Defiant Heretic

If God is real, and disobeying him is immoral, why is this?
Does God dictate what is or is not immoral? If so, would murder and rape be moral if he said they were?
Or is morality independent of God? If so, what is it that makes atheists immoral? (Psalms 14:1)

jlowder

God is by definition morally perfect. Therefore, if God exists, God's commands would by definition be identical to our moral obligations. (Note this has nothing to do with the divine command theory. Even if morality is autonomous--in other words, not created by God--it would still be the case that if God existed, humans would have an obligation to obey God's commands.)

It depends on which theist you ask. Some theists, including Richard Swinburne and Wes Morriston, hold that morality is independent of God. On their view, actions like murder and rape would be morally wrong, even if God never issued a command forbidding them or even if God commanded humans to commit such acts. Other theists, including William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, believe that if morality is independent of God, that would somehow undermine divine sovereignty. Therefore, they instead believe that morality is dependent on God, despite all of the inherent problems in such a view.

I think there is a strong case for believing that morality is independent of God. Moreover, such a case is compatible with theism. Just as the laws of logic and the laws of mathematics are independent of God, it seems likely that the laws of morality are also independent of God.

As for the issue of whether atheists are moral, I see no a priori reason to believe that ALL atheists are immoral. Therefore, we have to morally evaluate a person's behavior on a case-by-case basis. In one sense, atheists who adopt the moral point of view are more moral than theists who adopt the moral point of view, since atheists (by definition) have no hope of heavenly reward.

Jeff