Worldview of Jesus

Tag: Moral argument

  • Is God Morally Corrupt?

    Is God Morally Corrupt?

    Is Christianity false because of the existence of evil? As a Christian, I find that the argument from evil is the hardest to emotionally overcome while being relatively simple to intellectually refute. This might sound silly to many who read it, but I’ll explain in a moment.

    In my last blog, I explained that two of my closest friends, who happen to be skeptics, will be presenting me with their personal objections to God. So it was no surprise when I received their objections to find that they offered two different versions of the problem of evil that prevented their belief in God. In fact, I was expecting this objection because almost every skeptic I’ve encountered has formulated a version of it. I don’t say that as a way of trivializing their objection. On the contrary, it should be thoughtfully and rigorously addressed. 

    The Objections

    To represent their objections honestly, I will include their objections as they were written. 

    My first friend presented me with this objection:

    “So, for my first question, I decided that the “Will of God” expression is the most damaging expression for Christianity and religion in general; in fact, the first time I heard this was when I was 5 years old when my mom died. Hearing this expression from priests, family members and religious people settled my understanding that God doesn’t exist and it just pure creation of people to justify the horrible things that happens in the world and to people e.g. my mother dying at 34 and leaving us alone (me and my sister). It is also confirmation that God doesn’t have the control of nothing.“

    My second friend presented me with the following objection:

    “If there was a god how come he doesn’t stop the evil in the world. If he’s this powerful figure, why doesn’t he put a stop to the chaos and let us live in peace?“

    Before answering these objections, I’ll explain my reasoning to shed greater insight into my answers.

    The Moral Argument

    For the more visually inclined, I’m including an excellent video that summarizes the moral argument for the existence of God.

    The moral argument can be broken down into a deductive philosophical argument as follows:

    1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
    2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
    3. Therefore, God exists.

    How that breaks down, in simple English, without a moral lawgiver, there are no objective moral laws or duties. The word ‘objective’ is a critical word in this sentence. The word ‘objective,’ in its philosophical application, means “existing outside of the mind : existing in the real world.” All of that is to say that ‘objective’ is transcendent and absolute and incapable of being redefined by subjects (i.e., humans.) There is no serious basis for judging any moral action without objective moral laws or duties. 

    In an atheistic worldview, each subject (i.e., human) would develop their own personal set of subjective moral preferences. However, what if their moral preferences were evil rather than virtuous? Evil and virtue would be indistinguishable without objective moral laws. Likewise, Adolf Hitler and Mother Teresa would be morally indistinguishable if objective moral values did not exist. Most people, especially skeptics, consider that statement absurd. However, it’s a philosophically inescapable reality under atheism. Honest atheists have openly admitted this sad yet unavoidable reality: the atheistic worldview provides no objective moral framework to ground moral laws and duties.

    “The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” – Richard Dawkins in River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life

    The Will of God? – Objection One

    When I heard about this story, I was angered. My friend’s faith was destroyed by pastoral imprudence and theological misapplication. What should a grieving child think about God when a priest tells him that God willed his mothers’ death? I don’t blame my friend for feeling resentment towards God, which ultimately transformed into a rejection of God itself. One theologically inept cliche turned an innocent child into a guaranteed skeptic.

    A child and a disturbing number of adults aren’t theologically mature enough to filter tragedy through the proper lens. So when my friend observes that God is a “pure creation of people to justify the horrible things that happens in the world and to people,” I don’t view that observation as being an unnatural interpretation of his experience. From his tragic experience, he believes these people give meaningless platitudes to make themselves feel better. I don’t think he’s wrong either.

    Children must be treated with love and respect. However, this does not mean treating their genuine heartache with stupid and shallow platitudes that further confuse them. Does God have a will? Yes. Does God’s will actively inflict evil? No. Does God permit evil? Yes. If God were to prevent every free choice that would inflict moral evil (i.e., the evil that results from an agent with free will), we wouldn’t be truly free. We’d be predetermined robots. Likewise, if God were to prevent every form of natural evil (i.e., the evil that results from nature like hurricanes, tornadoes, cancer, etc…), creation would be limited to a lifestyle with no natural hardship. 

    As creations of the omniscient God, are we in a position to tell Him how to create anything? For example, should we tell God that creation would be better if He only did X, Y, and Z better? Are our limited intellects capable of understanding creation better than the omniscient Creator? Obviously, if God exists, which I strongly contend that He does, God’s knowledge is infinite, and He created a world that will lead the greatest amount of people to Him freely. In many instances, God reveals Himself through tragedy and hardship. That is very hard for many adults to understand, let alone children. Still, sometimes difficult conversations must be laden with deep mystery. The evil that is permitted to take place shouldn’t overpower our trust in the God that permitted it. We must realize that God loves justice, and ultimate justice lies within the confines of His judgment, not ours. With this trust, we can rest assured that the evils of this world will not outlive our souls.

    Why Doesn’t God Stop Evil? – Objection Two

    For the visually inclined, the videos below provide excellent insights on this matter:

    Much of my response to objection one will apply to objection two. However, I would like to expand on my answer.

    As I outlined in the moral argument, if there are is an objective moral law, then there is an objective moral lawgiver (i.e., God.) So, what is objectively wrong with chaos and evil in this world if God doesn’t exist? Since no transcendent source of objective morality would exist, chaos and evil would be morally indistinguishable from virtue and love. Those who make the ‘problem of evil‘ argument against God borrow from God to argue against Him. Meaning, they use the self-evidently true realization of objective morality and judge God as being evil because He permitted X, Y, and Z to happen. 

    As I explained in response to the first objection, God permits natural and moral evil to occur. However, as creations of God, we cannot know what those reasons might be because of our vastly limited knowledge. So, to judge God as malevolent using God’s own objective standard of morality within our tiny window of knowledge is quite presumptuous. Not only is it presumptuous, but it’s also entirely without basis. 

    To unpack what I mean when I say, “without basis,” I’ll provide an admittedly imperfect analogy that attempts to demonstrate the baselessness of this moral objection to God’s existence. Let’s pretend driver A runs a red light, striking and killing driver B. Driver C witnesses the accident and is emotionally traumatized by the accident. But, instead of driver C blaming driver A’s negligence, driver C confusingly blames the objective laws that govern motor travel. Driver C goes further to reject that since motor vehicle accidents happen, the governing body that writes the rules and regulations for road safety doesn’t exist because people occasionally die while driving on the roadway. Driver C represents so many people who reject God because of the existence of bad things happening in reality. As this analogy demonstrated, blaming the moral lawgiver (or those who write the traffic laws in the analogy) when you experience tragedy, hardship, and misery is misplaced. The blame lies with those who break the moral law, not at the feet of the moral lawgiver. 

    Conclusion

    As I’ve mentioned in the introduction, this is the hardest objection to emotionally overcome while being one of the simplest to intellectually refute. Nevertheless, I’ve easily shown that the existence of natural and moral evil doesn’t refute God’s existence. Yet, why does this objection continue to plague humanity as one of its most persuasive arguments against God’s existence? Intense emotion, especially when linked to personal tragedy, can easily prevent someone from seeing and assessing the facts clearly.

    From the standpoint of a Christian apologist, I’m inclined to look at these questions intellectually when sometimes they’re better addressed pastorly. So, for example, a good pastor may be better at handling the emotional hangups someone is experiencing concerning the problem of evil. But, on the other hand, a good apologist is likely better suited at handling the intellectual objections of the problem of evil. 

    That’s what makes this objection unique. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with it. Both of my friends span the spectrum of emotional to intellectual. Ultimately, the heart and the brain need to be on the same page. Sometimes, the heart can’t change until the brain does, and vice versa. Especially concerning a very emotionally driven objection like this, the heart sometimes needs to heal before the mind is willing to process the possibility of a good God. 

    To my skeptical personal friends and readers I’ve never met, Jesus took human form and suffered incomprehensible earthly injustice to save our souls. If anyone can relate to our suffering, it’s Christ. Christ’s death was the most emotionally-wrenching death anyone has ever experienced. Not simply because He experienced excessive barbarity and torture, but because Christ was sinless and voluntarily sacrificed Himself for us. Open your heart and mind to God because nobody can relate with you in your suffering better than He. 

  • Can Love Exist without God?

    Can Love Exist without God?

    As a youth leader in a local youth ministry (middle and high school age students), our ministry recently discussed the topic of love and whether love can exist without God. As a Christian apologist, this specific question reminds me of the objectivity of God’s transcendent morality. Personally, I approach these types of topics with an apologetic style. The main verse that was referenced to answer this question was 1 John 4:7-12,

    7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

    Essentially, God is the embodiment of love. So, the question is, can love exist without God? Simply put, no. Using these verses alone, we can easily deduce that if God did not exist, love would not exist because these verses clearly state, “ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God…Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” If love finds its origins in God, love cannot exist without God. God is the ultimate ontological foundation for not only love, but all things that exist within His creation. God is the objective moral standard by which we can measure the difference between love and hate. We are told that “since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” God’s nature is what we use as a standard by which we can identify love. The farther away from His nature we wander, the closer we become to aligning with the sinful means of expression that don’t resemble God’s nature.

    This is a brief summary of my theological understanding of love and whether or not it can exist without His existence. I would love to hear your opinion on the matter! Leave me a comment below outlining your understanding of love and whether or not love can exist with or without Him!

