Well Sean McDowell called our attention to an interview he did with Bart Irman on Irma's new book Love Thy Stranger. And to start things off Bill, let's take a look at what the book is all about. The thesis. Here's the first clip. Yeah, so right at the beginning of the book in the introduction, you state your thesis and you say, my argument in this book is that the impulse to help strangers in need is embedded in our Western moral conscience because of the teachings of Jesus. I got very interested in why it is that when there's a disaster that hits, we feel this impulse to help. We write a check. That's true, not only if people who are Christian, it's true. Just about everybody in the way. It's not everybody does it. It's not that everybody has huge evidence, but people have that kind of pull and many people act on it regardless of the religious commitments And I got interested in that because among other things I'm I'm an expert on the ancient world generally and I Been long intrigued with ancient Greek and Roman moral philosophy as well as ancient Judaism before Christianity and this impulse was not there um and you can demonstrate it was not there and so my question question was, how did you get here there? If it wasn't there, how did it get here? And my thesis in my book is that Jesus had a different idea from moral philosophers of his day and from his Jewish tradition so far as we can tell that when people are in need, we need to help them whatever their relation to us is whether we know them or not, whether they, if we don't know them, it doesn't matter what their nationality is, what their ethnicity is, what their religion is, what their gender is, anything like that, nothing matters except their in need. That this was the teaching of Jesus And because his followers ended up taking over the Roman Empire,

that became the ethical message that was preached for centuries, so much so that it's just embedded in us, if we live in the West. Okay, so that's the basic thesis of the book. Herman says that he can't find this impulse. He can't find anything prior to Jesus in the

ancient world that reflects the moral impulse to help strangers. But our modern Western morality does show that and exist because of Jesus. This goes right along with some of the scholarship we've discussed lately, Bill. Even atheistic, agnostic, and non-Christian scholars recognize Jesus' impact. Yes, no educated person can deny that Jesus of Nazareth was one of the most influential human beings to have ever lived and his impact on Western culture is incalculable. What's interesting about Irman's thesis is that it would be to a certain extent verifiable by comparing Western values and culture to Eastern religions and cultures such as Taoism, Buddhism or Hinduism. And I've heard from people who have worked in those cultures that indeed that that's true, that there is not that same feeling of wanting to help out others in need that you do find in the West. You know Bill I suppose that one doesn't have to hold that Jesus was divine to acknowledge his impact on history. But can we use that as evidence for his divinity? Well, I think it could be a part of a cumulative case. If Jesus was in fact divine, then you would expect him to have some sort of impact upon the world. But it would be a very small part. I mean, after all, Muhammad has had enormous impact on the world, too, but that doesn't go to ratify the truth of his teaching. So it could play a role, but I think not a very important one. In this next clip, Sean asks Bart about objective morality. Clip number two. The heart of my question is, is when you call this a moral transformation, is this a change on a horizontal level in which it's just a change like, say, clothing styles have changed over time? Or is this an objectively good transformation that Jesus brought, that we ought to live the way that Jesus lived and support things like hospitals, orphanages and poor houses. I would say some things are objectively good in my opinion. I think it's good that we have hospitals. It's good we have orphanage. These are, it's good that we have disaster relief programs. I think these are good. This is my personal opinion. Since it's my personal opinion, I don't think it's objective. But my view is those are good things. Well, I, I think I heard two answers from Irman there. He says some things are objectively good, but his opinions about what is good is not objective. Initially, it, it sounds rather confusing, Bill.

I think it's worse than confusing Kevin. I think it's incoherent. He's very confused. It's like saying, I think that chocolate tastes objectively better than vanilla. But that's That's just my opinion.

And so it's not objective.

It's self-contradictory.

