"How
to Know God Exists" - part two - The Moral Argument
Last time we began to examine
what is popularly known as the "moral argument" for
God's existence. (See our web page http://www.comereason.org/newsletters/sept00.htm
if you missed that issue.) Basically, it says that in order for
us to have the concepts of good and evil, there must be a God
from which those concepts stem. It is only from God's nature do
we understand morality and right and wrong.
There are several objections to
this argument. One of the most prevalent today says that
morality didn't stem from something outside man, but from man
himself. People such as Nietzsche have argued that morality is
merely a "convention" of man; a by-product of
evolution that allows people to live together in a society. They
argue that things aren't really right or wrong per se, rather
these are just rules that our culture has adopted so that we can
all get along. If the philosophy holds true, then there are no
real moral standards at all.
There are many logical problems
with moral relativism. One of which is when two different
societies morals collide, who decides which is the one to use?
What yardstick determines which morality is the better one if
they're just different conventions?
This brings up another problem
with relativism; there can be no right or wrong morality at all.
We would all just be making comfortable choices. It's much like
saying "You prefer a puritan morality and I prefer a
modern, free morality; just like you prefer vanilla and I prefer
chocolate." How can anything be really wrong with a
personal preference? No one can be accused of being wrong
because the like vanilla and hate chocolate, or they like the
merry-go-round but hate the roller coaster. That's just the way
they are.
Believing morality is just a
preference leads into even more difficulties. If there is no
absolute right or wrong, then how can humanity progress? If we
are just picking out moral guidelines that are all equal, then
society can never improve – we merely trade one morality for
another and everything is still equal.
This idea goes on and on. There
is no right and wrong, so there can be no good or bad. This
means that there is no problem of evil. Hitler's morality to
kill Jews was his and I have mine and you have yours! One can
quickly see how absurd this argument becomes.
Now, most people who hold to
moral relativism don't really believe all of the implications of
their position that I've listed above. In fact, they will tell
you that you should never push your morality on them. You
shouldn't make moral judgments against them using your morality.
But, do you see the problem here?
Every time someone uses the word
"should" or "shouldn't", they are themselves
making a moral judgment. However, they are telling you that you
shouldn't make moral judgments against them. They are doing the
very thing they told you not to do! But, the only way they can
hold to moral relativism is if they say "you shouldn't push
your morality on me." And in so doing, they are pushing
their morality on you.
This is why we call moral
relativism a "self-defeating" argument. Greg
Koukl refers to it as a position that commits suicide. He
says the argument is so broad in its scope that it even cancels
itself out. This makes moral relativism contradictory: in order
to follow it, you have to deny it. That means relativism is
inherently illogical.
Next month, we will look at one
more objection to the moral argument – a philosophy called
Utilitarianism. This is a moral position taken on by many
academics in the secular world because it purports to be logical
and man-created. We'll see how well this argument holds up.
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