Religion, Religious Experiences, and Spirituality

Lesson: Moral Arguments for God’s Existence by Robert Merrihew Adams

● The argument here emphasizes that if God exists, He is

3 Moral Arguments for God’s Existence: inherently morally good.
● It suggests that denying God's moral goodness would be
unethical and contrary to the respect we have for moral
Divine Command Theory laws.
● The presence of a morally good God is considered
essential for a sound basis of ethics and objective
● Argument from the Nature of Right and Wrong: morality.
There are things that are morally right and others are morally
wrong.
● What does the rightness or wrongness of an act
consist in? For an easier concept, what’s morally right is
believed to be the things permitted by God and what’s
morally wrong are the things forbidden by God.

Advantages of Divine Command Theory

● 1. The facts of moral rightness and wrongness as

objective and non natural facts. Objective in a way that
it does not depend on how human beings think. Non natural in
a sense that no language of any branch of science can ever
express it.
● 2. The command theory is more comprehensible.

Disadvantages of Divine Command Theory

● 1. “Right” means commanded by God and “wrong” means

forbidden by God. This gives rise to the objection to those
people who do not believe that there is God. Things
can still be considered morally right or wrong even without
the belief for this theory.
● Suggested to have a less extreme or modified divine
command theory which identifies the ethical
property of wrongness with the property of being
contrary to the commands of a loving God. Example:
God commanded us to inflict suffering on other human
beings, it would be wrong not to obey. This does not imply
that it would be wrong to disobey such a command.
● The advantages of the divine command theory can
be obtained without an entailment of God’s
existence.

Rational Basis and Completeness through Theism

● 2nd Argument: There is a rational basis for our belief in the

existence of God as theism offers the most complete account
of moral principle.
● Moral order of the universe: Achieving a good world
history involves factors beyond individual human goodness,
morally good actions still significantly contribute to the
likelihood of creating a positive world history. The universe
or the way things are set up suggests that acting morally is
likely to play a role in shaping a better overall history for
humanity.

Moral Goodness of God and Ethical Respect

● 3rd Argument: If there is a God, He is morally good and for

this to be denied it would be unethical since it would go
against the respect we have for the moral laws.