And so it's not objective. It's self-contradictory. And so we are already seeing here at Tipoff that Berterman is way out of his depth in discussing these ethical questions. Yeah. And Sean wants to press the point in this next clip. He begins by defining objective morality. Clip number three. Moral realism's basic claim is that some things are right and some things are wrong. Or good or bad, regardless of people's beliefs, preferences, or attitudes regarding them. So just like there's certain historical facts, outside of us, there's certain scientific facts true outside of us, there's moral facts true outside of us. That's typically what's meant by moral objectivism. And so it sounds like you're saying you're a moral subjectivist that the teachings of Jesus they're based upon somebody's opinion whether they adopt them or not they're not actually objectively good within themselves that I categorize that correctly. I think you're doing a two different categories. Some things are objective it's objective that there are public hospitals agreed. Yeah it's not objective that that moral values are either good or bad. Usually. There's lots of subjective moral values. Is it good to kill somebody? Well, depends. I agree with you in principle that sometimes it depends whether we should kill somebody or not. Maybe you and I would agree in self-defense, that's morally okay.

So, yes.

I'm okay.

So it's okay.

That's the point though.

If it's based on a situation, then it's not objective that it's good or bad to kill

somebody.

It depends on the situation.

Well, we've got Sean's definition and my ears perked up when he starts talking about situations. Bill, is this situational ethics? Well, I think that Erman here is just again confused. He's confusing objective with absolute. To say that something is absolute is to say that it is not relative to certain situations. So the absolute is not subjective. The opposite of absolute is relative. And Sean, as you saw, is quite ready to agree that often various actions of what you undertake have their

moral value relative to the situation. For example, the killing of a person could be a moral evil if that's an elementary school shooter

killing children and their teachers. On the other hand, if it's a policeman who kills the shooter and rescues the children, then that's a moral good. So we all agree that many moral values are relative to the situation in which the action takes place, but that's not to say that they're not objective. There is something that is objectively wrong in that situation and something objectively right in that situation. And so we mustn't think that by saying that moral values are not absolute, that therefore moral values are not objective. Someone like Sean McDowell is defending the position of moral realism, that there are objective moral values and duties, but he would recognize that the moral worth of an action will be relative to the circumstances in which it takes place. Sean still wants to rest the point. Here's clip number four. Okay, so some moral claims depend upon the situation, but that doesn't make them necessarily subjective. So for example, the claim, I mean, in your book, I mean, we could jump straight to the case as you condemn anti-semitism and violence against Jews, which you argue led to the Holocaust. So let's talk about that one. Are there circumstances that would make that okay or is it universally wrong to do what the Nazis did against the Jews? I don't have any access to any kind of universal objectivity. I'm a human being and I have thoughts and views. So do you. If there were something that was

a universally objective moral value, our only access to it would be through our brains. And our brains are our brains are objects. You have roughly a hundred billion neurons and yours. I've got a few less in mind. But since our recognition of morality is based on our human perception, even if you want to claim that there's some kind of moral objectivity, we have no direct access to it except through our subjectivity. So, Bart says that even if there are universally objective morals, he has no access to them, Bill. Yeah, this is a confusion that I have repeatedly encountered among lay people, Kevin. They don't understand the difference between an experience and the object of that experience. By definition, an experience is subjective. It is a state of mind. But the object of that experience is often an objective reality. So, for example, the physical world around us is an objective reality. So for example the physical world around us is an objective reality, but the only access we have to it is through our subjective sense experiences, smelling things, touching things, seeing things, hearing things, all of which are mediated,

as Erman would put it, through our brain. It is through subjective sensory experiences that we apprehend the objectively existing physical world. So the question here is the degree to which we trust our experience.