  • Duck Commander’s Candor and the Moral Argument

    Duck Commander’s Candor and the Moral Argument

    Duck Commander Phil Robertson is in the public eye again. God truly knows I love him. I really do. I love Duck Dynasty. It’s hilarious. I admire the candor of Phil Robertson and his willingness to call things as he honestly sees them. Honestly, most of the time he’s right when it comes to the essence of his message. In this case, since he’s utilizing an apologetic argument in a public forum, I’d like to examine the argument and his delivery and see if he was doing the argument justice. Below is a transcript of what he said.

    “I’ll make a bet with you. Two guys break into an atheist’s home. He has a little atheist wife and two little atheist daughters. Two guys break into his home and tie him up in a chair and gag him. And then they take his two daughters in front of him and rape both of them and then shoot them and they take his wife and then decapitate her head off in front of him. And they can look at him and say, ‘Isn’t it great that I don’t have to worry about being judged? Isn’t it great that there’s nothing wrong with this? There’s no right or wrong, now is it dude?’

    Then you take a sharp knife and take his manhood and hold it in front of him and say, ‘Wouldn’t it be something if this [sic] was something wrong with this? But you’re the one who says there is no God, there’s no right, there’s no wrong, so we’re just having fun. We’re sick in the head, have a nice day.’

    If it happened to them, they probably would say, ‘Something about this just ain’t right.’”

    Well, that’s quite an example. An atheist family being brutally raped and murdered is very politically incorrect to imagine in a public setting. However, Phil has never been one for abiding by the rules of the tyrannical PC police. If Phil wants to say it, you better believe he’s going to say it! Some of the article titles published by public media outlets that have reported on Phil’s comments have been titled, “Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson Attacks Atheists at a Florida Event Using Rape”, “Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson condemns atheists at prayer event”, “Phil Robertson’s Appalling Atheist Fantasy”, “Duck Dynasty’s’ Phil Robertson Imagines Brutal Attack on Atheists in Graphic Speech.” Oh boy. I’m afraid many of the ‘journalists’ may be contextually challenged when evaluating Phil’s remarks in their entirety. Or they may be entirely focused on misleading their audience. That’s a possibility too.

    It seems that many in the media don’t like Phil. His appearance seemingly reeks of ignorance. That dirty disheveled hair, camouflage clothing, and a Bible in his back pocket, are immediate red flags for the modern day secularist. These red flags translate into a target on the back of Phil Robertson’s head. Everyone seems to be looking for Phil to slip up and say something controversial so they can nail him for it publically. For example, Phil commented on his opposition to sexual sin to GQ which caused quite the controversy with A & E and the public at large. In the end, A & E realized that Phil was worth the cultural liability and kept him on Duck Dynasty. Smart move A & E.

    However, regardless of Phil’s redneck appearance and his often unorthodox way of turning a phrase, was Phil’s message valid or was it fallacious? That’s what I’ll be examining.

    The Moral Argument

    Phil’s fictional scenario of two guys breaking into an atheists’ home and proceeding to do awful things to the atheist family was meant to illustrate that the atheist would consider what the criminals did was objectively wrong. As Phil said, the atheist would say, ‘Something about this just ain’t right.’ All people, atheists and theists alike, wouldn’t go through a tragedy that Phil described and feel like what happened was morally permissible. We would all acknowledge how morally bankrupt such actions would be, which was Phil’s point. He’s not saying that atheists can’t acknowledge objective morality despite what the secular media has been irresponsibly repeating. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. One of the primary points of the illustration is to acknowledge that atheists are capable of acknowledging objective morality. However, the main premise of his fictional tragedy is that the atheist doesn’t have the philosophical framework to make sense of how objective moral values and duties existence at all.

    The moral argument goes like this,

    • If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist
    • Objective moral values and duties do exist
    • Therefore, God exists

    Many prominent atheists have conceded as much. Below are a couple examples of such admissions,

    Richard Dawkins describes in River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life,

    “In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. . . . DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music” (p. 133)

    Atheist William Provine, a scholar of the history of evolutionary biology at Cornell University, said in a debate with Philip Johnson,

    “Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either”

    Atheist philosopher Michael Ruse wrote in Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics,

    “The position of the modern evolutionist is that humans have an awareness of morality because such an awareness of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate when someone says, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves. Nevertheless, such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, . . . and any deeper meaning is illusory” (pp. 262-269)

    When looking at what Phil said in its proper philosophical context, he’s absolutely right. Under an atheistic worldview, a heinous criminal could say without being objectively morally wrong, ‘Isn’t it great that I don’t have to worry about being judged? Isn’t it great that there’s nothing wrong with this? There’s no right or wrong, now is it dude?’ The existence of objective morality is a tremendously convincing argument for God. One of the biggest advocates for this argument was C.S. Lewis, and the argument personally had a transformative affect on his conversion to Christianity from atheism. In the classic Mere Christianity, Lewis wrote,

    “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”

    So many unbelievers fall into this pit of confusion about morality. They think the existence of injustice is positive proof of the nonexistence of God, but where do they get the notion of objective justice? Oddly enough, they couldn’t have an objective standard of morality without God, which defeats the purpose of their complaint that God is unjust. As Christian apologist Frank Turek rightfully says, “atheists have to steal from God to fight against Him.”

    Phil’s Candor

    Many people are turned off by it. Some are turned on by it. Personally, I recognize Phil’s rough personality and don’t look too deep into his seemingly abrasive message to draw hasty conclusions that may not be right. Many perceive his delivery as a little too abrasive and harsh, and I would sympathize with some of those people on some of the comments (including this one) that Phil has made in the past. However, Phil has made it excessively clear in all forums that he loves God and he loves his neighbor. While some people may take Phil’s words out of context to support a political agenda against him, I would challenge anyone to advance an honest case against Phil Robertson that accurately illustrates that Phil is a hateful, narrow-minded, intolerant, bigot.

    Does that mean that I would have approached the very same situation with the same gruffness as Phil? I personally take a softer approach. While I feel that Phil is generally knowledgeable about the topics he speaks on, I feel that his messages sometimes gets lost in transit because of the gruff delivery. His candor sometimes becomes a liability rather than an asset to his ministry. While I can see how it can serve as both, it would be wise for Phil to proceed forward with caution and clarity when using controversial illustrations that are highly susceptible to being twisted and warped to suit a negative PR campaign against him and his enterprise.

    Conclusion

    Phil is a good man, but he is undoubtedly gruff. He doesn’t pretend to be a soft touchy-feely preacher. If you want to hear the raw unfiltered truth, Phil is your guy. However, does his candor mute his message? Sometimes yes. Unbelievers are going to be upset at the way he delivered this example. Why? Because it specifically focused on an atheist family! The atheists were victims of the crime in his scenario which made atheists feel somewhat victimized. That’s what motivated the aggressive and misleading article titles about this situation that I referenced earlier. Obviously, as I explained earlier, an honest examination of Phil’s remarks would invalidate the legitimacy of the misleading articles attempting to disparage Phil for using this illustration.

    In the end, we must be careful about what we say and how we say it. Maybe instead of using an “atheist family”, Phil could have just referenced a “family” and examined how impotent the atheistic worldview is in condemning the objective evil in this fictional tragedy. The family doesn’t necessarily have to be an “atheist family” in order to effectively make the point. In fact, there are many other ways to illustrate the very same point, likely to a greater and more fulfilled ends. We should strive to deliver truth without compromising compassion, and sometimes Phil can deliver a message that is lopsided towards truth without the components of compassion that are necessary when evangelizing to the lost. Regardless of his candid delivery, Phil is a brother in Christ and we should pray for the success of his ministry.

  • The Heavy Indictment Against God’s Righteousness

    The Heavy Indictment Against God’s Righteousness

    Many people have emotionally and intellectually wrestled with the evils and sufferings of this world. Everyone, Christian and atheist alike, genuinely wonder about the reasons for the existence of these evils and sufferings. When evil and suffering is as prevalent as it is, it is a natural curiosity for anyone of any background to contemplate these things. Worldviews (i.e. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Atheism, etc…) approach the matter of earthly evil and suffering in different manners, some more effective than others. However, Christianity stakes a claim that no other religion does. God condescended himself into the form of man and experienced evil and suffering from a first hand human perspective while simultaneously remaining fully God. In the process of Jesus’ earthly ministry, God opened the door for everyone to experience eternity without evil in His divine presence through His everlasting sacrificial act of drying on the cross and resurrecting on the third day. All that is required is to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in order to inherit eternal life with Him through His grace.

    After watching the video of Stephen Fry, you’ll probably get a different impression of the Christian God than the one I very briefly described above. Fry and I approach this matter from two very different perspectives; I know Fry isn’t the only individual who feels this way about the Christian God. Among the unbelieving community, many are discontented by the very same perception of God. In their mind, the Christian God is a seemingly evil one. As Fry states during this video,

    “…the god who created this universe, if indeed it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac. Utter maniac. Totally selfish. Totally. We have to spend our life on our knees, thanking him? What kind of god would do that? Yes, the world is splendid, but it also has in it insects, whose whole life cycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind. That eat outwards from the eyes. How — why? Why did you do that to us? You could easily have made a creation in which that didn’t exist. It is simply not acceptable…It’s perfectly apparent that he’s monstrous, utterly monstrous, and deserves no respect whatsoever. The moment you banish him, your life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner and more worth living in my opinion”

    Fry isn’t the only atheist who’s expressed his passionate discontent with the Christian God. Richard Dawkins famously wrote the following in his book, The God Delusion,

    “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

    I could continue to list quotes from the New Atheists concerning their feelings on how seemingly evil Christian God but I’ll spare you the extra reading. The main point being made by these unbelievers is that the Christian God is evil (if He exists) because of the fallen condition of the world. Is there an adequately satisfying answer to this difficult concern? Does Fry point out anything in the video that would substantively add anything to this conversation? Is atheism a more satisfying approach to the problem of suffering and evil? Since Fry clearly considers Christian theism to be a worldview that miserably fails to account for the fallen condition of this world, it’s important to assess whether his own worldview accounts for this problem any better. If it doesn’t, would Fry be as outraged about atheism as he was at God during this video?

