Religion and Morality

AS and A Level Religious Studies & Philosophy

Religion and Morality(a) Examine the reasons for the view that morality is based upon religion.Many people believe that morality is based upon religion and based on the rules written in the Bible and other holy books. Although, some say that religion is completely opposed to morality and it is wrong to mix the two. Dostoevsky argued that ‘religion provides people with a reason to be moral because if there were no God everything would be permitted.’ Meaning that there is no point to morality if God didn’t set the moral values in the first place. But we could also say that we only behave morally because we are scared of God: ‘responsibility and guilt point to God’ which is not the right way to think about doing good. We shouldn’t behave well in the hopes of a reward or because we are scared, we should do good things because we want to. The Divine Command Theory tells us that our morals are set by a divine power: God. This means everything that God tells us is moral and that we should not judge this as it is the word of God, and God’s word is good. But

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surely, if we are just doing what God says, this takes away our free will, which God gave us, and it undermines the basis of Christianity, when God has said he wants us to choose him rather than to be forced to follow him.Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemma also questions whether or not morality is dependent on religion. ‘Is ‘x’ good because God commands it is or does God command ‘x’ because it is good?’ If ‘x’ was already good before God commanded it then all God is doing is pointing out the good things rather than being the authority that says things are good, and therefore God is not necessary. Whereas if ‘x’ is good because God commanded it, we wouldn’t know what was right or wrong until God told us, showing that God is necessary for us to know what is moral or immoral.Aquinas argued that ‘gradation’ points to God. He said it showed that God is the perfect form of good and all lesser standards of good are ‘graded’ in reference to God. How could the goodness and morality of objects be determined if the was no divine commander like God to tell us what is and isn’t moral? Aquinas said “among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But more and less are predicted of different things according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum... so that there is something which is the truest, something best, something noblest... Therefore there must also be something to which all beings the cause their being, goodness, and every other perfection and this we call God”. Aquinas based this argument on Plato’s theory of eternal forms. ‘Eternal forms’ were Plato’s idea that we are pale reflections of God’s goodness.Kant’s moral law demands that humans aim for the ‘summum bonum’ (virtue crowned with happiness). He believed it was impossible to achieve it in this life and therefore there must be a God and an afterlife in order for us to accomplish this.(b) Examine and consider the view that morality is independent of religion.Many believe that morality and religion are independent of each other as a lot of the population are not religious yet still believe themselves to be moral. If God commanded that we kill everyone who had blue eyes religion shows us that we would have to obey God, but would this actually be morally right? Would a Christian in this situation be able to judge God or would they blindly obey as if they had no choice?The second half of Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemma suggests that goodness is separate from God. This would mean for a Christian that they would have to look to a different source to find their moral values, basically eliminating the need for God and Christianity.Existentialists such as Nietzsche and Sartre argue that human wisdom is characterised by freedom. We have the free will to make our own moral decisions and it is up to the individual person to create their own set of moral values.Some believe it is dangerous to link religion and morality as a lot of morally wrong things have happened either influenced by or in the name of religion e.g. the slave trade, 9/11, the crusades. We cannot ignore/excuse these events just because they are related to religion.There are some discrepancies over certain moral issues between different religions and even within the different denominations of Christianity. How are we supposed to get definite moral guidance from religion when it is undecided within itself? There must be an independent sense of morality for us to be able to judge whether something is right or not, even for religious people, as the bible was written centuries ago and does not relate to specific issues such as contraception, which was not around when the Bible and other holy books were written.If a moral decision as been made by a religious person in the hope of getting a reward in the afterlife surely this makes the decision immoral? It could be said that an atheist who leads a very good life is more moral than a Christian as they are not doing they’re actions in the hopes of a reward at the end.In conclusion I believe that Dostoevsky makes a very good point in saying that anything is permitted if there is no God because without God who do we have to prove anything to? You could even go as far as to say what is the point of living if anything goes, as there would be no boundaries, nothing would be untried and we would eventually run out of things to prove to something that isn’t there. I admit there are flaws in religion and certain issues surrounding it may need to be brought up to date, but without religion we may not have the socially acceptable set of moral laws we have today.