Among the most prominent arguments for the existence of God, including the Cosmological Argument, the Ontological Argument, and the Teleological Argument, the Moral Argument for the existence of God is from modern times. It was first postulated by German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, an agnostic, in his work, Critique of Pure Reason.[1] The Cosmological and Teleological Arguments are from antiquity, and the Ontological Argument arose in the medieval period. Kant published Critique of Pure Reason during the Enlightenment in 1781.
While others such as Hastings Rashdall, W. R. Sorely, and Elton Trueblood all moved the argument forward, building on the work of Kant, C. S. Lewis advanced the Moral Argument to its most popular and effective form a century and a half later in his grand treatise, Mere Christianity,[2] which began as a series of radio broadcasts during World War II and was later published in book form. Lewis comes at the Moral Argument from a somewhat different perspective than agnostic, Immanuel Kant, notably that of a Christian apologist.
This paper will survey both Kant’s and Lewis’s arguments, with brief mention of the contributions of Rashdall, Sorely, and Trueblood. We will also examine two of the better counterarguments to the Moral Argument for the existence of God, Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarianism and Charles Darwin’s Evolutionary Ethics. We will respond to their counterarguments. And we will close by summarizing our findings and offering some concluding thoughts.
IMMANUEL KANT
I will begin with the argument from Kant. Kant did not offer his argument as a proof for the existence of God, per se. Rather, he merely claimed that any moral system necessarily assumed the existence of God as the progenitor and arbiter of moral absolutes.[3] Kant rejected other arguments for the existence of God, but did not deny God’s existence.[4] Though raised in a strict and pious Christian home, he eventually became an agnostic. [5] Kant’s argument is as follows: [6]
- The greatest good of all persons is that they have happiness in harmony with duty.
- All persons should strive for the greatest good.
- What persons ought to do, they can do.
- But, persons are not able to realize the greatest good in this life or without God.
- Therefore, we must postulate a God and a future life in which the greatest good can be achieved.
The Greatest Good of All Persons
Kant believed that humans most desire happiness. He also believed that morality was ultimately a question of the duty of humans, and that duty is what humans ought to do. The greatest good, in Kant’s reasoning, then, is the wedding of these two ideals: happiness and duty.
Kant, a student of Latin, called the wedding of happiness and duty, summum bonum, which is Latin for “greatest good.” He believed that this should be the highest ideal in human life, and that it should be vigorously sought by all.
What Persons Ought to Do They Can Do
Kant reasoned that summon bonum could not be achieved in this present life, which is too short, and because humans do not display the character or nature necessary to do so. At the same time, he believed that what one ought to do one must be able to do. If one is ultimately incapable of doing something, then that something may not be described strictly as a duty. It may be an ideal, a moral good, or an obligation, but it is not, in fact, a duty.
Circumstances beyond our control may cause us to be unable to meet our financial obligations, but the obligations remain until they are satisfied. Conversely, we have a duty to live morally insofar as we are able to do so, but where we are unable to do so, the duty does not remain.
If an adult refuses to protect a child from harm, he may be considered morally guilty, and thus partially, and possibly fully, responsible for the child’s harm. However, if the adult is unaware of the potential threat to the child, or is gagged and bound at the time, then he does not have a duty to protect the child.
Kant held that humans ought to pursue summum bonum, but that they are not capable of doing so in this life. This creates a dilemma. If humans have a duty which cannot be achieved in this life, there must be a solution.
The Necessity of God and the Afterlife to Realize the Greatest Good
Kant’s solution to this dilemma is that God must exist, and there must be an afterlife. Without the existence of God, there can be no unity of happiness and duty, or greatest good (summum bonum). Since humans are incapable of achieving this on their own, a higher power must be present to unify the desire for happiness and the pursuit of duty. Moreover, since humans are not able to do so on their own in their present state, there must be an afterlife wherein the summum bonum is achieved through the power of God.
