Psalm Trees

By: Stephen Notman

“If there is no immortality, then all things are permitted,” claims Ivan Fyodorovitch in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Russian literary masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov[1].  Through the parable of the Grand Inquisitor, Ivan challenges his brother Aloysha, a novice monk, to acknowledge the truth that neither God nor the human soul exists and that the contents of the universe are merely the accidental by-product of an undirected, purposeless series of cause and effect.  In such a universe without God, he reasons, neither moral laws and duties, nor moral accountability exist and any action, be it genocide or altruism, is equally vacuous and devoid of objective moral content.   

It is unfortunate that Dostoevsky characterized his attempt to grapple with the nature of morality as a confrontation between faith and reason (erroneously implying that reason is the purview only of secular thought and is thus at odds with religious modes of thought) but nonetheless, his novel delves deeply into questions pertaining to the ultimate grounding of moral laws, duties and moral accountability.  Dostoevsky is by no means the first person to examine such questions.  As far back as the 5^th century B.C in ancient Athens, Socrates challenged the notion that a god or gods could logically be the source of moral values when he posed what has come to be known as the Euthyphro dilemma.  C.S. Lewis arguably re-popularized the debate in the 20^th century when he argued in his book Mere Christianity that God must exist on the basis that a basic Moral Law exists across all cultures that therefore requires a Prime Moral Lawgiver.  Whether morality is grounded in natural laws or in a transcendent, divine source has thus proven to be fertile ground for philosophical and theological debate that has captured the imagination of thinkers for thousands of years.

In 1999 through 2000, the prominent atheist philosopher, Michael Martin squared off against Christian apologist Paul Copan in a series of public articles in which both men claimed that a realm of objective moral values and duties exist, but differed on the ontological basis for such objective values.  Martin’s philosophical stance is particularly interesting given that he is one of very few serious atheist philosophers that believe in the existence of objective moral values.  The vast majority accept and even defend the premise that if God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.  The great 20^th century atheist philosopher, J. L. Mackie is well known for leading the charge in rejecting moral objectivity in favour of embracing moral relativism instead.  In the post 9/11 years, the latest crop of “New” Atheists, most notably Richard Dawkins, has gone so far as to deny that morality exists at all[2], though one might also note his antagonism towards religion on, ironically, moral grounds.  Martin is virtually unique in his spirited attempts to defend his position as a moral ‘realist’ whilst denying that the existence of objective moral values necessarily implies the existence of God a posteriori.

The prize over which Copan and Martin rode out to meet each other in battle was the metaphysical ground upon which to base objective morality.  Copan’s championed the theistic view that the source of moral values was found in the necessary attributes and character of God.  His central contention was that Martin’s atheistic stance allowed him to recognize that morality was objective, but that his worldview failed to provide him with the metaphysical foundation necessary to ground that objectivity.  If true, then atheistic moral realism lacks the metaphysical legs to sustain its position and fails as a viable alternative to the theistic proof of God’s existence from the existence of objective moral values. 

The purpose of this essay is to examine the core arguments put forth in that exchange and, in particular, to defend theism from the Euthyphro Dilemma, a re-formulated version of which was employed by Martin in his critique of Copan’s theistic arguments for objective moral values grounded in God.       

Let us start by observing their commonly held assumptions.  Both men agree that human beings are persons that are endowed with fundamental rights, dignities and moral obligations.  Such agreement, however, does not comport well with a naturalistic universe of impersonal, non-teleological causes.  On pure naturalism, human beings are soulless animals and therefore it is difficult for the naturalist to ground his ontology when he claims that human beings are moral agents whose acts are morally distinguishable from the lion that eats the cubs of a rival.  Nonetheless, Martin rejects the arguments of his atheist brethren, among them Michael Ruse, who affirms the majority view that morality is a subjective, “…collective illusion, foisted upon us by our genes.”[3] Martin instead acknowledges a realm of objective moral values that exist independently of individuals and are capable of creating binding obligations upon them.  Both Copan and Martin would agree, for example, that killing babies for fun is an objectively immoral act and that such objectivity gives rise to a binding prohibition against such an act, regardless of whether the individual person agrees that killing babies for fun is wrong.

