Why Right and Wrong Matter
Lesson Overview
Why Right and Wrong Matter with Josh McDowell
This standalone message is given by Josh McDowell, the apologist and author of Evidence That Demands a Verdict and More Than a Carpenter. Speaking as a father and grandfather, he presses one urgent question: how do we know right from wrong, and can we explain it to the next generation? He argues that young people, even in strong Christian homes, have absorbed the idea that truth is personal and created, and that the church has failed to ground morality anywhere deeper than bare commands. His answer is that moral authority rests in the character of God. Use this overview to review the key points after watching the full video. (Note: this is closely related to McDowell’s message “Judge Not, Lest You Be Judged,” and develops the same framework.)
The Question No One Can Answer
McDowell opens by asking members of the audience whether specific atrocities were truly evil. Everyone agrees they were. But when he asks why, the answers collapse into a circle: it is wrong because God commands against it, and God commands against it because He does. He reports that after asking hundreds of young people, almost none can explain why killing is wrong without simply restating that it is forbidden.
His deliberately provocative claim is that “killing is not wrong because God says thou shalt not kill.” To stop there, he argues, is mere legalism, a command with no reason behind it, and raising children that way sets them up for moral failure in a culture that no longer accepts “because the Bible says so.” (McDowell uses recent terrorist atrocities as his examples of evil that everyone acknowledges; these are used to make his philosophical point and are referred to here without their graphic detail.)
Two Cultures Under One Roof
McDowell argues that, for the first time, two “cultures” live in the same Christian homes: adults, for whom truth is discovered (external, objective, something you find), and youth, for whom truth is created (personal, subjective, “true for you but not for me”). He cites surveys reporting that large majorities of churchgoing young people say there is no absolute truth, and reads statements from educators, textbooks, and academics promoting the idea that each student should construct his own values and that all beliefs deserve equal respect.
His through-line is that if truth is merely personal and every value is equally valid, then no one retains the ground to condemn even a terrorist, since the terrorist was acting on his own “truth.” He repeats this to expose what he sees as the bankruptcy of relativism: a worldview that cannot distinguish Mother Teresa from a mass murderer has failed.
The Bankrupt Ways to Decide Right and Wrong
The core of the talk walks through the flawed methods McDowell says people use to determine morality, showing how each, taken to its end, cannot condemn evil:
By your own created truth: if right and wrong are personal opinion, no shared moral judgment is possible.
By consequences: if an act is right because of the outcome someone prefers, then anyone who preferred his outcome, including a terrorist, was by that logic acting rightly. He notes textbooks that teach students to choose the alternative that best produces the outcome they want.
By tolerance and non-judgmentalism: he argues the culture has redefined “tolerance” and even “respect” from valuing persons to treating all beliefs and lifestyles as equally valid, so that any moral distinction becomes “intolerance.” He notes that Matthew 7:1 (“judge not”) has become the most-quoted verse, used to forbid all moral discernment.
By family or parental authority (“because I told you so”): if something is wrong only because a parent taught it, then a parent who taught the opposite has equal standing.
By feelings: if right and wrong track how one feels, then whoever felt good about an evil act was, by that measure, in the right.
By legality: nothing is moral merely because it is legal or immoral merely because it is illegal; he points out that slavery, apartheid, and other evils were legal.
By bare commands: even quoting “the Bible says thou shalt not” carries no moral authority by itself, because a command only states that something is wrong without explaining why, and another religion’s book issues contrary commands.
His point in each case is not that consequences, family, or Scripture are unimportant, but that none is the foundation of morality, and building on them leaves young people defenseless.
Defining Truth: Fidelity to the Original
Before giving his answer, McDowell insists on defining truth, a word he says almost no one can define. He offers Webster’s older definition: truth is “fidelity to the original,” that which is the same as, or equal to, the original.
He illustrates with the International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris, which holds the master standards. A claim to have “one meter” of wood or a set measure of water is true only if it matches the original standard. Truth, then, is correspondence to a fixed standard outside ourselves, not personal opinion.
He applies this to Jesus’ words “I am the truth” (John 14:6), arguing this was a bold claim to deity: to have perfect fidelity to the original, God the Father. That is why Jesus could say “whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
The Answer: The Character of God
Here McDowell delivers his thesis: every command in Scripture is an expression of the person, character, and nature of God Himself, and that is the source of moral authority.
Why is lying wrong? Because God is truth, and a lie has no fidelity to Him. Why is killing wrong? Because God is life and made humanity in His image. Why is justice right? Because God is just. Why is impurity wrong? Because God is pure. Why is hatred wrong? Because God is love. A command is not an arbitrary rule; it describes what is consistent, or inconsistent, with who God is. Anything contrary to the character of God is wrong; anything in keeping with it is righteous.
His pastoral application follows: do not take children back to the Scriptures as a rulebook, but through the Scriptures to the God of the Scriptures. Rules produce legalism; the character of God produces relationship, which, he argues, carries young people far further.
Judging Rightly
McDowell closes on the misuse of “judge not.” He sets Matthew 7:1 beside John 7:24, “do not judge by appearances, but judge with righteous judgment.” The prohibition, he says, is against self-appointed, personal-preference judgment, not against all moral discernment. He turns this on his own audience, noting that Christians often condemn things (his example is styles of music) merely because they personally dislike them, then appeal to the Bible to justify a preference. Righteous judgment means measuring by the character of God, not personal taste.
Key Terms
Truth as fidelity to the original: McDowell’s definition, that truth is that which corresponds to a fixed standard.
Absolute truth: objective, universal truth, which he says the culture has abandoned.
The two cultures: the gap between adults (truth discovered) and youth (truth created) in the same home.
The new tolerance: the redefinition of tolerance to mean treating all beliefs as equally valid.
Legalism: reducing morality to bare commands without the reason behind them.
The character of God: the true source of moral authority, of which every command is an expression.
Verses to Know
John 14:6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. John 14:9, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Matthew 7:1, judge not, lest you be judged. John 7:24, judge with righteous judgment. Judges 17:6 and 21:25, everyone did what was right in his own eyes. John 5:39-40, you search the Scriptures, yet life is found in Christ.
Takeaway
McDowell argues that morality cannot rest on feelings, consequences, tolerance, family, legality, or bare commands, because each collapses under pressure, but only on the character of God, so that every command expresses who God is, and the way to prepare the next generation is to lead them not merely to the rules of Scripture but through Scripture to the God whose nature those rules reveal.