Among
Christians, the moral argument is one of the most popular philosophical
arguments for God’s existence. The arguments goes something like this:
Real moral obligation is
a fact. We are really, truly, objectively obligated to do good and avoid evil.
Either the atheistic view
of reality is correct or the “religious” one.
But the atheistic one is
incompatible with there being moral obligation.
Therefore the “religious”
view of reality is correct.[1]
The
atheist’s answer to using moral precepts to argue for God’s existence is to
argue that God can’t possibly exist. All you have to do is look at the evil in
the world. If God does exist, He would never tolerate this evil. Former atheist Antony Flew cited this
problem as one of the reasons he became an atheist so early in his life. [2] Bertrand Russell also
argues similarly:
When you come to look
into this argument from design, it is a most astonishing thing that people can
believe that this world, with all the things that are in it, with all its
defects, should be the best that omnipotence and omniscience have been able to
produce in millions of years. I really
cannot believe it. Do you think that, if
you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to
perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan or
the Fascists?[3]
A frequent Christian response to
this objection is that the atheist actually reaffirms the validity of the
Christian argument. Why are atheists sure they are actually referring to objective
precepts not to do evil? For
instance, is genocide or bigotry objectively evil and morally wrong or is that
mere opinion? Atheists can only object to the evil in the world if there is an
objective moral code that transcends humans. Such a source for that can only
come from a divine source.
An interesting different approach to
this problem has been recently undertaken by Norman Geisler and Daniel McCoy in
their book The Atheist’s Fatal Flaw.[4]They explain that the
atheist position contains a fatal contradiction in that atheist philosophy does
not allow God to act to contain the very moral evil atheists want prevented.
Geisler and McCoy explain there are
three ways God can prevent moral evil. Method A posits God could prevent all
moral evil. Method B posits God could intervene to prevent only the worst moral
evil. Method C posits God could intervene only in the area of one’s conscience.
Preventing moral evil, then, must
involve in some capacity the ruling of other people’s actions – whether taking
away all free will and making people nothing but robots or causing indirect
control over people using guilt that results from sinful actions. However, as
Geisler and McCoy explain, atheists value autonomy above everything else in
five areas that define one’s worldview: origin, identity, meaning, morality,
and destiny. Let me explain each.
Atheists do not need or want God to be involved in creating because humans,
they believe, sprang from a purposeless process of evolution. We got here without
God’s help. Atheists also demand they decide for themselves what their purpose
in life is or their value. Atheists also want to choose what moral codes to
follow. Atheists and humanists both explain that our moral codes were a result
of social evolution over millions of years. We learned proper moral behavior,
but proper behavior is always subject to change. This is what Christian
philosophers call moral relativism. Lastly, atheists often state that whatever
problems exist in humans their fix does not in any way depend on faith in or
acceptance of God’s existence or anything God demands of us. Rather, faith in
science will allow us to fix these problems. Again, I cite atheist Bertrand
Russell whose hopeful formula is echoed in Humanist Manifestos I and II as
well.
Science can help us to
get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generation.
Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to
look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but
rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to
live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries
have made it.[5]
Chapter three of their book begins
explaining, in my opinion, a much-ignored area of philosophy: the ways God
controls moral evil while allowing for personal freedom. As Geisler and McCoy
explain, in each of these areas the atheist prefers freedom to God having any
control over our actions. For instance, God wants us to submit to Him, but
atheists believe God is a tyrant for demanding such obedience and McCoy quote
Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens as suggesting that humans don’t need policing.
God works through our conscience, but atheists often say that humans do not possess
responsibility for their actions or they posit that they have done nothing
immoral at all. This, I believe, is one of the main reasons atheists believe in
materialism; they want to eliminate any chance of humans being responsible for
their actions. If humans are merely physical automatons controlled by nothing
but material substances, they can no more control what they do than a rock can
control whether it rolls down a hill. Death is allowed by God because it limits
human evil a person can do, but atheists claim God is immoral for allowing that
as well.
Reading their book, it’s obvious
that atheists want to have their cake and eat it too. Actually, they are more
like the child who demands the keys to a parent’s car even though they cannot
drive, get in an accident, and then blame the parent for giving them the keys.
Such a child is rebellious and refuses to accept any parental control. In
regards to what God wants us, this is sinful rebellion which is how we would
expect unbelievers to act if Christianity is true – which is one more reason I
believe it.
[1]
Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Handbook
of Christian Apologetics (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 1994), 72.
[2]
Antony Flew, There is a God (New York: HarperCollins, 2007).
[3] Bertrand
Russell, Why I am Not a Christian (New York: George Allen & Unwin
Ltd., 1975), 10.
[4]
Norman Geisler and Daniel McCoy, The
Atheist’s Fatal Flaw (Grand Rapids: Baker House, 2014). All citations from
this essay are from this book unless otherwise stated.
[5]
Russell, 22.
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