Cold Case Christianity: Morals cannot be "objective"

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Is God Real?
Common, Objective Moral Standards Are an Evidence of God’s Existence

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 03:00 AM PST

The Axiological Argument for the existence of God relies on the existence of objective, transcendent moral truths (i.e. “It’s never morally permissible or virtuous to torture babies for fun”). But not everyone agrees these truths exist in the first place, even though they often seem self-evident.

One person thinks their opinion on how America should be run is "self-evident", but such confidence is not a reliable criteria of truth.  Many men think the goodness of dying for one's country is self-evident, but others maintain that their personal commitment to family outweighs any obligation they have to die for other people.

Many who do accept the existence of transcendent moral truths still deny a transcendent moral truth Giver.

Some atheists think that way, and I say they are inconsistent.  If atheism is true, then no moral would have a basis any deeper than genetic predisposition flavored with environmental conditioning.  I am, of course, discounting the bare possibility that earth and humans were created by advanced space aliens.  Dan Barker often talks about objective morals with his "we recoil from pain" speech, but alas, since we also recoil from the pain at a doctor's office where the pain is part of what's necessary to heal, not even our recoiling from pain implies the existence of some objective moral standard.

Some skeptics believe these moral truths come from our evolutionary development as a species, are embedded in our DNA, or are simply a matter of social convention. If this is the case, moral truth is relative to the individual making the claim. Moral relativism is, however, difficult to actualize consistently. Those who argue against the existence of transcendent, objective moral values, typically advocate for such values when push comes to shove (especially when they’ve been victimized).

Yes, many atheists do, and I say they are inconsistent.  When I say my neighbor shouldn't slash my tires, I recognize that I can only appeal to his own morality and the threat of legal action to persuade him to comply.  But the truth is that if he doesn't share at least some of my general moral beliefs, then I will be deprived of any way to convince him to see things my way.  Indeed, you cannot do much with a person who does not respect the law, doesn't respect normative social conventions, and doesn't really care if they get put in jail.  For such people, ordering them even in the name of god to stop committing some act will prove futile.

We accept many values and mores as if they were transcendently true, even as we might deny the existence of such overarching truths.

Yes, we do often live as if our relative morals were absolute, and yes this is an inconsistency.  But the mistake of some atheists of living as if their personal moral outlooks are absolute transcendent truths, does not open the door to the possibility that such morality is indeed objective.

Is God real?

Only if you allow for the reality of objects whose description is incoherent.  God's non-physical nature is one problem, as you cannot even show that any "non-physical" thing even exists.  And apologists are mostly to blame for toying with words and pretending that "physical" is something that can have an opposite.

Our common acceptance of an objective moral standard is yet another evidence of God’s existence.

 Since you are preaching to the choir, I don't mind saying "Amen".  When you come up with anything that even remotely threatens something atheists believe, let me know.

If there are no objective, transcendent moral truths, we lose the ability to make many significant decisions and judgments.

No, you are assuming moral relativity saps importance from everything we might say or do.  Not true.  Going to the store to get something to eat would still maintain its inherent significance, relative to your own life, even if all morality was relative.  As mammals, I'm sure Christian mothers would likely continue caring for their children even if such moms became convinced there was no objective morality.   Indeed, purpose in life is quite "relative" anyway.  You don't need to believe that God gives a fuck about how many cookies you eat before dinner, in order to experience a sense of fulfillment of purpose in eating them or resisting the temptation.  But if you are a Christian, I can understand how you think moving around in the world without linking everything back to God's sovereign purpose implies nothing but utter chaos.  But it doesn't.  I don't put gas in my car because I think there's some higher intelligence who wills it.  Most Christians probably also lack this view when fueling up at the service station.  So you are wrong, significant and sufficient sense of fulfillment of purpose in life can easily be achieved without pretending that god exists or that morals are objective. Only those who are already Christians, cannot bear to think about living life in complete disregard for 'god'.  If you stopped praying at meals, you might overcome some of your brainwashing.  And if you wish to continue praying before meals, then just remember that because you think God is infinitely wonderful, no length of prayer would be too long.  Classical theist Christians cannot meaningfully object to the person at the dinner table who takes 5 hours to say grace.  Isn't god worth that much?