And I would say that unless and until we have some defeat of our experience, we are perfectly rational to believe that we are experiencing some objective reality. Sean, I believe, has a response to Bart's lack of access, come it. It's clip number five. There's different ways we know truth in science. There's different ways we know truth in history. And the mere fact that we are subjects, trying to discover something in different means, doesn't fall that there's no truth. That's the only comparison that I made between history and between science and then between morality. And so you said we have no access to moral truth. I guess I'd say a couple things. I don't know what it means to know moral truth through our brains. It makes sense with science because we're studying physical matter, but moral truths are not physical. They're immaterial. They don't have weight. So clearly we're going to access them differently than we do science, just like history accesses things differently than science. So my question is you said, Craig, if I'm wrong, you said we have no access to moral truth. How do you know that? It's my opinion. Just as yours is your opinion. Okay. Well, several things to comment on there, Bill, when it comes to moral values and duties, we all have our opinions and that's the best we can do. Oh, poor Bart. It's just his opinion that he has no access to moral truths. His view is suffering self-collapse before our very eyes. He claims we have no access to moral truths while at the same time claiming that he has no access to that truth, the truth that there are no moral truths. And notice it, it's not just when it comes to moral values and duties, but when it comes to everything, all we have is our opinions. It leads to complete skepticism. So, Irman's view is on a course to self-destruction. Sean tries to designate an objective moral truth in this next clip. It's clip number six. Torturing a child for fun for adults pleasure is wrong. Now I have no problem. I'm a I'm about as close to being 100% certain as possible that torturing a child for adult entertainment is wrong. And we don't know that the way we know science and history. We know it intuitively and naturally by reflecting upon it. So do you agree with me that torturing a child for fun is wrong? Yes. Okay, so I guess I'm confused because you said it's only a matter of opinion, but now you say that's wrong. I didn't say that was a matter of opinion. I'm saying you and I have opinions about things. Sure. Those, if you have an opinion, I have an opinion. What's the objective truth? The objective truth is we have different opinions. But how do you use objective truth in order to establish that you're right about either a historical claim or a moral claim and that I'm empirically wrong? How do I do that? You have to figure it out. You're doing it by your reason. You're thinking about it. That's right. Other people think about it and have different views. Not about everything. Most people do agree that when they were seeing me here, they'd agree I was sitting in a chair. I am sitting in a chair. Yeah. Me too. What good does it do to say that there are moral objectives unless you can isolate all of them? A couple of things there, Bill. They seem to agree about reflecting on moral questions when evaluating them and so on. But I'm not sure what Bart means when he said if morals were objective we should be able to isolate all of them Bill. Yeah, it's just silly isn't it? How about just isolating one of them? Can we do that? And we affirm with Sean McDowell that torturing a child for adult pleasure is wrong? On Irman's view you cannot consistently affirm that because all you have is your opinions and you have no access to universal moral truths. I wish there were a better example, but I don't think there is. This torturing a child example is disturbing and depressing, but it continues in this next clip, clip number seven. But I don't know what it means to isolate them. I can state them. You agree with say that. You agree with me that torturing a child for adult entertainment is wrong. That's a universal moral truth. Oh, no, I don't think it is. Okay. You know, in the ancient world. No, in the ancient world, for example, people were all sick human beings, often practiced child sacrifice, who was often very painful. They thought it was the right thing to do. Now you could claim they didn't understand the objective truths of morality. Or you could say that actually, you know, this moral truth that we thought was objective and available to everybody was not available to them. Okay, torturing a child for fun or merely for adult pleasure is very often the go-to example of objective morality. But Bart revises it to say, Pagan's thought they were doing the right thing when they sacrificed children. And I just want to point out that that is not the the scenario or

the hypothetical. The example is harming a child for fun or pleasure. And then he also suggested that they perhaps didn't have access in the ancient world to objective moral truth bill. So a few things there. I think here Sean made a strategic misstep that opened an escape route for Erman. Sean spoke of universal moral truths rather than objective moral truths. And did you notice how Erman immediately leapt on it by saying that this moral truth, even if objective, is not universally believed. He interpreted the word universal to mean that it is universally believed by all peoples at all time. And that, of course, is just a red herring because that isn't what McDowell was claiming. But it enables Irman at least temporarily to wiggle off the hook by saying that here is an objective moral truth that isn't universally believed. In this next clip, Sean and Bart talk about moral progress and superior moral views. Clip number eight. I agree that humans have certain inclinations that absolutely tell us that something is right and wrong. That doesn't mean that there's some kind of objective standard there. It means that this is our inclination as human beings. Okay. So, let me ask this. This is helpful, by the way. I'm going to come back to this point about inclination. But in your book, you make two claims. One, you talk about you embrace your beliefs because you think they're superior. Otherwise, you wouldn't embrace them. And by the way, I'm with you. That's what it means to hold the belief. There's nothing elitist about that. I don't fault you for that. But then in page 76, you talk about progress we have made since our ancient forebears. So if it's all opinion, and there's no standard by which we judge, I don't know what superior and progress even means. Let's get to Barnes answer to that in a moment, Bill. But what do you think about the point that Sean is making? If there's no standard, there's not a standard, there's no way to gauge progress nor determine what is superior. Does better imply a best? This gets back to Sean's earlier point about the difference between mere moral change, like the change in fashions over time, and genuine moral progress in the sense of objectively becoming better and better and better. And Irman seems to want to believe in objective moral progress, but then he gives away the store by saying that it's just his opinion. Let's go to Bart's answer then to the question about moral progress and standards. Give him a chance to answer. Here's clip number nine. So this seems to be an issue that you're very intent upon. You and I share a human DNA that has been transformed over the centuries because of the way culture developed. And you admit that in different cultures, they absolute, what those moral, objective moral truths are. Different cultures have different views of moral objective truths. I think different cultures have common moral principles that transcend culture. These are principles that are universal or near universal, even though the practices may vary, which is what we would expect.