    Is God a Bad Guy?

    If I understand Fry correctly, God is an “utter maniac” because of the perceived injustices that are observed in the form of natural evil (i.e. tornados, hurricanes, disease, etc…) and moral evil (i.e. evil freely performed at the hand of moral agents), but is this a sound inference? Can it be firmly established that God is a bad guy because he permits certain evils to occur on Earth while undoubtedly having the power to stop them? Respectfully, I found Fry’s response to be grossly presumptuous and arrogant. I don’t make this comment as an ad hominem attack to Fry’s character because he’s very cleverly spoken (similar to Christopher Hitchens), but he has a grossly inflated sense of his own understanding of God. While Fry sincerely believes he was accurately presenting the qualities of the Christian God, his critique couldn’t have been a more misrepresentative description of the way God truly is.

    Fry’s indictment of God being a perverse selfish monster is ultimately without solid foundation under an atheistic worldview. Those who are committed to an atheistic worldview, such as Fry, find themselves without an absolute standard to morally judge the God they’re denouncing. Fry’s moral denouncement of God must be supported by an objective standard of morality if it is to have meaning. For Fry to insinuate that God is morally despicable would be comparable to me calling a foul in a game without rules. This point can be made persuasively through the moral argument. As Frank Turek says, “atheists have to sit on God’s lap to slap his face”.

    Given Fry has made his grievances against God clearly known, should he be satisfied with how the atheistic worldview addresses suffering and the existence of evil. Obviously, there wouldn’t be a God to point at and scold for being the cause of all perceived variations of evil. Under atheism, God cannot be blamed for any evil or suffering because God would not be a reality. A committed atheist must chalk all of these perceived natural injustices to a uniform state of amorality. The adjective ‘selfish’ would not have any objective moral meaning while using it to describe someone’s behavior because it is an adjective that describes a moral quality.

    Something that is more depressing is that atheism provides no hope for anyone. No ultimate justice will be issued to anyone for any wrongdoing. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, the mass murdering dictators of the 20th century, will not receive ultimate justice for their murderous actions in the same way that Mother Teresa will not be rewarded for her love of Christ and her life she devoutly dedicated to serving the less fortunate in His name. Atheism’s hopeless reality doesn’t mean that it’s false but it does reveal that Fry’s comments directed at God are ultimately meaningless if his atheism is true. There is a philosophical contradiction in the way Fry believes the world ought to be and the logical implications of his own atheistic worldview. Atheism doesn’t permit absolute morality but Fry freely issues moral denouncements of God as though an absolute standard of morality actually exists. If Fry desires justice, atheism is the wrong worldview to ultimately attain it.

    Christianity offers a framework that best explains the existence of suffering and evil. Fry’s descriptions of God are grossly misinformed, but they seem to be an inference he’s sincerely made based upon his perception of evil and injustice he’s observed in the world. Outside of the philosophical inconsistencies between his worldview and his moral assessment of God, Fry has not persuasively demonstrated that the existence of evil and the existence of God are incompatible. Other than Fry’s strongly worded demeaning of God aimed at explaining why he thinks a good God wouldn’t permit such evils to occur, his explanation of “You [God] could easily have made a creation in which that didn’t exist” still fails to justify why God and evil cannot exist simultaneously without contradiction.

    God has made us in His image, which has given us the personal ability to make free choices. This is a mechanism imbedded within humanity that permits people to freely conduct themselves in an evil (or righteous) way, which has subsequently resulted in many of the world’s most incomprehensible evils. Our God loves us enough to let us make our own free decisions. Anytime you give someone the opportunity to make their own free choices, the possibility always exists that the wrong choice will be made. The nature of freewill allows for a wide range of results, from absolute evil to absolute love. That’s why much of the evil we observe is at the hand of people freely acting in evil ways. When we complain that God allows too much evil throughout history, are we saying that we would prefer God to intervene anytime evil is about to be performed in order to live in a world without evil? The fact is that God would constantly be intervening in our lives because we constantly sin. Every day that we live (unless we are in a coma) we sin. Should God forcefully remove our freewill to keep up from voluntarily sinning in every instance where evil will be the result of our actions? If so, freewill will have been revoked and we are no longer free to make choices on our own.

    While it’s hard to comprehend the reason why God would permit such seemingly gratuitous evil and suffering, especially over the last century, God is the only being capable of knowing the end result for every action ever taken within His creation. Yes, these free actions performed by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc… were evil, but God had moral justification for permitting such an evil. Given God’s divine omniscience, He would be able to see the ultimate good that would arise out of those evil actions. It’s incomprehensible for us to fully wrap our minds around, and many unbelievers still default to the ‘a good God would never allow such events to happen’ approach without providing justification for their reasoning because they cannot reconcile this issue in their own minds. Ultimately, it will likely always remain a mystery why certain evils are permitted to occur but we can confidently infer that God is an all-just God through the evidence provided by natural and special revelation.

    Do Parasites Discredit the Benevolent Character of God?

    Fry is quite presumptuous when he talks about how God failed in his creation (“if indeed it was created by God”.) As a fallible being that exists in a minutely small window of temporal time, how can one deliver a reliable critique about the perceived imperfections of nature? Does Fry presume to know the ultimate meaning and purpose of all creation? Ultimately, if one doesn’t know the purpose of the design, how can one effectively measure whether nature is performing optimally? Fry cites the Loa Loa African Eye worm that burrows “into the eyes of children and make them blind” as an explicit example of one of God’s evil creations. This parasitic creature is one of many in the parasite family, but does the existence of parasitic creatures illustrate the monstrous nature of God’s character? Absolutely not.

    As it turns out, parasites serve a valuable purpose in nature despite what Fry would have you believe. While parasites may not be pleasant to think about, many have a valuable function. Parasites can regulate species population, stabilize the food chain, feed on decomposing flesh, and bolster immunity is certain cases (source). While some parasites may be more beneficial than others, claiming that parasitic creatures are the concoction of an evil God is scientifically and philosophically misinformed. Fry must support the claim that parasites are inherently the production of an evil God. If he cannot justify this hefty claim, especially after seeing the scientific evidence for the value of parasites within nature, his accusation that God is evil because of perceived evils found within creation falls embarrassingly short of his target.

    Should We Thank God?

    In the context of talking about how much evil and suffering exists in the world, Fry asks, “We have to spend our life on our knees, thanking him? What kind of god would do that?” The Christian God, creator of Heaven and Earth, redeemer of all sins, requires that we believe in Him in order to inherit eternal life in His presence. God, by definition, is the only being worthy of worship. Looking at God from the holistic perspective that I’ve laid out above (any many other places on this blog), it can be confidently inferred that God is genuinely worthy of worship (and thanks!) Should we be thankful for our existence? Yes. Should we be thankful for the opportunity to freely choose to accept Christ? Absolutely. God has given us the opportunity to not only accept Him, but reject Him if we so choose. Fry has made His choice to freely reject God, sadly however, he’s rejecting a God that he’s largely imagined on his own. God, honestly and accurately defined, warrants our gratuitous thanks and love.

    Conclusion

    Most generally, I wouldn’t respond directly to a comment made by a hostile atheist. However I find that this is an issue that disturbs a ton of people in the unbelieving community (and many within the Church) and it is truly worthy of further exploration and serious thought. Not simply to address Fry but to address those with the same types of qualms and concerns. This is an objection that has been around for centuries and it is not going to vanish anytime in the foreseeable future. Given this fact, Christians should become familiar with the objection and learn how to respond to it with intellectual integrity.

    In the end, sadly, we’re largely left in ignorance as to why certain evils are permitted. However this fact does not justify the claim that God is evil or nonexistent altogether. To hatefully speak against God, in the way Fry has, is to deem oneself more superior in knowledge than an incomprehensibly omniscient God, who has an exhaustive knowledge of the past, present, and future. While I still wonder about why the Holocaust was permitted, I can rest assured knowing that if God permitted it to happen; He would be in an infinitely better position to know what the moral justification was for it than I would.

    This indictment against God’s righteousness that many unbelievers have irresponsibly made is ultimately futile. Moral good or bad cannot exist without a God, which would make all moral denouncements of God’s character impotent. If God does exist and these inferences are still being held to, then the basis for their description of God is sadly misinformed. In the end, the indictment fails and God’s righteousness remains solidly intact.

