By Amy Beange

In the 1987 film “The Princess Bride”, one of the characters delivers the now classic speech: “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” Why are such scenes so satisfying? Why do we so strongly believe that Count Rugen’s killing of Inigo’s father was not just “bad” or “mean” but that it was “wrong” and that he deserved to die for it? We all instinctively want justice! We want that person to be held responsible for what they did – we want them to pay! Where does this universal human instinct for justice come from? 

Christians believe that we feel like there is a standard that we are accountable to because there IS such a standard. We believe that God, a morally good being, has set the standard of behaviour and that He holds people accountable for obeying that standard. His accountability system is not dependent on human justice systems either. When people commit murder, they answer to God, and not just to the authorities of whatever country they live in. 

In addition to creating and enforcing a moral standard, God has programmed us to detect that standard when we break it – our conscience makes us feel guilty; and he has programmed us to detect that standard when others break it – our sense of justice makes us feel outraged and makes us want to see things put right or to have the wrongdoer punished. We believe that God is the foundation for the moral order, and he made us able to detect it.

If this is the case, then we have an explanation for morals that matches reality. A good God creates a good world, with human beings who are capable of doing good. “Goodness” is a standard that is easy to detect – something is good if it contributes to health and wellness. For example, the Old Testament tells us “do not murder” and “love your neighbour”. For a human to take the life of an innocent person is “not good” because it involves taking an innocent life. Doing what you can to help your neighbor is good because it involves nurturing life. The standard of goodness is set by God who is good by nature.

We’re not arguing that people who don’t believe in God are immoral. We are saying that without God, there would be no objective morality. Objective morality is a standard of goodness or rightness that applied to everyone even if some individuals disagreed with it. For example, some people might think it is good or right to abuse animals but most of us would say that is not good; that it is wrong to abuse animals and it’s wrong even if a few people think it’s okay.

If there is no objective morality, then there is no behaviour that we can say is wrong no matter who does it. That means that morals are relative. So maybe in certain situations it IS okay to abuse animals or children or commit murder or to steal just for fun. But in reality, there are very few people who actually think that is true. We especially don’t think morality is relative when someone does something to us that we think is wrong! Even the most hardened criminal believes he can complain about poor treatment he receives while he is in prison.

Now someone might argue we haven’t done anything but prove objective morals exist – we haven’t shown that God exists. But remember, objective morals are not simply actions that are labelled “right” or “wrong” but are actions that have consequences. It does no good to say that murder is “wrong” if I can murder someone with impunity; if I can take a life and just go about my day. If I discovered an inhabited island in the Pacific and its residents told me about their law system and I asked what happened to those who broke a law and they said “nothing”, do they really have a law system? It is meaningless to say something is “wrong”, or that a law was broken if you do that thing and nothing happens to you. Without consequences, labelling something “right” or “wrong” is useless. We have not said anything worthwhile and would be better off using a label such as “beneficial” or “harmful”. Those are labels that are meaningful because we can measure things like “harm” against a standard. Assault can be said to be “harmful” to the person beaten because they have been injured. But “wrong”? How is assault “wrong” if I can assault someone and get away with it? 

Now maybe my country has a law about assault and if I get caught and successfully prosecuted and sent to prison, we could say it is wrong to assault people. But the problem with human devised law systems is that they don’t go far enough. They are dependent on what a given society thinks at any time and they are often easy to thwart. How many times have we complained about someone being too rich or powerful to be prosecuted? Or what about those who are clever enough not to get caught? We do our best to punish the guilty, but our efforts often fall short. Yet we still, instinctively respond as though there are consequences. Our consciences bother us when we do something we think is wrong and we behave as though there are consequences coming to us that we deserve. We feel this way even regarding things that our society has no law about, even regarding things no one else knows that we did. It’s not against the law to lie to your mother but most of us feel bad about or try to justify lying. It is this sense of guilt and expectation of consequence – this fear of judgment - that we need to explain. Where does this sense come from?

Now some people will argue that we don’t need God to explain morals; we can just refer to the process of human evolution. They say that humans evolved to be cooperative and altruistic and that helping others is in our best interests as a species. Morals are simply survival instincts.

If that is true, then morals are not about being right or wrong but about surviving. If we judge that something is right or wrong based on how well it helps us survive, we will find ourselves in a difficult position. All of us here on earth today are survivors. And yet there is plenty of behaviour in the world today that we find despicable. Rape, murder and theft all happen all over the world. If such behaviours exist because they contributed to our survival as a species, then how can we say they are “wrong”?  

Some might say that those behaviours may have helped us at one time, but that now we have moved on from sheer survival. But who decided that? There are many people who commit these acts who probably would like them to not be regarded as crimes and who might like society to evolve to accept them.

If there are objective morals; that is, actions that are wrong for everyone regardless of how we all feel about it; then the standard needs to come from outside us. It needs to be independent of us and something that we cannot change. If this is true, then God, who is above us and independent of us, is the best candidate to create and apply the standard of right and wrong that we all sense because who else has the kind of power to implant a conscience that makes us feel guilty when we sin or outraged when we witness others sinning, who can know everything we’ve done and who is powerful enough to hold every one of us accountable for all the evil acts we’ve ever done? To deny the existence of God means our consciences are telling us elaborate stories about non-existent guilt and judgment that is never coming. It means that our yearnings for justice are functional fibs, that “right” and “wrong” are just illusions and that human life is cheap since we may do as we wish to each other without sufficient consequence. It means that since there is no unchanging truth about morals, whoever has the most power can enforce their version and usually that version involves getting rid of those who disagree with you. Morality is therefore best explained as being grounded in God. In conversation we might explore: 

• “What makes something wrong?”

• “If you get away with something, is it actually wrong?” 

• “Is there justice apart from what we humans can dish out?”

• “Does might make right?”

Some might argue that, yes, there are objective morals, but the universe itself manages them and ensures justice through some sort of karmic system. We will explore this idea in a later blog.