So it is that time. Time for us to begin the end. this is our final class in our introduction to Christian ethics and tonight's class is what we call students choice which means that each of you have the opportunity to send in a ethical question for me to teach on and I have in front of me seven specific questions that were provided. Some of you provided them some the online students provided them. If you did not get your question to me, or if I don't, if it's not on my list here, and you send it in, I want to begin by saying I apologize, I people sent them a different way. Some emailed them some message me. So I kind of got this sort of hodgepodge of having to drag out and look, and even you, like we talked the other day, you gave it to me in person, and I typed it into my phone. It's in here, though. Your question's in here. So next time I do this, I'll make it more standardized, but I did the best I could. So I have seven specific questions. If we did not include, if you're in person and we did not include your question, I'll try to save some time at the end to go over that as well. And once we take our break, after we take our break, we're going to come back and talk about the final exam, which is the final project, which is I have a hand printed copy here. You still have to do it digitally, you have to do it online, but you can have a handwritten or a printed copy. If you if you want to take it home and and use that to practice with before you take the actual digital test. So let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, we do thank you now for the opportunity to be here in this class. We thank you for loving us and giving us your word by which we can measure all things and come to ethical determinations and decisions. I pray, oh God, for clarity. I pray that this class will have benefited us in how we search the scriptures to find truth. And Lord, that where those areas are where there are difficulties in finding the right answer, help us to not let us come to the conclusion that you don't know what the answer is, but Lord, that we might seek your heart and mind knowing that you always know what is right. And we pray and ask that you be with us now as we study in Jesus name. Amen. Over the past seven weeks, we have looked at a variety of ethical issues. In week one, we asked the question, why do we study ethics? We said it was to help us conform our understanding to the perfect standard of God. We asked the question, what is goodness or virtue? We said good is ultimately God. God is the standard of all goodness. And therefore, when we seek to determine what is virtuous, it is against him and him being the standard. We talked about in the second week, biblical law. and different perspectives on biblical law. We talked about the Torah observant groups, the tripartite groups, the theonomic groups, and new covenant priority. We talked about those who would argue that grace is an excuse for sin. And we talked about Romans 14 and how sometimes there are cases where certain things are subjective, meaning ultimately up to the individual where he has to not violate his own conscience. In week three, we looked at life ethics, which included abortion, reproduction, and genetics. In week four, we looked at death ethics, which included suicide, euthanasia, and capital punishment. In week five, we looked at war ethics, which included pacifism, just war theory, personal protection and defense. Week six, we looked at sex, ethics. A little slip of the tongue there. We looked at marriage and divorce, fornication, adultery, polyamory, and what's sometimes referred to as alternative lifestyle issues. And then last week, we looked at money ethics. We looked at poverty as a virtue, which some people claim that poverty is a virtue. economic systems, and then work and vocation. So that leads us up to tonight, we've covered a lot of ground in only the past two months. And I hope that you have not only listened to the lectures in class, but I hope that you've also been doing the reading, because the reading should be helping you fill in some of the gaps. We only have an hour and a half in class. So reading helps you fill in the gaps and I would wonder, you know, what you thought of the textbook. And I'll give you an opportunity if anybody wants to share. What were your any thoughts that you've drawn from the textbook readings? Did you thought it was helpful? Okay. Anything specific? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, certainly presents you with a lot of different thoughts on these different subjects and different things you have to do, yeah. Was there any areas you disagreed with the book, maybe? That's a good question. Anybody come, did you read anything where you said, eh, I don't know if I would go there, or maybe found something that was disagreeable? OK, well, if you're online listening and you did, please leave a message for that. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. When I'm reading through the textbooks for these classes and everything, I'm often kind of looking for areas that I might disagree so that I can give warnings. Well, on page this or whatever, this is where I may differ with the teacher. And sometimes I do. Well, in that case, there was his reproductive genetic Yes. Yes, genetic engineering, for sure. Sure. Sure. And some of those questions, and I agree with you, I would have strong opinions on them. Some of them, though, you know, are so new in the sense that these questions have only been around for a few years in the sense that, you know, I mean, even one of the questions we're going to deal with tonight, which is one of the questions that was submitted by a student, deals with in vitro fertilization. I mean, this is only really something that our generation and the generation before us have had to deal with. That's not something that our ancestors had to ask. because things that those types of technologies didn't exist. And as technologies grow, there's going to be more questions and wondering about are we playing God? Are we are we diving? Are we going to an area that we shouldn't go? And so yes, absolutely. And now we got a generation that's comfortable. Yeah, just went dove right in. Yep. Well, before we get to the seven questions, and if no one has anything else from the book, I see AJ's looking at it. I don't know if you had a thought. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah as I said the book is short but I think it makes some good points and introduces some good concepts and like like you mentioned Bert there is a larger textbook that is certainly includes a lot more information sure So as we begin tonight to look at the seven questions we're going to address, and by the way, if we go through these too quickly, which I don't suspect we will, I also brought the questions from the last class. Remember, I taught this class two years ago, and they gave me nine questions that I have to add to our seven. So if we run through the seven questions and we just get it snappy, then we'll have nine more we can tackle. But I don't think we're going to. I'll be surprised if we actually make it through the seven that we're gonna look at. Yes. You don't have to. Tonight's a free open discussion. None of this will be on the test. This is for us to have a conversation and try to apply. This is almost like when you take a science class, this is like a lab, right? We're doing the work tonight, working out our thoughts. And with that being said, We have said from the beginning that the foundation for ethics is the character of God, Christian ethics. The character of God and there are two if you will, subdivisions of this that we need to consider. And that is the idea of principles and virtues. I'm sorry. I did that wrong. It should be virtues. Virtues should be on the left. So excuse me. Virtues and principles. virtues and principles. Virtues would be that which we see as a good. A virtue is something that is