I have recently read some impressive arguments for and againts Christianity recently that has inspired this work. Notably, Bentham's Bulldog case againts and for Christianity. Though, I am not here to argue for or againts this. Instead, I want to provide an argument that the most fundemental laws of the universe are governed by an objective law of morality...that governs God himself.

Merrium-Webster defines objective as "expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations". Moral is defined by "of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior Therefore, objective morality pertains to "the factual and undistorted principles of right and wrong".

My friend James Guevara has wrote an entire blog about metaethics that discusses the reationality for and againts objective morality (moral realsim). You can find his post here . In short, he argues that the increase in intelligence and an increase for prosocial behavior has led to some moral convergence over time, which influences how people make decisions. I agree mostly with his arguments, but feel the influence of God (as in the belief of or in a particular religon, not God as a free agent or intervenor) was understated.

First, religion has been observable in human cultures since hunter and gatherers over 100 thousand of years ago. While these "religions" looked very different from the world religions we know today, it was nonetheless a sign of a presence of human symbolism and abstraction that is required for religous thinking. Additionally, religion itself often contains moral guidelines that are either explicitly written out (like 10 commandments) or implied through stories passed from generation to generation. Thus, religion serves as a normalization mechanism for morality, which has had greater influence as religion itself has grown. The convergence of morality then, might be due to the increase of religion (according to a recent Pew research study, religionsly affiliated people are continuing to increase at a greater rate then unreligious), though those "practicing" may actually be declining. Nevertheless, exposure to a major religion is likely to influence cultural norms, ethical beliefs, and personal behaviors. Lastly, the influence of religion seems to be biological, evident by functional MRI measurements demonstrating that regions of the brain involving action understanding and "theory of the mind" (TOM, the capacity to understand other individuals by ascribing states to them.) are upsteam of non-TOM regions such as our behaviors and language. Put another way, the data is concistent with the idea that humans have evolved a biological capacity for religion, and it influences are behaviors, speech, and thoughts.

Even as a Catholic (Christian), the Christian God has always confused me. I agree with Bentham's Bulldog's logic about the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as God), but argue there is a solution. By the transitive property, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit must be part of the same entity, but can be different components of that entity (similar to how our hands, legs, and toes are part of the same body, but still not identical). While for a human, you would not call your hand and foot different autonomous entities, it is plausible that God can exist in multiple places and times at once (in pantheism, God is considered everything and everything as God). Thus, it is posible to have a Holy Trinity while not being a contridiction. While I agree that 3 is an odd number (why not 4 or 5), the Father and Son love eachother and the Holy Spirit witnesses that love (or is the love that flows between them). It is similar to Aristotle's idea that love requires a lover, beloved, and witness, which acts as a common bond between them. What is the nature of this "bond" or Holy Spirit? Well, this leads me into the main topic of this blog. Namely, that I beleive the Holy Spirit embodies the objective morality of the universe, perhaps defining the morality of God himself. I flush this out in more detail below.

We often act as if we are governed by an invisible force. This could be from social norms, societal pressures, or an innate sense of right and wrong. We would describe our actions as appearing to be governed by an intrinisc force, defined by our own views and beleifs of right and wrong...aka our morality. For reasons discussed above, we have good evidence to support that morality may be objective (see James' article for more about this). Our descriptions of God seem to point to the same conclusion. Our judgement of God is often rooted in our own concepts of morality, as well as God seems to judge us with His own sense of morality (that aligns largely with ours). Therefore, its plausible that God is himself subject to his own morality and that the Holy Spirit is his version of morality, the objective morality we see in our universe.

One argument againts this is that what we attribute to be God's own judgement is a narritive we tell ourselves due to the anthropomorphization of God. This is not convincing to me because we clearly have the ability to reason and judge ourselves, so it is likely God (who created us) can do this as well. Further, it seems likely that God would have similar morals and reasoning to us (but he may make different decisions due to knowing more information (aka, being all-knowing).

Another point is that while I used the Trinity as an example (and it largely shaped my thoughts about this topic), I did not use any assumptions about religion except that God exists. A universal objective morality may be why there are many religions that have similar descriptions of God (loving, compassionite, honorable judge, truth-teller, etc.) that seems to restrain even His own actions.

Thus whether or not Christianity is right or wrong, I believe it is consistent with an objective morality that governs all of us and even God himself. In Christianity, this would be the Holy Spirit, or witness, of the Father and the Son's love. This makes sense intuitively to me that there is an objective truth-mediator, similar to the judge who remains impartial and objective while hearing the evidence brought forward during a case. Nevertheless, the idea of a universal objective morality that governs even God's laws implies that there is something above even God? Or that the part of God that deals with morality regulates the other parts? Nevertheless, I appreciate the explicit recognition of this component within Catholisim, which seems to recognize the Holy Spirit as the 'wisdom of God', where we recieve our moral beleifs. What are you thoughts on the argument of a God that self-regulates his own moral code? Is it plausible or are there reasons to doubt this? I would love to hear your thoughts. You can reach out to me at boginb1 at gmail dot com.