Theists often offer the moral argument in support of God’s existence. While the argument can take many forms, the essence of the argument is that objective moral values exist, and are best explained by the existence of a transcendent, personal being whose very nature is good. The common response offered by atheists is that one need not believe in God to be moral and loving. “After all,” they say, “I am a moral person and I don’t believe in God. Surely, then, belief in God is not necessary for morality.”
There are two things amiss about this response. First, it misconstrues the theist’s argument. He is not arguing that one must believe in God to recognize moral truths (a claim about moral epistemology) or to behave morally, but rather that God must exist for there to even be such a thing as morality (a claim about moral ontology). God’s existence is necessary to ground moral values in objective reality. If there is no God, there can be no such thing as objective moral values. We might choose to call certain behaviors “good” and certain behaviors “evil,” but such ascriptions are subjective determinations by human communities; i.e. they merely describe the beliefs and preferences of human subjects, not some object that exists transcendent to them.
The question, then, is not how we know what is moral, but how we make sense of the existence of moral values in the first place. From whence do they come? Why do they exist? The moral argument provides an answer: Objective moral values are grounded in the very nature of God Himself. The atheist’s response completely side-steps the question of moral ontology, choosing to focus on the much simpler question of moral epistemology. We can grant to the atheist that belief in God is not necessary to know moral truths and behave morally, but this observation tells us nothing about why moral truths exist in the first place.
The second problem is related to, but distinct from the first. It is non-sequitur to think that because one can know moral truths and behave morally without believing in God, God is not necessary to explain morality. This is like saying that because one is able to read books without believing in authors, authors are not necessary to explain books. In the same way books need authors, moral laws need a moral-law giver.
Thinking to Believe 
January 25, 2010 at 12:43 pm
You are quite correct that nonbelief in a god does not invalidate the argument from morality. But I am not one of those who misunderstands the argument, and you would find me far more formidable.
The argument suffers from a number of flaws. First, I reject that there is an objective morality. There are simply too many counterexamples (where only one is needed) that shatter this illusion. Even a precept like ‘do not murder’ is problematic, since the definition of ‘murder’ has changed drastically throughout history, and even now is culture-dependent to a significant extent. Slavery, which is not only nowhere condemned in the bible but promoted, is no longer considered moral. I can do that all day.
The presupposition that a god is necessary for morality is not established. Indeed, there is ample empirical evidence from primatology and anthropology to show how morality came about as a result of social survival strategy. Co-operation amongst group members requires behavior based on reciprocation and theory of mind in order for group cohesion to be maintained. We see this in chimps and bonobos (which have all behaviors of interaction we have), and even in mice.
Your author analogy is false, since the mechanism for the existence of books and of social animal species such as us are unrelated. And the argument from morality isn’t any more convincing.
LikeLike
January 25, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Shamelessly Atheist,
You reject Jason’s argument on two counts:
(a) There is no objective morality.
(b) A god is unnecessary for morality.
With respect to (b), the argument does not assert a god is necessary for morality. It merely states that if objective moral values exist, God is the best explanation thereof.
Your counter argument from cooperation and reciprocity is tangential because it merely affirms some form of morality grounds social cohesion. It is not denied some moral code is necessary for group survival. The argument is about objective moral values which transcend group bias.
As to (a), you deny objective morality on the basis of counterexamples which, I think, attempt to render objective morality incoherent. The fact there are historical redefinitions of murder does not undermine the affirmation that unjustified killing is immoral. Whether the Bible condemns slavery has no relation to slavery, per se. The question is whether involuntary servitude is objectively immoral.
The appeal to group morality actually strengthens the case for objective values because it illustrates the need for moral precepts and renders incoherent arguments against the objectivity thereof.
First, intra-group disagreements reduce to disagreements of preference, not morality. If there are no objective morals outside the group, there are none within the group. Accepting preferential disagreement either entails the affirmation the same acts are right and wrong, or there is nothing wrong. But if nothing is wrong, then everything is permissible. But if some things are not permissible, then the enforcement of one preference over another reduces to might makes right. It has nothing to do with morality. Hence, an appeal to group morality is incoherent.
