## 1. The Goals of Theistic Arguments



Before attempting to explain and assess moral arguments for the
existence of God, it would be helpful to have some perspective on the
goals of arguments for God's existence. (We shall generically
term arguments for God's existence "theistic
arguments.") Of course views about this are diverse, but most
contemporary proponents of such arguments do not see theistic
arguments as attempted "proofs," in the sense that they
are supposed to provide valid arguments with premises that no
reasonable person could deny. Such a standard of achievement would
clearly be setting the bar for success very high, and proponents of
theistic arguments rightly note that philosophical arguments for
interesting conclusions in any field outside of formal logic hardly
ever reach such a standard. 



More reasonable questions to ask about theistic arguments would seem
to be the following: Are there valid arguments for the conclusion that
God exists that have premises that are known or reasonably believed by
some people? Are the premises of such arguments more reasonable than
their denials, at least for some reasonable people? Arguments that
meet these standards could have value in making belief in God
reasonable for some people, or even giving some people knowledge of
God's existence, even if it turns out that some of the premises
of the arguments can be reasonably denied by other people, and thus
that the arguments fail as proofs.



A major issue that cannot be settled here concerns the question of
where the burden of proof lies with respect to theistic arguments.
Many secular philosophers follow Antony Flew (1976) in holding that
there is a "presumption of atheism." On this view,
believing in God is like believing in the Loch Ness Monster or
leprechauns, something that reasonable people do not do without
sufficient evidence. If such evidence is lacking, the proper stance is
atheism rather than agnosticism.



This "presumption of atheism" has been challenged in a
number of ways. Alvin Plantinga (2000) has argued that reasonable
belief in God does not have to be based on propositional evidence, but
can be "properly basic." On this view, reasonable belief
in God can be the outcome of a basic faculty (called
the *sensus divinitatis* by theologian John Calvin)
and thus needs no support from arguments at all. In response some
would argue that even if theistic belief is not grounded in
propositional evidence, it still might require non-propositional
evidence (such as experience), so it is not clear that
Plantinga's view by itself removes the burden of proof
challenge.



A second way to challenge the presumption of atheism is to question an
implicit assumption made by those who defend such a presumption, which
is that belief in God is epistemologically more risky than unbelief.
The assumption might be defended in the following way: One might think
that theists and atheists share a belief in many entities: atoms,
middle-sized physical objects, animals, and stars, for example.
Someone, however, who believes in leprechauns or sea monsters in
addition to these commonly accepted objects thereby incurs a burden of
proof. Such a person believes in "one additional thing"
and thus seems to incur additional epistemological risk. One might
think that belief in God is relevantly like belief in a leprechaun or
sea monster, and thus that the theist also bears an additional burden
of proof. Without good evidence in favor of belief in God the safe
option is to refrain from belief.



However, the theist may hold that this account does not accurately
represent the situation. Instead, the theist may argue that the debate
between atheism and theism is not simply an argument about whether
"one more thing" exists in the world. In fact, God is not
to be understood as an entity in the world at all; any such entity
would by definition not be God. The debate is rather a debate about
the character of the universe. The theist believes that every object
in the natural world exists because God creates and conserves that
object; every finite thing has the character of being dependent on
God. The atheist denies this and affirms that the basic entities in
the natural world have the character of existing "on their
own." 



If this is the right way to think about the debate, then it is not
obvious that atheism is safer than theism. The debate is not about the
existence of one object, but the character of the universe as a whole.
Both parties are making claims about the character of everything in
the natural world, and both claims seem risky. This point is
especially important in dealing with moral arguments for theism, since
one of the questions raised by such arguments is the adequacy of a
naturalistic worldview in explaining morality. Such accounts need to
explain without watering the categories of morality down or otherwise
domesticating them and thereby depriving them of their most
interesting features. Evidentialists may properly ask about the
evidence for theism, but it also seems proper to ask about the
evidence for atheism if the atheist is committed to a rival metaphysic
such as naturalism.


## 2. History of Moral Arguments for God's Existence



Something that resembles a moral argument for God's existence,
or at least an argument from value, can be found in the fourth of
Thomas Aquinas's "Five Ways" (Aquinas
1265-1274, I, 1, 3). Aquinas there begins with the claim that
among beings who possess such qualities as "good, true, and
noble" there are gradations. Presumably he means that some
things that are good are better than other good things; perhaps some
noble people are nobler than others who are noble. In effect Aquinas
is claiming that when we "grade" things in this way we
are, at least implicitly, comparing them to some absolute standard.
Aquinas believes this standard cannot be merely "ideal" or
"hypothetical," and thus this gradation is only possible
if there is some being which has this quality to a
"maximum" extent: "so that there is something which
is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently,
something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest
in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. Ii."
Aquinas goes on to affirm that this being which provides the standard
is also the cause or explanation of the existence of these qualities,
and such a cause must be God. Obviously, this argument draws deeply on
Platonic and Aristotelian assumptions that are no longer widely held
by philosophers. For the argument to be plausible today, such
assumptions would have to be defended, or else the argument
reformulated in a way that frees it from its original metaphysical
home.



Probably the most influential versions of the moral argument for
belief in God can be traced to Kant (1788 [1956]), who famously argued
that the theoretical arguments for God's existence were
unsuccessful, but presented a rational argument for belief in God as a
"postulate of practical reason." Kant held that a
rational, moral being must necessarily will "the highest
good," which consists of a world in which people are both
morally good and happy, and in which moral virtue is the condition for
happiness. The latter condition implies that this end must be sought
solely by moral action. However, Kant held that a person cannot
rationally will such an end without believing that moral actions can
successfully achieve such an end, and this requires a belief that the
causal structure of nature is conducive to the achievement of this end
by moral means. This is equivalent to belief in God, a moral being who
is ultimately responsible for the character of the natural world.
Kant's arguments will be discussed later in this article.



Kant-inspired arguments were prominent in the nineteenth century, and
continued to be important right up to the middle of the twentieth
century. Such arguments can be found, for example, in W. R. Sorley
(1918), Hastings Rashdall (1920), and A. E. Taylor (1945/1930).
Although Henry Sidgwick was not himself a proponent of a moral
argument for God's existence, some have argued that his thought
presents the materials for such an argument (see Walls and Baggett
2011). In the nineteenth century John Henry Newman (1870) also made
good use of a moral argument in his case for belief in God, developing
what could be called an argument from conscience.