RASHDALL, SORELY, AND TRUEBLOOD
While others have improved upon the moral argument for the existence of God, including Hastings Rashdall, W. R. Sorely, and Elton Trueblood, C. S. Lewis has produced the most popular form of the argument in modern times. Before examining Lewis’s form of the argument, however, I would like to make brief mention of the contributions of these men.
Hastings Rashdall reasoned that in order for there to be such a thing as an objective moral law, which itself is an idea, and since ideas are thoughts which can only exist in the mind, that there must necessarily be a perfect moral mind. Such a mind would have to be infinite, because finite minds are not absolute, and an idea such as moral perfection would have to exist independently of finite minds. [7]
W. R. Sorely helped ground Rashdall’s improvement upon Kant’s argument. I will paraphrase Geisler’s assessment of the improvement. Sorely argued that since objective moral law exists independent of human consciousness of, and conformity to, it, and since humans admit its validity prior to their knowledge of it and acknowledge its claim on them while not yielding to it, objective moral law must exist in a supreme mind.[8]
Elton Trueblood made a major advance in the argument. He reasoned that any subjectivity applied to morality was nonsensical and precluded serious discussion of moral judgments. He also pointed out that humans realize their lake of conformity to the moral law, both individually and collectively. Loyalty and truth are things for which humans will die, but if loyalty is not to a person, and if truth is not about a person, then such sacrificial deaths are nonsensical. [9]
C. S. LEWIS
Lewis laid out his case for the existence of God in Mere Christianity.[10] He argued that people have a general agreement on what is morally right or wrong. When people are caught transgressing the moral law, they do not deny the existence of it, but rather make excuses as to why their transgression of it was acceptable in the present circumstance. The absence of an objective, universal, and absolute moral law would make moral arguments baseless (no matter which side one was one) and moral judgments meaningless.
Just as in the Intelligent Design Argument, evidence of design in the universe implies a designer, so in the Moral Argument, evidence of human knowledge of a moral law that transcends humanity implies a lawgiver. This lawgiver must be prescriptive of, and concerned with, human behavior, and thus personal. In order for this lawgiver to prescribe what is morally right, this lawgiver must be good. Thus, there must be a good, personal moral lawgiver, and he is God.
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT
Although there are various forms of the Moral Argument for the existence of God, each emphasizing one or the other tenets of the argument, it may be broadly summarized as follows:[11]
- A human experience of morality is observed.
- God is seen to be the best or only explanation for this moral experience.
- Therefore, God exists.
While the argument is compelling, it may not be fully convincing, and some thinkers over the past few centuries have offered competent counterarguments. Some of them are quite complicated. Ultimately, however, these counterarguments do not carry the weight of solid logic or cogent argumentation when under close scrutiny. We will now look at two of the better objections to the Moral Argument, and how they may be addressed.
OBJECTIONS
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham was an 18th century British philosopher who was the founder of modern utilitarianism. He denied natural law, supported gay rights, was an avowed atheist, was a social reformer and jurist, and sought the obliteration of religion in modern society.[12]
“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do… By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words to promote or to oppose that happiness. I say of every action whatsoever, and therefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government.”[13]
This quote from Jeremy Bentham summarizes the premise of his argument that morality is not grounded in a personal, universal, and perfect moral lawgiver, but in the utility of a given moral judgment. While there is much more to Utilitarianism, and several branches of it, it ultimately fails because humanity recognizes that pleasure cannot be the guiding hand behind moral judgments.
There are many judgments that are seen as morally right which result in pain, sacrifice, and/or loss to the actor. Soldiers who die for their countries, athletes who train and suffer for their sports, monks who live in self denial for the sake of piety, and Mother Teresa who gave her life helping the poor, are all examples.
The quest for temporal pleasure is just the sort of thing which draws out the worst in humanity. Consider obesity, drug addiction, and sex outside of marriage, all of which are attempts to satisfy carnal desires with pleasure, but ultimately are morally wrong and lead to destruction.
