Part Two

God and Morality
So far in our study we have seen that the question of what goodness is and how one is to find a reference point to draw the conclusion has been fruitless. I hope I have shown in some way the almost impossibility of morality linked to goodness from an atheistic worldview. In this section we will see where God’s existence plays in the grounding of morality and goodness.

Reality exists
When we reflect on life we soon come to the conclusion that we exist and that we are part of some reality. Did this reality always exist or did it come into existence? If the world which we find our-selves in has always existed then the world is eternal, self-existent. But if the world has not existed forever and has come into existence then there must be another source for its existence. Some where in the chain of cause and effect there has to be an eternal ultimate starting point, an uncaused entity.
Reality exists, so there must be an eternal foundation for its existence. As reality can not come into existence from nothing. Nothing has no power and from nothing, nothing comes. To explain it simple there has to be a starting point, which does not need a cause for its existence.
This foundation is either rational or impersonal, God or the universe. If it is God and science is correct, the universe had a beginning then God is the eternal foundation for all finite reality. If it is not God then the universe is impersonal (irrational) with no meaning to it or behind it. Also this universe would have to of had existed forever, being eternal.

The universe is not eternal
That fact that science has proved the universe came into beginning from the Big Bang means that it is not eternal and needs a cause for its existence. There are only two options to chose form. The source is a rational eternal God who projects his thoughts into reality or the universe comes into being by chance. Ether the universe is governed by a rational mind or it is governed by irrational chance.

The Nature of the First Cause
It therefore follows that the universe has an external cause. Conceptual analysis enables us to recover a number of striking properties, which must be possessed by such an entity.
For as the cause of space and time in to existence, this entity must transcend space and time and therefore exist atemporally and non-spatially. This transcendent cause must therefore be changeless and immaterial, since timelessness entails changelessness, and changelessness implies immateriality. Such a cause must be beginningless and uncaused. This entity must also be unimaginably powerful since it created the universe without any material cause.
Such a transcendent cause is also personal. Reasons for this imply that there are only two types of causal explanations. The first being scientific explanation in terms of laws and initial conditions and personal explanations in terms of agents and their wills. Now the first is impossible as a first state of the universe cannot be a scientific explanation, since there is nothing before it and cannot be accounted for in terms of laws operating on initial conditions (as in the universe). It can only be accounted for in terms of agent and his volition’s, a personal explanation. Second the personhood of the cause of the universe is implied by its timelessness and immateriality. This being is a personal mind who has a sufficient reason for the universe and cause for it. Giving the universe complete meaning and purpose and rational, moral order in relationship.
The cause of the universe’s beginning is a personal agent who freely chooses to create a universe in time. This is what is called “agent causation” and this free choice does not need a material cause, as it is a mental choice, being “of” or “about” something.

John Frame says in his book “The Doctrine of the Christian Life”

“As Lord, God is, first of all personal, for Lord is proper name. Thus the Bible proclaims that ultimate reality, the Supreme Being, is not an impersonal force like gravity or electromagnetism, or even a set of super-strings, but a person; one who thinks, speaks, feels, loves, and acts with purpose. As a purpose, he uses the impersonal realities of the universe for his own purposes and to his own glory. Modern secular thought is profoundly impersonalistic, holding that persons are ultimately reducible to things and forces, to matter, motion, time, and chance. Scripture denies this impersonalism, insisting that all reality, including all value comes from a supreme personal being”.

Because God is eternal he is eternal value and the highest standard and original source of all value that we find in the finite universe. His being and nature is Holy and is the norm of all goodness. Without God’s existence nothing in the universe has any distinct value at all.

For the Christian all the facts of the universe and all facts of value are part of God’s personal plan and serve his personal purpose; all of the laws by which we relate the facts (weather conceptually, logically, or causally) are a reflection of God’s personal mind and his ordering of reality. Man’s mind was created to imitate God’s thinking with respect to those personally qualified facts and personally qualified laws. God’s personal influence over all the objects of knowledge as well as the mind of man, and his purpose to have man understand and control the facts of his environment, provide for the possibility of the mind accurately apprehending the extramental world. Everything and every event must by ultimately related to God (who controls the relations between things and between events) in order to be part of a coherent and intelligible system.

Objectivity and Inwardness
Because God is morally good and is bound by his good nature his sovereignty governs over all our ethical lives. First by his control, God plans and rules nature and history, second by his authority, he speaks to us clearly, telling us what norms govern our behavior, and third, by his covenant presence. This is where God commits himself to walk with us in our conscience, and speak to us from the moral law which guide’s us to keep his commandments.

The Bible teaches that the law of God is objective in the sense that its meaning does not depend on us. It comes from God’s authoritative word.

William Lane Craig makes the point,

“So what do we mean by an Objective moral Value, well 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. That is if a bomb hit the world and all that was left were pedophiles or rapists would there actions still be objectively wrong? Similarly to say that we have objective moral duties is to say that certain actions are right or wrong for us independently of whether any human being believes them to be so.
For example to say that the Holocaust was objectively wrong is to say that it was wrong even though the Nazis who carried it out thought that it was right, and it would still be wrong even if they brain washed every body else to think it was right.”

But God is not pleased with merely external obedience. He wants his word to be written on the human heart, where it motivates us from within. God writes his moral law on the hearts of his people. In the Christian worldview, moral standards are both objective and inward.

John Frame says,

“Those who deny that worldview must seek objectivity in an unknowable realm, where the moral standard cannot be known at all, let alone objective. They seek inwardness by making each person his own moral standard. But that dispenses with all objectivity and leaves us with nothing to internalize.”