Besides those luminaries from the history of the moral argument,
several other figures made contributions of various sorts to the
discussion, including Arthur Balfour (1915), Andrew Seth
Pringle-Pattison (1920), Clement Webb (2012), W. G. de Burgh (1938),
W. R. Matthews (1921), Austin Farrer (2012), and H. P. Owen (1965). A
chronicle of much of this history was published by Walls and Baggett
(2019). Recovering such history is a helpful antidote to the
ahistorical character of much contemporary analytic philosophy.



In recent philosophy there has been a revival of divine command
metaethical theories, which has in turn led to new versions of the
moral argument found in such thinkers as Robert Adams (1987), John
Hare (1996), and C. Stephen Evans (2010). Work on divine command
theory, both in favor and against, has experienced a recent resurgence
of interest. This work has encompassed both motivations for and
formulations of divine command theory, as well as extensive discussion
of both old and new objections to it.



However, it is important to see that there are versions of the moral
argument for God's existence that are completely independent of
such a divine command theory, and this possibility can be seen in
arguments developed by Angus Ritchie (2012) and Mark Linville (2009).
Perhaps the most extensive and developed account of a moral argument
for God's existence in recent philosophy is found in David
Baggett and Jerry L. Walls (2016). This book examines a comprehensive
cumulative form of moral argument and extensively explores underlying
issues. It goes without saying that these renewed arguments have
engendered new criticisms as well. Theoretical moral arguments for
God's existence can be understood as variations on the following
template:


1. There are objective
moral facts.
2. God provides the best
explanation of the existence of objective moral facts.
3. Therefore, (probably)
God exists.



As we shall see, there are a variety of features of morality that can
be appealed to in the first steps of the arguments, as well as a
variety of ways in which God might be thought to provide an
explanation of those features in the second steps. The use of the
somewhat vague phrase "objective moral facts" is intended
to allow for this variety in Premise 1. The similarly vague notion of
God providing the best explanation of such facts allows for the
variety of ways moral features may depend on God--divine commands
one salient option among them. Both types of premises are obviously
open to challenge. For example, the first premise of such an argument
can be challenged by popular metaethical views that see morality as
"subjective," or "expressive," rather than
something that consists of objective facts. Moral skeptics and
"error theorists" also challenge the first premise. The
second premise can be challenged on the basis of rival explanations of
the features of morality, explanations that do not require God.
Arguments about the second premise then may require comparison between
theistic explanations of morality and these rival views, with an
attentive eye on the relevant evidence in need of explanation.



It is easy to see then that the proponent of a moral argument has a
complex task: She must defend the reality and objectivity of the
feature of morality appealed to, but also defend the claim that this
feature can be best explained by God. The second part of the task may
require not only demonstrating the strengths of a theistic
explanation, but pointing out weaknesses in rival secular explanations
as well. Both parts of the task are essential, but it is worth noting
that the two components cannot be accomplished simultaneously. The
theist must defend the reality of morality against subjectivists,
constructivists, and "moral nihilists." Assuming that this
task has been carried out, the theist must then try to show that
morality thus understood requires or at least is most plausibly
understood by a theistic explanation.



It is interesting to observe, however, that with respect to both parts
of the task, the theist may enlist non-theists as allies. The theist
may well make common cause with ethical naturalists as well as ethical
non-naturalists in defending moral realism against
"projective" theories such as expressivism. However, the
theist may also enlist the support of error theorists such as J. L.
Mackie (1977), and moral nihilists such as Friedrich Nietzsche (1887)
in arguing that God is necessary for objective morality. Nietzsche,
for example, explicitly holds that God does not exist, but also claims
that God's non-existence undermines the reality of traditional
western morality. The fact that theists can enlist such unlikely
allies does not mean the moral argument for God's existence is
sound, but it does suggest that the argument is not obviously
question-begging, since both premises are sometimes accepted by
(different) non-believers.


## 3. Theoretical Moral Arguments for God's Existence and Divine Command Theories of Moral Obligation



One easily understandable version of a theistic moral argument relies
on an analogy between human laws promulgated by nation-states and
moral laws. Sovereign states enact laws that make certain acts
forbidden or required. If I am a U. S. citizen, and I earn more than a
small amount of money I am obligated to file an income tax return each
year. I am also forbidden, because of the laws that hold in the United
States, to discriminate in hiring on the basis of sex, age, or race.
Many people believe that there are moral laws that bind individuals in
the same way that political laws do. I am obligated by a moral
principle not to lie to others, and I am similarly obligated to keep
promises that I have made. (Both legal and moral laws may be
understood as holding *prima facie*, so that in some
situations a person must violate one law in order to obey a more
important one.)



We know how human laws come into existence. They are enacted by
legislatures (or absolute monarchs in some countries) who have the
authority to pass such laws. How then should the existence of moral
laws be explained? It seems plausible to many to hold that they must
be similarly grounded in some appropriate authority, and the
 or best candidate to fulfill this role is God. Some philosophers
have dismissed an argument of this type as "crude,"
presumably because its force is so obvious that no special
philosophical training is necessary to understand it and see its
appeal. The fact that one can understand the argument without much in
the way of philosophical skill is not necessarily a defect, however.
If one supposes that there is a God, and that God wants humans to know
him and relate to him, one would expect God to make his reality known
to humans in very obvious ways (See Evans 2010). After all, critics of
theistic belief, such as J. L. Schellenberg (1993), have argued that
the fact that God's reality is not obvious to those who would
like to believe in God is a grave problem. If an awareness of moral
obligations is in fact an awareness of God's commands or divine
laws, then the ordinary person who is aware of moral obligations does
have a kind of awareness of God. Of course such a person might be
aware of God's laws without realizing that they are God's
laws; she might be aware of God's commands without being aware
of them under that description. The religious apologist might view
such a person as already having a kind of *de
re* awareness of God, because a moral obligation is simply an
expression of God's will (or God's command or motivation,
preference or desire).



How can such an awareness be converted into full-fledged belief in
God? One way of doing this would be to help the person gain the skills
needed to *recognize* moral laws as what they are, as
divine commands or divine laws. If moral laws are experienced, then
moral experience could be viewed as a kind of religious experience or
at least a proto-religious experience. Perhaps someone who has
experience of God in this way does not need a moral argument (or any
kind of argument) to have a reasonable belief in God. This may be one
instance of the kind of case that Alvin Plantinga (2000) and the
"Reformed epistemologists" have in mind when they claim
that belief in God can be "properly basic." It is worth
noting then that there could be such a thing as knowledge of God that
is rooted in moral experience without that knowledge being the result
of a moral *argument*.



