Morality Without God

There is a popular quote that goes like this: "If God does not exists, everything is permitted." The idea is that God is the source of morality, and without him nothing really matters. This view is seriously held by many people. I suspect that the attitude is most strongly held by Christians living in the United States, particularly in the more religious parts of the country.

There are a number of different views that could be presented when someone says there is no morality without god. Some of these views contradict, and some do not:

1) In a metaphysical sense, god is the source of good. If god stopped being, we would not be capable of things like being kind or caring for those we love. Goodness would not be impossible or nonexistent without god existing.

2) God exists, and one must believe and follow him to do good and be good.

3) Because god defines what is good, god ceasing to exists would mean nothing could be called good. We might still be able to be kind, but we would not be able to call it good.

4) There could be no good because there would be no eternal consequence for actions. Proponents of this idea equate goodness with either fairness or meaning. People could murder and get away with it, and there would be no good if this were to happen. Nothing would matter, because god would not be there to make things right.

5) There are two influences pulling at us: god influencing us to do good, and the devil trying to get us to do evil. If there is no god, we cannot do good, and we would therefore do nothing but evil. If there were no devil, we would be unable to act.

A Few Quotes

Below are quotes taken from authors and regular religious people, most of them Christians:

"The initial act of eliminating our Creator God from our thinking is so immoral and unethical in itself as to render the following concern with ethical fine points quite absurd. It's as if students were to murder the teacher and then sit down to have serious discussions about proper manners in the classroom." - Stephen Keillor

"If we don't believe we are created by God, but simply highly evolved animals, and if we believe we have accountability only to society, then there is no end to the depths of depravity that we can go in our search to justify our actions. " - Ray Cotton

"... morality apart from God is arbitrary, indeterminate, and inconsistent" - William Lane Craig

I will add more quotes as they come to my attention if I feel they contribute something.

Unfortunately, some highly-religious people believe that nihilism is the only alternative to belief in god. In other words, they believe that because god is the source of their morality, there could not be any morality without him.

This view is surprisingly short-sighted and small-minded. Let us assume that there is no god. Does anything matter? Are there outcomes that are more preferable than others? If so, why are those outcomes preferable? Answering those questions in a rational matter begins to guide us to a rational morality.

If one outcome is preferable to another, we can say that it is better (more good) than the alternative. A valid basis for the rule of what makes one thing preferable to another is, as we shall see, the only real way to determine goodness.

For the sake of this section, assume that you answered that there is a god. Consider the following question on the chart: does god command the things he commands for a reason?

What god says is good; there is no reason he commands the things he does

If god does not command the things he commands for a reason - in other words, if what is good is defined as what god commands - then god exists outside and beyond the realm of goodness. If he exists outside of goodness, he cannot be called good. If he exists outside of justice by defining what is just, he cannot be called just. I don't think it would be a stretch to call god "completely arbitrary" if he tells us what to do for no real reason.

To illustrate, consider the case of a court. If justice is defined as being whatever the court says, then the court can never be called unjust, nor can it be called "just" in any meaningful sense of the term. Justice refers to a concept of fairness, but if what the court decides is always fair, regardless of what it says, then "justice" just means "what the court says," and has no conceptual reference. Just as an arbitrary court cannot be called just, a god who defines goodness with his will alone cannot be called good. If god is not good, it doesn't mean much to say that one cannot be moral/good without god.

God commands the things he does for a reason

God can be called good if he has rational reasons for doing the things he does. What, then, is the reason? What is the standard that god uses to determine whether something is good? Is it a desired outcome or consequence of his commandment? Does he do the things he does because he wants us to be happy? If so, it is happiness - not god - that makes things good.

If god god conforms to goodness, doing what he does seeking an intended result, we can discuss goodness without invoking the concept of god at all. We can, as Steven Pinker said, "cut out the middle man."

To summarize, god is either arbitrary and cannot be called good, or we can behave morally without god.

I used to be religious - so religious, in fact, that I gave up two years of my life to go from door to door teaching about Jesus as our savior. I was so converted at the time that I couldn't understand how someone could be happy without god, and I certainly couldn't see why anything else would matter.

It's not my intent to give a full story of my conversion to a more rational belief here, but I will summarize how I found meaning and morality without god.

One of my good friends who used to believe in the same things I did left the church and became an atheist while I was in a foreign country proselytizing at my own expense. We had several heated conversations on the existence of god, but I was firm in my belief. He pinned me down several times through reason, but I failed to see it. Part of my resistance to the idea of atheism was that I had equated it with misery and nihilism.

That all changed with a goddess named Carmen. Carmen and I worked together, and I had a fairly desperate crush on her. She seemed so happy, so full of life! I felt a burst of joy every time I saw her, and we soon became good friends. There was just one problem in my mind: she was an atheist. How, I wondered, could an atheist be so happy? She was one of the most compassionate, caring people I had ever met in my life.

There were many things that happened before I changed my belief system, including many conversations with scholars, psychologists, and religious experts. I've since lost touch with Carmen, but I imagine that she'd be happy to know that I am more like her. I have found meaning for its own sake, and I enjoy helping others because it makes me happy. I feel more free now than ever, and I more sure of my morality than I ever was.

It took me a while to develop a code of ethics without religion, but I am better for it. While I continue to refine my moral code over time, I have learned for myself that morality without god is not only possible, but ideal.