Society's Gray Morality

A while ago I was invited to participate in an informal survey on marriage. The basic purpose was to determine if marriage was becoming or had become obsolete, particularly as it relates to health care and social security benefits.

I find surveys in determining issues of morality intriguing. When we formulate moral standards based upon the opinion of society’s simple majority we leave ourselves at the mercy of that majority and their ever changing whim. For example, euthanasia may be rejected by the majority today as cruel but in five years it may be accepted as merciful to the individual who is terminally ill. In ten years it may be accepted as merciful to the individual who is a stroke victim and in fifteen years accepted as merciful to the individual living in depression. In twenty years it may be required as merciful to the society at large to euthanize all people who are over 83 for economic survival. In twenty-five years it may also be required of all who are downs, have cerebral palsy, MS or cancer as merciful to the world to avoid economic drain and produce a stronger, healthier humanity.

Economics, societal norms, preferences, prejudices, comfort, personal gain can all play a factor in the shaping of the opinions of a society in determining what is morally acceptable or unacceptable at any given time. In the end we come up with a very unsure, uncertain and unclear gray morality. I would prefer we make moral decisions based upon a moral code, moral law, moral truth that supersedes public opinion and is unchanging and absolute. (Granted this moral law can be misinterpreted, misconstrued and misused but does not diminish the viability of its truth.)

For me personally, I believe marriage is a God-given institution that is timeless and therefore incapable of becoming obsolete regardless of economic, social or personal factors. Far from being a tyrant I think God gave marriage as a beautiful gift and only within the marriage vow do we fully find the partnership, purpose, sexuality, procreation and dreams for which our hearts long.

And for you who have a philosophical bent here’s a thought from Francis Schaeffer:

"Why has our society changed? The answer is clear -- the consensus of our society no longer rests upon a Christian basis, but upon a humanistic one…Humanism is man putting himself at the center of all things, rather than the creator God. The humanists push for ‘freedom,’ but having no Christian consensus to contain it, that ‘freedom’ leads to chaos or to slavery under the state (or under an elite). Humanism, with its lack of any final base for values or law, always leads to chaos. It then naturally leads to some form of authoritarianism to control the chaos. Having produced the sickness, humanism gives more of the same kind of medicine for a cure. With its mistaken concept of final reality, it has no intrinsic reason to be interested in the individual, the human being. Its natural interest is the two collectives: the state and society.”