The Moral Argument: Why Good Suggests God
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- Опубліковано 18 вер 2024
- This is a lecture I gave on the moral argument for God's existence at Reasons to Believe. Check out the great ministry of RTB here: reasons.org/
Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus.
Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai.
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00:00 - Introduction
I’ve appreciated your approach to apologetics so much Gavin. I mostly appreciate how both my heart and my mind are treated as equals and taken into account. Too often arguments (from both sides really) rely on only one.
Thanks Caleb!
One of the most beautiful defences of God I've ever heard articulated. Wow.
I love your approach to the argument. I think the moral argument depends on the emotional aspect as well as the logical, and you did a great job expressing both.
I love your other content the most but I’m a big fan of these as well, thanks for sharing!!
Thanks! I wrestle with wondering how much desire there is for videos in the realm of general apologetics among my viewers, so I appreciate the feedback!
@@TruthUnites my vote is do whatever you enjoy the most. While I can’t speak for others, I think it’s a safe bet that any content you think worthwhile to create is worthwhile for me to watch / listen to. My favorite content is on Catholicism / Protestant discussion/debate and anything church history but seriously, I’d say do whatever you have time for and enjoy…especially with a very full family + ministry..:no need to try and figure out what “we” want. I more so said that comment to let you know I appreciate your time and efforts across the board.
@@OPiguy35 Thanks so much for the feedback and kind words!
Excellent Gavin! I’m just finishing up Timothy Keller’s book, Hope in Times of Fear, and this very much goes hand in hand with it. Thanks!
Thanks!
So timely for me. One of my favorites of yours.
Thanks Gavin. I appreciate your sensitivity and approach to these topics.
God bless you, Gavin. I am 62 years old, a saved, regenerated reprobate, and I have many conversations with young people from all over the world online. It is so troublesome and wearying having to navigate their preconceived notions of God and the Bible. They seem to not get any joy from anything, with either a sense of entitlement...that many of them actually _recognize_ as "not good," but have it foisted on them from above and/or without; or a sense of grievance for historical and contemporary wrongs, real and imagined, which, again, many see as "not good," but in both cases simply are not offered an alternative. I just pray that somewhere in the midst of all the words and conversations, something sparks that sense of wonder and awe that all the great artists, poets, and saints have encountered on some meaningful level.
Keep it up, my friend! May God richly bless your ministry with much fruit!
Absolutely brilliant video!!! Thank you for this.
Beautiful and Brilliant
It is important to note that there is a nuance to this argument.
Often, Atheists will counter it by stating something similar to, "Believing in God doesn't make you a good person. Plus, there are many decent acting individuals that do not believe in God, or who believe in a different God than you do."
Here, it is important to note that the question which this argument seeks to answer is not "Can you DO good without believing in God?" But rather, "Is it reasonable to believe that there is an absolute and Objective Moral Standard of good over evil without God's existence?"
What utter piffle, "Morality" is all about our ability to differentiate and identify what is the "right" or "wrong" and then applying it in our lives with regards to the decisions and actions we take.
Now imagine if I said the following vacuous statement ..... 👇👇
_"there is definitely an objective moral course of action in _*_X_*_ situation" ,,,, ,, "I am unable to demonstrate objectively what that is, nor can i differentiate it from all the other incorrect immoral alternatives but it's definitely there somewhere"_
Just what use is that to anyone ?? How do we apply such ideology in life ? In moral dilemma's ?? 🙄🤔
I find theists making objective moral claims will frequently appeal to the concept of some vague general non specific deistic unfalsifiable "God". They do this whilst simultaneously holding very specific beliefs about a very specific "God" and flip from one to the other as and when it suits their narative.
They are too disingenuous to actually state WHICH "Gods" percieved whims we must all adhere and aspire to. Instead they hide behind the ambiguity of said non specific "God" for fear of the subjective nature of their beliefs being exposed.
This non specific god may agree with my moral views about our current proposed gods scriptures containing unjust and imoral teachings, for all we know. Or maybe his objective morals could be something that we all would find abhorrent who can say.
*This kind of moral objectivity would be a bit like getting a set of flat pack wardrobes with no construction manual. Utterly useless,* we would just have make do the best we can ourselves regardless of whether the manuals exist or not is irrelevant without knowledge of what they say. A non specific god is of no more use when determining morality than a god that does not exist.
