The Moral Argument for God's Existence

@wolfgang59 said
You may as well ask "which football fans support the correct team?"

Ipswich Town, of course.

@rwingett

Look at the huge number of moral systems mankind has had throughout his history.

A large number of different moral codes in history doesn't argue for there being no transcendent moral standard.

You might say that it confirms that because there is such diversity a ultimate moral standard DOES exist.

Cannibalism has been accepted and condemned. Slavery, human sacrifice, the killing of opponents, vast inequalities in wealth, torture, and a host of other things that we now view as "bad" have been either been tolerated or encouraged.

Let's take cannibalism. I have heard that in some societies cannibalism is a way for the eater to ingest the positive character traits of the person he is eating.

You see, underneath the peculiar WAY to obtain high moral characteristics is the belief that they EXIST. It is only the WAY to attain them which is barbaric.

In the West we do a hand shake to manifest mutual respect.
In the East they do a bow to show the same.

The ways to show mutual respect do vary. But that mutual respect SHOULD be shown is a constant.

Pointing to diversity of moral codes does not argue for there being no transcendent standard of moral goodness.

We are foundering around as best we can, without guidance, in conditions that are specific to different eras.

That moral codes invented are often inadequate is not proof that no transcendent absolute OUGHT exists. It may just mean that no one is ABLE to live up to what all societies believe OUGHT to be done.

"These codes are cumbersome and not always practical or livable" may be an legitimate compliant. But this is a statement on human imperfection not on the non-existence of a universal standard of what OUGHT to be.

There are no doubt a host of issues we now accept that future generations will look back upon and shake their heads in disbelief that we would willingly accept such barbarisms.

I agree. But that does not argue for there being no God and no Ultimate Governor of a transcendent moral standard.

Often objections to the moral argument for God's existence involve issues which are really tangential.

The ten commandments end with "You shall not COVET." Now we all have transgressed this command. For no one is fully satisfied in God alone.

The question then is what has gone wrong with man that he cannot live up to the law of God. His failure to live fully as he OUGHT to live doesn't prove God does not exist. It may demonstrate that man has fallen far from being in harmony with God for some reason.

I do not claim to "know" whether or not there is a god, but the universe behaves exactly as you would expect if there were none.

Its creation behaves as if it was DELIBERATELY calibrated to the infinitesimally fine degree of TUNING that humanity might exist.

That, in spite of this fine tuning, turmoil among humans exists and between humans may indicate something is wrong with us. It does not have to indicate God does not exist.

It may indicate that FREEDOM of will can lead to chaos if man's will chooses to go contrary to the will of the Creator.

@rwingett

Because I see no evidence that god exists. And since human morality obviously changes over time, we would have to conclude that your hypothetical god either has no influence on that morality, or that his own morality is likewise changeable.

This is not a necessary conclusion. It could be that God exists but you rationalize Atheism thereby excluding yourself from having to listen to God's communication with you.

Because I see no evidence that god exists.

What is the evidence that you are without a vested interest in the matter? What is the evidence that you are completely objective about God's existence?

@rwingett said
Because I see no evidence that god exists. And since human morality obviously changes over time, we would have to conclude that your hypothetical god either has no influence on that morality, or that his own morality is likewise changeable.

Some have very convincingly rebutted that, behind the differing expressions, there is actually a core of universal moral principles that all cultures really do live by. Even if this is not the case, however, the objection is not logically valid. Many cultures around the world have fundamentally different ideas of why people get sick, but that does not make germ theory invalid nor render the cause of sickness to be a mere social construct. The fact that many cultures today still do not believe in germs, and that most cultures throughout history did not, doesn't change the fact that germs exist and that they cause sickness. In the same way, just because a bunch of cultures get morality partially or even wholly wrong does not mean that morality does not exist. Morality is very real, and most all of us are actually quite sure of it. This is the rational position.

https://carm.org/moral-argument

It has been argued that evil is not a thing God created but is the absence of good.

Someone said evil is like the rust on a car. If you take all the rust out of a car you have a better car. If you try to take all the car out of the rust, you have nothing.

Or evil is like the cut on your finger. You get a better finger if you remove all the cut from your finger. If you try to take the finger out of all the cut you have nothing.

Evil makes sense upon the backround of good. So we often describe it as the negation of good things. You see this in the words IMmoral, or UNjust, or UNfair, or DIShonest.

Evil cannot exist then except against the backround of Good.

@dj2becker said
The moral argument for the existence of God is the argument that God is necessary for objective moral values or duties to exist. Since objective moral values and duties do exist, God must also exist. The argument is not claiming that people who don't believe in God cannot do kind things or that atheists are generally morally worse people that religious people are. The argum ...[text shortened]... a real standard of good does exist to make "doing good" possible.

https://carm.org/moral-argument

Besides the Christian Bible, what other sources for these "objective moral values" are there?

@dj2becker said
The moral argument for the existence of God is the argument that God is necessary for objective moral values or duties to exist. Since objective moral values and duties do exist, God must also exist. The argument is not claiming that people who don't believe in God cannot do kind things or that atheists are generally morally worse people that religious people are. The argum ...[text shortened]... a real standard of good does exist to make "doing good" possible.

https://carm.org/moral-argument

Presuppositionalists often use this.

The world simply ceases to make sense when God is taken out of the equation, right. One can no longer have a sensible discussion or understanding of the world without the assumption that there is an objective truth or reality.

It works well against a specific style of atheist -- most of them, actually, since the bulk of atheists borrow very heavily from the Western traditions on the topic which are rooted very much in Christianity.

@philokalia said
The world simply ceases to make sense when God is taken out of the equation, right. One can no longer have a sensible discussion or understanding of the world without the assumption that there is an objective truth or reality.

You are being subjective here, which - don't misunderstand me - is totally fine.

@fmf said
You are being subjective here, which - don't misunderstand me - is totally fine.

But when a rapist is being subjective in their moral assessment of rape suddenly it’s not fine and we all know why.

@sonship said

Cannibalism has been accepted and condemned. Slavery, human sacrifice, the killing of opponents, vast inequalities in wealth, torture, and a host of other things that we now view as "bad" have been either been tolerated or encouraged.

Let's take cannibalism. I have heard that in some societies cannibalism is a way for the eater to ingest the positive cha ...[text shortened]... diversity of moral codes does not argue for there being no transcendent standard of moral goodness.

There is no evidence that cannibals eat their victims to obtain their “moral higher code”.

You are making that up.

@sonship said

Because I see no evidence that god exists.

What is the evidence that you are without a vested interest in the matter? What is the evidence that you are completely objective about God's existence?

What is the evidence that YOU are?

@sonship said
It has been argued that evil is not a thing God created but is the absence of good.

It’s a pity that you are unable to extrapolate quality thinking like this to your own entrenched dogma about evil, hell and eternal torture.

If you could just STOP.. for one moment and read your own words you could actually gain a new and enormously helpful perspective.