Thus Martin and Copan agree that there are objective moral values and duties that exist independently of the individual and which are capable, contra moral relativism, of obliging individuals to conform with those moral values and duties regardless of any ethical, social and geographical differences between individuals.

Facing war on two fronts

Martin has the harder task than Copan to justify his position because Martin is fighting a battle on two fronts[4].  He must defeat Copan’s challenge that objective moral values must be rooted in a god but he must also counter a similar challenge from his fellow atheists that embrace either moral relativism or complete moral nihilism.  For indeed, it is consistent with atheism to acknowledge, as Ruse and others do, that morality is a golden lie, a mere system of behaviours practiced by primates sufficiently evolved to trick themselves into experiencing feelings of moral obligation for perhaps practical benefits pertaining to survival and reproduction, when in fact, no such moral obligations actually exist.  The theist’s position is simply to agree with the moral nihilist that if God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist, whilst arguing in favour of the contrary position.  Martin must prove his case both to the moral nihilist that objective morality exists and similarly against the theist that God is not necessary for such morality to exist.

Martin and Copan are in cohesion with the view that there is no more reason to deny the objective reality of moral values than there is to deny the objective reality of the physical world.  Martin would likely agree with Christian philosopher Dr. William Lane Craig’s criticism that Michael Ruse’s evolutionary view of morality is, “at worst a textbook example of the genetic fallacy and at best, only proves that our subjective perception of objective moral values has evolved over time.  But, if moral values are discovered rather than invented, then our gradual and fallible appreciation of the moral realm no more undermines the objective reality of that realm than our gradual, fallible perception of the physical world undermines the objectivity of that realm.”[5]

It is likely that Martin would bristle at the suggestion that he agrees with esteemed Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga’s term, “properly basic belief” in describing human basic intuitions of objective moral values, given that Plantinga uses this same term to defend an individual belief in God.[6]  However, on the off-chance Martin might accept a limited application of the term, some explication of it is in order.  A basic belief is one that forms the foundation of our knowledge but is not inferred from or based upon any other belief.  However, this does not grant one license to go about believing in anything that strikes our fancy.  I may want to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden but a basic belief is only justified under appropriate circumstances.  If it is so held, given certain criteria argued by Plantinga, then one can rationally refer to it as a properly basic belief.  We may properly intuit a realm of objective moral values if we are, in the words of Plantinga, “a properly functioning human being.”[7]  That is not to say that we could not be mistaken about the correctness of a certain moral truth, as there are defeaters that could interfere with our discernment abilities (such as childhood experiences or more fundamentally, the noetic effect of sin) but some limited appreciation of objective moral values could still be properly held.  Plantinga uses this logic to justify the properly basic belief in God among all properly functioning human beings.  Of course, this argument is viewed as insulting by your average atheist and thus why a narrow scope is necessary when assessing the common ground between Martin and Copan on this point.

Ultimately, any common ground between Martin and Copan begins and ends with a shared belief in objective moral values.  The theistic contention is that the atheist has no legitimate metaphysical basis for claiming that a realm of objective moral values can emerge from purely natural causes.  Instead, the existence of such a realm of objective moral values and duties is best explained by the existence of a God in whose character, attributes and personhood such values, duties and accountability is rooted.

Naturalistic moral realists commonly confuse the order of knowing with the order of being.[8]  Theists readily admit that nonbelievers can know moral truths. But knowing, which is a question of epistemology, must being distinguished from ontology, which is a question of being.  The ontological question is the more fundamental.  Indeed, the Bible is clear on the epistemological issue that all human beings have been made in God’s Image (Gen. 1:26-27, 9:3, James 3:9) and because of this Image they are intrinsically valuable.  Therein, Copan explains, lies the affirmation of human dignity, conscience, rights, duties and the ability to know right and wrong.  Because we are all made in God’s Image, it is no surprise on theism, that the atheist and/or non-theist can know the same moral truths as believers[9] and accordingly live morally good and decent lives.