Even if that is the case, however, a moral argument could still play a
valuable role. Such an argument might be one way of helping an
individual understand that moral obligations are in fact divine
commands or laws. Even if it were true that some ordinary people might
know that God exists without argument, an argument could be helpful in
defending the claim *that* this is the case. A person
might conceivably need an argument for the second-level
claim *that* the person knows God without
argument.



In any case a divine command metaethical theory provides the material
for such an argument. The revival of divine command theories (DCT) of
moral obligation is due mainly to the work of Philip Quinn (1979/1978)
and Robert Adams (1999). Adams' version of a DCT has been
particularly influential and is well-suited for the defense of the
claim that moral knowledge can provide knowledge of God. Adams'
version of a DCT is an account of
moral *obligations* and it must be distinguished from
more general "voluntarist" views of ethics that try to
treat other moral properties (such as the good) as dependent on
God's will. As explained below, by limiting the theory to
obligations, Adams avoids the standard
"*Euthyphro*" objection, which claims that divine
command views reduce ethics to arbitrariness. 



Adams' account of moral obligations as divine commands rests on
a more general social theory of obligations. There are of course many
types of obligations: legal obligations, financial obligations,
obligations of etiquette, and obligations that hold in virtue of
belonging to some club or association, to name just a few. Clearly
these obligations are distinct from moral obligations, since in some
cases moral obligations can conflict with these other kinds. What is
distinctive about obligations in general? They are not reducible
simply to normative claims about what a person has a good reason to
do. 



J. S. Mill (1874, 164-165) argued that we can explain normative
principles without making any reference to God. He contends that the
"feeling of obligation" stems from "something that
the internal conscience bears witness to in its own nature," and
thus the moral law, unlike human laws, "does not originate in
the will of a legislator or legislature external to the mind."
Doubtless Mill had in mind here such normative logical principles as
"it is wrong to believe
both *p* and *not-p* at the same
time." Mill argues that such normative principles hold without
any requirement for an "authority" to be their ground, and
he thinks this is plausible for the case of moral principles as well.
Mill's view is plausible at least for some normative principles,
though some theists have argued that metaphysical naturalists have
difficulty in explaining any kind of normativity (see Devine 1989,
88-89). However, even if Mill is correct about normativity in
general, it does not follow that his view is correct for moral
obligations, which have a special character. An obligation has a
special kind of force; we should care about complying with it, and
violations of obligations appropriately incur blame (Adams 1999, 235).
If I make a logical mistake, I may feel silly or stupid or
embarrassed, but I have no reason to feel guilty, unless the mistake
reflects some carelessness on my part that itself constitutes a
violation of a moral obligation. Adams argues that "facts of
obligation are constituted by broadly social requirements."
(ibid, 233) For example, the social role of parenting is partly
constituted by the obligations one assumes by becoming a parent, and
the social role of citizen is partly constituted by the obligations to
obey the laws of the country in which one is a citizen.



All obligations are then constituted by social requirements, according
to Adams. However, not all obligations constituted by social
requirements are moral obligations. What social relation could be the
basis of moral obligations? Adams argues that not just any human
social relation will possess the requisite authority:
"A *morally valid* obligation obviously will
not be constituted by just any demand sponsored by a system of social
relationships that one in fact values. Some such demands have no moral
force, and some social systems are downright evil." (ibid, 242)
If a good and loving God exists and has created all humans, then the
social relation humans have to God has the right features to explain
moral obligations. For if moral obligations stem from God's
requirements, they will be objective, but they will also be
motivating, since a relation to God would clearly be a great good that
humans would have reason to value. Since a proper relation to God is
arguably more important than any other social relation, we can also
understand why moral obligations trump other kinds of obligations. On
this view we can also explain why moral obligations have a
transcendent character, which is important because "a genuinely
moral conception of obligation must have resources for moral criticism
of social systems and their demands." (ibid, 242-243)



Notice that the DCT Adams defends in his later work is ontological
rather than semantic: it is a claim that moral obligations are in fact
identical with divine commands, not a claim that "moral
obligations" has the same meaning as "divine
commands." On his account, applying the work of direct reference
theorists like Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke to the arena of ethics,
the meaning of "moral obligation" is fixed by the role
this concept plays in our language. That role includes such facts as
these: Moral obligations must be motivating and objective. They also
must provide a basis for critical evaluation of other types of
obligations, and they must be such that someone who violates a moral
obligation is appropriately subject to blame. Adams argues that it is
divine commands that best satisfy these desiderata. God's
existence thus provides the best explanation of moral obligations. If
moral obligations are identical with divine commands (or perhaps if
they are grounded in or caused to exist by divine commands) an
argument for God's existence from such obligations can easily be
constructed:


1. There are objective
moral obligations.
2. If there are objective
moral obligations, there is a God who explains these obligations.
3. There is a God.



This argument is stated in a deductive form, but it can easily be
reworded as a probabilistic "argument to the best
explanation," as follows:


1. There are objective
moral obligations.
2. God provides the best
explanation of the existence of moral obligations.
3. Probably, God
exists.



Obviously, those who do not find a DCT convincing will not think this
argument from moral obligation has force. However, Adams anticipates
and gives a forceful answer to one common criticism of a DCT. It is
often argued that a DCT must fail because of a dilemma parallel to one
derived from Plato's *Euthyphro*. The dilemma
for a DCT can be derived from the following question: Assuming that
God commands what is right, does he command what is right because it
is right (assuming that "right" here means "morally
required" and not just "morally permissible.")? If
the proponent of a DCT answers affirmatively, then it appears the
quality of rightness must hold antecedently to and thus independently
of God's commands. If, however, the proponent denies that God
commands what is right because it is right, then God's commands
appear arbitrary. Adams' version of a DCT evades this dilemma by
invoking the good/right distinction and holding that God is
essentially good and that his commands are necessarily aimed at the
good. This allows Adams to claim that God's commands make
actions obligatory (or forbidden), while denying that the commands are
arbitrary in any problematic sense.



