The Moral Argument for the existence of God revision notes.

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For many, Thomas Aquinas' Fourth Way leads to the Moral Argument,
though Aquinas himself referred to what is true, noble and good, rather than
morality itself.
Aquinas' We experience things that are noble, true and good. These things
Fourth must take their reality from things that are more noble, true and
Way good. To avoid an infinite regression, we must conclude that there is
And the something that is the most noble, true and good. This is what we call
Moral God.
Argument
Aquinas meant that what was true, noble and good was valuable in
itself, rather than a means to some other good thing. Everything is
striving towards its goal or purpose - see notes on Aristotle. This
final goal must actually exist, and is what we call God.
Can morality be a key to understanding the existence of God? Some
philosophers have tried to argue that the source of morality is God.
1. Morality may be God's commands. While this may be true, it adds nothing
to a discussion of God's existence! (e.g. The Ten Commandments, which
are given by God to the Hebrew people).
2. Morality may come from an objective examination of the social systems
and structures that people construct and develop to order and regulate
their environment. These rules may be absolute, in the sense that they
apply to everyone everywhere. (e.g. The sense of justice that seems to
pervade all human societies). However, the moral systems may be from
God, or they may not be!
3. Morality may come from a particular situation in Human Society. Although
they come from social systems, they arise out of a specific event or
context. (e.g. In some societies, capital punishment is considered
acceptable).
Morality can either be objective, and held to apply to each and every
situation, or subjective, applicable to specific situations only. In this second
situation, morality becomes fluid.
Cultural Each society develops its own moral system - any similarity
Relativism between systems and civilisations is co-incidental. What is right
and wrong is handed down from generation to generation.
Morality is a product of Human Culture and feelings of guilt
arise out of conditioning.

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Emotivism Morality becomes an expression of a person's feelings about
particular situations. Morality becomes subject to personal
approval.
Evolution Morality becomes subject to the processes of evolution - systems
that are just and fair become more likely to survive because they
promote the survival of the species.
If morality is expressed in these terms, then morality need not have a divine
source.
Kant's Moral Argument
The achievement of the Highest Good in the world is the necessary object
of a will determined by the moral law… [which]… commands us to make
the highest possible good in a world the final object of all our conduct.
Kant, I. Critique of Practical Reason
Kant does not mean that to will the Highest Good is to conform to a moral
code. He means that we must aspire to what is best. Further, doing what is
right should lead ultimately to happiness. However, doing what is the highest
good rarely seems to bring with it those rewards. Kant looked for another
answer.
He started with the fact that people do have a sense of moral obligation - a
feeling of that is right no matter what the outcome might be. This obligation
was what Kant called the categorical imperative. Obeying the moral law
owed nothing to Religion, but rather was doing duty for duty's sake.
Achieving this good (the ought) is possible (can).
This moral law gives rise to three truths, which he called the postulates of
practical reason:
D Freedom - A person is free to act
D Immortality - Happiness will (eventually) reward the good act
D God - For all this to be possible, there must be an overriding and
regulating principle that will reward virtue with happiness.
This does not prove the existence of God, but it argues that morality is
ordered in a moral way.
Summary
D The world is subject to a moral order.
D We are free to choose between what is good, or what is not.
D If we choose the good, we will receive the just reward for virtue.
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8 This reward, and the system that regulates the moral code, is from God.
But…
8 Kant argues that ought implies can. But does it? Kant argues that it
should is not a logical contradiction. However, it does not mean that
something can in actual fact. John ought to learn French, but it does not
necessarily follow that he can. (Davies, B. An introduction to the
Philosophy of Religion p.176).
8 It need not be God who brings about the Highest Good - it could equally be
a pantheon of very clever, Kantian minded angels (Davies, B. op cit), not
an omniscient and omnipresent being.
8 Why should virtue be rewarded?
8 A sense of duty can be explained away in terms of social conditioning.
8 Kant argues that there is a moral law, but this is far from conclusive (see
above - Cultural Relativism c.). If there is no moral law, there is no
summem bonem. Kant's argument collapses.
A Pro-Kantian Response
In response to these criticisms, James Richmond argues that the Argument
has proved persuasive to believers. This is because it taps in to Man's
capacity for Transcendence, to see in his surroundings the trappings of the
Divine, and to aim for Spiritual significance. In this context, the Argument
forms an invitation to have faith that there is an ultimate goal for the strivings
of Mankind. The alternative is bleak and purposeless. The apparent promise
of a final purpose, discerned in the created order, proves empty and hollow.
In response to the criticism of Kant's proposed Objective Moral Law, and that
Moral Order is more due to Cultural and Social conditioning that to a Divine
Agent, a Kantian might propose that while this might account for variations in
the content of moral codes, it does not account for the fact that there appears
to be a basic, underlying moral sense.
The Illative Sense
John Henry Newman argued that the Conscience is the Voice of the Lawgiver
(i.e. God). In An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870 he talks of the
illative sense of moral judgment to explain feelings of guilt and
responsibility.
As then we have our initial knowledge of the universe through sense, so do we in the first
instance begin to learn about its Lord and God from conscience; and, as from particular acts
of that instinct, which makes experiences, mere images (as they ultimately are) upon the
retina, the means of our perceiving something real beyond them, we go on to draw the
general conclusion that there is a vast external world, so from the recurring instances in
which conscience acts, forcing upon us importunately the mandate of a Superior, we have
fresh and fresh evidence of the existence of a Sovereign Ruler, from whom those particular
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dictates which we experience proceed; so that, with limitations which cannot here be made
without digressing from my main subject, we may, by means of that induction from particular
experiences of conscience, have as good a warrant for concluding the Ubiquitous Presence
of One Supreme Master, as we have, from parallel experience of sense, for assenting to the
fact of a multiform and vast world, material and mental.
Newman, J.H. Essay Towards a Grammar of Assent
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2125/newman_grammar/
Newman is arguing that just as we can assume that there is a multiform and
vast world from the evidence of our senses, so we can assume that there is
One Supreme Master from the evidence of our conscience. It is impossible
to think of a command without….a commander (Owen, H.P. The Moral
Argument for Christian Theism p49).
Critics would argue that this is very much in the eye of the beholder, and that
where one person might see an objective God behind Conscience, someone
else might see Cultural Relativism at work. Owen argued (in response to this
argument) that either morality is a product of chance, or it is from a personal
source which we might call God. Morality has to do with the personal in life
(c.f. Martin Buber's suggestion of I-Thou rather than I-it relationships).
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