The argument from morality is one of several arguments for the existence of God. This argument comes in different forms, all aiming to demonstrate God’s existence from some observations about morality in the world.

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: when someone says "I ought to do something" they do not mean the same as "I would like to do something". 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.[1]

The moral argument appeals to the existence of moral laws as evidence of God’s existence. According to this argument, there couldn’t be such a thing as morality without God; to use the words that Sartre attributed to Dostoyevsky, “If there is no God, then everything is permissible.” That there are moral laws, then, that not everything is permissible, proves that God exists.
Some facts are facts about the way that the world is. It is a fact that cats eat mice because there are lots of animals out there, cats, and lots of them eat mice. It is a fact that Paris is the capital of France because there exists a city called Paris that is the capital of France. For most facts, there are objects in the world that make them true.
Morality Consists of a Set of Commands
Moral facts aren’t like that. The fact that we ought to do something about the problem of famine isn’t a fact about the way that the world is, it’s a fact about the way that the world ought to be. There is nothing out there in the physical world that makes moral facts true.
This is because moral facts aren’t descriptive, they’re prescriptive; moral facts have the form of commands.
Commands Imply a Commander

There are some things that can’t exist unless something else exists along with them. There can’t be something that is being carried unless there is something else that is carrying it. There can’t be something that is popular unless there are lots of people that like it.
Commands are like this; commands can’t exist without something else existing that commanded them.
The moral argument seeks to exploit this fact; If moral facts are a kind a command, the moral argument asks, then who commanded morality? To answer this question, the moral argument suggests that we look at the importance of morality.
Morality is Ultimately Authoritative
Morality is of over-riding importance. If someone morally ought to do something, then this over-rules any other consideration that might come into play. It might be in my best interests not to give any money to charity, but morally I ought to, so all things considered I ought to. It might be in my best interests to pretend that I’m too busy to see my in-laws on Wednesday so that I can watch the game, but morally I ought not, so all things considered I ought not.
If someone has one reason to do one thing, but morally ought to do another thing, then all things considered they ought to do the other thing. Morality over-rules everything. Morality has ultimate authority.
Ultimately Authoritative Commands Imply an Ultimately Authoritative Commander
Commands, though, are only as authoritative as the person that commands them. If I were to command everyone to pay extra tax so that we could spend more money on the police force, then no one would have to do so. I just don’t have the authority to issue that command. If the government were to command everyone to pay extra tax so that we could spend more money on the police force, though, then that would be different, because it does have that authority.

As morality has more authority than any human person or institution, the moral argument suggests, morality can’t have been commanded by any human person or institution. As morality has ultimate authority, as morality over-rules everything, morality must have been commanded by someone who has authority over everything. The existence of morality thus points us to a being that is greater than any of us and that rules over all creation.
What the Moral Argument Proves
If the moral argument can be defended against the various objections that have been raised against it, then it proves the existence of an author of morality, of a being that has authority over and that actively rules over all creation. Together with the ontological argument, the first cause argument, and the argument from design, this would give us proof that there is a perfect, necessary, and eternal being that created the universe with life in mind and has the authority to tell us how we are to run it. The correct response to this would be to seek God’s will and to practice it.

The moral argument begins with the fact that all people recognize some moral code (that some things are right, and some things are wrong). Every time we argue over right and wrong, we appeal to a higher law that we assume everyone is aware of, holds to, and is not free to arbitrarily change. Right and wrong imply a higher standard or law, and law requires a lawgiver. Because the Moral Law transcends humanity, this universal law requires a universal lawgiver. This, it is argued, is God.

In support of the moral argument, we see that even the most remote tribes who have been cut off from the rest of civilization observe a moral code similar to everyone else's. Although differences certainly exist in civil matters, virtues like bravery and loyalty and vices like greed and cowardice are universal. If man were responsible for that code, it would differ as much as every other thing that man has invented. Further, it is not simply a record of what mankind does—rarely do people ever live up to their own moral code. Where, then, do we get these ideas of what should be done? Romans 2:14-15 says that the moral law (or conscience) comes from an ultimate lawgiver above man. If this is true, then we would expect to find exactly what we have observed. This lawgiver is God.

To put it negatively, atheism provides no basis for morality, no hope, and no meaning for life. While this does not disprove atheism by itself, if the logical outworking of a belief system fails to account for what we instinctively know to be true, it ought to be discarded. Without God there would be no objective basis for morality, no life, and no reason to live it. Yet all these things do exist, and so does God. Thus, the moral argument for the existence of God.

Theism and naturalism are contrasted with respect to furnishing an adequate foundation for the moral life. It is shown that on a theistic worldview an adequate foundation exists for the affirmation of objective moral values, moral duties, and moral accountability. By contrast, naturalism fails in all three respects. Insofar as we believe that moral values and duties do exist, we therefore have good grounds for believing that God exists. Moreover, a practical argument for believing in God is offered on the basis of moral accountability.
Source: "The Indispensability of Theological Meta-ethical Foundations for Morality." Foundations 5 (1997): 9-12.

Can we be good without God? At first the answer to this question may seem so obvious that even to pose it arouses indignation. For while those of us who are Christian theists undoubtedly find in God a source of moral strength and resolve which enables us to live lives that are better than those we should live without Him, nevertheless it would seem arrogant and ignorant to claim that those who do not share a belief in God do not often live good moral lives--indeed, embarrassingly, lives that sometimes put our own to shame.

But wait. It would, indeed, be arrogant and ignorant to claim that people cannot be good without belief in God. But that was not the question. The question was: can we be good without God? When we ask that question, we are posing in a provocative way the meta-ethical question of the objectivity of moral values. Are the values we hold dear and guide our lives by mere social conventions akin to driving on the left versus right side of the road or mere expressions of personal preference akin to having a taste for certain foods or not? Or are they valid independently of our apprehension of them, and if so, what is their foundation? Moreover, if morality is just a human convention, then why should we act morally, especially when it conflicts with self-interest? Or are we in some way held accountable for our moral decisions and actions?

Today I want to argue that if God exists, then the objectivity of moral values, moral duties, and moral accountability is secured, but that in the absence of God, that is, if God does not exist, then morality is just a human convention, that is to say, morality is wholly subjective and non-binding. We might act in precisely the same ways that we do in fact act, but in the absence of God, such actions would no longer count as good (or evil), since if God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. Thus, we cannot truly be good without God. On the other hand, if we do believe that moral values and duties are objective, that provides moral grounds for believing in God.

Consider, then, the hypothesis that God exists. First, if God exists, objective moral values exist. To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is right or wrong independently of whether anybody believes it to be so. It is to say, for example, that Nazi anti-Semitism was morally wrong, even though the Nazis who carried out the Holocaust thought that it was good; and it would still be wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in exterminating or brainwashing everybody who disagreed with them.

On the theistic view, objective moral values are rooted in God. God's own holy and perfectly good nature supplies the absolute standard against which all actions and decisions are measured. God's moral nature is what Plato called the "Good." He is the locus and source of moral value. He is by nature loving, generous, just, faithful, kind, and so forth.

Moreover, God's moral nature is expressed in relation to us in the form of divine commands which constitute our moral duties or obligations. Far from being arbitrary, these commands flow necessarily from His moral nature. In the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the whole moral duty of man can be summed up in the two great commandments: First, you shall love the Lord your God with all your strength and with all your soul and with all your heart and with all your mind, and, second, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On this foundation we can affirm the objective goodness and rightness of love, generosity, self-sacrifice, and equality, and condemn as objectively evil and wrong selfishness, hatred, abuse, discrimination, and oppression.

Finally, on the theistic hypothesis God holds all persons morally accountable for their actions. Evil and wrong will be punished; righteousness will be vindicated. Good ultimately triumphs over evil, and we shall finally see that we do live in a moral universe after all. Despite the inequities of this life, in the end the scales of God's justice will be balanced. Thus, the moral choices we make in this life are infused with an eternal significance. We can with consistency make moral choices which run contrary to our self-interest and even undertake acts of extreme self-sacrifice, knowing that such decisions are not empty and ultimately meaningless gestures. Rather our moral lives have a paramount significance. So I think it is evident that theism provides a sound foundation for morality.

Contrast this with the atheistic hypothesis. First, if atheism is true, objective moral values do not exist. If God does not exist, then what is the foundation for moral values? More particularly, what is the basis for the value of human beings? If God does not exist, then it is difficult to see any reason to think that human beings are special or that their morality is objectively true. Moreover, why think that we have any moral obligations to do anything? Who or what imposes any moral duties upon us? Michael Ruse, a philosopher of science from the University of Guelph, writes,

The position of the modern evolutionist . . . is that humans have an awareness of morality . . . because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth . . . . Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says 'Love they neighbor as thyself,' they think they are referring above and beyond themselves . . . . Nevertheless, . . . such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, . . . and any deeper meaning is illusory . . . .1
As a result of socio-biological pressures, there has evolved among homo sapiens a sort of "herd morality" which functions well in the perpetuation of our species in the struggle for survival. But there does not seem to be anything about homo sapiens that makes this morality objectively true.
Moreover, on the atheistic view there is no divine lawgiver. But then what source is there for moral obligation? Richard Taylor, an eminent ethicist, writes,

The modern age, more or less repudiating the idea of a divine lawgiver, has nevertheless tried to retain the ideas of moral right and wrong, not noticing that, in casting God aside, they have also abolished the conditions of meaningfulness for moral right and wrong as well.
Thus, even educated persons sometimes declare that such things are war, or abortion, or the violation of certain human rights, are 'morally wrong,' and they imagine that they have said something true and significant.