Although Adams' version of a DCT successfully meets this
"*Euthyphro*" objection, there are other
powerful criticisms that have been mounted against this metaethical
theory in the literature. These objections can be found in the
writings of Wes Morriston (2009, 2016), Erik Wielenberg (2005,
especially part 3, 2014, and chapter 2, 2020), Oppy (2014,
especially ch. 3), and Nicholas Wolterstorff (2007), among others.
Besides arbitrariness, objections raised against DCT include autonomy
objections, a variety of epistemic objections, a psychopathy
objection, supervenience objections, prior obligations objection, and
other Euthyphro objections, which include grounding, vacuity, and
counterpossible objections. 



Wielenberg explicitly defends as an alternative to divine command
metaethics a view he calls "godless normative realism."
This is essentially the view that moral truths are basic or
fundamental in character, not derived from natural facts or any more
fundamental metaphysical facts. It thus seems similar to the view
often called "ethical non-naturalism." This view certainly
provides a significant alternative to divine command metaethics.
However, it is worth noting that some of the criticisms that
metaphysical naturalists have against theistic metaethics may apply to
Wielenberg's view as well. Specifically, philosophers such as J.
L. Mackie (1977) find non-natural ethical qualities of any kind
"queer" since they are so unlike the realities discovered
by science. The "brute moral facts" posited by Wielenberg
as necessary truths seem vulnerable to this same criticism. In fact,
the criticism may be sharper against Wielenberg's view than
against theistic views, since ethical truths may appear less odd in a
universe that is ultimately grounded in a person. Responses to the
objections of Wielenberg, Morriston, and others have also been given
(see Evans 2013, Baggett and Walls, 2011, 2016, Flannagan, 2017,
2021a, 2021, Pruss, 2009, Davis and Franks, 2015). Clearly the version
of a moral argument for God's existence that rests on divine
command theory will only be judged powerful by those who find a DCT
plausible, and that will certainly be a minority of philosophers.
(Although it is worth noting that no single metaethical theory seems
to enjoy widespread support among philosophers, so a DCT is not alone
in being a minority view.) Nevertheless, those who do find a DCT
powerful will also see moral obligations as providing strong evidence
for God's reality.


## 4. Arguments from Moral Knowledge or Awareness



A variety of arguments have been developed that God is necessary to
explain human awareness of moral truth (or moral knowledge, if one
believes that this moral awareness amounts to knowledge). Richard
Swinburne (2004, 218), for example, argues that there is no
"great probability that moral awareness will occur in a Godless
universe." On Swinburne's view, moral truths are either
necessary truths or contingent truths that are grounded in necessary
truths. For example, it is obviously contingent that "It is
wrong to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima," since it is
contingent that there exists a city such as Hiroshima. But one might
hold that this proposition is true (assuming it is) because of some
other truth such as "It is wrong intentionally to kill innocent
humans" which does hold universally and is necessarily true.
Swinburne does not think that an argument to God's existence
from moral facts as such is powerful, increasing the likelihood of
theism only a little. However, the fact that we humans are aware of
moral facts is itself surprising and calls for an explanation.



It may be true that creatures who belong to groups that behave
altruistically will have some survival advantage over groups that lack
such a trait. However, moral beliefs are not required in order to
produce such behavior, since it is clear that "there are many
species of animals that are naturally inclined to help others of their
species, and yet do not have moral beliefs." (Swinburne 2004,
217) If God exists, he has "significant reason to bring about
conscious beings with moral awareness," since his intended
purpose for humans includes making it possible for them freely to
choose good over evil, since this will make it possible for them to
develop a relation to God. Swinburne does not think that this argument
provides very strong evidence for God's existence by itself, but
rather that it provides some inductive support for belief in God. It
is one of several phenomena which seem more probable in a theistic
universe than in a godless universe. As we consider more and more such
phenomena, it will be increasingly improbable that "they
will *all* occur." (ibid, 218) All of these
inductive arguments together may then provide substantial support for
theistic belief, even if no one of them by itself would be sufficient
for rational belief by demonstrating that theism is likely true.



Swinburne's version of the argument is quite brief and
undeveloped, but some claims that could be used to support a more
developed version of the argument (one that will be described below)
can be found in a well-known and much cited article by Sharon Street
(2006). Street's argument, as the title implies, is in no way
intended to support a moral argument for theism. To the contrary, her
purpose is to defend anti-realist metaethical theories against realist
theories that view moral truth as "stance-independent" of
human attitudes and emotions. Street presents the moral realist with a
dilemma posed by the question as to how our human evaluative beliefs
are related to human evolution. It is clear, she believes, that
evolution has strongly shaped our evaluative attitudes. The question
concerns how those attitudes are related to the objective evaluative
truths accepted by the realist. If the realist holds that there is no
relation between such truths and our evaluative attitudes, then this
implies that "most of our evaluative judgments are off track due
to the distorting influence of Darwinian processes." The other
alternative for the realist is to claim that there is a relationship,
and thus that is not an accident or miracle that our evaluative
beliefs track the objective truths. However, this view, Street claims,
is scientifically implausible. Street argues therefore that an
evolutionary story about how we came to make the moral judgments we
make undermines confidence in the objective truth of those judgments.
Street's argument is of course controversial and thinkers such
as Erik Wielenberg (2014) have argued against evolutionary debunking
arguments. Still, many regard such arguments as problematic for those
who want to defend moral realism, particularly when developed as a
"global" argument (Kahane, 2010).



Street's argument has also been challenged by such critics as
Russ Shafer-Landau (2012). However, her argument, and similar
arguments, have been acknowledged by some moral realists, such as
David Enoch (2011) and Erik Wielenberg (2014) to pose a significant
problem for their view. Enoch, for example, even though he offers a
response to Street's argument, evidently has some worries about
the strength of his reply. Wielenberg, to avoid the criticism that in
a non-theistic universe it would be extremely lucky if evolution
selected for belief in objectively true moral values, proposes that
the natural laws that produce this result may be metaphysically
necessary, and thus there is no element of luck. However, many
philosophers will see this view of natural laws as paying a heavy
price to avoid theism. It might appear that Street is arguing
straightforwardly that evolutionary theory makes it improbable that
humans would have objective moral knowledge. However, it is not
evolution by itself that predicts the improbability of objective moral
knowledge, but the conjunction of evolution and metaphysical
naturalism. A good deal of the force of Street's argument stems
from the assumption that naturalism is true, and therefore that the
evolutionary process is one that is unguided. Since it is not
evolution by itself that poses a challenge to moral realism but the
conjunction of evolution and metaphysical naturalism, then rejecting
naturalism provides one way for the moral realist to solve the
problem. It does appear that in a naturalistic universe we would
expect a process of Darwinian evolution to select for a propensity for
moral judgments that track survival and not objective moral truths.
Mark Linville (2009, 391-446) has developed a detailed argument
for the claim that it is difficult for metaphysical naturalists to
develop a plausible evolutionary story as to how our moral judgments
could have epistemological warrant. However, if we suppose that the
evolutionary process has been guided by God, who has as one of his
goals the creation of morally significant human creatures capable of
enjoying a relation with God, then it would not seem at all accidental
or even unlikely that God would ensure that humans have value beliefs
that are largely correct.



