Naturalistic ethics is the reigning paradigm among contemporary ethicists; in God and Cosmos, David Baggett and Jerry L. Walls argue that this approach is seriously flawed. This book canvasses a broad array of secular and naturalistic ethical theories in an effort to test their adequacy in accounting for moral duties, intrinsic human value, moral knowledge, prospects for radical moral transformation, and the rationality of morality. In each case, the authors argue, although various secular accounts provide real insights and indeed share common ground with theistic ethics, the resources of classical theism and orthodox Christianity provide the better explanation of the moral realities under consideration. Among such realities is the fundamental insight behind the problem of evil, namely, that the world is not as it should be. Baggett and Walls argue that God and the world, taken together, exhibit superior explanatory scope and power for morality classically construed, without the need to water down the categories of morality, the import of human value, the prescriptive strength of moral obligations, or the deliverances of the logic, language, and phenomenology of moral experience. This book thus provides a cogent moral argument for God’s existence, one that is abductive, teleological, and cumulative.
Reasonable Faith has released a very well crafted “infovideo” (as I’m choosing to call these video infographics) illustrating William Lane Craig’s moral argument for the existence of God. An excerpt: “Without some objective reference point, we have no way of saying that something is really up or down. God’s nature provides an objective reference point for moral values – it’s the standard against which all actions and decisions are measured. But if there’s no God, there’s no objective reference point. All we’re left with is one person’s viewpoint – which is no more valid than any one else’s viewpoint. ¶ This kind of morality is subjective, not objective. It’s like a preference for strawberry ice cream – the preference is in the subject, not the object. So it doesn’t apply to other people. In the same way, subjective morality applies only to the subject; it’s not valid or binding for anyone else.” (Video is after the jump.)
Some argue that atheism must be false, since without God, no values are possible, and thus "everything is permitted." Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues that God is not only not essential to morality, but that our moral behavior should be utterly independent of religion. He attacks several core ideas: that atheists are inherently immoral people; that any society will sink into chaos if it is becomes too secular; that without morality, we have no reason to be moral; that absolute moral standards require the existence of God; and that without religion, we simply couldn’t know what is wrong and what is right. Sinnott-Armstrong brings to bear convincing examples and data, as well as a lucid, elegant, and easy to understand writing style. This book should fit well with the debates raging over issues like evolution and intelligent design, atheism, and religion and public life as an example of a pithy, tightly-constructed argument on an issue of great social importance. ~ Product Description
I had never really seriously considered the evidence for and against belief. … Did I not consider myself a scientist? Does a scientist draw conclusions without considering the data? Could there be a more important question in all of human existence than “Is there a God?” And yet there I found myself, with a combination of willful blindness and something that could only be properly described as arrogance, having avoided any serious consideration that God might be a real possibility. Suddenly all my arguments seemed very thin, and I had the sensation that the ice under my feet was cracking.
In the Ex Lex debate, the question was raised as to whether God’s will functioned apart from any law or outside of any law (ex lex), or whether the will of God was itself subjected to some norm of righteousness or cosmic law that God was required to follow and, therefore, His will was exercised under law (sub lego). The question was: Is God apart from law or is He under law? ¶ The church’s response to this dilemma was to say basically “a pox on both houses,” and to declare that God is neither apart from law nor under law in these respective senses. Rather, the church responded by affirming that God is both apart from law and under law, in so far as He is free from any restraints imposed upon Him by some law that exists outside of Himself. In that sense, He is apart from law and not under law. Yet at the same time, God is not arbitrary or capricious and works according to the law of His own nature. The church declared that God is a law unto Himself.