The Metaphysics of Philosophy, Knowledge and Morality Chapter 13

Chapter 13

God, morality, laws and human rights

You can't combine these four aspects in any argumentation. I'll show you why.

If God exists, God created the Universe and life by definition, and God gave us rules of behaviour. It follows that God is the source of morality and a small set of human rights: the right to life and the right to be loved like people love themselves. In other words, everyone is entitled to equitable treatment. But that's it.

Christians are not bound by man-made laws or man-declared human rights. There is no divine rule on paying taxes, especially not one on paying tricky progressive taxes. Man-made rules should only be obeyed to the point they are reasonable and do not contradict divine rules. (No gay marriage.)

Thus a model containing God will not tell people to abide by man-made laws or to pay each and every kind of tax.

A model without God, on the other hand, will not tell people to follow divine moral rules. It will tell them to respect a broad array of human rights, to follow all laws and to pay all taxes, but it will fail to explain why. If there is no God, why should anyone obey any rules, other than for fear of imprisonment? A model without God will leave a community without morality and motivation in any area of life. How can you explain that human rights, equality and justice are necessary? They are clearly NOT necessary in any sense. If man is created in God's image, then human rights are necessitated by that likeness. If man is the random product of matter, why should there be any moral rules or rights? Frankly, for no specific reason.

Worse, the individual can choose to keep a number of rules on a voluntary basis, but that surely doesn't warrant punishment for those who don't volunteer to abide by the arbitrary rules. Using a model without God, there is no crime at all, and no punishment can ever be justified. Implementing such a model with any degree of consistency would result in havoc and general mayhem.

The only reason civilisation is not falling apart is that most people have common sense and accept that there has to be a solid basis for morality and rules, which is impossible without God.