Believing in God for Morality's Sake

It is commonly said, most evidently in the form of an argument, that God is necessary for morality. The essence of such a statement is that without God there would be no morality (I have never heard an argument arguing the reverse).

Skeptics, atheists and even some theists have issues with this statement. Reasons for rejecting this statement vary from person to person. Some are persuasive; others just silly. Some range from the profundity of Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil" to the banality of Sam Harris' "The Moral Landscape." Either way, people have found reason to reject the notion that somehow God (or belief in Him) is essential for morality to exist.

Please understand that when one argues that God is essential for the existence of morality they are not asserting that morality exists as a "thing" or an "object" out in the world of experience. More than likely, what they are asserting is that because God is we can safely assume that morality is truly good and truly absolute. Without God, as some would argue, morality would just fall apart and there would be no reason to live the "good moral life" if there was no God.

In my studies, as a Christian minister and armchair philosopher, I have routinely asked myself if this argument is not only convincing but essential for a Christian to assert. My doubts concerning the statement have never revolved around whether I doubted God's existence but rather on the fact that I had a difficult time believing that the argument itself was persuasive as stated and that it is necessary for a Christian to believe it.

I know that for some--who are convinced that it is their life's duty to convince others that they should believe in God--this comes across as a shocking statement from a minister whose chief task is to proclaim the gospel of Christ to all nations. Should it not be the duty of every minister to make use of whatever can help in the task of proclaiming the gospel?

Well, no. I don't believe in that for one moment, particularly since some tools only confound and confuse the purpose of the task in the first place. That is to say, unless I am not being clear enough: somethings distract us more from the gospel than attract us to it.

The argument that God is necessary for morality, in my estimation, is a distraction from the true gospel. (This is just one of many reasons why I detest Christian apologetics). As a Christian, I want to proclaim salvation through faith in Christ, but I do not want to do it with shoddy methods, like the argument that God is necessary for morality, since it only cheapens the use of reason instead of utilizing it.

I know. This goes against the grain of a lot of Christian thinkers--some well-meaning, others not--who find this argument convincing. It even, from a certain standpoint, goes against Kant's moral argument for God, though I am pretty sure he would revile the way his argument is being hijacked by many Christian apologists today.

So, to ask an obvious question (one I am sure the reader would want to ask me at this point): Do you believe that God is necessary for morality to be truly good and absolute?

That is a hard question to answer (typical philosophical response).

Of course, I do want to to point out that the nature of the statement ("God is necessary for morality") seems to imply that God is dependent upon something outside of Himself, which would seem to undermine God's divine nature of being the most supreme being.

The question also brings up the age old dilemma, most famously proffered in Plato's Euthyphro, of whether God commands the good because it is good or the good is good because God commands it (my phrasing). Either option does not leave us with a pretty picture; either we are forced to believe that the good exists outside of who God is (the first part) or we believe that God can command anything to be good if He wanted to (like rape, murder, or slavery).

At any rate, while I reject the notion that morality is impossible without God, or even worse without belief in God, I do think that morality would not offer a way to the truly good life if it was not rooted in God.

What this means is that I reject any notion that morality is impossible without God if it attempts to use God as a sort of "guarantee" that one can trust without reservation or hesitation.

I think that to do so demeans who God is and makes faith in Him quite unnecessary.

So instead of seeing God as an essential part to "guaranteeing" morality and its demands, I see God as essential to morality in the sense that God allows us to participate in His creative and redemptive life. Some will hear this and think this is just another formulation of gospel vs. law, faith vs. works. While that is a part of what I am attempting to say, it does not fully represent my intentions in saying that God is necessary for morality.

Three points should suffice in clarifying what I mean:

First, God is necessary for morality because it is only in the context of revelation that morality receives its substance. In plainer terms, to state that God is necessary for morality without also considering the question of who God is makes the argument self-defeating. It is important, therefore, to know who God is in order to truly understand the nature of morality. You cannot believe, for that matter, in just any God to get to morality; it must be the one, true God.

Second, in conjunction with the first point, a true morality begins and ends in "knowing." Some will think that what I mean here is "thinking without feelings/emotions" or "mind over the body" but what I truly mean with "knowing" comprises all of the human--not just the mind. With Hegel, I do believe that morality requires thought but not at the expense of who we are as humans, especially as emotional creatures. "Thought," for Hegel, comprehends emotion and feeling but it must rise to the level of the infinite or the absolute via thought in order to truly "know" what is moral.

Third, in conjunction with the second point, "knowing" what is moral can only be obtained from within not from without. Before I confuse you, let me say that when I speak of "knowledge within" I do not mean one's personal thoughts. This would seem to make morality a matter of mere personal opinion. Such a position is disastrous. "Knowing" what is moral must be an action of a human that is based upon God working in us. If "knowledge" came from the outside, without any action on our part, we would never truly be sure if what we knew was true or not. The "knowledge" must be a working part of us in order for us to really know when we have reached the truth. This means, in effect, that until we come to that knowledge, we live in ignorance, not knowing the path to the good, moral life. We do not get out of our ignorance on our own, this is done as a work of God, revealing Himself to us.

This leaves us with the question again of whether or not I personally believe that God is necessary for morality. My answer, as confusing as it might appear, is saying that while I can imagine morality and living a moral life without God (to a certain degree, that is, if morality were just a set of principles and rules based upon human experience) I do not think it would be possible to attain the truly good life without Him. This is just a way of saying, in case you are still confused, that God is necessary for morality because He offers us the truly good life not because He merely guarantees moral principles and laws.

Still confused? I hope not. As a Christian, I am much more concerned in living the good life and what that means than trying to argue for morality for morality's sake. Again, only God can offer us the truly good life because in Him we not only come to an understanding of what is moral but how to live morally. Theory and practice are united, knowledge and action bridged, so that the Christian lives the fully complete, fully human life.

So, yes, God is necessary for morality but only in the way I have stated and not in its usual formulations.