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Tinder's assertion that humans cannot be moral without God appears to be accurate in its conception of human motivation. However, since no man can know what God wants, the compelling parts of his argument ultimately points to the influence of religion as an institution on creating a society with common moral values. This paper will examine Tinder's arguments for the influence of God against enlightenment thinkers such as Kant's ideas of reason to analyze whether reason can have motivation without religion.

Arguably, human beings need an incentive to do things. This extends to the attempt to be moral. Tinder argues that this incentive is provided by God. So, humans are instinctually wired to seek rewards. This is evolutionarily based as behaviors that produce no reward or produce negative consequences are a waste of valuable time and resources. In order to be motivated or have a desire to perform a task, there must be some positive reward or at least the need to avoid a negative consequence. Even when acting counterattitudinally, against one's immediate inclination, one must see some kind of consequence or justification that makes the expending of effort worthwhile. Simply, humans do not perform actions that are completely worthless. Therefore, in the case of morality, where acting in an attempt to be moral frequently directly contradicts one's self interest, the motivation must come from something beyond material benefit. God provides a transcendental ideal of good. If a person knew they absolutely wouldn't be caught by the police for an illegal action such as running a red light in the middle of an empty street, or more extreme things like murder, what provides the incentive not to do it? A desire to be moral would stop most p...

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...things in different ways. The approach of religion is one of many that gives an incentive to pursue moral actions and gives a basis to begin analysis of moral action. Even in a religious base, a person still must apply critical reasoning to various situations to determining the moral course of action. In this religiously based motivation goes beyond a simple inclination. Reasoning based in religious incentive is demonstrated by Sir Thomas More, who while acknowledging that he didn't know what God wanted, used his best understanding of God through his conscience to strive for the most moral outcome. While not the only way for common values to be reached, religion and the idea of the judgment of a transcendental authority has provided a strong incentive for many people in a society to reach a common set of values which facilitate the functioning of a cohesive society.