Moreover, “moral” disagreement entails an appeal to a set of standards. But if everybody is entitled to h/er set of standards, then dialog again becomes incoherent. Groups merely talk past one another. An appeal to the superiority of one standard over another entails an appeal to a higher standard upon which such an evaluation is based. If no such moral standard exists, then argument is useless. Again, we get might makes right.
So long as we are offering real-world counterexamples, what’s wrong with your neighbor across the street killing Jews? There’s nothing objectively wrong with that, even if I personally don’t like it. If it is argued such behavior violates our group’s laws, then what if the dividing line is not your street, but the border of another group that hates Jews and fervently believes their elimination is necessary for that group’s survival? You cannot rationally say killing Jews is wrong nor can you appeal to your “group” since it is another group doing the killing. One can force the other group to comply with a moral standard it rejects, look upon that group’s actions as morally benign or turn up one’s nose and look the other way; but those options are matters of preference, not morality.
LikeLike
January 26, 2010 at 10:26 am
Assertion without justification. Sorry, but that doesn’t wash. Please provide the mechanism by which “God-did-it”. The assertion as it stands is indistinguishable from “I-don’t-know”, the latter being more honest.
Ah, another who claims that if there is no objective morality, then it must be relative. No. Nor does this ‘argument from consequences’ do anything to support the claim that objective morality exist, which I reject.
For me, it is wrong because of consequences. For an anti-Semite (a purely Christian invention, by the way), it may very well be moral to eliminate them. Hitler certainly thought so, and on top of that he thought he was doing God’s work.
Just because there is no absolute moral standard does not mean morals do not exist. My outrage at Pat Robertson’s nonsense over Haitians making a pact with the devil shows that morals DO exist. Your whole argument is nothing but an argument from consequences. As such, I reject it. You have certainly not demonstrated that an objective morality exists, and the burden of proof is on you.
In some cultures, not only is what we would consider murder moral, but obligatory. Here I am thinking honor killings. How is it possible that the killing of someone that is perceived to have slighted a family be morally obligatory at the same time as I would do whatever in my power to stop it? As I said, each person has their own set of morals. Yes, there is a large overlap in any particular culture, but no two persons have the same set of morals.
You can argue that I can not rationally judge actions as moral or immoral in this case till you’re blue in the face, but it doesn’t make it true. I have my own set of morals from which I make my moral judgements. The idea that we can just pick and choose what is moral, when our morality is shaped far more by external forces (such as parenting and societal values), is preposterous. Indeed, what we think of as rational moral decisions has been experimentally shown to be bunk (read up on the trolley problems, for instance). It is our innate moral calculating machinery that makes our moral decisions unconsciously and we rationalize our decisions after the fact.
LikeLike
January 26, 2010 at 10:35 am
PS…
Who determines what is objectively moral or not? Of courese, if you say “God”, then you are impaled on one of the horns of the Euthyphro Dilemma.
The people that wrote that thought that slavery is moral. We (I hope) do not. Which one is objective? C’mon! The reason we do not allow ‘involuntary servitude’ (let’s call it what that is – SLAVERY) is because societal values changed. It went from being moral to being immoral.
LikeLike
January 26, 2010 at 12:03 pm
The Euthyphro Dilemma is a false one. If God exists, then His eternal and immutable nature is the absolute (objective) moral standard. Whatever is consistent with God’s nature is good; whatever is inconsistent with God’s nature is evil. Our task as humans is to ascertain God’s nature and distinguish good and evil accordingly; but we do this imperfectly, both as individuals and as societies.
LikeLike
January 26, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Shamelessly Atheist wrote,
I am asserting nothing here except to point out your perhaps unintentional misstatement of the argument. If you are familiar with the moral argument, you know it doesn’t stop there. The fact you ask for the “mechanism by which ‘God-did-it'” proves you do not understand the argument.
