The Ontology of Morality

If there is a beginning, there is an origin, or rather, an ontology.


One of the arguments for the existence of God is the support for an objective morality to exist, not in a sociological sense, but in an ontological sense.


The ontology of morality must be distinguished from the epistemology of morality. The former referring to the origin of the yardstick or morality, while the latter refers to how we come to know of such a yardstick.


In other words, without such a yardstick, how can we safely say that killing is immoral? On what basis? Why is it immoral If we behave like mother nature and kill each other in the name of survival?


In the realm of mother nature, animals kill for mating partners, shelter, food etc. As such, natural selection takes its course and only the strong will survive. Consequently, only the best will be "naturally selected". Humans, however, have affirmative action to protect the minority.


Hence, as argued by Christian Apologists, there must be an ontology of morality as a basis to justify the unified norm of certain humans behavior. For example, it is universally an immoral act to kill another human being.


At this juncture, it is imperative to reiterate that there is a difference between ontology and epistemology. The former exists even if one does not acknowledge the existence of it. To put it simply, the argument applies to everyone regardless of his belief or religion. Hence, a somewhat universal norm of morality.


As an illustration, one may epistemologically learn all his morals from religion X or Culture Y, but on what basis would Religion X or Culture Y have in regards to what is moral and what isn't? It will be in an infinite loop until it acknowledges that the ontology of morality must come from something transcendental.


Hence, the ontology of morality is none other than God Himself... or so claimed many Christian Apologists, including renowned Christian Philosopher Dr William Lane Craig, as an argument for the existence of God.


There MAY be a huge flaw in acknowledging that there is an objective morality and the ontology of it is God. As mentioned many times in my previous posts, God is amorphous. The only way to identify God is to identify His characteristics. As such, stating that the ontology of morality is God will inextricably link the ontology of morality to the characteristics of God.


Malachi 3:6 "I the Lord do not change". God is eternal, so whatever morality that is ontologically Godly can never be changed.


Hence, morality is not sociological, but a subject that is anchored by every philosophical principles found in the bible.


I won't be able to list down each and every philosophical principle, but here are a few to ponder upon.


Anti Feminism -- The bible has always established that there are different roles for male and female. The patriarchal spirit was also in the original King James version where "He" was used to refer to humans in general. It was only later "amended" in the New Living Translation to be in a "We" form. However, the original Hebrew version has always espoused the patriarchal spirit. Even the Earth was referred to as a "she" in Genesis, in the original Hebrew text.


Anti Democracy -- Democracy is a creature of law. There is no such thing as democracy in the bible. Ironically, democracy was "created" by John Austin's model of law to oppose the bible being the country's "constitution". In the past, the church has the ultimate say on whether a bill should be passed or not, with reference to the bible. Furthermore, leaders have always been selected by God. If God wants the people out of the control of a leader, He will select another to lead the people somewhere else, like what happened to the Pharaoh in Egypt and Moses.


Anti Capitalism -- The book of Acts says it all. Sometimes I wonder how a Christian can be adamant on perceiving a friendly gamble session between friends during festive seasons as a sin, but is absolutely fine to capitalise on the poor by justifying the act as a legal one. Corporate Laws are NOT creations of the bible. They are created for capitalism. It's funny how every now and then my boss is teaching me all kinds of different methods on how a person can swindle money from a company legally, leaving the poor to suffer.


Here's the conclusion.

1. If you insist that the ontology of morality is God, this means that you have to be, inter alia, anti feminism, anti democracy and anti capitalism. Saying you want to follow God while doing otherwise is paradoxical.

2. You can choose not to believe that the ontology of morality is God. In which case, you will still have to explain why there is somewhat a universal acceptance of normativity in the world.


Dr William Lane Craig has sent many challenges in debates for those who try to refute the former to prove or explain the latter. None succeeded. In fact it's quite hilarious that many atheists philosophers are confused between the ontology and epistemology of morality.


As for me, while I have always been a socialist, I am also a feminist and a democracy supporter. I have no choice but to go on the basis of the latter conclusion. Do not get me wrong, I think that the Kalam Cosmological Argument is sufficient to prove the existence of God. There is no need for the theory of ontology of morality to serve such a purpose. In fact, doing so will lead to the above anomaly.


I will explain Conclusion 2 sometime later, but for now, I'll just say... "Challenge Accepted".