The Moral Argument for God's existence consists of the following premises: All sane adults have a sense of morality. Each individual, though he or she has a sense of right and wrong, has experientially failed to live up to their standard. Consequently, immortality would be required in order to achieve this inherent human desire for perfection and wholeness. In order to provide eternity as the context for living up to this moral standard, God must exist. The argument postulates that the existence of God emerges from "the ethical possibility that men have of seeking the summum bonum or highest value." (Woodfin, Mind, 46). In other words, the quest for the fulfillment of one's moral standard requires the context of immortality in order for there to be ongoing progress in one's striving for the goal. Therefore, the creation of this context of immortality requires God's existence. The argument was presented by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant argued that the existence of God must be assumed by the individual since without God's existence there would be no immortality of the soul or any meaningful opportunity to fulfill the moral requirements of the Categorical Imperative proposed by him. In short, Kant summarized this sense of morality as an innate awareness of the individual to regard others with respect and dignity. In this sense, it is "Categorical" in that it is universal and it is an "Imperative" in that is a moral requirement. As will be discussed below under the heading of objections to the argument, thought this moral sense may vary from one individual to the next, or from one socio-cultural context to the other, there still exists an abiding and universal sense of how one "ought" to live and how one "should" achieve a greater level of morality.
Objections: The objections to the Moral Argument for God's existence consist of the following.
1) Critics advance that human moral consciousness can result from conditioned response. The deterministic perspective concerning human moral consciousness is best seen in the theoretical proposal of behaviorist Determinism by B. F. Skinner. Skinner contends that any concept of human freedom or the autonomous individuals should be regarded as "fiction." (Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, 153). In addition to Skinnerian Behaviorism a more recent development of the deterministic model of human behavior and moral awareness is advanced under the title of sociobiology, which understands human behavior in terms of ethology, ecology and genetics. According to the sociobiological model, these elements merge with the consequence of eliminating any possibility of human freedom and attributing all human behavior, including moral sense, to little more than "genetic selfishness". (Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, 154; E. O. Wilson, On Human Nature, 16-17; Robert Wallace, The Genetic Factor, 17; Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene)
2) Critics also contend that human moral standards, though universal (or at least it appearing to be so), are subjective in nature. Jean Paul Sartre (1905-80), the French Existentialist, contended that to speak of a universal standard of morality is meaningless. According to Sartre, "the world is devoid of any objective meaning or value" and so-called "human meaning" has as its derivation in nothing more than the individual's commitments and choices. In short, the individuals shape his moral understanding and ultimately his destiny in the exercise of human freedom demonstrated in personal decisions. ( Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, 36; Jean Paul Sartre, "Existentialism" in Existentialism and Human Emotions, trans. Bernard Frechtman, 15) Bertrand Russell counters the Moral Argument with his contention that one's morality is essentially nothing more than a bundle of one's own perceptions and preferences. (Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, 36; Bertrand Russell and F. C. Coppleston, "The Existence of God: A Debate between Bertrand Russell and Father F. C. Coppleston," in Bertrand Russell, On God and Religion, ed. Al Sekel, 123-46.
3) Finally, those who challenge Kant's moral argument contend that, even if one accepts the premise of the existence of a universal sense of morality, this conclusion does not necessitate the existence of deity. As with other arguments previously cited, critics contend that Kant's moral argument makes an irrational leap from morality to the consequent required existence of God.
