Theology in the Raw - 722: #722 - A Conversation with Scott Rae

Episode Date: February 4, 2019

On episode #722 of Theology in the Raw Preston has a conversation with Scott Rae. Scott Rae's primary interests are medical ethics and business ethics, dealing with the application of Christian ethics to medicine and the marketplace. He has authored 10 books in ethics including The Ethics of Commercial Surrogate Motherhood; He is a consultant for ethics for four Southern California hospitals. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today Dr. Scott Ray. Scott is an ethics professor at Biola University and Talbot School of Theology because he's been teaching ethics at a graduate or postgraduate level for more than 25 years. He is a humble dude. He is a gracious dude, And he has literally written the textbook on Christian ethics. And it's one of the most widely used textbooks on Christian ethics. And he's just a super sharp dude. And I'm so excited about this because I've been really concerned over the last few years as I hear Christians think through different moral decisions. How do we determine what is right and wrong?

Is euthanasia okay? Is same-sex marriage okay? Is warfare okay? Is violence okay? What about abortion and so on and so forth? We all have opinions about these things, but we often don't even really reflect on the ethical methodology we use to arrive at making moral conclusions. This is why I love people like Scott Ray. Scott's going to help us organize our thinking to expose our consistencies

and inconsistencies when we think through some of the tough, most pressing moral decisions that we make either within our life or even on a day-to-day level. So Scott is, well, we just had a wonderful conversation about all kinds of things related to ethics, and I'm super stoked about this conversation. Hey, if you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com. That's Patreon. You can probably spell it. P-A-T-R-E-O-N. Patreon.com forward slash Theology in Raw. Support the show for as little as five bucks a month. And also, you get lots of perks in return like monthly Patreon-only

podcasts, blogs, community conversations on the Patreon webpage that I devote some time to, and I don't devote much time to other social media outlets to talk to everybody who's out there, but I do try to prioritize my Patreon conversations. Also, March 10th, I will be in San Francisco with a dialogue about sexuality with Justin Lee.

And that event is free for all of my Patreon supporters. So if you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. And take advantage to the various perks that being a Patreon supporter gives you. And apart from all the perks, you just get the satisfaction of knowing that you're supporting theology in the raw. Okay, I'll stop. I'm done. Let's talk to Scott Ray. He's an awesome dude. He's a smart dude. And please enjoy this conversation. Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of Theology in the Raw.

I am here with my friend, Dr. Scott Ray. As I said in the intro, Scott is an ethics professor at Biola University and Talbot School of Theology. Thanks so much for being on the show, Scott. Sure, Preston. Happy to be with you and always happy to talk about ethics. Well, how long have you been doing ethics? I mean, or teaching ethics? Has it been like 20 years or so? It's more like 20, 25 to 30, actually. Yeah, and I think what I found is that there's an occupational hazard in this because a lot of the things that I've been working on have followed me home over the years.

God's got kind of an interesting sense of humor on this because particularly my area, my main area in bioethics, my wife and I wrestled with infertility about the same time I started studying this seriously. And then, you know, with assisted suicide being a public debate, we started walking parents through terminal illnesses. And then when the Human Genome Project came online a few years ago, my wife had a major history of breast cancer in her family. And one of the early genetic tests to come out of that was the test for the genetic glitch that gave women an 85 to 90% likelihood of getting breast cancer. So I figure maybe I think I'm going to take up the prosperity gospel next and see if that'll follow me home. Man, that is, that is, uh, that's uncanny. That's

crazy, man. Yeah. A lot of these, a lot of these things that I've been writing about and speaking about have also been, you know, they've been dinner table conversations and bedside discussions with my dad and when he was terminally ill and lots of stuff that uh is really if it fits the title of your program it's it's very much theology in the raw so you're not doing ethics from just a detached ivory tower you you are i mean in the most literal way i mean living this stuff out that's sometimes i wish i were detached yeah because it's it's gut-wrenching emotional decisions and you know anytime somebody says we the stuff you've written has been really helpful to me that's a mixed blessing because i you know so i'm glad it's

been helpful but i'm really sorry that you're in a situation where it can actually be helpful to you yeah i didn't you know i do recall now the now that bioethics in particular is your primary area. Was that like a topic of your dissertation or just something you pursued? I did. My dissertation was on the ethics of surrogate motherhood. Oh. This was back – this was 25, 30 years ago when surrogacy was just getting started and it was the stuff of TV miniseries and all this crazy stuff was going on.

And of course we're just deciding what to do with all this. So it's really, you know, it's really prime time to get into that discussion. It's not, I wouldn't say it's receded, but it's not quite the hot ethical topic that it was when it first came out. What do you think, what are the number one, two or three hot ethical topics that you see just keep coming up? Well, I think probably number one would be issues related to sexuality, marriage, sexuality, transgender type things. Second, I would say probably not far behind are things related to immigration, refugees, asylum seekers, things like that. things like that. Third, I would say would be just the way we think about morality in general, I think has changed significantly in the last 20 years or so.

