done such a thing. Thus, to the secularist, rehabilitation is often the main goal, so far as the wrongdoer is concerned. Punishment becomes a secondary concern.

Discipline

Patrick Nowell-Smith sees morality as a curb on a child’s volition.[2] He does not, however, understand that this volition on the child’s part, which conflicts with accepted moral rules, is actually the sin nature that is so prevalent in Christian doctrine. Christians hold that children do not have to be trained to be bad, they have to be trained to be good. People’s inclinations are continually toward their own selfish desires. This cannot be seen any more clearly than among young children who must be taught the difference between right and wrong. Not that they don’t have some sense of right and wrong, but that they must be trained to control their evil desires. Nowell-Smith also characterizes parental correction as “a thwarting of (the child’s) inclination,”[3] but, again, fails to recognize that this is consistent with Christianity’s view that each person possesses a sin nature and is continually inclined toward evil. When Nowell-Smith’s refers to a child’s inclination, he is, in actuality, referring to the fallen state of man.

Further, Nowell-Smith takes the position that parental discipline is the “the withdrawing of love.”[4] Christians, however, understand discipline as the expressing of love toward their children, even the lavishing of it upon them. Children learn of their parents’ love when those parents set boundaries to promote their children’s safety and development. Any concern parents show for their children’s behavior is simply a further expression of that love. The following two passages from the Bible illustrate the Christian perspective on this matter:

“For whom the LORD loves He reproves, Even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.”[5]

“He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.”[6]

While Nowell-Smith takes “the mechanism of parental discipline to mean ‘what adults forbid and punish me for,’”[7] the Christian sees it as emphasizing the sense of right and wrong already present in the heart of the child.

CRITIQUING PATRICK NOWELL-SMITH’S “MORALITY: RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR”

The Basis of Nowell-Smith’s Morality

Nowell-Smith claims to “have moral views but no religious beliefs.”[8] He adds that when people discover this about him they often ask him “Where do you get your moral ideas from?”[9] He surmises that his questioners really want to know upon what authority are his moral beliefs based.[10] But, to the extent his questioners are traditional, orthodox Christians, it is much more likely that they have, in fact, asked the question they intended. While Nowell-Smith supposes that the questioner is astonished at this seeming contradiction between his moral views and lack of religious beliefs, the questioner may actually have been rhetorically pointing to the fact that Nowell-Smith’s morality has come from somewhere other than himself and that that source is God. The question is not ill worded; its meaning is simply lost on Nowell-Smith. Nowell-Smith cedes this, but only to the point of resting the basis for his moral views upon his “mother and father…the companions of (his) boyhood and manhood…teachers and…books.”[11] Even so, there is little doubt that the majority of Nowell-Smith’s moral views are consistent with those of Christianity primarily because the moral truths of Christianity are absolute, and any system of morality that approaches that of peerless Christianity, is one that approaches moral perfection.

Moreover, Nowell-Smith suggests that the questioners suppose him to have no right to hold specific moral views because they have not been received from an authoritative source. On the contrary, Christians would most assuredly have Nowell-Smith agree with any portion of God’s moral code, whether it is recognized as coming from God or not. Nowell-Smith wrongly complains that, because he fails to acknowledge God as the authoritative source for the moral beliefs he holds, in the minds of his questioners, “morality must be based on religion, and a morality not so based, or one based on the wrong religion, lacks all validity.”[12] But, could any morality consistent with God’s morality lack validity simply because God is not credited with it’s authorship? This could hardly be the case. Such would merely mean that Nowell-Smith’s morality is only partially invalid, and then only to the degree that it strays from God’s moral truth.

Relying Upon Piaget

The central thesis of Nowell-Smith’s work is that “religious morality is infantile.”[13] He begins with the premise that humans progress through a series of conscious understandings of, and interactions with, morality as they mature into adulthood. His position is that Christian morality can best be categorized as mimicking one of the earliest stages of this developmental process. For this theory, he credits the “research”[14] of one only referred to in the work as “Piaget,”[15] but he offers no reference or footnote as to whom, exactly, Piaget might be.

While labeling Christian morality as “infantile,”[16] Nowell-Smith prefers a system of morality “ which sees it as a set of recipes to be followed for the achievement of ends.”[17] But such a system would leave no room for such virtues as integrity, sacrifice and self-control. He would have those in society make individual moral judgments based upon whatever particular personal interest they may perceive as having in a given ethical circumstance. One could imagine all sorts of moral “wrongs” being considered “rights,” such as prostitution, gambling, and abusing drugs and alcohol, should such a system prevail.

In summary, Piaget’s work is offered as evidence that morality is simply a learned set of behaviors owing to environment and experience, that the individual’s understanding of morality changes throughout the process of maturity and that it thus need not be of divine origin. He argues that Christian morality is underdeveloped. In comparing “the religious with the secular attitude towards the moral system,”[18] he tries to show that the religious attitude has characteristics which are necessary in the development of a child, but which are not proper for an adult. He suggests “that some elements characteristic of Christian morality are substitutes for childish attitudes.”[19] His aim is to show that humans progress through a series of moral stages and that Christians, while they may have matured, revert back to an “infantile”[20] level at the point of their conversion.