However, it is on the ontological basis that the moral realist falls short.  In layman’s terms, a word for the ‘ontological basis’ could be the ‘actual ground’.  The actual ground that makes moral knowledge possible on naturalism is inadequate, according to Copan.  He asks, “Why think that impersonal/physical, valueless processes will produce valuable, rights-bearing persons?”[10]  If atheism is true, then we are simply the result of blind chance acting upon matter, without plan or purpose.  From whence is derived the actual ground upon which such value is based?  It is one thing to recognize that we are such valuable persons, it is quite another to produce the ontological basis upon which to base that value.

Copan argues that theism has the metaphysical explanatory scope and power to account for such values because it recognizes an intimate connection between a personal, good God and Creator that provides the ontological foundation; and human rights, dignities and moral obligations which are derived from the character of God.  So while anyone can know that human beings are intrinsically valuable, only theism can provide the adequate justification for how human beings came to actually be valuable. 

Martin’s cold, indifferent, unguided universe does not provide any reason to think that human beings are intrinsically valuable.  Despite all of Martin’s responses to Copan, nowhere does he provide that rationale.  He merely presupposes a Kantian position that posits the intrinsic value of human beings and that is as deep as he is able to go.  He never tries to justify that presupposition but simply asserts it.  It becomes clear that Martin is borrowing a certain amount of metaphysical capital from theism to try to shore up the holes in the dilapidated framework of his moral realism.  His only recourse is to try and refute theism by searching for some logical defect in the theistic understanding of God as the source of objective moral values.  I will look at the major way in which he does that when I come to examine the Euthyphro Dilemma.

Until then, Martin’s approach is simply to say that there is “no a priori reason why objective moral values could not be constituted by matter.”[11]  Really?  I would dearly like to see the scientific report in which a moral value was found and examined in a test tube!  Science has no way of even beginning to wonder how an immaterial moral value could emerge from valueless matter.  It seems there are only two alternatives: either moral values do not exist, or they belong to an immaterial realm of value, similar to logic and mathematics, that find their foundation in the character of God.  Of course, Martin would dismiss such an idea as absurd, but that confines him to slavishly asserting that the following events in the history of space, time and energy occurred without recourse to any creative force outside the universe, eventually resulting in the naturalistic emergence of objective moral values from valueless matter:  1) that something (the universe) came from nothing; 2) that matter and energy were accidentally so finely tuned as to allow for a universe in which the emergence of life was possible; 3) that life somehow emerged from non-life in a universe that merely permitted the possibility of life; 4) that rational, sentient organisms emerged from a non-sentient universe; 5) that those organisms became morally aware organisms, and that finally 6) an immaterial realm of moral values and obligations evolved entirely separately from human evolutionary development but happened to correspond by chance with our development so that they now impose valid and objective moral duties and obligations upon us.[12]

Martin offers no explanation as to how these objective moral values evolved, why they evolved at all or why they impose obligations on us.  On his account of the independent emergence of objective moral values, it seems to suggest that the universe knew we were coming!  This is of course, absurd to the atheist, but makes sense on theism.  I suggest that Martin’s reason for asserting objective morality is emotional rather than rational.  He wants to believe that human beings are intrinsically valuable in a universe that is, according to his own worldview, purposeless, cold and indifferent to human notions of morality.  He therefore consigns himself to advocating a system of moral realism that flies full in the face of his atheistic understanding of reality.

The most common attempt by ‘orthodox’ atheists to try and ground morality is by referring to an evolved “herd mentality” among human beings.  Although we are animals and therefore have no special significance external to our individual self, we have evolved into moral creatures that believe that we are intrinsically valuable because it helps us survive.  On closer inspection however, the idea of objective moral values existing within a naturalistic worldview is metaphysically untenable.  On naturalism, life evolves by means of natural selection and genetic mutation.  The only commitment is to survival and thus our sense of moral obligation is derived from our struggle to survive.  As stated earlier, we may feel a sense of obligation, but there is no way on naturalism to know that what we are experiencing is an objectively true obligation.  Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism puts the point cogently: we develop a moral sense not with the aim of discovering moral truth, but with the aim to survive and reproduce. 

