Unlike Blackstone, George thinks it is possible on the basis of reason alone to demonstrate the truth of Judeo-Christian morality. While George has essayed to answer such tough questions, he has not persuaded some of his Christian and Jewish, still less agnostic, critics. Writing in the November 1999 issue of First Things, Phillip Johnson, a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley, insists that metaphysics matters. Using our God-given reason, we understand from the context of these and other revelations in the Bible that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death and that deliberately killing an innocent human life is always wrong. While Hentoff upholds the sanctity of human life on the basis of reason alone, he is exceptional.
Irrational nihilism predominates in our postmodern society.
Value relativism is the norm. Freedom under law has given way to an unbridled will to power. We are engulfed in a culture of death and there is no escape from the lowering darkness except by the light of Revelation. The man is certainly free, inasmuch as he can understand and accept God's commands. In fact, human freedom finds its authentic and complete fulfillment precisely in the acceptance of that law.