Objective Morality Without Religion - Bishop Barron

[magaman]

The question was, "Can we find objective morality without religion?" Actually, NO! There are ten commandments: the 1st three deal with our duties to worship and honour our creator. They are placed first, because our duties to God come before the duties to our fellow man, contained in the last seven. The greatest sins violate the first three, because they DIRECTLY offend God. Even if an atheist knew perfectly what duties the last seven required (Don't murder, steal, cheat on your wife etc.), he would still be in violation of the commandments to seek out and worship his creator - whose existence can be known from natural reason. As St. Paul warns, "Ever since the creation of the world, God's invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse, for although they knew God, they did not honour him as " [Romans 1:20-21]

Moreover, there exists the dogma that without grace, in our fallen state, mankind is unable to avoid mortal sin/grave evil for very long by his own unaided efforts. Your guilt would be all the greater because you knew what was required but still disobeyed the natural moral law imprinted on your conscience.