When Choice is Unfree

[from 2003]

Part II.

    I do not want to make a big mystery of this. It is simply a matter of logic. By their very nature, moral codes are not subject to choice. The notion that I should follow or adopt the moral code that I like best, or that fits my circumstances best, or that best appeals to my training, intellect, aims, or appetites, or that I should do “what is right for me,” cannot be supported logically. If my choice of moral codes is founded on any of the above criteria, then my morals are no more than an expression, respectively, of my preferences, my assessment of my circumstances, my training, intellect, aims, or appetites, or even my whims. It is not an expression of what is right and wrong in any objective or global sense.
    It is a further snare that the act of choosing grants the illusion of choice, the illusion of freedom in an arena where freedom is inherently impossible. (By the way, only one moral code is available. The other formulations are strikingly similar, as C. S. Lewis demonstrates in The Abolition of Man. Moreover, since the moral code has transcendent roots, contradictory variances are impossible; there can only be one. This point is made nicely by David Klinghoffer, in a review of Rodney Stark’s book, For the Glory of God, in National Review, July 28, 2003, where he writes, “If there is only one God, ...then that implies that there can be only one transcendentally true foundation on which all of ethics is built. Relativism becomes impossible.” I understand Mr. Klinghoffer to be Jewish. His review was fair and favorable.)
    The Law, that great body of prohibitions, that tablet of moral absolutes, which is not a set of suggestions or principles, but actual injunctions, is written on our hearts by our training and our nature. (God has not left us to be complete victims of our society. He scatters His light around as it pleases Him to do so.) When we begin shortcircuiting those processes, we pay a terrible penalty as a society, and we pay an even greater penalty as individuals. The Law is true; it is the rightness that cannot be supplanted. (Psalm 19:9. “The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous.” [NIV]) Yet the City, our society as it has been evolving in recent decades, has tried to do exactly that. It wants to substitute a new set of foundation principles.
    Note what the Law is. It is not a set of moral axioms. It does not set forth a pattern of moral principles. Its statements are not in the indicative mood at all. They do not, in general, assert the existence of anything, any overarching ideals or paradigms of social organization. Only two indicative statements appear in the Ten Commandments passage, (Exodus 20:3-17) one dealing with the rationale for the Sabbath, and the other, a statement about God’s character, that He is “a jealous God.” All other statements in the passage are imperatives. They function, not to inform us about moral philosophy, but to keep us from falling off the moral cliff. They say to us, in effect, “Stay away from these evils. If you approach them, you are in danger.”
    We do not receive reasons why stealing and murder and covetousness and false witness and adultery are wrong; we are simply prohibited from committing these acts, and from their prohibition we infer that they are wrong. The Law delivered on Mt. Sinai is founded on the authority of God. Though the Law has good reasons embedded in it and is therefore not arbitrary, adherence to the Law always boils down to regard for the authority of God. By contrast, the City’s smorgasbord of moral codes is rational, reasoned from humanist principles, and pragmatic. Prohibitions in the City’s moral codes are not absolute but consequential. Corner cases (computer guy jargon for the special cases where rules intersect, i.e., appear to collide) expose gaps in the moral fabric, which therefore require constant revisions. But the City’s illusion of choice for moral codes is the basic mechanism that propagates moral revisionism and relativism.
    So long as the moral code is subject to choice of any kind, sin will express itself, and it will do so under the cover of virtue. It will produce obdurate sin, the sort that Jesus described as unforgivable. (Matt. 12:31; Mark 3:29; Luke 12:10) To use F. F. Bruce’s line of analysis (in The Hard Sayings of Jesus, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Il., 1983), it is not that slanderers of the Holy Spirit have committed a sin too terrible to be forgiven of, but that those who slander God, who claim persistently and whole-heartedly that God is not able to do what He says He will do, never do repent and hence never receive forgiveness. Sin, preached as virtue, acted out in clear conscience, embraced as salvation, in people whose ideas are mature and well considered, is accordingly an (almost) insurmountable obstacle to faith. (Never say “never.” Look at Saul/Paul. Jesus, the righteous Judge can say, “Never,” for He has the authority, and He can look in people’s hearts. We cannot.)
© Copyright, 2001, 2003, 2026, by Robert McAnally Adams.
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