By Newo F. Nash
If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist. Objective values do exist. Therefore, God exists. The argument above is the argument from morality for God's existence in its deductive form, formulated by William Lane Craig. The argument is valid; it is in the form of modus tollens. There are many other different versions of the moral argument, but I chose this because this is, in my opinion, the simplest. This note though will only focus on premise 1 because a critique of premise 2 would be dependent on the atheist's ethical view which varies from atheist to atheist, and I prefer to argue here in behalf of all atheists -- whether he be a realist or an error theorist or whatever, against the assumption that objective moral values necessitates the existence of God.
In his debate with Sam Harris, Craig define "objective" as "independent of human opinion". Therefore, we say that objective moral values exist when we believe that actions are objectively right and wrong independent of human opinions. But why would God's existence be necessary in order for objective moral values to exist? Again, I am not arguing here, as I noted before, whether objective moral values exist or not, but whether God's existence is necessary to have objective moral values.
Let's take a look at the statement "1+2=3". This statement is objectively true because it is true even a lot of people believe that 1+2=5. Even how many people believe otherwise, 1+2 will always be 3. Now, where is God's role in here? Of course, the theist could argue that mathematical statements are different from moral statements, but what I only tried to show here is that, if a statement -- mathematical, logical, etc., can be objectively (how Craig defined it) true even without uttering the word "God", it seems that it is not impossible after all for some statement to be objectively true even without the necessity of God's existence. But if some statements can be objectively true even without the necessity of God's existence, how can moral statements be an exception to those? The demarcation between statements that can be objectively true which necessitates God's existence and those which do not becomes an obfuscation, making the claim that objective moral values necessitates God's existence arbitrary.
An another objection to the moral argument involves what we call the Euthyphro Dilemma -- a classic dilemma that comes from way back to Plato, which Plato stressed out in his dialogue "Euthyphro". "Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?" By choosing the first horn of the dilemma (God commands the good because it is good), the theist is forced to believe that objective morality is external to God in which God is also bound by, making God's existence a nuisance. This will imply an atheistic moral objectivism. By choosing the second horn of the dilemma (the good is good because it is commanded by God, also called the Divine Command Theory), the theist is forced to believe that whatever that is "good" is subject to God's will and, therefore groundless and arbitrary, which is no different to, say, Hitler Command Theory, i.e. that whatever Hitler did is good.
Most apologists try to avoid the dilemma by showing that the Euthyphro Dilemma is a false dilemma and that there's actually a third option. From the Faith Interface blog:
The third option is that an objective standard exists (this avoids the first horn of the dilemma). However, the standard is not external to God, but internal (avoiding the second horn). Morality is grounded in the immutable character of God, who is perfectly good. His commands are not whims, but rooted in His holiness.
In his paper "Atheism, Christian Theism, and Rape", Michael Martin quotes Greg Bahnsen from his book "Theonomy in Christian Ethics" on how he tried to solve the Euthyphro Dilemma:
"truth of the matter is that good is not independent of God. Certain behavior is good because God approves of it, and God approves of it because it is the creaturely expression of His holiness -- in other words, it is good. To be good is to be like God, and we can only know what behavior is good if God reveals and approves of it. The important point is that good is what God approves and cannot be ascertained independent of Him..."
Martin then notes that Bahnsen's position is "not clear"...
"The quotation suggests both that something is good because God approves of it and that God approves of it because it is good. But these two positions cannot both be maintained at once. Suppose that "X because of Y" means "X is caused by Y". This would mean that when one says that rape is bad because God disapproved of it one means that God caused rape to be bad by disapproving of it. But if one says that God disapproved of rape because it is bad, this would mean that the badness of rape caused God to disapprove of it. But how can what God caused by disapproving of it have caused God to disapprove of it? If "X because of Y" means "Y is the reason for X," a similar problem arises. If the reason for rape being bad is God's disapproval of it, how can it be the case that rape being bad is the reason for God's disapproval of rape?"
So it seems that apologists do not only try to evade the horns of the dilemma, but do they also try to grab them. Long story short, apologists think that they have solved the dilemma by claiming that God is essentially good -- that goodness is in His nature, and everything He commands are, therefore, good.
A common atheist's objection to this is that this kind of approach actually only ups the dilemma to another level. The theists are then faced with an another dilemma similar to the Euthyphro Dilemma, only the subject is God's nature instead of God's commands. "Is God's nature the way it is because it is good, or is it good because it is God's nature?" Same dilemma. By choosing the former, the theist is forced to believe that there is a standard of good that is external to God which determines whether God's nature is good or not. By choosing the latter, the theist is forced to believe that good is simply whatever God is.
The latter position was expanded by Steve Lovell in his paper "C.S. Lewis and the Euthyphro Dilemma". In avoidance of God's commands being charged as arbitrary qua Divine Command Theory, he constructs a modified version of the Divine Command Theory which he calls "Divine Nature Theory" which states that God is essentially good therefore everything He commands is good. He then quotes C.S. Lewis, which is footnoted to his "The Poison of Subjectivism":
"When we attempt to think of a person and a law, we are compelled to think of this person either as obeying the law or as making it. And when we think of Him as making it we are compelled to think of Him either as making it in conformity to some yet more ultimate pattern of goodness (in which case that pattern, and not He, would be supreme) or else as making it arbitrarily … But it is probably just here that our categories betray us. It would be idle, with our merely mortal resources, to attempt a positive correction of our categories. … But it might be permissible to lay down two negations: that God neitherobeys nor creates the moral law. The good is uncreated; it could never have been otherwise; it has in it no shadow of contingency; it lies, as Plato said, on the other side of existence. [But since only God admits of no contingency, we must say that] God is not merely good, but goodness; goodness is not merely divine, but God."
This approach then will lead us to the statement that "good is whatever God is", or to put it simply, "good = God". But this is tautological it makes the statement "God is good" logically equivalent to "God is god", which is equivalent to the second horn of the original dilemma, i.e. whatever God commands is good because it is commanded by God. Therefore, it still doesn't escape the arbitariness of the Divine Command Theory.
In an attempt to evade the circularity of his position, Lovell notes that his position is indeed circular, only that circularity "need not be vicious":
"This argument has a certain appeal, and I must grant that it has a valid point. The point is that any explicit justification of my belief that God is good will be circular. But that point can be happily conceded. Circularity need not be vicious, and the kind of circularity involved here is not in any way peculiar to my position. Indeed, any theory that posits objective values will face the same problem, which is essentially a sceptical one..."
I don't get this. I just don't get this. If a position is tautological, I don't see any reason for it be worthy to be a starting topic for a discussion. The circularity of his position only hurts it.
So, here, I have shown that the first premise of the moral argument, i.e., "if God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist", to be false. God's existence need not have to be necessary for objective moral values qua Euthyphro dilemma, and that its critiques doesn't escape the dilemma by constructing a third option, i.e., God is essentially good, because that would be tautological and is still no different to the Divine Command Theory, which apologists have been trying to avoid for God's commands not be arbitrary.
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