We could actually develop a moral sense that is objectively immoral, but that nonetheless would aid in our survival and reproduction.  We cannot simply assume that what helps us survive is also necessarily what is moral.  So, whilst it remains possible that a realm of objective moral values does exist, there is no way on naturalism to reliably know what they are, since natural selection is geared only towards survival and not necessarily towards what is objectively moral.[13]

Furthermore, and this is a crucial point, evolutionary accounts of nature are merely descriptive.  They merely describe what is.  Science is mute as to prescriptive accounts of what ought to be.  Martin offers no legitimate argument on how to traverse the gap between what is and what ought to be.  It is when naturalism imposes its particular (some might even call ‘religious’) view of what ought to be upon scientific data that we get evolutionary accounts of morality and religion and morally prescriptive statements of the direction that secular ethics and morality ought to go.  Though Martin and his atheist cohorts may differ in their view of morality, they are united in imposing an ontologically vacuous account of the history of human moral development.

Of course, if objective moral values are rooted in the nature and character of God and we are made in His Image, then there is every reason to think that our discovered sense of morality will be reliable, even if it develops over time.  Our sense of moral duties, obligations and crucially, moral accountability, exists externally to us and flows from the character of a personal Being.

The Euthyphro Dilemma

A rather popular objection to morality rooted in God among Internet atheists and one which is employed by Martin himself is the venerable Euthyphro Dilemma.  This alleged conundrum for the theist is paraphrased thusly, “Is something good because God wills it, or does God will something because it is good?”[14]  The apparent dilemma is that if something is good because God wills it, then what is good is arbitrary because God could have willed otherwise.  For instance, he presumably could have made genocide a virtue and gentleness a vice if he wanted to.  Morality becomes merely a series of mandated “divine whims”.[15]

However, if God wills something based on the fact that it is good, then it would appear that God is adhering to some realm of moral values that exists independently of God.  An arbitrary God calls into question his trustworthiness for worship and a God that adheres to an independent standard is redundant, because humanity would not require God to ground our morality since both humans and God would appeal to an external, independent standard.

William Lane Craig and Paul Copan deal nicely with the alleged dilemma in the following way.  The ‘good’ is not good because God wills or commands it.  Rather, what is good is that which best conforms to God’s nature.  The two horns of the dilemma turn out to present a false dichotomy because a third option is available to the theist.  God’s commands are not the arbitrary whims of a celestial dictator, nor are they commanded by reference to an external standard.  Rather, they are necessary expressions of God’s just and loving nature.  As Craig puts it, “God is essentially compassionate, fair, kind, impartial, and so forth, and his commandments are reflections of his own character.”[16]

Martin pushes the question a step further with, “In any case, appealing to God’s character only postpones the problem since the dilemma can be reformulated in terms of His character.  Is God’s character the way it is because it is good or is God’s character good simply because it is God’s character?  Is there an independent standard of good or does God’s character set the standard?  If God’s standard is the way it is because it is good, then there is an independent standard by which to evaluate God’s character.”[17]

I will offer Copan and Craig’s rebuttal to this point, but consider the following for a moment:  surely this objection is a double-edged sword and will cut back upon the naturalistic account of objective moral values?  Martin claims that objective moral values emerged naturalistically.  Presumably some other objective moral values could have emerged and thus it is open to the accusation of arbitrariness.  Alternatively, if Martin tries to say that the moral values which did emerge somehow necessarily evolved, are those ones that emerged through evolution objectively true moral values because they were the ones that emerged or is there some standard outside the emergent moral values from which to judge the objective truth of these moral values?  What is his ontological justification for saying that those that emerged are necessarily true?

