Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on Think Apologetics. Tabernacle of David considers this resource trustworthy and Biblically sound.
.
There have always been moral disagreements. In our present culture, the abortion debate has heated up. The debate over whether public schools should be educating young children on sexuality and gender is another contentious topic. There re plenty of other hot button issues. Our own experience shows that we agree that it is objectively, morally wrong what the Nazis did to the Jewish people, or what happened to George Floyd in 2020. This is not based on our subjective opinion. Did an impersonal and nonmoral process lead to humans to create their own morality? Does biology, society, and people’s personal preferences determine what is morally right and wrong? Moral values refer to the worth of a person or action, whether it is good or bad. Values have to do with whether something is good or bad. Moral duties are moral obligations, what you ought or ought not to do. Moral duty refers to our obligation to act in a certain way, whether that action is right or wrong. We see the following:
1. Objective values and duties are valid and binding, independent of human opinion.
2. If a personal God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
3. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
4. Therefore, a personal God exists.
Also, 1) We would not know there was injustice unless there were an objective standard of justice. 2) True progress is not possible unless we know an objective standard by which we measure that things are getting better or worse. We can’t know better unless we know what is best. 3) Real moral disagreements are not possible without an objective moral standard. But there are plenty of real, moral disagreements – for example, those about injustice, intolerance, and cruelty. 4) The same basic moral codes are found in most cultures. 5) Guilt from breaking a moral law would not be universal if there were no objective moral law. 6) Even those who deny moral absolutes have moral principles they believe are universal, such as tolerance, freedom of expression, and the wrongness of bigotry and genocide.
Our moral values and moral obligations are also directly related to our view of people. If God does not exist, it makes it more challenging to hold to a high moral view of human beings. If humans do not bear the divine image, their worth can only be determined on the basis of their differing abilities and empirical qualities. Humans could not have “unalienable rights,” as the Declaration of Independence states, if they have no objective value simply by being human. We see the following:
1. People spend their entire lives fighting for what they consider to be inequality, justice, and human rights. Thus, they really believe humans have great value.
2. If God does not exist, all reality is reducible to matter and chance. Human worth emerges from valueless matter. Humans can assign people value by choice. It is purely subjective.
3. Humans do have a right to human dignity, i.e., the right to receive respect irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, rank, or any other way.
4. Therefore, God exists.
Given the times we live in, I think this is a good opportunity to revisit the moral argument. Also, see my post on the Moral Apologetics website called ” How the Moral Outrage Over Will Smith Slapping Chris Rock Points to the Moral Argument for God’s Existence”