It is God who arranges nature and history so that good act’s have beneficial consequences, to himself, to the ethical agent, and to other persons. The God of scripture is the author of the situation, the Word, and the moral self, so that the three are fully consistent with one another. He ordains history, so that people will find their ultimate blessings in doing their duty. He makes us in his image, so that our greatest personal fulfillment occurs in seeking his glory in history.
Without God it is impossible to have a system of ethics that brings ultimate fulfillment and blessings to all people, as each individual is constantly lost in his own subjectivity.

God is not only the chief norm and chief fact, but also the chief person (personality). He is not only our law and our situation, but also our example of holiness, righteousness and love. He is good, as only a person can be and he is good because that is an attribute of his nature, God is eternal goodness. The first objection that is given by Atheist Philosophers is “Is what God commands good because he says it is or because it corresponds to a standard of goodness independent of his own choices, which implies another standard”. To most people the answer is obvious, God’s commandments are good because they flow from his eternal nature which is good.

The Euthyphro Argument Fails
When it comes to establishing absolute moral standards in God, atheists continue to use the Euthuphro argument to try and trap God and discredit his standard for goodness. The Euthyphro dilemma raised by Socrates was: "Is what is holy, holy because the gods approve it, or do they approve it because it is holy?" Atheist are quick to see that if what is good is based on what God commands then anything that God commands even if it was rape would by logic be good. So atheist imply that for God to be good there must be an independent moral standard of “Goodness” that judges God actions.

John Frame says in his book “The Doctrine of God”

“So Plato, in Euthyphro, poses the question of whether piety is what the gods say it is, or whether the gods command piety because of its intrinsic nature, apart from their own wishes. In Plato’s mind, the former makes the nature of piety arbitrary, one that could change on the whim of a god. But the second alternative, which Plato certainly prefers, means that piety is independent of the will of the gods, something to which the gods opinions are subject.”

Atheists like this so called trap because to stop God having relative standards there must be an eternal abstract standard that judges God’s acts. They like it because even if there were no God, there would still be an objective standard by which atheists can establish objective morality.

The Atheist Philosopher Michael Martin says,
“For example, suppose God condemns rape because of his just and merciful character. According to this independent standard of goodness, being merciful and just is precisely what a good character involves. In this case, even if God did not exist, one could say that a merciful and just character is good. Human beings could use this standard to evaluate peoples' character and action based on this character. They could do this whether or not God exists.”

So Martin wonders why the non-existence of God would adversely affect the goodness of mercy, compassion, and justice.
The problem with this argument is that ‘goodness” is not based on what ever God says. Goodness is the eternal nature of God and God is bound by his perfect nature to act “good”. God would not command people to rape or torture people because it is against his perfect nature. If God is the eternal uncaused cause of everything else that exist then he is the eternal source for moral goodness, which everything else takes its existence from.

Paul Copan makes a good point when he says,
“The "reasons" Martin offers for why rape is wrong already assume the dignity of human beings, the existence of universal human rights, an objective purpose/end for human existence, moral obligation, and moral responsibility. Thus Martin needs to offer a more robust explanation for these assumptions, but we have seen that the atheistic worldview lacks such resources while the theistic perspective anticipates a moral universe.”

In fact the very argument can be reversed back on to the atheist, for if objective moral properties just exist out in the universe independent of humans, then are they good because they are good or is there some independent standard of good to which they conform?" Thus the alleged dilemma Martin claims the theist faces is the very same one the atheist does. So there is no actual advantage for the atheist in presenting this challenge. The same potential charges of arbitrariness or the existence of some autonomous moral standard (such as platonic Forms) still apply. If the atheist claims that he is not being arbitrary, then why should the theist's viewpoint be considered any less arbitrary? The sword cuts both ways. It is more intelligence to place the moral law’s existence in a perfect moral being, then floating in impersonal irrational matter/Atoms independent of a mind.

Paul Copan concludes with,
“The theist has a plausible basis for this: human beings have value by virtue of their personhood, which is derived from the personhood of God? The ultimately valuable Being. Having been created in the image of God gives human beings their value. Their nature? with its moral, rational, and spiritual capacities? resemble God's. So to assume morality without God seems to miss the ontological implications of the question. That is, if there is no personal God to bestow personhood? And its attendant intrinsic dignity and moral responsibility, then we can't rightly say, "I can be a person with intrinsic dignity and moral responsibility even if God doesn't exist."

God’s Image and Human Goodness
God has made human beings to be his image and this intention is for his own union of goodness and being to be reflected in us. This image is never quite the same as God’s. As we are finite and stuck in our fallen nature and he is sinless and God. But God is the ultimate norm for all things. God’s very nature is normative and is our source of ethical obligation. There are three necessary conditions for human good works; right motive, right standard, and right goal, Gods’ glory.

The Three Transcendentals
Truth, Goodness and Beauty are three attributes of God and they are the source for our norms and experiences of them. God is the eternal interpretation of all finite existence.
These attributes are part of God’s being and are ontological founded.

Peter Kreeft says in his Essay in the book C. S. Lewis as Philosopher; Truth, Goodness and Beauty,

“The order of these three transcendentals of truth, goodness and beauty is ontologically founded. Truth is defined by Being, for truth is the effulgence of Being, the revelation of Being, the Word of Being. Truth is not defined by consciousness, which conforms to Being in knowing it. Goodness is defined by truth, not by will, which is good only when it conforms to the truth of Being. And beauty is defined by goodness, objectively real goodness, not by subjective desire or pleasure or feeling or imagination, all of which should conform to it.”

When we reflect God’s image we will walk in his truth, manifest his goodness and see the beauty of his ways as we experience the fullness of his nature.

As Psalm 19;7-9 says,
“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul, the testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart, the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean enduring forever, the rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

God is our truth and light for our guidance, his word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. This is why Jesus said “I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”