Tackett makes a conventional conservative Christian argument that only believers in God, and presumably only believers who believe in God in the correct Christian way, can be moral or ethical:
The only real basis for ethical standards must reside in that which is transcendent. ...I certainly understand the argument that moral standards should be transcendent and in a religious context I would make that argument myself.
The ultimate basis for moral authority is found in the very nature and character of God. ...
Without God, there is no real ethic — only temporary, selfish ones, based on lust for getting our own way and power.
It's easy for people to fit that into their own religious frame of reference. But in terms of Christian theology as well as practical morality, it quickly gets more complex than that. After all, the Good Samaritan parable, which is central to Christian religious teaching, involves a man with the wrong transcendent values - the Samaritan variation of Judaism - doing the moral thing when those with the right transcendent values - the adherents of the majority Jewish religion - consciously refused to do the moral thing.
And, in practice, Christians understand the transcendent values of the Christian Scriptures in the context of Christian tradition and social standards. Without humility and good sense, people with the conviction that they understand God's transcendent will precisely can wind up doing very bad things thinking God is on their side. It's also not the case that only people who believe in God, or only people who believe in God in the Christian way, have "no real ethic." It may be satisfying for us Christians to think so, but it's not reality.
Tags: christian right, christianity, del tackett
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