Apologetics Session 7: Atheism and the problem of Morality

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Establish the need: Can people have morality without God?

Purpose: We will look at three points concerning the problem of ethics in an atheist worldview.

1. Review
2. What is the nature of morality?
3. What is the origin of morality?

Review

1. Reminder of how to refute worldviews
   1. One critique: Is their epistemology, ethics and metaphysics arbitrary? (Analogy: The wires and switches are taken apart and laid all over the place)
   2. Second critique: Is their epistemology, ethics and metaphysics inconsistent? (Analogy: The switches are broken, does not allow electricity to flow)
   3. Third critique: Is their epistemology, ethics and metaphysics have explanatory power to give account for reality?(Analogy: No battery)
2. Last Session We refuted the Metaphysics and Epistemology of Atheism
   1. We saw a metaphysics of materialism is self-refuting.
   2. We saw an epistemology of empiricism is self-refuting.
   3. Also materialism undermine empiricism.
   4. Also empiricism undermine empiricism.
3. Today we will now refute the atheist worldview specifically with the issue of ethics.

What is the nature of morality?

Summary: Four options. Only one will do: Objective morality.

Option 1: Morality is an illusion

1. Worldview of materialism suggests morality is an illusion
   1. No thoughts exist in a vacuum. Rather, every premise is part of a body of larger interlocking beliefs called Worldview. Those who reject the existence of morality often do so under the influence that all that exist must be observable through our five senses naturally or magnified (ie., through microscopes, binoculars, etc).
   2. Yet, that very idea refutes itself. Do we see that idea in the physical world? For a refutation of Materialism see less session.
2. If morality is an illusion and does not exist we expect to see an AMORAL world:
   1. This world would be absent of any right, wrong, good or evil.
   2. Proponents against the existence of morality would be able to live consistently in reality without needing ethics and mores.
   3. Any discussion presupposing morality would be meaningless (ex: honorable character, the hypocrisy of others, etc).
3. Yet, the opposite is true:
   1. Those who reject morality still see real right and wrong, good and evil.
   2. Proponents against morality still attempt to live righteously to some degree on a daily basis.
   3. Scholars who reject morality still talk about it in a meaningful way.
   4. Those who deny Morality in the end, affirm it
4. A MORALITY and MORAL RELATIVISM DESTROYS CIVILIZATION:
   1. With no right or wrong, there can be no justice and hence, no justice system.
   2. With no right or wrong, there can be no discussion of political policy; it would just be “might make right.”
   3. With no right and wrong, people would really live out what they want with no order and peace
5. LAWS OF LOGIC PRESUPPOSES MORALITY
   1. The Laws of logic cannot operate without morality. Whereas logic are the form for arguing, it needs beginning points and even moral premises in substantiating a position.
   2. The laws of logic are also moral laws. The laws of logic are “oughtness” that govern the behavior of thought.
   3. To reject the existence of moral laws mean rejecting the laws of logic as well.
6. There is something intellectually bi-polar with thinking morality is an illusion.

Option 2: Morality is subjective

1. If it is personal preference, then moral statement are just subjective expression like “I like Ice Cream”, “I do not enjoy the Classics”.
2. This can not account for the other two aspect of morality (why morality is subscribed to others, etc).
3. If the nature of morality is just personal preference, then it is moral relativism. See Part I of this outline above.

Option 3: Morality is social convention

1. Is Morality only majority rule? Are morality made by the culture at large?
2. Morality is beyond just what “others think”. The cause against slavery, civil rights and the Holocausts has at times, been against the flow of the mass.
3. The popular polls changes all the time. This again leads us to moral relativism. See Part I of this outline above.

Option 4: Morality is objective

1. For morality to be meaningful, it would have to be beyond just personal preference and social convention. The more we deny morality, the more we affirm it.
2. In order for morality to be, it must be beyond us and applied at a larger and specific context. Hence it would have to be Objective and universal.

What is the origin of morality?

Summary: Three options. Only one will do: God.

Accident?

1. If the law of morality just happens to be “just there’, then there is no mind or purpose behind it.
2. If there is no purpose or just something that is just there, then it is justified to reject moral laws. It is no longer abiding.
3. The origin of morality from a source that came from a cosmic chance origin world destroys the laws of morality itself. There would be no relationship between the laws of morality and its application, given the fact that man and the laws of nature are so radically different in nature.

Man?

1. Atheist Dan Barker stated, “Values resides within physical brains, so if morality points to ‘god’, then we are it.”[1]
2. If morality was originated or made by man, it would be arbitrary, artificial and nonsense to apply something that is of a radically different nature to the physical world, personal entity, behavior, etc.
3. Atheist Dan Barker believes morality originate in man yet he had this to say: “To use yet another metaphor, I felt as though I were on trial, and right in the middle of the proceedings my lawyer died and I was left to represent myself before the bench, which was scary enough until I looked up and saw that the bench was vacant! I was the plantiff, the defendant, the attorney, and the judge!”[2]
4. If morality originate in man, than man is the standard of truth and hence we see moral relativism again. See Part I of this outline above.

God

1. When people see a traffic stop or a police badge, people apply accordingly. It implies that there is a POWER behind it that would enforce it. The sign “Stop” in a lonely corner of a street was not an accident by placed there by someone with AUTHORITY and INTELLIGIBILITY.
2. The existence of God accounts for our conscious of morals, and the PURPOSE of morality.
3. See the analogy “Apologetics Sermon Illustration #76: Accidental and Stolen Stop Signs and Source of Morals“

[1] Dan Barker, Losing Faith In Faith: From Preacher To Atheist, (Madison WI: Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., 1992), 125.

[2] Dan Barker, Losing Faith In Faith: From Preacher To Atheist, (Madison WI: Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., 1992), 323.

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