How so? Can you unpack that a bit? I would love to hear. Well, for one, I think there's a new absolutism that has arisen, I think, probably in the last, maybe we've kind of come to see this maybe in the last 10 years or so, where, especially on college campuses, I don't think it's quite accurate to say that relativism is the cultural, you know, ethical system of the day. I think there's a new sense of absolutism, really rigid absolutism, that's taken hold on lots of state university campuses and culture in general. Because try, you know, try saying a politically incorrect thing on most state university college campuses, and you will generally not be met with tolerance and understanding and sensitivity. It is at times almost a brutal, rigid absolutism that has taken hold. absolutism that has taken hold uh you know if you if you cross the line on certain political very politically incorrect issues yeah um so that that i think is something new that we haven't we haven't seen all that much of uh until the last 10 years or so well were you are you uh familiar with what happened at evergreen University with Brett Weinstein?

Yeah, that's a perfect example of that. And that's being multiplied on state universities all over the country, which enough to say that things like free speech and free inquiry are being stifled in the name of a new orthodoxy that I think is actually much more rooted and unbending than any kind of religious morality we've seen in the last hundred years. Oh, I totally agree. So Jonathan Haidt's probably my favorite author right now. bending than any kind of religious morality we've seen in the last hundred years. Oh, I totally agree. So Jonathan Haidt's probably my favorite author right now. Did you read his recent book, The Coddling of the American Mind? Oh, he's terrific. Oh, so good.

I mean, it's scary, but it's really good. He actually came to Biola and spoke on that subject before the book came out. And he just hit a home run oh he's so good so so i want to talk about the book in a second but you got me so intrigued right now because this is um i would say in the last year has been something i don't talk about a lot on the podcast but it's been something i've been paying really close attention to and and really kind of disturbed by it have you seen i mean you're talking primarily about state universities public you know colleges and whatever have you seen it on your own campus though this a similar kind of vibe of uh the sort of you know intolerance of

or the top what is it the yeah the intolerance of tolerance so to speak or uh i think maybe just a bit um and i and i so i i understand kind of where where it comes from because people i think you know generally and this goes back to the way we think about morality excuse me in general because if we if we believe that morality is nothing more than matters of opinion, then there's no way to explain why we are so passionate about moral matters. The reality is, Preston, we treat moral discussions completely differently than we do most anything else. We,

we treat, we treat moral matters as though they are objectively true. And they're, and they are not strictly matters of opinion. I mean, I got a matter of opinion about my favorite flavor of ice cream, but I rarely talk passionately about that. You know, I have my, I have my subjective opinion

on who I think is going to win the Super Bowl. But I rarely talk very passionately about that. Now, maybe some do so about sports. That may have other things that we probably ought to talk about. But we generally treat morality matters as though they are matters of truth and knowledge. Ask someone if they think that racial discrimination is morally wrong. And I think they would say, most people I think would say, that if you disagree with me about racial discrimination being morally wrong, it's not just that you have a different perspective on it or view it through a different set of lenses. We would say that you're just flat out wrong about that. And so I think we just, we tend to treat these moral matters

differently, which suggests to me that there's something more intrinsic and fundamental about morality that's sort of hardwired into the world that we live in. Because, you know, we generally don't shame somebody for thinking that Coke tastes better than Pepsi, or that chocolate's a better flavor of ice cream than Manila, or that, you know, the Greek islands is a more beautiful vacation spot than Hawaii. But if somebody has a, if somebody thinks that, you know, racial discrimination is morally acceptable, we, we correctly, I think bring something akin to what in the past we would call shame or guilt or remorse,

you know, things like that. We don't do that for things that we just have different subjective opinions about. That's interesting. You know, I can't stop thinking about how this relates to the whole college campus thing. What do you think has happened? Where did this come from that college campuses have become so intolerant of any sort of view or idea that challenges a particular, and I would say far left kind of narrative? I mean, it's not, you know, you mentioned like, you know, try saying something politically incorrect on campus and see how that goes and that's absolutely true and i would even push it farther and say try saying something just remotely conservative or or something that uh would challenge the sort of uh you know really specific uh ideology that would be more or less you know

far not liberal liberals you know more illiberal or illiberal or even on the far left way of thinking. I've often wanted to ask on state university campuses, if you're so committed to diversity, you know, why are you committed to the diversity of everything except diversity of thought? Yeah, absolutely. except diversity of thought. Yeah, absolutely. So I think if you're really committed to diversity of thought on state university campuses, then show me the female faculty who are pro-life. Yeah, yeah. And I guarantee you, you won't find one.

Yeah. You know, show me the African-American faculty member who thinks that, you know, affirmative action back in the, you know, 80s and 90s was a bad idea. Yeah. You know, you'll likely get crucified for that. Yeah. And I tell my seminary students, when we have our discussions about sexuality, if we had this discussion on any state university campus, we'd be thrown off.

