Morality: What’s God Have to do with it?

God is NOT necessary for a moral standard

People in general tend to look to God for all the answers but in this day and age I firmly believe we need to look at our own families and friends to help instill morals. There is no scientific proof that morals are an inborn trait so that indicates morality must be taught to a child. God will have no hand in making someone moral or immoral; the only hand God has in all this morality is the judgment of the behavior of humans based on their actions.

In our textbook, Ganssle addresses two statements as facts: (87)

1. Some geckos eat crickets.
2. It is wrong to torture a cat to death just for fun.

He states in his opinion that both statements are true facts because the statements are moral facts, based on normativity or in simple words, what we ought to do (or not do)(89). Ganssle states the theory of individual relativism in which each human perceives what is moral or immoral individually (90) and this can vary between people. What is “wrong” in some people’s eyes may not be “wrong” to another person.  This is all based on individualism and not on God or how God created us. It is our culture and how we are raised, our cultural relativism, which instills our level of morals (93).

If God does not instill morals within humans at birth, where do humans learn moral conduct? Another source that seems likely would be through the educational system. God has been removed from the school grounds by the court system, placing the responsibility of teaching morality on the teachers. Charles Colson states in his article “Can We Be Good Without God?” “In education, the same kind of court-enforced secularism has been so successful that teachers may hand out condoms in school, but they are forbidden to display a copy of the Ten Commandments…students may indulge in any kind of activity in school, but they are forbidden to pray (464).” God has been removed from the educational system so the morality standards instilled in children are not religiously based. Colson quotes German professor of logic, Immanuel Kant, as stating that God is irrelevant, that he may exist but he is separate from the rest of life and that students are in fact “taught to have an inner capacity to do good rationally” (464), not basing their actions on God or the repercussions of breaking God’s commandments.

So what does this mean for humanity? Jack Miles offers this possibility in his book Does God Love? “Yes, the innocent do suffer and the wicked prosper. The world is immoral—in effect, ruled by a fiend (247).” Miles may be suggesting that God himself is the fiend, or that it is the devil that reared his ugly head, causing the world to be immoral. If that is the case then again, God cannot be necessary for morals if he or his polar opposite is actually the cause. In reality it does seem as those who are immoral do prosper over those who seek the higher road, showing pity and empathy towards humanity but keep in mind there are people who commit horrific crimes against others and still recognize their acts as immoral. It is the people in one’s life that instills what is right and what is wrong, not a god or the God, that people hold in their faith as a savior and judge of all humanity.

Works Cited

Colson, Charles W. “Can We Be Good Without God?”. Imprints. Feb. 16 1993. 463-466. Web. Accessed   Feb. 24 2014.

Ganssle, Gregory E. Thinking about God. Illinois: InterVarsity Press. 2004. Print.

Miles, Jack. God: A Biography. New York: Random House Publishing. 1995. Print.