Some philosophers believe that the randomness of Darwinian natural
selection rules out the possibility of any kind of divine guidance
being exercised through such a process. Some thinkers, including both
some atheists and some proponents of what is called "creation
science," believe that evolution and God are rivals, mutually
exclusive hypotheses about the origins of the natural world. What can
be explained scientifically needs no religious explanation. However,
this is far from obviously true; in fact, if theism is true it is
clearly false. From a theistic perspective to think that God and
science provide competing explanations fails to grasp the relationship
between God and the natural world by conceiving of God as one more
cause within that natural world. If God exists at all, God is not an
entity within the natural world, but the creator of that natural
world, with all of its causal processes. If God exists, God is the
reason why there is a natural world and the reason for the existence
of the causal processes of the natural world. In principle, therefore,
a natural explanation can never preclude a theistic explanation. 
Any argument that natural explanations preclude or are in tension with
theistic explanations will in fact be theological in character, since
they will be grounded in assumptions about the kind of world God would
create.



But what about the randomness that is a crucial part of the Darwinian
story? The atheist might claim that because evolutionary theory posits
that the process by which plants and animals have evolved is one that
involves random genetic mutations, it cannot be guided, and thus God
cannot have used evolutionary means to achieve his ends. However, this
argument fails. It depends on an equivocation in what is meant by
"random." When scientists claim that genetic mutations are
random, they do not mean that they are uncaused, or even that they are
unpredictable from the point of view of biochemistry, but only that
the mutations do not happen in response to the adaptational needs of
the organism. It is entirely possible for a natural process to include
randomness in that sense, even if the whole natural order is itself
created and sustained by God. The sense of "randomness"
required for evolutionary theory does not imply that the evolutionary
process must be unguided. A God who is responsible for the laws of
nature and the initial conditions that shape the evolutionary process
could certainly ensure that the process achieved certain ends.



Like the other moral arguments for God's existence, the argument
from moral knowledge can easily be stated in a propositional form, and
I believe Swinburne is right to hold that the argument is best
construed as a probabilistic argument that appeals to God as providing
a better explanation of moral knowledge than is possible in a
naturalistic universe.


1. Humans possess
objective moral knowledge.
2. Probably, if God does
not exist, humans would not possess objective moral knowledge.
3. Probably, God
exists.



There is a kind of argument from moral knowledge also implicit in
Angus Ritchie's book *From Morality to
Metaphysics: The Theistic Implications of our Ethical
Commitments* (2012). Ritchie presses a kind of
dilemma on non-theistic accounts of morality. Subjectivist theories
such as expressivism can certainly make sense of the fact that we make
the ethical judgments we do, but they empty morality of its objective
authority. Objectivist theories that take morality seriously, however,
have difficulty explaining our capacity to make true moral judgments,
unless the process by which humans came to hold these capacities is
one that is controlled by a being such as God.



The moral argument from knowledge will not be convincing to anyone who
is committed to any form of expressivism or other non-objective
metaethical theory, and clearly many philosophers find such views
attractive. And there will surely be many philosophers who will judge
that if moral objectivism implies theism or requires theism to be
plausible, this is a *reductio* of objectivist views.
Furthermore, non-theistic moral philosophers, whether naturalists or
non-naturalists, have stories to tell about how moral knowledge might
be possible. Nevertheless, there are real questions about the
plausibility of these stories, and thus, some of those convinced that
moral realism is true may judge that moral knowledge provides some
support for theistic belief.


## 5. Arguments from Human Dignity or Worth



Many philosophers find Immanuel Kant's moral philosophy still
offers a fruitful approach to ethics. Of the various forms of the
"categorical imperative" that Kant offers, the formula
that regards human beings as "ends in themselves" is
especially attractive: "Act in such a way that you always treat
humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other,
never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end"
(Kant 1785 [1964], 96). Many contemporary moral philosophers
influenced by Kant, such as Christine Korsgaard (1996), see Kant as
offering a "constructivist" metaethical position.
Constructivism is supposed to offer a "third way" between
moral realism and subjectivist views of morality. Like subjectivists,
constructivists want to see morality as a human creation. However,
like moral realists constructivists want to see moral questions as
having objective answers. Constructivism is an attempt to develop an
objective morality that is free of the metaphysical commitments of
moral realism.



It is, however, controversial whether Kant himself was a
constructivist in this sense. One reason to question whether this is
the right way to read Kant follows from the fact that Kant himself did
not see morality as free from metaphysical commitments. For example,
Kant thought that it would be impossible for someone who believed that
mechanistic determinism was the literal truth about himself to believe
that he was a moral agent, since morality requires an autonomy that is
incompatible with determinism. To see myself as a creature who has the
kind of value Kant calls "dignity" I must not see myself
merely as a machine-like product of the physical environment. Hence
Kant thought that it was crucial for morality that his Critical
Philosophy had shown that the deterministic perspective on humans is
simply part of the "phenomenal world" that is the object
of scientific knowledge, not the "noumenal reality" that
it would be if some kind of scientific realism were the true
metaphysical view. When we do science we see ourselves as determined,
but science tells us only how the world appears, not how it really is.
Recognizing this fact suggests that when Kant posits that humans have
this intrinsic value he calls dignity, he is not
"constructing" the value humans have, but recognizing the
value beings of a certain kind must have. Humans can only have this
kind of value if they are a particular kind of creature. Whether Kant
himself was a moral realist or not, there are certainly elements in
his philosophy that push in a realist direction.