And we'd be thrown off. And we'd be, we'd be villainized. So I think where, where this came from in, in my judgment is a I think what started out as something with good intentions, but has taken on a worldview that is I think decidedly hostile to a Christian worldview. I think it started out with good intentions to give a voice to groups and individuals who had been marginalized in the past. But where it's taken on its absolutism is it's adopted what I would suggest is more what I would call a neo-Marxist view of the world that sees the world almost exclusively through the lenses of oppressor and oppressed.

Right. Like either you're one or the other. Either you have power. That's right. And if you have power, that means you stepped on somebody else to get that power. And if you have power, then you are an oppressor. If you're not an oppressor you are oppressed right you divide the world in terms of good and evil powerful non-powerful which ends

up being white straight males are the oppressor the the perpetrator the ones with the power and everybody else is the victim which is a really not not only skewed view of reality, which is not real, but it's incredibly dehumanizing and really dangerous, right? I mean, we've seen where this Marxist ideology can and has led to, and it leads to the death of millions of people, right? Yeah, that's why I'm not enthused about neo-Marxism, because I've seen, you know, you saw in the 20th century exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. And I think this, again, what starts out as good intentions, I think, and I think the social justice movement, I think, is in danger of adopting a neo-Marxist framework, perhaps inadvertently.

neo-Marxist framework, perhaps inadvertently. And that's, I think, that's the worldview that I think is without a doubt hostile to a distinctly Christian view of the world. Could you unpack what you mean by social justice? Because when I hear that, I have kind of two different, I guess, debates in my mind. One would be more of a political, kind of the SJW social justice warrior, which is a neo-Marxist kind of ideology. But then also on the far other end of the spectrum, you have debates within conservative evangelicalism on whether social justice is part of the mission of the church, part of the gospel or whatever.

And those are kind of two very different ideas of what social justice is. You're right. They're completely different. I think we need to be clear first. And, you know, with you being a New Testament guy, you know, I'm going to start with the Old Testament. So hang in there with me. But it's reinforced in the New Testament. I do think that the Bible is incredibly clear about the responsibility of the people of God to those who are poor, needy, marginalized,

and who are outside the cultural sort of mainstream, that's not quite the term I'm looking for, but are there on the margins of society, homeless, the poor, those that have been discriminated against, lots of minority groups fit into this category. And the Bible is very clear that God has a special place in his heart for those who have been, you know, relegated to the margins. The prophets, I think, are very eloquent on this. And I actually think this is a big part of what Jesus meant when he said, you know, whatever you do to the least of these, my brothers, you do for me. The New Testament, I think, is just crystal clear about this. And I think, you know, whatever you do to the least of these, my brothers, you do for me. The New Testament, I think, is just crystal clear about this. And I think, you know, if you actually cut out all those passages in the Scripture that related to the poor and the marginalized, you'd have an incomplete Scripture.

So I think there's, I don't see any place for this, what I would call old school pietism that says all you do is preach the gospel. You know, the culture's going to hell in a handbasket. And so any attempt to do any kind of social mission that's not preaching the gospel is sort of equivalent to rearranging deck chairs on the titanic and i think the response to that is that you know throughout the scripture where the kingdom is is described it has both an individual and a social component to it the kingdom has a structural component to it that that when the kingdom comes in its fullness, every knee will bow at the name of Christ. But we will also have a society that functions free from sin and corruption. And I admit, I still have difficulty getting my arms around exactly what that looks like.

But I think our attempts to minister and serve among the poorest of the poor is, I would say, a kingdom foretaste of what we'll see when the kingdom comes in its fullness. So the sort of what I would call almost an old school pietistic view that says all we do is preach the gospel and culture sort of takes care of itself. I don't think the Bible supports that. And so I think the Bible supports what I would call a high role for justice. I don't really care if you call it social justice or not. The term, I think, has some baggage attached to it that in lots of places has this neo-Marxist framework in it that I find problematic. in it that I find problematic. But, you know, I'm not, you know, whether we call it social justice or not, it's not a hill I'm willing to die on. I think what we mean by that is ensuring that we reach, you know, those that have been relegated to the margins and reflect the heart of God for them.

Now, whether it's part of the gospel or not, I think is a, I would call that's a distinction without a meaningful difference. seems really clear that developing a heart for the poor and the marginalized is a pretty important element of faithfully following Christ. So whether you want to say it's part of the gospel, I'm inclined to say it's probably not. I'm inclined to say the gospel is what Paul delivered the message of the death and resurrection of of jesus and our response to that that he delivered in first corinthians 15 um but you know i don't think that gets anybody off the hook uh because a i would say constituent part of faithfully following jesus is developing this tender heart and living out that heart for the poor and the marginalized. That's good. That's good. I think everything you articulated there, I think would be really helpful, especially for conservative evangelical Christianity that seems really nervous about making social justice a bigger part of the mission of the church. I think their nervousness is that they are understanding social justice through the lens of this kind of neo-Marxist political thing going on rather than seeing –