"Good" and "Evil" are words used to describe movement or points on a reference standard or scale conceptualised by man that is based upon our shared goal with regards wellbeing and the values it incorporates like empathy altruism reciprocity equality, respect ect
Whether an action is "Good" is entirely relative to the desired objective / goal one is trying to achieve, the specific situation our levels of information and understanding and the range of posible alternative actions and outcomes available. Whilst "God" is also a man made concept, the percieved whims of your "God" do not reflect these shared values and thus are irrelevant in any discussion of morality.
Would you disagree ? What outcome do YOU think we are striving for when we use the the terms "good" or "Evil" if not human wellbeing
This was amazing, thank you Gavin and God bless you
Thanks for reading
I don't understand why skeptics think the Euthyphro dilemma is so powerful. They're trying to show that our conception of God and good is flawed. All it does is give us a coin toss. Maybe God does just impose his arbitrary standard on us. What does that prove? Does it prove there is no God? Does it prove there will be no judgement? No.
Let me give you a scenario to demonstrate that moral "justification" and moral "good" do NOT depend on any "God" 👍
let's say the there is indeed a "creator god and let's say we all become aware of this one true "creator God" and understand implicitly and precisely how he wants us to live our lives and the rules that govern this but ..................
We also learn that following said rules would infact lead to humanity suffering an eternity of torture and suffering. 😱😱 Would it still be a "GOOD" thing to follow said rules ??? Would we be "justified" in following them ?? 🤔
*I would emphatically say NO to both questions* Indeed the total opposite would be the case following the rules would be a "BAD" thing and we would be entirely justified in NOT following them.
This is because the words "Good" and "Bad" in actuality refer to our desires with regard to "WELLBEING" and the actualization of a situation that conforms with said desires, regarding wellbeing and the values it incorporates not the perceived desires or nature of a "creator"
Now let's change our "God" to the Christian one, now we recognise that *EVEN IF* he exists and the things he tells us ( his laws ) would lead to an eternal paradise, it would only be "GOOD" to follow said laws because of their conforming with our perception of "WELLBEING" and we would only be "justified" in following said God if we determined this to be the case, so..........
Now call me fussy but I don't think its "Good" to kill children for making fun of baldness ( as the biblical God did ) Nor to own people as "PROPERTY" for forced labour. For the life of me I can't see how the execution of people who gather sticks on a sabbath could ever be said to be "Good" 🤔
I could go on and on and on .....
@@trumpbellend6717 "Good" and "bad" do not "in actuality" refer to our desires. It's simply the way you're using it. Philosophers and theologians have traditionally used them as meaning far more than that. "Good" is what is RIGHT. Sometimes the right thing is not what we desire. If there is no God, if we're just meat bags containing chemical reactions, then pleasure and pain are just as meaningless as interested and bored. They're just chemicals doing what chemicals do, devoid of any moral meaning. That does not make something "bad" just because we don't enjoy it unless we define the word down. Well, some people enjoy some ... very un-nice things. So you've lost the ability to call what absolute monsters do "bad". Your system doesn't work.
Morality is the cognitive process of differentiating between human intentions, decisions, and actions that are appropriate from those inappropriate. The recognition and evaluation of the consequences our choices have with regards to ourselves and others. My NOT believing in a mythological god in no way impedes the ability of forming such moral assessments.
We are self aware conscious pain and emotion feeling individuals capable of love or hate, incredible acts of altruism or depravity. It's how we navigate through life and these potential extremes that define us, not our belief ( or lack of ) in your specific subjective invisible "God"
Also, the hamburgler humor made me smile- the wendy's comment
The euthyphro dilemma still stands, even if theists ground the “good” in God’s nature/character.
Also, if the “good” is grounded in God (a subject), then morality is subjective.
Yes, but I think that response is somewhat led by a misguided view of God, I think its important to note that God is external to reality (Creation), and is a necessary being, which I think tempers the bite of it somewhat, I don't think its a complete answer to the dilemma, but for me its more than enough to resolve it
@@yeetoburrito9972 if something (or someone) is “external to reality” then how does it make sense to say that they/it exist at all?