a good. And a principle is an ethical maxim based upon that goodness. So these are the maxims that result from the virtues. So the way this works, and we've talked about this in previous classes, but just to remind you, so for instance, on a very simple basis, if we say that life is good, I hope we would all agree that life is good. From a biblical perspective, we certainly know from God, because we're saying this is Christian ethics, therefore character of God, God created life. Life is good. Therefore, murder is wrong. All right, so that's why you start with the virtue, life is good, murder is a violation of God's character, it's a violation of that which is good. So another virtue would be something like private property. We discussed this last week when we were discussing capitalism, socialism, and communism. We said one of my biggest issues with socialism and communism, particularly communism, is the removal of the concept of private property, that everything's owned by the state or everything's owned by the community rather than being owned by the individual and having private ownership. And so if private property is a good thing, what would be the principle? That's actually pretty funny. No, what's the actual one though? Stealing is bad. Stealing is bad. And we could do this all day. We could talk about different virtues. Truth is good, therefore lying is bad. You just make yourself down the list. Well, this is the way that we're going to examine these seven questions. We're going to say, OK, this question asks a question about some virtue. We're going to seek to discover what the virtue is and come to a consensus. OK, what's at stake here? And maybe it might be more than one thing. The first question, actually, I think has more than one virtue at stake. And then you have the question, okay, so what's the principle that we draw from that? What law does God give regarding this, and what's it based on? Okay, so simple enough. Let's look then first at question number one. And some of these I have reworded slightly. Some people sent in questions and they were worded a little difficult, a little difficultly, so I went in and reworded them. First one, is mandatory military service ethical is mandatory military service ethical first I want to just say the person who gave the question is a military veteran so I I don't know this for certain it was brother Mike Smith he's in he's in Arizona I believe he's gonna still listen to this class him and miss Deborah will probably still hear this so hello from Florida to Arizona but I The way that he asked the question seemed to me like he thought mandatory military service was a good thing. So I'm assuming that, though. I could be wrong. I'm basing that on just the way the question was proposed. And so we want to start with the question of, OK, what virtues are in play here. This is a little less easy than these. This one's a little more thoughtful. We have to kind of dig a little. What virtues at play when we talk about something being mandatory? I'm going to erase, give us some room. What virtues are at play when we talk about something mandatory? Well, let's just deal first with it being mandatory, and then we'll get to the idea of ethics of war. But just first, something being mandatory, that would deal with what ethic? Or what virtue? Choice. Who said choice? That was what I have. I said it deals with freedom. Choice, right? So right away, when you talk about something being mandatory, you're automatically dealing with people's ability to make a choice, right? And a choice, At least from a simple perspective, the Bible clearly teaches that human choice dangerous but good. It's dangerous like we see humans make bad choices but doesn't the Bible call us to make choices, right? You choose this day whom you will serve, right? We see that in Joshua. We see all throughout Scripture the command to make good choices, right? Which means we have the right or the ability at least to make choices. And so what's at play, and I'm gonna put this next to the word choice, is the word autonomy. which means self-government, right? The ability to choose one's own, to will to do what one wants to do. One of the most difficult things I have outside of just the issue of private property in regard to communism is the other issue of lack of autonomy, freedom. You can't just do what you feel called to do or feel led to do. You have certain things that you can't do or you have to do based upon government oversight. And so this is the issue at play, is the issue of choice and autonomy. But we said mandatory military service. So there's other virtues at play. What's another virtue in that question? Defending the country. Yeah. The military is a good thing, right? We would say the government is called to bear the sword, right? We read that about Romans 13. So the government has a place, I would just say, under virtues, military, and I'm just going to put equal, National defense. National defense is a good thing. So now we have two virtues that are somewhat conflicting. You see how this begins to create the issue with how we do ethics, right? Because military is a national defense need, that every country has a need for national defense. Because if a country doesn't have a national defense, what is it going to be? Not a country very long, right? Because another country that has a strong national power is going to come and overtake that country. So a country needs a strong national defense. And so if there is no national defense, there's probably not going to be a country very long. So we have two competing goods, the good of national defense and the good of personal autonomy. So now we have the concerns, the further questions. OK. The question of the individual. Should all people serve in the military? Some would say yes, some would say no, but should anyone be allowed not to serve by virtue of their conscience? And this gets back to just war, right? What if somebody is And I'm going to put this under virtue only because this is what they would see as a virtue, not because I necessarily think it is. What if somebody saw themselves as a pacifist? It doesn't have to be a Christian pacifist, just a pacifist in general. They say, I am a person who does not believe in pacifism. And there's actually a term that was used in Vietnam when a person didn't want to serve, what they call them. Conscientious objector. A conscientious objector. Meaning they looked at the the conflict and based on their conscience they could not support the war and therefore they objected to the war they did not want to serve. Famous conscientious objector. Anyone have an idea? Mr. Muhammad Ali. Mr. Muhammad Ali made some very colorful statements regarding the Vietnamese and the Americans and, you know, made himself a target of people who considered themselves patriotic because they felt like he was being unpatriotic by being unwilling to serve, right? And so that's a whole other part of the conversation. So how do we begin to narrow this down? The first thing I think we have to consider is we have to consider how these virtues become principles. Does a person who lives in a nation have responsibilities to that nation by being a citizen? So we all have citizenship. Citizenship responsibilities. So none of us have complete autonomy. Have you ever heard the phrase sovereign citizen? Do you know what that is? That is a, well, I say relatively recent. Within the last generation or so, there have been people who've come out and claimed that they are sovereign citizens, meaning that they are not under the legal requirements of the United States, but they themselves constitute a sovereign person who's not under the law of the land. And you know how long that lasts? When they violate the law of the land? Not very long, because whether they like it or not, they are under the law of the land. And if you, you can call yourself a sovereign citizen, but as soon as you violate the law to