During many of his debates, Christopher Hitchens has argued that morality is not premised upon YHVH. One of his buttresses was based on Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan.
First, let us consider the story, then Christopher Hitchens personal interpretation and finally whether the parable supports his view.
The parable from Luke 10:25-37:
…a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?” And he answered, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And He said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.”
But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus replied and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead.
“And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
“Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
“But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. “On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.’
“Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” And he said, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”
The Hitchensian interpretation:
An example from Christopher Hitchens vs. Frank Turek: Does God Exist?
FRANK TUREK: Oh, I’m not saying you don’t know morality, Christopher, I’m saying you can’t justify morality without a being beyond yourself.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: So that—just if I—ok, good. So that if I say that for me it’s enough to be willing to love my fellow man and perhaps hope that my fellow man or woman will give me some of the same consideration in return and that, after all, the Samaritan, of whom we’ve all heard, was the only one to help after the priests and Levites had passed by and the Samaritan also, though he’s talked of by Jesus, can’t have been a Christian because he appears in a story told by Jesus so there can’t be any Christianity before that. Somehow he knew the moral thing to do was to help his fellow person without religious instruction.
FRANK TUREK: Yes, that’s right.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: And that that’s actually the whole point of the parable, though it’s not the way it’s usually told.
FRANK TUREK: And that’s what Christianity teaches: you know morality, it’s written on your heart. You don’t need the Scripture to know right from wrong.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: And this was only available to us 2,000 year ago?
FRANK TUREK: No, you’ve known it from the beginning of time. Conscience has been on humanity forever. That’s the point.
An example from Christopher Hitchens vs. Al Sharpton: Is God Great?
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: …In the—there’s a very famous parable in the New Testament where the alleged Jesus of Nazareth tells a story about a man from Samaria (we call it the good Samaritan) who, finding a fellow creature in enormous distress and pain, goes well out of His way to alleviate his suffering and to follow up to make sure that His sympathy hasn’t been a waste of time, to do the aftercare if you like. We know one thing about this person from Samaria: he cannot have been a Christian.
Jesus is telling this story about someone He’s heard of who acted, as far as we know, from no other prompting other than elementary human solidarity. What other prompting do we need? Our species would not have survived, we wouldn’t be met here if we didn’t have, as well as many selfish instincts, the need, and often for our own sake, to be of use to others, to combine with them, to take an interest in them, to care for them, and to worry when they’re in pain.
No supernatural authority, as with the Civil Rights Movement, is required for this. Morality comes from us, religion claims to have invented it on our behalf. Then, ok, another example from the older testament: is it really to be believed that, until they got to the foot of Mt. Sinai, the followers of Moses believed that, up until then, adultery, murder, theft, and perjury were ok? They’re suddenly told, “Oh hey, we got some new ideas for you.” I don’t think so.
It’s a bit of an insult to the ancient Jewish faith, of which Jacob and I are both rather disgraceful ornaments in our different ways. I think our ancestors were smarter than that and even if they weren’t smarter, they wouldn’t have got that far if they were under the contrary impression. The Golden Rule is something you don’t have to teach a child. There’s no need to say, “And if you don’t follow this rule, you’ll burn in hell forever.” That’s immoral teaching. Now I hope I’ve made myself clear. On the—but I’m wondering if I have because you face me, Reverend, with two very unwelcome thoughts: either I have been completely inarticulate in everything I’ve said this evening or you have misunderstood me.
AL SHARPTON: Or both.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I prefer myself—or, these are not mutually exclusive. And I should’ve seen that coming.
As you can readily discern, if you are paying attention and not letting your emotions do your “thinking” for you: Christopher Hitchens has a gift (or, cures) for authoring vast amounts of fallacies within very succinct statements.
We will unpack them and consider his interpretation in the next segment. The attached video clip is from a debate between an atheist and this Messianic Jew on the issue of morality: you can watch in full at this link
What Christopher Hitchens in doing is attempting to construct a false dichotomy or, a Catch 22, a no win situation.
Firstly, consider the claim that morality comes from YHVH, through His revealed word, the Bible. He will then say that the Good Samaritan was not a Christian and whether we are really supposed to believe that “until they got to the foot of Mt. Sinai, the followers of Moses believed that, up until then, adultery, murder, theft, and perjury were ok.”
