¶1The moral gap has [music] to do with okay imagine uh the best that we can do as human beings is live at a certain level. So okay so I'm giving you a visual now okay they say this level but morality as we all know uh calls us to live at this level somewhere above and this is the gap between the best that we can do right and then what morality demands now morality says you ought to live at this level we do the best we can do and we're here and that's kind of a problem right because you all familiar with ought implies can right it doesn't make a lot of sense to say you ought to do something if you can't but the problem is we really can't discharge all the duties of morality. We fall short. However hard we try and the harder we try, the more viscerally aware we become of our inability to do it. So is it not the case that autumn flies can?
¶2[snorts] Our special guest is Dr. David Bagot who has co-authored a new book with Dr. Craig, Reasonable Moral Faith. We're going to continue our conversation on it. I've noticed anecdotally that several atheist philosophers try to hold to some form of moral realism as if uh it has well perhaps more philosophical appeal.
¶3One example is Dr. Peter Singer who recently announced that he's moved toward some form of moral realism even though he's agnostic. Uh do you notice any trends like that Dave? moral realism or something else. >> Yeah, I do.
¶4You know, there there are a great many secular folks, atheists and agnostics and such who uh when when asked will say without hesitation that they're something like moral realists. You know, they think some things are absolutely right and some things are absolutely wrong. And sometimes they'll even, you know, bristle and say, you know, what do you take me for? Of course I see this is right or that is wrong. And I believe them and in fact I think uh that they're being profoundly honest that they can see these things uh not in virtue of being an atheist or whatever just in virtue of being a human being.
¶5Right? We have the tools we have the faculties and capacities to recognize and apprehend moral truths and they can see them I think just as clearly as we can. >> That's that's not the issue, right? Uh the issue is you know what's going to best account for the reality of these various moral truths and such. Um but yeah, some uh some atheists uh some really good philosophers uh attempt, you know, to um back up moral realism with the resources they have at their disposal.
¶6And I think they should try that. You know, that's an important thing for them to uh attempt and uh you know, various uh various efforts um uh succeed to various degrees. Um, but ultimately we think a theistic account is is just better. But the fact that there are atheists and agnostics who would claim something like moral realism is great from our perspective because >> you know [clears throat] that's that's halfway there to to the moral argument. >> So it really gets the ball rolling, gets the discussion started.
¶7So we're excited to see that in and in a lot of ways we are we're allies with them up to that point entirely, you know. So, so that's that's great to have that kind of common ground. There is though another trend of course uh among some secularists in in the other direction where they uh sort of water morality down and they might embrace you know one of the alternatives to moral realism or they they might even push so hard as to say there are no moral facts at all. Right? Nichz was famous for saying that.
¶8Um but there's a whole school of thought uh that I think we'll discuss called error theory that basically says this that there are just no moral facts at all. And in that sense right we kind of agree and disagree right on their worldview. You know you can sort of understand why they might come to that conclusion right but personally I much prefer the others who say no we are strong believers in morality and its objectivity and its prescriptivity and all that because then we can have that discussion about what best explains it. you have to back up another step with the others who uh are denying these moral truths. And in light of what we just said about the the the atheists who can see and apprehend these moral truths so clearly, I think these other folks, they're they're in a sense logically consistent, right?
¶9But in another sense, I really think they have to almost deny a part of their humanity to say taking a baby and throwing it throwing it into the wood chipper, it's just neutral. There's really nothing morally to say about such a thing, right? I mean, you have to swallow really hard and pay a pretty steep price uh if if you want to say something like like that. And so, yeah, you you see both trends among among our atheist friends. >> I can say anecdotally that in my experience, I've often used the moral argument as part of a cumulative case for theism in debates on university campuses.
¶10And almost never does my opponent respond by adopting moral anti-realism. Instead, they'll try to affirm the objectivity of moral values and duties without God. But almost no one uh would deny the reality or objectivity of moral values and duties. So, Walter Cinnid Armstrong, uh, Louise Anthony, Sam Harris, on and on. The typical response to the moral argument that I get, uh, is not moral anti-realism or subjectivism.
¶11>> You examine several competing theories in this section, starting with expressivism. Bill, why don't you start and walk us through that? >> Yes. I think that the chart on page 155 of the book uh is worth the price of the entire book. Dave has here constructed uh a kind of flowchart where by asking questions you proceed from one view to the next until you finally arrive at theistic u moral realism.
¶12And the first node in the uh the flowchart is whether uh or not there are moral propositions. Uh do moral statements have a truth value? Are they either true or false? And the expressivist denies this. says that there are no um propositions expressed by moral sentences.
¶13So if you say something like stealing is wrong, all you're doing is just expressing your emotions. It's as though you were saying steing a uh there's nothing there that's true or false. And uh that's the view of expressivism. And as Dave indicates, this is a a hard view to hold because it means that there aren't even moral falsehoods. Uh if someone asserts that hatred is good, uh or that you ought to abuse your children, you ought to hurt them, you can't say that that's false because there are no moral truths or falsehoods.
¶14These are just expressions of emotion that have no truth value. >> I I just find it so interesting that those who would claim to be expressivists um don't don't say, "Well, in light of the fact that um these moral sentences uh don't express a truth value, why don't why don't we just replace the language of morality altogether?" they they continue to use the language and seem to encourage others to use the language knowing full well that most people don't use language moral language in the way that they describe and there just seems to be a kind of disingenuousness about that. Why why don't they simply say look rather than continuing to borrow the cache and purchase of moral language given our reductionist analysis that renders these things non-cognitivist altogether why don't we just assue the such language and be a little bit more honest about what we're saying here you know like uh whatever you know uh pedophilia ugg we're done I mean if that's all that there is but when we say it's wrong right most people understand that to be something quite different what from what the expressivists uh would suggest. I just find that uh I just find that interesting. >> Well, again, I want to encourage everyone to get this book.