Doctrinal Misconceptions

A number of doctrinal misconceptions plague Nowell-Smith’s work. In it he claims, for example, that “the fundamental sin, the fount and origin of all sin, is disobedience to God.”[21] But, is this really true? In Christian doctrine, the first sin was that of Satan’s pride, not of man’s. The following Bible passages illustrate this point:

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground…For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.”[22]

“Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering…Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth…Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee…thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.”[23]

In another example of Nowell-Smith showing his lack of understanding of basic Christian doctrine, namely, the doctrine regarding the scope and purpose of God’s law, he argues that the Old Testament’s system of morality is teleological in nature and that the New Testament’s system of morality is deontological in nature, characterizing this seeming contrast “as striking as the difference of language.” But is it teleological or deontological? One could easily argue that it is neither one nor the other, but rather a hybrid which assumes the absoluteness of God’s laws, but recognizes that a person’s intentions and purposes become a part of any act which is to be judged in a moral light. God looks at the heart and is even more concerned about its condition than any seeming transgression of His laws. However, numerous Bible passages, including the book of Romans, for example, point to the necessity of a seemingly teleological system in the Old Testament and a seemingly deontological system in the New Testament. Such passages actually show that there are two parts that make up the whole. The Old Testament system was set up to show Man that a right relationship with God could not be obtained through the keeping of moral rules. Christ clarified this in His teachings.[24] When understood in the context of the whole of Scripture, it is obvious that Christ did not change the system of morality, but he more clearly defined it, ridding it of it’s corruption by the pride of men who had imposed upon it their own system of legalism. Christ said:

“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill,”[25]

An example of poor scholarship would be Nowell-Smith’s recounting of Abraham’s intended sacrifice of his son Isaac.[26] He takes Abraham’s obedience to God’s command as evidence that people “must be prepared to sacrifice our most deeply felt moral concerns if God should require us to do so.”[27] However, it escapes him that God does not ask Abraham to sacrifice any “deeply felt moral concerns.”[28] Abraham did not view his own act of obedience as immoral, but, on the contrary, saw it as an act of faith. Not the sort of blind, unreasoning faith that a zealous fanatic exhibits when following the commands of a charismatic, cult leader, but he reasoned that God was able to raise men from the dead. It was his trust in God’s ability to raise his son from the dead that allowed him to proceed with what might have, on the face of it, seemed an act of immorality, namely the murder of one’s own child. This is clear from the following passage:

“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac…his only begotten son…He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead…”[29]

He states that Christian faith in God is a “blind faith, utter submission of our own reason and will.” Here he also shows an example of his shallow understanding of the Biblical passage to which he refers. God created human beings with minds to reason. He did not then require of them that they set aside that God-given reason in pursuit of a relationship with Him. This would result in God’s people following after any number of false pursuits, including false religions, for example.

Nowell-Smith understands man’s response to God’s moral system as man’s trying to achieve a “right relationship”[30] with God. This may be asserted by other religions, even some which claim to be Christian, but it is not consistent with the Christian position that holds that a right relationship with God can only be achieved by God making man acceptable to Himself. A sinful person who attempts to please God with good works does so in vain. For the person who knows not God, obedience to God’s moral code gains him nothing with God. It should also be noted that being moral consists, not merely in obedience to moral commands as Nowell-Smith alleges,[31] but in conforming through both thoughts and deeds to moral truth. In the mind of God, grudging obedience is disobedience. There is nothing in Christian doctrine that provides that a person could, in any way, achieve a right relationship with God by right living. The Apostle Paul put it this way:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”[32]

GOD AND MORAL AUTHORITY: THE CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE

 The Nature of God

One area that is consistently misunderstood among secular philosophers is that of the true nature of God. One will find great difficulty in presenting competent arguments against the absolute moral authority of God without first denying some of the basic tenets of God’s character and nature as ascribed to Him by the Bible’s writers. Morality is not so much God’s divine command, as Nowell-Smith claims,[33] but rather morality should be understood as proceeding forth from God as an expression of His own righteous nature.

Nowell-Smith questions whether God can be trusted to establish what is and is not moral truth when he suggests that “God…is an omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe. Such a creator might have evil intentions and might command me to do wrong.” [34] Here he is clearly, seeing God as whimsically impulsive and unpredictable. First, one cannot say that God would command a wrong without knowing, apart from some superior moral authority that it is in fact a wrong. Further, God is the essence of morality. Thus, He would not, nor has He, according to the Biblical record, ever commanded anyone to do wrong. This is actually a form of the “straw man” argument.[35]

Second, Christian doctrine has long held that God is the only perfect being, and is, thus, necessarily immutable. He is immutable because any change would result in a) a better God, b) a worse God, or c) a different God who having been changed, must necessarily have had some non-essential attributes. A perfect being cannot, by its nature, then, be mutable. Since God is immutable, He cannot do anything that is contrary to His nature. Since He is also morally good, perfectly just and completely loving, He can be trusted to declare what is and is not moral truth.

