Why There Almost Certainly Is A God: Part III: The Axiological Argument

Today we shall be focusing on things that more strictly philosophical, and that is the axiological argument. Also known as the moral argument. According to this argument, if objective moral values and duties do not exist, then God likewise does not exist. However, we can observe that there are objective moral values and duties in the world. Therefore, we can conclude that God exists. 

1. If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.

2. Objective moral values and duties exist.

3. Therefore, God exists. 

In order for moral values and duties to be objective, they have to be true independent of what we actually believe. For instance, suppose we lived in a world where the Nazis won the second World War, and virtually everyone accepted that the Holocaust was morally good. If moral values and duties are objective, then it would the Holocaust would still be evil, even if everybody believed otherwise. 

Moral truths would need to be just like any other truth. For instance, the world is a sphere regardless of how many people might believe it is flat. Most of us would likely accept premise two as at least being more plausibly true than its denial. The issue would then lie in the ontological basis of those moral facts.

Now, atheists might object that God is not necessary for morality because there are plenty of moral atheists. However, this reply misunderstands the argument. The argument is NOT that belief in God is required for moral behaviour. The argument is that the existence of God is required for there to be an ontological foundation for moral facts. 

It is a well-established fact in philosophy that one cannot derive moral claims from mere facts about the natural world. This is best described by David Hume's Is-Ought distinction, and the Naturalistic Fallacy. This leaves only a transcendent basis for moral facts. Of course, this does not automatically lead to theism. Some have posited that moral facts just exist as abstract objects, vis a vis Platonism. 

However, there are problems with such a moral theory. The first and most obvious problem is that abstract objects do not stand in causal relations. As such, it is hard to see how we would have moral duties. Whereas, if we were beholden to a transcendent lawgiver, i.e. a personal being, then there is no such problem.

The second problem is that if the transcendent basis for moral facts is impersonal, then there is no reason to believe that our moral compasses align with these transcendent moral facts. It would simply be a massive coincidence if our moral values align with these. Whereas a personal being could influence the course of events, reveal itself in history, and so on. This leaves only a transcendent, personal basis for moral facts.