Reason 3: The Moral Argument for the existence of God

Recently in London and New York, atheist groups advertised on buses, asking the question, “Why believe in a god?” They answer their own question, saying “Just be good for goodness’ sake”.  They are saying, you don’t have to believe in God to be good; you can be good without God. 

            Can someone be good without God?  Sure, but that depends on how you define “Good”.  Ask yourself what is good?  What is your ideal in life? 

Someone might see “good” to acquire great wealth, power and rule the earth and kill all people who don’t have the same skin color, this to him is “good”.   Maybe you might define “good” as caring for others and helping those who can’t help themselves.  How can we determine a standard for good?  Let look at the options:

1. We determine what is good
2. Society determines what is good
3. Nature determines what is good
4. There is no good
5. God determines good

 We determine what is “Good”

             Each person determines their own good!    The problem with this a logical position is what is good for one person is not good for another.  If for example you liked the Royals Royce Wraith 2014 with sticker price of $285,000 and you could not afford one, but your neighbor had a nice blue one.  If you walked over to your neighbors house, killed him with a knife and took possession of his car, it would be “good” for you, but bad for your neighbor.  So in the end, this argument for being good falls apart because each person’s definition of good is the standard for good.

• Does Society Determine what is “Good”

 Someone might respond, society determines what is good.   The problem with society determining the good is the same problem with a person; it only extends the argument to a larger group. For example, if a society of 10,000, group A, likes the cars, Royals Royce Wraiths, owned by a society of 1,000, group B, if group A kills group B and takes their  cars is this wrong?  If we say society determines what is right and wrong, group A is a society and group B is a society.  The “good” for group A is “bad” for group B.  

            Any nation or ethnic group is a society, so if “good” was defined by the standard of the society, good would be determined by what society had more power to enforce its rules and laws on any weaker society. Take for example the Nazi of Germany, they killed and oppressed and confiscated the goods of Jews, was this right or wrong?  If we say society determines what is right and wrong, we can say it was right, because the more powerful was enforcing its rules on the weaker. Society was determining what was right.

            If society determines what is good, good will always change as more powerful groups take over weaker ones and enforce their rules.

             Does Nature Determine what is good?

 Someone might respond and say nature determines what is right and wrong, since we are the product of evolution, and we can see the fittest survive, then it follows nature itself determines what is right and wrong.  If we see a lion kill a gazelle, is that good or bad? What about a shark killing a seal, is that good or

bad?   Its neither good or bad, it nature would be the reply of many.  It’s the way the world works, survival of the fittest. 

            So if nature teaches the strongest and smartest animal has the natural right to dominate and control the weaker, then this is “good”?   So a stronger people or nation determining what is good is only an extension of nature determining what is good and bad.

            Again looking at Nazi Germany, we have the same situation, a stronger people and nation, the Germans preyed upon a weaker people the Jews.  Was what Germany did only a nature taking its course, so it was good because nature determined what is good? Today the Nazi symbols are seen as a symbol of evil in the secular world, because they killed 6,000,000 million Jews in World War II.

            This question of right and wrong (good and bad) is the same problem faced when the victors of World War II wanted to prosecute the Nazi for war crimes.  Under what moral authority could they prosecuted?  The Nazi claimed they were only following orders of their government; they did not have a choice.

            So if Germany would have won WWII, then would the Nazi have been hero’s and allies evil? If we use nature as the determent of what is good and evil then we could say yes.  Since the more powerful and intelligent has the right to impose on the weaker, this is what nature teaches.