I’ve elucidated my position. If you care to engage it, I welcome your observations. The argument is not consequential; it is dichotomic. A denial of objective moral values is unintelligible.
But it’s only nonsense to you and those with whom you agree, right? The fact Robertson may disagree with you demonstrates competing moral claims, which I believe you acknowledge. He has his set of standards and you have yours. Since you deny objective criteria, there is no logical way to demonstrate the superiority of one over the other. Hence, a resolution that appeals to morality is unintelligible under your paradigm.
Then you must reject your own argument, for just previous to this you said,
If a “consequences” argument is the basis of your rejection of my argument (I do not argue from consequences), why are you appealing to them to support your own?
Then an appeal to morality misfires. You are appealing to preferences, not morality. For if no two persons have the same set of morals, then you acknowledge morality is subjective. Perspectival morality is subjective and…is most certainly relative.
Yes it is, and nobody here has argued that.
If you can get Jason to start a thread on whether objective morals exist, we may proceed. But that is not the topic of this thread, as you’ve already observed.
LikeLike
January 26, 2010 at 3:03 pm
“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.”
— Oscar Wilde
“What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like, and immorality is what they dislike.”
— Alfred North Whitehead
“Morality is the custom of one’s country and the current feeling of one’s peers.”
— Samuel Butler
“Morality is the thing upon which your friends smile, and immorality is the thing upon which they frown.”
— Elbert Hubbard
LikeLike
January 31, 2010 at 10:40 am
Shamelessly Atheist typed,
(Scalia)Then you must reject your own argument, for just previous to this you said,
(Scalia)If a “consequences” argument is the basis of your rejection of my argument (I do not argue from consequences), why are you appealing to them to support your own?
And the crickets chirped on…
LikeLike
January 31, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Said the chirping cricket.
LikeLike
February 1, 2010 at 3:08 am
OH NO,I’ve been found out! Back to the crawl space with me…
LikeLike
February 5, 2010 at 10:53 am
Shamelessly Atheist,
I’m jumping in late, and others have already addressed some points, so I’ll limit myself to what I perceive as the gaps.
I don’t believe for a second that you truly think morality is subjective rather than objective. If I took money from you, you would immediately cry “Foul!”, and wouldn’t buy for a second my explanation that for me, taking things that do not belong to me is not wrong. Why? Because you know that theft is an objectively moral wrong.
Of course, at one point you ridicule those who say “that if there is no objective morality, then it must be relative,” but what other options are there? Either something is objective, or it is subjective (relative). Either something is true of an object, or it is true of the subject. There is no middle ground. It’s a true dichotomy.
You said we can’t just pick and choose our morals, but if morals are not objective, why not? If they are community-based or person-based, why not? That’s like telling someone they cannot just pick and choose the kind of ice-cream they think is best. That would be preposterous because we all know there is no objectively true “best ice-cream flavor.” It’s a matter of personal taste. If morality is not objective, then why can’t people just pick and choose what morals they wish to follow, if any at all? You may respond that it’s because society has determined the rules for us. But if morality is not objective, then why should anyone behave in the way the society wants them to behave? In the name of what should they do so? If morals are subjective, telling someone they cannot rape is tantamount to telling someone they cannot like orange sherbet ice cream. Says who?!
You contradict yourself. On the one hand you say morals came about by social invention for the purpose of self-preservation, but then you say we make moral decisions due to “our innate moral calculating machinery.” If morality is a social invention, its origin is external, not internal, and thus its transmission must be external. We can’t have any “innate” machinery for morality if morality is a social invention. Ways of thinking and ways of behaving are passed on by teaching.
Tbc…
LikeLike
February 5, 2010 at 10:53 am
Continued…
When you cite this supposed “evidence” from anthropology that morality originated as a social survival strategy, you are making the very mistake I mentioned in my post: confusing moral epistemology for moral ontology. The question is not how we came to know/follow certain moral rules, but the grounding for such rules.