If the claim that human persons have a kind of intrinsic dignity or
worth is a true objective principle and if it provides a key
foundational principle of morality, it is well worth asking what kinds
of metaphysical implications the claim might have. This is the
question that Mark Linville (2009, 417-446) pursues in the
second moral argument he develops. Linville begins by noting that one
could hardly hold that "human persons have intrinsic
dignity" could be true if human persons do not exist. Clearly,
some metaphysical positions do include a denial of the existence of
human persons, such as forms of Absolute Monism which hold that only
one Absolute Reality exists. However, it also seems to be the case
that some forms of Scientific Naturalism are committed to the denial
of "*persons* as substantive selves that essentially
possess a first-person point of view" (See Dennett 2006, 107).
Daniel Dennett, for example, holds that persons will not be part of
the ultimately true scientific account of things. Dennett holds that
to think of humans as persons is simply to adopt a certain
"stance" toward them that he calls the "intentional
stance," but it is clear that the kind of picture of humans we
get when we think of them in this way does not correspond with their
intrinsic metaphysical properties. It is not clear how systems towards
which we adopt an "intentional stance" could be truly
autonomous and thus have the kind of value Kant believes human persons
have.



The argument from human dignity could be put into propositional form
as follows:


1. Human persons have a
special kind of intrinsic value that we call dignity.
2. The only (or best)
explanation of the fact that humans possess dignity is that they are
created by a supremely good God in God's own image.
3. Probably there is a
supremely good God.



A naturalist may want to challenge premise (2) by finding some other
strategy to explain human dignity. Michael Martin (2002), for example,
has tried to suggest that moral judgments can be analyzed as the
feelings of approval or disapproval of a perfectly impartial and
informed observer. Linville (2009) objects that it is not clear how
the feelings of such an observer could constitute the intrinsic worth
of a person, since one would think that intrinsic properties would be
non-relational and mind-independent. In any case, Linville notes that
a "Euthyphro" problem lurks for such an ideal observer
theory, since one would think that such an observer would judge a
person to be intrinsically valuable because the person has intrinsic
value.



Another strategy that is pursued by constructivists such as Korsgaard
is to link the value ascribed to humans to the capacity for rational
reflection. The idea is that insofar as I am committed to rational
reflection, I must value myself as having this capacity, and
consistently value others who have it as well. A similar strategy is
found in Wielenberg's form of ethical non-naturalism, since
Wielenberg argues that it is necessarily true that any being with
certain reflective capacities will have moral rights (Wielenberg,
2014, chapter 4). It is far from clear that human rationality provides
an adequate ground for moral rights, however. Many people believe that
young infants and people suffering from dementia still have this
intrinsic dignity, but in both cases there is no capacity for rational
reflection.



Some support for this criticism of the attempt to see reason as the
basis of the value of humans can be found in Nicholas
Wolterstorff's recent work on justice (2007, especially Ch. 8).
Wolterstorff in this work defends the claim that there are natural
human rights, and that violating such rights is one way of acting
unjustly towards a person. Why do humans have such rights?
Wolterstorff says these rights are grounded in the basic worth or
dignity that humans possess. When I seek to torture or kill an
innocent human I am failing to respect this worth. If one asks why we
should think humans possess such worth, Wolterstorff argues that the
belief that humans have this quality was not only historically
produced by Jewish and Christian conceptions of the human person, but
even now cannot be defended apart from such a conception. In
particular, he argues that attempts to argue that our worth stems from
some excellence we possess such as reason will not explain the worth
of infants or those with severe brain injuries or dementia.



Does a theistic worldview fare better in explaining the special value
of human dignity? In a theistic universe God is himself seen as the
supreme good. Indeed, theistic Platonists usually identify God with
the Good. If God is himself a person, then this seems to be a
commitment to the idea that personhood itself is something that must
be intrinsically good. If human persons are made in God's image,
as both Judaism and Christianity affirm, then it would seem to follow
that humans do have a kind of intrinsic value, just by way of being
the kind of creatures they are.



This argument will of course be found unconvincing to many. Some will
deny premise (1), either because they reject moral realism as a
metaethical stance, or because they reject the normative claim that
humans have any kind of special value or dignity. (Maybe they will
even think that such a claim is a form of "speciesism.").
Others will find premise (2) suspect. They may be inclined to agree
that human persons have a special dignity, but hold that the source of
that dignity can be found in such human qualities as rationality. With
respect to the status of infants and those suffering from dementia,
the critic might bite the bullet and just accept the fact that human
dignity does not extend to them, or else argue that the fact that
infants and those suffering mental breakdown are part of a species
whose members typically possess rationality merits them a special
respect, even if they lack this quality as individuals. Others will
find premise (2) doubtful because they find the theistic explanation
of dignity unclear. Another alternative is to seek a Constructivist
account of dignity, perhaps regarding the special status of humans as
something we humans decide to extend to each other. Perhaps the
strongest non-theistic alternative would be some form of ethical
non-naturalism, in which one simply affirms that the claim that
persons have a special dignity is an *a priori* truth
requiring no explanation. In effect this is a decision for a
non-theistic form of Platonism.



The proponent of the argument may well agree that claims about the
special status of humans are true *a priori*, and
thus also opt for some form of Platonism. However, the proponent of
the argument will point out that some necessary truths can be
explained by other necessary truths. The theist believes that these
truths about the special status of humans tell us something about the
kind of universe humans find themselves in. To say that humans are
created by God is to say that personhood is not an ephemeral or
accidental feature of the universe, because at bottom reality itself
is personal (Mavrodes 1986).


## 6. Practical Moral Arguments for Belief in God



As already noted, the most famous and perhaps most influential version
of a moral argument for belief in God is found in Immanuel Kant
(1788). Kant himself insisted that his argument was not a theoretical
argument, but an argument grounded in practical reason. The conclusion
of the argument is not "God exists" or "God probably
exists" but "I (as a rational, moral agent) ought to
believe that God exists." We shall, however, see that there are
some reasons to doubt that practical arguments can be neatly separated
from theoretical arguments.



