The following are words of one of the last century’s most influential people.
“If there is a God, then he gives us not only life but also consciousness and awareness. If I live my life according to my God-given insights, then I cannot go wrong, and even if I do, I know that I have acted in good faith.”
Thus, the person isn’t an atheist but, apparently, agnostic . . . “if there is a God.” And he does seem to believe that this God is a moral entity who has given people some kind of moral insight. And, indeed, he expressed his desire to live by those divine “insights,” to not go wrong and to act in good faith. Sounds laudable enough—especially in a day and age where the idea of God is openly mocked, must less one who imbues us beings down here with a sense of right and wrong, good and evil.
But is that enough? Living by one’s conscience would seem, in many cases, to be better than violating one’s conscience, would it not? On the other hand, Scripture warns against this idea. “You shall not at all do as we are doing here today—every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes—” (Deuteronomy 12:8). That’s, perhaps, better than every man doing what is wrong in his own eyes. But, still, we are fallen beings, thousands of years from the tree of life, powerfully and negatively impacted by our culture, prejudices and corrupted hearts (see Romans 3:10-18). Hence, we need God’s moral law, His transcendent standard of right and wrong.
Otherwise, we have what? Men living by their own understanding of morality, such as expressed in the quote above—by Adolph Hitler.
