Isn't morality just a product of evolution?
Our moral feelings evolved because cooperation helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. Altruism, fairness and guilt are adaptations, like the eye or the hand. There's no need for God to explain morality, and no reason to think it reflects anything beyond our biology.
— See Michael Ruse & E. O. Wilson, 'Moral Philosophy as Applied Science', Philosophy 61 (1986); Richard Joyce, The Evolution of Morality (2006)
Evolution may help explain how humans came to have moral feelings, but it can't tell us whether those feelings are true. If our moral beliefs were shaped only for survival, not for truth, then we would have no reason to trust that cruelty is really wrong, and the same reasoning would also undermine our trust in reason itself. Christians can accept that God used natural processes to form us while holding that morality is grounded in his character, and that we were made able to recognize it.
What Scripture says
26Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.” 27So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Humans are made in God's image, the basis of both moral capacity and human dignity.
6Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man his blood will be shed; for in His own image God has made mankind.
Murder is wrong because humans are made in the image of God, not because it harms the group.
14Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15So they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts either accusing or defending them
God's law is written on human hearts, and conscience bears witness to it.
43You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘Hate your enemy.’ 44But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even tax collectors do the same? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even Gentiles do the same? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Jesus commands love for enemies, a morality that goes far beyond kin and reciprocal altruism.
29But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30Jesus took up this question and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31Now by chance a priest was going down the same road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32So too, when a Levite came to that spot and saw him, he passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan on a journey came upon him, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Take care of him,’ he said, ‘and on my return I will repay you for any additional expense.’ 36Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37“The one who showed him mercy,” replied the expert in the law. Then Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
The Good Samaritan shows that the neighbor we must love includes the stranger and outsider.
32Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them.
Paul says people know God's righteous decree even while acting against it.
The case
What the objection gets right
Evolutionary biology and psychology have produced fascinating research on the origins of cooperation, empathy and fairness. Many animals show behaviors that look like the building blocks of morality. Charles Darwin himself, in The Descent of Man (1871), proposed that conscience grew out of social instincts sharpened by intelligence and habit.
Christians need not be threatened by this research. God could create humans through gradual processes, and Christians hold a range of views on how he did (see below). The question is not whether our moral capacities have a history, but what follows from that history.
Two very different claims
| Claim | Type | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Our moral feelings developed through natural processes | Scientific (about origins) | Open to evidence; compatible with Christianity |
| Therefore morality is nothing but those feelings, with no objective truth | Philosophical (about truth) | Does not follow from the science |
The jump from the first claim to the second is a version of the genetic fallacy: judging whether something is true by how it came about. Our ability to do mathematics also has a natural history, but nobody concludes that 2 + 2 = 4 is merely an adaptation. Explaining how we came to believe something tells us nothing on its own about whether it is true.
The honesty of some evolutionary thinkers
Some evolutionary thinkers have been candid about where a purely naturalistic view of morality leads. Philosopher Michael Ruse and biologist E. O. Wilson argued that morality is an adaptation that helps us cooperate, and that our sense that it is objectively binding is a kind of useful illusion produced by our genes ("The Evolution of Ethics", New Scientist, 1985; see also Philosophy 61, 1986). Darwin speculated that if humans had been raised under the conditions of hive-bees, we might regard killing our brothers as a sacred duty.
If that is right, then moral convictions are not insights into right and wrong. They are just the instincts that happened to help our ancestors reproduce. On that view, there is no fact of the matter about whether the Holocaust was evil; we just happen to have been shaped to feel that it was.
Most people, including most atheists, cannot accept that conclusion. That should make us question the premise.
The debunking problem cuts deeper
Philosopher Sharon Street, herself not a theist, posed a "Darwinian dilemma" (2006): if natural selection shaped our moral beliefs for survival rather than for truth, it would be a remarkable coincidence if those beliefs happened to match objective moral facts. She concluded that realists about value face a serious problem. Theists agree that this is a problem, for naturalism.
Alvin Plantinga has pressed a related argument even further. If our cognitive faculties were shaped only by unguided natural selection, aimed at survival rather than truth, we would have reason to doubt not only our moral beliefs but our beliefs in general, including the belief in naturalism itself (Where the Conflict Really Lies, 2011, ch. 10). This argument is much debated among philosophers. But it shows that the evolutionary debunking of morality is not as simple as it sounds.
How Christianity explains the evidence
Christian theism explains both what evolutionary research has found and what it cannot explain:
- Why we have moral capacities at all. God made humans in his image (Genesis 1:27) and wrote his law on our hearts (Romans 2:15), whatever means he used to form us.
