How can you tell the difference between right and wrong?

Answer 1

Basically, human beings can't but God can, and He has told us how in His instruction book, The Bible. We cannot rely on our conscience to be able to tell ourself the difference between right and wrong because that is variable, unreliable, and often wrong. For example, captured Russian spies could pass lie-detector tests because in their culture it was normal to lie. Interestingly, Russia's 'moles' ,who were Americans and raised and working in the USA but secretly working for the Russians, also passed polygraph tests, so culture could not be used to tell between right and wrong. Other factors are often used to excuse or condone wrong-doing, but at best they alone can only partially-differentiate between what is right and what is wrong.

You cannot rely on environmental factors: different people can believe different things

depending how they were brought up , but over which they have either no or little control - their own culture, history of their country, society itself, social upbringing, and peer-pressure.

You cannot rely on using your family-upbringing in the past as a reason for your own wrong-doing in the present. For example, you can't say that you are not guilty of child abuse because you yourself were also beaten as a child by a drunken father.

Likewise, you cannot rely on education - if a person wants to do the wrong thing, or does not like to be told that he is wrong and that he has a personal responsibility for how he behaves, then he will continue to do so regardless. For example, people still smoke regardless of knowing the results despite all the educational and anti-smoking programmes in the world: and some of those are doctors!

More education does not mean less crime: it sometimes actually results in more. For example, look at the number of highly-educated confidence-men who swindle astute business-men and shareholders out of millions of dollars but who cannot be charged with anything because they have exploited legal loop-holes and operate just within the law. Just because there is no law against something does not make it right.

(This is especially so when he thinks no-one can see him and no-one will know.)

You cannot rely on social class distinctions, with one social class always being better and more law-abiding than another (lower one). There is no such thing as a 'criminal class' per se: sometimes the only reason people are convicted is because they can't afford good legal defense, while those who can afford it often walk away scot-free, or with a token penalty and no conviction recorded against their name. For example: criminals can come from the most highly-educated, intelligent, talented, richest, law-abiding, and highly-respected families which are pillars of society, while in contrast some of the most-honest and trustworthy people you can meet can be poor illiterate menial workers at the bottom of society with no prospects whatsoever.

You must not rely at all on 'situation ethics' , where what is right one day is wrong the next, because this is both variable and useless if you are looking for permanent black-and-white s.

All countries and races have certain common laws, telling their people the difference between right and wrong which they already unconsciously know; for example against murder, theft, and adultery. They may sometimes be honoured more in the breach than in the observance and be selectively-enforced, but the laws are still there. Because these laws cross all boundaries and apply to all mankind in the same way, this means that man alone could not have originated them: they had to have been put into mankind by someone or something greater than man. This was when God created Adam and Eve. These laws have been codified as the Ten Commandments, with the last six telling us how to love fellow man. Put simply, they are:-

Respect your father and your mother...

Do not murder.

Be faithful in marriage.

Do not steal.

Do not tell lies about others.

Do not want anything that belongs to someone else....

(Exo 20:12-17)[Good News]

The NET Bible (which is not copyrighted) translates these same verses as below (plus notes):-

Exo 20:12 "Honor your father and your mother...

Exo 20:13 "You shall not murder.

Exo 20:14 "You shall not commit adultery.

Exo 20:15 "You shall not steal.

Exo 20:16 "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

Exo 20:17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor."[NET Bible]

"Note on verse 14:

Adultery is a sin against the marriage of a fellow citizen - it destroys the home. The Law distinguished between adultery (which had a death penalty) and sexual contact with a young woman (which carried a monetary fine and usually marriage if the father was willing). So it distinguished between fornication and adultery. Both were sins, but the significance of each was different. In the ancient world this sin is often referred to as "the great sin.""Note on verse 16:

The expression 'false testimony' means "a lying witness" , or "you will not as a lying witness." The prohibition is against perjury. While the precise reference would be to legal proceedings, the law had a broader application to lying about other people in general (see Lev 5:1; Hos 4:2).

"Note on verse 17:

The word 'covet' focuses not on an external act but on an internal mental activity behind the act, the motivation for it. The word can be used in a very good sense (Ps 19:10; 68:16), but it has a bad connotation in contexts where the object desired is off limits. This command is aimed at curtailing the greedy desire for something belonging to a neighbor, a desire that leads to the taking of it or the attempt to take it. "

There are a myriad of other laws and regulations in the Bible, but Jesus cut right through them and summarized the last six Commandments of Exodus in just one line: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

(To see it in its context, the full section is :-

Mat 22:35 And one of them, a lawyer, questioned Him, testing Him, and saying,

Mat 22:36 Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law? [ie The 10 Commandments]

Mat 22:37 And Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."

Mat 22:38 This is the first and great commandment.

Mat 22:39 And the second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Mat 22:40 On these two commandments all the Law and the Prophets hang.

By himself, man cannot tell the difference between right and wrong: every time something different appears, either a new law has to be made or an old one amended. One of the reasons laws have to be continually updated is that by the time a law has been created to fix one problem another loophole either appears, or it is manipulated and massaged to make it as good as useless. Leglislators, politicians, and legal draftsmen cannot read peoples' minds.

However, with God's help that problem has been overcome. Jesus did not look at laws as external and requiring enforcement, but instead as internal and self-policed. With the mind controlling ( to a greater or lesser degree) that person's thoughts, it means that because all external actions originate in the mind that a persons' intent can be controlled. If everybody went around treating others the same way they themselves would like to be treated, then there would be no gray areas. (It's a bit like censorship: no censorship is as effective as self-censorship.) For this to be done it requires people to want to change, to be converted, and to allow Christ into their lives to be able to change their minds and thus their actions: but with Jesus Christ the humanly- impossible becomes possible.

Answer 2

For most people, their conscience tells them right from wrong. Of course, the conscience is reinforced by individual experience. When parents and elders teach their young to "be good", this also becomes programmed into the person as an adult. On the other hand, if a child's role models act in ways contrary to society, then the inherited role of the conscience will be weakened.

Answer 3

We possess a God-given conscience, which is one of the functions of the soul that God breathed into us (Genesis 2:7). It should not be ignored. However, the ethics accepted in society continually change, often drastically. Social mores come and go, with certain practices deemed acceptable in one era or area, but capitally liable elsewhere. Each new civilization seems to have different ideas as to what is proper.
Therefore, a religious ethical standard, not invented by humans, may serve as a safeguard against excesses.See also:

The value of religion