Yes, it’s a difference in worldview: whether ethics is entirely a human construct or whether there is a correct answer “somewhere out there.” Individuals make fundamental assumptions one way or the other. (A leap of faith, as you put it.)
What bothers me about the idea of transcendent truth is that it seems to make moral argument unnecessary or useless. Maybe not all argument, but a great deal of it. Argument would be useful only insofar as it helped us find the transcendent truth; if the transcendent truth were invisible and unfindable, there would be no point in looking for it. In this model, I’d be correct or incorrect based on whether I happened to conform to the transcendent truth, not whether I made excellent arguments and tried hard. So if the transcendent truth held that green-eyed people go to Hell, and if there were no real way for me to be certain of this, but if this nonetheless was the case, then there would not be much point in me arguing whether it is the case or arguing that it oughtn’t be the case. My only job here would be to have the good fortune to have been born with some other eye color.
I believe, though, that it’s worthwhile to say it oughtn’t be the case. I believe that people shouldn’t be tortured based on their eye color. In believing that my opinion matters, I privilege human constructs on this topic and I devalue the possibility or relevance of transcendent truth. I actually do not care if there is a God who holds the opposite opinion. If God tortures people (or allows them to be tortured) because of their eye color, God is in the wrong about that.
Nor do I see why I should be punished for this stance. The idea that people can’t access the transcendent truth and yet for some reason have to be punished for not knowing it will never make sense to me. People don’t deserve to be punished for not knowing something, especially if it’s something they can’t know, and especially if reasonable people disagree about it and make leaps of faith in different directions.
To respond to your question: “When it’s zero degrees outside, ‘are we cold because it is cold outside, or is it cold outside because we are cold?’” In one sense, definitely the former; the air doesn’t wait for us to have a feeling and then set its temperature accordingly. But I think what you mean is that spouses argue over the thermostat and similarly people may disagree over moral values, and meanwhile God has a One True Correct opinion that could not be otherwise (because ethical questions are obvious to God just as zero degrees feels cold to a normal human?). I am not sure what to do with this because it makes God sound like just another being with subjective perceptions about what is obvious to God but isn’t obvious to others.