¶15And as you said, Bill, the the metaeththics chart on page 155 is worth the price of the book. I found it very helpful in organizing all the isms and so on. Next on the chart is error theory. Dave, if you would start on that one, please. Yeah, sometimes this is called nealism.
¶16This is the a view that says moral sentences are cognitivist. They have a truth value, right? So in that sense different from expressivism. Uh but what the er error theorist says is that every moral proposition has a particular truth value and that is false. [laughter] So every moral claim that you make is false.
¶17So this is very much a a rejection of there being any moral facts. Again, this is sort of a nichian view. Although Jerry Walls and I we we had this disagreement, you know, he argued there these realist elements of Nietze and you can read niche in that particular way, but I I don't tend to do that. Uh but the the big name associated with error theory is JL Mackey JL Mackey. And um yeah, his basic argument is kind of a famous one.
¶18It's his so-called queerness argument against morality. Queerness in the sense of like oddness. it's a bad fit or something like this. And and the idea is that uh moral facts and truths would would carry with them certain features that are just an odd fit with a naturalistic world, right? uh especially the kind of binding authority of morality and the connection between moral claims and you know empirical claims like if you torture a cat there's empirical claims involved there but there's also this mysterious moral quality right what's that connection and then how would we have knowledge of the moral facts if they were to exist and in all of these ways he suggests that there's a real oddness or or queerness uh about morality uh especially in a natural istic world if the if all that there is is the natural world.
¶19But of course, we're rather inclined to agree and this is what gives, you know, part of the weight to this this dimension of the moral argument, right? Because yeah, the the natural world in and of itself does have a hard time explaining those things, right? But we don't we don't usually start there. We start with our moral experiences that seem to suggest and very strongly for all of us atheists and theists alike that moral facts are real that they have purchase that they have authority that they have prescriptive power and all these various things and then you you know if you're trying to do good philosophy you should ask yourself well what would explain those things right and not simply say well it's a naturalistic world uh I don't even need an argument for that these things are bad fit so I'm going to throw them out, right? No, you you take them seriously.
¶20And this is so much the logic of the moral argument. You take these qualities that would be otherwise odd in a in a naturalistic world and explain that they're not odd at all in a theistic world. In a theistic world, they make they make excellent sense that we've been created by God and in his nature and for a purpose and for a reason. And that this world is shot through with moral significance. um human beings have uh infinite value.
¶21There are certain things that we should do or should not do and pain of genuine guilt. This is what our moral experience, you know, sort of delivers to us. And I think our job is to take that evidence seriously. In principle, you could maybe find reasons to throw all of that out, you know, but you you don't start there, right? You you take that evidence seriously and you see where the evidence leads and we argue that it leads to theism.
¶22And one last point about this which I find really really interesting and I need the book uh to to read a few lines from this um and I wish I would had remembered the page but JL Mackey talks about all three of these features of uh oddness in on one of these pages here and uh with respect to each point he makes the case that well theism would solve the problem. [laughter] This was an atheist, right, who admitted in each in each of these three points of oddness, theism would solve the issue. And so the first ca with respect to the first uh he said this is a quote from Mackey intrinsically prescriptive features supervening upon natural ones constitute so odd a cluster of qualities and relations that they are most unlikely to have arisen without an all powerful god to create them. If then there are such intrinsically prescriptive objective values, they make the existence of a god more probable than it would have otherwise been without them. So that's the first point of of uh querness.
¶23And then the second point, if we adopted moral objectivism, we should have to regard the relations of supervenience which connect values and obligations with their natural grounds as synthetic. They would then be in principle something that a god might conceivably create. And since they would otherwise be a very odd sort of thing, the admitting of them would be an inductive ground for admitting also a god to create them. This is Mackey talking. This is JL Mackey.
¶24And then the last point on knowledge men direct quote from Mackey direct quote. Men cannot by observation and experiment discover exactly what life is ultimately most satisfying for them. But given that God knows this desires that they should so live and has somehow revealed corresponding explicit instructions to them, men can reasonably resort to such revelations to infer this indirectly so as to complete their determination of this required and ultimately satisfying life. So God could give us this knowledge if he so chooses. So So there's something profoundly honest, it seems to me, about Mackey when he says these things.
¶25And and and again, Mackey is not watering morality down. He's saying it involves these features, right? And he doesn't deny that. He doesn't domesticate it. He admits it.
¶26Then he finds them a bad fit with a naturalistic world. And of course, we're in complete agreement with him on that. It is interesting that he didn't say God would explain these things so that gives me moral reason to believe that God exists. That's what >> we say. He doesn't do that.
¶27Um but you know that's that's the real point of departure. >> Bill, any additions on error theory? Well, just to step back a moment so that our listeners have a clear understanding of the difference between expressivism and error theory, which I think are sometimes blurred together. Expressivism says that there are neither moral truths nor moral falsehoods. That these moral sentences simply have no truth value.
¶28Moral error theory affirms that moral sentences do have an objective truth value and that they are all false. We are massively in error in making these moral judgments. So that's the difference between the two theories. Um, and as Dave I think very uh helpfully pointed out, the features of morality that seem so queer, so strange on naturalism are to be expected on theism. And so that gives us, I think, good grounds for rejecting error theory.