- Why those capacities are reliable. A good God would give his creatures faculties able, in principle, to recognize the good.
- Why morality goes beyond survival. Jesus' command to love enemies (Matthew 5:44), and his parable of the Samaritan who helps a stranger from a hostile group (Luke 10:29–37), go far beyond what kin selection or reciprocity would predict.
- Why our moral sense is also flawed. Sin distorts our judgment (Romans 1:21), which is why we need God's revelation and not just our instincts.
Why it matters
C. S. Lewis warned in The Abolition of Man (1943) that if values are reduced to instincts and conditioning, those with power will feel free to reshape humanity to suit themselves. If morality is only an evolved feeling, it has no authority to restrain the strong. But if it reflects the character of the God who made us, then every person, however weak, has a dignity no one can take away. That God did not leave us with a law alone. In Christ he came to restore the image we have damaged and to write his law anew on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33).
Word study
hebrew · “image, likeness” · Genesis 1:27
Used of a representation or likeness. Humans are made in God's 'image', which includes the capacity to know and reflect God's goodness. Genesis 9:6 grounds the wrongness of murder in this image: human worth is given by God, not earned by usefulness to the tribe or species.
“But what about…?”
Doesn't evolution explain altruism perfectly well through kin selection and reciprocity?
It may explain why we help relatives and those who help us back. But moral obligation goes further: to love enemies, care for strangers who can never repay, and protect the disabled and the unborn. More importantly, explaining why we *feel* obligated is not the same as showing we really *are* obligated.
Isn't this argument anti-science?
No. The argument doesn't deny anything that evolutionary biology discovers. It questions a philosophical conclusion drawn from it: that if morality has a natural history, it can't be objectively true. Many Christians accept evolutionary biology entirely while rejecting that philosophical leap.
Why couldn't evolution just happen to produce true moral beliefs?
On naturalism, there is no obvious connection between what helps genes survive and what is morally true. Philosopher Sharon Street argued that this creates a serious problem for anyone who is both a Darwinian and a moral realist. If God guided the process, however, there is a reason our moral faculties would track the truth.
If morality is grounded in God, why do cultures disagree about it so much?
Cultures disagree about many details, but there is striking agreement on core principles: fairness, honesty, care for children, condemnation of murder and betrayal. Disagreements often concern facts or who counts as a person. The Bible also teaches that sin distorts our moral vision (Romans 1:21).
Where Christians differ
Go deeper
- book · 2011Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and NaturalismAlvin Plantinga
- book · 1943The Abolition of ManC. S. Lewis
- article · 2006A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value, Philosophical Studies 127Sharon Street
- book · 2006The Evolution of MoralityRichard Joyce
- book · 2006The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for BeliefFrancis S. Collins
- book · 2011Good God: The Theistic Foundations of MoralityDavid Baggett & Jerry L. Walls
Sources (6)
- Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871), chapter on the moral sense: social instincts as the origin of conscience
- Michael Ruse & Edward O. Wilson, 'The Evolution of Ethics', New Scientist 108 (17 October 1985)
- Michael Ruse & Edward O. Wilson, 'Moral Philosophy as Applied Science', Philosophy 61 (1986)
- Sharon Street, 'A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value', Philosophical Studies 127 (2006)
- Richard Joyce, The Evolution of Morality (MIT Press, 2006)
- Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies (Oxford University Press, 2011), ch. 10: the evolutionary argument against naturalism
Related questions
Can you be good without God?
Yes, atheists can be good people, and the Bible explains why: God's moral law is written on every human heart. But that is a different question from whether goodness can be *real* without God. If there is no God, it is hard to see what makes moral duties objectively binding rather than just feelings or social conventions. Our deep conviction that some things are truly wrong is itself a clue that God exists.
Isn't God's goodness arbitrary?
The dilemma offers only two options, but there is a third. Goodness is neither an arbitrary decree of God nor a standard above him; it is grounded in God's own unchanging nature. God's commands flow from who he is: perfectly loving, just and true. So they are not arbitrary, and God could not command cruelty for its own sake, any more than he could lie. Every moral theory has to stop somewhere; the Christian stops at a supremely good person.
If there is no God, does life have any meaning?
Without God, people can still find life meaningful in a personal sense: love, beauty and good work are real joys. But if the universe is ultimately purposeless and everything ends in death and cosmic heat death, then nothing we do has lasting significance; we create meaning, we don't discover it. Many atheist thinkers have admitted this. Christianity says life has real, objective meaning: we were made by God, for God, and nothing done in love for him is wasted.
This entry is a draft and has not yet been theologically reviewed.