“He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

— Micah 6:8 (ESV)

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Why the Moral Argument Still Matters

In a world where morality is treated like a personal playlist — different for everyone — the moral argument remains one of the most profound reasons to believe in God. Most people, deep down, sense that some things are truly right or wrong. Genocide, slavery, cruelty to children — these aren’t just unpopular opinions; they are moral realities. But if there’s no God, where do these moral truths come from?

Many Christians know William Lane Craig’s simple form of the argument:

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.

That’s a great starting point, but it can be made even stronger. The deeper version doesn’t just say morality points to God — it shows that morality cannot exist without God.

What “Objective Morality” Really Means

To call something objective means it’s true regardless of what anyone thinks. Moral relativism claims that right and wrong change with time, culture, or emotion. But moral realism, the position held by most of humanity across ages, says that goodness, justice, and love are real features of reality, not human inventions.

If torturing an innocent person for fun is wrong, it’s wrong even if every nation on earth approves it. That’s the difference between personal taste and moral truth. Atheists can know moral truth, the question is whether their worldview can explain why moral truth exists in the first place.

The Foundation of Moral Reality

Moral laws are different from physical laws. Gravity doesn’t ask for your permission; it describes how things fall. Moral laws prescribe, they tell us what we ought to do. But an “ought” requires an “ought-er.” It points to intention, authority, and personality.

Laws that bind rational creatures require a rational lawgiver. Without a conscious source, moral obligation becomes no different than saying “rocks should roll uphill.”

“Our recognition of moral obligation is the recognition of a divine voice speaking to us.”
— John Henry Newman

God is not merely the enforcer of moral rules. His nature is the good itself.

The Stronger Moral Syllogism: The Moral Perfection Ground

1. Moral facts are necessarily binding and non-natural.
2. Binding moral facts require a necessarily existing, personal source with moral authority.
3. Only a necessarily existing, morally perfect mind can ground such objective moral facts and obligations.
4. Therefore, a necessarily existing, morally perfect mind — God — exists.

This means that moral truths, such as “It is wrong to torture an innocent person for fun”, are not invented by humans and don’t depend on physical or biological facts. They’re binding because they apply to everyone, everywhere, no matter what anyone believes, and they’re non-natural because they can’t be reduced to chemistry, evolution, or social convention.

In other words, moral facts belong to the realm of ought, not is. They tell us what we should do, not merely describe what happens. That makes them different from any natural law or material property, they point to something beyond nature itself.

This version doesn’t just argue that morality implies God; it shows that moral reality demands a transcendent, personal ground. Moral truth doesn’t just “exist somewhere.” It must be anchored in an unchanging moral nature, one that exists by necessity, not chance.

The Euthyphro Problem Solved

Skeptics often ask, “Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it’s good?” If the former, morality seems arbitrary; if the latter, it seems independent of God.

But that’s a false dilemma. The correct answer is that goodness is identical with God’s nature. God’s commands flow from His character, just as light flows from the sun.

“God is the Good itself and His commands are expressions of His nature.”
— Robert Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods

Goodness doesn’t exist above God, nor does He invent it. He is it. This avoids both horns of the dilemma and grounds morality in being, not in preference.

Why Secular Morality Collapses Without God

Atheistic moral realists sometimes argue that moral truths “just exist.” But saying “they just exist” isn’t an explanation — it’s an admission of mystery. As philosopher Mark Linville points out, atheism struggles to explain why moral laws are obligatory for free agents. Matter can’t issue commands.

Evolution might explain why we feel empathy, but not why we ought to follow it. Natural selection can produce instincts for cooperation, but it can’t make self-sacrifice objectively good or cruelty objectively evil.

If there is no transcendent moral lawgiver, then morality is either a trick of evolution or a cultural consensus. In both cases, its authority collapses.

“A morality independent of God loses its imperative force; it becomes merely a counsel of prudence.”
— Immanuel Kant

Why Human Well-Being Isn’t the Foundation of Morality

Many modern thinkers try to rescue objective morality without invoking God by saying that “good” simply means “what promotes human flourishing or well-being.” It sounds reasonable at first — after all, kindness, justice, and compassion usually do lead to human flourishing. But this view confuses cause and effect.