  • The Atheistic Critique of the Old Testament Genocidal God

    The Atheistic Critique of the Old Testament Genocidal God

    Over the last decade or so, many outspoken atheists have strongly expressed their resentment for the Old Testament God. They condemn Him as a Being they wouldn’t want to worship even if they could be convinced of His existence because of the ‘moral atrocities’ He has brought upon groups of people throughout history. Many of their complaints revolve around the Mosaic Laws and the destruction of the Canaanites because they perceive these laws and actions as being evil, genocidal, misogynistic, homophobic, hateful, and the like. In fact, all of the New Atheists have been very deliberate in their expression of disgust towards the Old Testament God. Richard Dawkins summarizes the New Atheism’s sentiment perfectly when he writes in The God Delusion,

    “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully”

    The late Christopher Hitchens remarked on the Old Testament God when he wrote God is Not Great,

    “The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals”

    Daniel Dennett writes in Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Phenomenon,

    “Part of what makes Jehovah such a fascinating participant in stories of the Old Testament is His kinglike jealousy and pride, and His great appetite for praise and sacrifices”

    Lastly, Sam Harris writes the following in Letter to a Christian Nation while attempting to use (‘misuse’ is a better description) Deuteronomy 13:7-11 to support his claim that stoning is what “God had in mind”,

    “One look at the book of Deuteronomy reveals that he [God] has something very specific in mind [stoning] should your son or daughter return from yoga class advocating the worship of Krishna”

    All of the New Atheists have gratuitously commented on their dissatisfaction with the Old Testament. If someone had nothing to go on other than the mere opinion of one of these embarrassingly confused atheists, it would be easy to see how someone could become convinced. After all, they are all brilliant wordsmiths who make a convincing case for their position on paper. It’s pretty easy to see why many youngsters who aren’t prepared to tackle these challenges become influenced by the rhetorical power of these scholars. However, as Oxford mathematician and philosopher John Lennox brilliantly observes, “Nonsense remains nonsense, even when talked by world-famous scientists.”

    Does Atheism Provide an Objective Moral Foundation for Judging the Old Testament God?

    Recently an atheistic group wrote their own 10 Commandments for the 21st century, which I wrote a post about because of the remarkable philosophical inconsistencies between atheism and objective morality. The sole message of the article was to express how incoherent such a project would be if the atheistic worldview is true. The same principle can be applied to their complaints about the morality of the Old Testament. An objective moral framework for moral values and duties would not exist, so how can an atheist deliver an objective moral criticism of God when a transcendent standard of morality does not exist? Richard Dawkins concedes this point in River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life,

    “In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. . . . DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music”

    This quote seems contradictory to the quote above where he hurls a slew of insults at God for allegedly being ‘immoral’. If there truly is “at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference”, how could Dawkins ontologically justify any of his moral critiques on God? This is the biggest philosophical inconsistency that I see among all atheists. If we are in a “universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication”, determinism is the only game in town and we have to accept that morality of any kind is completely nonexistent and all perceptions of morality are merely determined by our own chemistry and the product of all preceding events leading up to the present moment, similar to dominos falling. Morality would be completely illusory, which would totally invalidate any derogatory moral claims against the Old Testament God.

    Next, atheists commonly complain about why God doesn’t intervene in His creation more frequently and stop the evil in this world if He exists. Ironically, these are the same atheists who fail to recognize that God has intervened in the past and brought judgment upon those who were evil (i.e. the Canaanites), which is the divine intervention that they’re alleging is genocide. Assuming that objectively morality could be grounded on an atheistic worldview, how could an atheist explain away this inconsistency in their argument? Do they want God to act within nature to occasionally judge evildoers (like the case with the Canaanites) or do they want to complain about God acting within nature to judge evil? Atheists are giving mixed messages on this issue.

    Conclusion

    With all the misinformed ranting and raving from the atheists about the Old Testament God, it seems to be all for nothing if atheism is true. Philosophical materialism prevents us from having the freewill to make any free choices of our own. We would be determined by all the preceding material events before us. However, no reasonable person would believe this based upon their own rational experience. Nobody has a thought and comes to the conclusion, ‘I didn’t freely think that thought. The molecules in my head determined me to have that thought.’ This is a counterintuitive way of thinking, but it is philosophically consistent with the atheistic worldview.

    If we were to be charitable and be willing to dismiss the reality of philosophical materialism under an atheistic worldview, we can say with certainty that there would be no ontological basis for objective morality on an atheistic worldview. What does that mean? That means when Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, and Harris make their moral judgments of the Old Testament God, their judgments are nothing more than subjective moral complains that express their mere moral preferences. Some people like chocolate ice cream and some people like vanilla. It’s the same thing. Dawkins may think that the Old Testament God is bad while some people may think He is good but without an objective basis to measure moral actions, each person’s moral judgments are completely and utterly subjective.

    Lastly, it seems like those making the moral judgments are failing to recognize the implications of their own worldview. Atheism does not allow for objective moral denouncements. Subjective moral denouncements are possible but determined by all preceding material events. At the end of the day, we all affirm (or want to at least) that our moral judgments are objective. A normal person (without cognitive defect) does not believe that torturing newborns for fun is morally good. Nobody would affirm that statement. However, atheism does not give you the ontological grounding to affirm that denouncement of torturing newborn babies. Christian theism has the resources to objectively support such a denouncement without any difficulty. Since it can be persuasively shown that moral proclamations are impossible in the absence of God, the atheistic moral critique of the Old Testament God falls drastically short of its intended target.

    Below is a debate on the topic of morality between Christian philosopher William Lane Craig and atheist neuroscientist Sam Harris. I would highly encourage everyone to watch this debate who is interested in the topic of morality.

  • Examining the 10 Commandments of Atheism

    Examining the 10 Commandments of Atheism

    The Atheist Mind Humanist Heart website recently conducted a crowd sourcing project titled, “The ReThink Project”, where they asked their viewers to submit entries with the goal of developing the “Ten Commandments for the 21st century”. They had a slew of popular atheist names on the judge’s panel to narrow all the entries down to ten, which included well-known atheistic advocates such as Adam Savage from Mythbusters, Dan Barker from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and Matt Dillahunty from the Atheist Experience television show. There was a reasonable amount of responses from their fan base with over 2,800 entries submitted from over 18 countries. However I must admit, when I heard of the “ReThink Project”, I almost laughed aloud.

    The first question that ran through my head was, ‘how are they going to ground any moral values and duties to an objective standard without a God?’ Without an objective moral standard by which to differentiate morally good actions and morally evil actions, will any of their revised Ten Commandments make any sense? Below, I have listed their version of the Ten Commandments along with an explanation of why they believe it should be on the list. After the listed commandment and its explanation, I’ll outline my thoughts on whether their revised commandment truly aligns with an atheistic worldview. From an ontological perspective, moral laws (i.e. commandments) cannot be objectively grounded without the existence of a moral law giver (i.e. God) who would be the source by which all moral activity can be objectivity measured. Now that I’ve established the basis for my critique, I’ll jump into my assessment of each of their newly development atheistic commandments.

    1. “Be open minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence”

    Why: “It is essential in order for us to be able to collaboratively work together to find common solutions to pressing world problems”

    Despite the fact that the New Atheistic movement has been synonymous with a gross display of closed-mindedness, it’s important to ask, what moral obligation does anyone have to be open minded about anything under atheism? Why do “common solutions to pressing world problems” really matter? Obviously, as humans, we naturally feel like this statement is altruistic and morally admirable. It’s only natural to feel like we have a moral obligation to band together as the dominant human species and tackle sex-trafficking, ISIS, world pollution, and corrupt politicians. But the main question remains, why? Why, from an atheistic worldview, is there any reason to believe this sense of obligation is objective? Without a God, the individual atheist must answer this question if he or she is going to going to make it a commandment (i.e. moral obligation) for others to abide by.

    1. “Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you want to be true”

    Why: “We’re more likely to believe what we wish to be true over what we wish not to be true, regardless of veracity. If we’re interested in learning the truth, then we need to actively separate our beliefs from our desires”

    This is just as applicable to atheists as it is to theists. I’ve known both atheists and theists who believe what they do simply on the basis of wanting their worldviews to be true rather than believing what they do because their beliefs are evidentially aligned with reality. In fact, I feel too many people are like this. Not surprisingly, their rationale seems to be loaded with atheistic presuppositions. The rationale for this commandment seems to be underhandedly directed at theists who aren’t interested in seeking truth because they are incapable of separating beliefs from reality. While I agree that we should all strive to seek the truth, and those who honestly do so will undoubtedly find it, but what moral obligation is there to act in this way if God does not exist? Why is the quality of studiousness an admirable quality in an atheistic worldview versus the quality of laziness? This commandment to seek ‘what is most likely to be true’ cannot be judged as moral without an objective standard by which to measure it.

    1. “The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world”

    Why: “Every time humans have questions this method is used to solve them. If we don’t know, we don’t know but instead of making up the answer we use this method to reach a conclusion/answer”

    The scientific method is an excellent method of understanding the natural world. The scientific method gathers volumes of information that we can further study and use to come up with philosophical conclusions, which will grant us the ability to see theistic implications. In their explanation of the commandment, they pat themselves on the back for using the scientific method instead of “making up the answer”. When it comes to moral truths, are they devising their “10 Commandments for the 21st Century” by using the scientific method or are they just “making up the answer”? It seems that they wouldn’t have devised their version of the Ten Commandments while simultaneously believing their moral conclusions were false. I’d like to ask them how the scientific method assisted them in the construction of these new commandments.

    1. “Every person has the right to control their body”

    Why: “This includes a person\”s right to not be murdered, raped, imprisoned without just cause (violating another person\’s rights), kidnapped, attacked, tortured, etc. This also protects a person\’s freedom of speech and freedom to dress and represent themselves as they so choose”

    There are some interesting insights that can be made about this commandment. If they are going to live consistently with their 4th commandment, do you think they would be pro-life? As they said in their explanation, “This includes a person\”s right to not be murdered”. Given that an abortion would meet the definition of murder as the unborn baby is a person, their 4th commandment requires the atheist to be pro-life if they are going to live according to their own commandments they constructed. Given that many nonbelievers are traditionally pro-choice, it would be interesting to see how they would reconcile this contradiction between the commandment that they approved and their traditionally held position on the abortion issue.

