To adherents of Christianity, the Bible is seen as the ultimate guide to morality. However, as an ultimate guide, I've always wondered about situations which conventional morality would see as alright. Thou shalt not kill for example. That is very clear. However, some Christians keep weapons in their home for self defense. I believe the Bible states consistently that in war killing is moral, but is there a verse concerning defending yourself? . . . How does a Christian navigate the gray area from a biblical standpoint? . . . There seem to be many different views on what the bible says about killing. It seems some people can barely agree on the black and white, let alone the gray area, so how can you find a solid idea of morality?
IS KILLING MORAL OR IMMORAL?
You nearly touch the answer here, contained within the question itself. The issue is about "right and wrong"; i.e., morality, which calls our attention to sin and the fact of God's righteousness, sovereignty, and justice. Allow me to explain.
First of all, the Bible does not rule against killing
per se; in other words, killing is not wrong in itself. As you already realize, there are numerous places throughout the Bible where God actually commands people to kill. So if it were true that killing is sinful in itself, then God was commanding people to sin.
That creates problematic contradictions, so it can't be correct.
Obviously, then, killing is not wrong in itselfthankfully, since I have killed thousands of spiders and mosquitoes, etc. As some others here have rightly pointed out, it's more accurate to read it as "murder," which means unlawful killing. And that is the all-important word to pay attention to: "unlawful." When it comes to morality (right and wrong), unlawful means "contrary to God's prescriptive commands" because it is God who is the ultimate and sovereign Lawgiver. (Moral order is grounded in the very nature of God, which he expresses prescriptively through his commands.)
When it comes to questions about legality, it is man's laws that come into play ("unlawful" in this sense means illegal). But when it comes to questions about morality, it is God's laws that should be referred to ("unlawful" in this sense means immoral).
(This is where Catherineanne injected the potential for confusion into the issue, because where else do we authoritatively discover God's commands but in the Sacred Scriptures? And if the trinitarian doctrine is trueand it isthen Christ-centered and God-centered are not in conflict. God's prescriptive commands are consistent throughout the very place we can find them: the Sacred Scriptures. As you rightly alluded to, "the Bible is seen as the ultimate guide to morality" because morality is communicated by God and his prescriptive will, which is set down authoritatively in the Bible. It is not the source of morality, but the instructive guide. Furthermore, since moral order is grounded in the very nature of God, it is because we are created in the image of God that we are innately tuned to right and wrong.)
So is killing immoral? Sometimes, but not all the time. Sometimes killing is moral. And sometimes refusing to kill is immoral. The grayness is easily cleared away when you understand that the issue is actually not about killing in itself; rather, it's about what God has commanded. All life is mine, God says, the sovereign creator and sustainer of all things. To give life and to take life is God's office. If we take a life in the absence of a command from God, it is immoral (sin) by virtue of being "murder" or unlawful killing, because life is not ours to give or take away. If God commands it (e.g., some Israelite scenario in the Old Testament) then it is moral because it's obedience to God. And since all life belongs to God, his default command to us is "don't kill." That's the rule. There are no exceptions without his express say-so.
So morality, right and wrong, is about obedience to the will of God. Obey God, moral. Disobey God, immoral.
CHRISTIANS WITH WEAPONS IN THEIR HOME
What about Christians who keep weapons in their home for self-defense? To such Christians I would pose my own question: "Why do you mistrust God?" God is sovereign over all creation, is he not? God is more powerful than all the forces of creation, is he not? God knows all things, does he not? God is holy and just, is he not? Doesn't he love his own children with a depth and scope that cannot be expressed? Does he not look after his own? Does he not have their best interest in mind? Is it not written, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose"? Can such Christians explain why they have weapons in their home with an answer that is consistent with these truths?
WHAT ABOUT CONVENTIONAL MORALITY?
You said you don't understand how people can say "you cannot have morals without religion." Hopefully what I've said so far helps clear much of that up. On the issue of "conventional morality" I will explain the Christian argument even further.
Conventional morality is unreliable because it is man trying to interpret and understand his moral compass without acknowledging the source thereof. We have an innate sense of right and wrong because all mankind is created in the image of God, the ground of moral order. But if we ignore his Word and try to understand morality by our own sin-laden wisdom, we wander across very shaky terrain with inherently unreliable results. (The situation is actually more desperate, for by dismissing God from the equation we actually end up with no intelligible morality at all. In a godless framework, man is just a biochemical collection of molecules and atoms operating according to the physical laws of the universe; things like morality, consciousness, knowledge, etc., are accidental illusions, i.e., not real. The logical conclusion of a godless framework is Nihilism.)
IS THE BIBLE OUR ULTIMATE GUIDE TO MORALITY?
The Bible is the fundamental guide to our proper understanding of and relationship with God, who is the ground of moral order. Although nature reveals that God exists, it is the Sacred Scriptures that reveal who God is, who we are in relation to him, and his eternal plan of redemption. There are several sources of revelation, but only one that is authoritative in this world that suffers under sin. And to those who make noise about bibliolatry or "bibliocentric", I always respond: "Scripture is a vehicle of revelation, not an object of worship."
, and there is the mystery of why he says that when you are washing up you only need to clean the inside of the dish, and then the outside will be clean - clearly showing that he was not used to washing up. But these are much less worrying than some of the attitudes attributed to God in the OT, which are shown in Christ to be totally and utterly impossible.
