God Indicted for Crimes Against Humanity
Introduction
Does God stand above morality, defining for us what is moral and what is immoral in accordance with His will? Or is morality a characteristic that exists independent of what God wills to be moral or immoral? For at least 25 centuries, these two related questions, or variations thereon, have troubled those of us who think deeply about philosophical matters. Frankly, there has not (at least, not until recently) been any really satisfactory answer to the issues raised by these questions. This essay is an attempt to explore this issue, which is quite relevant to the debate between atheism and theism, even though it tends to get short shrift in most debates between atheists and theists. What I will present herein is known technically in philosophical circles as the Moral Argument Against God.
The essential belief of those who believe in the Judeo-Christian God [3] is that God created the universe and all that is within it. Thus, in the minds of believers, their God’s creation includes any human abilities to recognize anything resembling a moral value. So, from a believer’s perspective, we do not (and, by the nature of being part of God’s creation, cannot) legitimately call any acts of God “immoral.” This is true by the very nature of morality being subservient to God’s will, and a part of God’s creation (the universe).
But it is increasingly apparent that our human sense of morality is inconsistent with belief in the Judeo-Christian God and the consequent truth of the above paragraph. Thus, some atheists try to formulate a Moral Argument Against God as part of a proof of atheism. [4] As my own contribution to this genre, I will argue that humans increasingly (additively, over long periods of time) recognize certain broad moral principles as applicable to everybody, regardless of any characterization of their position within the whole group of human beings. The existence of any such principles defeats the whole concept of moral relativism as a possible primary moral rule because there is nothing for these overarching moral rules to be relative to. They must, then, come out of an objective moral foundation that is, unfortunately, not well understood.
My approach to the Moral Argument Against God will be to attempt to summarize a fictional trial of God on charges of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. In proceeding along these lines, I will take a slightly different approach than does Professor Raymond D. Bradley in his essay A Moral Argument for Atheism.