    Atheists have been some of the fiercest aggressors against the Christian worldview in Western society. The words bigot, intolerant, hateful, narrow-minded, and homophobe haven’t been so grossly misused in the history of the English language to describe the Christian community simply because Christians haven’t embraced particular behaviors (particularly homosexuality) among society. While society is progressively embracing this behavior as a whole, the Christians who oppose homosexuality are being publically demonized for holding true to their beliefs. When atheists disagree with our standing in opposition of homosexuality, same-sex marriage, abortion, etc…, will this 4th commandment keep them from being toxic during dialogues?

    I repeat again, if the atheistic worldview is true, what rights do we have if God does not exist? Rights would be illusory and if anyone said they had a right to something, it would be their own personal construct rather than an objective reality established by God that all people can see and acknowledge.

    1. “God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life”

    Why: “When one does a good deed it isn’t because God tells one to do a good deed, but because one simply wants to be good person. As Human beings we are capable of defining our own, different, meanings for our lives, with or without a god”

    It’s true; atheists can be morally great people. In fact, I’ve known atheists that are far more moral than any religious person! We must ask however, do you need to have a personal relationship with God to be a morally good person? No, but God has placed the moral law on our hearts which is how we all acknowledge that there is an objective moral code by which to measure all moral actions. The explanation says, “When one does a good deed it isn’t because God tells one to do a good deed, but because one simply wants to be good person”. How are they defining ‘good’ without an objective standard? Is it the subjective standard that they’ve constructed on their own? Or possibly, is it the objective ‘good’ that we all know exists because the objective standard is written on our hearts? Without God, the term ‘good’ is meaningless in a moral sense.

    1. “Be mindful of the consequences of all of your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them”

    Why: “It may sound obvious, but negligence and refusal to take responsibility are an immense source of harm in the world, from interpersonal relations to Global issues”

    How would consequences have any moral implications under an atheistic worldview? Let alone moral obligations! What reasons do we have to believe that atheism is the proper moral framework to take the 6th commandment seriously?

    1. “Treat others as you would want them to treat you and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective”

    Why: “If everyone did their best to carry this out as far as it can go, everyone would get along much better”

    Ah yes, the Golden Rule! It’s a good one. But again, the same question continues to arise, what reason do we have to believe that atheism demands such a moral obligation? Without an objective moral framework, how can a commandment authoritatively issue such an obligation?

    1. “We have the responsibility to include future generations”

    Why: “As human beings, we have great power. As Voltaire noted “With great power comes great responsibility.” To not consider others would be selfish and petty. We have demonstrated the ability to be magnanimous, are rapidly becoming more so, and will be even more so in the near future”

    What moral obligations do we have to future generations if atheism is correct? Their explanation highlights that it is morally detestable to be “selfish and petty”, but what basis does the atheist have to make such a moral judgment? When there is no objective standard, one cannot contrast morally good qualities from morally bad ones.

    1. “There is no one right way to live”

    Why: “If you look, even a little, you find many cultures living in moral societies that are fundamentally different, with only a few very basic principles being adhered to between them. Just because one group is different, does not mean they are wrong”

    What is the purpose of these Ten Commandments if they are not telling me how to live? Doesn’t commandment nine invalidate the entire purpose of developing these Ten Commandments? Why would you write commandment nine if by writing commandment nine you invalidate the entire list that attempts to tell me how to live in the ‘right way’? It’s a huge inconsistency.

    1. “Leave the world a better place than you found it”

    Why: “The Japanese concept of Kaizen teaches that small incremental improvements can have a profound effect over time. We should all strive to leave the world better than we found it be it through relieving the suffering of others, creating works of art, or passing along knowledge”

    Under an atheistic worldview (sounding repetitious), what moral obligation do I have to the world? The atheistic worldview does not necessarily require moral obligations. While most people feel like this is something all people should strive to do, but what real obligation is there to fulfill these feelings? These types of moral obligations are consistent with a theistic worldview, not an atheistic one.

    Conclusion

    With the moral framework of the atheistic worldview being grossly inadequate to make this commandment list philosophically sound, does this list serve any objective purpose whatsoever outside of constructing a merely subjective list of what they personally would like to see? I would say not. Since all of these commandments are completely subjective, what moral obligation do we have to them? The sad irony is that if philosophical materialism (i.e. atheism) is true, as many on the judges panel contend that it is, determinism is a reality and nobody can really be held morally accountable for their own actions because they’re merely walking meat-machines (i.e. molecules-in-motion) that are simply responding, moment by moment, to each and every preceding physical event. How can someone who is committed to philosophical materialism claim that objective moral standards and obligations exist when we (i.e. humanity) are material that is naturally reacting to preceding material events? If philosophical materialism is true, all material existence and actions can be compared to dominos falling from the very beginning of the universe. All actions would be the direct result of the event before it; hence the present event would be completely determined by its preceding event. Does determinism allow for objective morality? Absolutely not. Why? Freewill would not possible because all actions would be determined by a prior material event.

    That’s what makes this list of 10 Commands for the 21st Century so ridiculous. Like Frank Turek brilliantly says, “Atheists have to sit in God’s lap to slap his face”. Atheists are borrowing the objective moral framework provided by God to clumsily combat His existence. Obviously, atheists want us to take their commandments seriously but they have no ontological foundation to objectively formulate their 10 Commandments. Since objective morality provided by God is the only morality than demands a moral obligation, , I suppose their list of commandments is a mere compilation of their molecules-in-motion that happened to have developed as a result of all of their preceding physical events, which makes these commandments not only subjective, but determined. In other words, all the commandments that were compiled were physically determined and cannot be considered as morally objective in any sense. To be imaginative, let’s pretend that the atheistic worldview magically allowed for freewill; that would still not allow for an ontological foundation for the grounding of objective morality, hence making their list of 21st century commandments completely subjective.

    At the end of the day, the atheistic worldview is morally unlivable. Not because atheists are somehow incapable of living good moral lives but because there is no difference between good or evil without the objective moral standard set forth by God. Many atheistic scholars have come to terms with this reality. Atheist Richard Dawkins wrote in River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life,

    “In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. . . . DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music” (p. 133)

    Atheist William Provine, a scholar of the history of evolutionary biology at Cornell University, said in a debate with Philip Johnson,

    “Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either”

    Atheist philosopher Michael Ruse wrote in Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics,

    “The position of the modern evolutionist is that humans have an awareness of morality because such an awareness of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate when someone says, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves. Nevertheless, such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, . . . and any deeper meaning is illusory” (pp. 262-269)

    I can go on and on with atheist scholars supporting this position. Generally speaking, atheist academics have settled this fact. Morality is groundless without a moral law giver (i.e. God). Does that sound depressing? Absolutely, but it is the truth if God does not exist. My goal isn’t to put a damper on “The ReThink Project” but I may suggest that it strongly rethink its strategy. If it were to do that, their project may not be nearly as fun. Imagine if they were to advertise in a way that stayed loyal to their atheistic worldview! It might go a little something like this,

    “At Atheist Mind Humanist Heart, we’re developing a project that will update the 10 Commandments for the people of the 21st Century, and we need your help! While we recognize that all of your submissions to this project have been causally determined and your freewill is nothing more than a convenient illusion, we value what nature has ultimately forced you to write! Let your Darwinian roots take you as far as your freewill illusions will allow. Write like you have a mind of your own! Celebrate the notion of being open-minded and morally obligated to do certain things. Write as though it matters! Ascribe value to actions and behaviors when there is none to be had! Enjoy my fellow freethinkers, as though you were really free to think!”

    I pray that nobody took personal offense to my parody but I honestly feel it (as ridiculous as it was) was a more accurate representation of the atheistic worldview than the one presented in the “ReThink Project”. I honestly don’t blame the atheists who desire a system of morality that affirms absolute moral standards. Life would be truly unlivable without them. For example, if someone robbed your home and harmed your family, you could not objectively say that this person did anything wrong! Maybe this man thinks that robbing and harming is morally acceptable. Also, you couldn’t hold him morally accountable because he is merely behaving in accordance with his molecules that are physically reacting from one moment to the next. Are you beginning to see how this is unlivable?

    It’s admirable to be an atheist and affirm the existence of objective morals but it stands in the face of atheism itself. It is an inconsistent position to hold if one wishes to be a loyal atheist. Loyal atheism would require one to deny the existence of all morality. They couldn’t affirm that there was a moral difference between Hitler and Jesus because there is no objective moral standard by which to compare the two. In the end, it’s a hard subject to handle for the atheist because it’s evident that everyone wants to affirm certain moral truths to be absolute. It’s undeniable that God has truly written the moral law on our hearts.

     

     

  • Does Atheism Solve the Problem of Evil?

    Does Atheism Solve the Problem of Evil?

    Recently, I was listening to a Cross Examined podcast with Frank Turek where he was interviewing Oxford mathematician and Christian philosopher John Lennox on a lecture titled “If God, Why Evil?” I love listening to Lennox speak because he has a mastery of this subject matter and he is such an amazingly clear and concise communicator and thinker. Much like Ravi Zacharias in the way he communicates, there are few that can communicate complex topics as winsomely and persuasively as he does. Lennox is truly one of the finest Christian intellects of our generation and there are few more qualified to provide authoritative insights into the nature of the problem of evil than he.

