Something that I said in part one deserves to be revisited and expanded upon:
If theists contend that moral statements, such as, "Drowning an otherwise-healthy infant is wrong," are true in all possible worlds, then they accord to morality the metaphysical ultimacy which will undercut their argument that it can be contingent upon God's nature. If they do not accord such status to morality, then things get a little more complicated. Therefore, it is important to nail down the terms of the debate before we even begin. This is slippery, because some theists will try to "get away with" something here: if we agree that it is wrong in all possible worlds for humans to do X, but not God, then we have undercut the justification for using the same terms of "goodness" and "evil" in application to God as we do for ourselves. In other words, if what is good for us is not good for God, or if what is evil for us is not evil for God, then to say, "God is good," is an equivocation. Therefore, as shown in part one above, if metaphysical ultimacy is not accorded to moral standards transcending God's will or nature, then the phrase "God is good" itself is meaningless.What does it mean, then, to say "God is good"?
- Can God "be good" in the same sense that we can be?
What theists may say is that God cannot do such a thing. If God cannot, then God is not a free moral agent, and so to refer to God as morally perfect is absurd. If God just doesn't do these sorts of things, then God is an exemplar of the virtues that we both agree are, in reality, the underlying definition of what makes one's nature "good" or "evil". Working on this assumption, then the nature of God needs to be such that God can exemplify the virtues and morality that we agree define goodness and evil. This is where using God as an exemplar of goodness (not a justification or basis for it) may itself lead to logical issues.
Most people recognize that morality can be boiled down to questions about "ought" and that "ought" implies a duty or obligation. It is from this very perspective that I would argue that morality is logical and self-contained, and that invoking or involving God in a justification of obligation becomes senseless. Because God is all-powerful and all-knowing, is it possible for such a Being to be constrained by obligation or duties to its creations? If God is good, where good entails such obligations, then to what extent is God obligated to humans? If God is perfectly good, then would God not be completely and perfectly obligated to us?
Given the evidence of human suffering and evil in the world, I would say that the evidence is clearly against making it reasonable to believe that God fulfills obligations to the creation perfectly, or even to a great extent. This will take on the evidential, rather than logical (although it's still viable), form of the problem of evil if followed from here. I have already followed it, and won't reiterate. Suffice it to say that theists who claim that God is the perfect exemplar of goodness, and admit that goodness entails moral obligations and duties, face a serious difficult in reconciling that notion with the evil and suffering in the world. If a morally perfect God exists, then the obligation that is attached to moral perfection logically entails that God would remove, or reduce to the greatest extent possible, the pain and suffering of the creation.
Again, the theist may be inclined to rescind any obligation as part of God's goodness, but if God is not morally obligated to us, is the phrase "God is good" reflective of the notions of objective moral goodness? Does it mean the same thing as when we say, "Joe is a good person, or Sally is a good parent?" Objective moral standards include moral obligation to refrain from causing suffering and to alleviate it whenever possible. How can God be exempted from these obligations?
Another, separate problem is how, if morality is exemplified perfectly by God, humans are supposed to acquire knowledge of this, aside from revelation and/or Scripture. We see this exposed clearly in the debate between atheist philosopher Michael Martin and Christian presuppositionalist John Frame:
I also argued earlier that the objectivity of Christian morality suffers from two other problems. First, it has no rational way of deciding between conflicting claims of divine revelation and, second, it has no way of deciding between conflicting interpretations of allegedly Christian revelation. Frame maintains that the truth of Christian revelation is shown by historical investigation while I maintain that historical evidence for the truth of Christianity is very weak. Frame wisely hesitates to get involved in a protracted historical debate. I too have no desire to enter such a debate online. Readers of our debate on the Internet should study our respective works and decide for themselves whether historical scholarship has established the truth of the Resurrection, the Incarnation, the Virgin with any acceptable degree of probability.I am inclined to believe in moral realism and objective moral properties, which I will elaborate on in the next post. For a moment, I want to reflect on one possible explanation of these properties which is not metaphysically ultimate for the purpose of argument:
- If morality is contingent on human nature
How can hunger, or its alleviation/amelioration, relate to God, when God cannot lack for anything and the very existence of the condition "hunger" is due to a physical universe that God supposedly created? Before God created this universe, did hunger exist? Was alleviating/ameliorating it good when there was no such thing as time or physicality? Isn't this a sort of nonsense way of looking at it? And this will be a recurring theme -- how is introducing God into the equation improving our understanding of morality? In fact, at each point that God is introduced into the question of morality, I would argue, we add layers of complication and confusion.
In point of fact, I would argue that bringing God into the discussion muddies the waters of clarity and may not make sense. Compassion and charity, for example, are universally agreed upon to be "good" and thus are called virtues. The question of how God can be charitable or compassionate is a very good one. Charitableness can only exist when we give something of ourselves to benefit another. Typically, the degree to which any action is charitable is related directly to what it costs us and what it benefits them. Since nothing costs God anything, and since God's sovereignty precludes any notion that God may "give" something over to someone else entirely, this may be a nonsensical virtue for God to have. In addition, God is responsible for and "owns" everything, so if someone ends up suffering and in need of charity, God is at least indirectly responsible for their condition. To alleviate a condition that one has caused is not a virtue, but making right a wrong -- rectitude.
Compassion exists in large part because we are capable of relating to the suffering of other sentient creatures. St. Paul talks about this in 2 Cor 1. When we see an animal howling in pain in a trap, we feel moved because our human nature overlaps with its animal nature in that we both feel pain. Since God cannot experience suffering and pain, how can God be moved with compassion?
Patience is a virtue. It exists for creatures within time, who experience time and wish to hurry along some thing or event in order to facilitate and make their lives easier or less bored. Since God is outside of and does not experience time, it is illogical to attribute patience to God.
Many, many more examples could be given to show that using God as an exemplar of moral goodness and virtue is logically flawed, due to the nature of God and its properties. The character and properties of God do not allow the same moral goodness that humans can and do possess. In that sense, using another human's life and actions as a standard of morality is more logical and useful than using God.
Some Christians would interject the doctrine of Incarnation at this point to try to argue that God can experience pain or charity, and I'll not spend much time refuting it, but I want to make a few quick points: (1) the properties of God may or may not be internally inconsistent, but even if they are not, they are certainly incompatible and logically contradict with the properties of human beings, (2) given that logical contradiction implies incoherence, it is incoherent to argue that God and human beings can coexist, (3) the doctrine of the Incarnation states that Jesus was/is both 100% God and 100% human being, (4) therefore, the doctrine of the Incarnation is false, reductio ad absurdum. If the doctrine of the Incarnation is not possibly true, then the argument that it can serve as a basis to support the contention that it makes sense to use God as an exemplar of morality is false.
For another logical argument I've written refuting the notion of justice based on an Incarnation, see here.
Conclusion: Because moral goodness carries with it moral obligations, this implies that if God is good then God is obligated to its creation. Attributes of human nature that make sense of morality are lacking from God. Therefore, talking about God as an exemplar of goodness may be illogical, and the evidence of failing to meet human needs is itself an argument that God does not meet moral obligations and standards. The doctrine of the Incarnation is logically flawed, and invoking it is revealing: it is necessary to introduce a human element in order to make sense of morality. This tells us that talking about God as a nonphysical omni-X entity places a burden on dialog, while we can all make solid progress talking about morality from a "merely" mortal perspective. God cannot thus be "good" in the same sense that we (humans) can be and are.
I will pick up with moral motivation and an atheistic ethical justification in the next analysis.
See here for the outline of all three posts on morality and atheism.