a certain point, you're going to have the law bear down upon you because even though you have certain amount of choice, no one has complete freedom, right? No one has complete freedom. So the question of is mandatory military service ethical begins with the issue of how much choice and how much freedom is required by the government to give us. And that becomes difficult because the Bible doesn't say how much freedom the government is required to give us. What it tells us is we are not to obey if the government calls us to disobey God. If the government calls us to disobey God, then we do not have the responsibility to obey. But other than that, if the government calls us to do something that is not disobeying God, we have to consider where that fits into our own ethical paradigm. I don't think it is right to send a pacifist to war. I would say right away. If a person legitimately has an issue with using firearms or whatever, can't have that within their conscience, I think that would right away make it to where it can't be universally mandated because I don't think the government should violate a person's conscience in that way. I'm going to give my opinion. I want to hear yours. I'm going to hear your thoughts, but right away that one would affect me. Yes? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And that goes back, I don't know if you remember this, but in our Just War class I talked about the fact that there's two types of pacifism. There's nonviolent pacifism, which would say, I can't fight, but I could be a medic or a military missionary or a minister, chaplain. And there's some, like the movie Hacksaw Ridge. That guy was willing to be a medic, but not be a fighter. OK. But the other side of that comes to the question of the non-participatory pacifist, someone who says, by participating at all, I'm violating my conscience. And therein would be the biggest hurdle for me to force a person to do that. Other thoughts on this? Yes, AJ? A major concern would be quality. So if you're going to force everybody to do what you're commanding them to do, if they're not built for that, Let's use the example in the Old Testament where God says, whoever is a coward, whoever is afraid, go home. It's the quality of your defense. If a person is unwilling, unpatriotic, more likely will be a target of the spies of the enemy country. That's a great question and that's a great thought. You know, I wonder how that works in Israel. Because I do know, and I didn't get to this, but Israel does require two years of military service. And what's interesting, they require it for men and women. Which to me, I haven't gotten there yet, but that's another issue for me. I don't believe military service should be required of women. But that for me is based upon a biblical principle that the people who fought in God's nation were always fighting men. Women and children and elderly men were not expected to fight. It was fighting men. And so I have that as part of my, if the government said I want your daughters, I would have to say no, right? I think so too. I think, yeah, absolutely. But looking at Israel, I wonder how they deal with people who are, and I don't know, because I've never looked into it, but I do wonder how they would deal with keeping a good quality military when they're requiring everyone to do this. So it'd be interesting to see how that worked out on a qualitative level. It's a very good thought. Any other thoughts? Any questions? Where do we end up on this? Sometimes the answers are hard. I think that a government has the right to recruit. This is my thinking, but again, tell me if you think I'm wrong on this. I think the government, because of the need for national defense, does have the right to recruit, in times of necessity, men to battle. But I do not think that it is incumbent upon all time, at all places, that every man should be forced to do this. That's where I, based upon the first, based upon some, that men should be given a choice, but that in times of national emergency, it could be, and so, in that sense, I guess I would be a proponent of a form of selective service, but as I've, you guys don't know this, and, And I don't mean to go way off on a weird thing. Coming on November 4th, we're having a set free benefit here at the church, and it's going to have a variety show. And what I'm going to be doing a little comedy act for the variety show. And one of the things I was going to jokingly talk about in the variety act was the idea of being drafted. Because I have never had a desire to be in the military. And I just think drafts, for me, the easiest thing in the world would just be be really bad at it. And they wouldn't want you. But that goes back to the quality thing. I would just be really bad. Not on purpose, but I just don't think I would do good. I think they would be like, I think we're better off without Keith. We're going to send Keith home. so but you see how this how this is going to work for the other questions we begin by saying okay what are the virtues at play how do they work out and where can we find a legitimate answer to And as I said, to me, I think the legitimate answer is there are times when the nation needs to call upon its men, and those men should be willing, if called upon, to serve. So that would be what I think, based upon, as long as, again, and this comes back, too, to the question of legitimacy of war, right? If there is a sense in which we can't go because it's an ungodly thing, that comes back to, I'm not gonna let the government force me to sin. So that's difficult, too, because when we discuss the subject of legitimate wars, and we talked about that in our just war class. So I know we didn't come to a perfect answer, but I hope that's helpful. Yes, you look like you have a thought, Bert. But choice and autonomy is what we would call freedom. Yeah, I should have wrote freedom up there, yes. I agree. Yeah, and that's a good point. This is required for that. In case you didn't hear, if you're at home, what Bert just said is great. To have freedom of choice, there has to be a defense of that freedom of choice. So there's got to be responsibility, too. As we say, responsibility comes with those things. Yes, sir? Just one more thought. So I would say it should never be completely mandatory, but to a certain degree mandatory, proportional to how godly your government is. So the godlier they are, the more the more you can trust them to do the right things, to weigh the right words, and to collect the better people. But it shouldn't be universal across the board, like you said, because of all those reasons. No, I think that's great. Who among us, if we are godly men, would not stand with a godly government, if it were a godly government? So good. Yeah. Absolutely good. That would increase our choice and autonomy. Yes. Yeah. We would be more happier. Indeed. Yeah. So that takes us out of question one. And for time, we're going to move on to question two. Like I said, I always thought this is the most fun class, because we just really dive into some of these. OK. Now this next question was sent in by my buddy Claude. He's a pastor. And this question might, at the start, seem like it has a simple answer, but I want to, again, I want to dive deep into this as we think about it. The question is this. Is it ethical to present the exclusivity of the Christian religion as being the only true religion of saving faith over against other religions, such as Judaism, Islam, and all others? And you can just put anything else you want in there. And so I heard somebody say yes. I rewrote it as a shorter question. Is it ethical to tell other religions that they are wrong? That's what he's asking. Is it ethical to say to the Jew, you have rejected Christ and therefore you are wrong? It just seemed like you were making a point. So let's go back to the virtues here. Virtues, okay. First virtue, we just talked about this virtue, freedom, right? So