    As I was listening, he brought up a side of the problem of evil that I haven’t examined much before until recently. As he described it, those that choose not to believe in a God because of the existence of evil fail to understand that atheism does not adequately solve the problem of evil in the most important respect. Atheism removes hope from the equation entirely. With God, we are certain of the existence of hope regardless of how poor our understanding is of the existence of evil. Those that become upset with the tragedies of this life and resort to atheism as a solution are failing to comprehend that the problem of evil and suffering will exist nonetheless. There are a couple conundrums that atheism faces when attempting to serve as an adequate explanatory framework for evil and suffering…

    If Atheism is True, No Hope Exists

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugb8St6az_Q

    The video above beautifully and simply addresses the problems that arise when atheism attempts to answer the intellectual problem of evil. Many atheists would point out that the hopelessness of our universe does not mean that their atheistic answer to suffering and evil is incorrect. I wholeheartedly agree. The hopefulness or hopelessness of an argument is irrelevant. The question must inevitably arise however, how comprehensively has atheism truly answered this question if in the process of removing God; they’ve also removed any remnant of hope that would emotionally help them through their suffering? Lennox states, “There is a sense in which atheism does solve the intellectual problem, but we have to notice that it doesn’t take away the suffering”. This is the problem with the atheistic position that many bypass in their intellectually clumsy desire to remove a God that would permit evil to exist. While the problem of evil may very well be perceived as a problem for the Christian, the Christian can at least “have hope in the face of suffering” unlike the atheist who has no hope while suffering and must face the grim reality of death being the ultimate end of their existence after a lifetime of suffering evil.

    Nature of God

    It will help us answer the question further to learn more about the nature of God. For the Christian, Jesus is God incarnate and came to die on a cross for our sins and rose on the third day, showing that “God has not remained distant from our suffering but has become a part of it”. God has endured more suffering than we can imagine and the suffering he endured was part and parcel of our salvific relationship we can choose to have with Him. Our fallen nature has brought upon most of the evil that we observe within creation and God took it upon Himself to rectify the misdeeds of His creation through the suffering on the cross so that we may have the opportunity, if we so choose, to give our lives to Him and receive eternal salvation (i.e. hope).

    The atheistic critique that God would be the author of evil in spite of Him voluntarily subjecting himself to the very evil that He is accused of creating is farcical. Jesus Christ voluntarily gave His life for us in an incomprehensibly excruciating death while begging the Father to extend forgiveness to His executioners because they ‘do not know what they do’. It seems that through Jesus’ life on earth, he experienced His fair share of evil and suffering. Jesus saw disease, death, violence, prostitution, thievery, and brokenness of every stripe. Jesus “became a part of it” and brought more hope than we deserve along with him. If atheists claim that evil and suffering are incompatible with the existence of God, it’s their claim to prove. While freewill allows for moral virtue, it also allows for the possibility of horrendous evil. The fact that God loves us enough to allow us to make our own choices is also reflective of His loving nature. God’s gift of freewill among mankind does not make God morally responsible for the evil choices freely made among those who chose to do evil instead of good.

    Conclusion

    In the grand scheme of things, if atheism is true, there is no hope for any sort of ultimate justice or compensation. Those that commit atrocities throughout history like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao will not receive punishment for their atrocities. Those who lived a righteous God-fearing life would have ultimately lived a life of virtue in vain. Lennox adds that he believes that “it could be argued that atheism makes it worse because now there is no hope”. Regardless of the existence of hope, we must ask ourselves where the evidence points.

    The existence of objective moral values and duties serves as a valuable piece of philosophical evidence. We typically don’t have to be told that murder, stealing, theft is immoral because it is self evident. God has written a transcendent moral law on our hearts so that we know that an objective moral standard exists. Without an objective standard, how can we truly measure whether an action is morally good or evil with objectivity? Some declare that morals are merely subjective and dependent on the individual person or society. However, when someone steals their car they’ll be the first complaining about how immoral stealing is. Just remind them, ‘that person must believe stealing is morally permissible so you really shouldn’t be upset’. Moral relativism is truly unlivable. If you don’t believe me, look in the history books and see how many millions of people who died under the morally relativistic atheistic dictatorships of the 20th century.

    If Jesus was who he claimed to be, which I contend that he is, we can be sure that the existence of suffering and evil is not incompatible with the existence of God. Jesus himself lived through evil and conquered it by rising on the third day. In the end, those that resort to atheism to solve this problem are left empty handed. Not only is the moral evidence for atheism deficient but other areas of study have provided strong compelling arguments for the existence of God that further corroborate the conclusion that suffering and evil should not be the roadblock that keeps one from accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior. Jesus has provided us the hope that we need to get through times of suffering and can give us the strength to fight the evil that may attempt to engulf our lives.

  • The World of Atheistic Implications

    The World of Atheistic Implications

    Putting ourselves in the mind of an atheist is hard for most of us. Honestly, have many of us really tried to think how reality might be perceived from the opposite side of the theological spectrum? For me, I began thinking about what life would look like through the paradigm of a non-believer. My mind immediately gravitated towards the notion that the universe would be void of cosmic justice. The idea of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Lenin, and innumerable other evil dictators being morally blameless for their crimes gave me a sense of discomfort. Many atheists make the objection that the Christian God is evil because He called for the extermination of the Canaanites but dismiss the idea of cosmic justice to rectify mass evil when it comes to the evils perpetrated by the wicked dictators over the last century. Obviously, the ponderings about the existence of cosmic justice doesn’t provide us with a conclusion of whether a God truly exists or not. However, this dismissive attitude towards truly evil wrongdoers while being supercritical over their misperceived evil conducted by the Old Testament God is worth noting.

    So, if you’re an atheist, you must find a way to reconcile the notion of ‘evil’ in order to live consistently with an atheist worldview. If you truly reject the existence of God, you would have to reject the existence of an objective moral standard that would serve to measure the morality of our actions. For instance, Hitler and Mother Teresa would be morally indifferent because there is no objective standard to measure their actions. If the atheist would develop a standard of morality, it would be a subjective standard that would not be authoritative among humanity. An atheist could judge the moral actions of someone else however they could not judge them on any moral foundation other than the one they’ve personally constructed for themselves. If I was an atheist that would really take the wind out of my sails. Maybe that is why you see a lot of atheists supporting pro-choice and same-sex marriage laws. In a world with no objective moral standard, why would these two behaviors (or any behavior for that matter) be considered immoral?

    Humanity is purposeless. You have no value. You’re a meaningless product of a random evolutionary process that initially developed from the spawn of a single-celled organism. The relationships you derive are also meaningless. Everything that you do in this life has no objective value. You’re living day-to-day only to accomplish the goal of mere survival. The simple fact that you’re a human provides you with the advantage of being cognitively advanced, however that provides you with no additional worth than that of bacteria. Humanity and bacteria are equally worthless in the grand scheme of things in this universe. We live on a speck of cosmic dust among hundreds of billions of other galaxies.

    Curiously enough, atheists don’t seem to live like they’re meaningless. When they speak, they perpetrate a sense of ‘equality’ when it comes to same-sex marriage and women’s ‘rights’ when it comes to pro-choice matters. The reality is that neither equality nor rights would exist under an atheist worldview. There is no transcendent Being to grant the existence of rights or equality, as these are qualities that are God-given. The illusion of rights and equality would have to be a product of humanity. In this case, since humanity creatively produced them out of nothing, we can logically assume that humanity could take them away just as fast as they brought them into existence. If equality and rights do not have a foundation in anything transcendent, then they are merely subjective.

    Atheists would be miserable folks if they lived according to the logical and inescapable conclusions of their atheism. As Christians, we see that meaning, purpose, objective morality, equality, and rights are all products of Christian theism. Without theism, these are convenient delusions that help us live life with the illusion of meaning and purpose and all that goes along with it. In our current culture, it almost seems like being an atheist is cool or that you’re a ‘free-thinker’ if you subscribe to this ideology. Is that a good enough reason to disregard these atheistic implications? Or are atheists merely borrowing from God in order to live a pleasant life while simultaneously denying the existence of Him?

    Obviously, these atheistic implications are not arguments for theism. It is merely playing out the logical conclusions of the atheistic worldview. For me, I believe in Christianity because of the cumulative case that can be made for it along with having a personal relationship with Christ that is completely outside of what any argument can provide. If you’re an atheist, the unintuitive nature of atheism should be the first sign on your path towards the inquisitive doubting of your worldview.

  • Celebrity Atheists and their Worldview

    Celebrity Atheists and their Worldview

    The goal of this article is to discuss the idea of celebrities being interviewed on religion in a highly public setting when they do not have scholarly credentials to authoritatively speak on matters of theology, philosophy, or science. People like Bill Maher, Penn Jillette, Seth MacFarlane, George Carlin, Brad Pitt, Bill Gates, Lance Armstrong, James Cameron, Ricky Gervais, Howard Stern, and many more, have commented on matters of religion in public. Likely, you have heard of all of these celebrities over the years. Would you agree that these individuals, regardless of whether or not they are qualified to speak authoritatively on matters of theology or not, are capable of influencing others to their viewpoint if they simply vocalize their support of atheism? The answer is that many people, particularly young adults, are influenced by popular atheist figures. The two leading figures of this movement are Bill Maher and Penn Jillette.

    I’ve included short video clips of outspoken celebrity atheists Bill Maher and Penn Jillette. As some of you may already know, Bill Maher made a documentary called “Religulous” and Penn Jillette has written “God, No!” and “Everyday is an Atheist Holiday!” After being exposed to their underpinnings, I was blown away by how popular these guys have become at the expense of theism. They have been on several talk shows on primetime television promoting their works. While there are many more than two celebrity atheists, I selected these two celebrities because they are often the most visible in the Hollywood scene on this topic. I spent a good amount of time listening to videos of celebrity atheists to see if I could find a celebrity who could present an articulate case for their atheistic worldview. After spending hours on YouTube, I was unable to find any celebrity who could present a case that was completely consistent with their stated atheistic worldview. It can be concluded that these celebrities do not understand the implications of atheism.