and maybe it's a terminological thing. Maybe we need to come up with a different term. Maybe when people hear social justice, it just triggers them to think of, you know, stuff going on in culture. But yeah, I do know folks who are, you know, who are basically allergic to that term. Yeah. Which I think is unfortunate. Yeah. I've said some things on Twitter and other outlets where I being kind of ignorant of how other people are understanding social justice, where I would have like you a very high view of social justice, but I'm not at all, I'm not really talking about the political conversation. I'm just talking about the biblical. I'm using the term to capture what is indisputably

a main thread of the story of Scripture. Yeah. And I think here, I think we have to look at this historically a bit too. And those fears, the fears of the idea of social justice I think come from our experience with the social gospel 100 years ago yeah uh where you know the social mission of the church became everything right and I think the reason for that is because at the same time that the social gospel was really making headway, the sort of fundamentals of Christian faith were being undercut by higher critical methods and higher critical scholarship. And so the person of Jesus was essentially being sort of spiritually emasculated. Yeah. Jesus was essentially being sort of spiritually emasculated.

Yeah. And the Bible was being, you know, I mean, trust in the Bible was at an all-time low at that point. So the social gospel was all that people had. And so, of course, the gospel message got obscured and marginalized itself in the process. Right. That's good. Hey, Scott, let's circle back around around let's go back to your book so the book we've referred to your book a few times you haven't actually said the name it's called moral choices um oh i have it here on my desk uh an introduction

to ethics and it's in the fourth edition now as i said off off off the air uh before we started um off the air before we started. This first came out, was it 94, 96, something like that? 94. 94, and it was about a fourth of the length, I think, of what it is now. It's now the fourth edition, and it is a massive – I mean, it's basically – well, textbook almost sounds demeaning because people think of textbooks being boring and dry and overpriced.

I mean, it is a textbook on ethics, but it is so relevant and engaging and clear and easy to read. When you sent me the copy, I'm like, man, this is a serious work. And I'm so thankful for how many years of thinking and study have gone into it. Appreciate that. Years of thinking and study have gone into it. I react a bit to people calling it a textbook because I'd like it to be used for something more than a doorstop. Totally, yeah. No, totally.

And what I love about it is you spend several chapters talking about kind of a history of ethics and different ethical frameworks. But then you go in, a bulk of the book is talking about immigration and warfare and sexuality and gender and bioethics and all these things. You actually go, the bulk of the book, right, is, I mean, you're tackling head on the hot button issues of the day and using the framework that you discussed to think through it. I want to start by, can you give us just a brief overview of some of the main Christian ethical systems? I'm talking about, say, deontological ethics or virtue ethics or utilitarian ethics, which are particularly Christian per se, but are really assumed, kind of the assumed ethical perspective of a lot of Christians. So, yeah, give us a quick lay of the land. What are the different options for Christians to think ethically? Well, yeah, I think there's probably three different ways of thinking about morality that Christian ethics would be a blend of all three of these.

One is, I think it's primarily a blend of principles and virtues. Okay. Okay. So the technical term for those would be deontological systems, which for a deontological system, things are intrinsically right or wrong. They don't depend on the outcome or the circumstances. And that's, and the reason ultimately is because it goes for a deontological system,

it goes back to the principle of the thing. It's, it's, it's, everything's a matter of principle. Now, I think by complement, a virtue ethic is designed to, I think, remedy some of the shortcomings or how the ontological ethics, I guess, was incomplete. Because the way principle-based ethics came to be understood was as only being applicable to somebody's actions. I mean, all of these are called action-based ethical systems. Well, the virtue person comes along and says, well, there's a lot more to the moral life than that, because we have what really matters is people's character

and what they do when nobody's looking and when they're not acting. So there's more to moral assessment than just the action. Now, from a Christian worldview, the action. Now, from a Christian worldview, both of those are important because ultimately, the ultimate source for morality is God's character. And the principle, the moral principles and values that come out of Scripture are all based on a prior commitment to God's character. The reason we have the principles and values that we do commitment to God's character. The reason we have the principles and values that we do is because God's the kind of God that he is. And we may say, well, you know, love makes the world go round. And that's true. But the reason we're called to love our neighbor is because God is fundamentally that kind of God.

fundamentally that kind of God. The reason we're mandated to be forgiving is not because forgiveness fundamentally heals fractured relationships, though that's true. Fundamentally, it's because God is at his core, in his character, a forgiving God. So we have the virtues or God's character is the ultimate source from morality from which our principles and moral values fall out of those. Now, the natural law tradition is more how those things get communicated and how those are revealed to the average person. Because the natural law tradition essentially says that God reveals moral values not only in his word, but also in his world.