Educated people do not need to be told, however, that questions such as these have never been answered outside of religion.2

He concludes,

Contemporary writers in ethics, who blithely discourse upon moral right and wrong and moral obligation without any reference to religion, are really just weaving intellectual webs from thin air; which amounts to saying that they discourse without meaning.3
Now it is important that we remain clear in understanding the issue before us. The question is not: Must we believe in God in order to live moral lives? There is no reason to think that atheists and theists alike may not live what we normally characterize as good and decent lives. Similarly, the question is not: Can we formulate a system of ethics without reference to God? If the non-theist grants that human beings do have objective value, then there is no reason to think that he cannot work out a system of ethics with which the theist would also largely agree. Or again, the question is not: Can we recognize the existence of objective moral values without reference to God? The theist will typically maintain that a person need not believe in God in order to recognize, say, that we should love our children. Rather, as humanist philosopher Paul Kurtz puts it, "The central question about moral and ethical principles concerns this ontological foundation. If they are neither derived from God nor anchored in some transcendent ground, are they purely ephemeral?"4

If there is no God, then any ground for regarding the herd morality evolved by homo sapiens as objectively true seems to have been removed. After all, what is so special about human beings? They are just accidental by-products of nature which have evolved relatively recently on an infinitesimal speck of dust lost somewhere in a hostile and mindless universe and which are doomed to perish individually and collectively in a relatively short time. Some action, say, incest, may not be biologically or socially advantageous and so in the course of human evolution has become taboo; but there is on the atheistic view nothing really wrong about committing incest. If, as Kurtz states, "The moral principles that govern our behavior are rooted in habit and custom, feeling and fashion,"5 then the non-conformist who chooses to flout the herd morality is doing nothing more serious than acting unfashionably.

The objective worthlessness of human beings on a naturalistic world view is underscored by two implications of that world view: materialism and determinism. Naturalists are typically materialists or physicalists, who regard man as a purely animal organism. But if man has no immaterial aspect to his being (call it soul or mind or what have you), then he is not qualitatively different from other animal species. For him to regard human morality as objective is to fall into the trap of specie-ism. On a materialistic anthropology there is no reason to think that human beings are objectively more valuable than rats. Secondly, if there is no mind distinct from the brain, then everything we think and do is determined by the input of our five senses and our genetic make-up. There is no personal agent who freely decides to do something. But without freedom, none of our choices is morally significant. They are like the jerks of a puppet's limbs, controlled by the strings of sensory input and physical constitution. And what moral value does a puppet or its movements have?

Thus, if naturalism is true, it becomes impossible to condemn war, oppression, or crime as evil. Nor can one praise brotherhood, equality, or love as good. It does not matter what values you choose--for there is no right and wrong; good and evil do not exist. That means that an atrocity like the Holocaust was really morally indifferent. You may think that it was wrong, but your opinion has no more validity than that of the Nazi war criminal who thought it was good. In his book Morality after Auschwitz, Peter Haas asks how an entire society could have willingly participated in a state-sponsored program of mass torture and genocide for over a decade without any serious opposition. He argues that

far from being contemptuous of ethics, the perpetrators acted in strict conformity with an ethic which held that, however difficult and unpleasant the task might have been, mass extermination of the Jews and Gypsies was entirely justified. . . . the Holocaust as a sustained effort was possible only because a new ethic was in place that did not define the arrest and deportation of Jews as wrong and in fact defined it as ethically tolerable and ever good.6
Moreover, Haas points out, because of its coherence and internal consistency, the Nazi ethic could not be discredited from within. Only from a transcendent vantage point which stands above relativistic, socio-cultural mores could such a critique be launched. But in the absence of God, it is precisely such a vantage point that we lack. One Rabbi who was imprisoned at Auschwitz said that it was as though all the Ten Commandments had been reversed: thou shalt kill, thou shalt lie, thou shalt steal. Mankind has never seen such a hell. And yet, in a real sense, if naturalism is true, our world is Auschwitz. There is no good and evil, no right and wrong. Objective moral values do not exist.

Moreover, if atheism is true, there is no moral accountability for one's actions. Even if there were objective moral values and duties under naturalism, they are irrelevant because there is no moral accountability. If life ends at the grave, it makes no difference whether one lives as a Stalin or as a saint. As the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky rightly said: "If there is no immortality, then all things are permitted."7

The state torturers in Soviet prisons understood this all too well. Richard Wurmbrand reports,

The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The Communist torturers often said, 'There is no God, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.' I have heard one torturer even say, 'I thank God, in whom I don't believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.' He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflected on prisoners.8
Given the finality of death, it really does not matter how you live. So what do you say to someone who concludes that we may as well just live as we please, out of pure self-interest? This presents a pretty grim picture for an atheistic ethicist like Kai Nielsen of the University of Calgary. He writes,

We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view, or that all really rational persons should not be individual egoists or classical amoralists. Reason doesn't decide here. The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one. Reflection on it depresses me . . . . Pure practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.9
Somebody might say that it is in our best self-interest to adopt a moral life-style. But clearly, that is not always true: we all know situations in which self-interest runs smack in the face of morality. Moreover, if one is sufficiently powerful, like a Ferdinand Marcos or a Papa Doc Duvalier or even a Donald Trump, then one can pretty much ignore the dictates of conscience and safely live in self-indulgence. Historian Stewart C. Easton sums it up well when he writes, "There is no objective reason why man should be moral, unless morality 'pays off' in his social life or makes him 'feel good.' There is no objective reason why man should do anything save for the pleasure it affords him."10

Acts of self-sacrifice become particularly inept on a naturalistic world view. Why should you sacrifice your self-interest and especially your life for the sake of someone else? There can be no good reason for adopting such a self-negating course of action on the naturalistic world view. Considered from the socio-biological point of view, such altruistic behavior is merely the result of evolutionary conditioning which helps to perpetuate the species. A mother rushing into a burning house to rescue her children or a soldier throwing his body over a hand grenade to save his comrades does nothing more significant or praiseworthy, morally speaking, than a fighter ant which sacrifices itself for the sake of the ant hill. Common sense dictates that we should resist, if we can, the socio-biological pressures to such self-destructive activity and choose instead to act in our best self-interest. The philosopher of religion John Hick invites us to imagine an ant suddenly endowed with the insights of socio-biology and the freedom to make personal decisions. He writes:

Suppose him to be called upon to immolate himself for the sake of the ant-hill. He feels the powerful pressure of instinct pushing him towards this self-destruction. But he asks himself why he should voluntarily . . . carry out the suicidal programme to which instinct prompts him? Why should he regard the future existence of a million million other ants as more important to him than his own continued existence? . . . Since all that he is and has or ever can have is his own present existence, surely in so far as he is free from the domination of the blind force of instinct he will opt for life--his own life.11
Now why should we choose any differently? Life is too short to jeopardize it by acting out of anything but pure self-interest. Sacrifice for another person is just stupid. Thus the absence of moral accountability from the philosophy of naturalism makes an ethic of compassion and self-sacrifice a hollow abstraction. R. Z. Friedman, a philosopher of the University of Toronto, concludes, "Without religion the coherence of an ethic of compassion cannot be established. The principle of respect for persons and the principle of the survival of the fittest are mutually exclusive."12

We thus come to radically different perspectives on morality depending upon whether or not God exists. If God exists, there is a sound foundation for morality. If God does not exist, then, as Nietzsche saw, we are ultimately landed in nihilism.

But the choice between the two need not be arbitrarily made. On the contrary, the very considerations we have been discussing can constitute moral justification for the existence of God.

For example, if we do think that objective moral values exist, then we shall be led logically to the conclusion that God exists. And could anything be more obvious than that objective moral values do exist? There is no more reason to deny the objective reality of moral values than the objective reality of the physical world. The reasoning of Ruse is at worst a text-book example of the genetic fallacy and at best only proves that our subjective perception of objective moral values has evolved. But if moral values are gradually discovered, not invented, then such a gradual and fallible apprehension of the moral realm no more undermines the objective reality of that realm than our gradual, fallible perception of the physical world undermines the objectivity of that realm. The fact is that we do apprehend objective values, and we all know it. Actions like rape, torture, child abuse, and brutality are not just socially unacceptable behavior--they are moral abominations. As Ruse himself states, "The man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says, 2+2=5."13 By the same token, love, generosity, equality, and self-sacrifice are really good. People who fail to see this are just morally handicapped, and there is no reason to allow their impaired vision to call into question what we see clearly. Thus, the existence of objective moral values serves to demonstrate the existence of God.

