When faced with the facts, most people would
say there are moral absolutes. That established,
a whole set of world views become untenable,
like Hinduism or atheism or agnosticism.
I've been talking about the issue of moral
relativism this weekend which we have discussed
frequently here on this show. I was speaking
at Hope Chapel in Hermosa Beach this morning,
last evening and Friday evening about how
relativists are like people who have both
feet planted in mid-air -- those people who
believe that morals are just the kind of thing
that you make up yourself. After we were done
with our analysis, I think it was pretty clear
that relativism is a bankrupt moral point
of view. It's self-refuting. It's self-defeating.
It's afflicted by serious counter examples.
It is just the kind of thing that can't be
lived out, and if that's false then some form
of absolutism must be true. It has given new
meaning to me for that verse in the old hymn
that when we stand on Christ we are standing
on solid rock that can be relied upon. When
you look closely at all the other points of
view, the challengers as it were, and in this
case moral relativism, the arguments just
crumble into dust. What is left is the truth,
and the truth stands alone. That is comforting
and encouraging.
Sometimes I wish I had you all in my pocket
during conversations I have with others. A
couple of days ago I had one of those, in
fact on Friday night just after the talk at
Hope Chapel. I'd like to tell you about it,
and you'll see how profound the implications
of a simple observation about morality can
be.
After I had been speaking on "Relativism:
Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air", I had
a gentleman come up to me who had some questions
about God. And he said this: "I'm genuinely
searching for God. But God is not clear to
me and I'm frustrated as to why He hasn't
made Himself perfectly clear. If God is loving,
if He's powerful, why doesn't He make Himself
clear to someone like myself who's honestly
seeking Him?"
Well, that was a fair question, and I can
understand where it was coming from so I asked
him ,"Listen, did you think this argument
against relativism was compelling?" And
he said, "Well, kind of."
Let me give you a thumbnail sketch of the
issues I addressed and the way I argued my
point in this talk, "Feet Firmly Planted
in Mid-Air".
My point was that you really only have two
options when it comes to morality. You have
some form of moral relativism in which moral
rules find their source in the individual
that holds them. In other words, morality
is relative to each individual person's opinion.
Or, the other alternative -- and I might add
it's the only other alternative -- moral absolutism
is true, which says that there is a moral
rule that stands outside of our opinion that
judges us and it exists whether we agree with
it or not. If there are absolutes, that leads
us in another direction.
We can start by identifying some discernible
moral absolutes -- truths that exist and apply
to everyone. For example, the absolute that
you ought not torture babies for fun on feast
days seems to be a pretty self-evident moral
rule, that it doesn't matter who you are or
where you are or what time or culture you
are in, that it's hard to imagine that such
a thing could ever be morally justified or
how something like that could ever be considered
anything less than evil. So you have two competing
points of view: relativism and absolutism.
And when you look at the problems with relativism
-- and they are many, and this is what the
bulk of the talk was about -- it seems clear
that relativism as a point of view simply
cannot be true. It's victimized by too many
serious counter examples. In practice it seems
to be self-refuting and self-defeating. It
just doesn't seem to work. In fact, if relativism
were true, if everyone just made up their
own morality, if everything was entirely individual,
then we would all be consigned with regards
to any moral issue because we could never
even discuss morality.
As we worked through this it seemed to be
very, very clear that relativism is a false
way of looking at morality and it must be
true, therefore some form of absolutism is
true. If we can identify even one moral absolute
-- not torturing babies for fun on feast days,
for example -- this opens up a whole new world
to us. This was the point that I was making
with the gentleman I was talking to whose
name was Michael.
I asked him, "Do you think that morals
are relative or are they absolute?"
He said, "Well, you kind of put it in
two different extremes. You've got relativism
at one extreme and absolutism at the other
extreme, and I'm somewhere in the middle."
I said, "Well, no, actually it's not
extreme at all. They are just simply two options.
There are no other options. If you believe
that some things are personal and some things
are absolute, that puts you in an absolutist
world view. At least you hold to some absolute
truths."
He said, "Yeah, I believe that some things
are wrong. It would be wrong for me to pull
a gun right here and kill my friend standing
next to me. Anybody in the same situation
would be wrong as well."
"Fine", I said, "we've got
your admission that it seems sensible that
certain moral rules exist outside our opinion.
There are moral absolutes. Right?" Well,
this kind of thing invites certain kinds of
questions.
If you believe -- and you have good reason
to believe it, I think -- that there are moral
absolutes, this takes you a long way towards
answering his question. He really believes
much more than he thinks he does.