Additionally, Nowell-Smith claims that “There is nothing in the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient creator, which by itself, entails His goodness or His right to command.”[36] One could easily respond that there is nothing in the idea of a good and righteous creator, which by itself entails His omnipotence and omniscience. But the Christian view of God entails all of these attributes. Therefore there is, in fact, something in the idea of the God of the Bible that entails His goodness and His right to command. One may well ask, “Where does Nowell-Smith get his incomplete view of the God of the Bible?” It certainly does not come from Christian doctrine. If one’s view of the God of the Bible does not come from the Bible, can that view be reasonably held? This is also a form of the “straw man” argument.

Moral Authority: The Providence of God or Man?

Nowell-Smith rightly agrees that, with respect to God’s authority in morality, that the question of the validity of the Bible must first be considered and decided upon before God, at least in the mind of the skeptic, can be attributed with all moral authority.[37] However, he wrongly asserts that such a decision is a moral one. It is not. It is an intellectual question. The validity of the Bible as a historically accurate and authoritative account of events must be considered based upon internal and external evidence. From this false premise, that judgments about the validity of the Bible are moral, Nowell-Smith then claims that morality is not based on religion, but that religion is based on morality. However, neither is the case. Christianity is not a religion in the purest sense, for religion is one’s attempt to make oneself acceptable to God. Christianity is the expression of Man’s condition, God’s plan for Man and Man’s response to that plan.

Nowell-Smith sets up a distinction between the content and form of any moral system.[38] He labels a type of moral system that subordinates moral rules to ends as teleological, arguing that the rules of this type of moral systems are judged by their tendency to promote desired ends.[39] Conversely, he labels as deontological any moral system which is made up of rules which are “…thought of as absolute, as categorical imperatives in now way depending for their validity on the good or bad consequences of obedience, and in which moral goodness is thought to lie in conformity to these rules for their own sake.”[40] But, if his description of what a deontological moral system is can be considered accurate, then the Christian system of morality can hardly be categorized as such. God does not always require a strict adherence to His “rules for their own sake” as Nowell-Smith implies.[41] For example, in the Hebrews, chapter 11 passage referred to earlier, God tested Abraham, telling him to offer his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. Such a command, strictly interpreted, would have been tantamount to murder according to God’s law. However, given the circumstances, Abraham was quite justified in intending to take his own son’s life because, as argued previously, “He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead…”[42] Abraham was justified in violating God’s prohibition against murder because he believed that if he killed his son God would raise him back to life.

CONCLUSION

First, this article has shown that Nowell-Smith, through a series of misunderstood and incorrectly applied Christian doctrines, has developed a theory about the origin of the authority of morality that has neither a factual basis in Christian doctrine nor a valid, undergirding philosophical argument.

Second, he fails to convincingly support his central thesis that “Christian morality is infantile.”[43] His portrayal of Christian morality is the foundation for his thesis. Now that his portrayal of Christian morality has been proven to be grossly inaccurate, it buckles under the weight of its own logic.

As a result, neither has Nowell-Smith done any service to the secular humanist who seeks to live as though there is no God, nor has he persuaded the Christian to abandon the belief that God is the one, true, absolute moral authority. The Apostle Peter, in his first epistle, tells of God’s righteousness when he writes, “FOR THE EYES OF THE LORD ARE TOWARD THE RIGHTEOUS, AND HIS EARS ATTEND TO THEIR PRAYER, BUT THE FACE OF THE LORD IS AGAINST THOSE WHO DO EVIL.”[44] In Christian doctrine, God’s moral authority is unquestioned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

 

Murray, Michael J., ed. Reasons for the Hope Within. Grand Rapids: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999.

 

Stump, Eleonore and Murray, Michael J., eds. Philosophy of Religion: The Big

Questions. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd., 1999.

 

The New Open Bible Study Edition, NASB (New American Standard Bible). Nashville:

Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc., 1990.

 

Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1943.

[1] Jer. 17:9 NASB (The New American Standard Bible).

[2] Patrick Nowell-Smith, “Morality: Religious and Secular” in Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions, ed. Eleonore Stump and Michael J. Murray (Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1999), 408.

[3] Nowell-Smith, 410.

 

[4] Ibid., 409.

[5] Prov. 3:12 NASB.

[6] Prov. 13:24 NASB.

[7] Ibid., 409.

 

[8] Ibid., 403.

 

[9] Ibid.

 

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid., 404.

[13] Ibid., 403.

 

[14] Ibid., 406.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid., 403.

[17] Ibid., 405.

 

[18] Ibid., 408.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid., 403.

[21] Ibid., 408.

[22] Isa. 14:12-15 NASB.

[23] Eze. 28:13-17 NASB

[24] Matt. 5:1-7:29

[25] Ibid.

[26] Nowell-Smith, 408.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Heb. 11:17-19 NASB

[30] Nowell-Smith, 409.

[31] Ibid., 405.

 

[32] Eph.2:8-9 NASB

[33] Nowell-Smith, 404.

[34] Ibid.

[35] A “straw man” argument is any argument that is constructed using false assertions which can be easily “knocked-down” by the one making the argument.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid., 405.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Heb. 11:19 NASB

[43] Ibid., 403.

[44] 1 Pet. 3:12

 

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