The Believer in God has
a Dilemma regarding how Morality is truly Moral
What gives morality authority
and makes it obligatory? Religion "answers" God.
This study is not concerned about what system of
ethics is good - eg Utilitarianism or Situationism or whatever. These systems do
not deny that morality exists but they just disagree on how to work out what is
moral.
We will use good as shorthand for moral good and evil
as shorthand for moral evil.
God commands good.
There are two questions that arise.
First question. Does he command it because it is good
and he recognises it as good? Some say yes. That view implies that good would be
good whether God recognises it as such or not and whether he commands it or not.
Commonsense supports this idea. We know what is enjoyable is good. To say
that you need God to decree that something is good implies that you cannot say a
cake is nice unless God commands you to find it nice. That is insane.
Second question. Is good good because God commands it?
Then abusing babies is bad when God does not command it and good when he does! Does something
evil and cruel become right simply because God commands it? If the answer is yes
then he invents good and has the power to make raping babies for no reason good.
This view teaches that if God wanted a baby tortured to death for mere fun it
would be right to please him and do so. That a person would even consider such a
view and it is put forward for consideration by the religions speaks volumes!
Anyway what is the view saying? It is saying that good has nothing to do with
what is best but doing what God wants. This view, called the divine command
theory, is against commonsense and if belief in God requires it, belief in God
is evil.
The notion that God makes things good by commanding them is called Divine Command.
Divine command has us holding
that there is no real morality but we just pretend that God’s wishes are
morality. This belief has been the prevailing view in Christianity. It is
supported by the Bible which says God has the right to order us to stone
homosexuals to death even for one harmless sin! And the Bible has Jesus being
blamed by God for our sins and punished so we can go free. Many believers do not
realise they accept it and others do but pretend they do not.
If God has no reason to command one to abstain from child molestation the result will be a morality that actually encourages us to abuse children.
Despite itself the doctrine of divine command makes the individual live and act as if he or she is God and then he or she blames God for the commands.
More about ought and obligation
We all feel that there is more to morality than just obligation. We do not want to help a baby because it is the law of God or anybody's law but because it is better for the baby. We may go along with a law telling us to help the baby but we are not obeying the law in the sense that we are not helping the baby just because we are told. Right and wrong are independent of God and are to be your God not him. Religion hates the notion that obligation is not everything. Why? Because it means you could have the right to disagree with its version of God. And disagree with it! So it tells us that God is everything and what he commands must be done.
So is moral moral because God says it is or moral even
if he says it is wrong? That is two questions and two options!
The contrived option:
the so-called "third" option
Anyway that is two. The believers claim that it is
wrong to think that we have to choose one or the other. So they have come up
with a third "option" which they say is the only real one.
Despite the fact that there are only two options,
religion schemes to make us think that this numbering is an oversimplification.
It is not.
Anyway religion says that "God is goodness itself and goodness is his character so he does not invent good but is good and God is the objective standard of right and wrong and so he doesn't need to discover it. In other words, God is the source of objective morality. Thus we should value what he values and do what he commands. God cannot make it moral to torture babies for fun for no reason. He would never advise or command us to do that. It is not a matter of command. It is a matter of character. He is not the KIND of God that destroys and wants destruction and pain. It is not about God's commands but about how God expresses what he is like by telling us what to do. The moral code he gives us communicates that kind of person God is. Without realising this we can have morality and recognise it but we cannot make sense of morality or persuade others to be moral without God."
It says this is the solution to the problem of how morality and God relate. Its true aim is to avoid a God whose rules do not fit us very well or whose moral rules are arbitrary which is just as bad.
Something being God's character
does not necessarily mean it is not arbitrary in itself. His character is
irrelevant to the question. The question is morality decreed as a real or is it
just something to be treated as real though it is not?
This third option ignores the fact that or
hypothetically we have to choose one of the other two then we must choose the
independent moral standard one. It is not really a moral option when it insults
that principle.
The third option is that morality is based on the way
God is (page 76). Morality is God’s character and it cannot change for God
cannot change. To put it another way, somehow God and morality are one and the
same - or morality is a person. This view contradicts the Christian idea that
faith in God comes first for God alone matters because if God is morality then
it follows that the atheist who behaves morally is having a relationship with
God but just doesn't realise it. Faith then is not important. The doctrine that
God always comes first implies the divine command theory which has caused so
much hatred and division and bloodshed is true.
The idea that morality is God's character/nature or is the
person of God solves nothing at all and creates a whole new factory of problems
and outright evils. God's 'nature' means his characteristics, his attributes and
his qualities. So it is not just love and justice and moral qualities but
other things such as his intelligence etc.
Morality cannot really be a person. It is ridiculous
to say that saving a baby's life is a person. It is insulting and shows no idea
of what morality really is.
And if morality is God's character, then is it God
that is making it so or is it an independent standard?
It still takes us back to the other two options.
Worse, in a way it is just accepting both of them at
the one time and disguising this and disguising the fact that they are
irreconcilable. So if each one of them is bad this mock hybrid is worse. It is
based on lies. The God of Christianity and Islam is a man-made idol.
To say morality is God's nature or character is saying
morality is what God's nature makes it to be even if this is not voluntary. That
is back to the problem of divine command. Here we have a God who does not freely
command but is forced by his nature to command. So in a way it is worse.
God could not be to blame if the way he is forces him to command the slaying of
babies for fun. And we would not be to blame for obeying.
Also, if God's character is
good then is it good because he says so or because an independent standard says
it? It takes us back to the dilemma. It does not deal with that question but
ignores it which means it is not really any help to morality. It implies then
that morality is an invention by God.
And to say God does not invent morality is to say he
is the independent standard. But then it is not an independent standard. It is
confused and contradictory but is accepting both. That is why it is so jumbled
up.
