The Broad Array of Moral Concepts Part 3

God-Composed Life-Scripts

The recent modern recognition in philosophy is that the human mind when reduced down to only a materialistic “brain” alone, made up of circuits and neurons, devolves into nonsensical relativism.

The radical reduction into materialism undermines confidence in the reliability of all human thought, and thereby destroys rationality, scientific investigation, and even worldview philosophies such as atheism itself.

Yet by simply asking the question and examining the evidence, this in and of itself declares at the outset that Jesus Christ the person we are investigating, is in fact within the zone of moral perfection and sinless virtue by reason of the question being seriously entertained at all. 

We would not even open such an investigation into the life of any other exceptional person past or present, because we already correctly acknowledge that only one person in all of history has made a credible, serious claim to have lived a perfect life, and that one person is Jesus Christ.  

No sane person in all of recorded history has made a viable and well-substantiated claim to embody and demonstrate the moral attributes of brilliant pure light, absolute goodness, and perfect virtue…of being, speaking, and acting like a deity.

Jesus Christ as Messiah is proactively anticipated for centuries in the biblical Old Testament messianic prophecies fulfilled in the life, teaching, and ministry of Jesus Christ recorded in the New Testament gospels.

This raises the probing apologetics question into the divine origin of the composition of the Bible, Old Testament Judaism, and New Testament Christianity, of how in the first-place we would “come by” the capacity to accurately judge whether the life and ministry of Jesus Christ exhausts the extent of the possible outer-limits of moral perfection.

How would we determine that our current tool-kit of known virtuous characteristics, of well-defined moral attributes, is absolutely exhaustive, adequate, and complete enough for the in-depth moral reasoning needed to evaluate the life of Jesus Christ? 

How would we know whether there are not some additional, outstanding moral characteristics that we are unaware of, in this current earthly context, above and beyond those demonstrated and exemplified in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ that would raise the bar higher?

How would we know there are not some missing moral attributes in our reality that might call into question the impeccable qualifications of Jesus to be the blemish-free and sinless atoning sacrifice for our sins?

The point here is not whether God has some additional, divine characteristics applicable in heaven that would not concern us presently, that are not relevant here on earth, but whether or not Jesus the Son of God in a human body (Isa. 7:14, 9:6-7) exhausts the limits of moral perfection as the God/man in order to qualify as the Passover Lamb of God, one-time atoning sacrifice for sin.

The question is how this full and varied palette of moral concepts had an origin and came into existence within the reality of thought-filled human life, to be able to make this assessment.

The important point in this discussion is the fantastic notion that we would have the moral reasoning tools in terms of human mental capacity, but also in the complementary existence of the broad array of abstract moral concepts defined through the language of discrete and distinctive words, to be able to make a valid decision for or against salvation faith in Jesus Christ at this highly advanced level.

The connection between the human capacity for intellectual and moral reasoning, with an external array of independent moral concepts is similar to what is called prior fitness in the scientific study of how biodiverse living species fit-in, in-the-moment to complex, pre-existing, environmental ecosystems.

This connection that we so easily take for granted, argues compellingly for a human mind capable of recognizing and parsing the subtleties of informational concepts, that transcend above a mere, materialistic brain.

But this well-timed connection in history between human capacity and an external array of independent moral concepts, also argues compelling for the presence of intelligent designing agency having the foresight to bring these two realities into existence at the same moment in time.

The mental capacity to technologically problem-solve at the advanced level to take us to the moon in 1969, and the moral reasoning capacity to differentiate and comprehend complex moral concepts, are two realities that define the essence of human beings.

Human beings possess a complete and exhaustive array of tools within the broad assortment of moral concepts from which to make an intelligent and reasoned judgment as to the divine quality of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

Just as orderliness and intelligibility are indispensably coordinated with our human capacity to conduct successful scientific investigations of the natural world, it would be pointless to be presented with the decision-making imperative regarding the truth-claims of Jesus Christ regarding His qualifications as Savior, King, and eternal Ruler if humans did not possess the incredible capacity to make an informed decision.

The origin of the entire array of moral characteristics appears suddenly and fully defined in scope.

This recognition represents a sharp, near-instant vertical upward spike on any conceivable graph-line for the time-duration of the human race.

 This is not anything remotely like incrementally gradual, small-step, evolutionary cultural development.

Like the force of gravity, the qualities of liquid water, or this special planet that is our habitat, the broad array of moral concepts cannot be the product of human invention.