Kant's version of the argument can be stated in different ways,
but perhaps the following captures one plausible interpretation of the
argument. Morality is grounded in pure practical reason, and the moral
agent must act on the basis of maxims that can be rationally endorsed
as universal principles. Moral actions are thus not determined by
results or consequences but by the maxims on which they are based.
However, all actions, including moral actions, necessarily aim at
ends. Kant argues that the end that moral actions aim at is the
"highest good," which is a world in which both moral
virtue and happiness are maximized, with happiness contingent on
virtue. For Kant "ought implies can," and so if I have an
obligation to seek the highest good, then I must believe that it is
possible to achieve such an end. However, I must seek the highest good
only by acting in accordance with morality; no shortcuts to happiness
are permissible. This seems to require that I believe that acting in
accordance with morality will be causally efficacious in achieving the
highest good. However, it is reasonable to believe that moral actions
will be causally efficacious in this way only if the laws of causality
are set up in such a way that these laws are conducive to the efficacy
of moral action. Certainly both parts of the highest good seem
difficult to achieve. We humans have weaknesses in our character that
appear difficult if not impossible to overcome by our own efforts.
Furthermore, as creatures we have subjective needs that must be
satisfied if we are happy, but we have little empirical reason to
think that these needs will be satisfied by moral actions even if we
succeeded in becoming virtuous. If a person believes that the natural
world is simply a non-moral machine with no moral purposiveness then
that person would have no reason to believe that moral action could
succeed because there is no *a priori* reason to
think moral action will achieve the highest good and little empirical
reason to believe this either. Kant thus concludes that a moral agent
must "postulate" the existence of God as a rational
presupposition of the moral life.



One problem with this argument is that many will deny that morality
requires us to seek the highest good in Kant's sense. Even if
the Kantian highest good seems reasonable as an ideal, some will
object that we have no obligation to achieve such a state, but merely
to work towards realizing the closest approximation to such a state
that is possible (See Adams 1987, 152). Without divine assistance,
perhaps perfect virtue is unachievable, but in that case we cannot be
obliged to realize such a state if there is no God. Perhaps we cannot
hope that happiness will be properly proportioned to virtue in the
actual world if God does not exist, but then our obligation can only
be to realize as much happiness as can be attained through moral
means. Kant would doubtless reject this criticism, since on his view
the ends of morality are given directly to pure practical
reason *a priori*, and we are not at liberty to
adjust those ends on the basis of empirical beliefs. However, few
contemporary philosophers would share Kant's confident view of
reason here, and thus to many the criticism has force. Even Kant
admits at one point that full-fledged belief in God is not rationally
necessary, since one could conceivably seek the highest good if one
merely believes that God's existence is possible (Kant,
1781-1787, 651).



Another way of interpreting Kant's argument puts more stress on
the connection between an individual's desire for happiness and
the obligation to do what is morally right. Morality requires me to
sacrifice my personal happiness if that is necessary to do what is
right. Yet it is a psychological fact that humans necessarily desire
their own happiness. In such a state it looks as if human moral agents
will be torn by what Henry Sidgwick called the "dualism of the
practical reason" (1884, 401). Reason both requires humans to
seek their own happiness and to sacrifice it. Sidgwick himself noted
that only if there is a God can we hope that this dualism will be
resolved, so that those who seek to act morally will in the long run
also be acting so as to advance their own happiness and well-being.
(Interestingly, Sidgwick himself does not endorse this argument, but
he clearly sees this problem as part of the appeal of theism.) A
contemporary argument similar to this one has been developed by C.
Stephen Layman (2002).



The critic of this form of the Kantian argument may reply that Kantian
morality sees duty as something that must be done regardless of the
consequences, and thus a truly moral person cannot make his or her
commitment to morality contingent on the achievement of happiness.
From a Kantian point of view, this reply seems right; Kant
unequivocally affirms that moral actions must be done for the sake of
duty and not from any desire for personal reward. Nevertheless,
especially for any philosopher willing to endorse any form of
eudaimonism, seeing myself as inevitably sacrificing what I cannot
help but desire for the sake of duty does seem problematic. As John
Hare affirms, "If we are to endorse wholeheartedly the long-term
shape of our lives, we have to see this shape as consistent with our
happiness" (1996, 88).



The critic may reply to this by simply accepting the lamentable fact
that there is something tragic or even absurd about the human
condition. The world may not be the world we wish it was, but that
does not give us any reason to believe it is different from what it
is. If there is a tension between the demands of morality and
self-interest, then this may simply be a brute fact that must be
faced.



This reply raises an issue for all forms of practical or pragmatic
arguments for belief. Many philosophers insist that rational belief
must be grounded solely in theoretical evidence. The fact that it
would be better for me to believe p does not in itself give me any
reason to believe p. This criticism is aimed not merely at Kant, but
at other practical moral arguments. For example, Robert Adams argues
that if humans believe there is no moral order to the universe, then
they will become demoralized in their pursuit of morality, which is
morally undesirable (1987, 151). The atheist might concede that
atheism is (somewhat) demoralizing, but deny that this provides any
reason to believe there is a moral order to the universe. Similarly,
Linda Zagzebski (1987) argues that morality will not be a rational
enterprise unless good actions increase the amount of good in the
world. However, given that moral actions often involve the sacrifice
of happiness, there is no reason to believe moral action will increase
the good unless there is a power transcendent of human activity
working on the side of the good. Here the atheist may claim that moral
action does increase the good because such actions always increase
good character. However, even if that reply fails the atheist may
again simply admit that there may be something tragic or absurd about
the human condition, and the fact that we may wish things were
different is not a reason to believe that they are. So the problem
must be faced: Are practical arguments merely rationalized
wish-fulfillment?