Without the existence of such truths, nothing can be considered objectively virtuous, vile, or benign.

 I don't see the problem.  There is no moral that is objectively virtuous, vile or benign.  The closest you can get is that it is no coincidence that we mammals just happen to agree with each other, for the most part, that conduct which threatens our ability to survive and thrive, should not be tolerated.

Greg Koukl, my ministry partner at Stand to Reason, has written an excellent book on this topic: Relativism; Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air. Greg makes several key observations, some of which are summarized here:

All True Praise Requires An Objective Moral Standard

Most of us recognize the importance of praise, particularly when someone has performed nobly or has behaved sacrificially to improve the world in some way. But it’s impossible to truly praise anyone for such behavior without the existence of a transcendent, objective moral standard. Our accolades for those who have acted sacrificially for the good of others are meant to be more than subjective compliments. When we praise someone, we are praising them for something we believe was objectively virtuous, and would be considered so by everyone and anyone, regardless of personal opinion.

 False. When we praise our military members, we are not claiming their defense of this corrupt nation, called America, was in conformity to objective moral values, we are only expressing gratitude toward them that they played a significant part in helping America remain free of military threats.  After all, many Christians believe God disapproves of America for the most part.  So then if we are praising those who defend this corrupt nation, we stand a very good chance of praising in total absence of any underlying objective moral truth.

When we praise a child for getting good grades, we are not presuming that conformity to modern social convention like public schooling is based on some objective moral standard, we are only praising them from within the relative standard of our society and century.

We seldom say, “We praise you for doing something we happen to value in this culture; something we personally think is good, even if it may not be good to anyone else.”

Yes, most people offering praise aren't that specific about its realities, but that is the more honest way to praise regardless. You are a fool if you think you can argue from the socially acceptable mistaken inaccurate way that people say things, over to objective moral truth.

True praise assumes an overarching standard of goodness transcending all of us as humans.

 No. Praising a toddler when she manifests an act of kindness, like sharing a toy or food, only signifies that the praisers think she conformed to modern social convention, nothing more.  They can be Christians and add "Jesus wants us to be kind to each other" to the mix, but that hardly transforms the relativity into objectivity.  Whether a toddler "should" be kind to another toddler is ultimately relative to the situation and the expectations of the parents, caregivers and society.  You lose.

Do you remember growing up as a teenager and hearing your mom tell you that you were handsome or pretty? We accept such compliments with a degree of hesitancy, don’t we? Was her statement true, or simply her biased, subjective opinion? We are left wondering if we are truly handsome or truly pretty. True praise requires an objective standard related to what is good or bad; ugly or beautiful.

No, there is no objective standard for teen beauty or handsomeness.  So if anybody remarks that you are pretty or ugly, it isn't like they can show your looks fail to match up to some objective standard.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

And once again, yes, we often talk as if we are invoking objective standards, but that is mere convention, our doing this doesn't mean such objective standards actually exist.  If my grandpa curses at the ACLU because they fight so hard for gay-rights, he might be implying he relies on an objective standard, and maybe he wants the hearers to believe such standard is real, but in the final analysis, that standard is not objective. 

All True Condemnation Requires An Objective Moral Standard

In a similar way, it is also impossible to truly condemn anyone unless there is a transcendent, objective moral standard.

 So when we condemn a child for unwillingness to share a toy, we are necessarily proving there's an objective morality, somewhere out there, that says "all children must share their toys in this circumstance".  Wrong.

We often condemn those we think embody evil in our world (Hitler is a good example). When we say we believe someone (or something) is evil, we think we are expressing more than our personal opinion.

