You Don’t Need God to be Good…

by kreitsauce on Dec.21, 2008, under Doctrine, Philosophy, Politics

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good-atheist Ah, those crazy guys known as “the New Atheists.” They’re kinder, gentler, and eager to please. They’re also quick to point out that you don’t have to be a Christian in order to be a moral person. They cry: “You see! We don’t need God anymore! We don’t need Him as Creator, we don’t need Him as judge, and we certainly don’t need Him as Savior! We don’t need God to scare us into being good!” I have no doubt that there are many moral atheists out there. Most Westerners (and the vast majority of Easterners, for that matter) are decent people. I am, however, just a bit confused on one major point.

…but you do need God for there to be such a thing as Good.

How can you say that you are a good person, a moral person even, when you don’t believe God exists? If there is no God, where are we getting our basis of “good” from? Not from society, that’s for sure. Our customs and laws always change, many national laws conflict with each other, and there are some twisted societies, such as those set up by Nazism and Communism (both Atheistic societies, by the way) whose laws are the most immoral things around. Morality doesn’t come from nature, as that whole “survival of the fittest” thing doesn’t go too well when you applied to natural or social Darwinism. Only the existence of God explains any sense of morality. We aren’t talking about high ideals here. Good must either exist apart from the actions of mankind, or it does not exist at all. Only an immutable Being is capable of producing an immutable Law.

You don’t have to take a Christian’s word for it. Nietzsche was hardly a Bible-thumper in his day. He’s famous for his “God is dead,” statement. Most Christians are still quite up in arms over that , however, they forget Nietzsche’s point in making that statement. Nietzsche saw that moral absolutes have no foundations apart from God. If society ignores (or denies) His existence, there is a massive void in its structure that must somehow be filled. It’s a problem that has never quite gone away.

The New Atheists may be right when they say they are good atheists, but they will have a hard time proving it without God.

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9 Comments for this entry

Christian Bulacan
December 21st, 2008 on 10:00 pm
i am sorry, but you need God to live he is the one and only Savior. He is the light! He is the soul!

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kreitsauce
December 21st, 2008 on 10:36 pm
Uhhhh….I think we agree on that point. If you read my post, I say that there can be no such thing as good without God. There must be a God in order for good to exist.

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spinnakerjksc
December 21st, 2008 on 11:28 pm
That book cover is misleading for one thing. Albert Einstein was nowhere close to an atheist, he was a Deist with very strong Christian influences. Anyhow, You’re right about this. Without a God, there cannot possibly be an established good. We’re just guessing after that. We can say ‘well good is not hurting people’. But who’s to say killing isn’t good? Wouldn’t it decrease the surplus population and benefit others? One could legitimately make that argument with no higher authority. God is Love- Morality is merely a branch from Love, how you treat people is nothing but a branch of Love. Therefore, all moral platforms separate from God are invalid.

Jordan
http://www.theriverjordan.net

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kreitsauce
December 21st, 2008 on 11:30 pm
Yeah, I really questioned Einstein’s picture on the cover. I think the author has an axe to grind. Thanks for the comment!

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keithbadinelli
December 22nd, 2008 on 2:50 pm
Read some Aristotle. Some Kant. Some Mill.

All have some notion of good.

Pay particular attention to Aristotle. Much of what Christians consider good comes from him – not from God or elsewhere. Where did Aristotle get it?

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kreitsauce
December 22nd, 2008 on 3:09 pm
Because morality is an absolute Law in the universe. A reasonable person can come to the truth of right from wrong apart from God, just as a reasonable person can discern the laws of nature and mathematics.

What Aristotle and the others could not get was righteousness. They knew the Law, but they could not obey it. The ability to obey the Law- and the forgiveness necessary when the a transgression is committed- comes only from God. Aristotle, Kant, and Mill never got that far, unfortunately. However vast their powers of reasoning, they needed the revelation of God (the Bible) to find peace with their own inability to obey the Law.

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keithbadinelli
December 22nd, 2008 on 3:20 pm
“Because morality is an absolute Law in the universe.” This is a positive assertion that requires a proof.

Forgiveness is also a concept which can arrived at through reason, as is vengeance. You do not need God to know or practice either of these concepts. Why do you believe that you need God in order to forgive?

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kreitsauce
December 22nd, 2008 on 3:38 pm
You need God because He is the one that must forgive you. I can know what forgiveness is apart from God, but I cannot ask God for forgiveness without knowing Who He is. That’s the point of Divine revelation.

Morality is an absolute in the universe. All societies have the same basic concept of morality. They always have. While they may not draw the line in the exact same place, say on murder, sexuality, stealing, etc., they still have laws regarding those things.

A society may say there are times when murder is ok, but no society says that every person may murder for any reason.

A society may excuse some forms of promiscuity, but no society says that it is ok for everyone to enjoy every form of sex at any time.

A society may permit some forms of stealing, but no society says that every person may steal anything from anyone.

There is a line there, though not everyone agrees where it belongs. All societies and individuals are conscious of the line’s existence.

Consider also the fact that people have a sense of what they “ought” to do,even when it may not benefit them and it may not even benefit society. That sense of what I “ought” to do is not the same thing as sympathy or self-preservation. It is something beyond either concept that goads us into choosing the more noble of the two. That is proof of the Law of Morality which our Creator has made us sensitive to.

And when I break that Law, what do I do? I try to excuse it because I know instinctively that I have done wrong. If another person does something wrong towards me, I feel the pain of the wrongness. If morality does not exist, why the need for excuse? Why the hurt feelings?

Finally, consider that the moral laws help, not hurt us. C. S. Lewis said that morality was basically the user’s manual for the human machine. If we operate in the right way, the machine runs well. If we go against the right way of operating the machine, a break down is sure to occur.

Our world is a clear example of how this works. Death and destruction follow the selfish and hateful. Sometimes, they even are self-destructive.

In this way, we can see that morality is a law just like gravity or mathematics. We may not know what exactly that Law is, but we can see its effects. Of course, unlike the law of gravity, God has revealed His Moral Law to us.

Thanks for the comments!

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snowboard jacket
February 6th, 2010 on 6:09 pm
I’m still a little mislead on your post here. Do you believe this? I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you will have to create a great debate in order to convince people that you are right.

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