Once a person sees inconsistencies between what Stanton teaches and what the Bible teaches, it can shake their faith to the core. The church has become an idol that stands in the place of God, so when the church is shown to be fallible, it can cause a chain reaction of questions and doubts about God. If God is not who Stanton says he is, can it be that there really isn’t a God at all?

I happen to believe there are very strong reasons to believe in God, despite the growing ridicule from the secular circles of society. Christians need not cower in fear of being challenged on matters of faith. They just need to wrestle with these questions themselves, and be willing and ready to give an answer to the skeptics.

I firmly believe in the truth of what Thomas Jefferson said: “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.”

So does God exist? Let’s take a look at what is often called the moral argument for God. This formulation comes from an modern apologist and Christian philosopher I find particularly compelling named William Lane Craig.

The Moral Argument For God

  • Premise 1: If objective moral values exist, then God exists.
  • Premise 2: Objective moral values exist.
  • Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.

I contend that no modern atheist philosopher has been able to poke holes in this argument.


Premise 1: If objective moral values exist, then God existsThe first premise is actually the easiest, because atheist ethicist will most often agree wholeheartedly with Premise 1, at least until challenged with some thought experiments. They might word it in a negative formulation, like this: “There is, in fact, no God, therefore, objective moral values don’t exist. They are up to each society to work out.”

Atheist arguments for ethics are 100% relativistic, because that is all they can be. There has been no foundation offered for an objective morality by atheists, because they don’t believe morals are objective. Point conceded. That was easy.

Premise 2: Objective moral values do exist

Here’s what’s interesting. Atheists don’t believe in objective moral values, until offered some scenarios that illustrate the undeniable objectivity of some moral values. Objective moral values do, in fact, exist, and I believe we all know this intuitively at a very young age. If we are the result of random biological evolutionary processes, then so are morals. The only thing that make morals objective, is if they are fixed by in the nature of God, or by his divine command.Not sure of this? Consider that by “objective,” we don’t mean that every single moral question is objective and everyone must, therefore, agree with them. By contrast, “objective” means simply that there are some moral values that exist objectively whether everyone agrees with them or not.

I mean this in the same way that I say that the Brooklyn Bridge objectively exists.That doesn’t mean everyone agrees with that statement. There could be someone who has never seen it, and would prefer to deny the reality that the Brooklyn Bridge exists. Nevertheless, those of us who are rational can say objectively that it does.

Consider whether it was moral for Hitler to exterminate six million Jews even if his henchmen believed they were doing society a favor? Even the atheist will be hard pressed to say that wiping out six million men, women and children out of a sense of racial superiority would not be objectively immoral in all cultures and all times.

Is rape universally wrong–even on Andromeda, hypothetically? You see, the atheist who tries to find a philosophical basis for morals (that they are the evolutionary formulations of society, or that they are simply the result of some other relativistic social construct, or the evolutionary product of the desire for happiness), cannot answer this question in the affirmative. One doesn’t need an imagination to conceive of a society that considers the barter of women and girls for sexual slavery to be morally wonderful. We just need to look as far as ISIS. For them, raping a child makes them happy, and it is not morally wrong to them. Why should we have a problem with it? That’s their moral social framework, so why should we bother speaking out? To which I say, because it’s objectively evil. That’s why.

The question now has some bite to it. Is it universally, objectively, morally evil to imprison another human being and use them for sexual gratification? An honest atheist ethicist must still admit that there is no circumstance or social framework that would make these actions morally good. If we are to call these acts evil, we absolutely must admit there is some objective morality to base that on, because in the radical Islamist culture–if morals are relative–it’s not only OK, it’s sanctioned by Allah.

These thought experiments illustrate that in the absence of any fixed point of reference for morals, we are left with one option. There are, in fact, objective moral values. And so for the reasonable thinker, the second premise is established.

Conclusion: Therefore, God exists
This doesn’t even need to be argued, because it is a logical conclusions that arrives undeniably from the previous premises. The immoral atheist is acting in perfect accordance with his world view that there is no God, therefore, he can define his own morality. The moral atheist, on the other hand, has no choice but to accept that there is something that makes certain things universally evil in all cultures and all times, outside of social theories formulated in ivory towers.
Note that this argument is a defense of a loving God whose nature is in alignment with the morals we all know intuitively and objectively. It is simply a spring-point from which to answer this question: If God does indeed exist, who is he and how can I get to know him?
References:

I’ll leave you with a little poem I wrote called Does Evil Exist?

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