How so?
He believes that some moral absolutes exist.
Though there may be some things that are individual
moral calls, some things aren't. Right?
If a moral absolute exists, it's fair to ask
the question, what kind of thing is it? It's
not a physical thing. A moral thing is not
physical. It doesn't extend into space, it
doesn't weigh something, it has no physical
qualities or characteristics. It is a non-physical
thing that really exists. It's an immaterial
thing, something that you know exists but
you can't get at with any of your five senses.
This is a very big thing that he's admitting
here. I don't think he realized how big, especially
considering his question. He was saying that
he's confident -- he has a reasonable certainty
-- that something exists somewhere in a realm
which he can't see, taste, touch, smell or
hear. He believes something exists that he
can't prove empirically.
That's true for a lot of people who object
to the idea of God because they can't find
Him with their senses. He doesn't jump up
right in front of them, but in fact they believe
in a lot of things they can't test in that
way, that aren't evident to them in that fashion.
But just because you can't sense it by the
five senses doesn't mean that it's unreasonable
for you to believe that such a thing exists.
In other words, there are other ways to learn
about things than just the five senses. And
if you believe that it's wrong, for example,
to torture babies for fun, and you believe
that that rule applies to everyone, in other
words, it is a moral absolute, then you have
just affirmed a belief in something that is
immaterial that you don't access by your five
senses but you do access with some certainty
by some other means. What that other means
is, we won't go into right now. I think there
is a sense of moral intuition that has a play
here. But in any event, you can be considered
rational in believing that such a rule actually
exists. Once you do that, it does a lot of
work for you.
Well, when you say that a thing like an absolute
moral rule exists, you've made an admission
that has profound implications for many other
beliefs. In other words, a whole bunch of
other beliefs are bound up in that statement.
For example, when you say that some absolute
moral laws exist, you're saying that immaterial
things -- like moral laws which aren't made
out of moral stuff -- certainly do exist.
Therefore, materialism as a world view is
false. Instead, it is reasonable to believe
in things you don't see and can't test with
the five senses. Strict empiricism would be
false, then.
Now this is a big step, because in the case
of this gentleman, Michael, one of his big
arguments against God is that He hasn't shown
Himself to him. But by his own admission,
it can be reasonable to believe in something
you simply can't see. In other words, there
are different ways to "show" things
to people, ways that don't involve the senses.
Okay, now we have another question, and this
is the way the conversation went. Given that
this moral rule is out there somewhere, where
did it come from? You may be tempted to say,
"How should I know?", but really,
the options are limited.
Pretend you wake up in the morning and there's
a birthday cake sitting on your kitchen table,
and it just happens to be your birthday. What
do you think? You ask yourself, "Where
did this cake come from?" There are only
a couple of possibilities, theoretically.
It could have just materialized out of nowhere
on your kitchen table coincidentally on your
birthday. It could have just "poofed"
into existence. I guess that would be in the
realm of theoretic possibilities. Or maybe
a great, hot, wet wind blew through your neighbor's
kitchen gathering up a bunch of ingredients
and kind of accidentally baked a cake that
landed on your table. The fact that it happened
on your birthday is a coincidence. I guess
that would be "possible" too. The
cake could have come out of nowhere, or could
have just assembled itself by chance. Or the
other alternative would be that a person baked
the cake for you and dropped it off in the
middle of the night.
Now here's the trick. When faced with limited
options you don't have the liberty not to
believe something. If you reject the idea
that somebody baked the cake for you, you
must assert in its place that the cake either
materialized out of nothing or formed itself
by accident. When you reject one option you
are asserting an alternate option when all
the options are clear.
Do you see that? When you are faced with just
a limited number of choices, if you reject
one choice you've got to opt for one of those
that remains. So the question is, which option
makes most sense? Think for a moment about
a moral absolute. Where did it come from?
Just like the cake. Well, I guess it could
have popped out of nowhere. It just popped
into existence, though if it did then one
could ask how is it that an arbitrary thing
like a moral rule could have any moral force?
If it is an accident, if it just comes from
nowhere, why would it have any moral force
on me? And part of our argument is that a
moral rule does have moral force. Maybe it
assembled itself by accident out of available
immaterial stuff floating around in wherever
that world is that morals float around in.
Of course, if it happened by accident then
you'd still have to answer the question, how
does an accidental thing have moral force?
Or, third option, it could be that the moral
law was made by Someone Who lives in that
immaterial realm. Now, those are your options.
