Note to the editor: Most adherents of the Western religions think that what is right and wrong is a result of the pronouncements of God, and for this reason engage in study of scripture to discover these rights and wrong. As a result they cannot say in advance that it is, for example, wrong to kill someone, but must obtain this from their scriptures. This letter serves the purpose of subjugating all action-promoting pronouncements of these religions to the moral law. By way of preface to the letter, the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims all accept Genesis as scripture.

The letter now follows:

The fundamental premise of all three major Western religions is that God is honorable, namely that he keeps his word. But then there is a leap from “he keeps his word” to “this is his word,” and it is in this leap that the divisions arise.

The assertion of divine honor is a product of the moral law which Immanuel Kant and Genesis 3:22 agree is within us and indeed that we are the equal of God in such knowledge.

In contrast the second assertion is ultimately a product of hearsay in any given case, e.g., that the Gospel stories are true. Fortunately the moral law within each of us gives considerable guidance in our judging about this. Whatever in the hearsay evidence conforms to the moral law can be thought to be the word of God. That which violates the moral law must be thought as most certainly not the word of God. And that which is morally indifferent, e.g., the scriptural prohibitions against the consumption of blood products, can be thought either as entirely cultic, or else as morally meaningful where, for example, a baptism leads through faith to a more principled life.

/s/ Philip McPherson Rudisill