And so, I'll ask them. Go ahead. One of my top moral priorities is to help people who are hungry and homeless. Okay. And I think that that for me, that is a very kind of core moral value. And I try to act on it. That moral value was not an evidence for the vast majority of the 300,000 years that homo sapiens have been in existence. And so if you want to say that we all have those moral values, I think history would show you that you're wrong. That in fact those moral values have been around, that particular moral value is being like a high importance to help those in need has been around for about 1800 years. Out of the 300,000 years, the humans have existed. So I don't think we all have the same moral code. Okay, so Sean says common moral values can be seen in societies throughout history, even though those moral values may be applied differently. Barton thinks that history shows that societies have differing moral codes, as he said Bill. Yeah, Erman is so confused. Sean is not trying to say that people have always had the same moral values. On the contrary, in fact, he's actually saying that there is genuine moral progress that is being made. People are discovering moral values that were objectively there all along, even though they didn't realize it. So the question here is whether our moral values are gradually discovered or are they gradually invented. MacDowell's position as a moral realist is that moral values are there all along but they are gradually discovered whereas Irman seems to want to say that moral values are gradually invented and are not objective. They are purely subjective. Yeah,, Sean is so, he's such a nice guy. He's so kind and generous. Let's wrap things up. Well, I want to say Kevin, something about Sean too in his department in this interview. I thought he was just brilliant. Urban was trying to be jocular and laugh and make jokes. And you notice how serious Sean McDowell is. He never even cracks a smile. He is very focused and intent on these issues that he's grilling Urban over. And think Irman found himself quite unprepared to be on the hot seat with Sean McDowell. Yeah. We're going to wrap things up with Bart's summation of the whole thing. Here's clip number 10. We do feel guilt and it's built into us. I mean, as you said, you've read a lot of evolutionary biology. and so it's not difficult to explain this from evolutionary biological, evolutionary biological around. The sense of guilt comes to us because we're doing things that might harm ourselves or others, and that's a problem evolutionarily because if you harm others within your community, you may destroy your community. And it's not that we've evolved the sense of guilt so that we don't destroy our communities is that people who have this sense of guilt is idea that they're acting wrongly. People who have that tend to survive better than others and their genes survive better than others. And so it's within our genetic code to feel this. I have no problems with saying some actions are right and some are wrong without an objective standard. Yes, I think that is right. I know that sounds like people, people believe in objectivity say you have no grounds for saying that, but I'm just telling you, yes, you do. Because it's written into what it means to be a human being. Let me just emphasize as well. For people who are listening to this, this debate of objectivity and subjectivity is like not the point of my book at all. I mean, the point of the book is about a transformation of our ethical sense. And the argument, I think as you were saying, Sean, that it would work whether you believe or not in terms of the argument on my book, but the historical transformation. But objectivity and subjectivity is not something I really other than like in the introduction to a couple chapters where I explain why I don't think you have to believe in God to be a moral person. All right. So he says evolutionary biology explains altruistic tendencies and things like guilt and so on. Bart emphasizes Bill that all this is not really the point of his book, but Sean really wanted to make some points about objective morality and perhaps the moral argument for God, probably based on that introduction that Bart mentioned there. And I must say that Bart was willing to play along and get into moral philosophy, Bill. Yes. Here we find Erman espousing the typical line that treats moral values as spin-offs of the sociobiological process in the struggle for survival. And the idea is that having a conscience that feels guilt gives an organism an evolutionary advantage. and so it gets selected by natural selection

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