Really enjoyed this talk, as an Agnostic Atheist I disagree with most of your points, I feel like you could look at lot more at counter arguments to your ideas, there's a lot of ideas out there. Feel free to question me on my own ideas on this - I don't think morality is objective.
early on, Gavin says "it's ok to starve wicked people". he says this as a joke, but this is thing that there is fundamental disagreement on amongst people. the argument that we have a shared morality seems undermined by the fact that there are these questions that we don't agree on
All people don't have to have a shared morality for his argument to be correct. Just like how some people disagree on the shape of the earth, that doesn't mean that the earth doesn't have an objective shape.
@@theoverreactor8731 the difference is that we have ways of determining the shape of the earth besides what anyone happens to believe about it. what ways have we of determining morality other than what anyone believes about it?
@@richardhunter132 Well, it's not like we determine the shape of the Earth, it's more like we discover it through science. My only point in bringing up the shape of the Earth was to give an example of why all people not having shared beliefs about the shape of the Earth doesn't mean that there isn't an objective shape.
@@theoverreactor8731 this is true, but if you listen to people who make the Moral Argument, the main reason they give for it being true is the idea that there is broad agreement on morals. we have other ways of determining the shape of the world than people's beliefs. what other way do we have of determining morality?
@@richardhunter132 I've never heard or read a moral argument from an apologist who's said that all people having a shared morality is the main reason for why objective morality is true. Usually God is brought up as the #1 reason for objective morality being true according to most moral apologetic arguments. So, morality would be grounded in God's nature, and most people innately knowing the difference between good and evil would be a secondary argument.
Interesting how the first sin was to “become like Elohim, knowing good and evil”.
The fact we know what good and evil are is the means which bring us to salvation. We all have a conscience since the fall, and we all know good and evil (but choose evil). However, through the Law, evil was shown to us to be exceedingly evil, so that through our knowledge of evil we might be brought to Good; through Christ.
Well my "conscience" tells me that *"Buy your slaves from the heathen nations that surround you"* Is not nor ever was a "moral" instruction and certainly not a moral reference standard that anyone should adhere or aspire to. Do you agree *YES or NO* ?? 🤔
Greek Neoplatonism said same the good the one the beauty.
Unrelated, but Gavin, can you do a video responding to the Roman Catholic Eliakim typology argument for the papacy?
have already done so in my "Response to Criticism of my Case Against the Papacy" video. See point 5 there. Also have a brief video with Josh Schooping addressing it recently, and have touched on it elsewhere. Hope that helps.
Yup that helps, thanks for everything you do brother!
How can we point to a source of morality outside ourselves?
Is it the fact they are objective?
Morals deal with problems down here on Earth. Any and everything pertaining to morals appears to be a fuller realization of Our Own Nature..and not that of another being!
Here's a question:
How do we know God is good?
What is the standard we use to say, "Ahh..I SEE that God is Good"?
The fact that objective morals exist is only proof that they exist..IN US!!
The argument that something we recognize in ourselves, that we experience for ourselves points to something outside ourselves is lacking here I'm afraid
That something exists in us is not a rational argument for obeying it. Strong sexual impulses exist in many males. We cannot rationally conclude these impulses should always be obeyed.
The difference with morals is that, while they exist in us, there is the nearly universal that they *should* exist in everyone, and there is something *wrong* when they don't exist in a neurologically atypical individual. Therefore, morals exist in us as well as beyond us.
Major Premise: Amoralism is the only rational atheism.
Minor Premise:
(a) You believe in being rational. (e.g. "")
(b) You reject amoralism. (e.g. "")
Conclusion: You reject atheism.
@@Mygoalwogel Hmm.. I'm not sure.. but it seems like you're arguing for objective morality.
The problem for me is..I grant you objective morality. However, I don't see how its presence says anything..or points to a being outside us.
If we think we have gained insight into objective morality..okay..(but how can it be said to be anything else but a commentary on oursleves?)
Are we truly arguing that Our perception of how we ought to treat each other says something about someone, or something other than ourselves?
@@thuscomeguerriero
Take this scenario:
A neurologically atypical person enjoys hurting animals. He has no sense that it is wrong. You see him hurting an animal.
Option 1: If "[your] perception of how [you] ought to treat each other says something about [him]," then objective morality does exist "outside [you]," and you have the moral right/responsibility to stop him.
Option 2: If "[your] perception of how [you] ought to treat each other says [nothing] about [him]," then he is free to hurt animals as he pleases.
I assume that you go with Option 1. But, there is no rational atheistic way to justify Option 1. His lack of moral sense cannot be proven to be better or worse than your having moral sense. It's just different. Also, the animal will not remember being hurt after he kills it, nor will it care.