¶29Next up is constructivism, which includes ethical relativism. Dave, >> ethical relativism. Yeah. So that's one of the examples of constructivism. Constructivism tries to sort of steer a middle course between expressivism and moral realism.
¶30And the constructivists say well there are moral truths. Uh but they are mind dependent and specifically human mind dependent. Right? So if we all say agree on something being moral then it is rendered thereby moral for us in some sense or other. There's a bunch of variations of constructivism and I won't get into the more complicated ones here.
¶31Um but but but relativism, ethical relativism is is an example an example. So the relativists, you know, they use language like morally right and morally wrong and that sort of thing. So you know they're cognitivists in this sense, right? Um and and but unlike the era theorists, you know, they do think that some moral propositions are true. Okay, so we're getting closer, right?
¶32I think we're getting closer to to realism. Um the the the challenge it seems to me though is this human mind dependence. I'm not in principle opposed to mind dependence. We're talking about something like the divine mind, right? But human mind dependence this seems to be a very strange thing.
¶33And and relativism gives us a nice sort of uh example as to why. Right? So ethical relativism says look if say the preponderance of folks in your culture think something is morally right or wrong or good or evil whatever then it is right in virtue of that consensus or preponderance or however you might define your version of ethical relativism but that just seems to make morality a matter of taking a vote right let's just take a poll here right so back when slavery child slavery horrific child slavery was approved by the majority of people in a society take the vote, most approved of it, therefore it was right in that situation, right? But it would be wrong today because most people would vote against it. That's just not how you do that's just not how you do ethics at all.
¶34Right? I mean, that's just that's just just transparently bad. Um, and you might wonder why anyone is motivated to take this view. I suspect it's because people think it's an open-minded sort of view like well I want to be [clears throat] an ethical relativist because I want to give people space to come to their own conclusions and all and and that in in principles you know to a limited degree is a is a real virtue but of course ethical relativism doesn't help it at all because if you happen to be in a culture in which the majority view is intolerance of other views then intolerance of other views would be according to ethical relativism the right view for you to take. And that just seems that just seems obviously wrong.
¶35And and and one last thing I might add about ethical relativism, it's it's a really bad theory. And and I hate to uh paint all the constructivists in this way because, you know, there are considerably better examples of it. But it's also kind of fun to take down ethical relativism. And some people do still claim to believe it. So since it really is genuinely about the worst theory that you can come up with, I'll say one last thing about it.
¶36It completely precludes the idea of something like moral progress. So take the slavery example. Back when [clears throat] the preponderance of people supported it, it was right. And then at a certain point there was this tipping point and the majority of people say we're opposed to it in a particular culture. Right?
¶37So we didn't go from being wrong to being right. We went from being right to being right. Right? We were never wrong. So ethical relativism has all sorts of unpalatable implications.
¶38Uh and in that sense though I do think that it kind of points to the fundamental issue with constructivism that human mind dependence is just not going to be enough to sustain and undergur the objectivity of morality. >> Some constructivists try to avoid the personal and cultural relativism that Dave described by adopting a sort of ideal observer theory. For example, that if there were a set of perfectly rational people that they would be able to draw up the list of objective moral values and duties that uh impose themselves upon us. Uh and that therefore it's based upon this sort of ideal um observer of the human situation. And I think that the problem here is that it conflates um the ontological foundation of moral values with the epistemic question of how we come to know them.
¶39It might well be the case that a perfectly rational set of people could correctly outline our moral duties and the moral values that exist at least uh in in rough measure that uh a perfectly rational group of people could come up with such a list. But they don't construct the foundation for that list. they don't invent the list themselves or if they do then as Dave says it just becomes mind dependent again and therefore there's really no objectivity to it. I think that such a group of people could come to recognize the objective moral values and duties that exist, but the question of their onlogical foundation still remains. Again, in the book, after looking at some rivals, you talk about the case for moral realism.
¶40What are some of the main considerations when building a robust case for moral realism? again starting with you Dave and then Bill your thoughts. >> Sure. Yeah. So, so Jerry Walls and I we we wrote an entire book on this.
¶41It's called the the good, the the right and the real. And and it's it's a little funny the the background of there because, you know, we we we first did good God years ago and and defended theistic ethics against objections. And then we wrote God and cosmos and critique secular ethics. Then we wrote a history of the moral argument. And having done all of that, we realized, you know, we really uh ought to probably argue for moral realism since the whole dang thing is predicated on it and we haven't really touched on the issue because early on I I just thought, well, you know, everybody's going to agree with me about torturing children for the fun of it and um you know that it's wrong and but turns out, you know, there are people who who are in need of an argument.
¶42So, we thought we'd do a whole book on it. And then in this book with Dr. Craig, we that's the middle portion of the of the book. And so we we give this case for moral realism. And we started by knocking down those alternatives.
¶43And and that's an important that's an important thing, right? Because if the alternatives don't work, then you're going to be led inexorably toward moral realism. Um and then we give a wide assortment of arguments in favor of it. And obviously I can't summarize all of that here, but I I'll point to one uh just one because it's kind of quick and easy to sort of cite it and kind of feel the force of it. Okay?
¶44And it it's sort of um motivated by GE Moore and it's basically this idea of well what are you going to argue what are you what what are you going to point to to argue against moral realism that is more sure or more certain than the basic truths of morality itself. Right? So we have like a strong conviction most all of us about the wrongness of torturing children for fun. You might even call it moral common sense. I actually like doing that because I like Thomas Reid a lot and that common sense phrase, you know, is tied to him so well and he and he's a significant moral apologist.
