The essential point here is that we begin with the conviction of the general validity of our moral judgments, and then go on to see into what sort of metaphysical scheme that belief would fit. The primary conviction is not dependent on the metaphysical scheme, and is in no sense a deduction from it. The corollary of that is important. We must recognise that there are possibilities of error at various stages in the process of reasoning by which we arrive at our conclusion. It follows, therefore, that if, on other grounds, we begin to think that there is something wrong with our metaphysical scheme, that is not necessarily any reason for the least doubt about our moral convictions. For these are the data from which we start. The construction or acceptance of a metaphysical system satisfies a natural demand of our minds for comprehensiveness and completeness in our ideas. It may, therefore, make us feel, so to speak, more settled and comfortable in our moral beliefs, and may even, sometimes, reinforce the emotional strength of these beliefs. For instance, there is no doubt that one of the attractions of Marxism for some people is that it enables them to think of their aspirations towards social revolution here as part of a great cosmic movement, the dialectical process, which works throughout the whole of reality. But there is no rational or logical dependence of these beliefs on any metaphysical system. The dependence, if anything, is the other way.
This would, in all probability, be easily admitted when it is a question of the metaphysical systems to which that term is usually applied. But it might very probably be contested from the side of the advocates of the special kind of metaphysical system which we call religious belief. It is very common nowadays to hear the apologists for orthodox Christianity argue along these lines. Our ordinary moral beliefs, it is said, are the product of Christianity and we have no sound foundation for them once we have abandoned Christian doctrines. At the present time we are trying to hold on to moral values which are based on Christianity while throwing over the Christianity on which they are based. We are "living on our spiritual capital"—a very favourite metaphor—and once we have expended that we shall be spiritually bankrupt. We are thus threatened with a complete breakdown of all moral values unless we return to orthodox Christian belief.
Now all this is really a sort of spiritual blackmail, demanding belief with menaces. Historically the whole argument is baseless. Morality did not begin with Christianity, and even our own accepted moral standards can, in the main, be traced back through Christianity to the Greco-Roman or the Hebrew civilisations. Indeed, some of the values that we now feel to be most worth defending are not specifically Christian at all. Toleration, democracy, freedom of speech and thought, for instance, have a much older origin. They might, no doubt, be fitted in to a particular interpretation of Christ's teaching. But no one could possibly call them part of the Christian tradition. It took fifteen centuries for them to enter into Christian thought at all, and another two or three before they were generally accepted. What, in fact, happens is that moral ideas develop under an infinite variety of influences, and, as they develop, Christianity is re-interpreted to suit them.
(G. C. Field, "The Nature of Ethical Thinking," The Aristotelian Society, supplementary volume 24 [1950]: 1-26, at 22-4 [italics in original])
Note from KBJ: Christianity may not have given us the values of toleration, democracy, or freedom of speech and thought, but it gave us the basis of all these things, namely, the inherent dignity, worth, and value of every human individual, and hence the moral equality of all. When Jefferson said that all men are created equal, he was articulating a Christian idea, not a Greco-Roman or Hebrew idea.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 