How can I know right from wrong?

“How can I know right from wrong?” Alan kept asking himself. “Do right and wrong even exist at all? And if they do, how can I be sure that they do?” Alan Wilson almost felt ridiculous asking himself these questions. His classmates and friends at the university didn’t seem to be asking them at all, and they appeared to be perfectly happy. Yet Alan saw many of them making choices that he’d heard for many years were wrong and should be avoided. He was a first-year college student who had left the shelter of home to face the winds of “new” ideas that a “higher education” offered. Those winds had blown against much of what he’d been taught since birth.

Before leaving home, Alan had imagined himself standing up for his faith, letting friends and professors alike know that he was a Christian. Now he wondered how he could have been so naïve as to imagine that “coming out” as a Christian would be easy. It was incredibly difficult—so difficult, in fact, that he had to admit that now he was a closet Christian, at best.

At the root of Alan’s struggles was a single idea that ate at his heart and dogged his mind. His roommate had voiced it, and it reverberated inside Alan’s head even now. “Hey, Alan! Get real! How can anybody say that any action or lifestyle choice is wrong? Oh, sure, people can say that, but their words represent only their opinions, not objective truth!”

Weren’t the differences between right and wrong clear, understandable, and knowable? Weren’t they black and white inherently rather than gray? Now Alan wondered if he’d been gullible to believe these things. Had he been wrong? Had his parents, his pastor, his church, his Bible, and even his God also been wrong?

Making his way home after that first semester, Alan looked forward to sharing his struggles with the new pastor at his home church. Matt Thomas had become the pastor of Lakeside Community Church while Alan was away at school, and his parents had developed a deep appreciation for him in a very short time. “When you get back home,” Alan’s dad had said, “talk with Pastor Matt. I think he can help you grapple with your questions.” Matt’s sermons certainly had helped Alan’s parents understand better how the Bible speaks to every issue in life, and they found themselves wishing Alan could have heard this kind of preaching before he had left home. They knew his faith had been shaken to the core, and now their son needed to regain some stability. Matt’s office, they hoped and prayed, would be the place that would happen.

Alan reflected on his first semester at the university. While he’d befriended a good many students, he saw many of them making choices and living lives that troubled him deep down. They were great people in so many ways, but Alan knew that in many situations they acted without restraint, following their base instincts and drives. His friends told him they weren’t sinning, just having fun. “If they aren’t sinning,” Alan thought, “then sin isn’t real, and if sin isn’t real, then why should I worry about it at all? Something that doesn’t exist can’t have any consequences!”

Even though he didn’t yet realize it, Alan was witnessing the results of years of indoctrination. The theory of evolution had left its mark everywhere on campus. In other words, evolution’s practical implications abounded. For years, the young men and women now enrolled as students at the university had been told they had descended from animals. Should it really have been a surprise, then, when they acted like animals, pursuing “fun” and exercising no discipline or restraint? In many ways, this element also is evident in society at large.

Matt welcomed Alan into his office and listened intently. When Alan was through, the pastor began by advising him to make sure that in assessing his situation he didn’t see issues simply in bits and pieces. “In other words,” Matt said, “the conflict you’re experiencing isn’t merely a clash of differing perspectives on a lot of separate things like homosexuality, abortion, premarital sex, cohabitation, or whatever. You’re witnessing a clash of two very different belief systems. Sometimes we call a belief system a worldview. It’s the lens through which a person sees life and reaches conclusions about it. On one side is a worldview that assumes God doesn’t exist, and on the other is the one your upbringing has encouraged you to embrace. That one assumes God is—that He does exist, is personal, and will hold people accountable for how they live.

Matt continued, “It’s important to remember that a worldview can’t be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. Worldviews require faith. Someone may think they are really throwing their weight around when they ask you how anyone can be certain a particular lifestyle choice or action is wrong, but on what authority does he base his conclusion that no one can speak with such certainty? His belief that that no objective standard of right and wrong exists rests on his assumption that God doesn’t exist—or at least on his adherence to a belief system that assumes God’s nonexistence. Sure, he may say he believes in God, but think about it—the God in which he believes permits people to do whatever they feel like doing. That doesn’t sound like much of a God, does it?” Alan nodded, indicating to Matt that what he was saying made a great deal of sense. Matt added, “Evolutionists may claim that evolution is pure science and that all objections to it are totally religious and therefore invalid—but many of them cling to their belief in Darwinism with religious fervor. Just as theism is a religious belief, so is atheism.”

Matt went on to point out that those who say they don’t believe in right and wrong actually don’t live that way. They may say absolute truth doesn’t exist, but if someone steals from them, they will be the first ones to appeal to a standard, and on the basis of that standard, object. “All people,” said Matt, “appeal to various values and standards, even if they never realize they are doing so. Innately, each person has a standard of fairness he or she is quick to advocate.”¹

You can read more of Alan’s and Matt’s conversation here.

¹This content has been adapted from Adult Leader Guide, KJV Family Bible Study, Spring 2005, (Nashville: LifeWay Christian Resources, 2004), 125-126.