¶45He he was right before Kant who kind of led led up to the first full-fledged moral moral apologist. At any rate, I tend to agree. Yeah. So, it is moral common sense, right? And that explains uh our apprehension uh of these of these moral truths.
¶46Um but it's still sort of then underdetermined what what accounts for the truth right it's self-evidence isn't the same as self-explanation right so uh yeah I think that um there there these recognitions that all of us as human beings can have uh that there are some things that are right and some things that are wrong some things that are good and some things that are bad and we are so sure of those things most of us right this is exactly why those affforementioned atheists bristle and say, "Well, of course I can see that, right? I don't have to believe in God to see it." And they're right. They don't have to believe in God, right? But the question that we want to explore is might God provide the best explanation for the very existence of these things that they can see so clearly. So the clear apprehension of the truths doesn't answer the question.
¶47It sort of raises the question and these things that we can see so clearly, we can apprehend so clearly, right? What what is going to provide an explanation of them? Moreover, we can see them with such clarity. What are you going to point to if you want to be a skeptic that's more sure or more clearer, right, than this, right? So, so give me an argument whose premises are as sure as the wrongness of child torture for fun, right?
¶48I think they're in an epistemic bind here and that there's a genuine difficulty in sustaining skepticism when it comes to arguing against something so common sensical as you know the basic tenants of morality. I'd want to add to what Dave has said that um part of the positive case for moral realism will not be simply the clarity uh of moral values and duties that we grasp in moral experience but as Dave said the ability to provide an explanation for this and this is where I think the real strength of what's called divine command theory three comes to the four. Um, I think Dave and I are both committed to the notion that God himself is the paradigm of goodness. He is what Plato called the good. Except in this case, the good is not some abstract object.
¶49It's a person. It's a a concrete object. and that moral obligations are the result of imperatives that are issued by a qualified authority and God is such an authority and therefore his commands to us constitute our moral duties. So moral values are rooted in God himself and our moral obligations are rooted in his commands to us. And that provides I find a really satisfying um metaethical theory that goes handin glove with a robust moral realism.
¶50>> Well, now let's get to it. The five-fold moral argument. Dave, talk about the five moral phenomena that you cover for the argument. And Bill, any followup you might have, then we'll look at u some objections. >> Sure.
¶51Thanks. Uh, absolutely. Let's start with what uh what morality kind of points to, right? We've been talking about um objective moral values, objective moral duties. That's very important.
¶52Um, you know, virtues are are very important. And that's sort of like the goal in in in uh morality that we become particular kinds of people exhibiting certain kinds of virtues and things like that. Um and then there are other things besides but I want to and I'm going to get to those because those are the five points of the argument. But I but I want to interject something quickly if I could because last time that we all talked uh this question of what morality points to what morality involves came up and I had a thought afterwards which is always great. You know I should have said this.
¶53So, I'm going to take the occasion if you don't mind. But, uh, CS Lewis has this analogy you guys might remember of of boats, um, you know, uh, traveling along and how they kind of can sort of be a metaphor for morality in in three ways. First, you want each boat, you know, to be sound. You don't want it to be spring and leaks and and, you know, sink in, right? Uh, and that has to do with sort of individual moral transformation, right?
¶54each of us is to be u become a a person of virtue over time. Right? So that's that ind individualist uh element of of morality and that's that's very nice. But you also don't want the boats say bumping into each other, right? Um and violently and so forth and risking uh you know going down for that reason.
¶55And this is that element of morality that's kind of social, right? uh that conduces to social harmony and our getting along getting to get getting along together well and uh loving one another and and so so forth, right? So there's that social component and that that's an important aspect of morality as well. And then there's this kind of teological element, right? Because the boats are like going somewhere.
¶56They have a goal. They have a destination. And morality is very much about that too, right? that all of us as human beings individually and together we have this kind of um goal in mind of becoming particular kinds of people arguably right this is that te theological component of morality that Aristotle talked about a a great deal but that has been incorporated into a lot of you know Christian theology too with Aquinas and others right our telos and becoming the people we were meant to be and uh and all of that but all of those are dimensions of morality so I just wanted to interject that u and it and And it's apppropo here because when it comes to moral arguments for God's existence, what what a moral apologist has to decide to do when they sort of say, "Okay, what what's my argument going to look like is they have to make a decision. What which particular dimensions of morality are you going to focus on?" And then how are you going to couch the argument?
¶57Is it and we talked about that before, right? Is it going to be deductive, inductive, abductive, or is it going to be kind of a reformed experiential thing or something else, right? So what we decided to do in this book was choose five aspects or five dimensions of of morality uh and then to construct it uh in an inductive way where each component adds plausibility points to theism and then altogether they add you know quite quite a quite a powerful argument in favor of theism. So the five elements well I start with we start with Dr. Craig's uh objective moral values and objective moral duties.
¶58So those are the first two prongs of our fivepart moral argument. And then oh and there's a funny story about this. So when when I I'll get back to what I'm saying in a second. So so when Jerry and I wrote uh Good God, we had a book panel discussion out in California with Paul Copan and Dr. Craig.
¶59And Dr. Craig discussed the first chapter of Good God where I where we had sort of laid out all these ideas, you know, because we're it was kind of unwieldy, you know, I just kind of went on and on and um Jerry had less to do with it. I take full blame, but you know, the was unwieldy and and and it was kind of messy. I I I just couldn't quite get my mind around it. There were all these interesting elements of morality.
