Many theists believe that objective morality can only come from a god. Meaning a morality that humans do not decide or invent. God is the source of objective morality and humans can learn morality from god because they have no ability to know what is moral on their own. Is this true?
I am going to assume here that god does in fact exist. If he does then how does god know what is moral? Is god’s morality good because he says it is or is it good because it is good by itself? If god is just advocating for an objective good morality then morality exists independent of god and humans can through time discover this morality. God would be unnecessary expect maybe to speed up the timeline of us discovering good morality. If acts have inherent goodness then god is not the author of morality and god is unnecessary for morality.
If morality is good only because god commands it then morality is arbitrary and humans would be unable to reason to this morality because it is not based on reason. In this case god is necessary for morality but morality would be totally subjective and dependent upon god’s thoughts at the time. If something is good because god commanded it then anything could be considered good. Stating that god is good would be meaningless and “loving your enemies” and “beating slaves” become equally good.
So how can god be the author of objective morality? He cannot because he would be a spectator to it so Christians believe in subjective morality based on the ideas of god. Theists that believe morality comes from god then must accept that their morality is arbitrary or that god is ok with us not knowing what good morals are. They are also basing their morality on faith and not reason. This can lead to tragedy when Muslims in other countries base their morals on an ancient book and hurl gay men from buildings and bomb children or Christians killing abortion doctors in the U.S.
There is also the problem of trying to interpret what god thinks good morals are. Christians cannot agree on this even though they all claim to follow the morals of the Bible. Like issues with abortion, women in clergy and gay people.
When we take god out of the morality business and try to reason to good morals we find an objective morality that we can live by. If we made a list of morally good and bad actions that most humans agree upon we will come to the conclusion that bad morals are things that cause unnecessary suffering like bathing a child in battery acid. Morally good things lead to a person’s well-being such as feeding a hungry person, most people would agree this is a good thing. (There is a lot more that goes into well-being as the basis for morality) So if we have other people’s well-being as a standard for morals then we can objectively decide if an action is moral or not based on this criteria. We can objectively say beating someone else with a hammer is objectively wrong and clothing a naked person is objectively good.
There are many moral actions that are not as easily decided based on this criteria. These also may over time change as we gain new information on what is morally good such as asbestos, once it was morally ok to use this and expose people to asbestos dust now we know that it would be morally bad to do so based on well-being as the standard. These are still objective morals based on the standard of well-being. If you reject this notion it is like rejecting math because we cannot solve some math problems yet.
So god cannot be the source of objective morality but only subjective morality and atheists can base their morality on reason and science without the need for a god. How can a theist be moral when they throw out reason and rely on a subjective morality form a book that is 2000+ years old? Many of the morals have been replaced with better ones such as how we treat gay people and slaves for example.
The last thing is the concept of situational ethics meaning that the same action can be morally good or morally bad depending on the context. For example, lying is generally a morally bad act but in a situation where someone can get hurt if you tell the truth then lying can be a morally good act but it is based on the objective standard of well-being. Morality is a big subject and not as clear cut as we hope. I hope this was not too long but it is currently my ideas on morality. Actually not my original ideas but ideas I have learned from different sources that I agree with.
I am going to assume here that god does in fact exist. If he does then how does god know what is moral? Is god’s morality good because he says it is or is it good because it is good by itself? If god is just advocating for an objective good morality then morality exists independent of god and humans can through time discover this morality. God would be unnecessary expect maybe to speed up the timeline of us discovering good morality. If acts have inherent goodness then god is not the author of morality and god is unnecessary for morality.
If morality is good only because god commands it then morality is arbitrary and humans would be unable to reason to this morality because it is not based on reason. In this case god is necessary for morality but morality would be totally subjective and dependent upon god’s thoughts at the time. If something is good because god commanded it then anything could be considered good. Stating that god is good would be meaningless and “loving your enemies” and “beating slaves” become equally good.
So how can god be the author of objective morality? He cannot because he would be a spectator to it so Christians believe in subjective morality based on the ideas of god. Theists that believe morality comes from god then must accept that their morality is arbitrary or that god is ok with us not knowing what good morals are. They are also basing their morality on faith and not reason. This can lead to tragedy when Muslims in other countries base their morals on an ancient book and hurl gay men from buildings and bomb children or Christians killing abortion doctors in the U.S.
There is also the problem of trying to interpret what god thinks good morals are. Christians cannot agree on this even though they all claim to follow the morals of the Bible. Like issues with abortion, women in clergy and gay people.
When we take god out of the morality business and try to reason to good morals we find an objective morality that we can live by. If we made a list of morally good and bad actions that most humans agree upon we will come to the conclusion that bad morals are things that cause unnecessary suffering like bathing a child in battery acid. Morally good things lead to a person’s well-being such as feeding a hungry person, most people would agree this is a good thing. (There is a lot more that goes into well-being as the basis for morality) So if we have other people’s well-being as a standard for morals then we can objectively decide if an action is moral or not based on this criteria. We can objectively say beating someone else with a hammer is objectively wrong and clothing a naked person is objectively good.
There are many moral actions that are not as easily decided based on this criteria. These also may over time change as we gain new information on what is morally good such as asbestos, once it was morally ok to use this and expose people to asbestos dust now we know that it would be morally bad to do so based on well-being as the standard. These are still objective morals based on the standard of well-being. If you reject this notion it is like rejecting math because we cannot solve some math problems yet.
So god cannot be the source of objective morality but only subjective morality and atheists can base their morality on reason and science without the need for a god. How can a theist be moral when they throw out reason and rely on a subjective morality form a book that is 2000+ years old? Many of the morals have been replaced with better ones such as how we treat gay people and slaves for example.
The last thing is the concept of situational ethics meaning that the same action can be morally good or morally bad depending on the context. For example, lying is generally a morally bad act but in a situation where someone can get hurt if you tell the truth then lying can be a morally good act but it is based on the objective standard of well-being. Morality is a big subject and not as clear cut as we hope. I hope this was not too long but it is currently my ideas on morality. Actually not my original ideas but ideas I have learned from different sources that I agree with.