Or consider the nature of moral obligation. What makes certain actions right or wrong for us? What or who imposes moral duties upon us? Why is it that we ought to do certain things and ought not to do other things? Where does this 'ought' come from? Traditionally, our moral obligations were thought to be laid upon us by God's moral commands. But if we deny God's existence, then it is difficult to make sense of moral duty or right and wrong, as Richard Taylor explains,

A duty is something that is owed . . . . But something can be owed only to some person or persons. There can be no such thing as duty in isolation . . . . The idea of political or legal obligation is clear enough . . . . Similarly, the idea of an obligation higher than this, and referred to as moral obligation, is clear enough, provided reference to some lawmaker higher . . . . than those of the state is understood. In other words, our moral obligations can . . . be understood as those that are imposed by God. This does give a clear sense to the claim that our moral obligations are more binding upon us than our political obligations . . . . But what if this higher-than-human lawgiver is no longer taken into account? Does the concept of a moral obligation . . . still make sense? . . . . the concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart form the idea of God. The words remain, but their meaning is gone.14
It follows that moral obligations and right and wrong necessitate God's existence. And certainly we do have such obligations. Speaking recently on a Canadian University campus, I noticed a poster put up by the Sexual Assault & Information Center. It read: "Sexual Assault: No One Has the Right to Abuse a Child, Woman, or Man." Most of us recognize that that statement is evidently true. But the atheist can make no sense of a person's right not to be sexually abused by another. The best answer to the question as to the source of moral obligation is that moral rightness or wrongness consists in agreement or disagreement with the will or commands of a holy, loving God.

Finally, take the problem of moral accountability. Here we find a powerful practical argument for believing in God. According to William James, practical arguments can only be used when theoretical arguments are insufficient to decide a question of urgent and pragmatic importance. But it seems obvious that a practical argument could also be used to back up or motivate acceptance of the conclusion of a sound theoretical argument. To believe, then, that God does not exist and that there is thus no moral accountability would be quite literally de-moralizing, for then we should have to believe that our moral choices are ultimately insignificant, since both our fate and that of the universe will be the same regardless of what we do. By "de-moralization" I mean a deterioration of moral motivation. It is hard to do the right thing when that means sacrificing one's own self-interest and to resist temptation to do wrong when desire is strong, and the belief that ultimately it does not matter what you choose or do is apt to sap one's moral strength and so undermine one's moral life. As Robert Adams observes, "Having to regard it as very likely that the history of the universe will not be good on the whole, no matter what one does, seems apt to induce a cynical sense of futility about the moral life, undermining one's moral resolve and one's interest in moral considerations."15 By contrast there is nothing so likely to strengthen the moral life as the beliefs that one will be held accountable for one's actions and that one's choices do make a difference in bringing about the good. Theism is thus a morally advantageous belief, and this, in the absence of any theoretical argument establishing atheism to be the case, provides practical grounds to believe in God and motivation to accept the conclusions of the two theoretical arguments I just gave above.

In summary, theological meta-ethical foundations do seem to be necessary for morality. If God does not exist, then it is plausible to think that there are no objective moral values, that we have no moral duties, and that there is no moral accountability for how we live and act. The horror of such a morally neutral world is obvious. If, on the other hand, we hold, as it seems rational to do, that objective moral values and duties do exist, then we have good grounds for believing in the existence of God. In addition, we have powerful practical reasons for embracing theism in view of the morally bracing effects which belief in moral accountability produces. We cannot, then, truly be good without God; but if we can in some measure be good, then it follows that God exists.

Moral arguments take either the existence of morality or some specific feature of morality to imply the existence of God. It is only if God exists, the moral argument suggests, that the moral facts could be as they are, or even that there could be any moral facts at all. There are several different forms of moral argument. Here, three are considered.
The first is a formal moral argument, taking the normativity and authority of morality to entail that it is has a divine origin.
The second is a perfectionist moral argument, suggesting that it is only by postulating the existence of God that we can make sense of the high standards that morality requires of us.
The third is Kant’s moral argument, which begins with the thought that we have good reason to behave morally and concludes that this can only be the case if there is a God that administers justice in the afterlife.
The Formal Moral Argument
The formal moral argument takes the form of morality to imply that it has a divine origin. Morality is prescriptive, it tells us what to do; this, the moral argument suggests, entails that it is prescribed by someone. Morality is also ultimately authoritative, its authority is greater than any human institution; this, the argument suggests, entails that it was not prescribed by any human institution, but must rather have a supernatural source.
The Perfectionist Moral Argument
The perfectionist moral argument begins by setting up a problem. There are three apparent truths about morality that are mutually inconsistent: we ought to be perfect; ought implies can; we cannot be perfect. How are we to resolve this contradiction?
The perfectionist moral argument suggests that the most plausible resolution of the conflict is not to deny our duty by saying that it’s okay to fall short of the moral standard, or to exaggerate our potential for moral behaviour by saying that we can meet that standard really, but to invoke God. If God exists, the argument suggests, then he can help us to bridge the gap between what we are able to do by our own strength and what morality requires of us.
The Kantian Moral Argument
Kant’s moral argument begins with the thought that moral behaviour is rational, that we have good reason to behave morally. This, it suggests, can only be the case if it is ultimately in our interests to behave rationally. If immoral behaviour leads to the best consequences then it immoral rather than moral behaviour that is rational. Looking around the world, thuogh, we see that in many cases immoral behaviour does profit more than moral behaviour, that life isn’t fair. Moral behaviour, then, will only be rational is there is more than this life, if justice is administered in the next life. The fundamental thought that morality is a rational enterprise thus entails something like the Christian view of the afterlife.

Moral arguments for God's existence may be defined as that family of arguments in the history of western philosophical theology having claims about the character of moral thought and experience in their premises and affirmations of the existence of God in their conclusions. Some of these arguments are on all fours with other theistic arguments, such as the design argument. They cite facts that are claimed to be evident to human experience. And they argue that such facts entail or are best explained by the hypothesis that there is a God with the attributes traditionally ascribed to him. Other moral proofs of God's existence take us away from the patterns of argument typical of natural theology. They deal in our ends and motives. These variants on the moral argument for God's existence describe some end that the moral life commits us to (such as the attainment of the perfect good) and contend that this end cannot be attained unless God as traditionally defined exists

1. Arguments from the Normativity of Morality
1.1 Crude Arguments from Moral Normativity
1.2 Sophisticated Arguments from Moral Normativity
2. Arguments From Moral Order
2.1 The Basic Argument and its Exemplification in Kant
2.2 The Secular Problem of Evil
2.3 Moral Order and Moral Skepticism
3. Practical Arguments: Moral Despair and Moral Discouragement
Bibliography
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1. Arguments from the Normativity of Morality

Many examples of theoretical arguments for God's existence start from the fact of ethical normativity. Human beings are aware of actions as being right and wrong, obligatory and forbidden. Such awareness carries with it the thought that they are “bound” to do some things and bound to avoid doing others. Moral qualities have a bindingness attached to them shown in the force of the moral “ought” and the moral “must”. If I make a promise, the promise creates (ceteris paribus) an obligation to deliver what is promised. The normative fact is, first, not dependent on my own goals and ends and, second, possessed of a universal force. The fact that I am bound by the normative truth “do what you promised” does not hold because I have ends which I cannot achieve unless I fulfill the promise. The imperative is not what Kant styled a “hypothetical” one. It is rather “categorical”. It binds no matter what my particular goals are (see Kant 1996/1973 67; 4/414). That is linked to its universal dimension. I have an obligation to deliver what I promised, because anyone who makes a promise thereby (ceteris paribus) obligates him- or herself. The obligation created by the promise holds independent of my particular goals because it reflects a universal rule, holding at all times and places and applying to any human being as such.

Now we have a fact from which moral arguments for God's existence can proceed: there appear to be morally normative facts/qualities in the world. Many of these arguments claim that the postulation of God provides the best explanation of this fact. We must use “appear” to record the fact, because there is a venerable line of thought in philosophy contending that moral bindingness is not real. It is a projection on the part of the human mind. It is no more “out there” in the world-minus-us than is (on some accounts) a secondary quality like taste. I say that the whisky tastes sweet, appearing to ascribe a quality to it. But in truth there is no sweetness in this mix of chemicals. I am projecting a reaction which I and others have toward it. So: we can be realists or anti-realists about the existence of moral normativity.

Such projective accounts of moral normativity, of moral qualities and facts, offer one naturalistic explanation of the appearance of normativity. A projective explanation thus avoids the need to posit God as the best explanation of the fact that moral normativity appears to exist. Proponents of theoretical moral arguments will contend that projectionism is false to our experience and gives rise to forms of moral skepticism that are corrosive of moral thought and action. We cannot rule on such issues here. (For a very clear form of moral projectionism see Mackie 1977.)

A template for a moral argument for God's existence can now be given.

Argument I:

It appears to human beings that moral normativity exists.
The best explanation of moral normativity is that it is grounded in God.
Therefore God exists.
This schematic argument incorporates an inference to best explanation. We must now distinguish and set out Crude versus Sophisticated applications of this template.

1.1 Crude Arguments from Moral Normativity

Arguments styled thus depend on drawing a close analogy between moral requirements and human law.

It is tempting to say that the fact that my having made a promise creates an obligation because of the existence and authority of a corresponding moral rule: “Promises are to be kept (ceteris paribus)”. Human law has authority because of two things: promulgation and enforcement by an appropriate authority. Authoritative human law is decided upon and published by something in the community/state possessing sovereignty over the community. But it is not enough that sovereign authority decide upon law and publish what it decides. It must attach sanctions to infringement, and it must have the means of detecting infringement and applying the sanctions.

A crude moral argument can be constructed using the analogy between morality and human law.

