A Challenge to the Moral Argument (Pt. I)

Two philosophers, William Lane Craig and Erik Wielenberg, met last February to debate (see the video here) what's called the Moral argument for the existence of God. Simply put, the argument they debated goes like this:

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

Craig, who is a theist, argued on behalf of the soundness of this argument and Wielenberg, who is an atheist, argued against it.

Generally, those who seek to evade the conclusion that God exists either 1) deny the first premise and argue that even though God does not exist objective moral duties do exist. Or, they 2) deny the second premise and claim that God does not exist and that there are no objective moral duties either. Any moral obligations that exist are merely subjective - self-chosen and self-imposed.

Those who adopt the first tactic have a difficult time explaining where objective moral duties could possibly come from if not from God. What entity could have the moral authority, the right, to impose a moral obligation upon us to, say, love our fellow man. The state can, of course, impose legal duties to refrain from harming others, but it cannot impose a moral duty to not hate others or to not be selfish or greedy. The state can control human behavior through the civil law, but it has no authority over the human heart.

Moreover, if the state could impose such a duty, if the state was in fact the highest moral authority, then whatever the state sanctioned would be ipso facto right. So if the state, as it has done historically, endorsed genocide, or human sacrifice, or chattel slavery, or denial of the right to vote to women all of those would be morally right and proper, and one who denied that they were right would be, by definition, wrong.

Those who opt for the second tactic, on the other hand, find it very difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile their belief that no objective moral duties exist with the way they actually think and live their lives.

For example, if there are no objective duties then no one can say that anything anyone else did was objectively wrong, yet almost everyone, theist and atheist alike, agrees that child abuse, raping a toddler, molesting altar boys, or beating a crying infant are all morally wrong. And almost everyone would agree that anyone who refuses to make that judgment is at best morally stunted and at worst morally depraved.

This short video illustrates the moral argument:

Wielenberg agrees that objective moral duties do exist, he accepts the second premise, but he denies that God exists. In other words, he rejects the first premise of the moral argument and, thus, he rejects the conclusion.

He summarizes his objection with three three questions:

1. Why think that only Divine commands are sufficient by themselves to generate moral obligations?
2. How can God's commands impose obligations on those who are unaware of divine authority behind such commands?
3. Why would God command people to do things He knows they won't do anyway, since issuing such commands only introduces pointless evil into the world?

We'll consider this challenge to Craig's argument in tomorrow's post.