At best, the atheist can try to argue that the theist and the atheist have reached an impasse.  However, the theist can provide a better answer than Martin for the existence of objective moral values on the basis of God’s character.  On classical theism, with reference to Anselm, God is the greatest conceivable being.  He is not merely the most powerful being that happens to exist – that would imply he is merely a contingent being.  Rather, he is the greatest conceivable being, which bears the hallmarks of necessary existence.  For on the ontological argument, existence is conceivably greater than non-existence and thus, God must exist by necessity.[18]  If he is metaphysically necessary and morally perfect by definition, then of course there is no reason why he cannot serve as the foundation of necessary moral truths rather than merely to conform to them.  So that takes care of the second horn, leaving only the first.  We have already seen that God’s moral character is not a contingent property of God.  Rather, it is a necessary property that is essential to him.  It therefore, could not have been any other way.  There is no possible world in which God’s character was not perfectly moral.[19] 

One might object that God’s necessarily good nature is an attempt to escape the charge of being arbitrary and that reasons must be given as to why one thing is considered good by God and another thing is considered bad by God.  Without such good reasons being given, appealing to God’s necessarily good nature might still seem like a wrongful attempt to avoid the arbitrariness charge.[20]  However, William Lane Craig answers that good reasons can be found for why God commands the things that he does, such as prohibiting murder and adultery.  However, that does not mean that there must be good reasons for why love, compassion and kindness are virtues and cruelty and hate are vices, apart from the very nature of God.  Furthermore, Craig explains that there is a crucial difference between being ultimate and being arbitrary.  Martin tries to say that stopping at God’s character is arbitrary.  However, God’s necessarily perfect moral character serves as the explanatory ultimate, such that there can be no further explanation.[21]  Something is not arbitrary if it is the final explanation.  On the other hand, the naturalist finds himself facing a charge of arbitrariness.  If something is arbitrary, it means that it could have been otherwise and so just happened accidentally to be a certain way.  Martin’s view of objective morality is that it evolved by a undirected process, implying that it could have evolved otherwise!  Conversely, God’s nature contains necessary moral attributes that could not have been otherwise by definition.  He is thus the paradigm of good as the greatest conceivable being and thus the ultimate explanation for objective moral values.[22]

In conclusion, when it comes to the question of morality, we must be careful of how we phrase the question.  The question is most certainly not, “Can the Atheist be good without believing in God?”  We affirm that he can since we are all made in the Image of God and are thus endowed with a capacity called a conscience will allows us to discover what is right and wrong.[23]  The apostle Paul teaches that God’s moral law is “written on the hearts” of all men, so that even those who do not know God’s law “do naturally the things of the law” as “their conscience bears witness to them”[24]

In addition, the question is also not whether a good moral and ethical system that does not recognize the existence of God can be implemented.  So long as the intrinsic value of human beings is affirmed, then there is no reason why such a secular system cannot be devised.

The question therefore is one of ontology.  Upon what basis are human beings intrinsically valuable?  This paper has attempted to argue that naturalism simply cannot account for why human beings have intrinsic value and that any attempt to endow them with such value is entirely arbitrary, given their worldview.  On the other hand, theism provides the necessary ontological foundation both for human value and for objective moral values, duties and accountability, rooting them in the character and person of a Just, Loving and Holy God.
 

Bibliography

Copan, Paul. “God, Naturalism and the Foundations of Reality” The Future of Atheism Fortress Press 2008

Copan, Paul “Is Michael Martin a Moral Realist?” Philosophia Christi NS 1 (1999)

Copan Paul “Morality and Meaning Without God: Another Failed Attempt – A Review Essay on

 Atheism, Morality and Meaning Philosophia Christi new Series 6/2 (2004)

Copan, Paul Atheistic Goodness Revisited: A Personal Reply to Michael Martin Philosophia Christie Series 2 Vol. 2 No. 1

Copan, Paul (and others) “A Moral Argument” To Everyone an Answer A Case for the Christian

Worldview Intervarsity Press 2004

Craig, William Lane “The Indispensibility of Theological Meta-Foundations for Morality”

 Foundations 5 (1997): 9-12

Craig, William Lane Craig. “The Euthyphro Dilemma”

 http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6063

Craig, William Lane. “The Euthyphro Dilemma Once More”

 http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6087

Craig, William Lane. Reasonable Faith Crossway Books 3^rd Edition 2008

Craig, William Lane. “The Most Gruesome of Guests” Is Goodness without God Good Enough?