Ah, but then you cleverly claim that no, morality precedes that because both the Old and New Testament reference that YHVH has placed His law in our hearts:
I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts—Jeremiah 31:33
the law is written on their hearts—Romans 2:15
Well, then he states that in that case, we do not need the Bible.
The point about Moses and Mt. Sinai, which represents a historical and theological misunderstanding, has been dealt with in the essay Christopher Hitchens – Theological Fallacies and Miscomprehensions
The issue is that YHVH has both, written His law in our hearts and also provided it specifically through his word—the Bible.
In this way, we all have a moral sense (see Is morality relative? Natives vs. Spaniards) but this moral sense can become corrupted, “by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron” (1 Timothy 4:2). Thus, we need the reinforcement of the written word of YHVH which contains the examples as lived out amongst us by the Messiah Jesus.
In Jewish Encyclopedia.com’s article on Samaritans it is noted that the Samaritans
…adhered rigidly to the Torah…some of the Rabbis…seeing their careful observance of the common Torah, considered them to be “gere emet.”
This means that they were considered “true converts.” It is also noted that in some cases:
…a commandment which the Samaritans follow they observe much more scrupulously than do the Jews…The orthodoxy of the Samaritans is praised in similar terms with regard to their strictness in observing the commandments…the general [Talmudic] principle is that they are to be trusted in so far as their own practise agrees with that of the Jews: in other respects they count as non-Jews.
The Samaritan’s adherence to the Torah was such that since they considered Moses as the only prophet:
…they reject all the Jewish books except the Pentateuch. The Law which he gave is perfect, having been created before the world and brought forth by the hand of God from the depth of the very good.
Indeed, as Professor Emeritus of Bible at Tel Aviv University Yair Hoffman notes, to this very date:
The Samaritans revere the Pentateuch – they have their own version of it – as the sacred part of the Bible, and this serves as the sole source of religious law for them.
Thus, for millennia, the Samaritans based their morality upon the Torah/Pentateuch.
It seems that only an atheist could consider a God prescribed moral action and come to the conclusion that a God prescribed moral action does not require God. It is Jesus, God incarnate, who is giving this moral parable. There is a certain fallacy into which many people fall: they get lost in the metaphor, or parable, and forget the fact that the metaphor/parable point to a greater truth.
Jesus was asked about what one must do in order to inherit eternal life—this is a theistic and not an atheistic concept.
Jesus asked how the lawyer understood the Law—the Torah of Moses—this is a Judeo-Christian and not an atheistic concept.
The answer regarded loving the LORD your God/YHVH—this is a Judeo-Christian and not an atheistic concept.
Thus, when the issue of defining “neighbor” is brought up, it is within a Judeo-Christian concept pertaining to eternal life, the Torah as given through Moses and the loving of YHVH.
You would have thought that an atheist—or, in Christopher Hitchens case, a self-described “anti-theist”—would praise the parable of the Good Samaritan because it points out something very, very important; a point against manmade religion.
The point is that manmade religion puts form over function: the priest and Levite seem to be keeping the requirements of their religious system whilst neglecting the real need of a suffering person.
There is another issue to note: in an atheistic universe the Good Samaritan could have helped or walked on by like the rest and it matters not. In fact, the Good Samaritan helped a less fit bio-organism who obviously should have been left to die. After all, the robbers survived as the fittest. The Good Samaritan wasted good time, energy and money and assisted in the propagation of less fit genes (assuming that the robbed man had children). Then again, maybe a woman heard about what the Good Samaritan did, sought him out, married him and had children. In this case, what he did was Darwinian as it helped him propagate his genes.
And there you have it, Darwinian story telling: it is Darwinian if you do and it is also Darwinian if you do not, it is all Darwinian. You could be the next Mother Theresa or the next Adolf Hitler and it is all Darwinian and it all matters not.
This does not have to do with whether or not we believe in YHVH but it pertains to having His law, his morality actually, His ethos within us as a consequence of us having been made in His image.
The attached video clip is from a debate which you can watch in full at this link, wherein this issue is raised.
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