And it’s not true that cultures have radically different systems of morality. They agree on core moral principles. Anthropologists Richard Shweder and Alan Fiske found these moral traits to be universal: people think it’s bad to harm others and good to help them. They have a sense of fairness—that one should reciprocate favors, reward benefactors and punish cheaters. They value loyalty to a group, sharing and solidarity among its members and conformity to its norms. They believe that it is right to defer to legitimate authorities and to respect people with high status. And they exalt purity, cleanliness and sanctity while loathing defilement, contamination and carnality. Where they disagree is on how to apply these principles. For example, all cultures believe we should not murder innocent persons, but they disagree on who is a person. For Hitler, Jews were not persons. For many in the West, the unborn are not human persons. The disagreement, then, is not over morality, but the facts (e.g. who is a person).
Asking someone to demonstrate that objective morals exist is like asking someone to demonstrate that the laws of logic or mathematics exist. They cannot be proven. They are first principles of thought that are simply intuited. Likewise, moral values are something we intuit. You either see it or you don’t. There is a realm of objective moral values we apprehend through our moral intuitions/experience, just as there is a realm of objective physical objects we apprehend through our sensory intuition/experience. We intuitively recognize the existence of moral absolutes, even if we do not apprehend some of them perfectly.
As for slavery, the kind of slavery that was allowed in Scripture is nothing like the kind of slavery we think of. The slavery in the Bible was voluntary and was a solution for one’s own economic well-being. It is much more comparable to the employer-employee relationship we are familiar with in our country than the master-slave relationship of America.
As for my analogy, it’s an analogy! There’s never a 1:1 correspondence. But it does hold in the area I need it to. Just as one’s ability to read a book without believing in authors does nothing to undermine the need for authors, likewise one’s ability to recognize and practice morality apart from belief in God does nothing to undermine the need for God. God is the ontological grounding of objective moral values.
Jason
LikeLike
February 5, 2010 at 10:53 am
Arthur,
Based on the quotes you chose, I’m assuming you adopt moral relativism. Is that so? If so, how do you square this with your Christian faith?
Jason
LikeLike
January 17, 2011 at 9:02 pm
I think there is some standard of moral relativism and moral objectivism which can be described anthropologically and in evolutionary terms. When you start to create an entity that encompasses all moral actions with absolute authority in respect to human beings you need to start thinking where do these ideas of God originate from, why do these ideas of transcedental beings keep being passed from generation to generation, why do animals act in a way that we ourselves may consider amoral if we were to cannibalize, have sex in public, etc. It also raises the problem of evil, if you heard about it (if god is omnipotent, and the bible says so and so, but so and so exists when God has absolute goodness, why doesn’t he do it, if he’s unwilling he’s not omnibenevolent, not capable, why call him God, etc). I may believe that there is some degree of Moral objectivism that all humans possess but I think a stronger arguement would be in respect to a materialist view where certain brain structures have been evolved such as the neocortex which has allowed us to act in ”moral” ways which we think are moral whereas some people who are deprived of certain brain structures or inhibited by drugs lack this ”moral capacity” and therefore I think on a relativist scale, we are to more or less of a degree moral based on a common standard which would be like Berkley’s idealism with concepts of subjective idealism, objective idealism, etc. However, rejecting moral objectivism itself does not necessarily construe as unintelligible insofar as accepting moral subjectivism, I see your stance regarding this blog article but your commentary proves otherwise.
LikeLike
January 18, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Sonic Vangall,
At best, an evolutionary explanation of morality can account for the universality of the moral impulse and certain basic moral rules shared by most humans, but such a construal of morality is not describing something objective, but rather something subjective.