I don't know how many other options there
are, but it seems to me you are stuck with
these three.
If it doesn't make sense that the moral thing
popped into existence, if it doesn't make
sense that the moral thing assembled itself,
if it seems that the moral thing exists and
has moral force on our behavior, then it seems
to me the most reasonable option is that Someone
made that moral thing and so that moral rule
is a rule of Somebody's, and it's not just
a disembodied principle. When you break the
moral rule, you offend the Person Who made
the rule itself.
You see, you do not have the liberty of standing
in a neutral place on this issue. You've got
to believe something. If you refuse to believe
God made moral laws, given that you admit
that they are there, then you're opting for
one of the other two alternatives. And if
you say that they just popped into existence
or that they assembled themselves by chance,
you have new problems to solve. In other words,
I don't think those are tenable alternatives.
"But this doesn't prove that the Christian
God is the true God."
Right. That's another separate step we'll
have to take at another time. But something
like the Christian idea of God has got to
be true to account for morality. Hinduism,
for example, simply won't work, because in
Hinduism there is no ultimate distinction
between good and evil. The kind of morality
that we've been talking about just doesn't
fit in a Hindu world view, but it does fit
into a theistic, Christian world view. So
if absolute morality is true, then Hinduism
can't be true. Atheism is false. Agnosticism
is untenable.
Do you see how making a simple observation
about the existence of a moral truth does
a tremendous amount of philosophical work
for us? It does. It takes us a long way, much
farther than we may have thought in the first
place.
There is a conclusion to this, and it's a
direct answer to his question. My point is
to look at what seems to be the obvious existence
of moral absolutes and to then look and see
where that observation leads us, and it seems
to lead us to the existence of a God who makes
those moral rules because moral rules are
designed kinds of things that don't make themselves,
it appears. And it seems that a very good
explanation for their existence is that a
God with moral character made a set of moral
rules that express His character and those
rules then become absolutes which are incumbent
upon us. Now there is a lot more that we could
talk about.
Let me make a distinction between two types
of believing: you can believe that and you
can believe in . "Michael," I said,
"I can only help you believe that God
exists and that Christianity is reasonable.
I can't help you to believe in Jesus Christ,
which means your personal effort of submission
to Him. I want you to chew on what I've just
said today because I think it has profound
ramifications for your question and your concern
about whether God has in fact shown Himself
to you in a clear fashion.
"Let me leave you with this parting thought.
Whether you choose to believe in God and Jesus
Christ or not is up to you. But after tonight
you can no longer say, 'I can't believe in
God because He hasn't made Himself clear to
me.' He has made Himself clear; He's made
Himself crystal clear. The options are obvious.
They are few and they are obvious. If relativism
is not tenable, then some form of absolutism
is true. If absolute rules exist, this argues
powerfully for the existence of an absolute
Creator Who made those rules which apply to
us and to Whom we are accountable. It's that
simple.
"It would be no clearer if God Himself
appeared in front of you right now and tapped
you on the shoulder. Because if that did happen
you'd still have to ask yourself some questions.
Is this really God? Am I hallucinating? Is
it something I ate? Is a demon trying to trick
me?"
Frankly, the options Michael is facing now
because of our talk about morality are more
clear than if something appeared in front
of him and claimed to be God. It's much harder
to decide between the real God or a hallucination
or a demon is right there. It's much easier
to decide if absolutes really exist and where
they came from. It's much clearer and it's
much easier to decide. And I encouraged Michael
to think about it. It's worth thinking about
as a powerful argument for the existence of
God, and many other besides me have used it
before me, including C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity
.
Ethics:
Pick or Choose? Ray Cotton
How to
Choose Right From Wrong
After four years at Harvard University as
an undergraduate, one student proclaimed
in his graduation oration that there was
one central idea, one sentiment which they
all acquired in their Harvard careers; and
that is, in one word, confusion.
That same year, Harvard's graduate-student
orator said, "They tell us that it
is heresy to suggest the superiority of
some value, fantasy to believe in moral
argument, slavery to submit to a judgment
sounder than your own. The freedom of our
day is the freedom to devote ourselves to
any values we please, on the mere condition
that we do not believe them to be true."
Our universities are teaching students that
there are no solid guidelines to life. Since
everything is relative, they are totally
free to create anything they want out of
their lives. Students are told that no one
has a right to tell them how they ought
to live. Decisions about right and wrong
are strictly up to them. It makes no difference
what they choose to make of their lives.
