Contending For The Faith---Part 10

 

In St. Jude 1:3, we read, "Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." [Emphasis mine]. Contending For The Faith is a series of posts dedicated to apologetics (i.e.,  the intellectual defense of the truth of the Traditional Catholic Faith) to be published the first Monday of each month.  This is the next installment.

Sadly, in this time of Great Apostasy, the faith is under attack like never before, and many Traditionalists don't know their faith well enough to defend it. Remember the words of our first pope, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect..." (1Peter 3:16). There are five (5) categories of attacks that will be dealt with in these posts. Attacks against:

• The existence and attributes of God
• The truth of the One True Church established by Christ for the salvation of all 
• The truth of a particular dogma or doctrine of the Church
• The truth of Catholic moral teaching
• The truth of the sedevacantist position as the only Catholic solution to what has happened since Vatican II 

In addition, controversial topics touching on the Faith will sometimes be featured, so that the problem and possible solutions may be better understood. If anyone had suggestions for topics that would fall into any of these categories, you may post them in the comments. I cannot guarantee a post on each one, but each will be carefully considered.

The Moral Argument for the Existence of God

In this month's post, I will be writing about one of the proofs for the existence of God; the Moral Argument. Psalm 14:1 tells us, "The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” The fool's mind doesn't say such, for as the Vatican Council of 1870 teaches,  "Canon 1.  If anyone saith that the One, True God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema." It is, therefore, a dogma of the Faith that God's existence can be known by human reason alone. Romans 1:20 says, "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." 

The Moral Argument comes in many forms. It has been championed by such illustrious philosophers as St. Thomas Aquinas, Robert Adams, William Alston, Mark Linville, William Lane Craig, Paul Copan, John Hare, Stephen Evans, and others. This post comes from the work of the aforementioned philosophers, and I take credit for none of it. I give full credit to those philosophical giants, whose intellects far exceed mine. All I did was take their expressions of the argument, and compress them into the main ideas that can fit in a post.---Introibo

A Simple Formulation

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. 

2. Objective moral values and duties do exist. 

3. Therefore, God exists. 

This simple little argument is easy to memorize and is logically ironclad. Together, the first two premises imply the conclusion: the existence of God. What makes this argument so powerful is that people generally believe both premises. In a "WOKE" age, people are scared to death of "imposing their values" on someone else, so premise 1 seems correct to them. At the same time, however, certain values have been deeply instilled into them, such as tolerance, open-mindedness, and love. They think it is objectively wrong to impose your values on someone else! So they’re deeply committed to premise 2 as well.  I will examine more closely each of the argument’s two premises in order to see what defense might be offered on their behalf and what objections might be raised against them.

Premise 1: If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.

First, the distinction between values and duties. Values have to do with whether something is good or bad. Duties have to do with whether something is right or wrong. Now at first sight this might seem to be a distinction without a difference: “good” and “right” mean the same thing, and the same goes for “bad” and “wrong.” But if we think about it, we can see that this isn’t the case.

Duty has to do with moral obligation, what you ought or ought not to do. However,  you’re obviously not morally obligated to do something, just because it would be good to do it. For example, it would be good if someone became a doctor and saved lives, but you are not obligated to thereby become a doctor. It would also be good to become a teacher, or a CPA, or a police officer, but you can't possibly do them all. So there's a difference between good/bad, right/wrong. Good/bad deal with something's intrinsic worth, while right/wrong deal with something being morally obligatory. 

Second, there is a distinction between objective and subjective moral values. Objective means independent of what anyone thinks, while subjective means dependent on what people think. Therefore, to claim there are "objective moral values" is to say that some things are good or bad independent of whatever anyone thinks about it. Likewise, having "objective moral duties" means certain actions are right or wrong regardless of what people think. Hence, had Stalin conquered the world for Communism and brainwashed everyone in the whole world into thinking Communist oppression and political purges were a great thing, it would still be bad.

What evidence is there that premise one is true? Traditionally, people placed moral values in God, Who is the highest Good. If God does not exist, what is the basis for objective moral values, and why believe humans have objective moral worth? On the atheistic viewpoint, matter and energy are all that exist. All we can know, comes primarily through science. Yet, science has nothing to say about moral values; they cannot be examined in a test tube via the scientific method. For atheists then, morality is simply the subjective creation of humans. They are the product of evolution and social conditioning. Just as a troupe of baboons exhibit cooperative behaviors and even self-sacrificial acts because natural selection has determined it to be advantageous for survival, so homo sapiens exhibit similar behavior for the same reasons.  