Human well-being is not the foundation of morality; it’s the result of moral truth.

If moral goodness is reduced to whatever benefits humans, then moral truths shift whenever our definition of “benefit” changes. Ancient Rome believed its well-being depended on conquering and enslaving other nations. The Nazis believed the same about racial purity. If “well-being” is the standard, whose well-being wins?

“Human flourishing presupposes a prior understanding of the good; it cannot define it.”
— Robert Adams

To say “we should promote human well-being” already assumes that human life has intrinsic value — and that assumption cannot come from nature or evolution. It must come from the recognition that human beings are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).

When God is removed, “well-being” becomes subjective. But when God is acknowledged, well-being finds its proper place — not as the source of morality, but as its fruit.

The Voice of Conscience: A Divine Echo

C.S. Lewis famously wrote that our sense of right and wrong reveals a Moral Law, and that Law points to a Lawgiver. When we feel guilty, we’re not just breaking social rules; we’re violating something sacred.

That deep awareness — the feeling that we’re accountable even when no one sees — is the echo of divine authorship. It’s as if God etched His moral signature into our souls.

“We are not men at all if we lose the sense of good and evil. The law of our nature is written on our hearts.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Even when people reject God, they still appeal to moral law — demanding justice, fairness, and compassion. Ironically, that very instinct proves His presence more than His absence.

Common Objections and Answers

Objection 1: “Morality evolved for survival.”
Evolution may explain why certain behaviors promote survival, but it can’t explain why self-sacrifice for the weak is good. Natural selection rewards strength and reproduction, not compassion for strangers. The moral law often tells us to do what harms survival for the sake of goodness — that’s not evolution; that’s conscience.

Objection 2: “We can be good without believing in God.”
Yes — belief isn’t the issue. Many atheists live morally admirable lives. But the question isn’t whether non-believers can act morally; it’s whether morality itself can exist without God. You can play music without knowing the composer, but the composer must still exist.

Objection 3: “Maybe moral facts just exist as brute truths.”
But why do these truths obligate us? Rocks and galaxies don’t issue commands. Theism uniquely explains why moral truth feels personal — because it is personal. The Good is not a thing; it’s Someone.

Why This Version Is Stronger

This form of the argument goes deeper than “If God doesn’t exist, morality doesn’t exist.” It shows that morality’s very structure, its binding authority, universality, and prescriptive power, requires a personal, necessary being.

Secular moral realism offers moral facts without moral force, rules without a ruler. Divine Nature Theory, on the other hand, explains both the existence and authority of morality.

“The moral life is best understood as imitation of the divine exemplar.”
— Linda Zagzebski, Divine Motivation Theory

Her insight completes the argument: we’re not just obeying commands; we’re imitating a Person, the morally perfect being whose character defines the good.

The Scriptural Resonance

The Bible doesn’t begin with abstract ethics; it begins with a personal God who says, “Be holy, for I am holy.” (Leviticus 19:2). Morality flows from God’s nature, not from social evolution.

The apostle Paul writes,

“For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires… they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts.” — Romans 2:14–15

Every time we say “that’s not fair,” we’re appealing to a standard beyond humanity. That cry for justice is the fingerprint of God on the human soul.

The Voice of the Lawgiver

The moral argument is not just an abstract syllogism, it’s a mirror reflecting who we are and whose image we bear. The existence of real right and wrong makes sense only if there is a real standard of Goodness, a mind, a will, and a heart behind the universe.

If you trust your moral compass, follow it to its source. It does not point inward. It points upward.

Because if moral truths are real, then so is the God whose character defines them.

So the question is not “Can we be moral without God?” The question is “Can morality itself exist without Him?”

Everything in your conscience already knows the answer.

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Footnotes

¹ Robert Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
² Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956).
³ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2001), Book I.
⁴ Linda Zagzebski, Divine Motivation Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

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