Moral Argument for God's Existence
September 2, 2013 at 2:55 am
(This post was last modified: September 2, 2013 at 2:58 am by MindForgedManacle.)
So, the moral argument, one of the stranger apologetic arguments in my opinion. The William Lane Craig rendition (which is the oft-repeated one) goes something like this:
Man, where to start. When I first joined the forum I waded into a thread wherein a user was persistently pushing this argument. If I recall correctly, they said that if there was no structural error, then the argument works and I had to become a theist. But clearly that's not true, the argument could easily be unsound.
Anyway, one common thing that I see is that, at least online by William Lane Craig parrots, the 1st premise in the argument is never defended. Like the user I mentioned above, it's treated as self-evident. Sometimes an appeal to authority is made, often by saying "Atheist philosophers X and Y agree", without realizing, given most philosophers are atheists (~73%) and most are moral realists (~60%), so that isn't seemingly a widespread belief (and this appeal is kind of lazy I think, used to ignore defending a controversial assertion).
Furthermore, the argument is really nonsensical at base. It amounts to saying "Solve meta-ethics or God exists", without specifying why that is the case, or if that even makes sense (and the Divine Command theory often pushed by users of this argument is disturbing). William Lane Craig himself has usually done this sort of not defending that premise except by appeals to authority either.
And as the philosopher Stephen Law says, you could just as easily conclude that moral realism ('objective moral values and duties') is false by not accepting thesecond premise, and moral anti-realism is a defensible position i think.
Lastly, isn't the phrase 'objective values' contradictory? Values necessitate some conscious mind to be the valuer, but how can values be independent of (objective) minds while not being entirely dependent on them? I have a feeling it's a simple misunderstanding in my part.
Quote:P1) If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
P2) Objective moral values and duties do exist.
C) Therefore, God exists.
Man, where to start. When I first joined the forum I waded into a thread wherein a user was persistently pushing this argument. If I recall correctly, they said that if there was no structural error, then the argument works and I had to become a theist. But clearly that's not true, the argument could easily be unsound.
Anyway, one common thing that I see is that, at least online by William Lane Craig parrots, the 1st premise in the argument is never defended. Like the user I mentioned above, it's treated as self-evident. Sometimes an appeal to authority is made, often by saying "Atheist philosophers X and Y agree", without realizing, given most philosophers are atheists (~73%) and most are moral realists (~60%), so that isn't seemingly a widespread belief (and this appeal is kind of lazy I think, used to ignore defending a controversial assertion).
Furthermore, the argument is really nonsensical at base. It amounts to saying "Solve meta-ethics or God exists", without specifying why that is the case, or if that even makes sense (and the Divine Command theory often pushed by users of this argument is disturbing). William Lane Craig himself has usually done this sort of not defending that premise except by appeals to authority either.
And as the philosopher Stephen Law says, you could just as easily conclude that moral realism ('objective moral values and duties') is false by not accepting thesecond premise, and moral anti-realism is a defensible position i think.
Lastly, isn't the phrase 'objective values' contradictory? Values necessitate some conscious mind to be the valuer, but how can values be independent of (objective) minds while not being entirely dependent on them? I have a feeling it's a simple misunderstanding in my part.
