Just in time for the 2008 Christmas season, the American Humanist Association launched a new ad campaign with the message “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake.” The ads feature a Christmas motif with their snowflakes and green and red lettering, and some even picture a guy in a Santa suit. But the campaign slogan reveals a confusion about the nature of morality.
According to Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association, “Humanists have always understood that you don’t need a god to be good. Morality doesn’t come from religion. It’s a set of values embraced by individuals and society based on empathy, fairness, and experience.” The interesting thing about this statement is that Speckhardt characterizes empathy and fairness as good, but he doesn’t say why these things are good. And that is the real question: What makes good things good? What grounds morality?
There are only two possible sources for morality: God or human beings. If, as the American Humanist Association claims, morality is grounded in human beings and their experience, then some very serious problems arise. The first problem is that it justifies societies that are clearly morally wrong, such as Nazi Germany. If morality is “a set of values embraced by society based on empathy, fairness, and experience,” then Nazi Germany did nothing wrong. Being empathetic does not mean doing good to someone, only understanding their feelings. And the Nazis were fair – all Jews were sent to concentration camps. The morality of their society cannot be condemned by our society since their society simply embraced values that differ from ours.
This leads to the second problem, that morality can change or be something different than what it is. Thus, the grounds for morality become arbitrary and therefore loose their force. What is morally acceptable now may not be later. Or what is okay here may not be okay somewhere else. This system of morality is based on the will of the majority - might makes right.
And that leads to the third problem, that there can be no moral reform if morality is based on human beings. If morality is made of values embraced by society, as the American Humanist Association says, then to stand against those values is, by definition, immoral. This leaves no room for people like William Wilberforce, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, or Martin Luther King, Jr. to better society. In fact, they would be the most immoral people in the society. And this, of course, is wildly counter-intuitive.
So the relativistic approach to morality held by the American Humanist Association fails to account for morality. To be good for goodness’ sake is completely arbitrary on their view. To be clear, I am not saying that atheists cannot do good things. I have been blessed through the good works of many atheist friends. But they cannot answer the question asked earlier: What makes good things good? What must exist in order for morality to exist?
The first thing that has to be taken into account is that morality does not describe actions, it prescribes them. Moral laws say what ought to be, not necessarily what is. The Humanist position says morality is based on empathy and fairness, but it does not and cannot say why we ought to act on those things. The ought-ness we see in moral laws are commands that oblige us, they are commandments. And commandments have authority over our actions. Morality is also universal; it applies to all people in all places at all times. This means morality is objective, not relative. The existence of morality does not depend on our existence.
Prescriptions and commands are forms of communication, and communication happens only between minds. Also, because morals deal with purpose and will, the source of morality must also have purpose and a will. Because morals are universal and transcend individuals, societies, and time, the source must be universal and transcendent. Since morals are authoritative they must come from an authority, and authority can only be held by a person. Finally, this person must have the power to impose his moral will on us and provide us with an ability to know their moral will through intuition. Thus, morals come from a transcendent person who has the power and authority to impose a moral law on us. And we call this person God. Morality is a reflection an outworking of God’s character. It is not arbitrary and does not have an existence independent of God.
The slogan of the American Humanist Association ads means to convey that believing in God is nonsense, while being good for goodness’ sake makes perfect sense. Interestingly, they got it backwards. It is belief in God that is sensible, and being good for goodness sake that is arbitrary and meaningless.
