Stephen Kneale

Are we justified in arguing for objective moral values?

I saw this video of William Lane Craig defending his moral argument for the existence of God. To refresh your memory, the argument runs this way:

  1. If God does not exist, objective moral duties do not exist
  2. Objective moral duties do exist
  3. Therefore, God exists

The argument may be attacked by either arguing objective moral duties do exist apart from God or, alternatively, denying that objective moral duties exist at all.

Most atheists want to deny the existence of objective moral duties and so attack the second premise. The challenge for the theist is to demonstrate that objective moral duties exist in reality. To that end, here is how William Lane Craig makes that case:

4 comments

  1. and yet again, christians can’t show that objective morals exist at all. They can’t even agreeon what morals their imaginary friend wants.

      • Really? What are they? And do make sure you can explain it’s from magic rather than just because humans are human.

        Where is your imaginary friend, Stephen? And since christians don’t agree on what morals their god wants, do show how you know what morals are objective and your version of the christian is the right one since there are dozens, if not far more, versions of it.

        • Sure. There are no societies on earth that think it is legitimate to torture and murder children for fun. This is an example of an objective moral value that all societies and cultures would accept.

          However, any time anybody says ‘that is wrong’ they are appealing to some sense of objective moral value. Otherwise, the claim is meaningless. They are just saying ‘my opinion is that is wrong’ and it carries no more weight than a person who insist ‘this is fine’. These would be evidence of objective moral values.

          However, I am not going to comment further with you. Every time you come on this site, you do not engage in honest conversation. Your tone is patronising and you load your comments with unnecessary pejorative e.g ‘your imaginary friend’. You will note I am not nearly so disrespectful towards you and your views, despite the fact that I personally do not find them credible yet you persistently do not engage that way with me.

          I am very happy to have honest conversations with people who are genuinely interested in discussing different views. I have no desire to do so with those who evidently want to be insulting, disrespectful and smug.

Comments are closed.