Proof of God?
Inquiries into the Philosophy of Religion
A Concise Introduction
Chapter 5
God And Morality
By
Glenn Rogers, Ph.D.
Copyright
©
2012
Glenn Rogers
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Aristotle referred to man (humankind) as the rational animal,
emphasizing that it is human rationality that sets humans apart
from animals.
Human thinking is significantly different from animal thinking.
Rationality is unique to humans. Another feature that is unique
to humans is that we are moral beings. Human make moral
choices.
Animals make choices. But they do not make moral choices.
They do not ask, what is the right thing to do? Animals do not
attempt to define terms and understand concepts such as right
and wrong, just and unjust, moral and immoral, good and bad.
Animals do not ask questions such as, what is the highest good,
or of what does the good life consist? Humans, however, do ask
such questions.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Where did morality come from? What is its origin? The
materialist paradigm suggests that humans, who were
originally egoistical and amoral, simply became moral over a
period of time… Hobbes’ position (Leviathan).
People came to understand that one way of living (moral living)
was better than the other way (egoistic, amoral living) and
made a choice to be moral.
Is this a satisfactory explanation for the complex moral thinking
and behaviors that transcend egoistic amorality? No.
Suggesting that morality arose from amorality solely on the
basis of rational reflection is rather like suggesting that
rationality arose from non-rational matter or that consciousness
arose from non-conscious matter.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Rationality and morality are both present in human beings. But
to suggest a causal link between them is unwarranted.
If there was a causal link between them—rationality causing
morality--one might expect to see a correspondence between
levels of rationality and morality. People who were trained in
rational analysis (such as philosophers) or those who were just
naturally rationally oriented rather then emotionally oriented
could be expected to be more moral, or at least more morally
aware. However, this is not the case.
Human did not become moral because they are rational and
figured out that morality is better than amorality.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Morality is a feature of humanness as are consciousness and
rationality. We are conscious and rational because of the kind of
beings we are. We are also moral because of the kind of beings
we are.
Because we were created by a thinking substance, a mind, that
is itself conscious, rational, and self-determined, we, as thinking
substances, minds, are also conscious, rational, and selfdetermined, that is, we make moral choices.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Kant
In his Critique of Practical Reason Kant argued that the
existence of morality requires that humans strive for the
summum bonum, the highest good, which they cannot
accomplish on their own and therefore necessitates the
existence of God.
Kant’s argument can be summarized as follows:
1. People are happy when life goes the way they want it to go—
which includes the pursuit of the summum bonum, that is,
achieving the highest moral goodness.
2. But the natural world does not always cooperate with the
individual’s goals for happiness.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Kant
3. And since the individual is not the cause (or in control) of
nature he cannot make the natural world cooperate with his
goals.
4. Because humans are both rational and moral, one of their
goals must be to seek the highest good, that is, to be moral.
Morality is an obligation.
5. Because morality is an obligation, obtaining it must be
possible.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Kant
6. Therefore, there must be a cause of nature, separate from
nature, that is able to bring together these two goals—the
pursuit of morality and the happiness that comes from
achieving it.
7. Therefore, there must be a supreme cause of nature that
includes the pursuit of the highest good (morality) as part of its
causal intentions.
8. This supreme cause of nature must itself represent the
highest good if it is to assist humanity in achieving the highest
good.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Kant
9. The supreme cause is God, who is necessary for the pursuit of
morality and of happiness.
One of the things I find most intriguing about the argument is that
while Kant felt that cosmological, teleological, and ontological
arguments failed in establishing the existence of God, he felt this
argument (an argument unique to him) succeeded in establishing
the existence of God.
Whether or not Kant demonstrated the existence of God based on
the presence and requirements of morality is for the reader to
decide. What he has done, however, is set a modern precedent
for linking morality and God. In his view, God is a moral God who
created moral people and who wants to help them live morally.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Owen
The contemporary philosopher, H. P. Owen, argued that the
reality of morality, including how we conceive it and how we talk
about it, leads to the conclusion that God exists. His argument
may be summarized as follows:
1. Morality makes a claim on us. We feel constrained by it.
There is a pressure to conform.