Major Premise: Amoralism is the only rational atheism.
Minor Premise:
(a) You believe in being rational.
(b) You reject amoralism.
Conclusion: You reject atheism.
@@thuscomeguerriero I edited some mistakes in my comment above.
@@Mygoalwogel
I really don't see the force of the argument tho...
Objective Morals (O M)
exist. Ok..
...How does my perception of how someone other than myself ought to behave say something about anything other than ourselves?
It's still a commentary on Our perception of moral duties.
What I'm trying to convey is whether we think morals are subjective or objective, they are still Seen by Us..perceived by us.
You seem to believe that because morals are objective they point to something, or someone outside the human race. Why?
Nearly every species of creature on earth is social. What group of animal do we see that exists in social anarchy?
Because the animal, bird, insect, fish realm seem to adhere to a social structure do we say they perceive a transcendental realm of values the source of which is in heaven?
Social structure inbedded in nature is not proof any such thing..so it seems to me.
Not only do atheists have a grounding for objective morality, it's the exact same grounding that theists have.
All that is needed to prove this is to turn the questions back on the theist and follow it to the logical conclusion by repeatedly asking "why does that matter?"
The inherent value of concsious experience, and eventually well-being, is the grounding of morality because it's the grounding of value itself.
God's decrees, his authority, his design, etc are all completely meaningless to us (by definition) if they do not promise a better concsious experience.
You simply cannot defend the relevance of moral truth claims without eventually appealing to the value of experiencing well-being.
If God gave us objective morality, then that only matters if following his rules results in rewards (well being) because it serves our ultimate self interests and fullfills our ideals. and if disobeying those rules has consquences (suffering). This is also the basis of the appeal to the afterlive in Heaven or Hell, it's a pure appeal to the value of experience.
There are obviously differences in the details between the atheist and theist positions at times but the foundation is exactly the same because it is the only coherent foundation on offer.
Thoughts?
I don't think morality can be "grounded" in well-being. The notion of something's "being-well" presupposes (and thus cannot explain) our evaluative language.
Our evaluative language needs to be reduced to or identified with some non-evaluative language (e.g., the pleasure and pain of utilitarianism), or it should be said that our evaluative language is ultimately groundless (not in the sense of being non-existent but in the Moorean sense of being simple and irreducible.)
Conscious experience sounds more promising, though you've not developed it. What sorts of conscious experiences explain our moral language? You can't simply say "the good and bad ones!" That's circular. You might think (like the utilitarian) that it is experiences of pain and pleasure. What's the proposal? I'll say I'm immediately skeptical of any attempt to reduce our moral language to some subset of conscious states, for the reason that plenty of moral claims have to do with unconscious or non-conscious beings. It's wrong to cheat on one's wife--even if they would never find out; it's wrong to disrespect the bodily integrity of a person in a coma--even though they're unconscious; it'd be wrong to burn down a beautiful forest, even if no one would care or suffer.
Rather than reducing our moral language to talk about certain states of consciousness or well-being, the first which is insufficient and the second which is circular, I think you should say that goodness or badness is simply a simple, primitive property certain things have as part of their intrinsic natures.
This view does have some issues, though. Is it really true that, say, unpleasant states are intrinsically and essentially bad?
Imagine the state of affairs of burning one's hand. This state of affairs has certain properties. It's composed of a person, their hand, a fire's burning, etc. Some of these properties are non-essential. Though this state of affairs might have obtained on Monday, 28 July, 1978, it might have obtained some other time. However, some of these are essential. You cannot have a state of affairs of burning one's hand that lacks as a part a fire, for instance, or a hand. However, other than these properties, I'm not sure why we'd say to be a state of affairs of burning one's hand, it'd need the additional property of badness. That has the odd implication that a near-identical state of affairs, differing only in its lack of moral properties, would not actually be a state of affairs of burning one's hand. If an adequate description of the state's intrinsic nature can be given simply by appealing to its obvious, observable features, why claim that the description is incomplete? Divine command theory would avoid this view by rejecting the claim that moral properties are constitutive of the nature of things, abstracted from their relation to God's commands.