And that God has embedded, or I like the term, that sort of play on words that I think the natural law folks use, that God has engraved his moral values and principles into his world, analogous to how he engraved the Ten Commandments on stone. And they, you know, if you look, take Proverbs, many of the Proverbs, for example, I think are great examples of this. And what I think is so remarkable about those is that most of the biblical Proverbs are not original when they were written down. have precedent in the ancient Near Eastern world that some goes back as much as a thousand years prior to when Solomon and others actually wrote those down, which suggests that God was already in the business of revealing his wisdom throughout his creation

and giving through common grace and general revelation, giving human beings the tools to unearth what God has embedded in the created order. Now, I think, obviously, Scripture, I think, is primary because it's clearer. And Scripture also gives us the saving knowledge of God, which natural law does not. Natural law is sufficient to condemn, but not to save. So that's how I'd see those traditions, the deontological, the virtue, and the natural law tradition coming together. I think there's a place for thinking about the consequences or utilitarian ways of thinking, even though it was not designed, it was actually designed as a departure from Christian ethics, not as a

compliment. But the biblical Proverbs, for example, the Proverbs, say the sentence Proverbs that start in about chapter 10 and go through, you know, chapter 24, 25 are all basically illustrations of the fact that actions have consequences. Yeah. And so real quick. So but with utilitarian, I mean, if I understand it correctly, it's one thing to say that this good behavior will lead to good consequences. But it's another thing to say this behavior is good

because of the consequences that it leads to is that is that am i i'm just kind of thinking out loud is that no that's a good distinction um that the consequences don't make things right right like they do for a utilitarian and you know and think about it, in a world where God has embedded his moral wisdom into his created order, the fact that doing the right thing would have good consequences, for the most part, is the way it ought to be. Nobody should be surprised by that. I would say the consideration of utility or consequences is more the caboose on the train, but for the utilitarian, it's the engine that drives the whole thing. In a Christian worldview, I don't think we can say that it's the engine that drives the whole thing, but we would expect that it'd be part of the train.

but we would expect that it'd be part of the trend. So would you say that most Christian ethicists would agree with you on just the last couple of minutes of what you said about utilitarian ethics? And I've got a follow-up question. There's a reason why I'm asking that. So the ones that I'm familiar with, I think would. I don't know of anybody off the top of my head who's a serious scholar in Christian ethics who would say that utilitarianism as a standalone ethical theory is sufficient and fully reflects biblical teaching. So, okay, so I'm going to follow that up with a few questions related to sexuality. I'm luring you in. And I know you and I are on the same page on so many levels on this conversation.

But one argument that I... I feel the hook going in my teeth. Well, one argument that I've been, I mean, wrestling with. It's not, it's a powerful argument because I think it hits people, it touches their hearts, but I think ethically and logically, it's just pretty bankrupt, but yet it's so incredibly popular. It might be the most popular argument

for affirming same-sex relationships or same-sex marriage in the church. And it's what I call the harm argument. And you're probably familiar with it. It goes something like this, that, you know, because the traditional or historically Christian sexual ethic is harmful toward gay people, towards LGBTQ people, therefore, it can't be good. Now, I have no doubt, in fact, part of my life commitment is reducing and addressing and confronting the harm that Christians have done and do do and are doing toward LGBT people. So no doubt in my mind that some Christians and in the past, probably many Christians have

harmed gay people. I have no doubt also that those same Christians that may have harmed gay people. I have no doubt also that those same Christians that may have harmed gay people also hold to a traditional sexual ethic. Okay, so those two points I totally agree with. But does that mean, I guess the crux of the argument is, is it the traditional Christian view that marriage is between a man and woman? Is it that particular view that's causing the harm? It's one thing to show correlation. It's quite another to try to prove causation. But even if all of that was true, I mean, first of all, it's pretty subjective. I think it's hard to, how would you actually prove that it's actually the traditional view of marriage

that is forcing or causing Christians to harm gay people. But even if we agree with all of that, that still does feel like a utilitarian ethic. You're determining the good of something based on the results of the opposite view. So would you, based on everything I said, if I'm representing the argument correctly, wouldn't that be a utilitarian, an argument that is based on a utilitarian way of thinking, which isn't a particularly Christian way of doing ethics? I think it's, yeah, I think it's probably fair to say that that argument smuggles in a utilitarian view of morality. Because there are other things to be considered. For one,

I mean, I think you do have to, if you're going to make a utilitarian argument, correlation is not good enough. Right. You have to show causation for that. And I think you could probably actually turn the utilitarian argument on its head and say you know lots of people have actually been harmed by accepting this affirming view of sexuality um i think i think the harm that has come in general to people as a result of the overall sexual revolution from the 60s is impossible to ignore. Right. Yeah. And that goes a lot wider than the same-sex discussion.

