There is an argument for God that goes like this: You know that you are obliged to do good and not bad, no matter what anyone says, whether you are a coal miner or a king. This authority to command every person this way, regardless of power or rank, must be from God. If there is no God, then really, everybody is free to get away with what they can, and there is nothing truly wrong, since we are our own rulers.

It is the job of the rest of this article to remind you that you really do believe there are things which are good and evil, not just offensive to your feelings, and to explain that God can be the only true source of this Law of Right and Wrong.

The Reality of Morality

A woman who was being told that she should consider abortion for her son because he could be born disabled said, “Even though my baby has a 50% chance of having myotubular myopathy, he has a 100% chance of being loved.” Her husband shared the sentiment.

Now consider another way children have been treated. In his memoir "The True History of the Conquest of New Spain," Bernal Díaz del Castillo vividly described an Aztec ritual:

“When they were upon the point of sacrificing a child or woman, they would stretch it on a very smooth stone and open the breast with a cut that reached from the chest to the belly; then tearing out the palpitating heart, they offered it to the idols. They cut off the arms and legs and head of the dead body, and ate the arms and legs at ceremonial banquets.”

Now is loving a disabled child good, or killing children brutally? To say you don’t know that one of them is right and the other wrong makes you a pretender or delusional. If you or your wife or child was held down and cut open with a big, long knife from chest to belly, you would be absolutely certain that the man doing it with a smile on his face is evil, not just someone you hate. Therefore, I say that you already know there is a real Moral Law we are under, not just the fancies of individuals or rulers.

My next piece of evidence is that we genuinely expect each other to go against our own interests when the situation requires it. Say a man hears that his friend was accidentally given an extra $100 in payment by a rich old woman who can’t see well, but he took it and said nothing. He will be outraged at his friend. It is not just a show of jealousy in most cases, but real disapproval. He might want to do the same, but he realizes it would be a real violation of how we are meant to behave.

People also appeal to moral laws when we argue, saying things such as “That’s not fair”; “I did more work than him”; and “You should tell him the truth.”

In yet another way, we acknowledge moral laws when we have done something wrong and make excuses, rather than denying that Right and Wrong have any authority.

The final point on this I will make is that if your philosophy doesn’t work in the real world, it isn’t good philosophy. Therefore, some will insist that there is no real Moral Law—that Right and Wrong are just preferences—yet such people cannot help themselves but believe they have been wronged when they are on the receiving end of a beating or robbery.

Are Right and Wrong Relative?

How can one answer the charge that there is no sense in saying there is a Moral Law, as different cultures have different moral standards? Quite easily, in fact. It is never said that we obey the Moral Law perfectly. That much is very clear. We all know it, and we have all failed to keep it, so it is no surprise that an entire culture could develop bad habits, just as a person does. It is consequently no trouble to account for cannibalism being tolerated culturally, though it is evil.

It may then occur to you that a person believes what he has been taught about morality. This is true in part, but that does not make it arbitrary. There are correct historical facts, whether your teacher gives you true ones or false. As in this case, so with morality: you may supplant what you have been taught using your own reason and by searching for a better understanding. That is, we can find out what is true about right and wrong regardless of what we were taught.

There are other points to make on this topic,¹ but one more should be sufficient for anyone who is willing to think soberly. It is that unless you acknowledge the Moral Law is universal, then if a culture or a person says slavery, cannibalism of the enemy, the capture and rape of women, or cruelty to other races is okay, then it actually is. If morality really is just relative, the Allies weren’t saying anything coherent when they said the Nazis were evil.

God is Required for Morality to be Real

Morality is given to us as laws. If it is based on an inherited intuition or our own authority, it is just a feeling or whatever we say it is, accordingly. It must therefore have its basis beyond people, or it has no real authority, and everything is permissible. Some influential atheist philosophers agree with this point.

“The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it[...] Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist.” Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism

This authority which is behind Right and Wrong must be a personal being (inanimate objects do not have authority), and we can know his nature by these laws: He must be loving and severe. He does not accept compromise, but expects much kindness and self-sacrifice.

The Christian view of God makes especially good sense of the Moral Law in several ways. God Himself declared that mankind is valuable, and that harming a human is an offence to Him. Love and goodness are in His very nature. He knows people better than they know themselves, understands how many future events will play out, and has authority over all. It also makes sense to behave perfectly when eternity is on the line. Finally, He designed us, so He knows what we were made to do and how we function best.