As a result of socio-biological pressures, there has evolved among homo sapiens a certain "herd morality," which functions well in the preservation of our species. Yet, on the atheistic viewpoint, there is nothing about homo sapiens that makes this morality objectively true. There's no reason to think people with a very different set of values might not have evolved instead. To think, on this worldview, that homo sapiens are special, and their morality must be true, is to succumb to speciesism , an unjustified bias towards your own species and lacking any justification. 

If there is no God, any basis for the herd morality which evolved as being objectively true is gone. All you're left with is an ape-like creature on an insignificant spec in the universe with delusions of moral grandeur. Moving on to moral duties, it was traditionally thought to spring from the Ten Commandments, but, once more, if God does not exist, what basis is there for objective moral duties? On the atheistic worldview, humans are merely highly developed animals. When a lion kills a zebra, he kills, but does not murder it. Likewise, when a Great White Shark forcibly copulates with a female, he forces her, but does not rape her. There are no moral dimensions to these actions; they are neither prohibited nor obligatory.

So, if God does not exist, why should people think they have any moral obligations and prohibitions? They are nothing more than subjective ideas derived from parental and societal conditioning. Certain actions such as incest or rape may not be biologically and societally advantageous, and so in the course of human development, have become taboo. However, this does not equate with being wrong, only disadvantageous. The rapist who goes against the herd morality is really only doing something frowned upon, much like belching loudly at the dinner table. 

Be careful: The question we should ask is not, "Can non-believers live moral lives?" There are plenty that do live what most people recognize as decent lives. The  question is also not, "Can we recognize objective moral values and duties without belief in God?" The Natural Law can be known by all. Parents need not believe in God to realize they should love and care for their children. Rather, the question is, " If God does not exist, do objective moral values and duties exist?" It is not about belief in God for objective morality, but the necessity of His actual existence. 

There are some who hold to "Atheistic Moral Platonism," which declares there is objective morality, but it is not grounded in God. How to reply? First, it seems absurd to say, e.g.,  the moral value of justice exists. In the absence of people, how does justice exist? Moral values appear to be properties of persons, e.g., "St. Joseph was just." Second, let's suppose, ad arguendo, that moral virtues like justice, mercy, and loyalty exist as abstract objects. How does that become a moral duty to behave that way? Ostensibly, moral vices such as greed, lust, and envy, also exist as abstract objects. Why must we align ourselves with one set of abstractions over another? Atheistic Moral Platonism, lacking a Lawgiver, has no basis for moral obligation.

How do atheists respond? They want there to be objective moral values and duties (the majority of them anyway), so they claim some kind of humanism and declare that human flourishing is the objective good. However, human flourishing is merely arbitrary and capricious. Given atheism, why think what is conducive to human flourishing is any more valuable than what is conducive to the flourishing of ants or rats? Why is it wrong to harm another member of our species, if we get a benefit? 

Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties do exist.

As to the second premise, we have reason to believe objective moral values and duties do exist. I believe in an external world of objects as my senses tell me, unless there is an overriding defeater not to trust my senses. Likewise, in the absence of a defeater, I should accept what my moral experience tells me about what is good and bad. Most people will readily admit that acts such as rape, child abuse, and torturing an innocent person to death, aren't merely socially unacceptable--they are moral abominations. Anyone who would claim such actions are good or morally neutral would (rightfully) have their mental fitness called into question. 

In my personal experience, I've found that moral relativists will quickly become flustered and unable to answer, if you turn their own anti-Catholic assumptions against them. Since they hate what they perceive as the "evil" of the Inquisition and Crusades, ask them, "Were they objectively bad? Isn't it just your own personal opinion?" Do the same with the V2 sect abuse of children. "Is it really wrong, or your opinion?" Of course, if they claim it's just an opinion, any real opposition crumbles. Why should I be bound by your opinion? If they admit them objectively wrong, they concede the second premise as true. 

Conclusion: God Exists

Given the truth of the first two premises, it logically follows that God exists. A final consideration is the objection called "The Euthyphro Dilemma." The question is asked, "Are the Ten Commandments good because God made them, or did God make the Ten Commandments because they are good?" If you say, "The Commandments are good because God made them," it makes those commands arbitrary. God could have just as well commanded, "Thou SHALT kill." If you say "God made the Commandments because they are good," then what is good is independent of God and contradicts premise one. 

Fortunately, this is a false dilemma.  The answer is that the Commandments are an expression of the Attributes of God. God Wills the Commandments because He is good, and they are the realization of His Supreme Moral Goodness.  The Moral Argument compliments the Cosmological Argument by telling us the moral Nature of the Creator of the Universe. It gives us a necessary, personal Being, Who is not only Perfectly Good, but is the standard of goodness, and Whose Commandments  constitute our moral duties.