The Atheist’s Challenge: Moral Actions Without Belief
Several years ago, the late atheist Christopher Hitchens issued a challenge to Christians everywhere. In a short YouTube clip, he said, “If it’s to be argued that our morality… can be derived from the supernatural, then name me… a moral action taken by a believer, or a moral statement uttered by one that could not have been made or uttered by… a nonbeliever.”
Challenge. Personally, though, I don’t really care. For Hitchens or anyone to issue a challenge of this sort is to fundamentally misunderstand what Christians mean when we say that morality comes from God. To see this, let’s back up and ask this crucial question: Can I be Good without God?
Reframing the Question: Belief in God vs. The Existence of God
The Common Misinterpretation
The answer to our question may seem obvious to you, as it seemed obvious to Hitchens and many others, both Christian or otherwise. Is it good to give money to a noble charity? Yes. Can a non-Christians give money to a noble charity? Yes. Therefore, a non-Christian can do something good.
Problem solved, right?
Not really.
The Real Philosophical Question
In truth, the question, “Can I be good without God?” is kind of a trick question. Notice how it’s phrased. We are not asking if a person can do good things without believing in God. We are asking if a person can do good things without God. In other words, if God doesn’t exist, are we able to do good things?
Related: Why we Need to Trust God’s Goodness
The answer may still seem to be an obvious “yes.” We can perform the same moral actions (such as giving money to a noble charity) whether or not God exists. However, if God does not exist, it becomes impossible to say those actions are, in fact, moral. This is what Hitchens failed to recognize. Evidently, he wasn’t thinking well enough about what makes something morally good.
What is the Basis for Goodness in a Universe Without God?
Imagine there is no supernatural reality and God doesn’t exist. Everything in this universe is purely natural, composed of nothing more than atoms bound together in complex ways, moving about by various chemical and physical processes. Now, ask yourself: what makes something morally good?
Searching for Secular Foundations
Perhaps you think an action is good if it obeys the law. Or, maybe it is good if it feels pleasurable, or it brings the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people. If you’re a die-hard Darwinist, you might say something is good if it helps a species survive or evolve. But of all those answers, what do any of them have to do with goodness? Why is following the law good? Why is pleasure better than pain? Why is survival better than death? At the end of the day, all of these outcomes would amount to nothing more than different motions and arrangements of atoms in the universe.
The Problem of Arbitrary Standards
I could arrange Legos in any arrangement I want, but no arrangement is morally good or evil. Change Legos to anything else, like chemicals of pain or pleasure in the brain, and I fail to see how it makes any difference whatsoever.
More from Cru: What it Means to be Good
Why Objective Morality Points to God
Acknowledging the Subjectivity of Values
Let’s face it: real objective morality in a universe without God would be weird, to say the least. This is precisely what J.L. Mackie, whom Time Magazine called “perhaps the ablest of today’s atheistic philosophers,” argued for in a piece he wrote called The Subjectivity of Values. It is also why many nontheistic philosophers argue that labeling something as “good” or “bad” doesn’t state any fact about the world, but rather expresses a person’s opinion about an issue.
Goodness as Part of God’s Nature
But what happens when we bring God into the picture? With God, morality finally makes sense. First, we can say that our feelings are more than just brain events; they are real, meaningful experiences of the soul. Second, there is more to the universe than just a complex arrangement of atoms; God made the universe with value, enriching his creation with purpose and sacredness. It’s not that God randomly decided what is moral and immoral. Rather, goodness is part of God’s nature, and he constructed the universe with morality woven into its fabric.
Our Response: Living in a Morally Rich World
The Conclusive Answer
So, let’s return to our original question: Can I be good without God? If you mean to ask, “Can I be good without believing in God?” then the answer is yes, but that isn’t a very interesting or helpful question to explore. However, if you’re asking, “Can real, objective, moral goodness exist without God?” the answer is no. And since the answer is no, it’s not possible to be good without God. So it’s not that Christians believe they can do good things and their non-Christian friends cannot (as Hitchens seemed to think). It’s that when anyone (Christian or otherwise) does something moral, the action is truly moral because morality is grounded in God.
The Responsibility of Moral Knowledge
As Christians, we may feel pleased to know we can speak meaningfully about morality. At the same time, we are confronted with a piercing reality. The law of morality is just as real as the law of gravity. Take care, then, that you live accordingly, lest you fall and hit the ground hard. When God commands us to walk in purity amidst sexual temptation, to speak in gentleness to our difficult classmate, or to give generously despite another pay cut, these are not optional suggestions that we can weigh against our own desires. They are commands from the source of all authority, built into our conscience, and in accordance with the fabric of nature. Not only that, but they are genuinely for our good, because goodness is part of God’s very nature.