 A Debate on Faith, Secularism, and Ethics Editors Robert K. Garcia & Nathan L. King Rowman

 & Littlefield Publishers Inc 2009

Dawkins, Richard. River out of Eden Basic Books 1996

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor The Brother’s Karamazov, trans. C Garnett (New York: Signet Classics,

1957)

Martin, Michael “Atheism, Christian Theism and Rape 1997

 http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/Michael_martin/rape.html

Martin, Michael “Copan’s Critique of Atheistic Objective Morality”

 http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/Michael_martin/rape.html

Martin, Michael. “The Naturalistic Fallacy and Other Mistaken Arguments of Paul Copan” http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/Michael_martin/nat_fallacy.html

Pinker, Stephen. “The Moral Instinct”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html?pagewanted=all

Plantinga, Alvin. Warranted Christian Belief Oxford University Press 2000

Ruse, Michael Taking Darwin Seriously Oxford: Blackwell, 1986

 6; bk. V, chap. 4; bk. XI, chap. 8

[2] “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no

 purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.” Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden Basic

 Books 1996

[3] Michael Ruse, Taking Darwin Seriously, Oxford: Blackwell, 1986

[4] William Lane Craig, “The Most Gruesome of Guests” Is Goodness without God Good Enough? A Debate on

 Faith, Secularism, and Ethics Editors Robert K. Garcia & Nathan L. King. Chapter Nine p. 167

[5] William Lane Craig “The Indispensibility of Theological Meta-Foundations for Morality” Foundations 5 (1997):

 9-12

[6] Alvin Plantinga Warranted Christian Belief Oxford University Press 2000

[7] Ibid

[8] Paul Copan. “God, Naturalism and the Foundations of Reality” The Future of Atheism Fortress Press 2008 p. 141

-160, p. 146

[9] Ibid 146

[10] Ibid 146

[11] Paul Copan “Morality and Meaning Without God: Another Failed Attempt – A Review Essay on Atheism,

 Morality and Meaning Philosophia Christi new Series 6/2 (2004): 295-304

[12] Paul Copan Atheistic Goodness Revisited: A Personal Reply to Michael Martin Philosophia Christie Series 2 Vol.

 2 No. 1 p. 96-97

[13] Paul Copan (and others) “A Moral Argument” To Everyone an Answer A Case for the Christian Worldview

 Intervarsity Press 2004

[14] There is another translation, possibly more accurate that states the replaces ‘good’ with ‘pious’ or ‘holy’, both of

 which have slightly different meanings.  The resultant arguments around it tend to differ also as a result.  For the

 purpose of this paper, I will confine myself to arguments referring to the moral ‘Good’.

[15] Stephen Pinker. “The Moral Instinct” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-

t.html?pagewanted=all

[16] William Lane Craig Reasonable Faith Crossway Books 3^rd Edition 2008, p. 181

[17] Michael Martin “Atheism, Christian Theism and Rape 1997

 http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/Michael_martin/rape.html p. 6

[18] Before anyone starts howling that the ontological argument is a dead argument, I suggest they read Robert

 Maydole’s latest formulation and defense of the argument, located in The Blackwell Companion to Natural

 Theology Wiley-Blackwell 2009.  Highly esteemed atheist philosopher, Quentin Smith, has acknowledged that, for

 the time being at least, the argument appears logically sound and requires a response.

[19] William Lane Craig “The Euthyphro Dilemma”

 http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6063

[20] William Lane Craig “The Euthyphro Dilemma Once More”

 http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6087

[21] Ibid Craig “The Most Gruesome of Guests”

[22] Ibid 1

[23] Ibid William Lane Craig “The Most Gruesome of Guests” p. 168

[24] Ibid Craig p. 168