Many Atheists believe that knowing good and evil, or right or wrong is an obvious thing to see. We do not need God to explain right and wrong, so they say. Richard Carrier in his book, makes the charge “do we all live in a sick society” implying that many of us are normal functionally people who live moral lives. It seems for the atheist that right and wrong is based on conceptual thoughts and ideas and not on a designed nature to act good.
Carrier says,
“In fact the universe exhibits zero value affinity, it operates exactly the same for everyone, the good and the bad. It rewards and craps on both with total disregard. It behaves just like a cold and indifferent machine, not the creation of a loving engineer. The only place any sort of value effect is every seen is in human thought and action, and only when humans are psychologically developed in a certain way. It thus stands to reason that values do not come from the design of the universe, but the adaptation of Homo sapiens to that universe, and in particular to a social ecology. After all the only place values are ever found are in human thought.”
Carrier makes it clear in this passage that values are not part of the universe as a whole, they are not part of a design. Humans invent them and use them.
Another bloger which I engage debate with says,
“Concepts of good and evil are in fact subjective. Still, thanks to common ancestry, there is a great deal of agreement about them among people. Science's role is not to define good and evil, but can be used to examine whether certain dubious behaviors cause effects that most people would clearly label good (or evil). I can't put it any simpler for you, sorry.”
So for the atheist good and evil are subjective ideas, that we can all have and see. It is just a matter of working out which work the best for most people, bringing more pleasure and less pain to people. The first problem with this is that “Happiness can be very subjective” and if we can in fact “all” see a value system that works for most people, does this not push for an objective standard. I believe it is true that atheists can see what good and evil is, (they say without God) because of the moral law that is written in us by God.
“For when the Gentiles who do not have the law (of Moses) do instinctively the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them (Rom. 2;14-15)”
Atheist might say they don’t need God to have morality, but scripture agrees, but we can’t get rid of God that easily. God is the author of the moral law written in our hearts. This is the objective standard that we all feel in side us that is independent of our own choices and actions. If there is an objective standard of good and evil, then there must be a moral lawgiver independent of our choices and feelings imposing our obligation to submit to it. This I believe is God, who is the eternal perfect, Good Being, who creates humans in his image, to bear his nature (in a finite sense) and moral standards. For the atheist this is just not so, humans have just invented these standards from conceptual ideas. But I believe this is a huge jump from the story of evolution. Big Bang, evolved by chance, no design or purpose, minds appear and think moral values, in a valueless universe.
Erik Wielenberg in his book “God and the Reach of Reason” takes on the moral argument of C.S Lewis and tries to refute it in chapter two of his book. I found the book interesting, but the more I read the quotes from Lewis I believed Lewis’s argument was stronger than ever.
Lewis says,
‘If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts of the universe…The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that is just what we do find inside ourselves. Surely this is out to arouse our suspicions…I find that I do not exist on my own, that I am under a law; that somebody or something wants me to behave in a certain way.”
To say that an action or event is objectively wrong is to judge it according to an objective standard independent of human opinion and according to a standard that the universe should be following. This implies that there is a moral lawgiver behind the universe. If God does not exist then this universe is valueless.
If evolution was true, then why should we feel obligated to follow this moral law if it is just an impersonal force, which has evolved by chance. If there is no moral law then there is no conscience of the judge judging our thoughts and desires and bringing them into line.
For atheists who reject the moral law, they normally hold to nominalism and its conception of right reason. Humans do not they say have a created, designed nature that draws them to do good according to a good nature. For the atheist there is no guide or light in mankind or inherent teleology that draws us towards truth or goodness. No for the atheists all that humans are left with is right reason, and reason alone will tell us what is good and what is evil. As for the Christian we believe that God has created us teleological good, to function good with a ontological good nature. And this nature acts under the guidance’s of the moral law and standard of God. Since the natural order is teleological, oriented to good ends, moral law is evident in the natural ends of the human species.
For the atheist there is no good nature to humans, just his power to think right, which I would imply that there is an objective standard to thinking right then !?
But can reason alone change our behavior, I don’t think it can as if our bodies are not created to function good, or even moral, then how can we make it comply with our moral ideas. Reason alone cannot affect behavior as most of our thoughts are guided by our emotions which are part of a nature. Reason alone would just give us propositions, but no reason to act on any of them. If we have objective emotions then we again have a designed nature, which acts and feels good and evil. Reason must act with and in balance with our emotions and good nature.
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2 comments:
interestly kant(being a christian) thought than one can use reason to find out what is moral. but when you use pure reason to come to a conclusion about what is right and wrong, the lowist common denominater then is the subjective reason of the individual. Thus that is what contempary morality has become what the individual thinks is true based on objective facts of science and psyclology. Any ethical concluson based on these perpectives are purely arbertary unless God exist to give any certitude to how one ought to behave. that means Kants' ethics is self defeating. pure reason is limited to giving certitude on moral issues with out any objective facts to give Kant pure reason any subtancce, because sciences' logic is flawed (inductive reasoning) and limited thus no possibility of certitude. thus only God can give certitude to the moral problem of what is Good and evil.
I agree Lance 100%
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