My proof that God is not necessary for morality
This was my response to a request for proof that morality cannot exist without God.
- Gaylen Moore (originally posted here on 2/22/13)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof
I'm not convinced that the burden of proof should be on the atheist here. You are the one making an assertion: "Without God, no morality exists." Why not? How, exactly, does God "make morality exist"? I think what you will need to do is give us a definition of morality that implies the necessity of God, without falling into a vicious circle of definitions.
By asking for "proof," you have entered the realm of logic, and thus you are not free to simply make up your own rules to suit your personal whimsy. You can define morality so that God is an essential part of the definition, but (as I suggested in my earlier post) you are then faced with the logical possibility that God is a sadistic SOB. If God wants you to torcher your children to death, does that make it morally right for you to do so? This is exactly the sort of thinking that leads to horrendous religious wars, inquisitions, and terrorism in the name of God. I'm sure you will then want to define God as being necessarily good, but then you are caught in a logical loop. You would have "necessarily good" as part of the definition of God, but you would have "What God wants" as part of the definition of "good." You can certainly do this, if you want, but then your definitions become pointless and can't be used to prove anything. Plus, you are stuck with the problem of how to know what God really wants. There are, after all, innumerable ways in which you might misunderstand God's wishes. Satan is the great deceiver, right? So maybe the moral voice you hear is actually Satan trying to deceive you. Or maybe you are suffering from some sort of delusion. How can you tell? You can't, unless you have some way to evaluate right/wrong independent of what God seems to be telling you. If you think God says "Kill the children," then your own moral intuitions have to kick in and say "Hey, that can't be God telling me to do that!" But wait! If you need to use your own moral intuitions to confirm that "that's really God talking to me" then why do you logically need God? I'm sure you will want to say that God gave you those intuitions, but now you are back in the vicious logical loop.
I've suggested a way out of all of this. I've suggested that our moral intuitions are grounded in the factual nature of our own being. I'm not saying that the facts about our nature couldn't come from God, but I am saying that these facts do not necessarily have to come from God. To be a human being is "to be a certain way." This "way of being" just is what it is to be human. And this way of being includes the fact that we are biologically social creatures. You could say that God made us this way, or you could say that the principles of organic evolution ensured that we survived because we naturally express certain fundamental moral principle. It doesn't matter how we came to have the nature that we have, all that matters (morally) is that, in fact, we do have the nature that we have. For purely logical reasons, certain moral foundations are intrinsic to our nature as intelligent social beings. These are the intuitions we need to rely on if we ever find ourselves thinking that God is telling us to "kill the children," or some such thing. These intuitions are rooted in the logic of what it means to be a social being, independent of how we came to be such beings.
These fundamental logical roots probably cannot provide specific answers to all of the moral details of life. I suspect that the vast majority of specific moral questions are purely relative to specific circumstances. But, nevertheless, each specific moral answer must be consistent with the foundational moral structure provided by the sheer logic of what it takes for social beings to thrive in a social setting. This simply has to be the case, independently of the question of whether God exists or not.
So now, finally, here is my logical proof concluding that morality can exist without God:
(1) Morality is grounded on the logical requirements of what it takes for a being to thrive as a social being.
(2) God cannot violate the rules of logic. (If you say that he can violate the rules of logic, then you are no longer speaking logically, in which case you have no business asking for "proof" of anything.)
(3) No matter what the nature of God might be (loving, or sadistic, or indifferent, or utterly non-existent), the rules of logic governing what it takes for a social being to thrive always remain the same. (These rules are intrinsic to the nature of what it means to be a social being in the first places.)
(4) If certain rules do not depend on the nature of God, then God is not necessary for those rules to be the rules that they are.
(5) Therefore, the rules of morality can exist without God.
*This little essay was brought to you by Gaylen Moore, who (as MysticPhD has pointed out) has learned a lot from Sam Harris. Thank you Sam!
By asking for "proof," you have entered the realm of logic, and thus you are not free to simply make up your own rules to suit your personal whimsy. You can define morality so that God is an essential part of the definition, but (as I suggested in my earlier post) you are then faced with the logical possibility that God is a sadistic SOB. If God wants you to torcher your children to death, does that make it morally right for you to do so? This is exactly the sort of thinking that leads to horrendous religious wars, inquisitions, and terrorism in the name of God. I'm sure you will then want to define God as being necessarily good, but then you are caught in a logical loop. You would have "necessarily good" as part of the definition of God, but you would have "What God wants" as part of the definition of "good." You can certainly do this, if you want, but then your definitions become pointless and can't be used to prove anything. Plus, you are stuck with the problem of how to know what God really wants. There are, after all, innumerable ways in which you might misunderstand God's wishes. Satan is the great deceiver, right? So maybe the moral voice you hear is actually Satan trying to deceive you. Or maybe you are suffering from some sort of delusion. How can you tell? You can't, unless you have some way to evaluate right/wrong independent of what God seems to be telling you. If you think God says "Kill the children," then your own moral intuitions have to kick in and say "Hey, that can't be God telling me to do that!" But wait! If you need to use your own moral intuitions to confirm that "that's really God talking to me" then why do you logically need God? I'm sure you will want to say that God gave you those intuitions, but now you are back in the vicious logical loop.
I've suggested a way out of all of this. I've suggested that our moral intuitions are grounded in the factual nature of our own being. I'm not saying that the facts about our nature couldn't come from God, but I am saying that these facts do not necessarily have to come from God. To be a human being is "to be a certain way." This "way of being" just is what it is to be human. And this way of being includes the fact that we are biologically social creatures. You could say that God made us this way, or you could say that the principles of organic evolution ensured that we survived because we naturally express certain fundamental moral principle. It doesn't matter how we came to have the nature that we have, all that matters (morally) is that, in fact, we do have the nature that we have. For purely logical reasons, certain moral foundations are intrinsic to our nature as intelligent social beings. These are the intuitions we need to rely on if we ever find ourselves thinking that God is telling us to "kill the children," or some such thing. These intuitions are rooted in the logic of what it means to be a social being, independent of how we came to be such beings.
These fundamental logical roots probably cannot provide specific answers to all of the moral details of life. I suspect that the vast majority of specific moral questions are purely relative to specific circumstances. But, nevertheless, each specific moral answer must be consistent with the foundational moral structure provided by the sheer logic of what it takes for social beings to thrive in a social setting. This simply has to be the case, independently of the question of whether God exists or not.
So now, finally, here is my logical proof concluding that morality can exist without God:
(1) Morality is grounded on the logical requirements of what it takes for a being to thrive as a social being.
(2) God cannot violate the rules of logic. (If you say that he can violate the rules of logic, then you are no longer speaking logically, in which case you have no business asking for "proof" of anything.)
(3) No matter what the nature of God might be (loving, or sadistic, or indifferent, or utterly non-existent), the rules of logic governing what it takes for a social being to thrive always remain the same. (These rules are intrinsic to the nature of what it means to be a social being in the first places.)
(4) If certain rules do not depend on the nature of God, then God is not necessary for those rules to be the rules that they are.
(5) Therefore, the rules of morality can exist without God.
*This little essay was brought to you by Gaylen Moore, who (as MysticPhD has pointed out) has learned a lot from Sam Harris. Thank you Sam!
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