1a. A simple impersonal force (which is what morality
would be if it exists apart from God) could not generate
pressure to conform.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Owen
1b. Therefore, there must be a personal source for the
moral law—a moral law demands a moral lawgiver.
1c. Furthermore, an impersonal moral force cannot
generate a feeling of willing allegiance as can a personal
source of morality.
2. Human dignity is rooted in the personal. People have
intrinsic value simply because they are human beings.
3. Morality, as part of the human equation, must also be
personal for it to be meaningful.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Owen
4. Moral language (such as reverence, responsibility, guilt)
demonstrates the personal nature of morality.
4a. Reverence: one does not feel reverence toward an
impersonal force.
4b. Responsibility: one does not feel responsibility toward
an impersonal force.
4c. Guilt: one does not feel guilt in relation to an
impersonal force.
5. The reality of moral failure and the paradox it presents
requires a supernatural fix rather than a natural one.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Owen
5a. A moral ought suggests a moral can.
5b. But often we do not… we ought but we don’t.
5c. This kind of failure creates a problem that is
insurmountable if morality derives from an impersonal
force.
5d. Only a personal supernatural source can respond in
a meaningful way to moral failure.
6. There must be, therefore, a personal supernatural source
(God) from which morality derives and that responds personally
to moral failures.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Owen
Whether or not Owen has made his case is up to readers to
decide.
Morality As Evidence Of The Divine
I would argue that a moral God who created moral people is the
only satisfactory explanation for the presence of morality in the
cosmos.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Morality As Evidence Of The Divine
1. Just as the presence of consciousness in the cosmos can
only be accounted for by the existence of an eternallyexisting conscious mind that created other conscious minds,
so the presence of morality in the cosmos can only be
accounted for by an eternally-existing moral mind who
created other moral minds.
1a. A monistic materialistic paradigm contains no
mechanism for explaining the rise of morality out of
egoistic amorality (as argued earlier in relation to
Hobbes) any more than it does for explaining the rise of
consciousness out of non-consciousness.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Morality As Evidence Of The Divine
1b. But a dualistic “mind paradigm” explains the
presence of morality by arguing that that which always
existed and is responsible for all else that exists
(including morality) is a self-determined mind.
1c. A self-determined mind is a moral mind in the sense
that it makes moral choices.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Morality As Evidence Of The Divine
2. Moral minds can only be produced by a previously existing
moral mind.
3. It is necessary, therefore, that a moral mind exist to account
for the presence of morality in the cosmos. That moral mind is
normally referred to as God.
Reviewing my cosmological argument in Chapter 2 will be
helpful in assessing this argument.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Is Divine Morality The Standard For Human Morality
In the Platonic dialog entitled Euthyphro, Socrates asks
Euthyphro a penetrating question that is still discussed by
philosophers today. Socrates asks his young friend, “Is the
pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious
because it is being loved by the gods?”
If we contextualize the question for a contemporary audience it
might be phrased, is a thing moral because God says it is moral,
or does God say it is moral because it is moral? Is a thing
immoral because God says it is immoral, or does God say it is
immoral because it is immoral?
The difference is immensely significant.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Is Divine Morality The Standard For Human Morality
If a thing is moral or immoral because God says so, then God is the
final and ultimate arbitrator of morality. In that case, a thing is right
or wrong simply because God says so. Whatever he says is right
is right. Whatever he says is wrong is wrong simply because he
said so.
If, however, God says a thing is right or wrong because that thing is
right or wrong, then concepts by which a thing can be judged right
or wrong exist outside of or along with God and God acknowledges
the correctness of that conceptual standard. Do the concepts of
rightness and wrongness exist outside of God, or are rightness and
wrongness determined by God?
