Can you be good without God?

Two different questions

This question often produces more heat than light because two different issues get mixed up:

Christians should say clearly and gladly that many atheists are honest, generous and brave. Some put believers to shame. The Bible expects this: every human being is made in God's image (Genesis 1:27) and has the "work of the law" written on the heart (Romans 2:15). The claim is not that unbelievers can't be good. It is that goodness itself points beyond nature to God.

The moral argument

The argument can be stated simply:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

"Objective" means true regardless of what any person or culture thinks. To say the Holocaust was objectively wrong is to say it would still have been wrong if the Nazis had won and convinced everyone it was right.

Premise 2: objective morality exists

Most people, including most atheists, believe this. We do not merely dislike torturing children for fun; we perceive that it is wrong. Moral reformers like William Wilberforce or Martin Luther King Jr. appealed to a standard above their societies' laws. If morality were just cultural preference, reformers would not be morally better, only different. Our moral experience is as much a part of reality as our sense experience, and we should not dismiss it without strong reason.

Premise 1: without God, objective morality is hard to ground

On atheism, humans are the product of blind natural processes. Richard Dawkins described the universe without God as one with no design, no purpose and no good or evil, "nothing but blind, pitiless indifference" (River Out of Eden, 1995). The atheist philosopher J. L. Mackie argued that objective moral values would be so "queer", so unlike anything else in a purely physical universe, that we should reject them. He even acknowledged in The Miracle of Theism (1982) that if they did exist, they would make God's existence more likely.

Atheist philosophers have offered alternatives, and they deserve fair consideration:

• Well-being. Sam Harris argues morality is about the flourishing of conscious creatures. But that assumes, rather than explains, that flourishing is objectively valuable and that we are obligated to pursue others' flourishing.
• Brute moral facts. Erik Wielenberg argues that basic moral truths simply exist, without any further explanation. This is a serious view, but it is hard to see how impersonal facts can obligate us. Duties seem to be owed to someone.
• Social contract. Morality as agreement for mutual benefit. But then those powerful enough to escape the contract have no reason to keep it, and the weak who cannot contribute have no claim on us.

Why God grounds morality

Christian theism explains the features of morality we actually experience:

• Moral values are grounded in God's own good character (Leviticus 19:2). Good is not an abstract rule above God, but what God himself is.
• Moral duties are grounded in the commands of a loving, just God, which express his character.
• Human dignity is grounded in the image of God, which every person bears, whatever their usefulness, abilities or status.
• Moral knowledge is explained by a Creator who made us able to recognize the good.
• Moral accountability makes sense: wrong done in secret still matters, because justice will ultimately be done.

Why it matters

The moral law shows us something about God, but it also shows us something about ourselves. Each of us falls short of the standards we know to be true, and even of our own standards (Romans 3:23). That is why the gospel is good news. God does not merely give us a law; in Christ he forgives lawbreakers and gives a new heart that loves what is good (Ezekiel 36:26). Being good without God is not the deepest need. Being made new by him is.