This Argument is considered to be the most recent of the Classical Arguments, showing up in the late 1700's on the pen of Immanuel Kant. Kant was no friend to arguments for God's existence. However he did ask the question, "What would have to be true in order for our sense of moral duty to be meaningful?" His answer was - life after death and a judge capable of dealing punishment and rewards. Today, a variation of this argument goes like this:
#1 If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist
#2 Objective moral values do exist
#3 Therefore, God exists
(By "objective" I mean independent of what people think. So in this case we are talking about moral values that are good or bad no matter what people think.)
Let's look at the first premise. If this world is just the product of time acting on space and matter then what could possibly be "bad" or "good." There would only be the way things are. For instance, it makes no sense to ask if a rock is morally "good" or "bad." It simply is. This is why atheist Richard Dawkins can say, "The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should
expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good,
nothing but pitiless indifference." The second premise is usually defended by pointing to actions that are obviously good or bad. For instance: torturing babies for fun, killing Jews, cannibalizing the disabled, raping and molesting preschoolers, etc. Would someone really say these acts are morally neutral and up to personal interpretation? Or are these actions wrong independently of what anyone thinks about them? If you think the latter is true, then you agree with premise 2. But if both premises are true, then God exists.
Strengths:
- Lots of people are not familiar enough with science for other arguments to be persuasive, but everyone has to deal with morality everyday of their life.
- It does not argue for the existence of a Christian god, but only for the existence of a god that would make objective morality meaningful.
- Romans 2:14-15
If successful this argument provides you with a god that would make objective morality meaningful. This god would be perfectly good and the standard and source of morality.
Do you think this argument is successful? What are some common objections? Perhaps you have a question. Feel free to leave a comment so that I can respond and not be bored at work!
Im still not satisfied with the first premise..why does God have to exist for you to have objective moral values?
ReplyDeleteLets say objective moral values are the result of subjective moral laws and standards that have been refined and accepted over the generations..
Is a child born with objective moral values? If as soon as the child is born, you start teaching him or her that it is morally acceptable to murder, steal, and rape and the society in which the child grows up also says it is acceptable, will the child realize eventually that what he has learned his whole life is wrong? Without someone telling him
Nice! Thanks for the comment!
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that you disagree with premise #2 and not #1. I'll do my best to explain.
I defined the word "objective" to mean "independent of what people think." You could also define the word "subjective" as "dependent on what people think." So anything that is the result of "subjective moral laws and standards that have been refined and accepted over the generations" would not qualify as "objective." The best that could prove is that the moral value in question is universally subjective. For instance, if everyone agreed that the color "blue" is the greatest color ever, would that make it morally evil to dislike the color blue? Or if everyone alive thought that rape was good. Would that make rape morally good?
Let me know if that makes sense. The point is if God does not exist than morality is nothing more than what we decide for ourselves either individually or as a group, which is by definition subjective.
As for your second question, there is a difference between the existence of objective morality (ontology) and how we know morality (epistemology). The argument above is arguing for the existence of objective morality (ontology). Whether a thing is true and how we discovered it is true are two different questions. For example, I think we can agree that scientific knowledge (such as water is composed of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen) is objectively true. It would not make sense to argue against the objectivity of the composition of water by asking if a child is born knowing it.
Let me know if that makes sense. Thanks a lot for the question!