You’ll probably object at this point and say, “It’s not subjective because we don’t choose our moral values anymore than we choose to be born with two arms and two legs—it’s a product of our evolution that we cannot escape.” There are two things wrong with this response. First, it assumes that if one does not choose X, then X must be objective. This is obviously false. What if evolution produced in humans the belief that the Earth sits on the back of a turtle? Would the fact that we did not choose to believe that make it objective? No, because the truth of the matter is that there is no turtle. The same is true of evolutionary morality. It may have produced in humans the belief that X is right and Y is wrong—beliefs we cannot but help to hold—but the moral truths associated with X and Y are not objective features of the universe. They are just fictions foisted on us by evolution to help us survive.
The moral impulse provided to all humans by evolution wouldn’t be subjective in the sense that it’s just a matter of personal taste, but it would be subjective in the sense that it ever-changing just like the physical world. The moral rule that “rape is wrong” is an arbitrary, chance byproduct of our biological and social evolution. As our evolution continues to progress, we might come to develop the contrary moral rule that “rape is good.” Evolution cannot provide anything more than a morally relative system of ethics.
Secondly, the response confuses universality with objectivity. Just because something is universal does not mean it is objective. Going back to the turtle analogy, if evolution had created a universal belief among humans that the Earth rested on the back of a turtle, while this would be a universal belief, it would remain subjective and false.
Jason
LikeLike
June 16, 2011 at 6:32 pm
Jason,
You sound like a lot of your arguments were pulled form Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
Everyone else,
Atheist or not, the first chapter on morality is an excellent read. It does not promote a belief in the christian God, let alone any deity. It gives a good grounding in morality and where it comes from.
LikeLike
June 17, 2011 at 3:16 pm
Megan,
I have read the book, but no, I was not pulling from it per se (although it is surely worthy to be pulled from). The moral argument has a long history that precedes C.S. Lewis. I was simply addressing the fact that atheists often confuse the argument to be about moral epistemology, when it’s an argument regarding moral ontology.
LikeLike
June 30, 2012 at 8:53 pm
Question for anyone,
As a Christian I truly believe that the God of the Holy Bible is the supreme, moral law-giver who has written a “moral code” on every human heart (Romans) and thus explains how the observance of objective morality has remained on earth through all history.
Here’s my question: Since the “moral argument” for the existence of God acts as a single, yet strong thread of a rope (all arguments combined), is the moral argument a strong enough argument to logically concede to the existence of God (the ultimate moral law-giver)?
LikeLike
July 2, 2012 at 2:33 pm
Brian,
Yes, I think the moral argument is strong enough to conclude that an all-good, transcendent, personal being exists. That provides some essential characteristics of the theistic God, but not all of them. So if all we had to go on was the moral argument, we would not come to the theistic God, yet alone the Christian God. But such arguments are not intended to do so. It requires a variety of arguments to get a full-orbed picture of the God of theism. And once we get there, it requires divine revelation to narrow it down even further to the Christian God (though that revelation can be tested).
Jason
LikeLike
February 4, 2013 at 10:55 am
[…] The Typical Atheist’s Response to the Moral Argument for God’s Existence […]
LikeLike
October 1, 2014 at 7:34 am
[…] The typical atheist’s response to the moral argument for God’s existence […]
LikeLike
December 19, 2014 at 7:08 pm
Jason,
Let’s say I make the claim that “the existence of good does not presuppose objective morality”.
I also make claims like “slavery is absolutely immoral, why was the author of absolute objective moral values unable to see that?”
“Morality is a value, values are by definition subjective, not objective”
“We can find an objective basis for morality but morality itself is a value judgement and it’s subjective”
“Just as I can find a woman beautiful without comparing her to an objective standard of beauty, I can find morality w/o a standard”
“If God does not condemn slavery (and he doesn’t), but you do, by what moral standard are you operating?”
What do u make of all this?
LikeLike
December 22, 2014 at 4:35 pm
C,
What I make of this is that you aren’t making sense. If “the good” exists, and “the good” pertains to the category of things we call “morality,” then it is objective. It makes no more sense to say the existence of good does not presuppose objective morality than to say the existence of grass does not presuppose objective reality.