¶60I was like, you know, God's relevant to all of these things. And I tried my best and it was pretty lame to connect them and sort of tie it together, but it was like this flimsy collection of ideas. So anyway, I I was naturally very pleased with it when I wrote it. And then in retrospect, I look back and think and uh and it was Dr. Craig.
¶61I have to thank Dr. Craig for this. So in that panel discussion he said something like you know this first chapter is just extraordinarily labyrinthine and it wasn't a compliment. It was he was suggesting that okay let's get this under control. Let's let's h let's uh handle this a little bit more efficiently and he was right.
¶62So by the time we wrote our second book in the tetrology Jerry and I had uh come across this uh you know way of organizing things. Okay. So we start uh Dr. Craig and I and and Jerry and I did the same. Uh we start with objective moral values, objective moral duties and then and then and then three more things and we [snorts] could have said 10 things.
¶63We could have done it in 10 things, right? But we have to sort of streamline it, right? So the third had to do with moral knowledge. So is an epistemological argument. Um, and this is another version of the moral argument and it's one of the prongs of ours.
¶64And interestingly enough, Richard Swinburn, who is otherwise a skeptic of the moral argument, says there's one variant of the moral argument that he thinks adds at least a little bit to the plausibility of theism, and it's the epistemic version. So, we we have the epistemic version in there, and that's the third component. And then the fourth and fifth components, um, we went with what John Hair calls the two aspects of moral faith. And one is involves an argument from grace which we'll probably have occasion to discuss here momentarily. And the other an argument from providence and that has to do with the the coincidence of happiness and holiness or or virtue and and fulfillment and flourishing and things like this.
¶65And when I when I wrote the history of the moral argument, I found this to be such a recurring theme. We don't talk about it as much today, uh, but it is throughout the entire history of of the moral argument. It's fascinating. And so we have a whole chapter on that tracing tracing that history and arguing that it's another dimension to include. So all five of those then together make for our five-fold moral argument.
¶66Well, I would just say that those who are familiar with uh my own work will recognize how much fuller and richer the treatment is in this book. I focused only on those first two aspects, but this book adds all of these additional aspects uh in which a theistic perspective helps to uh construct a robust ethics. And so I I think we're really in uh Dave's debt for his contribution in this. the good and objective moral values uh always seems to be the first things that come up when talking with someone about this and fortunately you address both topics in this section. Discuss that and some other objections Dave.
¶67>> Yeah. So the good we start we start there you know and like Dr. Craig said earlier uh if you want to be a divine command theorist and you don't have to be a divine command command theorist to be a theistic ethicist or to believe in the the power of the moral argument. We happen to be uh you know divine command theorists. Uh it's one among other approaches.
¶68I I I tend to like it for a number of reasons and so on, right? But it's it's based on something prior which is that uh God as the good, right? And here we're heavily in the debt of uh to Robert Adams. Robert Adams he he his uh absolute landmark work published in 1999 um finite and infinite goods as a book we were waiting to come out for like 20 years and uh I I don't know if you know this Dr. Craig, it I basically sat down to start my dissertation and I was waiting for that book to come out and it came out just as I turned to my dissertation and so that's one of the reasons why Adams had had such a huge influence on me but so many uh the work was just terrific.
¶69So finite and infinite goods probably the the you know just about the best thing that's ever been written on god god and ethics. Yes. >> Uh so he he gives this sort of account of uh God as best sort of uh filling that role of the good as was suggested earlier, right? Like this is the Platonic good as he conceived it, but it's not just an abstraction. It's it's a person, right?
¶70Or it's the triune God ultimately. So uh we we argue that, but that can get a little abstract and there's nothing wrong with that. But in for present purposes, let me let me shift to a particular kind of value, a particular kind of good that is is one of my favorite things to do in in discussing the moral argument. And that's that's to and again it's one of many things you could do, but but I think this one really has a lot of power punch uh sort of packed into it. Uh it take the notion of intrinsic human worth or intrinsic human value.
¶71So it's a specific good, right? Um it really helps you sort of delimit the discussion pretty quickly and it enables you to say to something to someone like um an atheist interlock you on my view are infinitely more valuable than you think you are right >> because we believe that all of us as human beings have been created in God's uh image for reasons and purposes and um and you know we there is just this possibility of a of an infinitely glorious future future ahead if we avail ourselves of God's love and grace, right? Um and and everyone whether they believe in God yet or not and we none of us believe came into this world believing that God exist. We all have to kind of go through that process, right? Uh but not just believing in God but submitting to him and allowing him to do his work in in your life.
¶72I mean you can reach your your potential in this way and you can you you can be lavished with all of God's love and and grace and you can be used of him in this world. and it's this marvelous thing. We're not particularly good as human beings. We're kind of broken morally. We need to be fixed and all that.
¶73That that's one issue. Right now, we're talking about the value of human beings. And in our view, right, um theism and Christianity in particular provide an impeccable explanation of our intuitive sense that people have infinite dignity, value, worth, and so and so forth, right? And so this is one of the big emphases in that particular chapter. we uh sort of focus in after discussing goodness per se and value per se to the value the distinctive uh intrinsic inestimable value of human beings and and I think that there's a real bridgebuilding opportunity when we have that sort of discussion with our interlocutors I mean so much of apologetics today not Dr.
¶74Craig's version, but you know, so so many they're they're they're like they're treating our say atheist locks as like the enemy. We got to take them down and all this sort of craziness. No, we're trying to persuade them, right? We're trying to invite them on board and get them excited about it, right? Uh we're really on the same we're on their side, right?
¶75Right. We're we're saying there's this gloriously good news for for for us all. And part of that is that we've been made in God's image and we are of infinite value. and and worth. There's a lot of work that has to be done to make us morally good, but we are morally valuable in virtue of, you know, our having been made in God's image.
