The
existence of objective morality is one of the most powerful arguments
for the existence of God. However, some critic don't get the
argument. Well, maybe they don't get it. Or maybe they do get it
and intentionally misrepresent the argument so they can create a
strawman. I'm not sure which. Here's an example of someone who
doesn't seem to get it:
The
idea that atheists have no reason to be moral without a god or
religion may be the most popular and repeated myth about atheism out
there. It comes up in a variety of forms, but all of them are based
on the assumption that the only valid source of morality is a
theistic religion, preferably the religion of the speaker which is
usually Christianity. Thus without Christianity, people cannot live
moral lives.
(Thought.co)
Yikes!
That's bad. Rather than accusing Thought.co of deliberately
misstating the argument, I'm going to give them the benefit of the
doubt and work with the assumption that the author simply doesn't
understand the problem. In this post, I hope to bring into focus the
foolishness of believing in there can be objective morality in a
godless universe.
First,
we have to understand what makes something wrong. I checked several
definitions and found they all suffer from the same weakness.
Merriam-Webster,
for example, defines “wrong” as, “an
injurious, unfair, or unjust act : action or conduct inflicting harm
without due provocation or just cause.”
That's an OK definition, I guess, but it still doesn't answer the
question of what makes something wrong. In other words, why is it
wrong
to be unfair or unjust? Why is it wrong
to harm someone?
Implicit
in every definition of wrong is the idea that something is not the
way “it ought to be.” To say it's wrong to be unfair, implies
that things ought to be fair. Get it? So for anyone to believe
something is wrong, there needs to be an objective understanding of
how that thing ought to be instead. In a godless, purposeless
universe, how would we know how things ought to be? Could it be
wrong, for example, for water to freeze at 32°F? Of course not
because there is no other objective temperature at which we could say
water should freeze instead!
If
the universe were undesigned and purposeless, we can only describe
how things are – not how they ought to be. If we think something
should be different, that is only a preference and not an objective
standard. Consider the candy, Starbursts. I like the red flavor.
Maybe most people like red, I don't know. But I think people who
like orange are crazy. In fact, I think people who eat orange
Starbursts are evil! Does that make any sense? It certainly
doesn't. It's gibberish. My preference is only my preference and
there is no “correct” flavor of candy. Preferences can change
over time but none are ever “right.”
Consider
now a more substantial subject – like slavery. Most people would
agree that the type of slavery once practiced in the US was wrong.
However, it used to be legal. Obviously, there were slave owners in
the south that didn't believe it was wrong. What makes our opinion
right and theirs wrong? Some might say it's because our morals have
evolved (improved over time) since then. OK, then let's look at
another issue – abortion. In the US now, abortion is legal. What
would pro-abortion advocates say if, 100 years from now, people
viewed our generation with the same outrage that we view slave
owners? They might ask how we could allow such a cruel and immoral
thing to be practiced. Would they be wrong then? Or are we wrong
now?
You
see, if there is no immutable, objective standard of morality, then
issues like slavery or abortion can never be viewed as right or
wrong; they are only practiced or not practiced as our opinions
change. So when an unbeliever attacks my faith by telling me the
Bible condones slavery or that Saul
committed genocide against the Amalekites, it sounds to me like
he's speaking gibberish. He might as well be saying the Bible
condones eating orange Starbursts.
This
brings me back to my opening point. The Thought.com article quoted
above said, “The
idea that atheists have no reason to be moral without a god or
religion may be the most popular and repeated myth about atheism out
there.” No Christian apologist, to my knowledge,
has ever said that atheists can't be moral. Nor has anyone said
atheists don't have a reason to be moral. What we're saying is that,
if atheism were true, then there can be no such thing as morality.
There are only shifting preferences that are about as objective as
the correct flavor of gum. When atheists claim to be moral, or share
their opinions of Christian morality, they are acting in ways not
consistent with their stated belief. It's irrational. It is like a
person who claims to not believe in gravity but still knows he would
die if he jumped off a building.
Genesis
1:31 says, “And
God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it
was
very good.”
God created a “very good” world
so we know that there is a way things ought to be. Sin is when we
disobey God. When we sin, we are judged. The Bible says the wages
of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Sin and death were not part of God's
original creation. They are not the way things ought to be. There
can only be such things as good and evil because there is a God!
It's not that I believe in God because it sort of make sense. I know
there is a God because that is the only thing that makes sense!
Further
reading:
