More Than a CarpenterSample

Is Atheism More Moral?

The New Atheists unmercifully attack the evils of religion and the character of the biblical God. Morality can exist independently of God, they loudly proclaim. According to Dawkins, “We do not need God in order to be good—or evil.”*1 The New Atheists enthusiastically denounce religion as evil while praising science as good. But this raises an awkward dilemma for the atheist: If there is no God, where do moral obligations come from in the first place? If “there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world,”*2 as Dawkins proclaims, then what does it mean to say that evil exists? Since moral values do not have physical properties such as height, width, and weight, how can we say they are real?

The awkwardness for atheism is that it is notoriously difficult to define evil without some transcendent moral standard of good. Evil has traditionally been understood as the perversion of good. Just as crookedness implies a standard of straight, evil implies a standard of good. C. S. Lewis famously said that a bent stick only makes sense in light of the concept of straight. Similarly, there can only be evil if there is first good. But if there is no God (as the New Atheists proclaim), then what is good? Even the late atheist J. L. Mackie recognized that objective morals were unlikely to arise apart from an all-powerful God.

The existence of objective moral values is a strong reason for believing in God. Consider this simple argument:

1. If objective moral values exist, God must exist.
2. Objective moral values exist.
3. Therefore, God must exist.

We know objective moral values exist. We don’t need to be persuaded that, for example, torturing babies for fun is wrong. All reasonable people know this. Therefore, since moral values do exist, then God must as well.

In his public debates, Christopher Hitchens regularly challenged his opponents to give a single example of a moral action that atheists cannot do. Of course, there are none. Many atheists are kind, charitable, and hardworking people. But Hitchens’s challenge misses the larger point: How can atheism itself make sense of moral obligations in the first place? If there is no God, how do we ground good and evil? Atheism is silent on this issue. Thus, ironically, one of the most common objections to God ends up being one of the best reasons to believe in him.

1. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2nd ed. with Preface (New York: Mariner Books, 2008), 258.
2. Ibid., 35.