I won’t even begin to go down the rabbit trail of slavery.
You don’t have to have a chart to refer to compare beauty for beauty to be objective (meaning it is real rather than imagined or invented).
Jason
LikeLike
December 22, 2014 at 4:54 pm
Jason,
Thank you for the response. First off I want to let u know that these statements are not my own. I have been in a discussion with an atheist on morality and all of the quotes are his.
Also pertaining to the slavery issue. Could you point me in the direction of some good information regarding biblical slavery.
Thanks in advance and if there is anything else you’d like to add to your critique of his statements I would be glad to hear it.
C
LikeLike
December 22, 2014 at 5:04 pm
Thanks for the clarification. For slavery, I would suggest Paul Copan’s book titled “Is God a Moral Monster.”
Let me say a bit more. He says, “Morality is a value, values are by definition subjective, not objective.” Why does he think values are, by definition, subjective? What we value can be based on something objective or subjective. The word doesn’t tell you that.
Also, he says “Just as I can find a woman beautiful without comparing her to an objective standard of beauty, I can find morality w/o a standard.” I already noted that I disagree with his assessment of beauty. I think beauty is objective. When we look at a sunset and say it is beautiful, we are describing something objective. If someone said, “No, it is ugly” we would think something was wrong with that person, just as we would think something is wrong with the person who says “murder is good.” What I want to add here is that it’s true one can come up with systems of morality without an objective standard of morality, but such systems are just inventions of the mind. They have no authority. In the name of what should anyone obey them? Why should anyone subscribe to them? Without objective morality, our moral systems are just statements of our personal preferences. Why should I care to abide by your personal preferences?
Jason
LikeLike
December 22, 2014 at 5:24 pm
Thanks Jason
LikeLike
March 9, 2015 at 3:37 pm
[…] The Typical Atheist’s Response to the Moral Argument for God’s Existence […]
LikeLike
April 15, 2015 at 6:27 pm
I am shocked to hear Jason think that this argument alone suffices as a proof for God’s existence!!
Come on you guys :). This is not a good argument, and for a very simple reason. Maybe objective morality doesn’t exist. Well I guess God doesn’t necessarily exist anymore does he? (Assuming he’s the only one who could grant that objectivity, I won’t argue it though because you need more of a background in philosophy to do so).
The whole backing, and I mean the *sole* reason that theists provide, as their completely rigorous support for the statement that objective moral values exist, is that people *FEEL LIKE THEY DO*. This is nothing but an emotional argument. How can you possibly see this as a valid, logical reason to support anything?
Are you saying that, in principle, if millions of people felt deep reverence that a tree God existed, or that aliens were coming to save them, that that logically means it is true? What if the feelings contradict each other? Since when have emotional arguments become rigorous logical arguments? Am I living in a bizarro world??
Emotions are clearly important in the sense that they help us differentiate right from wrong, to live meaningful lives etc. But they can not be used to tell us about anything in reality except for what is directly related to those emotions; i.e. whether your partner loves you, whether you enjoy ice cream, etc. Please give me a rigorous, logical explanation for how my emotions can tell me whether objective moral values exist and I will retract my statement.
I mean how would you even be able to tell?? You could easily have very strong subjective feelings about something, people do all the time with respect to their various preferences for music or art. It is obvious from this perspective that strong feelings can easily be felt in a subjective context.
What is even more sad is I feel I am the only one who notices this, except for maybe one person who asked Dr. Craig the same question on his forums. Dr. Craig then laughed and dismissed it because he thought emotions were a very good piece of evidence lol…I don’t even know what to think of him as an academic after that.
LikeLike
April 15, 2015 at 6:31 pm
I can’t even believe it after writing it. I FEEL LIKE ITS TRUE DOES NOT MEAN ITS TRUE. And no its not good evidence either…it really isn’t. There is no logic to support it. That is why emotional arguments are explicitly known as logical fallacies.
LikeLike