Disturbing Implications: Accounting for Morality Through Sociobiology

While I was running this week, I was listening to a Stand to Reason podcast (www.str.org) with host Greg Koukl. His guest, Brian Godawa, was talking about a couple of his projects as a Christian screenwriter, producer, and documentary maker.* One of the issues that was discussed was moral relativism, which the clip below addresses in an impactful way.

This is a 7 minute clip of what will be released as a full length feature film titled Cruel Logic. Among other themes such as the problem of evil, Cruel Logic explores the nature of morality. This clip powerfully shows that ideas have consequences, as one of the characters points out in a disturbing way.

For those not familiar with the sociobiolgical theory of morality, its proponents believe that morals are a result of social evolution. Morals are the result of our gene's felt need for them, not something objective and external to us. For instance, philosopher Michael Ruse, believes that morals are an illusion that our genes have foisted on us because we need to believe in morality in order to live together since we have become social beings. In other words, we need to believe there are objective morals, so our genes make us believe there are objective morals. Those tricky genes! (One could ask how Ruse has risen above the illusion to discover the truth; and now that he's exposed it, why any of us should accept the illusion and its morals any longer?)

As you watch this clip, notice how there is no valid reason why the serial killer should not kill based on the sociobiological theory...we are just products of our genes. It is an extreme case, but the point is there is nothing to stop one from going to this extreme if he or she chooses. Watch as this serial killer follows sociobiology all the way to its natural conclusion.



As Christians, we know that morals come from the one perfectly moral lawgiver, God. As such, morals are an external, objective standard of right and wrong that is binding on all humans at all times. Any other way of accounting for morality is subjective and relative and leaves us no room to claim anything right or wrong, which is a very bad place to be.

*Brian Godawa also wrote the award-winning The End of Wars which starred Keifer Sutherland, and a new documentary on stem cell research titled Lines That Divide,to name a few. You can find out more about him and his projects at www.godawa.com