Yeah. And that has to do with, you know, the divorce culture, you know, the contraception revolution, you know, and the same sex discussion. So but I think the question I think, Preston, you're getting at is why why should we view why should. The the the argument from the outcome automatically be the trump card. Right. And I think there's, I think we're probably, you're right, I think to distinguish between the way the argument has been made,

the style of it and the argument itself. And I think that, you know, and I think that, you know, we've got, we've got to own, you know, our part in this, in the past. You know, the church behaved abominably in the past, which I think explains a lot of the ferocity of the LGBT movement in the aftermath of the Obergefell decision. Yeah, yeah. It's payback, and understandably so right um but i think you know we need to be careful i think that we don't you know smuggle in a system that we're asking to do all of the work and give that trump card status. I think the problem with utilitarian modes of reasoning, you know, as this all comprehensive system of morality is who's to say what constitutes a

harm, right? I mean, I mean, you're, you're begging the question on that and I, and I would say that for utilitarian system to actually work there's a prior commitment to certain principles that tell you that certain things are harmful yeah i mean who's who's to tell the the muslim family who ritually circumcises their daughter that she's been harmed. Right. Yeah. I mean, you know, who's I mean, on what on what basis are these things harms and benefits? And you usually can't say that without some sort of prior commitment to principles or virtues. Well, it seems to kind of collapse, you know, things like pain or suffering or hardship and harm all under a large umbrella of quote unquote harm.

And yeah, and then you can kind of, but I wonder if also what's feeding that is the modern just passion to pursue pleasure and comfort. comfort and you know where especially in american or western society especially in a wealthy elite society any form of kind of suffering or hardship is viewed as not just bad but in kind of intrinsically evil almost no it's viewed as immoral immoral yeah that that's that's the old school utilitarianism of jeremy bentham who calculated utility in terms specifically of pain and pleasure. And that's what's come back today. Although he viewed it, he viewed it a little bit differently. He viewed it through the lenses of basically a social consensus at that time about what constituted legitimate pains and pleasures, which we've lost all of that today. Today, what has become translated as, I would say, is more of an old school hedonism,

that the satisfaction of my desires makes something morally right, and therefore worth pursuing. But I suspect, it's probably a good thing. Our good thing, our wives aren't listening to this at the moment, but if, you know, if I did everything according to my desires, I don't know about you,

but I would certainly be polygamous. And it seems to me, most of Christian ethics is designed to put limits and boundaries on our desires, not to give full fruition to them. Well, that also plays into another popular argument, the argument from orientation, that if somebody has a quote unquote sexual orientation a particular way, that that therefore justifies the behavior that might spring from that orientation. Now, I think sometimes, well, first of all, I think that we don't understand what we even mean when we say sexual orientation. I think that whole concept is way more complicated than people make it out to be.

But that's, I mean, sexual orientation is just a modern way of talking about a sexual desire. Now we can say, is it innate? Is it biological? Is it changeable? Whatever. But really, at the end of the day, it's basing, it's justifying the behavior based on the desire from which that behavior springs. But that's, gosh, that's even more distant from a Christian way of thinking than even a utilitarian way.

Yeah, it's utilitarian. Yeah. It's completely foreign to the Christian world. I mean, I look at the teaching of Jesus where it talks about, you know, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. And it seems to me that on the, you know, on the list of priorities that are important to Jesus, the satisfaction of my desires is pretty far down the list. Right. Yeah. You know, not that all my desires are problematic but you know i think to assume that just because you have a desire i mean this is sort of the you know we're back to you know the old moral philosophy of david hume

again and hume had been you know completely discreditedited around the turn of the 20th century. Yet he's finding quite a resurrection at the popular level. I don't think David Hume ever envisioned himself being this popular. So here's my, I mean, I'm just old school enough. I just turned 43 a couple of days ago. So I have one, I kind of have one foot in the millennial generation. I've been teaching college like you have for years. And so I understand the way people think who are, you know, between 40 and 20. But I also very much understand, you know,

by, you know, the boomers ahead of me, you know. And I, how do you explain that the, And how do you explain the – I mean, it's one thing to say that society adopts a utilitarian or situation ethics or is pursuing pleasure at all costs, and that's kind of a good in and of itself. But it seems like the church has largely adopted this way of ethically – of moral reasoning, maybe not explicitly, but it's just kind of absorbed it. of moral reasoning and then maybe not explicitly but it's just kind of absorbed it um it just seems so clear when you read scripture just like what you said that that satisfying your desires is not the rhythm of new testament ethical thinking and yet it seems to be kind of the default for so many people even inside the church is that i mean it might might be an overstatement but are you when you talk in class and as you talk to young people and stuff, I mean, does the light switch on pretty clearly or do you still get pushback for even some of the things you've been saying the last few weeks? Well, I think what happens with my seminary

students, a lot of whom are youth pastors and college pastors, is I think they recognize that I'm right biblically, but they don't have any idea how to put this into practice and still attract high school and college students to their ministry. Wow. Okay. And so what we, what we've tried to suggest is that, um, you know,

