GOD AND FLUID MORALITY
Claiming that God gives you grace and moral insight can make your beliefs seem sacred and beyond question. This aura of divine approval often discourages others from doubting or challenging your views, because questioning feels like questioning God. At the same time, it shifts much of the responsibility for your moral choices onto God, allowing you to avoid full accountability for difficult decisions or changes in your moral stance. This can make it easier to justify shifting principles while maintaining an appearance of unwavering faith.
How a person might claim their moral code comes from God yet shift from absolutism to consequentialism (or amoral views) without admitting it:
Appeal to Divine Authority as a Shield:
They assert their moral code is God’s command, which makes it seem absolute and unquestionable. This gives them a powerful justification that others may hesitate to challenge.
Selective Interpretation:
They interpret or emphasize certain religious texts or doctrines to support strict rules when convenient, but reinterpret or downplay those rules when outcomes demand flexibility.
Claiming Higher Divine Wisdom:
When they act consequentially or amorally, they might say they are following a “higher will” or “divine plan” that humans cannot fully understand, masking the shift as obedience rather than inconsistency.
Moral Exceptionalism:
They justify exceptions by claiming their situation is unique or morally complex, implying that God’s rules allow for nuance even if others think otherwise.
Avoiding Direct Admission:
They never openly admit switching from absolute to consequentialist or amoral reasoning. Instead, they frame their actions as still rooted in faith, just applied with wisdom or compassion.
Using Moral Language Without Moral Consistency:
They might still talk about “doing God’s work” or “loving thy neighbor,” but their actions prioritize outcomes over strict rules—using religious language to cloak pragmatic or self-interested decisions.
In short, by using God as an authority figure and appealing to divine mystery or wisdom, a person can mask practical shifts in their moral reasoning while maintaining the appearance of religiously grounded morality.
THE ARGUMENT
We know persons have a mixture of motives for what they do. We adjudge an act to be one of the following depending on what the main motive is. That keeps it simple.
For some, morality is about you. EGOISM.
For some, it is about you and others. EGOISM AND CONCERN FOR OTHERS. (To be altruistic when it suits is not altruism. You are keeping YOU firmly in sight and are not willing to give to others unless you want to.)
For some, it is about others. ALTRUISM.
EGOTISM is no motive for a moral person – it advocates your gain at the expense of another.
So that is the motivation part done. You need to look at the actual moral theories now – the question is: what does being moral mean?
For some, morality is what is best for most people – e.g., lying may be for the greater good.
For some, it’s fixed rules – for example, they think sex outside marriage is always wrong.
For some, you know what is right when it is an act that the whole human race can do. Lying is wrong, for if all people did it, life would not function.
There are those who say there is something special and true in all moral theories, but that none of them is right in every circumstance. So you can use fixed rules where appropriate and be more liberal otherwise.
Is that egotistical of them? Or are they egoists? Altruists? Or are they just practical rather than ethical?
They are practical. For them, it is not about ethics, morals, love, or justice – but about getting things done. It just happens that good may come. It is a polite form of egotism.
People worry about the changing. It means that if you are about fixed rules, and you think the hospital really desperately needs to steal and harvest organs to save lives, then you will probably go rule-free and co-operate.
Virtually all people who abandon their moral theory ship for another one won’t admit it. So you never know if your moral absolutist is really just playing a role or not.
It is deceitful to say that one moral theory is right, for that means following it all the time, and then discarding it because it is too difficult to work with. It is a cop-out, for difficult does not equate to impossible. To change from one principle to another implies rejection of the first one. It is not changing clothes but making outfits oppose each other.
All agree that you cannot have a morality – or a workable one – without logic and/or evidence to tell you what is bad. Thus, it is up to reasoning and/or evidence or fact to tell us what is moral. It is not perfect, but what is the alternative? It is – paradoxically – immoral to even look for one!
God is often linked to morality and its enforcement. But people can't really offer us God without colouring him their way, so that is no help.
Unless you understand the moral argument for God – assuming God can or does ground morality – or any particular moral principle or moral theory, you cannot be moral. You are not doing maths if you don't understand maths – you are just good at going through the motions. If morality is inherently valuable, then even the person who breaks the moral rule seriously and who murders is better than you, for at least they acknowledge morality and understand it.
People have different moral theories, and that is fine as long as they take the following into consideration:
Assume or show that moral rules can be ADEQUATELY known.
They must be something that can be shared with others – the rule becomes a command that communicates a principle to others.
Though we can disobey, there has to be an oughtness about a rule.
A feeling of guilt must be instilled in us by breaking the moral rule.
Moral rules are not things or physical, but they are still facts in the way it is a fact that something is an ideal.
Summary:
Morality is complex and fluid, shaped by varying motives—egoism, concern for others, or altruism—and diverse moral theories, from fixed rules to pragmatic flexibility. While some adhere strictly to absolute principles, many adapt their morals based on circumstances, often without openly admitting it. True morality requires more than rote adherence; it demands understanding, reason, and evidence to guide what is right or wrong. Although God is frequently invoked as a moral foundation, interpretations vary widely, limiting its usefulness as a universal guide. Ultimately, moral rules must be knowable, communicable, and carry an inherent sense of obligation, including the experience of guilt when violated. Morality, though not perfect, remains essential as a shared ideal that governs human behavior.