This week we begin our journey looking into the question of where moral values come from. In this episode we define our terms and look at the difference between moral values and objective moral values. What we will find along the way is that the best answer not only points to a creator this time, but the best answer actually points to the God of the Bible who loves you more than you can imagine.
“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows, nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music.” Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life, 1994
“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal; a fish would not feel wet. Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too – for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist – in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless – I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality – namely my idea of justice – was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1952
Moral Values – The values I choose to live my life by.
Definition – “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.” William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 1984
William Lane Craig states the moral argument this way in Reasonable Faith:
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1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.” William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 1984
“Many philosophers have argued that if God does not exist, then morality is ultimately subjective and non-binding. We might act in precisely the same way that we do in fact act, but in the absence of God such actions would no longer count as good or evil, right or wrong, since in the absence of God, objective moral values and duties do not exist.” William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 1984