    Bill Maher and Penn Jillette generally mirror the atheists in Hollywood. It is a stance of pure emotion and a pungent distaste for what they think God stands for with their primary complaint being the existence of evil. They self-proclaim themselves as being fueled by the power of pure reason, logic, and science. Essentially, they differentiate their position from theism by stating they’re more in tune with reality than theists because of their acceptance of naturalism/materialism. While this summary is dramatically generalizing their position, mercifully in my opinion, I feel that this is the primary message being communicated in the public arena of mainstream media.

    Below, I have provided a video for the trailer of “Religulous” and a brief interview with Penn Jillette on the topic of atheism.

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XePHrS1U9A]
    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH9mx6odQR4]

    Any Christian with an ounce of understanding of Christian theology or philosophy would be able to identify that the arguments being presented by these individuals are not credible arguments. They are misunderstanding what is claimed by theism while simultaneously being ignorant of the implications of atheism. On one hand you have Penn Jillette who makes his signature, “I don’t know” argument and happily stands by it. To me, I do not perceive him as a malicious guy. In fact, I’d like to sit down and have a discussion with him because he genuinely seems like an interesting person who appears to enjoy life. On the other hand, you have Bill Maher who is often combative, insulting, and bigoted towards those who believe in a God. If you have ever seen “Religulous”, you understand what I mean. For Maher to primarily interview people who have no expertise in theology and attempt to overpower them with his rhetorical skills, it appears as though he wasn’t out on a search for truth when he made his documentary. Rather, he was out on a mission to make religion look bad.

    Both of these celebrity atheists have their own approach. Both of which has the influence to sway the ignorant reader/viewer to consider atheism as a credible worldview. People, particularly the younger generation (like myself), fall victim to their influence regardless of how ignorant these celebrities are. The reality is, these celebrities, and those like them, are entertainers. They are certainly not theologians, philosophers, or scientists. For these guys to write a book/make a documentary that attempts to critique religion on the basis of these three factors is intellectually embarrassing. What is worse is that the people being influenced by this material are not even looking into the credibility of the claims being made by these guys. The atheistic flame is being fueled by the gas of fallacious entertainment.

    They both touch on the idea of morality and how they believe that the theists are morally good only because they are afraid of burning in hell. View the short video below for an example of this.

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfGNk8azX1A]

    What they fail to understand is that without a God, the concept of objective morality is incoherent. Without God, there is no standard to measure good and evil. As an atheist, any idea that we may have concerning “good and evil” would be the result of social conditioning over the hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. With that in mind, there would not be an objective moral difference between Adolf Hitler and Mother Teresa under an atheistic worldview. School shootings, terrorist attacks, murders, rapes, etc… could not be labeled as good or evil in an atheistic worldview because atheism fails to have a standard to measure objective good/evil. For theists, like myself, I am able to objectively acknowledge that morality is universal and grounded in God. I know that the Holocaust was objectively evil. I know that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were objectively evil. In a world with no God, how can an atheist say that anything is objectively evil under a universal standard?

    While I admire Maher and Jillette for acknowledging the existence of objective morality, they are completely lost on how to ground objective morality in a world with no God. I become lost when I hear them complain about the morals of Christians. How, under atheism, can anyone objectively identify right from wrong? Leading atheist/biologist Richard Dawkins, a man who they both value with very high esteem, says the following about objective morality under an atheist worldview, “There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference…we are machines for propagating DNA…it is every living object’s sole reason for being” .

    I highlighted on morality because that is what appears to be the biggest inconsistency with most atheists. They love the idea of there not being a God but still like to borrow from the moral concepts of theism. You cannot have it both ways. Atheists have to either consider theism because of the existence of objective morality or embrace the idea that morality is relative and the appearance of morality is nothing more than a biological adaptation.

    In the end, this was an article based upon my frustration of hearing these two celebrities, and their proselytizing about how their outlook on life is superior while being completely ignorant of the problems that face it. Printing books and producing movies in the name of atheism while failing to make a concerted effort to appear as though they are seeking truth rather than just religion-bashing has been largely ignored. While much more can be said on this matter, it is my sincere hope that people awaken to the true nature of the atheist propaganda of Hollywood. I encourage everyone to read books by scholars and ask the hard questions. But whatever you do, do not allow yourself to become easily influenced by these guys and people like them. You owe it to yourself to search out the truth, and the truth will set you free. I’ll conclude this article with insightful thoughts from C.S. Lewis on the issue of morality, thoughts of which have given me a greater perspective on the topic of morality,

    “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I gotten this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”

    Sources
    Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden; A Darwinian View of Life (New York: Basic Books, 1996), p. 133 and Richard Dawkins, “The Ultraviolet Garden” Lecture 4 of 7, Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (1993)
    C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: Fount, 1997)

  • An Introduction to the Moral Argument

    An Introduction to the Moral Argument

    In our current day, proclaiming that you’re a Christian is somewhat of a social taboo in the eyes of many social media outlets. Christians are seemingly becoming the minority in the eyes of the Western secular culture with our alleged outlandish and intolerant moral views on popular social issues such as homosexuality and abortion. The media often portrays Christians in a rather unflattering manner as a hateful, intolerant, bigoted, judgmental group.  Fortunately, none of these moral critiques against Christians carry any weight unless there is a foundation for the existence of objectivemoral values and duties. Hence, to evaluate this matter more thoroughly, the thesis of this article is to assess whether or not there is enough evidence to reasonably conclude that objective moral values and duties do exist.