Correct, that is what we "think".   But it is also inaccurate.  Lots of people are belligerently dogmatic in their attempts to call somebody evil, stupid or criminal.  But in the final analysis, their invoking objective standards doesn't mean those standards exist, or are objective, anymore than the Mormon invoking the historical accuracy of the Book of Mormon implies that book is historically accurate.

We think this person (or thing) is truly evil and worthy of everyone’s condemnation.

Because our genetics and environmental conditioning were very different from Hitler's.  Had we been born in Germany 1915, we would be just as likely to join the Nazis as today's high school boy is likely to join the US Army.   Nothing is more popular than a citizen thinking his country's specific ways are the "right" way.

But such transcendent condemnation requires an objective, transcendent moral standard defining both good and evil.

Correct.  But needing one to exist in order to justify reliance upon the standard, doesn't mean such standard exists.  It could just as easily be that the person is mistaking their dogmatic but relative opinion for objective moral truth.

If we reject such a standard, we must accept what one person might see as evil, another might see as good.

No, you are now telling us what morality "should" prevail if in fact none of it is "objective".  But if no morality is objective, then you are deprived of any objective basis to morally condemn anything...like bigots who condemn the moral acts of others.  If all morality is relative, then there is no objective moral basis for declaring  "you should allow the other person to do what they want".  No.  There are no objective morals, so there can be no objective moral criteria to decide what level of intolerance is "wrong".  In such a world, if two people meet and have exactly opposing moral intentions, often there is no way to resolve it except physical violence (fighting, or getting arrested for harassment, etc).

In a world like this, statements of condemnation are meaningless. They are nothing more than mere opinion,

Now you are just repeating Frank Turek's fallacy of immediately equating opinion with uselessness.  That is a factual falsehood.  I have an opinion that tomorrow I should work on my legal case instead of studying the bible.  That opinion is not meaningless.  A father has an opinion that the kids need to go to bed on school nights at 10 p.m.  That is not meaningless, useless or equal to the opinion that says just let the kids stay up 24 hours per day and constantly imbibe pepsi and pizza.  Some opinions are clearly more likely to result in achieving normative American societal goals, than others.   For that reason, not all opinions are equal.

and, in the end, they presume the condemner has some right to judge others who simply hold a differing opinion.

No, in a morally relative world, we do not condemn out of any sense of "right" to do so, we condemn because hatred of certain conduct is hard-wired into our mammalian brains.  We have become sophisticated enough to create a democracy whereby we seek to justify our personal morality by appeal to law and the Constitution which just happen to reflect our personal morality, but those sources are still equally as morally subjective as any moral opinion is.  Appeal to an external source of moral authority hardly implies that any such source is going to be "objective".

In this kind of world, firm condemnation is arrogant and self-righteous.

So?  You don't have an objective moral that says "thou shalt not be arrogant or self-righteous".

All Moral Activism Requires An Objective Moral Standard

We recognize the virtue of moral reformers like Martin Luther King Jr.

No, you are just blindly assuming that because he was successful in creating something America now views as normative and good, therefore, he must have been doing something that was an objective moral good.  Nope.  What he did was good for America, in my opinion, but the goodness of what he did does not reside in any "transcendent" moral truth.

There are times when an activist sees the need for improvement within a society and feels compelled to propose reform.

And he or she can attempt such reform for no other reason than that they get a personal thrill out of trying to convince others to forge society in their own personal view.  Nothing objective here. And once again, the reformer's invoking god or inherent human dignity or some such qualifier doesn't automatically require that objective morality exists.  Terrorists invoke their god Allah in the name of their brand of social change which we call "terrorism".  Are you convinced therefore that god's name is Allah?  Hardly.  Any fool can invoke non-existent authority.  It is better to skip their invocation and go directly to the alleged proofs that this authority exists or is objective.

But if moral truths are formed by cultural consensus, moral reform is illogical (and, indeed, immoral).

No, there is nothing illogical about a small group of people taking their subjective moral point of view and convincing others in the culture that adopting said view would constitute a change in conformity to the nation's higher goals.  Such naturalistic explanation is sufficient and therefore leaves no room to pretend that this state of affairs is best accounted for by a higher intelligent being who has objective morals..

