A couple embrace and sway to the music at a Coldplay concert until the “kiss cam” invades their privacy. Shocked, they move to obscure their faces. They weren’t just being shy. They were trying to hide something, to no avail. The fallout was painful according to media reports.
No, this isn’t a gossip column. This is, however, an opportunity to point out a fact: we live in a moral universe. Here’s what I mean. The human condition has always included a moral compass. Regardless of the historical or geographical context, humans have always had a general sense that actions can be measured as right, good, and just. It is right to treat fellow humans with dignity and respect and help the poor according to their need. It is wrong to murder and steal. It is good to be honest in commerce and faithful in caring for your family. It is bad to exploit or fail to protect children, the aged, and the infirm. It is justice to hold accountable those who violate these natural laws. These are rational thoughts, not dependent on common consent. They are like gravity – laws which came packaged with the universe.
Problems arise when you do not follow this moral compass. Take Cain for example. The Bible says he felt angry at his brother, so his idea was to murder Abel. After he did, he said to God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4) Cain’s passions and ideas were unregulated and unchecked, and he violated natural law. C.S. Lewis used the term “men without chests” to describe the disconnect between the head (ideas) and belly (passions). What is missing is the chest of morality, which connects and moderates the two.
So, two people with their own spouses feel attracted to each other. Their idea is to spend time together. Fidelity, integrity, and self-discipline beckon them to check their passions and rethink their ideas. It doesn’t happen, so they are “coldplayed,” a new term for “your sin will find you out.” The involuntary looks on their faces showed they knew it.
Two takeaways from this. First, moral law presumes a moral Lawgiver. A material, non-sentient universe cannot produce moral creatures. On this point, Lewis is not alone in seeing this as evidence of God’s existence. Second, all of us are morally flawed. “The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality,” writes Malcolm Muggeridge, “but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.”
To stop resisting is to agree with God. Your moral dilemma separates you from Him, so He provides the solution. “Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). The moral universe provides you no other way.