    Before discussing this topic any further, I would like to identify what I mean by “objective”.  “Objective” is being used with the meaning of, “independent of human opinion”.  For example, the Holocaust during WWII was objectively bad despite whether the Nazis felt what they were doing was objectively good. The reality is that it is objectively wrong to murder innocent people.  To illustrate another example; murder, rape, torture, theft, adultery, and lying are also objectively wrong.  Those that participate in those activities would be objectively wrong regardless of whether they think they are doing something morally right.
    Now that “objective” has been identified in its proper context, it is now time to lay the foundation for the objectivity of morals in relationship to the existence of God. This argument is called; “the Moral Argument” and the premises are laid as follows:
    1)     If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist
    2)    Objective moral values and duties do exist
    3)    Therefore, God exists[1]
    The further discussion will highlight the elements of the argument that make it effective and philosophically compelling. In addition to highlighting the elements of the argument, I’ll also evaluate the most common objections to the moral argument while laying out a comprehensive assessment of their shortcomings.
    Affirmation of Objective Moral Values and Duties
    This is a powerful argument among Christians today because a majority of people of all worldviews affirm the existence of objective moral values and duties. The reason for wanting to affirm objective moral values and duties is evident to anyone who has gone through a terrible tragedy or has ever been exposed to tragic events such as the terror attacks on 9/11, the Holocaust during WWII, the Columbine High School shooting, the recent shooting in a movie theater in Aurora, CO, and the like.
    You may wonder why all people (atheists and theists) desperately want to affirm objective moral values and duties.  You may ask, “Why is that important?” I think this is best illustrated when we look at the moral argument with the assumption that God does not exist.  Given that we’re assuming that God does not exist, we then find ourselves in a world that does not have objective moral values and duties.  Any morals that we observe among society would be the incidental byproduct of biological evolution and societal conditioning that has developed within our species to assist humanity in its survival.  If we witnessed each other performing seemingly good deeds within our society, it wouldn’t be because it was objectively good.  It would be because our embedded natural instinct is to help each other in order to propagate our species.  By the same token, if we were to observe someone in the act of murder; they wouldn’t be acting objectively immoral. They would simply be acting unfashionably according to their social structure and we could identify that action as being counter-productive in the propagation of human species.
    The reasons for this lack of moral objectively in a universe with no God is specifically identified by its lack of foundation in which to ground moral values and duties, thereby nothing can be considered objectively good or bad. A competent authority is needed to establish these objective moral foundations[2]. The atheistic worldview does not allow for objective moral values and duties because it lacks God, which is the competent authority needed to establish objective moral values and duties.
    Misusing “Good”
    However, there are critiques posed upon this argument which conclude that objective moral values and duties are also attainable under atheism. A prominent atheist by the name of Sam Harris authored the book, “The Moral Landscape”, and dedicated it to proving the notion that you don’t need God to have objective moral values and duties.  He is very creative in his argument; however it falls quite short from fully justifying how atheism begins to reconcile objective moral values and duties while being in a Godless universe.
    It is creative because Harris uses the English language to manipulate the meaning of “good”.  He plays a rousing game of semantics with the term, “good”.  Meaning, he is not using the term “good” to mean moral good.  He often uses the term “good” to mean something related to the flourishing of sentient life[3]. In order to identify the differences between the word “good” in the moral context and the context that refers to “good” as the flourishing of sentient life, I’ll illustrate the point with some examples.
    For example, moral good would refer to what is identified as an act such as generosity, putting others before oneself, loving one another, volunteering at a local homeless shelter, and other traditionally accepted actions associated with moral good. The way Harris is using “good” is in reference to the flourishing of sentient life forms.  For example, it would be beneficial for all sentient life to behave in a manner that assists in their flourishing and expansion3. However, we must ask, why is the flourishing of sentient life objectively good in the moral sense?
    While it is good for flourishing to occur among sentient life, there is nothing that would lead us to conclude that it is objectively moral for sentient life to flourish.  Dr. William Lane Craig likened it to the flourishing of corn3. We can identify what helps corn to flourish but assisting it in its flourishing doesn’t illustrate how objectively moral we are or it is. We can all acknowledge the flourishing of sentient life is good because sentient beings like to flourish, however there is no moral objectivity that underlies the foundation of the flourishing.
    This type of evaluation is an ontological versus semantic analysis.  The ontological nature of evaluating morals would be to identify the foundation of those morals. Meaning, what the foundation for objective morals? Is it God or is it nature? The semantic nature of “good” would be to evaluate the meaning of the term and would not play any role in trying to identify the ontological foundation for morality3.  This distinction is important to identify when responding to the claim that the objective moral foundation can be identified by nature. Simply put, creaturely flourishing and objective morality are two separate subjects3. 
    Atheists That Affirm No Objective Morals
    I’ve used the example with Harris and his “moral landscape” because he is of a minority of atheist scholars that continue to propagate the notion of objective morals from an atheistic worldview. You may be curious about what other atheist scholars have said about morality from an atheistic worldview.  I’ll list a few quotes below that describe what has been said about morality in a universe that is without a God:
    “There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference…we are machines for propagating DNA…it is every living object’s sole reason for being” – Richard Dawkins[4]
    “The position of the modern evolutionist…is that humans have an awareness of morality…because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than our hands and feet and teeth…Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” they think they are referencing above and beyond themselves…Nevertheless,…such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction,…and any deeper meaning is illusory” – Michael Ruse[5]
    “Morality…is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends… In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate” – Michael Ruse and E.O. Wilson[6]
    As you can see, these atheists are being very honest and candid about their approach to morality from an atheistic worldview. They are indeed remaining true to their worldview. It is often hard to approach this topic in a straightforward and honest fashion simply because it is difficult for some people to come to the conclusion that we are no more important than any other living creature on this planet in terms of our morality without God. Without God, every action done by each of us wouldn’t be morally good or bad.  It would simply be morally neutral without a basis for measuring good or bad. Any appearance of morals would be the byproduct of social conditioning over thousands of years, and nothing more. The following is an eloquent quote by Francis Beckwith on the reality of objective morals:
    “to deny the existence of universally objective moral distinctions, one must admit that Mother Teresa was no more or less moral than Adolf Hitler, that torturing three-year-olds for fun is neither good nor evil, that giving 10 percent of one’s financial surplus is neither praiseworthy nor condemnable, that raping a woman is neither right nor wrong, and that providing food and shelter for one’s spouse and children is neither a good thing nor a bad thing”[7]
    Being Untrue to your Worldview
    However, many atheists still desire to affirm that these moral values are objective despite their lack of belief in a God. It is certainly a curious position to take from an atheistic worldview. Nearly all of the atheists that I know are people I’d consider to be upright and moral people. However, they don’t acknowledge their morals to be founded in a transcendent source. I once had a discussion on the issue of morality with one of my atheist friends. Needless to say, she was repulsed that I would ever suggest that morals were founded in God rather than in nature. She took offense that I would offer such a proposition because she thought I was attacking her moral integrity. She thought that since she didn’t believe God, I was somehow suggesting she wasn’t a moral person. Needless to say, that wasn’t the point I was attempting to get across.  
    Please understand that atheists are fully capable of being moral. This is a common misunderstanding among atheists when speaking on this topic. Many atheists feel that theists are making the assertion that people who don’t believe in God are not capable of being morally good people. That is completely false. It is certainly possible to be a morally good person without the belief in God. The distinctions between being morally good and knowing how objective morals are grounded are two completely different subjects. Simply put, the faith that there is a God isn’t a requirement for our objective morality, God is[8].
    The Euthyphro Dilemma
    There is a popular objection that many atheists use called the Euthyphro dilemma. The Euthyphro dilemma was developed as a character in one of Plato’s dialogues. The objection to the moral argument is as follows:
    “Either something is good because God wills it or else God wills something because it is good”1
    The first half of the dilemma states that, “something is good because God wills it”. That means that God could have willed anything to be good. God could have potentially willed rape, murder, lying, kidnapping, torturing, etc… to be good. If those horrible actions were to be willed by God as good, then we would have the moral duty to perform those things to one another. What is good becomes arbitrary under this option. Therefore, the first half of this dilemma clearly seems to be an implausible assertion because the possibility of murder, lying, kidnapping, torturing, etc… being good simply because God wills it undermines the fact that some moral values are necessary in this world 1.
    The second half states that, “God wills something because it is good”. That means that whatever is good is completely independent of God and would completely undercut the first premise of the moral argument (If God does not exist, objectivemoral values and duties do not exist). If we contend that the first premise of the moral argument is true, we see that objective moral values are dependent upon God for their moral grounding. Therefore, God does not will something because it is good 1.
    An attentive observer of this dilemma will notice that this dilemma is not exhaustive of all the options for the foundation of morals. Essentially, Plato didn’t include every option for why morals are good or bad from a theistic point of view. This third option not included in the Euthyphro dilemma is as follows:
    “God wills something because He is good”6
    This alternative means that God’s own nature is the standard by which goodness is measured and the commands placed upon us are reflective of His nature. Our duties are dependent upon the commands issued to us by God, which are reflective of His nature6
    By no means is the Euthyphro dilemma the authoritative and empirical method for identifying how morals can be identified as good in a theistic worldview. In fact, we are presented with an insufficient amount of choices under the Euthyphro dilemma. The reality is the moral status of an action is determined by the nature of God and any moral action is determined by God’s will6.
    Atheistic Moral Platonism
    This is a rather confusing objection to the moral argument however it is often posed. Plato also proposed that moral good exists on its own independently of God. When Christian thinkers evaluated this idea, they identified that the moral good Plato was referring to was actually God himself. Given this proposal, many atheistic thinkers may say that morally good actions exist without the need for any foundation because moral good is believed to be objectively independent of God6.
    Given the principles that have been laid out thus far regarding the moral argument, we find that it is implausible to infer that objective moral values exist without being founded in a transcendent Being. This view also doesn’t address how objective moral duties can result from it. This view does imply that good moral qualities exist independently of God however under this view, what objective obligation do I have to perform any of these good moral duties? 6
    Under this very same worldview of moral Platonism, morally bad actions like hate, rape, murder, lying, etc… identically exist just as the morally good actions do. Without the ontological foundation supporting moral Platonism that addresses moral duties, the moral good and bad are meaningless because there is no moral obligation to be good or bad6.
    Lastly, to be a committed moral Platonist, you would be committed to believing that biological evolution developed in a manner that would separate the moral realm from the realm of creatures. As a result, these creatures would then need to be capable of comprehending the objectivity of morals. Given that morals are objective under this view, creatures would have to identify with this moral realm that is completely distinct from them and identify with the objectivity of its morals. On the whole, it appears drastically more plausible that the wholly independent natural and moral realms are under the authority of God rather than interpreting the presence of objective morals as a coincidental biological compatibility6.
    Conclusion
    As I touched on in the introduction, while the secular media freely scrutinizes Christians for remaining true to their worldview, they freely violate theirs by saying that what Christians represent is morally wrong. They can’t make that type of conclusion if there is no objective right and wrong. Gaining insight into the moral argument can give you an understanding of the fallacies that are being made when you hear secular individuals speak of objective morality while disaffirming God’s existence.
    Many reasons have been laid out for the understanding of objective moral values and duties, the reasons for their objectivity, and the analysis of the most common objections to the moral argument. The moral argument is one of the most valuable arguments for any Christian apologist. The reason why is because people can relate to the reality of objective moral values and duties in their hearts.
    People want to know that objective moral values exist because it brings them peace of mind knowing that there will ultimately be justice done to those who have committed wrongdoing and for those who have acted righteously. Why else would people be so distraught when they see unspeakable acts like 9/11, the Holocaust, and the Aurora, CO movie theater shooting? The reason why is because we have an innate belief that these actions are objectively wrong. If we felt that all actions are morally neutral, we couldn’t objectively differentiate between an act of love and an act of hate.
    This moral argument is an important argument to understand. We are made in the image of God[9] and the nature of God is the reflection of the moral good. If we are made in the image of God, it makes perfect sense why we have an innate grasp on objective morality and strive to affirm it despite whether we believe in God or not. Humanity does affirm these values naturally without being incentivized. While we desire to affirm these objective morals that we experience, we must address and investigate which worldview makes the most sense of these objective moral values and duties. To me, it is clear that without God, we cannot claim the existence of objective moral values and duties as true while claiming to have been led by the evidence to the most plausible conclusion.

    [1] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books) Chapter 4
    [2]William Lane Craig, Does Theistic Ethics Derive an “ought” from an “Is” from http://www.reasonablefaith.org/does-theistic-ethics-derive-an-ought-from-an-is
    [3] William Lane Craig vs. Sam Harris debate on “Is the Foundation of Morality Natural or Supernatural?” at Notre Dame University on April 2011
    [4] Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden; A Darwinian View of Life (New York: Basic Books, 1996), p. 133 and Richard Dawkins, “The Ultraviolet Garden” Lecture 4 of 7, Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (1993)
    [5] Michael Ruse, “Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics,” in The Darwinian Paradigm (London: Routledge, 1989), 262, 268-89.
    [6] Michael Ruse and Edward O. Wilson, “The Evolution of Ethics,” in Philosophy of Biology, ed. Michael Ruse (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 316
    [7] Francis Beckwith and Greg Koukl, Relativism(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books)
    [8] William Lane Craig, One Guard (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook) Chapter 6
    [9] Genesis 1:27