20th century philosopher and provost of King’s College, Cambridge, Bernard Williams, attacked utilitarianism which demands that human beings “reject conscience and compunction and do the ‘lesser of two evils’ – even when it is loathsome to do so.”[14] And yet, conscience (con+science = with knowledge) is evidence of our innate knowledge of objective, absolute moral truth. Utilitarianism forces us into a selfish existence and denies the higher forms of virtue. It is ultimately unable to arrive at a perfect, unified moral ethic.
Charles Darwin
In his classic work, The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin “set out to explain the origin of human morality…[and believed] that a moral sense (altruism) would have little selective advantage for the individual, but it would be adaptive for the group.”[15] His point was that morality developed through natural selection as an aid to survival of the species of man. There are at least two problems with this.
If one accepts Darwinian Evolution (I do not), it could easily be argued that lower animals and life forms of every description have evolved over millennia without any moral code and, thus morality is not a necessary aid in the development of a species, animal, or life form in general.
Further, human beings frequently make moral decisions which can have the affect of harm to themselves or others, but, because they know them to be ethically correct, though potentially self-destructive, they nonetheless press ahead and “do the right thing.”
Consider the member of a firing squad who refuses to shoot and faces court martial, or the Christian martyr who will not recant his faith in Christ, though it can save his own life, and perhaps those of his close family members. Morality regularly dictates that humans act against their natural instincts, yet natural instincts are what the evolutionist argues preserves a species. Human beings do not require a code of morality in order to survive.
CONCLUSION
This paper has briefly examined the history of the moral argument for the existence of God, beginning with Kant and ending with Lewis. We have discussed the force of the argument and a couple of its better counterarguments. Overall, the Moral Argument stands as a late, but compelling, addition to the body of arguments for the existence of God. Belief in God, in part based on the Moral Argument, is reasonable and logical. However, it is fair to say that, on its own, it may not meet the high standard necessary convince even the honest inquirer, much less the hostile antagonist. However, when taken together with the combined weight of the cosmological, ontological, and teleological arguments, it presents an overwhelming logical and philosophical case in favor of God’s existence.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Farber, Paul Lawrence. The Temptations of Evolutionary Ethics. Berkley, California: University of California Press, 1998.
Crimmins, James E. “Bentham on Religion: Atheism and the Secular Society.” Journal of the History of Ideas (1986): 95.
Williams, Bernard. Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary Readings. Edited by Louis P. Pojman and James Fieser. Boston, Massachusetts: Wadsworth, 2011.
Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 2009.
Byrne, Peter. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Online Edition, 2004.
Trueblood, David Elton. Philosophy of Religion. Westport, Connecticut: Green Publishing Group, 1975.
Rashdall, Hastings. The Theory of Good and Evil. Oxford, England: Oxford University press, 1938.
Lewis, Clive Staples. Mere Christianity. San Francisco, California: Harper, 2001.
Geisler, Norman L. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1999.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. London: Penguin Classics, 2008.
[1] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (London: Penguin Classics, 2008).
[2] Clive Staples Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco, California: Harper, 2001).
[3] Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1999), 498.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Hastings Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil (Oxford, England: Oxford University press, 1938).
[8] Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1999), 498.
[9] David Elton Trueblood, Philosophy of Religion (Westport, Connecticut: Green Publishing Group, 1975).
[10] Clive Staples Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco, California: Harper, 2001).
[11] Peter Byrne, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2004), from an article entitled “Moral Arguments for the Existence of God”.
[12] James E. Crimmins, “Bentham on Religion: Atheism and the Secular Society,” Journal of the History of Ideas (1986) 95.
[13] Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 2009), 1.
[14] Bernard Williams, Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary Readings, ed. Louis P. Pojman and James Fieser (Boston, Massachusetts: Wadsworth, 2011), 245.
[15] Paul Lawrence Farber, The Temptations of Evolutionary Ethics (Berkley, California: University of California Press, 1998), Chapter 1.