Argument II:

Moral normativity is best explained through the existence of authoritative moral rules.
Authoritative moral rules must be promulgated and enforced by an appropriate moral authority.
The only appropriate moral authority is God.
Thus, given that there is moral normativity, there is a God.
Steps in this argument need filling out. A. E. Taylor relies on the analogy between human law and “moral law” when he notes that a law cannot be valid unless there is “an intelligence which recognizes and upholds it”. He goes on to note that it cannot be human intelligence that provides the needed recognition and upholding of moral law, since the moral law holds everywhen and everywhere whereas the human mind is limited in its comprehension and scope (Taylor 1945: 92-3). The appropriate promulgator and enforcer must have authority over all human beings at all times and places, indeed over the whole cosmos (on the assumption that the “moral law” applies to all personal, rational beings as such). Thus the only intelligence and will that can be the source of the moral law is that found in a sovereign God.

The analogy with human law behind the moral argument can proceed further to stress the role of sanction in giving force to law. Breaches of law must attract punishment if law is to have authority. In his Letter concerning Toleration, Locke contends that one of the few religious stances that the commonwealth cannot tolerate is atheism (see Locke 1993, 426) for non-theists have no motive to act upon their promises and oaths. So they cannot be fit participants in civil contracts or be trusted when they appear before courts of law. Minus a belief in God, there is no reason to suppose that ignoring moral norms will not pay. Indeed, there is every reason — given the way the world goes — to assume that it can often pay to take no account of moral norms. Of course, human communities try to attach sanctions to moral wrongdoing through the mechanisms of the human law and of social disapproval. But premise (6) above is true so far as the enforcement aspect of an authoritative source of rules is concerned. Only a God of the traditional kind who adjusts rewards and punishments in the long run can ensure that immoral conduct gets its due sanction. These points about sanction can provide a separate argument for God's existence, albeit it is implicit in Argument II.

Argument III:

Moral norms have authority.
If they have authority, there must be a reliable motive for human beings to be moral.
No such motive could exist, unless there was an omniscient, omnipresent, wholly just agent to attach sanctions to behavior under moral norms.
There is a God.
Criticism of these crude forms of the moral argument is well established in the literature. The work in Argument II is being done by the analogy between human law and moral norms. J.S. Mill famously criticized this analogy at the root. There are two possible aspects to those things we called laws, according to Mill. Law can exist first as deliverance from some person or body of persons. Law can secondly exist as a rule with authority. Many laws exist in the second mode without them being laws in the first mode (Mill 1957, 26). Here are some examples (not Mill's):

If someone affirms both “p” and “p implies q”, he or she cannot deny “q”.
It is wrong to believe both “p” and “not-p” at the same time.
Both the above statements have normative force over our speech and thought. The non-theist will argue that it makes no sense to say that their authority derives from an act of legislation — not even if the legislator is God. This is because the notion of legislation implies choice: in an act of legislation someone or some body decides to promulgate this or that rule. But the “norms of reason” as illustrated above hold in the absence of any coherent alternatives to them. (NB: it is argued by some thinkers that even such “norms of reason” derive their authority from God in some fashion — see Devine 1989, 88-89.)

If we accept Mill's point that the one aspect of law does not entail the second, then premise (5) in Argument II is seen to rest on an assumption that is open to question, viz. “All authoritative norms are based on the acts of a legislator”. Agreeing with Mill means agreeing that what is true of some authoritative norms is not true of all; some can have authority without being promulgated and enforced by a sovereign will. The non-theist will then contend that moral norms are of this kind, thus rejecting premise (5). Independent argument can be offered for the conclusion that moral principles are necessarily true (see Swinburne 1976, 7-9). The non-theist will further contend that Mill's point and the examples of “norms of reason” also entail that Argument III has questionable steps. The so-called Law of Non-Contradiction above has authority, but its authority does not depend on their being a Great Logician in the sky ready to sanction infringements of it. Nor is it coherent to suppose that “norms of reason” are hypothetical, rather than categorical imperatives. The normative force of the Law of Non-Contradiction does not derive from something of the sort “If you want to think logically, you must abide by this rule”. In the sense relevant to this discussion, there is no choice between thinking logically and illogically (cf. Shafer-Landau 2005, 113).

Argument III is open to other, more obvious objections. It identifies motives with self-interested motives. Yet there are many different kinds of motives. Morality itself generates its own motives. Thus there can be motives operative in morality other than those of expediency and self-interest appealed to in Argument III. This can be seen more clearly when we amplify our picture of morality further by bringing in reference to the virtues. As well as morality containing knowledge of rules, it also promotes the virtues. Virtues are broad traits of character, habits of choice, which at once arise out of obeying moral norms and also lie behind such practice. The just person is not one who is merely aware of the norms that delineate justice. He or she is one who has a disposition to act in certain ways. This disposition is a compound of belief, emotion and perception. The emotion element means that one who is just will feel, for example, distaste at the contemplation of unjust acts and states of affairs.

If the acquisition of the virtues is given an important place in the moral life, the point that morality binds regardless of self-interest and expediency gains an extra dimension. Mention of the virtues brings with it the thought that morality is to be seen as the means whereby the human good is attained. The virtues have been thought of as the highest human excellences. To conceive of the virtues as the highest excellences, to be pursued above other human achievements and traits, is another way of making the point that morality binds. Given the notion that the virtues are the human excellences, a strong tradition dating from Greek philosophy has taught that possession of them constitutes the good for human beings. Moral thought and action is unified by a teleology in which the virtues are the constitutive means of attaining a good, perfected life. Morality, via the virtues, constitutively leads to the human good. One who has the virtues thus has a structure of motives that goes beyond mere self-interest and the desire for long-term reward. Such a person loves just (and other right) acts for their own sake. He or she has a conception of what is good for them of which the virtues are a constitutive part. They no longer have to be motivated in conduct by what the non-virtuous characterize as “self-interest” because that which is their self has been modified. They simply will not be happy breaking their promises. Thus the crude opposition between morality and self-interest breaks down.

The crude Argument III should be brought face to face with a final difficulty. The non-theist will claim that it denies one of the main features of moral normativity. Kant's distinction between hypothetical imperatives and the imperatives of morality entails that moral facts are intrinsically normative. Extrinsic normativity attaches to the rule “If you want to take your car on a long journey, fill the tank with petrol”. The normative force of this requirement derives from the desire it is predicated upon. However, the fact that I have promised to do something is intrinsically normative. It provides me with goals. Argument III, and its thought that God must exist to attach a fail-safe system of rewards and punishments to moral rules, is avowing that moral facts are not intrinsically normative. Bindingness does not attach to them per se. It attaches to them only in so far as they engage with my long-term desire to avoid punishment, and thus pain.

1.2 Sophisticated Arguments from Moral Normativity

Discussion of arguments I to III above does not deal with all attempts to show that the normativity of ethics provides grounds for thinking that God must exist. More sophisticated arguments do not (explicitly) trade on the analogies between moral law and human law to which significant objections have been made. Robert Adams provides an example of these more sophisticated arguments (Adams 1987, 144-163). His argument may be summarized as follows.

Argument IV:

Moral facts exist.
Moral facts have the properties of being objective and non-natural.
The best explanation of there being objective and non-natural moral facts is provided by theism.
Therefore the existence of moral facts provides good grounds for thinking theism is true.
Premise (13) refers to the fact that rightness and wrongness attaches to actions. These properties are recognized as objective in the sense that they hold or not regardless of human opinion. They are non-natural in the sense that “they cannot be stated entirely in the language of physics, chemistry, biology, and human or animal psychology” (Adams 1987, 145). Such facts could be accounted for from within non-theistic world views, such as Platonism. However, theism provides a much more intelligible explanation 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). So the argument in essence states that we must have a metaphysics that accounts for the existence of objective, normative facts and that a theistic metaphysics fits the bill better than any alternative.

Arguments like IV, having eschewed the short cut of the simple analogical arguments considered above, are impossible to expound and appraise in short order. Complex metaphysical debate is needed to show that alternative, non-theistic, metaphysical systems cannot cope with objective normative facts, or if they can, are implausible on other grounds. Arguments like IV do suggest that the price of physicalism (as defined by Adams) is the abandonment of objective normativity. But the question at issue is whether a non-theistic moral realist has to be a physicalist. Proponents and opponents of the moral argument may agree that morality is one of those many phenomena which show that there is more to the real world than meets the physicalist's eye. This sets the non-theist the task of working out a metaphysics for morals (see Korsgaard 1996, McNaughton 1988 and Shafer-Landau 2005 for such attempts to account for the existence of objective normativity).

Direct objections to Argument IV flow from its appeal to a divine command theory of ethics. That God has commanded something is both an objective and non-natural fact and deemed to be creative of normativity. Objections to divine command theories of ethics are numerous. Most of these stem from forms of the Euthyphro dilemma. The debate about divine command theories of ethics cannot be explored here. Yet we should note an important implication of that debate for moral arguments for God's existence. These arguments invite a tu quoque that consists in contending that theism provides no better explanation of the facts of morality than non-theism.

One ready response to divine command theories of ethics is that they would make moral norms arbitrary. If rightness just is what is commanded by God, then whatever God commands is right. If God chose to command murder it would be right. This criticism of divine command theory is related to another, generally accepted, claim about moral, normative facts: as well as being objective and non-natural they are supervenient on other facts. It is because of the nature of acts of murder in relation to their circumstances that they are wrong. What a divine command explanation of the wrongness of murder threatens to do is to cut the wrongness of murder off from its basis in the nature of murder. Hence it is a bad explanation and this form of moral argument cannot succeed.

