The Moral Argument

View the Fine Tuning Argument animation video:

View Leibniz’ Contingency Argument animation video:

Reasonable Faith features the work of philosopher and theologian Dr. William Lane Craig and aims to provide in the public arena an intelligent, articulate, and uncompromising yet gracious Christian perspective on the most important issues concerning the truth of the Christian faith today, such as:

-the existence of God
-the meaning of life
-the objectivity of truth
-the foundation of moral values
-the creation of the universe
-intelligent design
-the reliability of the Gospels
-the uniqueness of Jesus
-the historicity of Jesus' resurrection
-the challenge of religious pluralism

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Transcript: The Moral Argument

Can you be good without God? Let’s find out! [Atheist helps kitten out of tree.] Absolutely astounding! There you have it - undeniable proof that you can be good without believing in God!

But wait!

The question isn’t “Can you be good without believing in God.” The question is: “Can you be good without God?”

See, here’s the problem: If there is no God, what basis remains for objective good or bad, right or wrong? If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.

And here’s why.

Without some objective reference point, we have no way of saying that something is really up or down. God’s nature provides an objective reference point for moral values – it’s the standard against which all actions and decisions are measured. But if there’s no God, there’s no objective reference point. All we’re left with is one person’s viewpoint – which is no more valid than any one else’s viewpoint.

This kind of morality is subjective, not objective. It’s like a preference for strawberry ice cream – the preference is in the subject, not the object. So it doesn’t apply to other people. In the same way, subjective morality applies only to the subject; it’s not valid or binding for anyone else.

So, in a world without God, there can be “… no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” (Richard Dawkins, Atheist)[1]

God has expressed his moral nature to us as commands. These provide the basis for moral duties. For example, God’s essential attribute of love is expressed in his command to “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). This command provides a foundation upon which we can affirm the objective goodness of generosity, self-sacrifice, and equality. And we can condemn as objectively evil greed, abuse, and discrimination.

This raises a problem: is something good just because God wills it, or does God will something because it is good? The answer is: neither one! Rather, God wills something because He is good.

God is the standard of moral values just as a live musical performance is the standard for a high-fidelity recording. The more a recording sounds like the original, the better it is. Likewise, the more closely a moral action conforms to God’s nature, the better it is.

But if atheism is true, there is no ultimate standard so there can be no moral obligations or duties. Who or what lays such duties upon us? No one.

Remember, for the atheist, humans are just accidents of nature – highly evolved animals. But animals have no moral obligations to one another. When a cat kills a mouse, it hasn’t done anything morally wrong. The cat’s just being a cat. If God doesn’t exist then we should view human behavior in the same way. No action should be considered morally right or wrong.

But the problem is – good and bad, right and wrong do exist! Just as our sense experience convinces us that the physical world is objectively real, our moral experience convinces us that moral values are objectively real. Every time you say, “Hey, that’s not fair! That’s wrong! That’s an injustice!” you affirm your belief in the existence of objective morals.

[JSRINTX]

I find it kind of funny a lot of atheists on here saying this video was dumb, there is objective morality and it's whatever I decided it is. Then they list a bunch of different subjective criteria that they have made up.

[badromenful]

And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.
— Mark 10:18

[doctorlove]

I'm hoping WLC could enlighten me on a few points:
- how do I discover God's "moral commands"? Through scripture, prayer, revelation or does everyone just naturally know what they are?
- how many moral commands are there?
- what are they?
- do they all carry equal weight?
- do they require any interpretation? and if so, who's interpretation is objectively correct?

[ilobmirt]

Which specific god is the right objective reference point? If gods between each other differ from one moral nature to another, wouldn't that mean to have god also make it subjective nature as well. How can one tell if they are living in a set of subjective morals or objective morals?

[plzenjoygameosu]

Great video. Moral realism is best explained under the paradigm of theism given a PSR. I think Josh Rasmussen’s formulation of the argument under his resolution to the gap problem is the best explanation for an objectivist view of metaethics. Excellent video!

[meden-lxge]

Great video. One question: at 3:15 he mentions that animals have no moral obligations, which is why it’s normal for example, for a cat to kill a mouse. But that’s for the cat to eat the mouse, much like how we kill other species to eat them. And this isn’t considered immoral. Yet in this video he compares a cat killing a mouse to eat, with a human killing another human. How is this comparable? Would it not be a better comparison to compare a human killing another human with a cat killing another cat?

[Pro-Western]

I am theist.
Most humans have empathy. People without empathy don't understand why people shouldn't be killed. (But they don't kill people to avoid social exclusion.)

[opvgclz]

This video will grow old like good fine wine!!!
- Teaching and showing this to my middle school bible study kids this sunday

[tz__tech]

I always wanted to make these animation but i dont know how🤔

[c_centers]

What about the categorical imperative? "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you". That seems like an ethical code without god

[manofthehills]

There’s one part of this video that isn’t making sense to me. The part where it asked “is something good because God wills it, or does God will something because it is already good? Neither, God wills i because he is good”

Can someone make sense of this for me? It doesn’t seem to answer the question of whether good things are good because God willed them, or if they were already good to begin with.

[BeautifullyBlessed]

Great video! Here for my Oral Roberts University Christian Apologetics class.

[jdmac]

I agree. But does a crisis of morality for human beings dictate that there must be a god that exists in reality? Or are humans simply damned to have evolved to a point of capacity for abstract reasoning that they're tortured by said crisis? Might inspire someone to make up a god.

[czgiomn]

This is a circular argument. The second premise isn't self-evident. A consistent naturalist could say that morality is just a subjective feeling, and that in nature the only objective moral principle is "might makes right". Or as Thucydides put it "the strong get what they want, and the weak suffer what they must". The fact that in our time, there is widespread belief that is "wrong" doesn't prove that that belief corresponds to anything in reality other than our personal feelings, or that it is binding on anyone who doesn't share those beliefs.

[ristoh]

The whole point this video stands on is that there are objective morals, which can be called into question

[Nico-diqo]

Morality is just a system of conduct and values based on biological evolution and historical events. It's a means to keep a tribe united and maximize its evolutionary success. It varies by individual, culture era and species, it is limited to social animals. In the universe there is no good or bad, these are human conceptions. The true God is the Absolute and includes all opposites within itself. It is not good nor evil, it is beyond both.

[stewartbjorgan]

So, whatever is commanded by God must be good because God said it, and God indirectly had the Bible written?

[doctorlove]

He claims that "moral experience" shows that moral values are objectively real. Surely "moral experience" is subjective, yet he claims this proves something objective?
He also tells us that discrimination is objectively evil. Presumably there's an exception to this for discrimination against gay people.

[longtrento]

Goodness clearly exists. But only as we define it. A deity isn't necessary to explain. Compassion for our own species is suitable for natural selection. We can observe "mirror neurons" in other primates. Selective pressures would favor compassion, as those who participate in a cooperative tribe were more likely to succeed evolutionarily.

[Disneydreamgirl]

the very claim itself that "everything is just subjective"
relies on itself being taken seriously as an objective claim

it eats itself

every religion and culture may differ in what they consider to BE moral, but they ALL believe that morality is Objective.
We don't even behave like things are morality subjective, people argue about what is "right" not what we can and cannot constantly.
The only people in the world who truly behave as if things are purely subjective, are quite literally in loony houses