Letter to editor,

If you are a political candidate for office would it be proper to ask about the moral code upon which your moral decisions are made? Sure it would, but in the national picture some do not want to tread into rough waters about such things. “Gay marriage is already a big issue in a handful of states that have it on their ballots in November, including Maine, where Obama was headlining two fundraisers Friday. He was not expected to wade into the issue during his remarks” (“Obama may face jam on gay marriage issue,” JG-TC, p. A-6, 3/31/2012).

That President Obama’s moral code is evolving he readily admits (at least with regard to one topic). Why was it evolving, you might ask? Presumably because the moral code that helps him make many decisions in his life is something he is not too sure about.

Not too long ago there was a reasonable attempt in the letters to the editor section that sought to delineate how conservatives and liberals viewed morality. While it was a reasonable attempt, and one that many could tweak to be more accurate, it failed in the ultimate foundational aspect of what morality is and why it exists. If the state (or community) determines morality, then that determination has its basis in man’s thinking. Thus, what today is moral could very well be, by tomorrow, immoral. Morality, in this case, is an evolving hypothesis.

When a person’s moral code evolves the impermanent quality of its substantive teaching brings degenerate behavior; this is necessarily the case. Yet, when man (either singularly or as a society) is the basis of a moral code that evolves there is nothing that can be permanent about it. This is also the case because morality is based upon a thinking subject (person) who does evolve his thinking as he matures. This is the nature of life.

On the other hand, when morality is based on a transcendent being (God), whose being is the very substance of what is right, then man’s moral code is firmly in place, with no evolving.  While the president might have an evolving moral code, with God there is none. I think I will align myself where no evolution takes place.

Submitted 4/12/2012 to the Mattoon Journal-Gazette, printed 4/23/2012