Adams' moral argument comes with a refinement on the idea of divine commands creating rightness which avoids the immediate force of the above objection. It is the prescriptions and proscriptions of a loving God that create rightness and wrongness. This modified divine command theory has two important aspects to it. First it brings back a kind of supervenience. It is because God sees that certain acts are beneficial or harmful to those affected by them that he commands or forbids them. Second it effectively makes a distinction between the realms of axiology (concerned with the good, the valuable) and deontology (concerned with duty and obligation). There is moral value of a kind independent of God. There is good and bad, there is benefit and harm. But it is the notion that we are obliged or under a duty to realize good through action and avoid bringing about harms that is to be explained through the thought that these deontological properties are created by divine will (see Alston 1989, 253-273). “Right” and “wrong” signify these deontological properties.

Having got thus far into the territory surrounding Argument IV, we can show how a non-theist would respond to it. Premise (14)

The best explanation of there being objective and non-natural moral facts is provided by theism.
will be questioned. Note first that the existence of the “norms of reason” (see above) provides a clear counter-example to this premise. There is a deontological property failing to affirm the consequent in a modus ponens with admitted true premises is wrong whose existence does not appear to the non-theist to be at all well explained via the commands of the God of theism. The non-theist will then ask why, if this is so, moral deontological properties cannot arise minus a divine command. Perhaps deontological properties such as requiredness, being obligatory and oughtness simply supervene on axiological properties of the kind Adams admits exist logically prior to God's commands. Why cannot the existence of axiological properties on their own give us good and often overwhelming reasons for doing this and avoiding the other? Hence obligations and duties arise out of the recognition of value. Goodness gives rise to rightness, badness to wrongness.

Despite the fact that we have moved to sophisticated arguments from normativity to God as the best explanation, we still seem to be stuck with the debate opened up by Mill: how reliable is the analogy with human law some moral arguments for God's existence rely on? Proponents of all forms of the moral argument considered so far appear to hold that there can be no deontological properties without some law making. And the only candidate for the source of that law making is God. Non-theists deny this. They will present the following dilemma. When God sees that some acts are highly beneficial and others highly harmful, is or is he not obliged to legislate for the former and against the latter? Take the first horn and we have an instance of a deontic property (God being bound to command or forbid this act) arising from axiological properties minus God's commands. Take the second horn and the non-theist will object that we are back to the arbitrariness afflicting non-modified divine command theories of ethics.

From the discussion of moral arguments for God's existence and the fact of normativity we can conclude two things: (i) that the merits of such arguments are bound up with the merits of divine command theories of ethics (see Sagi and Statman 1995 for a detailed survey of such theories); and (ii) that if such arguments are to succeed they may need to cast their nets wider. They may need to encompass best explanations for normativity in other areas, such as logic, and for the existence of axiological facts as well as normative facts.

2. Arguments From Moral Order

2.1 The Basic Argument and its Exemplification in Kant

Many forms of moral argument for God's existence are variations on the following format.

Argument V:

Morality is a rational enterprise.
Morality would not be a rational enterprise if there were no moral order in the world.
Only the existence of God traditionally conceived could support the hypothesis that there is a moral order in the world.
Therefore, there is a God.
The rationality of morality cited in (16) refers to the fact that the moral life generates certain ends, specifically the pursuit of the ethical perfection and happiness of moral agents. The moral order cited in (17) refers to the belief that the world is such that these ends can be realized. The most famous version of the argument from moral order is found in the writings of Kant (variously formulated in different texts post 1781). Kant's “moral proof” can be summarized thus.

Argument VI:

It is rationally and morally necessary to attain the perfect good (happiness arising out of complete virtue).
What we are obliged to attain, it must be possible for us to attain.
Attaining the perfect good is only possible if natural order and causality are part of an overarching moral order and causality.
Moral order and causality are only possible if we postulate a God as their source. (See Kant 1996/1962, 240; 5/124-5)
The perfect good in (20) incorporates two alleged central aims of the moral life. We are not merely obliged to perform individual acts of virtue but to become virtuous. For Kant that means becoming such that there will be a complete harmony between the maxims of our actions and the moral law. But human beings as finite rational beings are also “creatures of needs”. They have many non-moral goals and ends. The very respect for the moral law that is at the heart of the moral life bids us set store by the flourishing of these finite rational agents. So the complete good for the human moral agent must be happiness arising out of virtue. (21) tells us that “ought implies can”. It cannot be true that we ought to seek an end if there is no chance of our attaining it. (22) and (23) point to the fact that the world as it appears to us is governed by morally blind causes. These causes give no hope whatsoever that pursuit of moral virtue will lead to happiness. They do not even give hope that we can become morally virtuous. Human agency is beset by weaknesses that make the attainment of virtue — in the absence of external aid — seem impossible. Human agents are in addition subject to contingencies that can cut short attempts to grow to moral maturity and perfection. The being postulated in (23) has omniscience and omnipotence combined with perfect goodness. Thus it will ensure that the pursuit of a virtuous state is possible through external aid (as in grace) and will promise an immortality where the moral journey can be completed. It will also ensure that in the long run happiness will result from virtue. Its existence would mean that there is a perfect moral causality at work in the world.

Kant's argument turns around the contrast between the apparent lack of moral order in the world and the alleged need for a real moral order in the world if the necessary goals of the moral life are attainable. There are many other authors who have arguments from moral order turning around this same contrast and moving to the same conclusion (see Hare 1996, Sorely 1918, Taylor 1930, Zagzebski 1987).

The schematic argument from moral order (Argument V) has as its first premise the claim that morality is a rational enterprise. One way of interpreting Kant's version — Argument VI — is as claiming that human reason faces contradiction (the absurdum practicum — see Wood 1970, 100) unless it believes in the existence of God. Practical reason is committed as a matter of strict duty to realize the goal of moral perfection. It is also committed as a requirement of consistency in agency to seek the maximal satisfaction of its given ends. If there is no moral order in the world then it cannot pursue both of these commitments together.

Premises (16) and (17) in Argument V and (20) in Argument VI present the rationality of morality as dependent on it having the goal of seeking the human good. One line of response to the argument from moral order is to deny that morality does have that goal. The critic can make this point in respect of both parts of the goal: happiness and moral perfection.

Concerning happiness it can be argued that moral agents cannot be convicted of irrationality if they abandon pursuit of their own happiness upon the realization that their duties and obligations get in the way, for they are under no rational necessity to pursue their own happiness. If this point is sound, there is no absurdam practicum because practical reason is not committed to the pursuit of two ends that apparently conflict. Kant's definition of happiness as that “state of a rational being in the world in the whole of whose existence everything goes according to his wish and will” (Kant 1996/1962, 240; 5/124) might seem to clinch the matter. But the definition is ambiguous. Happiness could be the state where all my felt, personal desires are satisfied. Or it could be the state where all my intentions are fulfilled. While it is true that no one acts rationally who does not seek to maximally fulfill his or her intentions, a person may have lots of intentions not directed at fulfilling his or her personal desires. I may consciously forswear satisfaction of my personal desires by, for example, adopting a life of service to others. Kant's other definition of happiness, which he seems to take as equivalent to the first, then comes into play: happiness is a fulfilled, satisfied life (see Kant 1996/1973, 49; 4/393). I may not find such a life of self-sacrifice personally fulfilling, but then I did not adopt it in order to be happy. (For more on this reply to Kant see Byrne 1998, 70ff and Byrne 2007, 101ff.)

The critic may thus contend that we are not bound by practical reason itself to have a plan of life bent on pursuit of happiness. In reply, it has been stated that “If we are to endorse wholeheartedly the long-term shape of our lives, we have to see this shape as consistent with our happiness” (Hare 1996, 88). Let us assume that non-theists who realizes that moral demands restrict the pursuit of happiness in a world not under divine governance are unable to endorse wholeheartedly the long-term shape of their lives. On the face of it that does not entail that they act irrationally. Their world is not a perfect world and they might feel sad that it is not, but they will no doubt think that accepting such realism is a lower price to pay than believing in God.

The other half of the absurdum practicum is the duty to become morally perfect. In Kantian terms, moral perfection for finite creatures is a state of complete virtue. Our wills will be irreversibly set on a policy of acting on maxims dictated by the demands of impartial right. The Kantian claim is that as well as having obligations to do this or that act of virtue, we have an overarching obligation to achieve a state of virtue through acting on specific obligations. To those who affirm that we have no such obligation, the response from proponents of the argument from moral order is that this is an unacceptable lowering of the moral demand (see Hare 1996, 29-30). This part of the argument from moral order has separate force from that dealing with the inability of a secular world-view to guarantee happiness for the virtuous. If morality's rationality depends on our being able to fulfill the aim of being virtuous, then — given undeniable facts about the contingency and frailty of the human condition — no naturalistic outlook can establish morality's rationality.