is it a virtue to say that every man has the right to choose what he's going to believe? Most Americans, and again this isn't an American ethics class, it's Christian, but most Americans would affirm the right for each man to choose how and if and who he's going to worship, right? And so that's what I mean when I say the virtue at stake is freedom. But then someone would say, well, I'm not violating anyone's freedom by telling them that they're wrong. Right. So so that's where the that's where my initial answer would be. Telling someone they're wrong would not be violating their freedom. It would simply be my understanding of God versus their understanding of God. Me telling them that they're wrong would not be unethical. But here's where the here's where the rubber begins to get closer to the road. What if fidelity to Christianity was made legally mandatory? That's a different question, isn't it? Because now we're not saying, I can tell the Jew that they're wrong for not worshiping Christ, or I can tell the Muslim that they have a wrong understanding of Christ. But what if we had a theocracy? And the theocracy said that while you have every right to believe what you want in your brain, you must adhere to the Christian faith, and you must go to church, and you must read only the Bible, and you must be baptized, and you must obey the church's understanding of God's law. See where that, and you might say I'm changing the argument. Well, I am, in a sense, because I think this is where the debate would come in. Would that be right? to tell men that under penalty of law, they must be Christian. No, I want to hear. OK. OK. or it's atheist or it's Muslim. There's no neutral ground where everybody will be happy. So this is what we're experiencing, right? If you're going to have a radical separation of church and state where the church is not teaching the state how to be, that that's misunderstanding the separation of church and state what it should be, then we inevitably end up with an atheist government pushing abortion and all this. Because I don't believe in neutrality, I believe that with reservation and care, No, it is it's it's I'm gonna write a word on the board. I'm sure it's on your mind. It's the principle of theonomy Theonomy is the idea that all of the government should be submitted to God's law. Theonomy means God's law. So the idea is that whether you're a Christian or not, you should be subject to God's law, which you are. Everybody's going to be judged for it, right? Everybody's going to be judged according to God's law. But that's essentially what we're talking about. And I don't know if you and I have ever really discussed our views on this, but this is the big, when you talk about the big debate, This is where it is. And there's different views. There's the reconstructionist view and different things that come out on different places on this. Because what happens, I know you want to say something, but let me just finish my thought. What happens is you end up with questions of like, OK, well, what about the issue of something like homosexuality? OK, right now. It's against the law in certain places. They still have sodomy laws on the books. But in general, it's overlooked. It's not enforced. But what if it were enforced? Would we be in favor of homosexuality as being not only a sin, but a law? But the point is that if it's not, then Christianity is being outlawed. It's either or. I get what you're saying. Yeah, no, no, no. You're right. You're right. And so I love that you said there's no neutrality. I say that all the time. It's Christ or chaos. It's not that you have Christ and other potential good. That's right. What were you going to say, Bert? My question would be, then, you say there should be some kind of governing protection. So how do you view the Constitution? For people at home who maybe couldn't hear Bert, Bert asked the question, where does the Constitution play in this, or how do you view the Constitution in this regard? The Constitution, as understood by the founding fathers, I think is pretty good overall. you feel like the constitution when it was developed we just had Christian beliefs more or less they may have Sure. The men who wrote the Constitution, though not all of them were Christian, they had a more ingrained biblical worldview. And that, I think, goes back to even A.J.' 's point about the neutrality. It's two worldviews. it's either a biblical worldview where there's a God who makes laws and we must obey those laws or a atheistic worldview which says the universe is chaos, right? Or any other form of religion. So yes, we can argue the reality that the Founding Fathers were dealing in a much different framework than we are now. We live in a syncretistic world where all religions are seen as being equally valid and equally valuable, and certainly that's not true. And that goes back to the question that Claude asked. Is it right to tell them it's not true? That's what I say. Absolutely. We have to. We have to say that these other religions are false and damnable and dangerous. And some would say that's unethical. But I would say we have to be able to say that. The question is, is the mandating of it, I think. Yes. We're called to share the gospel. The Bible says you're supposed to share the gospel. You're supposed to witness to other people. sure I think and while I would agree that we can't force anybody to be a believer where we're talking about is the issue of what standard the government governs under. So that would step away from that slightly, but I understand what you're saying. And that's where I say we can't, we can in no way, shape, or form mandate Christianity as a faith, because you can't make somebody believe. You can't give someone faith. I can't make someone elect. And so that's something. And I know we've gone beyond what Claude has asked here, I think, would we all agree that it's not unethical to tell someone that Christianity is true and other religions are false? Would we all agree with that? OK. That part we have. And then, like I said, and I took it to a strange place when I went to Theotomy. Because like I said, let me add one other thought to this. The danger of going too far another direction is the danger of having a religious system, having a church denomination, that's the standard, versus simply an understanding of God and his nature. So for instance, there was a time historically, not in America, but in Europe, where to be a Baptist, meaning that you rejected infant baptism, could be punishable by death. And there were If you've ever heard of the third baptism, the third baptism was the people who had been baptized as babies, rejected that, received believers baptism, and then were drowned for it. They called it their third baptism. And so as a Baptist, I have a somewhat of a allergic reaction when I start thinking about the mandating of church denominational standards. And I know you all would agree with that. And that goes further. But that's my fear of where theonomy can lead. It can lead to, okay, who now is going to determine, you know, who gets baptized? And will that become a marker of citizenship? It was at one time. You understand baptismal certificates at one time could be used in place of birth certificates. legal documents, because the church baptized who? Infants. And so these things, when the church and the state become intricately tied, there are issues that arise as well. So that's where I think we have to think through all of that. But I agree, there is no neutrality. Absolutely without it. So we think the thought of when does tolerance become intolerance? Yeah, and the people who call for tolerance often become very intolerant. All right, so moving to the third question, as we spent a lot of time on the first two. The third question, I may have to, I don't want to go too quickly through these, but this one I may have to go a little quicker. This has to do with something