Argument from morality - Definition and Overview

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The argument from morality is one of several arguments for the existence of God. These arguments fall under the larger category of philosophy of religion.

The argument

The argument from morality can be expressed as follows:

1. If God exists, then God and God alone decides what is (truly) right and wrong. Without God there could be no ultimate standards of morality.
2. So, if people assumed that God does not exist, then they would be doomed to a life without fixed moral standards. They would have no reasons to think that lying, stealing, or even murder are wrong. According to this view, nonbelievers contribute to the corruption of themselves and the entire culture. (Cf the famous quote associated with Dostoevsky, "If God does not exist, everything is permitted".)
3. Given the above, it is necessary that God exists if society is to have stable standards of morality.
4. Everyone in society either obviously needs or already has stable standards of morality. Therefore, God exists.

That is the basis of theological ethics, or alternatively, the divine command theory. The argument is valid if and only if the following assumptions are correct:

1. God exists.
2. People are able to know God's commands, and the sources of such knowledge are infallible.
3. Something is right if and only if God commands it; something is wrong if and only if God forbids it; and something is morally permissible if and only if God neither commands nor forbids it.
4. God's standards are stable; God's commands are as valid today as they did when the infallible sources of information were created.
5. There is no alternative source of moral and ethical ideas and action; all other systems such as utilitarianism are invalid.
6. Stable standards of morality are required for the universe's existence.

Circular reasoning

One of the assumptions of the argument, as expressed above, is "God exists". This is stricly speaking an instance of circular reasoning, since the argument attempts to show precisely that God exists.

God is considered a necessary entity by most believers. That is, God exists and cannot not exist (the opposite of this would be a contingent entity, such as the Earth or the Sun — which exist but could very well not exist). So believers consider the argument valid anyway, since it cannot help but make the assumption.

Contrary evidence

The most important prediction that the argument makes can be expressed as follows: since God is the source of morality, then someone who believes that (and behaves as if) God does not exist, i. e. a nonbeliever, is bound to behave less morally than a believer. Therefore, nonbelievers should perform immoral actions more frequently than believers. Some of these immoral actions fall under the category of secular crime in most legislations around the world (such as homicide, rape and theft); others are punished in some but considered private actions in others (homosexual intercourse, drug consumption); other are considered immoral by certain religions (such as divorce). If the argument from morality holds, nonbelievers should be found to perform (and sometimes caught performing) these actions more frequently than believers.

The prediction has been found to fail in the following cases:

• In the United States, a 1999 poll by the Barna Research Group showed that in fact believers get divorced more often than nonbelievers.
• If prison statistics in the USA are reliable, religious people are imprisoned by at least 40 times the rate of atheists.

Statistics for other measures of morality provide similar results.

When assessing these tests, some issues must be taken into account:

• How terms such as "religious", "nonreligious", "atheist", "agnostic", "believer", "nonbeliever", etc. defined, if at all.
• Whether the tests assume that there no factors correlated with religiosity or belief that may influence the measurement.
• Whether society prosecutes and punishes the "right" crimes (are laws moral? are the police, the judicial system, etc. biased towards believers or nonbelievers?).

The last point may be raised by some believers as an objection. It is entirely possible that those who make the laws are failing to conform with the correct moral standards (for example, most modern societies do not punish divorce or homosexual behaviour, which many believers consider morally wrong).

External links

• Moral Argument by C. S. Lewis (http://apologetics.johndepoe.com/morality.html)
• Atheist morality (http://www.stardestroyer.net/Creationism/Morality/CrimeAndDivorce.shtml)
• Barna Research Poll Results (http://www.valleyskeptic.com/christdivorce.html)