One response to this strand of the Kantian argument consists in stressing the way the human institution of morality can strengthen human character and promote the living of virtuous lives (see Kekes 1990). Another response depends on the distinction between becoming virtuous as an end and becoming virtuous as a duty. A non-theist may argue as follows. There is an overarching end to morality: achieving a state of virtue. We are not under an obligation to achieve that end in itself. We have obligations to do particular acts of virtue. If we fail to do those particular acts, we do fail to meet our obligations. But we do not fail in a further obligation to become virtuous. Becoming virtuous is an asymptotic goal. It is one that arises from more specific goals, and is thus necessary but this does not mean that we are guilty if we fail to meet it. Asymptotic goals can function as goals even though we know full well that they can never be met. They regulate our lives, while they do not create duties to attain them. The non-theist thus draws a distinction between Kantian virtue as a necessary end of the moral life and as a duty (see Byrne 2007, 110ff).

The above response relates to the famous “ought implies can” principle in step (21) of Argument VI above. Adams suggests that a viable riposte to this part of the moral argument is “In any reasonable morality we will be obligated to promote only the best attainable approximation of the highest good” (Adams 1987, 152). Thus our duty is merely to do our best to be virtuous. There is no question that proponents of the argument from moral order will again categorize this as an unacceptable lowering of the moral demand. Adams' point can, however, be strengthened by the distinction between ends and obligations above. We do not need to give up the goal of being virtuous if we recognize only the obligation to achieve the best available approximation to a state of complete virtue. We can have a regulative end without a corresponding obligation.

2.2 The Secular Problem of Evil

Variants of Argument V in Kant and other sources exemplify the secular problem of evil. The facts that make the realization of the ends of morality impossible are reflections of the underlying truth that our world is beset by evil. Evil is present in the human will and character. It is present in the course of events that distributes happiness and misery without regard to the claims of justice. The core of Argument V is that morality is irrational or pointless given evil unless we posit an agency capable of defeating evil. That agency has to be trans-human because it is one of the facts about evil that it manifests itself in weaknesses which beset the human character and will at root, thus making our agency imperfect.

The argument from moral order hereby throws up a striking paradox. On the one hand, evil in the world serves as the ground for an argument for God's existence. On the other, that same evil serves as a ground for thinking that there is no God. The evil pointed to in the moral argument highlights the evil that is the basis of the more famous problem of evil in arguments for God's non-existence. In particular, the fact of evil provides an interesting tu quoque to any version of Argument V. Such arguments point to evil and state that, on the premise that morality is a rational enterprise, there must be a God whose providence shows that such evil is but a temporary or surface feature of our world. But if there is such a God, why is there this evil in the first place? If there was a God, there would be a moral order and a vital premise of the argument from moral order would be false. The God of theism, if actual, is working now to remedy the defects in the human will and ensure that the course of events supports the goals of virtue. So how can it be that this God appears to be doing no such thing? (See Kekes 1990, 27-8.)

Attempts to rebut this counter to the moral argument would take us too deep into the structure of theodicies (accounts from within theism of how evil exists within a divinely providential world). A good example of how such a rebuttal goes can be found in ch. 18 of W.P. Sorely's Moral Values and the Idea of God. A divine power to support morality's ends is linked to the need to allow human beings freedom in an imperfect-seeming world to confront evil via their own free choices, with the assurance that an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent agency will bring those choices to fruition.

2.3 Moral Order and Moral Skepticism

The Kantian argument from moral order has been seen to be full of complexities. A simpler version of a moral order argument (see Zagzebski 1987, 299-300) goes thus.

Argument VII:

Morality is a rational enterprise.
Morality would not be a rational enterprise unless good actions increase the amount of good in the world. (Morality has to be efficacious if it is to be rational.)
There is no evidence that the amount of good in the world is increasing through our good acts.
Therefore we must assume that there is extra-human agency on the side of the good.
Argument VII is more negative than positive. It attempts to reduce a naturalistic outlook to absurdity (the absurdity of moral skepticism). Other steps are needed to get to the conclusion that the most plausible non-naturalistic world view is theism.

Argument VII can be strengthened by the following fact. In acting upon obligation I will frequently be giving up the chance to fulfill my personal preferences. This means that some good will be foregone in a typical moral action. If moral action is not efficacious in the production of moral good, then it may decrease the net amount of potential good. Thus it may be irrational (see Zagzebski 1987, 300 and Layman 2002, 304 and passim).

The argument for (26) is empirical: looking around the world there is no evidence that the amount of good is increasing and the amount of evil decreasing. Since it must be on premise (24), there is need to suppose that the world as we see it is not the sum of it as it really is. Good will eventually arise from moral acts but will only be visible when divine agency brings it about in the future.

Let us assume that defenders of a secular, naturalistic world view will not question (26) so far as it concerns the effects of virtuous action. In that case, they must either concede that morality is irrational (part, perhaps, of the absurdity of life in a universe without God) or argue that the good produced by virtuous action is not wholly or mainly in its effects. They may note in this regard important consequences of Aristotle's account of virtuous actions. Virtuous actions are not merely the means to the good, as plugging in the kettle is the means to heating the water. The good for a human being is a kind of living and acting: it is in part constituted by acts we perform and the dispositions behind them. Virtuous, good actions are worthwhile for the sake of the activity involved in doing them. They will have ends beyond themselves. Thus an act of generosity will seek the improvement of another's lot. But such an act also constitutes its own end. It is worthwhile doing it even if it fails in its external end. So, if a naturalist follows Aristotle, she or he can say that right action is a manifestation of the human good and as such the human good will in part exist regardless of the consequences of right action. (See Sherman 1989, 114 ff for these arguments.)

Zagzebski's version of the moral order argument is supplemented by the following proof based on the idea that naturalism entails moral skepticism.

Argument VIII:

Morality is a rational enterprise.
Morality would not be a rational if moral skepticism were true.
There is much too much unresolved moral disagreement for us to suppose that moral skepticism can be avoided if human sources of moral knowledge are all that we have.
Therefore we must assume that there is an extra-human, divine source of moral wisdom. (Zagzebski 1987, 295-299)
The naturalist can do two things with this argument. One is to question (30) and the other is to question whether the remedy in (31) works. As to (30), it is true that we can cite many long-standing moral disagreements in a society at any one time (as witness abortion, capital punishment and the like). But it may be claimed that over most of their daily decisions human beings know what the morally correct thing to do is. A common list of fundamental moral rules (forbidding lying, stealing etc, commanding honesty, the honoring of promises etc) will be acknowledged by most moral agents. The same is true for a common list of higher moral principles (give to each their due, respect persons as ends in themselves etc). It is not, the critic will say, that we cannot act because we are surrounded by so much moral uncertainty. As to (31), how are we to take the idea that a providential God will solve moral skepticism? The theist's God aids us through “moral knowledge in divine revelation and the teachings of the Church” (Zagzebski 1987, 302). But the naturalist will say that theists differ over where revelation is to be found and how to interpret it. They differ over what is the true church and then over how to interpret what their chosen church says. Religious division seems as rife as moral. And we need moral knowledge in order to make cogent judgments as to the location and teaching of the divine word.

3. Practical Arguments: Moral Despair and Moral Discouragement

The various arguments from moral order considered so far have begun from the premise

Morality is a rational enterprise.
The aim of such arguments is to show that if there is no source of moral order morality will collapse. It will cease to be a sustainable enterprise. Kant himself states at one point that if the highest good cannot be attained then the moral law, which bids us to seek it “must be fantastic and directed to imaginary ends and must therefore in itself be false” (Kant 1996/1962, 231; 5/114). This suggests that, if the ends of morality cannot be attained, there would no longer be any obligations and duties (Kant in fact denies this inference in other places: see Kant 2000/1962, 316-317; 5/450-2). But it is possible to frame a moral argument with a more modest conclusion: there is a moral advantage in accepting theism. Adams has a version of this argument.

Argument IX:

It would be demoralizing not to believe there is a moral order to the universe.
Demoralization is morally undesirable.
There is a moral advantage in believing that there is a moral order in the universe.
Theism provides the best theory of the source of moral order.
Therefore there is a moral advantage in accepting theism. (Adams 1987, 151)
Douglas Drabkin has a “moral argument for undertaking theism” which moves along similar lines.

Argument X:

Morality demands that we ought to aspire to become as good as we can be.
If there is no source of moral order in the world, then the project of becoming as good as we can be is fraught with difficulties.
These difficulties would be taken away if we were assured of the truth of theism.
Therefore we have a moral reason for getting ourselves in a state whereby we can come to be believe in the truth of theism. (Drabkin 1994, 169)
Let us assume that a non-theist will accept the general premise that it would be better for human beings if there was a divine source of moral order. Thus the non-theist could accept the premise that it would be to our practical and moral advantage to believe in a divine source of moral order. To some degree or other, atheism is demoralizing.

The above concession allows the airing of a major issue in considering moral proofs of God's existence of the kind that appeal to the need for moral order. They may be charged with arguing from premises about what we need or would like to be true to conclusions about the likelihood of the reality being thus and so. That a truth is demoralizing is no reason to think it is false. That it would be good if a claim is true is no reason to believe that claim. These conclusions follow from the transparency of belief. Believing p is transparent in the first person case. The following three questions are equivalent — that is, a yes or no answer to any one entails the same answer to any of the other two:

p? [Is there a God?]
Do I believe that p? [Do I believe that there is a God?]
Ought I believe that p? [Ought I to believe that there is a God?]
In particular there cannot be reasons for giving a yes answer to (42) that are not reasons for thinking that p, that are not reasons for thinking that there is a God. Now the reasons for thinking that there is a God in Adams' argument do not bear upon the likelihood that there is a God, so cannot be reasons for thinking that I should adopt this belief. That the world would otherwise make some of our goals harder to obtain, would otherwise leave some of our deepest needs unmet, is not a reason for believing that it is not as it appears to be — devoid of moral order.