called embryo adoption. This goes back to our question on the subject of abortion. This is how the question was written. Is it ethical for infertile Christian couples to adopt embryos, specifically embryos that are extras, the frozen ones that have been given up for adoption by couples who had undergone a successful IVF process and do not want any more children? I'm not referring to embryos that are a result of male and female volunteers or surrogates. OK, so this is a very, very specific question. Because they're not asking, one, if IVF is good or bad. They're not even asking if the use of embryos is good or bad. What they're saying is because these embryos already exist, they have already been fertilized, they're already frozen and ready to be implanted, would it be better to discard them? or to allow them to be adopted. See? And that's where the difficulty lies. Because I'm going to share just a little bit on this. I know somebody who's gone through this. And the way he described it to me was like a pre-orphanage adoption. Because he says, the child exists. The child is there. It's already been fertilized and the embryo is created. We are taking that child and adopting it in the same way if I went to an orphanage and there was a living child who was two years old and I adopted that child. So that's how he sees it. And that's the question of whether or not this is a good or bad. Now, I right away, the virtue at stake is life, right? We said life is a good. And so the principle becomes the principle of would it be better to terminate that life or to allow that life to be adopted? I mean, it seems to me a fairly easy answer, but then you have to step back and go even further into the question is the question of does adopting embryos support an industry that's engaging in the destruction of life? See where it gets a little more difficult, because is the IVF system something that we would be supporting by going the route of adoption? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hagar's story is way, yeah. Yes, can you have a thought? Yeah. We don't take that life in vogue and let the baby become a baby and all. The other thing is death. And that's murder. So if we didn't adopt it or further it, then we're as bad as everyone else. So it would be better. And your idea, your thought, is that it would be better to allow the adoption than to allow the destruction, even if by doing so we are tangentially supporting an industry that we may not agree with. I hear you. I hear what you're saying. I'm not disagreeing. I'm just. Things we don't agree with every day. OK. All right. You have to weigh it out. OK. Yeah. Yes, sir. Wouldn't that be the same as trying to adopt a kid that's going to be aborted? You're not supporting abortion, but you're saving that child. That's a good point. That's a good point because I've stood outside of abortion clinics and I have begged people walking in, please don't kill your baby. We will help you get it adopted. Saying that very thing, I mean, we had a person in our own life, before my wife and I had children, who wanted an abortion. We begged her to let us adopt the child. She didn't. She said, I'd rather have it destroyed. And you made the distinction of it would be different if you were not to look for people to donate an embryo to you. Yeah. Yeah. And they make that clear. Yeah, they're not promoting it. They're saying this exists. Therefore, we're going to work within a system that's already there. I think that makes a big difference. And I think you're right. What do you think, Corey? Doesn't a fertilized embryos in the process, usually the undertaking of the process create more fertilized embryos? Well, that's what's caused this issue. There's more fertilized embryos that are being used, so those are being adopted by people who can't, for whatever reason, fertilize their own embryos. By him adopting or the family adopting, what if you were preventing them from doing the same thing that started the process itself? It's preventing them by him adopting it from actually going through that process itself. Um, well, they're already there, though, it wouldn't be preventing it because those already exist. But my question is, does it? And what I agree with you, but my question is, by by the adoption existing, does that produce more? Are they going to produce more so that more be adopted, and then you kind of creates a vicious cycle? I agree that it should be allowed to the adoption should be allowed. So I want to say that until IVF is until IVF no longer exists. Yes. But like I said, this one is difficult because it's dealing with a current system that already is. It already is there. Should embryo adoptions be allowed? As long as there's embryos that are out there that are alive and can be adopted, it seems to me like life would say yes. But should IVF continue to be a thing? That's where we would say probably that's where the issue is. involves one way or another a compromise and a certain cleaning up of a mess of ungodly people by the godly people. So it's a good marker or shows where your society is. But it's still going to be good because we're talking about either death or life. That's right. So you still got the virtue. Yeah. No. Like I said, I think that one's got a lot of moving pieces. But certainly, I think when we come out, we try to come out as always best on the side of life. All right. Next one. Because again, time is getting away from us. Number four. I love questions like this one, because this one is a fun question. How can a person be pro-life and eat meat? How can he not? OK. Well, let's for a moment, let's at least look at the virtues. The subject of pro-life certainly deals with the virtue of life. I just erased it. I just put it back up here. But what's another virtue in the subject of eating meat? Sustenance is a virtue. Yeah, we have to have sustenance, right? So I mean, that may not seem like a virtue, but at the end of the day, And I'm gonna add one on the left side that this may seem odd, but as I was preparing this week, I actually wrote this down, enjoyment. That's right, I mean, is there... Okay, yeah, so I'll put a star next to sustenance, because that's right, right? There are certain things that meat provides. Right? You have to take artificial, you get the same things. Yep. Yes. We can shoot right at the core and ask, the question presupposes that killing an animal is a bad thing. So we have to ask, by what standard? Yep. And what type of killing? And what kind of consumption? Are we talking about just torturing animals? Or are we talking about appropriately Yeah, absolutely. And one of the presuppositions in the question that I would say is a presupposition of equality between animal life and human life. And I would immediately say that that would be incorrect. The Bible never places animal life and human life in the same category. Humans are made in the image of God. Animals aren't. That's right away a distinction that's easy. But here's where the question, and I know the person who asked it wanted to get to this, is it comes to the issue of the ethical treatment of the animals themselves. So that's something AJ just mentioned. OK, yes, there's a standard. And does the Bible give us at least some indication that animals are not to be mistreated yes the Bible clearly has passages which which talk about that so a principle we talk about life and all this one of the principles regarding this would be mistreating any of God's creatures so we can say mistreatment We know there's not equality between humans and animals, but animals do have a creative value. They're made by God, and therefore, they shouldn't be mistreated. Is eating them mistreating them? Some would say, PETA would certainly say, yes, eating is mistreating. But the Bible doesn't make that connection. The Bible doesn't say that using an animal for food is mistreatment. What's your thoughts, Bert? Well, first of all, it says, every human