Stef Kirby        13Ja        Mrs Gibson

Discuss the moral argument for the existence of God and assess the claim that the argument can be used to prove God’s existence

Morality, from the Latin “moralitas” meaning “proper behaviour”, refers to a code of conduct held to be authoritative in matters of right and wrong. We as human beings are aware of actions as being right and wrong, obligatory and forbidden. In addition, such awareness carries with it the though that they are bound to do some things and bound to avoid doing others, i.e. if I make a promise, this creates an obligation to deliver whatever is promised. So where does this concept of morality come from?

According to Dostoyevsky, “If there is no God, then everything is permissible.” The moral arguments claim that God is the source of our morality, and they appeal to the existence of moral laws as evidence of His existence (from some observations about morality in the world). All moral arguments for the existence of God begin with the fact that all people recognise some form of moral code (that things or right or wrong), and work off this principle of a shared sense morality.

Despite cultural differences, humans worldwide have a vague idea of what is right or wrong, which is more or less continuous spatially and temporally. In the appendix of C.S. Lewis’ book The Abolition of Man, he lists various virtues that have been accepted across the ages and civilisations (Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, Native American, Indian, Hebrew, etc.). Stealing and murder are condemned in these law codes, while honouring parents and keeping marriage vows are applauded.

A moral argument for the existence of God would say that this mutual understanding is proof of God’s existence. In other words, because the moral law transcends humanity, this universal law requires a universal lawgiver. This, it is argued, is God. This theory has found much support over the years, and has been backed by many influential figures.

As all moral arguments are based on the concept of a universal moral law, this must be examined before we can assess the adequacy of the moral arguments themselves. C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963), in Mere Christianity, argued for the existence of the universal moral law, and thus the existence of the mind which created it (God).

According to Lewis, we appeal to a universal moral standard daily – whenever we call something “unfair” or “evil”. When we do so we often do not need to explain why these things are considered orally bad, as this is understood without question by the majority of people. For example, if someone walked into your house and left with your TV, you would expect everyone to agree with you that there exists a principle for all people to not take things which aren’t theirs. If someone disagreed with you, you would think they were very strange, or indeed crazy – that something is seriously wrong with them. Lewis believed that all this is best explained by the assumption that there exists a universal moral law.

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In addition, Lewis alleged that there must be a universal moral law, because otherwise all moral judgments would be meaningless. Without this moral standard, we would simply be expressing an opinion if we said “The Nazis were wrong to murder the Jews”. Since it seems clear that the moral status of certain actions, such as genocide, is not a matter of subjective opinion, this, we presume, is the result of universal moral law.

If we accept Lewis’ argument, we accept that there does exist a universal moral standard. However so far we have not been forced to conclude ...

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