In chapter four The Existence of God (part 2) Dr. Craig elaborates on the teleological argument, moral argument, and the ontological argument for the existence of God. At the end of the chapter, Dr. Craig states “In my experience, the moral argument is the most effective argument for the existence of God.” I want to summarize Craig’s moral argument for the existence of God.
Here is Craig’s formulation of this argument:
1) If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exit.
2) Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3) Therefore, God exists.
To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or evil independently of whether any human being believes it to be so. For example, to say that the Holocaust was objectively wrong is to say that it was wrong even if the Nazis who had carried it out thought that it was right, and it would still have been wrong if the Nazis had won WWII and succeeded in exterminating or brainwashing everyone who disagreed with them so that it was universally believed that the holocaust was right. The claim of premise (1) is that if there is no God, then moral values and duties are not objective in this sense.
What is the atheist or the naturalists answer? They have no consistent answer. Because they see no difference between humans and animals, our species is no greater than animal. Craig quotes humanist philosopher Paul Kurtz, “the discoveries of Copernicus and Darwin… have [undermined] the belief that we are fundamentally different from all other species” (The Courage to Become, Westport, Conn: Praeger, 1997, 125). Yet, humanists continue to treat human being as morally special in contrast to other species.
The humanists or evolutionists would argue that all species have morals because in the survival of the fittest, this was necessary. Baboons co-operate and sacrifice for each other simply because evolution determined these morals were necessary for their survival. All moral values are the result of socio-biological evolution. Morality is just as much an adaptation as our feet and hands for survival. Therefore, there is no objective moral values because animals have no moral objective obligation to one another.
Richard Taylor illustrates: A hawk that seizes the fish from the sea kills it, but does not murder it: and another hawk that seizes the fish from the talons of the first takes it, but does not steal it---for none of these things is forbidden. And exactly the same consideration applies to the people we are imagining (Ethics, Faith, and Reason, Englewook cliffs N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985, 14).
So, if God doesn’t exist, there is no objective moral value to condemn murder and thief because other species perform these acts uncondemned. But, humanists and evolutionists do condemn these acts among humans. Why are these acts wrong? Dartmouth ethicist Walter Sinnott-Armstrong answers, “It simply is. Objectively. Don’t you agree?” (“There Is No Good Reason to Believe in God,” in God? A Debate, 34). Of course, we believe because we are theists who believe 1) If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exit. But why should atheists objectively believe murder and theft is wrong if we are all the same species?
Premise 2) of the moral argument asserts that, in fact, objective moral values and duties do exist. So, how do we answer the objection of humanists who say that moral values are illusions fostered in us by socio-biological evolution? According to naturalism all our beliefs, not just our moral beliefs, have been selected for survival value, not truth, and are therefore unwarranted or without bases. Therefore, the humanist or evolutionist has no grounds for condemning any act as wrong including murder, theft, rape, or child abuse. So, the agnostic philosopher of science Michael Ruse is groundless when he states, “The man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says 2+2=5?” (Darwinism Defended, London: Addion-Wesley, 1982, 275).
3) Therefore, God exists. The moral argument thus brings us to a personal, necessarily existent being who is the locus (site or location) and source of moral goodness.
The moral argument for God’s existence is powerful because every day that you get up you answer the question of whether there are objective moral values and duties by how you live.
This is contrary to the moral relativism that teaches moral values and duties are the results of evolution and therefore you have no right to judge one another. Yet at the same time our generation is steeped in political correctness which condemns those who condemn what they consider to be moral. This generation would condemn the government rounding up all homosexuals and throwing them into concentration camps the way the Nazis did Jews. They would condemn that as morally wrong and therefore disavow moral relativism. This generation also condemns as morally wrong racism, wife beating, child abuse or child molestation covered up by the Roman Catholic Church.
To be honest, they must admit their humanistic view is inadequate and therefore admit
1) If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exit.
2) Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3) Therefore, God exists.
I was disappointed that Craig responds to the objection to the moral argument that “The God of the Hebrew Bible is a moral monster” for commanding the slaughter of the Canaanites by stating this is not an argument against the existence of God but an argument against inerrancy because the OT authors got it wrong in attributing these commands to God.
The doctrine of inerrancy does not need to be sacrificed for this objection to the moral argument. God was not a moral monster for commanding the death of the nations that rejected His revelation as the only true God. They could have responded like Rahab the harlot in Joshua 2:9-10 and become believers. The result of not annihilating the Canaanites is seen in Solomon who married the foreign wives and accepted their gods as his god and thus split the kingdom of Israel. The Canaanites not only rejected the miracle associated with the crossing of the Red Sea, which Rahab received, but the Canaanites murdered their babies in the worship of false gods. The reaped what the sowed. Will Jesus be a moral monster at His Second Coming in Revelation 19, when at the Battle of Armageddon, “out of his mouth goes a sharp sword that with it he should smite the nations.” God in the OT commanded that the nations that rejected His mercy and who brutally abused and murdered babies, be judged for their crimes. Is a surgeon a monster for cutting out a cancer that will spread to the rest of the body and kill the person? No! God is not a moral monster, He is a just God and also a loving God who extends mercy before judgment to all who turn to Him. Giving up inerrancy is not the answer to those who reject God’s existence.