what, what Barna and others tell us is that the keep me entertained thing among high school and college students is really old school. And what high school students want more than anything else is for somebody to answer their questions. want more than anything else is for somebody to answer their questions yeah and to recognize that they they're asking hard questions that we need we need to be answering uh and we're and we're and now i i think there there are lots of churches that are exceptions to this. Sure. But I think, you know, in general, I think we are promoting a relatively superficial faith that, yeah, I think has done really well at getting people out and serving and, you know, putting shoe leather on a big part of their faith,

you know, putting shoe leather on a big part of their faith, but has not been so good at really answering tough, tough questions. One of the things, Preston, you'll be encouraged with this, I think, that I'm very encouraged about, is our program in philosophy and in apologetics here at Biola has started to put more and more of an emphasis on women in apologetics. Yeah. Because we recognize that it's moms who spend the, you know, in large part, not entirely,

but moms spend a lot of the, these formative years with their kids. And it's moms that need the tools for apologetics to answer a lot of these tough questions that their kids are asking. And so we're seeing a new generation of women, you know, really take on the commitment to doing really good, serious theology and apologetics in service of their kids. And I think that I'd like to see our churches do a little more of that. I mean, I couldn't agree more. I mean, I have four kids, 15, 13, 11, and 9. And I mean, they ask such deep questions.

And people say, oh, well, that's because they grew up in your household and whatever. Like, I don't. Dude, I rarely sit around and like read theology books to my kids or whatever. Like our environment is actually not naturally very intellectual. So I don't, I don't think it's just because they grew up in my household and I'm an intellect. They just, they're a kid. They're teenagers that are, have really hard questions about a lot of different things and they don't want to know just what to believe they want to know why i'm supposed to believe this and yeah i could not agree more i think that yeah i think our youth groups and junior high groups and high school groups and so on and college groups whatever should be just bombarded with intellectually

rigorous and clear and compelling conversations and i just, I know it's a stereotype, but it is for a reason that that's not the typical way in which youth groups are run. I think with people like Kara Powell and even like, you know, Barna and others that I'm seeing a change in that though. There is kind of a, have you seen this? I mean, it seems like there is a real intentional and really helpful rethinking of youth ministry and just youth in general in the church these days. It seems like we're kind of at a crossroads.

Have you recognized that? I've seen – yeah, some of my students tell me that they're intentionally going smaller and deeper. Yeah. Man, that's great. Which I think is deeper. Yeah. Man, that's great. Which I think is terrific. Yeah. And I guess, you know, the thing that I think was off-putting to my own kids, because, you know, they grew up in a high school group,

and what they saw is, and maybe this is unique to this particular place, but what they saw is that the people who were most serious about their faith were the ones who were rigid and legalistic. And the other, sort of the other half, were the ones who were in church on Sunday but out, you know, sort of big time in the party scene the rest of the week. And so they viewed it as either rigidly legalistic or hypocritical. And they just didn't see much that was in the middle where people were really taking their faith seriously. But we're doing it in a nonjudgmental way. seriously, but we're doing it in a non-judgmental way. Now I realize that people, you know, high school students are in a relatively early stage of moral development where sometimes those rigid boundaries are just part of the program.

But it was kind of unfortunate that that was their experience. And, you know, we tried our best to you know answer those questions when they when they raise them you know your house is a lot like mine you know we spend a lot of time watching and playing sports together not reading theology and but a lot of those questions come out you know when we're having dinner after the after the hoop game right um you know so part of it i think just is just for for parents it's just like it's just it's just like being friends with your you know your non-believing neighbors you know you're just around you're there you're in their lives um and you just you

respond when these things come up it's in it's in the air yeah it's going to come up uh switching gears just slightly um i remember seeing from a distance some um conversations on about sexuality that are they keep kind of coming up on biola's campus and i know zeus has gone through some stuff at several other christian schools uh yeah going back to the sexuality conversation how are things at biola are you free to talk about it or is there other tensions and and conflict and stuff or is it is it not too bad you know I think we're we're in a we're in a different place I think than some other places uh because we have a really clear theological distinctive on marriage and sexuality that's part of what every faculty member signs on to and that's part of the filter that we use in in screening and recruiting faculty and our president has as said all along they said if you know

if you're waiting for our you know for our view of marriage and sexuality to change, you know, it's not going to, uh, and the, our, you know, our board of trustees has been very clear that our view of marriage and, and sexuality is not going to change on their watch, uh, sort of regardless of, you know, of what the, you know, what the external forces, you know, bring to us. We've been, you know, we're, you know, like a lot of Christian colleges in California, we're in the sights of the, in the sights of the legislature that, you know, lots of folks in the legislature think we ought to be out of business because of our views on marriage.