¶76Anyway, I think that that aspect of the moral argument has tremendous value to actually not just win an argument, but to persuade, >> you know, to move people. I think that this aspect of the moral argument is what makes the argument so inescapable because every day that you get up, you answer the question, uh, are other people intrinsically valuable by how you treat them? Do you treat other people as ends in themselves or do you treat them merely as means to be exploited for your own ends? And the answer to that question is, as I say, inescapable uh and I think provides uh a a great deal of the strength and the the force of the moral argument. Okay, for those taking notes at home like I am right now, summarize the argument if you would, Dave.
¶77>> So, so to reiterate, yeah, the five points again are objective moral values, objective moral duties, moral knowledge, and then what we call the two dimensions of contean moral faith following John Hair. The argument from grace and the argument from providence. Again, the argument from grace we'll discuss, I think, here in a minute. And the argument from Providence has to do with that conspicuous coincidence between virtue and happiness for which theism generally but Christianity particularly has an impeccable explanation. Before we get to part four, give us a brief overview of the argument from grace.
¶78Dave, I find personally I find this very appealing. >> As do I. Another dimension of the moral argument that I think is so powerful. And by the way, for listeners, you you know, you can pick and choose in having a conversation with someone, listen to where they're [clears throat] coming from, and then choose from among the these various pieces of the moral argument which which to accentuate, which to emphasize, right? Because one might one aspect might be more relevant and gerine to that particular individual than than others, right?
¶79This is one that I think really can speak to a lot of people. Um yeah, the argument from grace. Okay. Yes. All right.
¶80So the fellow to look at here besides Kant because it ultimately traces back to him but is our contemporary John Hair, right? Who taught at Yale, son of RM Hair, famous atheist philosopher of the 20th century. Any John Hair, he's wonderful. He's he's delightful. And by the way, he and I have edited a book together that's coming out with OUP in September where we have, I think, 25 or so chapters from most all the leading uh theistic ethicists in the world today.
¶81And it's really going to be uh groundbreaking and wonderful, I think. So, be on the lookout for that. It's called moral arguments for God's existence, navigating the terrain. OP September. Tell your friends.
¶82Okay. So, John Hair is wonderful. He and he's written a trilogy on God and ethics, right? And the first one is called the moral gap and that's very important and that's the one I'm going to talk about and I'll just make mention of the second one. It's God's command or something.
¶83I think it's God's command and that book is I mean it it rivals Finite and Infinite Goods. I mean it's it's absolutely amazing. For the longest time I said, "Oh, Finite Infinite Goods by far the the best book." But but then I read uh that book by her and I thought, "Oh boy, that is that's given it a run for the money." But but I want to talk about the first book in his trilogy and it's the moral gap. So what does he mean by the moral gap? It's this and this is a whole other aspect of of morality.
¶84I didn't touch on this hardly at all in good god you know and and hair uh pointed this out like you never discuss this performative uh dimension and and I was grateful for the suggestion because it enabled me to sort of expand the repertoire of the thing. The moral gap has to do with okay imagine uh the best that we can do as human beings is live at a certain level. So okay so I'm giving you a visual now okay they say this level but morality as we all know uh calls us to live at this level somewhere above and this is the gap between the best that we can do right and then what morality demands now morality says you ought to live at this level we do the best we can do and we're here and that's kind of a problem right because you all familiar with ought implies can right it doesn't make a lot of sense to say you ought to do something if you can't but the problem is we really can't discharge all the duties of morality. We fall short. However hard we try and the harder we try, the more viscerally aware we become of our inability to do it.
¶85So is it not the case that amplies can? Well, hair addresses this. And he says we have to we have to consider this gap and ways in which to close that gap. And he considered like two or three possibilities to begin with. Like we could exaggerate our capacities and say if we just try harder we can do better.
¶86And that's probably true. We could we can do a little marginally better, you know, but we can't get all the way up here. So that doesn't really work. We could lower the moral demand, but that just amounts to um denying that morality is what it is. And and and Emanuel Kant talked about the the folly of of lowering the moral demand.
¶87No, it is what it is. Um it's beyond our grasp, at least initially, right? Admittedly, but still it's there. And this is just part of our moral experience that we're always called to do better and more and and we in our own strength we just can't do it. Um so we need some kind of supplement some kind of external assistance right.
¶88Um and there considered sort of a third possibility then to close the moral gap by appealing to you know uh some sort of secular substitute for divine grace. And he and in moral ga the moral gap book if you take a look at that you'll see the various very effective reasons he gives to think that that's not going to work to close the moral gap. And what's left he thinks is divine grace. Divine grace. It's this idea that uh like Augustine said God um God calls us to do what we cannot so that we know uh what to ask God to help us with.
¶89By the way, that was a paraphrase. I thought it was going to be a quote turned out to be a paraphrase, not a particularly erodite one, but nevertheless, it's the idea. So, we're called to do this thing that we can't do on our own, but but God can enable us to close that gap, right? But it's a picture of divine grace. So, then I got to thinking, I like it.
¶90I like this a lot. This makes perfect sense. And and by the way, I was raised in the Wesleyan tradition and the uh camp meeting tradition, by the way. Oh, and by the way, in a few weeks, I'm going to Michigan and I'm going to go to church camp and and I haven't done this uh for for years, you know, because I haven't been living close to there, but my brother's coming up from Georgia. He lives right near you, Dr.