Students are not encouraged to ask the traditional
questions about the usefulness of life or
the value of an exemplary life. As the above
graduate student pointed out, they don't
even want you to take your own conclusions
about life seriously. It is a philosophy
of ambiguity. It is the philosophy of humanistic
existentialism. Many today are striving
to break away from traditional values and
embrace a sense of futility. Today we see
it in the lives of teenagers who have "tried
everything" and found life to be wanting.
We see it in the life style of the "survivalists"
who have given up hope in God and the future,
holing up in defense of a coming catastrophe.
According to Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the
fathers of humanistic existentialism, the
world is absurd, lacking any concept of
ultimate justification. Sartre declares
we have no ultimate purpose or plan to our
lives. We are nothing and are therefore
free to make ourselves into anything we
want to be. It doesn't even matter if you
believe in your own proclamations because
there is no more reason for you to exist
there for you to not exist. Both are the
same. The existentialist says you can just
pick and choose your values. It makes no
difference. There is no transcendent truth
or power beyond man himself. Sartre doesn't
believe in any God, nor does he believe
that there is any preconceived design. There
is no principle of authority to determine
action. He says one must invent an original
solution for each situation. Therefore,
in the sovereignty of his freedom, man creates
his own values. Morality is rooted in human
choice. Man alone gives his life its importance.
Mankind must somehow transcend a life of
absurdity and despair.
Is this humanly created reality true or
are those who believe it trying to live
in a dream world? Is the existentialist
trying desperately to deflect the true absurdity
and despair of his position? Is this the
view of life that we expect our college
students to be learning?
The Foundation of Existentialism
Prior to World Wars I & II, modern man
believed that through science and human
engineering an ever better world was evolving.
They believed that mankind was getting better,
that peace and prosperity would rein. They
were convinced that we had finally figured
out how to live together in harmony and
to build a better world.
Then came the rude awakening of two world
wars and the hideous crimes against human
beings perpetuated by Hitler's Third Reich.
Out of the continuing frustration and destruction
of World War II came a new philosophy of
life. It was a philosophy conceived by those
who had lost hope, who could only see the
chaos. They lost their hope in any ultimate
meaning for life. They were unable to see
beyond the carnage of war-torn Europe. Their
view of life was called humanistic existentialism.
Men like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus
sought to establish a new view of life,
a "new humanism" with a whole
new set of values. Prior to these men, the
need for a transcendent force, a higher
authority beyond man himself, helped set
limits and gave guidance to our lives. An
example of this transcendence would be the
Ten Commandments, given to man by God. These
new philosophers defined transcendence in
an entirely different way. They saw transcendence
only in their own aims and goals. For the
existentialists, transcendence was a way
to escape what they saw as the meaninglessness
of life by establishing aims and goals to
make whatever they wanted out of themselves,
to create their own reality. For them there
were no norms or standards, other than what
they might choose to agree upon among themselves.
You have to realize that for these existentialist
thinkers, all human activities were equivalent
in value. Human activity amounted to the
same thing "whether one gets drunk
alone or is a leader of nations." However,
without God, there can be no transcendent
view of human nature because there is no
God to have a conception of it. Man is merely
an evolved animal. Today we see many young
people caught up in this attitude of cynicism
and despair. They just don't care anymore.
Life has become jaded. Many young people
pass their time in a fantasy world of drugs,
music and sex.
Man's nothingness forms the foundation of
existential thinking. Man is an empty bubble
floating on a sea of nothingness.
Trying to build an ethic for life based
on the philosophy of existentialism is quite
a challenge. Not only do the existentialists
have to create a set of values to live by,
but first of all, they have to create optimism
out of a view of absurdity and despair.
It is called an ethic of ambiguity because
each person has no one to answer to but
himself. There is no one else to blame,
each individual is without excuse. Life
is merely a game to be won or lost, to seek
to become one's own hero.
The existentialist wills himself to be free
and in so doing wills himself to be moral.
Existentialism Collides with a Biblical
World View
We live in a world that has been characterized
as "plastic", without value and
sterile. Many have forgotten what it means
to live, to be fully human. Hours are spent
in front of the TV, in a world of fantasy
and escapism. Many people are becoming devoid
of human warmth and significant human interaction.
In this essay I have examined the ethics
of humanistic existentialism.To fully understand
ethics one must have considerable clarity
about what it is to be human. Is man an
evolved animal required to create his own
essence, as the existentialist would say?