When a society decides something is morally virtuous (and the vast majority of its members agree on this), on what basis can a lone reformer, disagreeing with the cultural consensus, make a call for change?

His own personal moral opinion, whereby he says the status quo needs to be changed.

To what standard is this moral reformer appealing?

His own, and if he campaigns, he will likely argue that the change he seeks is also in furtherance of the general goals his hearers likely have.  Nothing morally absolute here.

If moral truths come from the society, whatever the society believes is, by definition, morally right.

 But not in an absolute sense.  Therefore the subjectivity of the majority moral viewpoint is also subject to change.  And the world of humanity has done little more in 100,000 years, than continually change their views about the worth of human beings and what goals nations should pursue.

If the majority rules, this group is the source of moral truth.

The source of relative moral truth, yes, if you are going to use a watered-down version of "truth".

In a world like this, the minority position is immoral by definition.

But only subjectively so.

Moral reformers cannot argue for a moral truth unless they are agreeing with the society.

Indeed, the only way to be successful at moral reform is to convince the hold-outs that their voting in favor of the change will be an act furthering their own more general goals.  The fact that you convince somebody to join the Moral Majority doesn't imply the existence of a god, anymore than an atheist convincing his girlfriend to snort coke implies the existence of an invisible space alien who wants people to do drugs.

In short, anyone who advocates reform in this kind of world is morally mistaken.

Not in an absolute or objective sense.  There is no objective morality.  The moral majority might rule and have final say on moral matters in our society, but that doesn't make their views absolute or objective in the sense of implying that their standards are grounded in something "transcendent".

A moral reformer like a Martin Luther King Jr. simply could not exist (as a person holding a minority position) and argue for a transcendent moral truth, unless of course, such truth comes from something (or someone) other than the culture.

So the only way Muslim terrorists can argue for their "transcendent moral truth" that Americans deserve to be massacred, is if such "truth" comes from something (or someone) other than the culture.

Sorry, that's just stupid.  Those terrorists do what they do, often successfully, despite your own belief that their version of moral reform is contrary to the real objective moral truth.  Therefore terrorists who engage in moral reform are a proof that seeking more reform does not imply the existence of a transcendent moral truth.  They are just ruthless bigots who have lots of power.

All Tolerance Requires An Objective Moral Standard

Finally, let’s take a look at the much loved attribute of tolerance.

Then count me out.  I'm not one of those wishy-washy card-carrying ACLU radicals or newagers who think tolerance is always good.

Without an objective, transcendent moral standard, true tolerance is impossible.

So if a friend comes to your house which smells like "dog", but politely tolerates the revolting smell for the duration of their visit, this is supposed to imply the existence of an objective transcendent moral standard?  Sorry, try again.

When two people disagree, tolerance is the behavior employed to coexist in spite of their disagreement. When we agree with each other, there is nothing to tolerate. Tolerance is reserved for those with whom we disagree. But if we are living in a society in which all diversity is to be embraced with equal status and value (as equally true), there is nothing with which we can disagree. And without disagreement, there is no need for tolerance.

 That's a good rebuttal to the stupid liberals who embrace absolute tolerance.  You say nothing to refute my own views.

While some may continue to deny the existence of transcendent, objective moral truths, our common acceptance of such truths reveals a contradiction.

Not at all, our common acceptance of such truths would first imply we had either similar genetic predispositions, or similar environmental conditioning, or both.  Our both being "mammals" is also why we'd agree on some moral duty.  Unfortunately for you, these naturalistic explanations are reasonable and not sufficiently stupid or unlikely so as to make any room for you to pretend that any morals "necessitate" god's existence.

We typically accept the foundation of objective moral standards as we praise, condemn, reform and tolerate the behavior of others.

No,  we typically tell ourselves that we stand upon objective morals when we praise, condemn, reform or tolerate.  But we aren't really standing on any such thing, we simply have a nasty persistent habit of mistaking our personal views for objective moral truth.