Who Decides What Is Right And What Is Wrong?

What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.  Deuteronomy 6:6-7

The writer, C.S. Lewis, points out that you've got to know what a straight line is before you know what a crooked one is.  But the “straight lines” of morality, of what is right and wrong, are fuzzy in the minds of a lot of people. Where do we get our idea of what is right and what is wrong and can something be “right for you, but wrong for me?”

If you turn to psychology and neuroscience research you will find an explanation like this: “Morality was selected by evolution in our human ancestors in order to promote cooperation and smooth social interactions.”[1]  But when we look at our world, we see anything but cooperation and smooth social interactions taking place, according to some sort of evolutionary morality.  What we see is more like what the prophet Jeremiah saw nearly 2600 years ago when he said, “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked.  Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9 NLT)

A religious person might say that a basic understanding of right and wrong comes from Jewish and Christian roots, which have been the foundation of many societies.  But for the follower of Jesus Christ, in simple terms, it has been the Bible, the very Word of God, which provides an understanding of right and wrong.  This book provides clarity on issues such why it is right for me to love my spouse, but wrong for me to love another’s.  It is right for me to take the grain that is grown in my field; wrong for me to take what is grown in my neighbor's.  It is right for me to discipline my children; wrong to discipline yours.

Some of these issues were defined in a set of moral guidelines in the Old Testament known as the Ten Commandments.  Other guidelines for living came with the teaching of the prophets and then in Jesus' teaching.  He said things such as, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," (Luke 6:31) instead of the rule of the street, which is: "Do unto others before they do the same to you!"

Today, however, we've obscured the line between right and wrong.  When moral right and wrong is a subjective matter, nothing is really right or wrong.  And when you abandon what God says about right and wrong, chaos and, ultimately, anarchy results. Was C. S. Lewis right in saying that you've got to know what a straight line is before you know what is crooked?  If he was on target (and history demonstrates that he was), then our failure to know the difference today results in the chaos that touches us at every level of life:  in government, in education, in our schools, and in our homes and families.

We can lay a lot of blame for the world that we see around us.  We blame educational systems for their failures.  We can point to self-serving, corrupt leadership.  We can definitely point to the fundamental failure of the family unit, a place where parents teach right and wrong to the next generation.

Here is the good news:  God knew that we were going to constantly struggle with right and wrong, so He made it clear, and He made a way out of our personal struggle.   He provided His Son who paid the price for our wrongs, once and for all, and gave us a never-changing source of wisdom that teaches us right.  The Bible gives us guidelines for living that bring joy.  Because His care for us goes far beyond simply morality.  When we live in right relationship with God, we experience freedom, peace and we have an unmovable foundation of hope to which our lives in this tumultuous world can be anchored.

Resource reading:  John 3:16-20

[1] Decety, Jean M., and Jason M. Powell. “Our Brains Are Wired for Morality: Evolution, Development, and Neuroscience.” Frontiers for Young Minds. Accessed June 17, 2020. https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2016.00003.

https://www.guidelines.org/devotional/who-decides-what-is-right-and-what-is-wrong/