           There is no good

 If good is dependent on the more powerful determining its will on the weaker is there really and standard of good?  The answer is NO, because the standard will always change since the authority is only who is more powerful. This eventually leads to the position of  Nihilism. Encyclopedia Britannica defines this term as,

 Fundamentally, nihilism represented a philosophy of negation of all forms of aestheticism; it advocated utilitarianism and scientific rationalism. The social sciences and classical philosophical systems were rejected entirely. Nihilism represented a crude form of positivism and materialism, a revolt against the established social order; it negated all authority exercised by the state, by the church, or by the family. It based its belief on nothing but scientific truth; science became the cure-all for social problems. All evils, nihilists believed, derived from a single source—ignorance—which science alone would overcome.[1]

 Nihilism is the logical conclusion of atheism.  If there is no God, then there is no moral authority of what is right and wrong.  The only authority is power to be imposed on the weaker.  Life is meaningless, all assumptions of what are good and bad are only illusions to placate the masses. The atheist philosopher Frederick Nietzsche realized this in his writings, Encyclopedia Britannica comments, 

 With the collapse of metaphysical and theological foundations and sanctions for traditional morality only a pervasive sense of purposelessness and meaninglessness would remain. And the triumph of meaninglessness is the triumph of nihilism: “God is dead.” Nietzsche thought, however, that most men could not accept the eclipse of the ascetic ideal and the intrinsic meaninglessness of existence but would seek supplanting absolutes to invest life with meaning. He thought the emerging nationalism of his day represented one such ominous surrogate god, in which the nation-state would be invested with transcendent value and purpose. [2]

 So if there is no God, then good and bad are meaningless terms, they only refer to flavor of the day, this is the logical conclusion.

God is the definer of Good

 This is the point of the Moral Argument for the existence of God, for Good to exist there must be a standard of Good to determine what is Good and Bad outside of society itself.

 C.S. Lewis, a Christian philosopher and writer, wrote about this dilemma in his book Mere Christianity.  His arguments are summarized by Norman Geisler[3];

 1. There must be a universal moral law, or else:

(a) Moral disagreements would make no sense, as we all assume they do.  (b) All moral criticisms would be meaningless (e.g. “The Nazis were wrong.”). (c) It is unnecessary to keep promises or treaties, as we all assume that it is. (d) We would not make excuses for breaking the moral law, as we all do.

2. But a universal moral law requires a universal Moral Law Giver, since the Source of it:

(a) Gives moral commands (as lawgivers do)  (b)Is interested in our behavior (as moral persons are).

3. Further, this universal Moral Law Giver must be absolutely good: (a) Otherwise all moral effort would be futile in the long run, since we could be sacrificing our lives for what is not ultimately right. (b) The source of all good must be absolutely good, since the standard of all good must be completely good.

4. Therefore, there must be an absolutely good Moral Law Giver

God as the Moral Law Giver

However, if God does exist, then moral absolutes exist. For example;

You are invited to a house for a party, when you enter the house you become the guest of the owner.   As a guest, you have privileges; you can eat freely of the food, sit in the chairs provided, talk with other guests; use the restroom, play the piano and have a good time.  However, since you are an invited guest and not the owner you have restrictions.  You cannot paint the walls, break the windows, be disrespectful and harmful to other guest or the owner or destroy property.  As long as you abide by the terms of being a guest, you are free to stay at the party. Living in the world, we are guests of God.

            We are in the world; the one who owns the world has the right to determine what the rules on His property are, today we call this property rights.  The owner of the house can tear down walls, break his windows, smash the furniture, but the guest does not have the same privilege.  God has the right to determine what is acceptable and not acceptable.  God has revealed what is acceptable through individuals, recorded in His word the Bible. 

            The question of what is Truth? Who is God? Why the Bible? Are separate issues.  But we must agree that “If there is a God and He did make the World, then He has the right to establish what is right and wrong”, and if there is no God, then we are free to do what we want. We are nothing more then accidents and we are on an equal footing with animals and insects. One day we will cease to exist, like a leaf, falling from the tree and decays into dirt.

Scripture:  The Ten Commandments are an example of God telling his guests what is acceptable.

¹And God spoke all these words, saying:

²“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

³“You shall have no other gods before Me.

⁴“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; ⁵you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, ⁶but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

⁷“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

⁸“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. ¹¹For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

¹²“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.

¹³“You shall not murder.

¹⁴“You shall not commit adultery.

¹⁵“You shall not steal.

¹⁶“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

¹⁷“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Exodus 20:1:17