The Ubiquity of Moral Experience: Foundation for God’s Existence
Humanity exhibits a pervasive moral experience. Across cultures and throughout history, societies have demonstrated a deep-seated sense of right and wrong, justice and injustice, fairness and unfairness. This isn’t merely a collection of personal preferences; it’s a framework of shared values that guide our actions, shape our laws, and fuel our outrage when violated. We condemn murder, theft, and oppression, even when these acts benefit us personally. We praise acts of courage, selflessness, and compassion, even when they require significant sacrifice. This universal moral compass, this inherent moral awareness, forms the bedrock upon which moral arguments for God are built. Recognizing the universality and weight of moral experiences is the first crucial step in understanding the arguments’ persuasive power.
The Objective Reality of Moral Values and Duties:
The central assertion of the moral argument is that objective moral values and duties exist. These are not simply subjective opinions or cultural constructs. Objective moral values are those that are true regardless of whether anyone believes them or not, like mathematical truths. Objective moral duties are obligations that we have regardless of our personal feelings or desires. For instance, the claim “torturing babies for fun is wrong” seems to possess an objective truth. Few would argue that its wrongness is merely a matter of personal taste.
This objectivity is supported by several observations. First, moral disagreements presuppose a shared understanding of moral terms. When we argue about the morality of abortion, we aren’t arguing about whether we like apples or oranges; we’re arguing about the application of fundamental moral principles like the right to life and the right to bodily autonomy. Second, moral progress implies an objective standard. To say that slavery is morally wrong implies that our current moral understanding is better than the understanding of societies that practiced slavery. But “better” implies a standard against which progress is measured, a standard independent of our evolving opinions. Third, our sense of moral obligation often conflicts with our self-interest. We feel compelled to act morally even when it’s inconvenient or costly, suggesting that morality is not simply a tool for promoting our own survival or happiness.
Moral Argument’s Logical Structure and Key Premises:
The moral argument can be formulated in various ways, but its core logic generally follows this pattern:
- If objective moral values and duties exist, then God exists.
- Objective moral values and duties exist.
- Therefore, God exists.
The argument is deductively valid; if the premises are true, the conclusion necessarily follows. The critical point of contention, then, rests on the truthfulness of the two premises. Premise 2, that objective moral values and duties exist, was addressed in the prior section. Now, the argument shifts to demonstrating the plausibility of Premise 1: the connection between morality and the existence of God.
Explaining Moral Order: The Need for a Moral Lawgiver
The primary support for premise 1, “If objective moral values and duties exist, then God exists,” lies in the explanatory power of theism in accounting for the existence of objective morality. If God does not exist, what grounds these values and duties? Are they merely accidental byproducts of evolution, social conventions, or psychological biases? Such explanations seem inadequate to account for the strength, universality, and objectivity of our moral intuitions.
Theists argue that God provides a necessary and sufficient foundation for objective morality. God, being perfectly good, is the source and standard of all moral value. His nature embodies the qualities we recognize as good, such as love, justice, and compassion. God’s commands, revealed through scripture, conscience, or natural law, constitute our moral duties. He is the ultimate moral lawgiver, whose will establishes the objective norms of right and wrong.
Addressing Common Objections: Euthyphro Dilemma and Atheistic Alternatives
The moral argument faces several objections, the most prominent being the Euthyphro Dilemma. This dilemma, originating from Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro, asks: Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good? If the former, then morality seems arbitrary, dependent on God’s whims. If the latter, then morality is independent of God, undermining the claim that God is necessary for objective morality.
Theists typically respond to the Euthyphro Dilemma by arguing that it presents a false dichotomy. God’s commands are not arbitrary, nor is morality independent of God. Instead, God commands what He does because it is consistent with His own nature. God’s nature is the ultimate standard of goodness, and His commands reflect that standard. Goodness, then, is not something external to God that He must conform to, but rather an essential aspect of His being.
Atheistic alternatives to grounding objective morality often appeal to naturalism, evolutionary biology, or human reason. However, these alternatives face significant challenges. Naturalism, the view that only natural entities and forces exist, struggles to explain how objective moral values can arise from blind, purposeless processes. Evolutionary biology can explain why we have moral intuitions, but it cannot explain why those intuitions are objectively true. Human reason can help us understand and apply moral principles, but it cannot create those principles from scratch.
The Argument from Moral Progress and the Injustice of the World:
Beyond the question of moral origins, moral progress offers a compelling angle. The very idea of moral progress, the undeniable improvement in human behavior and social structures over time, strongly suggests the existence of an objective moral standard towards which we are striving. If morality were simply a matter of cultural relativism or individual preference, there would be no basis for claiming that some societies are morally better than others. The abolition of slavery, the expansion of human rights, and the growing awareness of environmental responsibility all point to a shared understanding of moral values that transcends cultural boundaries.
The existence of profound injustice in the world also strengthens the moral argument. The sheer scale of suffering, the prevalence of evil, and the apparent lack of consequences for wrongdoers cry out for a higher justice. If there is no God, then injustice is ultimately meaningless, a tragic but ultimately indifferent fact of the universe. But if God exists, then there is hope for ultimate justice, a promise that wrongs will be righted and that good will ultimately prevail. This deep longing for justice, this moral outrage at the face of evil, points to a transcendent source of moral authority.
Conclusion: Moral Order, A Signpost to Transcendence
The moral argument, while complex and multifaceted, ultimately rests on the simple observation that we experience morality as something real, objective, and binding. This moral experience, coupled with the difficulty of explaining it without reference to a transcendent source, provides a powerful reason to believe in the existence of God. While objections exist, they do not negate the argument’s underlying strength. The moral order we perceive in the universe, the inherent sense of right and wrong, serves as a signpost pointing towards a reality beyond the purely physical, a reality that includes a moral lawgiver and a source of ultimate meaning and value. This argument appeals to something deeply intuitive within humanity, the inherent sense that some things are simply, objectively, wrong.