Without God, there will be no justice for villains and no comfort to those who have been treated cruelly. There is nothing wrong with treating other people however we see fit, whether as food or as slaves. A bitter and terrifying void awaits us all. All the love and goodwill and pleasure in your life will eventually mean nothing, for everyone you have ever met will be gone, and you will be forgotten.

It can be said, then, that moral laws are a witness within you from God of his character and your purpose. Do not deny them but believe.

The Human Flourishing View

It is often said that you do not need God to justify morality, because we just need to aim for human flourishing. If that means that we should aim for what is best for every individual, they might as well say, “Being good is good, so duh.” There is no grounding for morals, no higher authority to appeal to—just obedience and hope others will follow along, coupled with rejection of God.

Sam Harris is a vocal advocate of this view. He has said that science can tell us how to act morally.² According to Sam, it is very clear: Science can determine how to maximize wellbeing for everyone. However, he might as well say that math can determine how we should cook. Yes, it can determine the quantities of ingredients to add, but it has nothing to do with why you should aim for this flavor or that. The problem in both cases is ignoring the knowledge and intentions that are required before the science or math comes in. Wellbeing for all is what we should aim for according to whom?

Who decided wellbeing was important? The thief can say, "No thanks, I'll just keep stealing and getting away with it," and Sam has nothing solid to appeal to, because there can be no authoritative Moral Law on atheism. Sam just doesn’t like theft, but the thief is not violating anything more important than human preferences, apparently.

If we ask: “Why ought I to be unselfish?” and you reply “Because it is good for society,” we may then ask, “Why should I care what’s good for society except when it happens to pay me personally?” and then you will have to say, “Because you ought to be unselfish”—which simply brings us back to where we started.” C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Now to another problem. Where do we draw the line if we believe in aiming for the wellbeing of all according to our judgement? Can we fake evidence in trials, murder much of the population, and kill the disabled if the wellbeing of most people is best served that way? Can we enslave 1% for everyone else’s flourishing? Was Thanos right to kill half of humanity in the Avengers movies? Should we try to do the same? How about lying? It can be very helpful for keeping everyone happy, for keeping the peace. Shouldn’t an important person who is very useful be able to do great harm and get away with it, since he would still provide a net benefit?

Evolutionary Morality

The irrational forces of physics and natural selection cannot tell us anything true about how we ought to behave, since nature can't know anything, let alone have a purpose for us, so any evolution-based morality could justifiably be ignored. Thus, the evolutionary view denies the real Moral Law.

If you still suppose that morality came from nature, recall that nature does not have a habit of encouraging kindness, selflessness, and chastity. It is rather brutal. Consider also that a very evil person is more destructive than any animal, and a very good person, far more helpful. There is more at play than instincts that favor the individual or the pack. There is knowledge of something which judges our instincts.

I must also bring up a natural implication of evolution for morality: The human race need not treat each other any better than animals do. In fact, we may wish to brutally improve our species by eliminating undesirables. Darwin himself understood this.³ Darwin's cousin advocated heavily for eugenics, and both the US with its mass sterilisations⁴ and Hitler in World War 2⁵ justified their actions on the basis that the gene pool needed to be improved.

So there you have it. The logical consequences of an amoral view are appalling, and both evolution and atheist philosophies fail to account for morality. Our understanding of right and wrong points to God.

Resources

An explanation of the subjective and objective in relation to moral absolutes Absolutely Subjective Moral Values (article)

A compelling case for Christianity, beginning from morality Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis (book)

A very brief case for the moral argument What’s the Best Explanation for Moral Laws?(video)

Footnotes

1. Another powerful argument against moral subjectivism is the reformer problem. That is, if the culture is pro-slavery, an anti-slavery activist is actually evil. ↩

2. This is completely nonsensical from his vantage point anyway, since he is a determinist. In other words, he believes that people have no free will, so blaming them for anything would be an act, as would be all morals. ↩

3. Darwin discusses this in The Descent of Man. ↩

4. U.S. Scientists' Role in the Eugenics Movement (1907–1939): A Contemporary Biologist's Perspective ↩

5. See The Role of Darwinism in Nazi Radical Thought, by Richard Weikart. ↩