There is an argument for God that goes like this: You know that you are obliged to do good and not bad, no matter what anyone says, whether you are a coal miner or a king. This authority to command every person this way, regardless of their position, must be from God. If there is no God, then really, everybody is free to get away with what they can, and there is nothing truly wrong, since we are our own rulers.

It is the job of the rest of this article to remind you that you really do believe there are things which are good and evil, not just offensive to your feelings, and to explain that God can be the only true source of this Law of Right and Wrong.

The Reality of Morality

One woman who was being told that she should consider abortion for her son if he was born disabled said, “Even though my baby has a 50% chance of having myotubular myopathy, he has a 100% chance of being loved.” Her husband shared the sentiment.

Now consider another way children have been treated. In his memoir "The True History of the Conquest of New Spain," Bernal Díaz del Castillo vividly described an Aztec ritual:

When they were upon the point of sacrificing a child or woman, they would stretch it on a very smooth stone and open the breast with a cut that reached from the chest to the belly; then tearing out the palpitating heart, they offered it to the idols. They cut off the arms and legs and head of the dead body, and ate the arms and legs at ceremonial banquets.

Which of these two acts was good? To say you don’t know that one of them is right and the other wrong makes you a pretender or delusional. Therefore, I say that you already know there is a real moral law we are under, not just the fancies of individuals or rulers.

Moreover, we genuinely expect each other to go against our own interests when the situation requires it. Say a man hears that his friend was accidentally given an extra $100 in payment by a rich old woman who can’t see well, but he took it and said nothing. He will be outraged at his friend. It is not just a show of jealousy in most cases, but real disapproval. He might want to do the same, but he realises it would be a real violation of how we are meant to behave.

People also appeal to moral laws when we bicker, saying things such as “That’s not fair”; “I did more work than him”; and “You should tell him the truth.” We also acknowledge moral laws when we have done something wrong and make excuses rather than denying that Right and Wrong have any authority.

The final point on this I will make is that if your philosophy doesn’t work in the real world, it isn’t good philosophy. Therefore, some will insist that there is no real moral law—that right and wrong are just preferences—yet even those who pretend not to care about Right and Wrong cannot help themselves but complain when are on the receiving end.

Are Right and Wrong Cultural or Individual?

Aztecs show how cultures can be wrong about certain things.

The reformer problem applies to cultural and individual subjectivism.

Some similar laws exist in all cultures.

Why wouldn't we dismiss any "instructions" from the universe or the preferences of our culture, if that's all morality comes down to? We shall die either way. It is only if we shall be judged after this life that our decisions will have eternal consequences.

God is Required for Morality to be Real

Morality is given to us as laws. If it is based on an inherited intuition or our own authority, it is just a feeling or whatever the government says it is, accordingly. It must therefore have its basis beyond people, or it has no real authority, and everything is permissible. This authority over us must be personal (inanimate objects do not have authority). We can know his nature by these laws: he must be loving.

God also best explains the moral laws we do have. God knows people better than they know themselves, understands how many future events will play out, and has authority over all. It also makes sense to behave perfectly when eternity is on the line. Finally, He designed us, so He knows what we were made to do and how we function best.

Conclusion: Moral laws are a witness from God of his character and your purpose.

The Human Flourishing View

It is often said that you do not need God to justify morality, because we just need to aim for human flourishing. If that means that we should aim for what is best for every individual, they might as well say “being good is good, so duh.”

Sam Harris is a vocal advocate of this view. He has said that science can tell us how to act morally.¹ He says that it is very simple: Science can determine how to maximise wellbeing for everyone. However, he might as well say that math can determine how we should cook: it can determine the quantities of ingredients to add. The problem in both cases is ignoring the knowledge and beliefs that are required before the science or math comes in: wellbeing for all is good according to whom?

Who decided wellbeing was important? We are back where we began, with the murderer saying, "No thanks, I'll just keep murdering," and you having nothing solid to appeal to. You just don't like murder, but he's not violating anything more important than human preferences, apparently.

Unless you are arguing that we can fake evidence in trials, cull much of the population, etc., if it serves the species. Can we enslave 1% for everyone else’s flourishing? Was Thanos right? Should we kill everyone in China and India? How about lying? It is very helpful for keeping everyone happy. Shouldn’t an important person be able to do what he wants?

If we ask: “Why ought I to be unselfish?” and you reply “Because it is good for society,” we may then ask, “Why should I care what’s good for society except when it happens to pay me personally?” and then you will have to say, “Because you ought to be unselfish”—which simply brings us back to where we started. Lewis

Evolutionary Morality

The irrational forces of physics and natural selection cannot tell us anything true about how we ought to behave, since nature can't know anything, let alone have a purpose for us, so any evolution-based morality could justifiably be ignored. Only something rational could understand us and know what is best for us, so really, that something is someone.

If you still suppose that morality came from nature, consider that nature does not have a habit of encouraging kindness, selflessness, and chastity. It is rather brutal. Consider also that a very evil person is more destructive than any animal, and a very good person, far more helpful. There is more at play than instincts that favour the indivdual or the pack.

I must also bring up a natural implication of evolution for morality: Darwin's cousin advocated heavily for eugenics, and both the US with its mass sterilisations and Hitler in World War 2 justified their actions on the basis that the gene pool needed to be improved.

Footnotes

1. This is completely nonsensical from his vantage point anyway, since he is a determinist. In other words, he believes that people have no free will, so blaming them for anything would be all performance, as would be all morals. ↩