We're asking simply to be left alone, to live out our deepest convictions as we see fit. And so far, we're still able to do that. You know, we have students on campus who are wrestling with their sexual orientation or their sexual attraction. We have a place where we try to walk a really fine line, which we want to be supportive to those students who are wrestling with their sexual attraction, but who want to do it in the context of taking their faith seriously. Right. You know, so we want to provide that kind of support while at the same time not affirming, you know, the LGBT agenda. Right. So, you know, maintaining fidelity to our convictions about marriage and sexuality while at the same time being pastoral toward folks who are wrestling with

their sexual attraction, not always an easy thing to do. No, not at all. But yeah, the stuff I've read on your website is fantastic. And you guys, I mean, and you have lots of people there who are, you know, like yourself and Sean and several others that have thought through this, you know, very in-depthly and very pastorally. So, but yeah, you're the wording and documents and stuff you guys have are fantastic. Um, was it, was there

like kind of an underground LGBT group on campus a while back that was trying to, or is that just kind of over? I mean, I think every campus probably has some underground LGBT group these days, but is that, was that not a big deal? Yeah. You know, I, I don't think that was a major thing. I wouldn't surprise me if we had students who were waiting for our theological distinctive on marriage and sexuality to change and hoping it would change. But I think for a lot of students, I think they're, you know, they're taking their faith seriously. They want to grow in their faith. You know, I'm not sure some of this is all that big an issue to them.

Yeah. And for others it is because it's more personal. Sure. But, you know, I'm actually a lot more interested in talking about things like the, you know, I'm actually a lot more interested in talking about things like the, you know, biblical authority and the resurrection of Jesus, you know, our service to the poor and, you know, things like that. The sexuality is not going to go away because it's culturally in the air. Right. And, you know, do we have students who kind of wish our views would change? I'm sure we do.

Yeah. But I think from the very top of the institution, you know, on marriage and sexuality, they're not close to an hour here, but one more quick question regarding bioethics. So euthanasia is becoming a hot topic recently. Am I reading the Times correctly? Is that coming up more and more now? No, I wouldn't say more and more. couple of pretty visible folks in the last two or three years that have opted for assisted suicide in the states where it's been legal. It's probably more of an issue in Europe. Okay. And what's disturbing to me about that trend, particularly in Europe and in uh in particularly in europe and australia australia as well um is the connection that's made between uh the demographic landslide that's taking place as us baby boomers uh hit you know turn 65 and older and how that's going to tax our medical system and connecting that to legalizing assisted

suicide for economic reasons or economic reasons yeah because as a colleague of mine put it a while back there's nothing cheaper than dead oh my gosh and you know people in Europe have actually said, you know, if you are or, you know, if you have serious illness or if you have dementia, you know, you are wasting the resources of the national health system. Wow. up for is the the way it's being increasingly connected with uh you know the fact that our health care system if we try to give everybody everything they want and need at the end of their lives will go bankrupt wow wow that's yeah now need to be clear too that's not to say that it's immoral for a person, say, on life support to say stop to medicine. I think under the right conditions, that's theologically okay because death is a conquered enemy. And therefore, because it's a conquered enemy, it need not always be resisted. That under the right circumstances, we can, you know,

we can stop treatments that are futile or more burdensome and beneficial. And essentially turn that person back up back to the Lord. Yeah. For him to take him or her in whatever timeframe the Lord sees fit. So would you say that euthanasia or assisted suicide is always morally wrong? Or are there any situations where you would say it might be, I don't know, the lesser of two evils or the higher moral? I think assisted suicide, I would say that's always morally wrong.

Okay. Because there's almost always another option to do what people really want at the end of life, which is to control their pain and give them some sort of control over the end of life. And this is where you'll find the hospice movement almost universally opposes assisted suicide because they recognize that they have a good answer. My dad was in hospice care. Those hospice workers were the closest thing to guardian angels I've seen this side of eternity.

And what they did for my dad was fantastic. And he never thought about assisted suicide, not because he's a believer, but because he was so well cared for in hospice. And hospice is still dramatically underutilized in our culture today. Well, Scott, we are rounding the corner in an hour, so I'm going to let you go. Again, the book is Moral Choices and Introduction to Ethics. Make sure if you're sniffing around on Amazon right now, make sure you get the fourth edition. You might find the other ones cheaper, but the fourth edition is a massive, awesome resource. Yeah, again, I can't emphasize enough.

I still feel bad that I called it a textbook. I mean, if I was going to teach a class on ethics, I would probably use it as a textbook. that I called it a textbook. I mean, if I was going to teach a class on ethics, I would probably use it as a textbook. But I was not shocked because I'm familiar with your writings, but you will be shocked if you're not familiar with Scott's writings

at how just clear and engaging it is. So where can people find you if they're interested in your other works? I mean, obviously they can Google you or whatever, but do you have a website or a faculty page at the university? Look me up. I do, obviously they can, you know, Google you or whatever, but do you have a, do you have a website or a faculty page at the, at the university? Look me up. I do have a website, but it's at talbot.edu. Okay, cool.

Talbot.edu is the place and then you'll search under faculty. Okay. That's the best place. Scott, thanks so much. Yeah. Thanks for being on. Enjoyed it. I love it. All right. We'll have to have you on again sometime soon. You bet.

Anytime. All right. Take care, Scott. Thank you.