Though there is freedom to choose our own
actions, there is no significance in our
actions. Choices are made in the face of
meaninglessness. The values of existentialism
are anchored in the world of ordinary experiences.
Their values come from what is. And for
the existentialist what is, is man's absurd
condition.
How does existentialism compare to a God-centered,
theistic view of ethics? For the Christian,
ethical values are revealed to man by God.
Perfect freedom lies only in service to
God. The existentialist defines God as "self-caused"
and then says there is no God because it
is impossible to be self-caused. The Christian
says that God is "uncaused", not
self-caused. If you want absolute freedom,
it is all too easy to deem God nonexistent.
Even Sartre admits that "since we ignore
the commandments of God [concerning] all
value prescribed as eternal, nothing remains
but what is strictly voluntary." Throwing
off all limitations and declaring his atheism,
Sartre explains the process in his autobiography:
I had been playing with matches and
burned a small rug. I was in the process
of covering up my crime when suddenly God
saw me. I felt His gaze inside my head and
on my hands....I flew into a rage against
so crude an indiscretion, I blasphemed....He
never looked at me again....I had the more
difficulty getting rid of Him [the Holy
Ghost] in that He had installed Himself
at the back of my head....I collared the
Holy Ghost in the cellar and threw Him out.
Aldous Huxley, another famous existentialist,
said:
For myself, no doubt for most of my
contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness
was essentially an instrument of liberation.
The liberation we desired was ... from a
certain system of morality. We objected
to the morality because it interfered with
our sexual freedom.
The truth of Huxley's words ring out loud
and clear. All around us we find individuals
rejecting the truth of God's word and embracing
false doctrines that allow them to vent
their passions and immorality. Satan loves
to get us discouraged and despairing, then
he shows us a false way out that caters
to our old fleshly nature, a way that allows
us to do as we please.
The Bible says that we are in bondage either
to sin or to God. We will serve one or the
other. Our only choice is to decide who
or what we will serve, the God of the Spirit,
or the god of the flesh. The choice is ours.
Rejecting Biblical Truth Ultimately
Leads to Despair
How did modern philosophy arrive at such
a seemingly absurd state? In the late nineteenth
century certain scholars assaulted the Bible
and Christian beliefs. This "higher
criticism" was promoted by men dedicated
to the destruction of orthodox Christianity.
In their minds the Bible was no more than
a novel, a book of fiction with some good
moral lessons. This movement was the spiritual
legacy of the Enlightenment which put the
claims of religion outside the realm of
reason. Natural law, based on human reason
alone, was slowly substituted for biblical
law. Christian faith was separated from
historic reality. The focus of all studies
was shifting from God to man.
The real motive of higher criticism of the
Bible was purely ethical. Men and women
don't like the idea of having to be obedient
to God. Therefore, they denied the historic
validity of the Bible. This denial was based
on an evolutionary model of human morality
and human history. They sought to separate
ethics from faith in order to free themselves
from God's final judgment.
Kierkegaard, a 19th century philosopher,
is considered the father of existentialism.
He took this idea of the separation of faith
and reason and said that we could not know
God rationally. Therefore, he tried to reach
God by what he called an irrational leap
of faith.Since it was not rational to believe
in God, but it was necessary, you must believe
irrationally.Sartre and Camus simply took
the next step when they said belief in God
was not only irrational, but unnecessary.
Therefore, modern man started the path to
a meaningless life when he questioned whether
man could know God. Indeed, when man questioned
even God's ability to communicate with man,
this led the existentialist to ask, "If
God is dead, isn't man dead also?"
This existential death of man has lead to
apathy, absurdity and ambiguity.The philosopher
Bertrand Russell said it best when he said:
What else is there to make life tolerable?
We stand on the shore of an ocean, crying
to the night and to emptiness. Sometimes
a voice of one drowning, and in a moment
the silence returns. The world seems to
me quite dreadful, the unhappiness of many
people is very great, and I often wonder
how they all endure it. It is usually the
central thing around which their lives are
built, and I suppose if they did not live
most of their lives in the things of the
moment, they would not be able to go on.
Rejection of God's grace creates a world
of hopeless despair. Existentialism leaves
man without hope. In contrast, the Christian
has the hope of eternal life based on faith
in a living, personal God whom we can personally
experience with all our mind, body and spirit.
Can Human Beings Live the Existential Life?
How many of your acquaintances are demonstrating
by their lives that they believe there are
significant ethical implications in the
decisions they make and the activities they
are involved in? Do you know people who
live life caught up in self-preoccupation,
doing only that which gives immediate pleasure?
