Saturday, December 29, 2018

Morality is Hierarchical, Not Absolute (Which Isn’t As Liberal As It Sounds)

One of the most useful ways I have heard moral dilemmas framed was that morality is hierarchical, not absolute.

I got this from an old church community group leader who studied both philosophy and theology and had a lot of very well-reasoned things to say. This was no exception.

Now, this is not to deny that morality is objective. This is not to deny that there is a lawgiver (being God). This doesn't mean that morality is dependent on culture or that there is no actual right and wrong. It just means that sometimes, moral principles will conflict so that you can't follow both of them fully and properly. In these cases, you have to choose to give priority to one over the other, and in doing so, you have not sinned.

Any time that you are in any moral dilemma, this idea of hierarchical morality comes into play, whether you think of it in those terms or not. After all, the whole reason we call it a dilemma is because different moral principles conflict and cannot both be followed.