thing that lives shall be food for you. Absolutely. The Bible gives us clear indication. That's Acts 10, right? Right. Yeah. But at the same time, many times, hunting is put so there won't be an overgrowth of these animals, which is one thing PETA fusses about all the time. They believe in mating, but yet, at the same time, are neutering. But at the same time, we've got to understand, if these things are just let go, then they'll overrun us. Sure. And like, uh, I think, and I could be wrong, but animals such as like hogs, there is no season. They're allowed to be killed anytime because hogs can overrun. And so they have to be culled all the time, not just in a specific season, like deer or something like that. is secondary to the question. So I would say a person can mistreat animals and still be pro-life, because there's a big category difference. Absolutely. We can go and discuss, should we mistreat animals? Well, that's why I said that before, and I agree 100%. If we don't see the distinction between man and animal, we'll never come to the right answer on this. But is there a reality where we shouldn't mistreat animals? That's a secondary conversation. having animals that are raised purely for food mistreating them? I would say no, but there are documentaries out there about how animals are kept in cages and stuff and they're mistreated and some people get very emotionally upset by that. But I'm more concerned about the hormones they're putting in the animals to be honest with you than I am about whether or not an animal is free-range. I don't know if you've ever heard of Nate Bargatze. He's a He's a comic. I just I like him. He's funny. He's clean. But he said, he said he talks about free range chickens. He said, I don't want a chicken that had a dream. And I just thought, you know, he's like this. So that's so I might have to cut that out. Okay, but anyhow, point of the matter is you're right. The distinction is made in the image of God. There shouldn't be a comparison with human beings. Can we talk about mistreatment? Yes, but it would be a different category of conversation. All right. Number five. This one is a long question, but it's and I'm not even sure we'll have a great answer for it, to be honest with you, because this one's hard. This one's very hard. I know my thought. I'd love to hear your thoughts. But here's how this one goes. And this gets to your class, Bert. This comes almost directly from what you dealt with. Terminally ill parent. Terminally ill parent with rare disease, has no hope of cure and no treatment options, wants to die with dignity. Parent asks the adult child to drive them to a state that has death with dignity laws so the parent can reside there in order to take advantage of the death with dignity laws when the time comes. Is it wrong for the adult child to drive them and help them move to a state knowing they're seeking euthanasia? All right, let me let Katie go, or Katie, ladies first. Katie? As a child who had an elder parent who had a kidney disease and had to go for treatment three times a week, he turned 90. He woke up by himself and decided, I don't want to go no more. So that meant that he had two weeks to live. And I went along with what my dad said because he's lived his life and he wanted to operate dignity. I would say, no, it would not be wrong for the parent, a child to drive their parent. Because in order for them to do it, they'll open their parent. Because as long as their parent does not have Alzheimer's or anything else that would alter their mind and not be making their own decision, then the child should obey their parent. OK. Well, that's what I want. I want to hear your thoughts. AJ, you have thoughts, I guess. Or you had your hand up, I'm sorry. I would say that in this case, terminating life is worse than disobeying the parent in this case. And again, I'm being sensitive. I understand it's a hard issue. And I would say it's OK if the person wants to decide to just not go to treatment, rather than just ending the life artificially, because again, we're We're presupposing that God cannot do a miracle, for example, and save that life or heal that person. Or maybe he doesn't. But the point is that we've heard countless testimonies that it has happened. But even apart from that, just the verge of life and artificially terminating life, I think it's a serious one, even in this very difficult situation. And I know it's a sensitive topic, and I'm not trying to be blunt about it. I think if a person decides not to go to treatments and just die naturally, yes, we can let that happen if it's their choice, but to terminate it artificially, this is where we're crossing the line. Yeah, I would make a distinction, too. And you just said this, AJ, but just to clarify, Kitty, in your situation, you talked about withholding treatment. I do think that's different than administering a killing drug. Would you agree with that, that there could be a difference between withholding treatment and administering something that would take someone's life? Yeah, it could be a definite difference. OK. If that grown-up wants that, then who are we to say no? Well, that's where I think the question lies. That's where the ethical issue lies, is do we have the right to seek out artificial means of death? A natural death would be someone who allows themselves, like let's say if I was diagnosed, I'll use myself as an example. If I was diagnosed with cancer, And the doctor said, OK, if you take chemo, you can live for 10 years. If you don't take chemo, you'll live for 10 months. And I choose not to take chemo. And I do believe that would be my right to do so. I don't know that it would be wise, but it would be my right. to do that because chemotherapy is the introduction of a drug that I may not want in my body. And I may say it's better for me not to have chemotherapy and trust the Lord's going to do what he's going to do. And I may live 10 years without chemotherapy. We don't know. And I do think there's a difference between that and someone administering a killing drug. And that's where I take my biggest issue with euthanasia is where we are administering death. When someone withholds medication, that's not administering death. That's withholding what might save them. We don't know if it will or not. So that's where I think the distinction lies in this argument. I would have a very hard time administering death to someone or saying that that was in line with God's word. Whereas holding back treatment based upon someone's desire to trust God, because that's what they're doing, they're trusting God, I think that's a little different. So I would definitely, that's my understanding of that and I think that's a safe way. And I want to point, Bert, you look like you want to say something, I don't want to say. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. The fifth commandment, I think, says honor your father and mother. Is it the parents' wishes that that should be done? Possibly, and that's a good thought. You know, we haven't really talked much about that commandment, but at the same time, and I'm not trying to argue, just pushing back a little, honoring a father and mother does not mean that we always obey, because sometimes our father and mother may call us to do something that would violate God's law, and there's always a law higher than our parents. But that's a good question, though. I mean, is taking them honoring them? Certainly, like I said, these are not easy. People didn't write them in because they were easy. They're all difficult. Bert, did you have a thought that you wanted to add, though? No. The only thing, and I know it's a very sensitive issue, and my heart goes out to anyone that has to deal with it, as I did. But I also know, through working with hospice and other things as a chaplain, there are ways to ease not administering death though and that's the phrase I use when it comes to the word euthanasia and going back to your class one of the things that strikes me is when we give the government or any group the right to administer death. You talked about it in this year class. You were very passionate about it. When you give them that right to administer death, it's a slippery slope. And I know slippery slopes is sometimes a bad logic. But in this case, I think it's very true, is when you give the government or the hospital or the doctor the right to start deciding who lives and who dies, it can be a very, very dangerous thing. And so yeah, I think that has to be considered as well. It's a slippery slope because doctors are not omniscient. They're the ones saying there's no hope. They're not God. And it's exactly like the abortion industry. They start by saying, oh, we're just looking for unviable cases or whatever. But then they start expanding that more and more. If you're not omniscient, you're going to use that excuse to expand it based on your agenda. So only God knows what actually will happen and when will the person die. So we don't have that. Amen. All right, two more and then we'll take our break. And this next one is not easy, but I do think we can go through it relatively quickly, I hope. This was the question we talked about the other day, Corey. The question of, is it ever okay to break God's law? That's a fairly straightforward ethical question. Is it ever OK to break God's law? And right away, our initial answer is no. But here's where I'm going to ask it differently. You ask it to me, or Mark asks, is it ever OK to break God's law? I would add it this way. If you were only given two choices in a situation, and both would require breaking God's law, would you be absolved by choosing the lesser of two evils? That's what typically is the issue. It's are you absolved because you chose the less evil rather than the greater evil? Charles Spurgeon is often quoted as saying, given the choice between two evils, I choose neither. which sounds very good, I just know that it's very difficult to consider that never in his life did he have to make a choice where it wasn't the lesser of two evils. I don't know, I didn't live Charles Spurgeon's life. But that's his quote, so we'll leave it be. He said, given the choice between two evils, I choose neither. I do know this, Jesus Christ lived for 33 years and never did evil, never did evil once. And so that has to be considered as well. When we think of this question, and it's not, I wanna hear your thoughts, but I want you to hear my thoughts. I'm not trying to influence you, but I've thought about this a lot, because even though it's, is it ever okay to break God's law? It's sort of a simple question, but it's a very multi-layered answer. Because we're dealing, when we talk about virtues, we're dealing with God's nature. His law reflects his nature. So we're asking the question, is it ever OK to violate God's nature? Is that ever right? And what we have to understand is that oftentimes, behavior is predicated by motivation. So for instance, one might argue that Corrie Ten Boom broke God's law when she lied about having Nazis in her closet or in the walls in her home, but was it truly breaking God's law. That's where the question becomes, has she truly broken God's law? Is deception not expected in wartime? And so is deception not a part of war and therefore is deception, is that truly a violation of how the ninth commandment words bearing false witness against neighbor? Right. And so that's often the one that people bring up. Right. Is the question of, OK, if if if if if somebody broke in my house and said, where are your children? And you lied and said they're in the bedroom when you knew they were really in the closet. would that be violating the ninth commandment? It is my understanding that it is not a violation of the ninth commandment. It's not the seeking, it's not the lesser of two evils at that point, but it's a positive good, it's a virtuous thing to save life. And so that's the way I understand that, but it does become difficult. It does become difficult when we begin to really get down to the question of, you know, Voting, right? Have you ever truly voted for somebody that you believed in? Or did you always choose the lesser of two evils? I hate to say that, but I mean, I've never once felt great coming out of the voting booth, not once in my adult life. So that's where this comes down. Thoughts, please? I think the answer is it's never right to violate God's nature because God's laws based on his nature and so my answer would be simply that it's never ethical to violate God's nature and I don't think that's what Corrie ten boom was doing I don't think she was violating God's nature by saving life Yes. Yeah. And so where this would be more difficult, Mark, would be if you presented us with a specific ethical instance where we said, OK, we had to do this versus that. And that might be where it would be harder. But on the basis of the question, is it ever right to break God's law, the simple answer is no. It's never right. because God's law represents God's nature and we should never violate God's law. Sure, and Rahab's a little bit more of a difficult situation. I don't have time to get into it right now. There's a lot of debate about whether or not she should have said what she said and the way that she said it based upon the situation that she was in. Should she have trusted God or what? I think in scripture, the Hebrew midwives would fit more into the category, even though Rahab could be used as that example. I think the Hebrew midwives who went back to Pharaoh and said, hey, these women are having birth, they're birthing too quickly, right? Are they, again, deception in wartime, right? Is this wartime? Would this qualify? So it's not, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying I'm giving, I hope I'm not seeming like I'm shirking the question. I just know this, what I often see, and I know this isn't you, but what I do often see is people will try to use those examples as ways to say that God's law is not absolute. I know that's not what you're doing, but that's what the danger is. We say, okay, well, these specific instances exist, therefore God's law is not absolute. But I think God's law, based on his nature, is absolute. It is true always. I don't think I satisfied you at all. Anybody else have any thoughts? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And yes, is it necessitated because of the fall? You use that kind of a method. True. But it becomes positive even given the fall when you're sort of saving life by lying because it's just the world we live in. Yeah. And again, coming back to the What constitutes bearing false witness? What constitutes a lie? And how do we understand that? I mentioned to you that the other day. How do we understand the idea of deception and lying? And in that case, is it the same? Let me ask a question real quick. Instead of making it God's own, you say God's nature. Instead of looking at right and wrong, we're looking at what's good in His sight. yes yeah that's a good thought to say that that what reflects his nature what what action would reflect God's nature and that's where a lot of people when they're choosing the less of two evils they're not seeking to reflect God's nature they're oftentimes just choosing whatever they think is best at the time yeah last and this one this one I'm unfortunately because of time because we are We've gone past break time, and sorry about that, but we'll just, let's just finish up. Because this last one is, the last question asks this, dive more into the biblical ethics between pro-life movement and abolition. That's what I was asked. I have, and I'm happy to send this out to anybody who wants it, I can post it on the website. Here's a quick breakdown of how pro-life and abolition see the distinctions. The primary difference, according to this, is that abolition flows from a biblical worldview and pro-life flows