Are they filling their lives with movies,
TV, sports and other preoccupations which
shield them from dealing with the ethical
reality of their lifestyle?
In this essay I have been discussing the
ethics of humanistic existentialism, an
ethic of freedom in ambiguity. It is an
ethic that says man is nothing except what
he or she decides to create of themselves
and whatever choice they make really doesn't
matter.
It sounds absurd, and it is, but sadly it
is the ethic often being taught on the college
campuses. One philosophy professor at a
major university in Texas proudly informs
his classes that he is an atheist and that
his goal is to show the class that they
can develop a system of ethics without a
belief in a god. Of course he is right.
One can design a set of relativistic ethical
standards, but it is an ethic built on sand.
An ethic of ambiguity will never give the
support these students need in the hard
world of reality. Did Jean-Paul Sartre and
Albert Camus, the leading writers in existentialist
theory, hold to their position till the
end?
There is evidence that they did not. From
a dialogue recorded in 1980 when nearing
his death, Sartre came very close to belief
in God, perhaps even more than very close.
He made a statement that may show his acceptance
of the grace of God. He said,
I do not feel that I am the product
of chance, a speck of dust in the universe,
but someone who was expected, prepared,
prefigured. In short, a being whom only
a Creator could put here; and this idea
of a creating hand refers to God.
In this one sentence Sartre seems to disavow
his entire system of belief, his whole life
of dedication to existentialism. If this
is true, it is a condemnation of humanistic
existentialism by Sartre himself.
What about Albert Camus? According to Rev.
John Warwick Montgomery, an internationally
respected Lutheran minister and author,
there was a retired pastor of the American
Church in Paris who told him that Albert
Camus was to have been baptized within the
month of his tragic death and that Camus
had seen the bankruptcy of humanistic existentialism.
All this is second hand information, but
it does cast a shadow upon the ethics of
existential humanism. Either we live a life
of hope or of despair. Regardless of the
claims made, existential humanism does not
leave room for hope. Simone de Beauvoir,
the mistress of Sartre and also an existentialist
writer, came the closest of any of these
writers to the real truth when she said
it was reasonable to sacrifice one innocent
man that others may live. This is the foundation
of the whole gospel message of Christianity:
Jesus Christ, the innocent Son of God, died
that all men might be saved. Meanwhile the
existentialist stands alone with hope only
in one's self. He is alone in a world without
Christ, instead of being secure in the knowledge
of Christ's love and redemption. Praise
God that He is there and He is not silent!
1. Robert N. Bellah, et al., The Good
Society (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
Inc., 1991), 43, 44.
2. C. Stephen Evans, The Philosophy
of Despair: Existentialism and the Quest
for Hope (Dallas: Probe Books, 1984),
17, 71-72.
3. Jean-Paul Sartre, "Existentialism
and Ethics." Moral Education.
Barry I. Chazan and Jonasa F. Soltis, Eds.
(New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia
University, 1973, reprinted from Existentialism,
New York: The Philosophical Library, 1947),
11-61.
4. Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of
Ambiguity, Trans. Bernard Frechtman
(New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1991),
142.
5. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness:
An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology,
Trans. Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Washington
Square, 1965), 627.
6. Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism
and Humanism, Trans. Philip Mairet
(London: Methuen, 1948), 28.
7. Evans, 72.
8. Norman L. Geisler, Is Man the Measure?
An Evaluation of Contemporary Humanism
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1983),
40-41.
9. De Beauvoir, 24-25.
10. Evans, 74.
11. Linda A.Bell, Sartre's Ethics of
Authenticity (Tuscaloosa: The University
of Alabama Press, 1989), 28.
12. Otto Bollnow, "Existentialism's
Basic Ethical Position," Contemporary
European Ethics, Joseph J. Kockelmans, Ed.
(Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1972), 332.
13. Philip Thody, Sartre: A Biographical
Introduction (New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1971), 72.
14. Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism,
23-24.
15. Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words
(New York: George Braziller, 1964), 102,
252-253.
16. Quoted by Stanley L. Jaki, Cosmos
and Creator (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic
Press, 1980), 116.
17. Gary North, The Hoax of Higher Criticism
(Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian
Economics, 1989), 9-48.
18. Geisler, 46-47.
19. John Warwick Montgomery,"Letter
from England," "On the Reliability
of the Four Gospels," New Oxford
Review (May 1994), 22-24.
20. De Beauvoir, 150.
