Most people—regardless of religious affiliation—are disturbed by evil acts and moral depravity in the world. But why is it that certain behaviors are considered evil and others are not? On what basis are we able to determine a society’s moral progress or moral decline? Is it a matter of personal opinion or preference? Is it determined by what the majority of a given society decides is right or wrong? Or, is morality based on a more objective standard—something that transcends human opinion or preference?
The answers to these questions can be discovered by considering evidence for God’s existence known as the Moral Argument. Simply stated, the Moral Argument claims that since objective moral laws and duties exist, there must be an objective Moral Lawgiver. This Lawgiver must transcend human opinion or preference, and be unchanging. The best explanation is the God of theism.
Objective Moral Laws and Duties Exist
Objective moral laws are standards that apply to all people at all times in all places. For example, it’s always wrong for all people everywhere to rape, torture, or murder children. There are things that people intuitively know are right or wrong without being told or without having a written law dictating a particular value or standard. The fact that people across time and cultures have this same intuitive sense of basic right and wrong is an indicator that these moral values are self-evident and objective.
Objective moral laws must have an ultimate standard. Without an ultimate standard for good, we would have no right to say anything is evil. It would just be a matter of personal opinion. There would be no standard by which we could claim genocide and slavery are evil, or that love and compassion are good. In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis describes how, as an atheist, he realized there must be a transcendent standard in order to call something evil. He wrote: “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.”
Without an objective standard, you cannot claim that the values of the KKK or the Nazis are any worse than the values of Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mother Teresa. To say that one set of values is better or worse than another, you must be comparing them both to an ultimate standard by which they are measured. One set of values can be said to conform more closely to the ultimate standard than the other, only if an ultimate standard actually exists. Otherwise, it's just a matter of which values you prefer.
Why the Difference?
Some have argued against the idea of objective morality by pointing out apparent differences in moral values of different cultures. For example, some African tribes practice ‘mingi’—killing infants born out of wedlock, or born with deformities. But this is not really a difference in moral values. It’s a different understanding of facts. This practice is based on the belief that deformed infants or infants born out of wedlock have (or are) evil spirits that will bring drought, famine, or disease to the tribe. It is not based on a value system that condones murdering babies, but on the misunderstanding that such babies are destructive evil entities, not innocent human beings.
During the 1500’s-1700’s in Europe, America, and Italy, people convicted of practicing witchcraft were executed as murderers. Now, witches enjoy their own legally protected religion (Wicca). Some would claim this as evidence that morality is relative to time and culture. This is a false claim, however. The objective moral law that murder is wrong did not change. The understanding of the facts—not the values—changed. People came to realize that witches can’t really kill others with their curses, so they were no longer convicted and executed as murderers.
Another example of how perception of facts can give the appearance of conflicting moral values is the difference in the way Hindus in India and non-Hindus in America view cows. Hindus consider cows to be sacred because they believe cows could be the reincarnation of a loved one who died. Therefore, Hindus don’t eat cows. Americans don’t believe the souls of dearly departed loved ones can live in a cow. Therefore, Americans eat cows. The moral values are the same: both cultures believe it’s wrong to eat people. The difference is in the perception of facts—whether the soul of a loved one might be in a cow.
When the understanding of factual differences is resolved, a convergence of moral values across time and cultures is revealed. Objective moral laws and duties do exist.
Can Morality Be Relative?
Many people claim that changes in behaviors are evidence that moral values change. They think that current accepted behaviors determine what is right or wrong. For example, premarital sex and homosexuality used to be considered immoral. Today both behaviors are widely accepted and commonly practiced in Western culture. Does this mean moral values change over time?
If it were true that current common behaviors determine what is right, then we would have to say mass shootings and child pornography are now moral. After all, these behaviors are practiced far more often than they were 50 years ago. But no sane relativist would agree that's the case. They know in their hearts that these behaviors are wrong, regardless of how common they are. The fact that people disobey the Moral Law doesn't prove it changes or that it doesn't exist. Everyone violates the Moral Law in some way. Some of us tell white lies. Some commit adultery. Others commit murder.
Those who claim morality is subjective or relative don’t live that belief out consistently. A moral relativist won’t dismiss another person’s morality as simply being a different view of the world when they become a victim of the other person’s evil behavior. The moral relativist’s reaction to being kicked in the shin or having his wallet stolen will reveal his understanding that some behaviors are objectively wrong.
What is the Best Explanation?
Darwinists claim only physical matter exists, and we are just the result of an unguided evolutionary process. If that is true, it would logically follow that all our behaviors are caused by chemical reactions resulting from natural selection—everything we do is determined by our genes. This would mean none of us is culpable for anything we say or do, and we have no grounds for claiming anyone else's behavior is morally wrong. But, honest Darwinists can't deny their own intuitive sense of right and wrong. It's embedded in their consciences. How, then, do they explain morality?
Because of their anti-supernatural bias, Darwinists rule out the possibility of God before arriving at any conclusions. They claim that morals somehow evolved naturally the same way humans did. However, there is no evidence that a nonintelligent process like natural selection can produce or account for morality. If we are just ‘molecules in motion’ with no real purpose or intrinsic value, there is no reason to believe anything is morally good or bad, and there is no basis for distinguishing good from evil.
There is no natural explanation sufficient for answering the question of where moral laws and duties come from. There is no correlation between molecules and morals. Moral laws are immaterial and cannot be weighed, measured, or observed under a microscope.
Moral laws and duties can only be grounded in a rational source. Moral values only exist in persons, minds and wills. The source of the Moral Law must be transcendent, necessary, and unchanging in order to be objectively binding across time and cultures. This means humans cannot be the source of morality. Just like the laws of math or the laws of logic, the Moral Law is a law we discover, not a law we create. It is also a law that exists whether we obey it or not.
All things considered, it seems the most reasonable explanation for this objective Moral Law is the theistic God who is rational, transcendent, necessary, and unchanging, whose very nature is the standard of goodness.
Final thoughts
The Moral Argument does not claim that belief in God is necessary for having good morals. There are plenty of atheists with good morals to demonstrate that. The Moral Argument also does not claim to prove with 100% certainty that God exists. The Moral Argument claims that objective morals and duties exist, and these morals and duties must be grounded in something outside of humanity—a transcendent, unchanging, rational source. This source is what Christians call God.
As with the Cosmological Argument and the Design Argument, the Moral Argument is evidence that points to God as the most reasonable explanation for the way things are in the world. For the Christian with a biblical worldview, the Moral Argument makes perfect sense and is faith-building evidence for God. The Moral Law is God’s law written on our hearts (Rom. 2:15). God’s very nature is the standard for goodness.
For the nonbeliever, the Moral Argument can help demonstrate that Christianity is a reasonable faith, not just wishful thinking or blindly believing in things without evidence. It is a faith worth considering.
Recommended reading:
Mere Christianity - C. S. Lewis
Stealing from God - Frank Turek
The Story of Reality - Greg Koukl
I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist - Norman Geisler and Frank Turek