I really enjoyed reading this post. Very interesting & thought-provoking angle at looking at human nature & our innate desire to twist even the Word of God to fit our own morals & desires. That’s how the Fall began (the Serpent twisting God’s Word to Eve) & how Moses came to not see the Promise Land (Num 20). They might just be subtle twists, but they can make all the difference.

‘Empirical’ ethics is a great way to hide, isn’t it? (Empirical might be stats, or just observations.)

So people argue for their position on drug laws, for example, saying ‘It’s already happening.’ But we wouldn’t decriminalise domestic violence because so many blokes already beat up their wives. In other words, the real argument(s) lie behind the spoken argument.

I’d much prefer we could be honest when discussing right & wrong - & I think it’s up to Christians to practise such honesty with regard to our gospel convictions shaping everything.

Fantastic!  I can now have a Biblical reason to rant at those annoying statistics I read in the news!

Hi Michael,

Why say hang on? I don’t think that I said anything about them not telling us about the way the world is. I just said that the way the world is doesn’t necessarily help you much.

Grimmo.

Hi Michael,

Don’t go quoting Calvin on me, how can I possibly recover from that? The problem is of course the is/ought dilemma. Of course you can learn much about the way the world is from examining it (with or without statistics). But what you make of it depends almost entirely on your presuppositions, which we are seeing more and more blatantly from the anti-Christian media and thinkers.

So, let’s make up some vaguely plausible statistics. 80% of people view pornography and 60% of them say its helpful for their sex lives. Therefore pornography isn’t really evil (I don’t know how many variations on that argument I’ve seen). Or, morality changes from age to age and culture to culture therefore there is no absolute truth and our outdated notions of guilt need to be brought into the 90s (so to speak - I still can’t speak about the noughties, it’s just wrong! ha ha).

You can of course, learn all sorts of good things if you observe creation through the right lens. But at the moment the world’s lens is pretty gammy.

Grimmo.

<i>Christians need to be consistent then. </i>

Christians are consistent!

We use statistics to demonstrate what we know to be true for other reasons.

If those statistics turn out to be dodgy, we throw them out.

If they turn out not to be dodgy, we put them into the sermon/bible study illustration file.