Faith and Reason

Has God hard-wired our brains with a built-in moral compass?

I think so. I believe that we are born with some basic moral instincts. It’s interesting to me that so many child psychologists agree that children evidence this at a very early age, long before they can reason, or be taught. For instance, developmental psychologist Martin Hoffman proved that newborn babies imitate facial expressions of adults within one hour of birth. The child unconsciously mimics facial expressions of emotions like sadness, and soon recognizes this as an emotion. As the child matures, this coupling of expression and emotion leads to empathy, that is, the ability to view things from another person’s perspective. Empathy then becomes an important factor in developing a child’s moral compass.

I once asked a child–age about 10- what he thought of friends who’d recently been caught shoplifting in a local bookstore. It was a small family owned store, owned by a friend’s parents. He was horrified because he’d been around the store enough to see how much effort and hope and energy the parents put into the business. Couldn’t image hurting them like that. His capacity for empathy kept him on the right path.

But that’s not to say that emotions should be our moral guideline. I’m making the point that we don’t start life with a blank slate. As we grow older, our ability to reason, to think beyond emotion, is what divides us from the animals. If how we feel about a thing becomes our moral compass, then selfishness becomes our measuring line. On one hand, from an academic point of view, that might make sense. But reality tells us a different story. How then do we explain the heros of 9/11 who went into the Twin Towers to help strangers, knowing that their chances of coming out were slim to none? How do we explain any heroic action where there’s no vested interest involved? The 9/11 first responders all had the right, and the chance, to sit it out…not to enter the burning buildings.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not advocating the idea that morality is merely the ‘greater good’. It seems to me that heros like those in 9/11 prove that universal principles for good and evil exist outside our “selves” (beyond emotion, beyond what we ‘want’)  and that human nature is equipped to act on these moral principles. Universal principals are rules of behavior that are true for everyone, in every culture. For example, everyone understands that deliberately hurting a child for selfish reasons or pleasure is evil–that is a moral rule. When a person or a culture uses children–or for that matter any sort of terrorism–as a means to an end, we must recognize that person or culture has deliberately chosen evil, and stand up and name it for what it is.

Radical Islam uses terrorism as a weapon today because followers believe that the end justifies the means. Innocents are killed to make the point. Terrorists define ‘good’ as that which achieves a certain goal. One of my favorite editorials was written by David Brooks about two years ago. This, paraphrased, is what he said: There is a contest going on now among cultures over the power to define what is good and what is evil. Islamic terrorists love their children, but they’ll sacrifice them to obtain their goals.  One of the “chief driver of events” now is this power of consecration.

Heads up! It’s getting late.