These versions of moral argument partake of the flavor, and thus of the difficulties, that surround the pragmatic arguments for religious belief found in writers such as Pascal and James. They will meet with the same response: this is wishful thinking dressed up as argument. The non-theist may press this specific point: only if one is convinced prior to these arguments of the premise that

The world is likely to be organized so as to meet our deepest human needs
will one find them cogent. But (44) is just the kind of hypothesis that would be false if there is no God. Arguments such as IX and X thus look circular.

It should be noted that Kant considers and rejects this kind of criticism of arguments from moral order. He admits that argument forms of this type are generally fallacious, while claiming that his argument is different in a relevant respect. He appeals to needs to fuel belief that there is a God but they are “needs of reason”. They are not grounded on “inclination” but on “an objective ground of the will” (Kant 1996/1962, 255n; 5/143n).

Drabkin's argument in fact escapes the above objections. It claims that the moral ills that would afflict us if there were no God give us ground, not for the belief that there is a God, but for undertaking “the project of coming to believe that there is a God” (Drabkin 1994: 171). This involves things like going over one's reasons for rejecting belief in God to see if they hold up and checking most carefully reasons for thinking there is a God.

Perhaps this is a point at which proponents and opponents of moral arguments for God's existence might agree on. Moral considerations give all a reason to examine the proposition that there is a God very seriously. For if there is no God, morality is a more perilous enterprise than if there is.

Many excellent arguments have been advanced throughout the years on behalf of Christian theism: the cosmological, the historical, the teleological, and so forth. One of them, the moral argument, by reason of its extreme relevance to the human situation, has a certain advantage over the others. Although like them it supplies grounds for believing in a transcendent, personal God, the moral argument goes further. It addresses itself to a most fundamental question which concerns humanists and Christians alike. Both groups are eager to sustain an ethic or moral obligation to our fellow man. But on what basis does such a noble commitment securely rest? How is it to be sustained, or even explained? The moral dimension of human experience raises very readily the question of God whom Christians believe constitutes the only ground that can support the kind of moral commitment which is needed today.
Naturalistic Ethics
In his convocation address to the Darwin Centennial celebration, Sir Julian Huxley put forward a naturalistic ethic based upon his evolutionary vision of the world. Man's hope depends, he argued, upon his ability to generate human values and guide the course of his own development. How can this be done? Let us observe the direction we are developing, and from that decide in what direction we ought to be moving. In agreement with D.H. Waddington, Huxley defined what is right and ethical as activity which is in conformity to the evolutionary process.

There are three decisive weaknesses which, quite apart from Christian revelation, are immanent within this proposal. First, Huxley has committed the "naturalistic fallacy" as set out by G.E. Moore. Moore held that ethical concepts cannot be reduced to, or derived from, non-ethical concepts. It is not possible to derive an ought from an is. Although Huxley is anxious for us to believe that his ethics arise out of his science, they do not in fact do so. On the contrary, they were derived from elsewhere, and by a process of circular reasoning were read back into it. When we look at evolution, for example, we see the principle of the "survival of the fittest" which, if it were translated into ethical terms, could only justify an ethic of power and selfishness which Huxley could not endorse. Science by itself is incapable of generating values, and just because it is value-free stands in need of an axiology from the outside to direct its own work. Naturalistic ethics are parasitic. They are unconsciously imbibed out of the general heritage of Western civilization, and put forward as if they arose out of a description of the world. These prior commitments are what lead men like Huxley to accept certain aspects of evolution, and ignore others.

Second, once we see that the norms of naturalistic ethics do not spring from the world of nature, we can realize how very arbitrary this approach to ethics is. The only way to sustain a neighbor-oriented ethic on these terms is by arbitrarily positing the value of human personal life by an act of the will. There is no objective reason within a naturalistic framework for placing value on man's life, the starting point of any ethical system. We can illustrate the problem from within the discussion between ethicists who operate in this framework.

Professor A.J. Ayer, a logical positivist, holds ethical statements to be emotive and non-cognitive. They represent a personal preference for a certain kind of behavior, rather than any objective ethical norms. We can no more criticize a person for liking to steal than we could condemn him for preferring coffee to tea. On the American scene, Miss Ayn Rand has attained some notoriety for espousing the virtue of selfishness. If the ego alone has value, as naturalism would seem to imply, self-interest is the final norm for human behavior. Man's sole significant ethical obligation is to himself. Similarly Jean Paul Sartre, though he has given much thought to the subject, has been unable to develop reasons or norms for man's moral responsibility towards his neighbor. We allude to Ayer, Rand, and Sartre, in order to show that there is a crisis of values in the naturalistic world view which deeply threatens the foundations of ethics. Though we are profoundly interested in attempts of humanists to develop an ethic of goodwill towards all men, we cannot see how this will be possible. Humanists can decide to recognize the worthwhileness of human life, but are unable to explain why we are obliged to.

Finally, naturalistic ethics consistently ignores one of the best attested facts about human nature, its moral obtuseness and perversity. At no point is the humanist creed which counts upon the goodness of man less convincing. Man's sense of moral obligation is continually being frustrated because of his self-centeredness. Science has done much for us, but it has not made us good. Naturalistic ethics are deficient because they do not take into account this undoubted fact about human beings. In each of these three respects, naturalistic ethics show itself to be conceptually deficient.
Christian Theistic Ethics
In contrast with naturalistic ethics, the Christian system based upon belief in a personal God of righteousness makes excellent sense of the moral dimension of human experience and provides a firm foundation on which to build a neighbor-oriented ethic.

First of all, the Bible gives a sufficient explanation as to the origins of morality in human life. It is surely a striking thing that out of a universe composed of atoms and molecules there should arise personal, rational, and moral creatures such as men are. What can account for this extraordinary fact? According to naturalism, personality, rationality, and morality have all arisen by chance out of impersonal, nonrational, and amoral being. The evolutionary stream appears to have risen much higher, qualitatively speaking, than its source. But any such theory falls far short of full rationality. A cause does not produce an effect which contains in itself qualities altogether lacking in the cause. If the world contains personal, rational, and moral creatures, as it does, it can only be because the cause of the world is personal, rational, and moral.

Second, the Christian belief in God lays solid foundations for morality. The British language philosopher Stephen Toulmin has written a book which explores the principles which are implicit in our reasoning as moral agents (Stephen Toulmin, An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics, [Cambridge, 1950]). In the course of his analysis, Toulmin uncovered a fundamental commitment which, though generally unquestioned and even unrecognized, points beyond morality to something deeper. That commitment amounts to a profound confidence in the final worth of human life. If the confidence were not there, we would lack all motivation to keep faith and act responsibly toward others. Moral actions are existentially possible only because their roots reach down into an underlying confidence in the abiding worth of our lives. But how is such a prereflexive confidence to be accounted for, and on what basis does it securely rest? Certainly, naturalism cannot explain it, or supply any adequate foundation for it. If man is the chance product of an impersonal order, the final worth of his life is drastically undermined, and consequently the foundation of morality is threatened. Friedrich Nietzsche was perceptive when he saw that the death of God would bring about a transvaluation of values. Once man's confidence in the worth of human life is cut away, the basis of the entire ethical enterprise is shaken. Only belief in God can provide the sound basis in reality for that confidence in the final worth of human life which ethics presupposes.

Third, Christian theistic belief accounts better for the nature of morality, in at least two respects. In the first place, in moral experience we find ourselves confronted by an unconditional claim, one that is sovereign over all the calculations of expediency. Various psychological and social factors may provide the occasion for making moral judgments , but they do not at all produce the unconditional dimension of the moral imperative. At Nuremberg not even the ethical relativists said, "The Nazi ethical code based upon the German psychology of the thirties allowed for genocide, but our particular criteria compel us to disapprove of it." On the contrary, the consensus was one of unconditional condemnation. Genocide is objectively wrong, and those who practice it deserve to be punished. Indeed, no mundane penalty seemed adequate for the offense. Moral experience of this kind is familiar to us all, and it is difficult to account for within a nontheistic framework. In the second place, there is reason to believe that this awareness of unconditional moral obligation involves a uniquely personal constraint. We do not feel shame or pollution when we harm things, or transgress such impersonal laws as gravitation. But we do feel that way when we violate the moral law. The proper locus of that law must reside then in a superhuman mind. Even the way in which humanists display loyalty to truth and respect for moral standards only makes sense if there is One to whom they do not wish to be disloyal. In moral experience, we know ourselves to be responsible, not to an impersonal code, but to Him who upholds a moral universe.

Fourth, the Christian message is tailor-made to solve the problem of morality. The sense of moral failure is one of the best attested aspects of human experience. We consistently fall short of attaining the most elementary moral obligations. There seems to be a wide discrepancy between our inward inclinations and the moral law. What man obviously needs is divine redemption in which there is the possibility of a significant degree of righteousness in this world and a promise of perfect righteousness in the world to come. We desperately need a healing power from beyond ourselves. This condition is richly fulfilled in the Christian gospel: "For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men" (Titus 2:11).

