#1017 Logic and the Moral Argument

Dr. craig’s response

Hey, Riley! I can’t but suspect that you are the same Riley who sent in QOW #1014. In my response to that question, I complained about your lack of specificity concerning supposed refutations of arguments for Christian theism. If you are that same Riley, then you have now offered us an example of the sort of logical confusions into which popular influencers on the Internet often fall.

First, you have, indeed, correctly understood the logical validity of the moral argument for God’s existence as I formulate it. Good job!

Second, yes, you are right to believe that “If God exists, then there would be objective morals.” After all, on Christian theism, God is a maximally great being, a being worthy of worship, and therefore morally perfect. It follows necessarily from His existence that there are objective moral values. You’re not begging the question in believing this proposition, since it is an entailment of the very concept of God. As you say, “This seems to be true, so I believe it.”

You get into logical problems only when you try to infer the existence of God from that proposition and the second premiss of the moral argument. As you point out, that commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent.

You ask, “What makes the premise ‘If God does not exist, there would be no objective morals’ different from ‘If God exists, there would be objective morals? They seem, on the surface, to communicate the same thing, but only the first one logically justifies belief in God’s existence.” The difference is that these two premises do not communicate the same thing; rather they express different propositions. The following two statements are logically equivalent and express the same proposition:

If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.

If objective moral values exist, then God exists.

You can use either one of these statements as your first premiss in the moral argument. The reason that I use the negatively phrased statement is because it resonates better with people in our secular society.

So what should you do with your belief in the statement, “If God exists, there would be objective morals?” Well, I don’t know – rejoice in it, I suppose! Or ask yourself, “Well, then, what is the content of the moral good and what are my moral duties?”

In any case, if you are the same Riley who wrote previously, I trust that you can see that the moral argument, at least, is not so easily refuted. I think that reading Reasonable Moral Faith will strengthen your confidence in the argument even more.