If morality exists independent of humankind, then God exists.

• If there are good reasons to believe that morality (a moral standard or right and wrong behavior) exists independent of humankind, there must be a source to make it applicable to them (humans have a moral compass). A personal God interested in the actions of people is the best explanation.

• If God does not exist then there is no source to justify morality being objective, in other words, separate from humankind.

  • William Lane Craig provides a good distinction between objective and subjective.

    • “Objective means independent of human opinion. For example, the laws of nature hold whether we acknowledge them or not, so they are objective. Subjective means dependent on human opinion. For example, matters of taste, like whether coffee tastes good, are person-relative and so are subjective.”1

A moral standard (rules and values) exists independent of humankind.

• Moral Actions: One way we know that a morality exists separate from humankind, is that certain actions are right or wrong independent of the opinion's of peopole.2

• When people say an action is good or evil, they are referring to the action itself (the object), not simply how they feel about the action (which would make it subjective). Consequently, moral actions are objective, independent of humankind. This is most evident with extreme examples of evil:

  • Killing an innocent human being for no reason is clearly wrong (objective), regardless of whether some person or society says or does otherwise.

  • Virtually everyone says the Nazis were morally wrong for killing millions of Jews (objective). They don’t say this is wrong becuase it is their opinion and the Nazis were entitled to their opinion (subjective).

• Moral Progress: Another way we know that morality is independent of humankind, is that there is a moral standard independent of society by which we judge each society. In other words, each society does not truly determine what is right or wrong behavior. There is no way for a society to make moral progress unless there is an standard outside of mankind to strive toward.3

• Unless you believe this standard exist separate from society, how can you say slavery and the unfair treatment of women in U.S. history were wrong? Other Christian apologists make this point:

  • “…when we say “society is getting better” or “society is getting worse,” we are comparing society to some moral standard beyond ourselves.”3

  • According to C.S. Lewis, “The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other.”4

• Moral Values: Intuitively we know that there is a hierarchy of value in nature (e.g. humans are more valuable than animals, animals more valuable than plants, etc.). The only way to justify this hierarchy is to have an ultimate independent source of the highest value (God) to compare the rest of nature.5

Therefore, God exists.

• Since morality is objective and applicable to all humankind, the source must transcend humankind. God is the best explanation. The standard of goodness as well as moral values are based on God’s character.