The Adequacy of the Moral Argument for Explaining the Existence of God
The moral argument like many arguments for the existence of God comes
in many different forms. All of these set out to prove God’s existence
from the evidence of morality in the world.
Morality is about understanding the difference between the right and
wrong action in a situation, the moral person has this understanding
and then acts appropriately. The moral arguments first problem or flaw
is that it assumes and works on the principle that the majority of
people have some experience of morality.
Newman presumes God’s existence not from moral law but from the fact
of conscience ‘we fell responsibility…the voice of conscience, this
implies that there is one to whom we are responsible’.[1] Newman feels
that the conscience acts almost like an inner voice that guides our
behaviour and that our conscience is the ‘voice of God’ within each of
us.
It is said by supporters of the argument that, St Paul hinted at the
possibility of a moral law when he said that the Gentiles had ‘the
divine law written on their hearts’[2] suggesting some inner knowledge
of what is right and wrong. This law as Kant says is universal and
whatever religion people belong to they still are touched by the
experience of a moral law. This experience Kant says comes from
questions raised by our inner moral life, what we usually call a
conscience. Moral behaviour, Kant is adamant, is rational behaviour
and that we have a good reason to be moral and that this is a
fundamental principle of morality; that if you have a reason to do
something then you have a reason to do it. A moral reason is al...
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...jective moral laws suggest that there is a divine-law giver who
wrote these laws. He later says that since commands and laws do not
write themselves, they must be either brute facts requiring no
explanation or put there by God. This argument is also supported by
Don Trethowan who said objective laws are ‘far from being self
explanatory’.[4] But to believe this argument people also need to
accept and believe that there are moral laws that exist in the first
place, also seemingly proving that the moral argument is adequate for
explaining the existence of God.
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[1] Philosophy of Religion for A level pg 83
[2] Clarke Patrick- Examining Philosophy and Ethics pg 15
[3] Philosophy of Religion for A lever pg 84
[4] Philosophy of Religion pg 83