The theist might respond to this kind of worry in several ways. The
first thing to be said is that the fact that a naturalistic view of
the universe implies that the universe must be tragic or absurd, if
correct, would itself be an important and interesting conclusion.
However, apart from this, it makes a great deal of difference how one
construes what we might call the background epistemic situation. If
one believes that our theoretical evidence favors atheism, then it
seems plausible to hold that one ought to maintain a naturalistic
view, even if it is practically undesirable that the world have such a
character. In that case a practical argument for religious belief
could be judged a form of wish-fulfillment. However, this does not
seem to be the way those who support such a practical argument see the
situation. Kant affirms that the limits of reason established
in *The Critique of Pure Reason* would silence all
objections to morality and religion "in Socratic fashion,
namely, by the clearest proof of the ignorance of the
objectors." (1781, 1787, 30. See also 530-531) In fact,
the situation actually favors theism, since Kant holds that
theoretical reason sees value in the concept of God as a regulative
ideal, even though God's existence cannot be theoretically
affirmed as knowledge. If we appeal to God's will to explain
what happens in the natural order, we undermine both science and
religion, since in that case we would no longer seek empirical
evidence for causality and we would make God into a finite object in
the natural world (1781, 1787, 562-563). However, as a
regulative ideal, the concept of God is one that theoretical reason
finds useful: "The assumption of a supreme intelligence, as the
one and only cause of the universe, though in the idea alone, can
therefore always benefit reason and can never injure it" (1781,
1787, 560). There is a sense in which theoretical reason itself
inclines towards affirmation of God, because it must assume that
reality is rationally knowable: "If one wishes to achieve
systematic knowledge of the world, he ought to regard it as if it were
created by a supreme reason." (Kant 1786, 298) Although
theoretical reason cannot affirm the existence of God, it finds it
useful to think of the natural world as having the kinds of
characteristics it would have if God did exist. Thus, if rational
grounds for belief in God come from practical reason, theoretical
reason will raise no objections.



For Kant the argument from practical reason for belief in God is not a
form of wish-fulfillment because its ground is not an arbitrary desire
or wish but "a real need associated with reason" (Kant,
1786, 296). Human beings are not purely theoretical spectators of the
universe, but agents. It is not always rational or even possible to
refrain from action, and yet action presupposes beliefs about the way
things are (For a good interpretation and defense of this view of Kant
on the relation between action and belief, see Wood 1970,
17-25). Thus, in some cases suspension of judgment is not
possible. The critic may object that a person may act as if p were
true without believing p. However, it is not clear that this advice to
distinguish action on the basis of p and belief that p can always be
followed. For one thing, it seems empirically the case that one way of
acquiring belief that p is simply to begin to act as if p were true.
Hence, to begin to act as if p were true is at least to embark upon a
course of action that makes belief in p more likely. Second, there may
well be a sense of "belief" in which "acting as if p
were true" is sufficient to constitute belief. This is obviously
the case on pragmatist accounts of belief. But even those who reject a
general pragmatic account of belief may well find something like this
appealing with respect to religious belief. Many religious believers
hold that the best way to measure a person's religious faith is
in terms of the person's actions. Thus, a person who is willing
to act on the basis of a religious conception, especially if those
actions are risky or costly, is truly a religious believer, even if
that person is filled with doubt and anxiety. Such a person might well
be construed as more truly a believer than a person who smugly
"assents" to religious doctrines but is unwilling to act
on them.



Perhaps the right way to think of practical moral arguments is not to
see them as justifying belief without evidence, but as shifting the
amount of evidence seen as necessary. This is the lesson some would
draw from the phenomenon of "pragmatic encroachment" that
has been much discussed in recent epistemology. Here is an example of
pragmatic encroachment:



> 
> You: I am about to replace the ceiling fan in the kitchen.
>   
> 
> Spouse: Did you turn off the main electrical power to the house?
>   
> 
> You: Yes.
>   
> 
> Spouse: If you forgot you could electrocute yourself.
>   
> 
> You: I better go back and check.
>   
> 
> (See McBrayer 2014, Rizzieri 2013).
> 



A plausible interpretation of this scenario is that ordinarily claims
such as the one I made, based on memory, are justified, and count as
knowledge. However, in this situation, the stakes are raised because
my life is at risk, and my knowledge is lost because the pragmatic
situation has "encroached" on the normal truth-oriented
conditions for knowledge. Pragmatic encroachment is controversial and
the idea of such encroachment is rejected by some epistemologists.
However, defenders hold that it is reasonable to consider the
pragmatic stakes in considering evidence for a belief that underlies
significant action (see Fantl and McGrath 2007). If this is correct,
then it seems reasonable to consider the pragmatic situation in
determining how much evidence is sufficient to justify religious
beliefs. In theory the adjustment could go in either direction,
depending on what costs are associated with a mistake and on which
side those costs lie.



In any case it is not clear that practical moral arguments can always
be clearly distinguished from theoretical moral arguments. The reason
this is so is that in many cases the practical situation described
seems itself to be or involve a kind of evidence for the truth of the
belief being justified. Take, for example, Kant's classic
argument. One thing Kant's argument does is call to our
attention that it would be enormously odd to believe that human beings
are moral creatures subject to an objective moral law, but also to
believe that the universe that humans inhabit is indifferent to
morality. In other words, the existence of human persons understood as
moral beings can itself be understood as a piece of evidence about the
character of the universe humans find themselves in. Peter Byrne
(2013, 1998) has criticized practical arguments on the grounds that
they presuppose something like the following proposition: "The
world is likely to be organized so as to meet our deepest human
needs." Byrne objects that this premise is likely to be false if
there is no God and thus arguments that assume it appear circular.
However, it is not clear that only those who already believe in God
will find this premise attractive. The reason for this is that humans
are themselves part of the natural universe, and it seems a desirable
feature of a metaphysical view that it explain (rather than explain
away) features of human existence that seem real and important.



It seems likely therefore that any appeal to a practical argument will
include some theoretical component as well, even if that component is
not always made explicit. Nevertheless, this does not mean that
practical arguments do not have some important and distinctive
features. For Kant it was important that religious beliefs stem from
practical reason. For if religious belief were grounded solely in
theoretical reason, then such belief would have to conform to
"extrinsic and arbitrary legislation." (Kant 1790, 131)
Kant thinks such a religion would be one grounded in "fear and
submission," and thus it is good that religious belief is
motivated mainly by a free moral act by which the "final end of
our being" is presented to us. (1790, 159) For any practical
argument makes religious belief existential; the issue is not merely
what I believe to be true about the universe but how I shall live my
life in that universe.


## 7. Conclusion



It seems clear that no version of the moral argument constitutes a
"proof" of God's existence. Each version contains
premises that many reasonable thinkers reject. However, this does not
mean the arguments have no force. One might think of each version of
the argument as attempting to spell out the "cost" of
rejecting the conclusion. Some philosophers will certainly be willing
to pay the cost, and indeed have independent reasons for doing so.
However, it would certainly be interesting and important if one became
convinced that atheism required one to reject moral realism
altogether, or to embrace an implausible account of how moral
knowledge is acquired. For those who think that some version or
versions of the arguments have force, the cumulative case for theistic
belief may be raised by such arguments.