So religion is saying these days that when God
commands us to do good, we are doing it not just because he commands it but
because he is good in his character. It says God being of good character and who
never does evil, has the qualities of goodness and so he is goodness itself and
makes it real. Religion says God does not invent the values about what is right
and wrong. Religion says something is wrong because it is wrong and not just
because God says it is wrong. Religion argues then that the doctrine saves you
from the notion of a God who can arbitrarily command you to do great harm and
who makes evil good merely by calling it good.
But their scheme gives you a God who will not command
you to torture a baby for fun and for nothing but what if there is some
mysterious reason why doing this evil is unavoidable? What if God who tolerates
evil is forced to command you to torment a baby for a laugh for it somehow is
the best thing under the circumstances? The "morality" does not help much. It is
interesting that what God commands according to religion fairly well matches
what they want to believe he commands!
Why must we do what God tells
us to do? Is it because he discovers what is right? Or is something right just
because he says so? There is no other alternative. One must choose one of them.
Christians fudge by chanting, "What God commands must be obeyed because his
nature is good." That is really evasion. It is like offering two options tea or
coffee and somebody pretending that vodka is an option. The evasion is very
insulting and manipulative. The issue is too serious and important to be defaced
by such evasion.
Their "solution" fuses two
positions both of which they consider evil! Both positions are about power.
Those who say that morality is whatever God wants it to be regardless of how
much misery it causes are looking for power. They want to control what you
consider right and wrong. The view that morality has nothing to do with
anybody's views but is about facts also grants power in the sense that it
opposes an arbitrary morality. The "solution" tries to say that the only real
moral rules come from God and the moral rules are not arbitrary. That way it
tries to grab the power that both the other views have. That is the bottom line.
It is the two "bad" solutions for both are about power. If they are bad it is
because of power so it makes no sense to say that a third solution which is
based on their power is really a third solution. The third solution is just the
other two in disguise.
It is obvious to the Christians that God either does
good because it is good whether he sees it as good or not or he does what he
pretends is good. They know fine well that there is nothing else on the menu but
the two options. To invent a third option that doesn't exist is just vicious and
underhand and insulting to atheists. And it is intolerant for it expresses the
view that you need to believe in God before you can really believe in morality
or in right and wrong. Nobody in their right mind would expect you to tolerate
somebody that holds views that threaten the whole fabric of decency. Tolerance
has to have a limit. The teaching subtly incites to hatred against atheists and
doubters. Believers do say that unbelievers can be good but they deny that
unbelievers are being rational or consistent when they are good. But how can
your good be really good if it makes people feel accepting of your unbelief - an
unbelief that endangers and undermines morality? Praising fake good is toxic for
then the person becomes unable to see how bad it is. It is worse than praising
evil.
Some say...
Some Christians have started to say that both of the
options, "God invents morality so evil is good if he says so" or "God is subject
to right and wrong and does not invent the standards but obeys them himself",
are unacceptable and bad (page 76, The Handbook of Christian Apologetics*). The
first implies morality is just obedience and is nonsense in itself. Because of
atheist criticism, some of the Christians have started to reject the view that
the cruellest and most worthless act of hatred would be right if God commands
that it be done. The second implies there is no need for God that we should care
about morality more than him and can dispense with him entirely and let him
worry about himself.
But if you had to choose one or the other then what?
That question is a good way for weeding out the one that is less important or
valuable. Obviously, it is better to adopt the view that right is right no
matter about God or anybody else. Believers complain that it means dispensing
with God! So what?! It is totally sick to put a religious theory and a person
who might not exist above the belief that hurting a baby is just wrong no matter
if there is a God or not. It is so wrong that God is irrelevant. God cannot come
first because even if we are not forced to choose one or the other the fact
remains that the notion of a moral standard that is independent of God is the
important one.
If the notion of an independent standard being above
God is the best one then God is not the best. If it is true that God did not
create his moral character or nature but just has it then whatever is behind
that is better than him so we are back where we started. The independent
standard option is the best one but if you bring God into it you ruin morality
as much as the notion that God can invent right and wrong arbitrarily ruins it.
On its own, it is a guard against people who say morality is whatever they want
it to be.
Is it worth it to reject the notion that morality is
independent even of God and that even God cannot create it but merely discovers
it for the sake of being able to believe in a God who grounds morality? If an
independent standard condemns hurting a baby for fun then it is evil to reject
that standard and then reinstate it by making it depend on God. It is not
really reinstating it at all but hiding your rejection of it. It is adding
fuel to the fire of evil and downgrading the baby and her suffering.
God is just a brick to stop the car rolling away
The claim that the answer to the dilemma is that God’s nature, the way God is,
is justice and love, uses God just as a brick to stop the car rolling away
forever. That is not true respect for God. You may say God is the only stop you
need and there is nothing unloving or unfair about him being the stop so why
not? That is admitting then that he is a brick. It is about using
him to fulfil a function and that is blasphemous if he deserves pure spontaneous
love and nothing else from us all.
Finally
It is evil to say that morality is just whatever God
says it is no matter how much harm it does. All sane people agree. Even if God
will never command genocide or mass murder, the fact remains that in principle
it is being said to be okay if he does. Evil always starts small - with bad or
irrational principles.
Christians hold that it is evil to say that morality
is not God but above him and he cannot change it. That is ridiculous. It cannot
really be called bad or evil to do that even if it is wrong. Christians call you
evil for doing that so see that for the hate speech it is. For them it would be
the ultimate sin for they regard failure to love God enough as the worst sin.
See morality as independent of what God wants or
thinks and follow it not God.
* Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Monarch Publications, East Sussex, 1995
