Human Dignity and Bioethics

390 | David Gelernter
of this building beyond your grasp, and—all the more so—regions of
this cosmos.” The architecture is more articulate than modern ethics
without speaking one word.)
I will show you, as an alternative, a few fragments of a religious
viewpoint. Of course a philosopher might say, “I am using my brain;
you’re merely consulting some arbitrary authority.” But philosophers
and their reasoning power are (for me) an arbitrary authority. Few
modern philosophers still believe that reason alone can reveal universal
moral truth. They merely try their best, knowing that some
will disagree and that, in the foreseeable future, virtually everyone
might. Suppose one person relies on a consensus of academic philosophers
and another on the ethical traditions of his religious or
national community, based ultimately on the communal scriptures.
Both are appealing to external authority. Both are relying on a consensus
of learned and intelligent people—a consensus that is bound
to change. (Christian and Jewish theologians, for example, do not see
the world or interpret Scripture today as they did a century or ten
centuries ago.)
Arguably the person who follows his own reasoning is making the
best methodological choice. My reasoning tells me that anyone who
believes in absolute, compulsory standards of behavior for the whole
world believes, ipso facto, in God. And it seems to me that nearly
everyone does believe in such absolute, compulsory standards. If you
were to see someone who is about to commit murder, you would
compel him (if you could) to submit to your view of murder even if
he had an elaborately-reasoned defense of the contrary position. (He
might be a Nazi, a euthanasia enthusiast, or the like. And he might,
for that matter, be better at arguing than you.)
By compelling a person to submit to your standards whether he
agrees or not—by proclaiming (in other words) the existence of absolute
moral standards that are compulsory for everyone—you proclaim,
implicitly, your belief in God. And not just any God; you
have proclaimed your belief in the God of your standards. For most
western peoples, that means the God of Judaism and Christianity.
This seems like a simple, obvious argument and is, but we
don’t hear it often because—after all—it is not an argument that
God exists; it’s merely an argument that you think He does. It’s
an argument, in other words, that all believers in absolute moral