Bible Students

Some Thoughts on “On Guard” by William Lane Craig (chapter 6)

This week’s section covers chapter six of On Guard, “Can We Be Good Without God?” This question is incredibly relevant today in a culture that more openly accepts moral therapeutic deism over organized religion. Ironically, though younger people today reject organized religion in favor of social reform and political movements, I believe they do so in order to satisfy their ever-present conscience, which convicts them of being evil individuals. They reject organized religion based on their own ideology of right and wrong coupled with their negative view of the abuse churches have given many individuals and instead satisfy their conscience, at least partly, through participation in social and political change. This is to say I believe everyone, theist, atheist, and everything in between, has a moral conscience which they must appease. 

I asked my boss if he believes we can be good without God, and while his response was sarcastic, I believe it gives insight to a deeper problem even amongst the students at this Bible College. He said, “Can man put cup on cup rack?” This is a comment on the recent widespread issue of people taking cups without returning them to the cafeteria. His answer was silly, but at its core he is commenting on the inherent selfish nature of even the students at this Bible College. Returning cups is not a difficult task, but not returning them makes things very difficult for the kitchen crew, who can not provide cups for other students. This selfishness or laziness, whichever depending on the student, is not a serious character flaw. However, it does shed some light that even the best and most godly students are still sinners at their core. 

Everyone, atheist and Christian alike, has a moral conscience. Unfortunately for the atheist, however, objective moral order only exists with God. Craig explains that the only objective basis for God, in fact possibly the only objective basis for anything, is God. Apart from God, all morality is simply an opinion. If all morality is completely based on internal and subjective grounds, then no one would have more authority than any other in moral terms. In other words, no one could ever, in any circumstances, push their morality onto another person. Of course, people do not live like this. Even the relativist who is all inclusive believes people should follow suit, and seeks to convince others that way. However, if there is no objective basis for their morality, then they do not have any reason to believe their morality is “better” than anyone else’s. Better would assume moving closer to some ultimate and perfect morality, and if all morality is subjective, then the ultimate and perfect morality would have to be one’s own morality (in their opinion). With this in mind, to ask if someone can be “good” without God would be only to ask if one can conform to their own subjective moral compass. Even with this definition, I would be shocked to find someone who had never been convicted by their own atheistic 

Craig explains that in the same way people assume the existence of the physical realm through physical senses, we can assume there is a real existent moral realm due to our moral senses. However, if God does not exist, there is no real moral realm. It would make no sense for there to be an objective, transcendent, abstract realm of morality, and it would be a strange coincidence to say the least if humans evolved to have a sense to discern this realm. The only reasonable way to justify objective morality is through the existence of a divine Law-Giver. 

If there is no objective morality, then a completely different set of socially evolved morals could have come about, or so Craig claims. I would actually disagree with this proposition. I believe the sense of morality humans have is essential to their evolution as a socially-dependent species. While different cultures express their base morality differently, they usually do so with similar underlying emotions. For example, the inclination against adultery could be described as an avoidance of behavior which leads to the consequent of murder, which is contrary to a group-mentality. Tribes which recognize and avoid the actions that bring about strong negative emotions, especially jealousy and thirst for blood, will be the ones to prosper. If a society felt no wrong about adultery, but everyone who was cheated on killed the cheater, the society could not prosper and therefore would fall out of favor. I don’t believe this response paper gives adequate room to fully explain this idea, but in short I believe that much of our morality as humans boils down to an avoidance of societally-harmful emotions, and it is difficult to imagine how a society could function if those emotions were not avoided. This is being viewed through an atheistic lense, of course, as I do not believe morality truly does boil down to that, but rather I believe an atheist making observations based on their own and other’s consciences could come to a similar conclusion. 

Even though I do not believe that hypothetical would truly be much different than reality, I do see what Craig is doing. He asks if a different set of moral values were to occur due to a different evolutionary track, would they be just as valid as morality today? A common example is that of World War II Nazis. If Nazis won World War II and took over the world, would their morality which praised Hitler be the correct morality? Or, is the Nazi “good” because he conforms to his own set of moral rules (as is the requirement of being good, defined above)? 

I believe this is what makes the moral argument such a great introduction to Christianity. Now, I do not believe the moral argument is a proof for God’s existence, but it is a great way to open the door for the plausibility of Christianity. 

Some people will object to all of these reasons to reject relativism and ask, “Does God will something because it is good, or is something good because He wills it?” In the first choice, there would necessarily be an objective standard outside of God, which He had to conform to (goodness). In the second, good would be arbitrary, since God could have chosen different things to be good (such as the ideology of Nazis). However, this is a classic false dilemma. God wills things because His nature is good and He is self-consistent. There is an objective standard for good, but it is inside God. God holds Himself to His own standard, as He is self-consistent. This is known as the Euthyphro Dilemma.  Overall, this section of On Guard gives a good apologetic offense and defense for relativistic and theistic morality. I do not believe theism must be true in order to have a sense of objective morality, but I do believe theism must be true in order to have objective morality itself. I believe the moral argument opens a great door for the gospel, as it undeniably shows people their inconsistency in claiming to be atheistic while living out theistic claims to objective morality.