THINKING LIKE JESUS AND SOCRATES
Dr. Gary VanDeWalker
Dr. Robert Hughes
Evangelical Free Church of Mount Shasta
Lesson Four: Is there really a right and wrong?
(Ethics, what everyone wishes other people had)
1. --Agree or disagree: There is
no such thing as absolute truth, rather, what is true varies from
person to person, from culture to culture, from age to age.
--Agree or disagree: 5 + 7 = 12
--Agree or disagree: Electolyze H2O 
2H + 0
--Agree or disagree: It is always wrong to torture babies for fun.
--Agree or disagree: ei∏ = -1
2. Understanding ethical problems takes tools just as
understanding math does. Ignorance does not equal
knowledge.
3. Metaethics is simply a description of ethics and an attempt to understand.
4. Normative ethics is the determination of actually right and wrong under different ethical theories.
5. Legal and moral is not the same thing.
6. Subjective morality is different from objective morality.
7. It is possible to be moral without God.
8. Is there morality outside of our own subjectivity?
--Everyone acknowledges a right or wrong
--This right and wrong is appealed to as being outside the person
--For moral law to exist, there must be a lawgiver
--There must be a means for this lawgiver to communicate with people
--This lawgiver is seen as being above humanity.
--Therefore, there must be objective morality given from a being above humanity
9. C.S. Lewis brought this argument one more step, be examining the claims of Jesus to the this moral lawgiver.
--Jesus is lying
--Jesus is a lunatic
--Jesus is who He claims to be
10. Ethics is subjective when it becomes based on the greater good or on what is best for me.
11. Christian ethics must be prescriptive and not merely descriptive.