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Is Divine Morality The Standard For Human Morality
What is the relationship between God and morality? That
question, of course, is related to the question Socrates asked
Euthyphro: does God determine morality or acknowledge
morality?
In thinking, then, about concerns related to God and morality a
few observations are appropriate.
1. Since as I have argued, the eternally-existing mind (God) is
responsible for the presence of other minds (humans) in the
cosmos, and since those humans are moral beings making
moral choices, it seems apparent that morality (perhaps we can
say human moral development) must be a part of God’s design
(goal) for the cosmos.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Is Divine Morality The Standard For Human Morality
2. Even though self-determined humans are free to make their
own moral choices, because God is God, his thoughts on moral
issues and his goals (as far as we might be able to ascertain
them) for human moral development, ought to be taken into
consideration.
3. If, as I have suggested above, there is a third alternative to
Socrates’ question to Euthyphro and moral rightness and
wrongness, morality and immorality, are based on God’s nature
(moral being rooted in what God is and immoral being rooted in
what God is not) then it seems apparent that moral absolutes
must exist.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Is Divine Morality The Standard For Human Morality
4. If Socrates was right and it is an either/or situation, then one
of two possibilities is the case:
1) A thing is moral simply because God says so, which
means if God were to say that infanticide is moral than it
would, in fact, be moral. Few, upon thoughtful reflection,
would select this option.
2) God acknowledges that which is moral (or immoral)
based on a conceptual reality that exists, a moral
conceptual reality that exists just as a mathematical or
logical conceptual reality exists. Given the ramifications
of the first option, this second option seems preferable.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Is Divine Morality The Standard For Human Morality
5. If, in fact, this is the case, then moral absolutes exist.
So whether one selects point 3, that there is a third alternative to
Socrates’ question to Euthyphro, or point 4, option 2, that God
acknowledges morality (or immorality), moral absolutes exist.
Either way you end up with moral absolutes.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Is Divine Morality The Standard For Human Morality
6. Additionally, if moral absolutes do not exist the alternative is
absolute relativity. Whether rooted in Ayn Rand’s Objectivism,
Ethical Egoism, or Cultural Relativity, the result is the same:
moral anarchy.
As the character Ivan Fyodorovich, in Dostoyevsky’s The
Brothers Karamazov observed, “…for every individual… who
does not believe in God or immortality, the moral law of nature
must immediately be changed into the exact contrary of the
former religious law, and that egoism, even to crime, must
become not only lawful but even recognized as the inevitable…
There is no virtue if there is no immortality.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Is Divine Morality The Standard For Human Morality
Either there are moral absolutes (some things that are always right
and other that are always wrong no matter the context or
circumstance) or everything is relative and subject to humankind’s
subjective determinations.
If everything is subjective, you inevitably end up with genocide,
ethnocide, infanticide, sadism, masochism, and any other kind of ism
or cide that can be conceived being advocated and practiced. History
has proven this to be the case.
And that being the case, any argument that leads to the absurd or
ridiculous conclusion or outcome (in this case, that absolute moral
relativity is reality) is a fallacious argument.
Proof of God?
God and Morality
Is Divine Morality The Standard For Human Morality
Absolute relativity is absurd as it gets. There is no middle
ground here. Either there are moral absolutes or there is
absolute relativity. And absolute relativity is simply absurd. It is
not a viable moral option.
Genocide--Rwanda
Ethnocide--Germany
Infanticide--China
Proof of God?
God and Morality
An Abductive Conclusion
What I have argued here is basically this: that to suggest that
morality just developed as a by-product of rational reflection is
as unlikely as consciousness evolving from non-conscious
matter.
The reality of morality is evidence of an eternally-existing mind
that is a moral mind. And that moral mind, because it is the
source of all else that exists, is the source of morality because it
is the source of other moral minds that exist.
The best explanation for the presence of morality in the cosmos
is God.