The Moral Argument

If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.

Objective moral values and duties do exist.

God exists.

· 1. Morality is Objective • Are selflessness, love, joy, peace and courage good things? Are kidnapping, murder, and abuse bad things? Are they objectively right and wrong? Or are they just subjective human preferences? • Deep down, humans know things are actually right and wrong. We consider it a disorder of the brain when people can regularly breach morality and don’t feel bad about it. Objective just means that these things are true and real, whether or not anyone believes or agrees with them. • In most famous debates about the existence of God, the atheist (Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, most comedians) will either misunderstand or ignore the heart of this argument. Yes, an atheist can be a better person than someone who believes in God! The atheist however, just has no standard by which to call anything good or bad. Meaning, nothing actually is good or bad. • Is something moral if it benefits the individual or the society? Why? Because it reduces pain and suffering. So? Who cares about reducing pain? Everyone. So? What has human opinion got to do with what’s true? Do you know how easy and common it is throughout history for the majority of people to be convinced that evil is good and good is evil? • The majority of us make human wellbeing the standard of right and wrong. If it causes harm its bad and if it reduces harm or produces joy it is good. But wellbeing is a subjectively chosen standard. Meaning there is absolutely no difference if someone simply decided to make pain and suffering their standard of right and wrong. • We look back at history and observe ‘moral progress’. What on earth do we mean by progress? Progression implies a higher standard we are moving towards! 2. Okay, fine…Morality is Subjective then. So what? • It’s sad how many people will believe this solely because it gets them out of God, not because they have reasoned their way there. • Relativism is dangerous as it makes things that should be objective, subjective. Peter Kreeft warns “No culture in history has ever embraced moral relativism and survived. Our own culture, will either be the first, and disprove history’s clearest lesson, or persist in it and die, or repent of it and live. There is no other option.” • There is another option, delude ourselves into thinking morality is real even if its not, just so we can survive. Which would mean on atheism, the truth is not supreme, it’s not fundamental, it’s not relevant. • Try to live that out honestly and consistently without becoming a psychopath. • You could not possibly give genuine praise or condemnation with a straight face! • You must accept that the Holocaust and all its gory details, would not have been a bad thing, it would have just been a thing. • And that there would be no moral difference between humanitarian efforts in Africa and genocidal efforts of Hitler. On atheism they are not right and wrong, they just are. • You probably won’t stop living according to your arbitrary ideas of right and wrong. Which means you are living with cognitive dissonance (acting contrary to beliefs). • And as Nicholas Gomez Davila says “everything is trivial if the universe is not committed to a metaphysical adventure.” 3. Evolution Gave Us Morality? • If this universal intuition of morality is just a result of evolution, then why should we listen to it? It has as much moral truth in it as a fart or burp that evolution also gave us! You might say we should listen to it because it got us this far. So? Who cares about survival? Everyone. So? Who cares about faulty human opinion? • Appealing to evolution could be a genetic fallacy and irrelevant. Even if this is where morality comes from, it doesn’t speak to the truthfulness of it. Mathematical laws would be true regardless of anyone coming to learn about them and use them. • But did we really get it from evolution? Are you prepared to say we are selfish because we evolved to ensure our own survival but also say we evolved to be moral and selfless? Or consider the notion that we do “good” or “selfless” things because it benefits society and we want to benefit society because that ultimately benefits us. So what is moral, what is selfish or selfless? • Animals seem to do just fine without morality and many atheists will embrace and point out that we are merely animals too. • And if we inherited our morality from evolution (which is only interested in ensuring our survival and carrying on our seed), then doesn’t that give a nasty foothold to forced intercourse for the socially inept? And if we get our morals from evolution, should we class homosexuality as immoral as it does not promulgate human DNA but rather does serious physical damage to the body? • If we gradually evolved to become moral, why was it only when Jesus and his followers stepped on the scene did we see incredible moral progress in the world. We went from honor-shame cultures where the sick, poor and needy would be left to fend for themselves on the street and where infanticide would be a common practice (as well as gladiator games) to a world of virtue ethics and hospitals and education and charity. We did not evolve into compassionate creatures Jesus just commanded it and people changed. 4. Transcendent Grounding: • God is the only justifiable source to ground morals in. Science cannot weigh in, moral laws aren’t like laws of nature, they can be disobeyed. • Why is God needed? Firstly, because moral decisions require consciousness, intelligence and intentionality. If morals are real then they could not come about in a cold, chaotic, random, meaningless, indifferent universe. Moral laws require a moral law giver. • Secondly, because he is the ultimate authority. What happens if 2 people disagree on a moral issue? Look at abortion, whichever side you take, one side is wrong. Who is right? Who could possibly have the right answer and how? Everyone is convinced they are right but if there is no real God and no real standard then guess what? No one is right and no one is wrong. Neither person can speak to the moral truth of the act without applying a standard. You need a decider, who else can be that decider? They have to be outside of human experience. • Joel Marks, PhD, Atheist Philosopher (Ethics Without Morals Ch 2 pg 3) “It is for this very reason that some religious people insist that “Without God, nothing is prohibited.” No commander, no commands; hence, no God, then no “Thou shalt not” murder, steal, rape, etc. I think this is correct, even though I am not religious or at least not theistic.” • On atheism, why do we even have guilty consciences? Why do our consciences bother us so much? Why do we experience such turmoil when violating them? Aren’t we just doing what our DNA has already determined for us to do? Aren’t we just trying to ensure the survival of our genes? Our guilt is almost good evidence for an objective standard that we are constantly falling short of. 5. Responses • “If you need God to be good then there’s something wrong with you” Misses the point. And a terrible argument either way. Reverse Card! “If you need the government to pass laws to protect you and others, then there’s something wrong with you.” Yes! obviously! There is something wrong with humanity! • “Of course murder is wrong, I don’t need a god to tell me that!” Yes, good for you. Of course you CAN be moral without God. The Christian worldview makes sense of this! The Bible says God wrote the moral laws on our heart so we are without excuse even if we aren’t familiar with scripture. • “Society should agree together on morality” This is another “should” statement. Why should anyone do anything? You might use it in the practical sense but not the objective sense. Either way this is still a terrible idea, what if all of society voted and went against your opinion (think of something like abortion), would it suddenly make it objectively good? Why would you do something so stupid? The entire world was silent while millions of Jews were killed legally. Its universally known humans are imperfect and you want them to dictate morality? • “Some situations don’t have a clear-cut moral solution” Correct. Sometimes stealing or lying is the more moral choice if it saves lives. Situational ethics doesn’t negate objective morality. It makes it harder, but even in sticky situations there is a correct response, it just might be that no human has the answer. 6. Euthyphro’s Dilemma • Presents 2 flawed options. God decides what’s good or He appeals to something other than himself. Either way, morality subjective. • 3rd correct option: Goodness just flows from his nature like his eternal and omni qualities. It’s grounded in his essence. 7. Violating Our Own Standard • Not enough people realize how hypocritical they are. Do you realize even if God never actually judged you by his standards but your OWN, you would fail miserably? • Think of every time in your life you’ve made a ‘should/shouldn’t” statement. Every time you’ve expressed your personal version of morality. And then think about the times you violated that. • When we do break our own rules, we seem to always have a justification for why we are allowed to do it. • In an argument, it almost never occurs to us to consider ourselves being in the wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9ZAUlDImr0