To the editor:

Mr. Reed, you stated in your argument for equating God with morality that “God accepts morality because it is [in] accord with his perfect moral character,” and “God never wills anything that is not in accord with his morally perfect character.” You then asked why this alternative is not viable.

This alternative is really not an alternative, because in it, God just happens to follow some higher moral standard, which is the first option Mr. Wong presented.

It is also not viable because if God never wills anything that is not in accord with his morally perfect character, then genocide, infanticide and murder are all in accord with God’s morally perfect character, because God has not only willed but ordered all of them.

“Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys” (1 Sam. 15:3).

“But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breathes. But thou shalt utterly destroy them … as the Lord thy God has commanded thee” (Deut. 20:16-17).

Now, either God has willed or ordered immoral acts, or genocide, infanticide and murder are all perfectly moral.

According to Christian theology, God is perfect, thus he could never have ordered or willed immoral acts. It therefore follows that if God is the basis of morality, then genocide, infanticide and murder are all morally perfect.

This is why Mr. Wong and many other people object to right and wrong being defined by God. Who needs lectures on the immorality of sexuality from a god guilty of genocide, infanticide and murder?

If he can’t see that those are wrong, what makes him such an authority on anything else?

You asked, “Is this view false because Wong doesn’t like it?”

No, this view is false because if we apply reason to it, as an instrument to find the truth, like you suggested doing in the beginning of your letter, we realize that genocide, murder, and infanticide are wrong, no matter who commits or orders them.

Why should it be wrong for Mr. Milosavich but perfectly moral for God?

You state, “Simply because Wong does not like the idea of God determining right and wrong does not make it untrue!”

That is correct, but by the same token, just because Reed likes the idea of God determining right and wrong does not make it true.

However, the fact that God, who “never wills anything that is not in accord with his morally perfect character,” wills and orders crimes against humanity does make the idea of God determining right and wrong not only untrue, but absolutely ludicrous.

Mr. Wong was right. God and morality are two separate issues. That is, unless you see nothing morally wrong with genocide, infanticide and murder.

My apologies to Ben Godar and everyone else who is understandably sick and tired of hearing these arguments.

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Tim Morgan

Graduate student

Veterinary pathology