¶91Craig. Really, >> and we're going to meet there. We're going to go to church camp. But that was my upbringing, the holiness tradition, the camp meeting tradition. My wife and I wrote a whole book on on that.
¶92Uh anyway, I love it. >> But because of that, I was always sort of raised to believe, you know, as a Christian that how we live matters, right? And uh many times I I fell short. We all do, right? But nevertheless, the standard doesn't change, right?
¶93But we all know from the Christian gospel. And I'm shifting gears. I'm not just talking about theism here. I'm talking about something more distinctively Christian because I think this is a really distinctively Christian variant of the moral argument. We know from Christian teachings that God's grace uh can forgive us for our sins, right?
¶94Because we need that because we all fall short. We know that. So, we all fall short of the moral ideal and uh we are in need of forgiveness for our sins, for our wrongdoing. We need our guilt to be taken away and our shame. By the way, I I was giving a presentation on this some years ago and someone in the audience said, "Well, I'm more from a uh an oriental tradition." And we talk a lot more about shame, you know, than than guilt.
¶95and and I didn't know much what to say at that time, but then I read uh Gregory Ten Elshaw's book on on guilt and worked on some other things and uh came to to see oh you know there's not just forgiveness for sins and and alleviation of guilt there's also deliverance from shame deliverance from shame either earned and deserved or unearned undeserved uh we can talk about that some more later if you want but anyway God's grace can deal with that need for forgiveness and then I saw that we can actually extend this uh performative argument and talk about you know that moral gap but the you know the best we can do and what morality requires or what holiness requires we might say as Christians we're we're not going to be able to close that gap in our own strength we know this right but traditional classical Christian teaching is by God's grace we can be transformed so we're not just forgiven we're actually changed and incrementally sanctified right so we had justification to begin with Right? It's just Christian theology, isn't it? Sanctification, our being conformed to the image of Christ and ultimately entirely saved to the uttermost will be perfected. And Kant had a lot to say about this, right? And this is why he believed that there was an afterlife because we'd never approach asymtoically perfection.
¶96We'd never reach it and all of that business. I actually think we do reach it in a real sense, right? according to Christian teachings, you know, maybe when it's we when we be behold the beatotific vision or whatever, but God will complete the good work that he has begun within us and entirely conform us to the image of Christ. So this performative version of the moral argument or this so-called argument from grace says it's grace by which we are forgiven, right? As we avail ourselves of God's overtures of love and offer of forgiveness and such because of what Christ did on the cross and his res resurrection, we can be changed, transformed, and ultimately utter utterly transformed into the very image of of Christ.
¶97All of these are kind of moral impulses. We feel like we want to be forgiven, we want to be changed, we want to get better, we want to meet the moral demand, heck, we even want to be perfected. None of those things are are possible though in our own resources and and such. But part of the glorious good news of the gospel is that each of these strong moral impulses that we have within us can be met, can be achieved by God's grace. That's the argument from grace.
¶98Isn't that a good one? I think that this argument serves to highlight two different conceptions of grace, both of which I think are biblical. One is the concept of God's grace as his unmmerited favor and that addresses the moral gap through God's forgiveness of us for failing to live up to our moral duties. He gives us a divine pardon uh when we repent and uh turn to him for forgiveness. But in addition to God's grace as his unmmerited favor, there's also the concept of God's grace as his power.
¶99And it is through infusing into us his power by the indwelling Holy Spirit that we are enabled to live better and better lives. And so to narrow that gap that uh Dave described. So Christianity addresses that gap through these two different conceptions of grace. On the one hand, forgiveness for failing [snorts] to close the gap, but then also empowerment enabling us through a sanctified life to narrow that gap. >> Bill, you wrote the bulk of part four on naturalism and platonism.
¶100What's the relevance and what all did you include? The relevance is that some people want to have a non-theistic moral realism. They want to affirm everything about moral values and duties that we do and yet not to ground them in God in the way that we suggest. And so these folks are sometimes what I call atheistic moral platonists. They think that the good exists as a sort of abstract object and that there are certain necessary moral truths um that impose themselves upon us and you don't really have them grounded in a concrete personal being.
¶101And so in this chapter I offer three criticisms of atheistic moral platonism. Uh first I I think it's unintelligible. I do not understand what it means to say that things like loyalty um justice, faithfulness just exist as abstractions. I understand what it is for a person to be faithful or loyal, but I draw complete blank when I'm told that loyalty just exists. Secondly, I don't think that atheistic moral platonism provides an adequate foundation for uh moral obligations and prohibitions.
¶102They are just as strange on atheistic moral platonism as they are on naturalism as Mackey recognized. Um presumably if there are these moral uh virtues like loyalty and faithfulness and goodness, there are also abstract moral vices like uh lethargy and avarice and cruelty. And so the question arises, why do I have an obligation to align my life with one set of these abstract objects rather than another? uh who or what imposes such an obligation upon me? And it seems to me on platonism where you have no moral lawgiver that there simply is no answer to that question.
¶103And then the third criticism would be that um theism provides a more integrated view of reality because on theism the natural world and the moral realm are both under the hegemony of a natural and moral lawgiver. The source of natural law is the same as the source of the moral law. Whereas on atheism, these two realms completely fall apart. And it is an astounding coincidence that the blind evolutionary process has issued in a creature who exactly corresponds to this independently existing non-causally related abstract realm of moral values and duties. That is an astonishing coincidence when you think about it.
¶104And so it does seem to me that uh a theistic worldview has more integrity in its uh view of the moral and the natural realm than does uh pleatonism. >> Okay. Well, let's wrap it up with some of the distinctive Christian elements that can be added to a moral argument for God. Dave, would you? >> Sure.
