Quotes from Francis J. Beckwith

When morality is reduced to personal tastes, people exchange the moral question, What is good? for the pleasure question, What feels good?

If morality is reducible to culture, then there can be no real moral progress. For the only way one can say that a culture is getting better , or progressing, is if there are objective moral norms that are not dependent on culture to which a society may draw closer.

PC advocates appear to defend the absurd because they see history as a series of unprosecuted crimes that can only be redeemed if we are appropriately sensitive to the legacy of the victims.

PC advocates deny the existence of objective knowledge and morality, and thus see no point in employing moral suasion and logical argument to convince their fellow citizens that their viewpoint is correct. Their only means available is therefore using the instruments of political power, such as coercion, intimidation, marginalization, and name-calling. To put it philosophically: Ideas are not the power by which to change the world, but rather, the world's ideas are changed by power.

For abortion opponents believe that a class of persons are being killed by such methods as dismemberment, suffocation, and burning, and thus are more than perplexed to be told that they don't have to participate in the killings if they don't want to. Saying 'If you don't like abortion, don't have one.' to those opposed to abortion is similar to telling abolitionists not to own slaves if they don't like slavery.

Just as it is greater to illuminate than merely to shine, so too it is greater to give to others what one has contemplated than merely to contemplate. St. Thomas Aquinas, from Summa Theologiae

There are two kinds of oughts, and there are two ways to be wrong about something. We can be wrong by being irrational, or we can be wrong by being unethical. Morality deals with the second.

Jesus provided reasons to believe through many different means, the most dramatic of which were miracles done in public as authentication

The most effective apologist is not one who has the greatest academic prowess alone, but the one who has excellent intellectual preparation and reflects Christ's love in every way.

We don't invent morality; we discover it like we discover multiplication tables.

Most critics are not well-equipped to defend their own faith. They have rarely thought through what they believe and have relied more on generalizations and slogans than on careful reflection. To expose their error, take your cue from Columbo. Scratch your head, rub your chin, pause for a moment, then say, "Do you mind if I ask you a question?

We have moral responsibilities to other people in our community because they are people, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, or lot in life. According to the Christian and Jewish view of humanity, all people have inherent dignity because they are made in the image of God. And thus we should show respect to and concern for those of both genders and all races and nationalities.

something to be the case. The act of faith in the biblical sense involves the whole person, emotions, intellect, will and heart, in a total commitment of trust in another.