A second issue with this view is that it is needlessly complex. If I'm right in saying that moral discourse is too wide in scope to reduce to any one thing, that means that you'll have to say all sorts of things are good and bad, though they're not so because of some unifying reason, but as a matter of brute necessity or contingency. Divine command theory, on the other hand, can explain the diversity of goods and bads in a simple, unified way, grounding the diversity of true moral claims all in God's will. Divine command theory therefore has an advantage over its rival.
As for your final point, that God's decrees are meaningless if they do not "promise a better conscious experience," I cannot say I understand it. We're discussing the grounding of morality, not the justice of injustice of a conscious afterlife. Perhaps your point is that, unless God's will establishes that conscious experience is valuable, then we have a defeater for divine command theory. In that case, what I will say is that I find it to be a bad criterion for judging moral theories by, given its vagueness and circularity and irrelevant to judging divine command theory. Divine command theory is an account of moral discourse's grounds--not its content. It's compatible, potentially, with whatever moral claims happen to be true. This question conflates meta-ethics with applied ethics.
@@joycelilyandrewes8667 thanks for the thoughtful message. I can't say I followed every point that you've made since you are clearly more formally educated in this than I am but I'm confident that there's some common ground to be found here.
Perhaps if I back up, and try to explain my view more clearly, we can disperse some of the confusion.
Consciousness is the necessary cornerstone of ethics because it's the cornerstone of any value that a particular moral theory might aim to maximize. Remove consciousness from the equation and moral truth disappears as well.
Ethics also has an inherent implication of relevance to each of us, and that relevance is rooted in the purpose of ethics-to establish and sustain the ideal community by answering the question "how should we treat each other?"
The "ideal community" in this case is one of "well-being" where we each satisfy the needs of our shared nature without hindering that same in others as we strive towards self-actualization and self-transcendence. One in which the "moral sphere" is perpetually intact. In other words, ethics strives to satisfy the ideals of our nature (relationships, love, health, creativity, etc), and it serves our ultimate interests both individually and collectively.
Let me know if that is at all helpful and maybe we can take it piece by piece if you're up for continuing the conversation.
OK lastly, the issue I see with Divine Command theory is that it doesn't appear to add anything functional to this ethical structure. It attributes an origin to moral truth but without saying anything new about why that moral truth is relevant to us, or about what the goal of moral action is.
The elements I laid out produce a structure that is built entirely in the present. Whether god exists and gave us moral prescriptions, or whether there is no god and we are alone in the cosmos, has no bearing on the coherence of this moral structure. So I guess what I'm saying is that I don't understand what problem DCT is claiming to solve.
We can leave the question of God's existence completely unanswered and it seems to have essentially no effect on the foundations of moral truth.
your ideal community is just another opinion to an atheist. to a theist it is not an opinion. morality is not objective if it's not grounded in an ultimate external law. you can find agreement with other atheists on your definition of an ideal society, but you can't say someone else is wrong for wanting to steal or murder. in fact, your moral law is just a believe. because it is not rooted in any obligation. You can state: evolution has driven us to love and care for eachother, but to state that someone has to follow the optimal state for evolution is just creating your own religious believe without God.
@@405servererror I don't think theism solves the problems you're aiming at. Why do we have an "obligation" to obey god's moral laws? You can say "because he's the creator" but I can still answer "so what, why does that mean I should obey his commands?" then you might say soemthing like "because he loves us etc" and we can go back and forth but eventually you will be forced to say "we have to obey his commands because it's in our own interest and will produce the ideal community" which you might call "the kingdom of god" or "heaven". You are forced to make the exact same appeal to well-being and conscious experience that non-theistic morality is based on. The only way to avoid that is to claim that moral truth has nothing to do with human flourishing which renders your moral claims meaningless.
We're actually using the same ingredients here, the theist just adds the claim that the ingredients come from god
@@landonpontius2478 You just hit on the ultimate problem with theistic morality. No matter how much the theists tries to twist and turn it and put the naturalist on the spot, theistic morality is ultimately every bit as built upon axioms as any secular theory of objective morality is. The theist cannot answer the question "why ought we obey God" without either resorting to circular reasoning or tacitly abandoning theistic morality and instead appealing to the kinds of things that the naturalist would tend to base their moral theories on. So when the theist says something like "what if someone doesn't care about well-being", the naturalist can just retort "what if someone doesn't care about what God wants"? And if the theist then responds that that doesn't make it any less 'wrong', then once again the naturalist can say the exact same thing about the theist's hypothetical. There is no symmetry breaker there that can be defended non-circularly that I can see.