Marshall Adresses an Important Misunderstanding

C. S. Lewis and lots of others have argued, the fact of objective morality requires that there is a God - more specifically an eternal mind that is eternally moral before the finite minds are intermittently moral.

However, in debates, it so often happens "I don't need a God to tell me what's moral".

Here is the argument as repeated by Wallace Marshall, PhD.:

• If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
• Objective moral values and duties exist.
• Therefore, God exists.

And here is the self same adressing the misunderstanding and related ones:

To head off some common misunderstandings, note that the argument doesn’t claim that God needs to inform us, say in a revelation of some kind, about what’s right and wrong. Nor is it claiming that people need to believe in God in order to behave ethically. Rather, it’s about moral ontology: what morality is, and what seems necessary to ground it. Finally, note that each of the premises finds support among atheists.

The Carrier-Marshall Debate: Marshall’s Ninth Response
by Richard Carrier on July 4, 2019
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/15591

Note, we can here adress a misunderstanding from the opposite side too : some Puritans think, we most certainly do need God to reveal what is right and what is wrong, because we are so totally corrupt after Adam's sin in our nature that we have nothing to trust at all in our own moral experience.

This is however against the Bible:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice: Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them. Romans 1:18, 19

If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more will your Father who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him? Matthew 7:11 (closely paralleled by Luke 11:13)

In other words, people not justified are inexcusable for evil acts (in Romans 1 primarily idolatry) because they know of themselves what is right, and they are able to give good gifts to their children, even if they are evil, that is not justified. So, while they have a somewhat darkened moral sense, which needs correction from revelation, they do have a moral sense. Objective moral values and duties are accessible even to the non-Christians and even to those who having the faith are not justified.

Hence, this line of apologetics is perfectly licit.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Fontenay les Roses
St. Anthony Maria Zaccaria
5.VII.2019