There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"A scholar of the law was called a scribe, and in Matthew's version of this Gospel the questioner is identified as a Pharisee. The first law is from Deuteronomy 6:5:
Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you read it?"
He said in reply, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself."
He replied to him, "You have answered correctly; do this and you will live."
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
The second law is most clearly written in Leviticus 19:18:
You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Perhaps the most important aspects of these laws is that they are about personal relationships. One does not love with all their heart, soul and strength a force, no matter how powerful or omniscient. That kind of total devotion can only be applied to a person. An immensely powerful being, but one with whom a personal relationship is not only possible but welcomed.
And upon that turns the world view of a Christian. Because when morality is based upon the relationship between God and humanity then moral decisions become clear, if not easy. If human dignity is based upon the relationship that exists between the person and God, in whose image the person has been created, then there is no question about when a pre-born baby becomes a person or what death with dignity really means.
This means that morality is never something that is decided by cultural norms. Morality is based on the unchangeable relationship between God and man.
The study of science is based upon the premise that the universe was created and is subject to the rational order imposed by it creator. Without that premise science is basing on blind faith, rather than rational faith, the belief that natural laws behave the same everywhere in the universe. There is certainly no rational reason to expect such behavior and only tenuous experimental support for such a belief.
If such is the case then there is no reason to expect that morality should be any more changeable than the laws of nature. One would not expect gravity to have behaved differently in the nineteenth than in the twenty-first century. If immoral behavior was bad for an individual in 1854 one should expect it would just as bad in 2009. Anyone looking at the results of immoral choices on the person making them can easily see that despite what relativist would like to believe this is not a consequence free universe. Bad things happen to people who make poor moral choices. Perhaps that is why they are bad choices, because our Creator wants us to be happy. He has laid out a pathway through Scripture and the Magisterium to lead us to good moral choices because He wants us to act in a way that is good for us, rather than in a way that is bad for us. Because when you love someone with all your heart you want whats best for them, and that is how our Creator loves us.
And upon that turns the world view of a Christian. Because when morality is based upon the relationship between God and humanity then moral decisions become clear, if not easy. If human dignity is based upon the relationship that exists between the person and God, in whose image the person has been created, then there is no question about when a pre-born baby becomes a person or what death with dignity really means.
This means that morality is never something that is decided by cultural norms. Morality is based on the unchangeable relationship between God and man.
If we have died with him we shall also live with him; if we persevere we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him he will deny us. If we are unfaithful he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
The study of science is based upon the premise that the universe was created and is subject to the rational order imposed by it creator. Without that premise science is basing on blind faith, rather than rational faith, the belief that natural laws behave the same everywhere in the universe. There is certainly no rational reason to expect such behavior and only tenuous experimental support for such a belief.
If such is the case then there is no reason to expect that morality should be any more changeable than the laws of nature. One would not expect gravity to have behaved differently in the nineteenth than in the twenty-first century. If immoral behavior was bad for an individual in 1854 one should expect it would just as bad in 2009. Anyone looking at the results of immoral choices on the person making them can easily see that despite what relativist would like to believe this is not a consequence free universe. Bad things happen to people who make poor moral choices. Perhaps that is why they are bad choices, because our Creator wants us to be happy. He has laid out a pathway through Scripture and the Magisterium to lead us to good moral choices because He wants us to act in a way that is good for us, rather than in a way that is bad for us. Because when you love someone with all your heart you want whats best for them, and that is how our Creator loves us.
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