Finally, the Christian faith assures us that morality will attain its final end. Morality may be man's finest endeavor, but it is not difficult to see that it can never be fulfilled in this life. In earthly life there are degrees of goodness that are never attained, and acts of wickedness that are never requited. If this life is the only sphere of moral experience we will know, then the world is a madhouse. The lower forms of life may attain their temporal ends, but man whose moral fulfillment requires divine justice and immortality is denied his nisus of fulfillment. The moral dimension is fated to be frustrated unless it can see fulfillment beyond the mundane realm. The Christian world view and eschatology supply precisely that understanding of reality in which morality will attain its proper ends.

Conclusion

It is our belief that naturalistic ethics can provide neither an exhaustive or satisfying account of all that is involved in moral experience. The more we reflect carefully upon this phenomenon the more we are drawn toward belief in God as the rational and intelligible goal of the moral pilgrimage. Moral experience, like human experience as a whole, is left puzzling and unclear unless rational belief in God is finally adopted.

We are not maintaining, let it be noted, that the moral law possesses no power in men's lives apart from a religious sanction. What we do maintain is that only religious belief renders the existence of the moral dimension understandable. It alone can explain what transpires in that area of human experience. Apart from belief in God, the moral order is an impenetrable mystery.

Our essay began by observing how deeply relevant the moral argument for Christian theism is to the human situation. Almost everyone agrees that we need a greater degree of moral responsibility if mankind is to survive its own folly. But surely it is plain that humane values are not likely to persist if the naturalistic view of the world should become dominant. By leaving God out of the picture, secularism undermines the very foundation on which even its own ethical concerns must rest. It is totally self-stultifying. The Christian faith, on the other hand, supplies a superb basis for a truly ethical concern for other people. By all means let us dedicate ourselves to the good of all mankind. But let us do it within the framework which truly sustains so noble a commitment.

The Christian Bible views man in moral perspective. We are God’s creatures who can and must answer to Him for what we become. To assist us, God has given us both capacity and inclination to judge our own behavior on the basis of His standard of right and wrong made known to us through His Word.

Conscience aids us in discerning what is right and good from what is inferior, wrong, bad. It encourages decisions that are acceptable in His sight and where there is a conflict, it attempts to persuade us to follow God’s prescribed way of righteousness.

Moral consciousness is characterized by a sense of responsibility. When its urgings are ignored, we feel guilt, a complex experience that includes a sense of judgment, unworthiness, self-depreciation and estrangement from God, others and our self. This feeling can only be relieved by forgiveness extended to us by God and accepted by us.

Jesus never used the word conscience although His teaching aimed at arousing a sense of conscience in us and at focusing our attention on our motives as well as our acts. He called us to moral wholeness. “Clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean” (Matthew 23:26). Simply to avoid murdering or committing adultery does not suffice. To be angry with a brother or sister makes us liable to judgment and to lust after another is to commit adultery in our heart.

Jesus told us that God claims our desires and intentions as well as our acts. He did not belittle the haughty moral earnestness of the scribes and Pharisees; He merely made it clear that even this was not enough to enable a man to stand before God: “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” But through the Cross, Christ would effect reconciliation between man and God and men would be reckoned righteous through faith.

Paul regarded conscience as one of the evidences of the validity and universality of the moral law. He argued that all men are responsible for what they do. The Gentiles, who were not given the law, do what the law requires, thereby showing that their consciences are guided by a universal, built-in morality or to use his words, “written on their hearts.” Men have received a sufficient revelation of what is good to make us morally responsible.

We note that Paul speaks of himself as “having fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience” which he claims to have always maintained. This is consistent with his discussion of the weaker brother whose conscience will not let him eat meat offered to idols. He gives the stronger brother, the one who knows idols are unreal and is untroubled by eating such men, stern warning not to encourage the weaker brother to go against his own conscience, however uninformed that conscience may be. Paul thus, seems to be saying that we must appreciate where people are in their understanding and Christian maturity before being quick to overwhelm them with our education and explanations.

In his reasoning, Paul believes we are morally responsibility only for decisions related to our own conscience; to disobey conscience is to be at war with our own deepest self. Only a morally responsible attitude is likely to lead to contrition and repentance which are necessary to bring about a needed change of mind. Good and clear conscience begins with our heeding its urgings and warnings and it develops through bringing our moral convictions under the scrutiny of God’s will.

Paul also writes of the corrupted conscience in his letter to Titus where he speaks of persons whose Christian profession and worship are divorced from their actual behavior so that their actions belie their words (1:15). The scorn Paul has for such people may be seen in his final thrust at them; he calls them; “detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good” (1:15). Nor does he deal any more kindly with those whose consciences he describes as “seared” (1 Timothy 4:2). Seared consciences are consciences which have lost their sensitivity through ongoing and persistent embracing of the evil.

The Christian conscience must be rooted in His redemption through God’s grace in Jesus Christ and not on works of law (the flesh). Paul clearly understood the lure of a legalistic moral system and the moral shipwreck and spiritual death it brings; “They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth” (4:3). Therefore, he urged the Galatians to have the courage to live with a clear conscience, one that is free in Jesus Christ and which cultivates the fruit of the Spirit.


Moral Development
We are not born with fully developed moral consciences. Moral development is required and subject to the same laws of learning as other aspects of personality. Sound Christian conscience development is pivotal to spiritual growth and requires edification. Bible study is crucial to developing and maintaining an informed Christian conscience and encouraging moral and spiritual maturity.

Conscience development usually begins in childhood through parental expectations and prohibitions which the child internalizes and which then serve as spontaneous checks on his or her behavior. Whether or not a child progresses from this infantile, automatic moral response depends to a significant degree upon the emotional atmosphere wherein the child is taught. Thus, within the home teaching environment the child learns whether or not obedience is good or bad and how his or her objections are handled. Is the environment one of encouragement, or is it one heavily steeped in criticism and disapproval? This is an important question because it relates directly to the child’s moral development.

The child experiences unconditional love and the reality of forgiveness when parents are good Christian models of the qualities they require of the child. When the climate of the home is predictable, warm, loving and supportive; putting greater emphasis on approval and encouraging the best rather than upon disapproval and punishing failure, the child discovers “goodness” as attractive rather than something distasteful only to be obeyed to avoid punitive retaliation for failure to comply.

When moral training is excessively punitive, it becomes a fear induced process in which “goodness” is reduced to the avoidance of punishment rather than the attainment of positive virtues. This characteristic is often exhibited in children who feel he or she must earn their parents approval through pleasing behavior (external righteousness) that will win their parents love. Conditional love unfortunately becomes the only motivation for pleasing behavior and the child’s conscience then becomes negative, inflexible, and his or her sense of guilt becomes distorted. Many parents resort to manipulating the conscience of the child by making them feel guilty. Since guilty feelings can be emotionally unbearable for children, they quickly learn to avoid the pain of guilt through shallow, puppet like obedience.

Conscience maturity is rooted primarily in personal commitment to ideals and in moral conviction rather than in response to external demands. Mature conscience says, “I ought to do this because it is right,” or, “I ought not to do this because it is wrong.” Thus, the motivation is love for righteousness. The immature, prohibitive conscience says, “I must do this because if I do not I will be punished.” The motivation is fear of being reprimanded in some way.

The prohibitive conscience is not to be confused with a guilty conscience. A guilty conscience is primarily remorse created by feeling responsible for violating God’s standards of righteousness which we all experience from time to time. Prohibitive conscience, on the other hand, usually brought into adulthood from childhood experiences, is basically a fear-based worldview which can be destructive to the individual as well as to others. Children, who grow into adulthood with prohibitive consciences, are more likely to fear vice and wrong-doing rather than love of virtue and doing right. Goodness is nothing more to these adults than just trying not to behave in ways that may warrant punishment. Life is dominated by a need to appease and to propitiate God and man. The person’s world is one of demands, disapprovals, and anger over his/her imperfections and a chronic preoccupation with the terror of consequences.

This is a truly sad commentary for if those of immature conscience turn these feelings outward, he/she will probably adopt a critical disparaging life style which dwells on the sins and shortcomings of others. This may explain those we encounter who always seem to be negative towards others, not to mention much of the disturbances and disputes in church congregations. If on the other hand, they turn these feelings in on themselves, he/she magnifies their sins, wallow self-punitively in them and dominate others through their self-reproach and threats of self destruction.

In either scenario, the person lives in a vicious circle virtually anesthetized against the spiritual advice of family, friends, co-workers or pastoral counseling. It is only when he/she is able to reconnect the guilt feelings to the thoughts or actions that give rise to them is he/she apt to develop the remorse and repentance that open the way to genuine moral and spiritual insight and growth. Until this reconnection occurs, trying to convince them that God’s love is unconditional and rooted in His holy love revealed in the finished work of Jesus Christ, is an exercise in futility.




Schopenhauer considered that the good conscience we experience after an unselfish act verifies that our true self exists outside our physical person.
Source: Schopenhauer-Archiv der Stadt- und Universittsbibliorhek Frankfurt am Main
Every person is familiar with the inner voice which on occasion accuses and oppresses us, and on other occasions brings joy. Christian moral conscience by its nature is a spiritual instinct, which more clearly and quickly differentiates between good and evil than does the mind. The conscience is the Holy Spirit’s “code blue” alerting us to the evil of a dangerous presence. And, just as we cannot convince ourselves that we are happy when we are grieved or that we are healthy when we are sick, similarly we cannot persuade ourselves that our behavior is right when our conscience tells us otherwise.