from a humanistic worldview. Now that's the argument of the or the abolitionist movement. And if you see the picture here, the picture is one person is pruning the tree. They say that's the pro-life is pruning the tree, and the abolitionist is chopping at the root. And I think that's a pretty good picture of the distinction. But what I want to recommend to you, if you want to go further with this, and the person who asked was an online student, if you want to learn more about this, go to Abolitionist Rising website and you can read this section and see this picture and learn more about it if you want to dive deeper. Essentially the difference as I see it is the difference of compromise. Whether or not we're willing to say certain abortions should be allowed but not all. Abolitionists would say no abortions at all and so that would be the distinction. Like I said, time doesn't allow us to get too far into that, but if you want to dive deeper, go to Abolitionist Rising and read that. For the last few minutes, I want to talk about our final. The final examination is 26 questions. Now, that's only half the questions that you had last time. But here's the difference. Last test you took for the last class was 50 questions. This test is 25 graded questions and one essay question. The essay question will not give you a grade when you put the essay online. And my recommendation is type the essay on a sheet, on Word or something, and copy and paste it. Because if you type it into the test and you lose it, I can't get it back for you. If it's gone, it's gone. So type it up on something so you can copy and paste it. Keep a solid copy for yourself. OK? You have 26 questions. Some of them are directly taken from the quizzes you've already done. So they're not all. I mean, some are fresh, brand new questions. Some are reworded questions from the quizzes. But it's 26 questions based on all of the classes you've taken. And then one essay question. And the essay question, because it mixes the tests, it mixes them up. If I give you a copy, I'm happy to give everybody a copy of this who wants it. This might be in a different order than what you get when you look at it online. And the questions that are multiple choice might be in different order. So don't just copy from one to the other. If you want to use this to practice with before you go to the digital, do that. That's fine. But I don't want anybody to get messed up because they did it on paper and then transferred the paper to the digital. Here is the essay questions. I'll go ahead and just tell you what it is. Choose one of the following ethical questions to write a short essay on how you would answer the question presented. This will not be included in the grade for this exam, because there's no way for it to read your essay and understand it, right? It's not artificial intelligence. I have to read it. So when you submit, 25 of your questions will be graded, and then I will read the essays. So I'm going to look at those. If you don't write an essay, you don't pass the class. Your essay is required. So that's how this is. 25 of them give you a grade. I give you your final grade based on that and your essay. Here are the three things you can choose to write an essay on. Number one. A Christian policeman has been transferred to narcotics investigation. Part of his new duty will be to go undercover. This will involve falsifying his name and intentions on many occasions. He is excited for this new opportunity, but is also conflicted when it comes, uh, it conflicted and comes to you for advice regarding the biblical prohibition against telling lies. We just talked about this. How would you counsel him? Justify your answer with scripture. So that's the first one, there's two more. Second one, a Christian couple in your church is experiencing infertility. It's discovered that the problem is with the man and the woman is perfectly capable of bearing a child. She desires to experience childbirth and is pressing him to allow her to receive artificial insemination from a sperm donor. The man is uncomfortable with this idea but does not want to displease his wife and he is afraid that her dissatisfaction with him could cause her to eventually abandon the marriage. How would you counsel him if given the opportunity? How would you counsel her? Justify your answer with scripture. Number three, by the way, you only have to do one of these. You only have to write a short essay on one. So, but you can do all three if you want. I had fun coming up with them. These are not, I didn't get these out of a book. I wrote these based on like what I was considering to be difficult situations that someone might have to face. The third one, a family in your church has a son who is living with his girlfriend. They are not married and have no intentions of marriage in the immediate future. The son and girlfriend have been evicted from their apartment and are in desperate need of a place to live or they will be out on the street. Another member of the church decides to allow them to stay together in a guest room they have available. The family of the son are upset because they do not believe the two should be cohabiting. The family that has taken them in believe themselves to be helping in a bad situation and that the son's family is being too judgmental. Given the opportunity to address the family where the two are staying, what would you say to them and justify your answer? So those are three ethical, real life stuff. I mean, all these are somewhat tangentially based on things that I've dealt with. So like I said, I wrote all three of these, sort of having dealt with similar things in 20 years of doing ministry, you'd be surprised some of the questions that we face. Yeah, Bert, you could write a book, I'm sure. So I think that's going to be part of the fun of this class, is thinking through something like this. And this time, it's not in a group. You get to do it all by yourself. You get to look at one of these questions and spend time with it, and write out your essay. And like I said, so you got 25 questions, and then the essay. The only thing I'm going to say is the essay may show up at like as question six on the test, because again, I can't tell it where to put. The essay should be at the end, but it might not. So go in and do the other 25 questions first, and then do the essay question. Other than that, I need to see your notebook if you want to do the test. So if you brought your notebook tonight, great. I know you don't have yours because you didn't make it home, Kitty. So you can bring it to me tomorrow, and I'll take a look at it. If you are doing this class online, here's what you have to do. You have to, once you take your final, For you to receive your certificate, you have to send me a picture of your notebook. One page from your notebook. I don't care what page. I just want to see that you took notes. And one page. Don't send me 15 pages in an email. One page is suffice. I just want to know that you're taking notes. I mean, some people want to show me their whole notebook, and that's fine. But it's just hard to, you know, when you open an email and there's 15 attachments. Just show me one page. Just to show that you did the work. And I'll take it on. honor that you have the rest of the notes okay so I'm gonna walk around in a minute and do that any questions just do you guys want a hard copy you guys want a hard copy to take all right give me five minutes after we finish and I'll print them out and I'll have them to you I didn't make enough to hand out but I'll go do that real quick all right well let's end with prayer Father, thank you for this class. I pray that it has been fruitful and helpful and encouraging. And I do pray, Lord, that you would bless our understanding of the virtues that we base our principles of living on and, Lord, that we would seek to grow in our conformity to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.