In Reply to: Re: atheistic science etc. posted by charles brough on October 24, 2008 at 15:14:43:
Justice is a divine attribute; therefore, it would follow that some forms of justice would be found throughout creation despite its fallen condition. Sighting a sense of justice within the chimp community might be cherry picking your moral examples, however, given that male chimpanzees are not committed to any one female. Furthermore, they have no assurance of the survival of their children because they are not obligated to care for any particular one. This stands in great contrast to Jesus' moral teaching on monogamy.
Another point of contrast between chimps and moral teaching is their very brutal aggressive nature. For those who like to link human aggression to their chimpanzee ancestors, there appears to be plenty of evidence for that. But then we are left with the dilemma of morality. How does one arrive at "Thou shalt not commit murder" given our violent evolution? Is is merely that we have discovered the convenience of social contracts in order to keep the peace?
C.S. Lewis has some interesting things to say about that:
"They say that societies have decided for themselves what is healthy for maintaining that society, but there is no ultimate right or wrong. It is all a matter of social convention. However, if you really want to maintain that morality is merely a social contract, than you have to be willing to accept the end result: if morality is merely a social contract, than what Hitler did was acceptable. If there is no ultimate right and wrong, then we have no means by which we can say that what Hitler did, by gassing six million Jews, was wrong. Most, if not all people, find this conclusion unacceptable. Why? Because a sense of ultimate right and wrong is ingrained in our very being."
That sense of ultimate right and wrong is given by God, not our chimpanzee or any other earthly ancestor.