All questions › Arguments for God
The moral argument for God
Short answer
Nearly everyone believes that some things are really right or wrong, whatever any person or culture thinks. Torturing children for fun is wrong. Kindness and justice are good. The moral argument asks what best explains that kind of objective morality.
A popular version goes like this:
1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. 2. Objective moral values and duties do exist. 3. Therefore, God exists.
Without God, morality seems to reduce to evolved instincts or social conventions. Those might explain why we feel obligated, but not why we truly are obligated. Moral duties look like commands, and commands come from a person with authority. Moral values seem to need a standard of goodness.
Theism provides that standard. God's own nature is the standard of goodness, and his commands, flowing from that nature, form our duties. C.S. Lewis argued that the moral law we all recognize and all break is a clue to the meaning of the universe. It points to a Lawgiver, and it also shows our need for forgiveness.
Objections and responses
ObjectionYou don't need to believe in God to be good.
ResponseTrue, and the argument doesn't claim you do. The question is not whether atheists can be moral but what grounds morality.
Read more →ObjectionEuthyphro dilemma: is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it's good?
ResponseThere is a third option. God commands things because he is good. His nature is the standard, so it is neither arbitrary nor outside him.
Read more →ObjectionMorality evolved because it helped us survive.
ResponseIf so, our moral beliefs were selected for being useful, not true. That actually undermines confidence that objective morality exists without God.
Read more →ObjectionMoral values could just exist as brute facts.
ResponseThat is possible but odd. Abstract 'values' floating free, with no mind behind them, can't explain why we owe anything to anyone.
Read more →Best resources
- Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (book)
Read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis for a short, beginner-friendly classic that started as wartime BBC radio talks and explains the core of Christian belief in plain language. This question is covered in Book I, "Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe".
- The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis (book)
Read The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis for short, dense lectures defending objective values, with an appendix of moral teachings from many cultures; philosophical and rewarding. See especially the parts on the moral argument.
- Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality by David Baggett & Jerry L. Walls (book)
Read Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality by David Baggett & Jerry L. Walls for an academic but readable defence of the moral argument that engages critics carefully. See especially the parts on the moral argument.
- Is Good from God? (debate, 2011) by William Lane Craig vs. Sam Harris (talk)
Watch Is Good from God? (debate, 2011) by William Lane Craig vs. Sam Harris for a debate on whether morality needs God; helpful for seeing exactly where the disagreement lies.
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