Moral Order and Moral Odor

The argument from morality is one of many arguments for the existence of God. It comes in different forms, all aiming to support the claim that God exists with observations about morality.

All forms of the moral argument begin with the premise of moral normativity, that is, that well-functioning human beings are typically aware of actions as being right and wrong. Furthermore, this awareness binds them to certain obligations, regardless of their personal goals and ends. In this sense, moral qualities have the appearance of objectivity: many times, when someone says "I ought to do a" they do not mean the same as "I would like to do a", or even prudentially, "I ought to do a in order to produce so-and-so". Another aspect of this is that a proposition such as "torturing babies for fun is wrong" is generally regarded as a statement of fact, a position known as moral realism.

One may ask why the required recognition and upholding of moral norms must be carried out by divine intelligence, as opposed to human intelligence. Alfred Edward Taylor explains that the moral law holds at all times and everywhere, whereas the human mind is limited in its comprehension and scope. Only a sovereign God could properly detect infringements of the moral law and apply sanctions. In his Letter concerning Toleration, John Locke contends that one of the few religious stances that the commonwealth cannot tolerate is atheism; atheists, Locke says, have no motive to act upon their promises and oaths when doing so is against their self-interest.

The argument is formally valid but each of (1), (2) and (3) may be disputed.

Here, a transcendental fact is one that cannot be stated entirely in the language of the natural sciences, and that is true irrespective of human opinion. Theism provides the most intelligible explanation for such moral facts via the notion that rightness is one and the same property as the property of being commanded by God (wrongness consists in being forbidden by God).

In order for this argument to work, it should be shown that a non-theistic worldview cannot adequately account for transcendental normative facts.

Friedrich Nietzsche presented examples of how he believed morality could develop without reference or need of God.

Critics suggest that this argument appeals to a divine command theory of ethics. Objections to divine command theories of ethics are numerous, most stemming from forms of the Euthyphro dilemma. Is an action good because God commanded it, or did God command it because it is good? The first horn would imply that what is good is arbitrary; God decides what is right and wrong in the same way that a government decides which side of the street cars should drive on. This seems unreasonable. The second horn could imply that God made his commands in accordance with transcendental facts that exist apart from God — exactly the types of facts that the theist is asking the non-theist to provide an account for. The argument is thus turned over on ...