Regarding the letter, “Common sense dictates morality”: It may be helpful to consider what is the authoritative basis upon which we construct morality. For some it is religious belief. For some, like Mr. Larson, it is common sense, which is a form of human rationality. The problem with appeal to rationality as moral authority is the human factor. There are many contexts in which my common sense will differ with any number of other common senses. In other words, common sense is too relative to one’s time, place and culture.
Evolutionary ethics finds a moral basis within nature in, among other things, its observation of cooperation and self-sacrificing traits in non-human life forms. On such, naturalists hope that humans will live into our noblest spirit and rationality and act morally. Nothing beyond nature compels how we should live. However, with that same rationality we know that nature itself has no compunction about inflicting untold suffering on life. Modern science also predicts that biotic life, including humans, will inevitably end on earth because of nature’s unfolding timeline.
So, if there is nothing beyond mindless, heartless nature as moral basis, and nothing beyond extinction — bound humans, then a transcendent, personal God could be very helpful, especially one who reveals the divine self as loving and saving, which are the basis of like-kind morality. Unfortunately, morality is not a simple matter either in a purely naturalistic universe, nor in one in which God allows nature to be itself and humans the freedom of will.
Jim Kutz
Arlington
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