Last Sunday night a friend of mine and I were talking politics and he mentioned (in relationship to Romney) that “Mormons are more moral than Christians; they have more rules to follow.” We laughed but it’s true that many equate religious rules with morality. If that were true Muslims would be extremely moral people, but as we’ve learned recently Islam excuses lies and murder. So if rules aren’t equivalent to morality, then what is morality?

Morality is a set of principles concerning right and wrong, but what matters most is whose right and wrong? In religion the moral principles extend from the higher power. In the case of Islam, Allah is capable of all thing’s including deception and murder, and so it follows that his worshipers would conform to the same moral principles. For Atheists (whom we’ve also looked at recently) there is no higher power, so moral guidance is founded either in a person’s own character or by some form of majority rule. Interestingly, it is often this topic of morality that inspires some to comparative religious studies, or even worldviews yet once the study begins it becomes more about comparing and differentiating and less about understanding morality. And then modern secularists throw in “situational ethics” to muddy the waters even more. Let me simplify the matter.

Never has a moral code been as clearly defined as Exodus 20:

God spoke these words…
You shall have no other gods before me…
You shall not make [idols] to bow down to or serve…
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain…
Remember the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy…
Honor your father and mother…
You shall not commit murder…
You shall not commit adultery…
You shall not steal…
You shall not give false testimony…
You shall not covet your neighbor’s [belongings]…

People the world over know these moral principles as the 10 Commandments. What few understand is that these commands reveal both God’s character (God himself adheres to these Laws) and our character (our inability to adhere to these laws). This revelation prompts one of two responses in people.

Before we go any further it is important to understand that both the responses are based on the notion of when something becomes sin. Keep that in mind.

The first response is to de-value sin by sliding the definition of sin as far forward on the scale as possible. So to some religious leaders in Israel’s history the act of disobedience was the sin. Morality is therefore based on behavior. This is what most of the world continues to believe and how many can consider themselves a “good person”.

The second response is one of humility and slides the definition as far back on the scale as possible. This is what Jesus promoted in his teachings. To wish someone dead is to break the sixth commandment. Morality is therefore based on desire. The few who believe this do so understanding that the laws are based on God’s character. Since the laws are based on God’s character wishing that God was lenient on the seventh commandment, for example, is to wish that God were someone different than who he is. In other words, we don’t really want to have God be our God; we want another God that is more like us, which is a violation of the first commandment.

We’ll delve more into the issue of morality tomorrow.