¶105>> Yeah. and and uh we talk about this in the uh conclusion to the book and right before that we uh we address some some issues uh pertaining to sort of non-filosophical reasons to take uh the moral argument seriously and moral realism seriously and and I would encourage those who read the book not to skip that because I I think that you know it was important we waited till the end to bring it up like lessons you can glean and discern from great literature and things like that. I'm married to an English professor, you know, I mean, I' I've learned over time that that they actually have a great deal to offer. Uh, no. So, uh, there are philosophical considerations, but there are lots of other kinds of considerations, uh, just as human beings that we ought to take seriously.
¶106And so, so don't skip that if you if you happen to get the book. And please get the book. That would be great. Um, okay. So, distinctively Christian things.
¶107Again, this is something we waited all the way until the end to get to for the most part. You know, there were little intimations earlier and such, but you know, largely we've just been discussing theism per se, but there are several ways in which you can extend the moral argument to Christianity. And some people might want to do that sooner than than later, you know. I mean, but Lewis, for example, I mean, he first became a theist and then he became a Christian, you know, and so that's the the way some people um some people's story goes. Uh and and then other people straight to Christianity.
¶108So the order can vary but yeah we we identified I think seven or so uh ways in which the moral argument is sort of strengthened uh by the teachings of Christianity or extended in some sense or fulfilled. So I'll just quickly go through these. I got I have the book in front of me. Uh I won't read much or anything like that. I just need to remind myself of the category.
¶109So the first category was christoologgical and that really had to do with the person of Christ himself who really is such the moral exemplar and that's one of the ways in which we become sensitized uh to morality is to look at at an example and there's no better example. He's the supreme paradigmatic example God the son who lived among us and and how he lived. Um this is of course an appeal to special revelation. This is one of the reasons why we uh saved it to the end, right? Because we were generally doing more general revelation stuff, right?
¶110But the special revelation component involving the life of Christ is is a powerful piece um to bring in at some at some point. Uh so uh so that was the first that was the first one. And uh there I we sort of end it by saying moral apologetics arguably works best when it's christoologgical. Then of course on Christian theology uh God is trinitarian, God is triune. Um and this reminds us of course of that famous line from CS Lewis.
¶111He says all sorts of people are fond of repeating the Christian statement that God is love. But they seem not to notice that the words God is love have no real meaning unless God contains at least two persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person then before the world was made he was not love. And um with respect to trinitarianism uh Adam Johnson of course in his version of the moral argument and theistic ethics u puts forth a trinitarian an explicitly trinitarian argument in in his book uh divine love theory.
¶112So you want to take a look at that. And thirdly, uh, pertaining to sotiology, this issue of salvation. We've already talked about this with the performative uh, or transformational variant of the moral argument and how how there's this really, you know, conspicuous correspondence uh, of this dimension of the moral argument with the three aspects of Christian salvation of forgiveness for our sins, deliverance from the power of sins, and ultimately to be ma made entirely conformed to Christ's uh, image. uh all of these are moral impulses that we feel within us and all of them Christianity answers uh impeccably provides the resources for uh entirely and and connected with that uh this notion of individual transformation by God's grace uh to close that moral gap as we discussed and I would extend that by the way uh beyond just an individualistic transformation to talk about cultural transformation a vitally important piece of Christian theology ology uh and Paul Copan for example has talked about the the influence that's flowed from the Jewish Christian worldview leading to societies that are and this is a quote now from him progress prone rather than progress resistant including such signs of progress as the founding of modern science poverty diminishing free markets equal rights for all before the law religious liberty women's suffrage human rights initiatives the abolition of slavery, widow burning and foot and footbinding. I mean there's a a powerful case to be made here.
¶113Um that Christianity that you you can sort of add an historical twist to the moral argument by by looking at the influence of Christianity in its in its pure form historically. Okay. And then an esqueological component. Uh and here uh there's something to say briefly about the problem of evil. And I've argued for years that I kind of see the problem of evil and the moral argument head-to-head, right?
¶114Because they're both trying to answer the same question. Look at the moral evidence in this world and where does it point? Toward God or away, right? And the problem of evil proponents will say it points away. But there's this great quote and I have to be brief about it but from Marilyn McCord Adams the wife of Robert Adams and that says if divine goodness is infinite if intimate relation to it is thus incommensurably good for created persons then we have identified a good big enough to defeat horrors in every case and this is from her book on the problem of evil.
¶115So uh so that's a great kind of promise to hold on to uh and another uh distinctive uh Christian contribution. And then finally sort of an anthropological point um that you know our uh value as human beings being made in God's image is is infinite as discussed. But Christianity also says we're all alike in that way, right? But we're all also unique. Each and every one of us is unique.
¶116And John Hair likes to use this vision of the white stone in the book of Revelation on which is written our secret name that will be revealed to us and it'll be a secret between us and God and it's somehow reflective of our deepest identity, our deepest vocation or something along these lines. It's a little mysterious, but what it points to to among other things, I think, is that Christianity says we're not just all the same having been made in God's image. I mean that's a marvelous truth and that's the very you know reason why we each of us have infinite dignity and value and worth but we're also made unique and that uh that's a powerful word as well. Wow. I think that uh this just shows how attractive Christianity is when I hear Dave expound these moral features of the Christian uh worldview.
¶117So I want to just encourage our listeners uh there's a lot in this book very rich uh I think carefully argued and if you're interested in moral issues and uh moral apologetics you'll find yourself greatly rewarded for working your way through this Look. >> [music]