This blog is a continuation of last week’s blog, in which I am addressing a question posed by an international at AIF.
Q: Proof that God exists.
A: Many Chinese today are morally outraged at the atrocities committed at Nanjing. Indonesians are outraged at the bloodshed of Suharto. Koreans rage against Kim Jong Un. Americans were angry when Muslims flew planes into the World Trade Centers. People have been outraged against the bloodshed of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Amin, and Pol Pot. They have raged against the slavery in America, the apartheid in South Africa, and the corruption of politicians virtually everywhere. The world gives us plenty opportunity to show moral anger, but those opportunities are not just reserved for high-level international events. You are angry when a colleague falsely accuses you of cheating or when a driver hits your car and then blames you for the accident. Such behavior is wrong, and you know it.
You believe in moral absolutes, and you can’t escape the belief. You are human. If you wish to say, “No, no. Moral absolutes don’t exist,” I shall have to reply that you don’t believe your own words. You say “morality is not absolute,” but then you turn around and complain when someone does wrong to you. If morality is relative, then you have no complaint, no argument. You can’t say that your co-worker was wrong to steal your work if wrong does not exist.
So let’s get past this nonsense you sometimes hear about morality being relative. No one believes that. Including the people who say it.
It, thus, seems as if there is an absolute moral standard that both you and I claim to understand (though imperfectly) and that we assume other people also understand. We do not believe this standard is based on our culture, for when an American military jet flies into Chinese air space, the Chinese government accuses the American government of violating a moral rule involving air space. This moral rule is not something they appeal to on the basis of their culture. Instead they assume that this rule is universal and that all cultures understand it. The atheist Chinese government is, thus, appealing to a universal, moral absolute.
You believe in a moral absolute. So do I. So do Muslims. So do Hindus. So do atheists. Even big, bold Nietzsche, who wrote so strongly against morality, still believed in moral absolutes. Everyone knows that helping your neighbor is right and murdering him is wrong. It’s a human thing.
What does all this then tell us about the question of God? The fact of the matter is that God is the best explanation for the existence of moral absolutes. If God exists, moral right and wrong makes perfect sense. Morality has a foundation that is easy to see. If, however, God does not exist, then moral absolutes have no foundation, and we lose the ability to say that corporate greed is wrong.
Let’s think through this for a moment. At the West Mall at the University of Texas, I listened to an atheist student accuse Cliff Knechtle of supporting a God who ordered the slaughter of the Canaanite people. The student was morally outraged, and his moral outrage was evidence to him that God did not exist. Now what was the source of his outrage? He obviously had a powerful moral sense, and he was appealing to a moral standard that he understood, and that he expected the ancient Hebrews and Cliff Knechtle to also understand. He was an atheist, yet he appealed to a moral argument against God.
His appeal was ironic, for a moral argument against God assumes a moral absolute. If there is no moral absolute, then the student’s argument falls apart. But the moment you admit a moral absolute, you are back to God, for where did your moral absolute come from?
The strongest arguments against God are the moral ones, largely because of their emotional appeal. But the problem with them is that the atheist has to steal from God in order to argue against Him. This is the downfall of the famous problem of evil. If there is no evil, then what’s the problem? If there is evil, then there must be a moral standard that defines good and evil. Where did that standard come from?
Atheism so far has failed to provide a plausible, internally consistent answer to that question. Atheists want to get rid of the idea of absolutes but still cling to them when we talk about Hitler or the guy who punched them in the face. They want it both ways, but they can’t have it both ways. Theism, however, makes perfect sense of moral absolutes. Moral absolutes are not proof that God exists, but they are evidence that points toward God and away from atheism. God simply makes better sense of this phenomenon.
