CAN YOU HAVE A COHERENT MORAL SYSTEM ONCE YOU REJECT GOD?

Sam Harris is a rare atheist who is repulsed by moral relativism. This popular philosophy claims that morality cannot say that anything – genocide, rape, murder, or kidnapping – is absolutely and objectively wrong. Why not? Because morality is just an idea created by humans!

In contrast, Harris claims that he has an alternative to both moral relativism and religious fundamentalism, the two extreme. According to Frank Turek:

·       In his book The Moral Landscape, Harris takes the position that objective moral values really do exist, and they can be explained without invoking God. He claims that if we just use our reason, we’ll see that “human flourishing” is the standard by which we determine something is good or bad. Anything that helps humans flourish is good. Since reason and science can tell us what helps humans flourish, there is no need for God to ground objective moral values. If Harris is correct, it seems that he has successfully shot down the moral argument for God.

However, Harris’ attempt to establish a foundation for objective moral values encounters many problems:

WHY HUMAN REASON? Atheistic “reason” tells us that we are just another animal. If this is so, why should we assume that humans are special and it’s all about “human” flourishing? Why not “cat flourishing” or “cow flourishing?”

WHY SHOULD OUR FEELINGS, MORAL INTUITIONS, OR REASONING BE CONSIDERED OBJECTIVELY TRUE? “Human reason” comes up with different values, depending upon culture and other factors. There needs to be a higher objective criterion to mediate between the competing human ideas, but there is only one, the one Harris has rejected – God.

WHY SHOULD HUMANS EVEN FLOURISH? There is absolutely no rational objective and answer to this question. Instead, Harris has secretly imported a moral absolute that only God can support. It is God who wants us to thrive above the beasts. Admittedly, we are wired to have compassion, avoid pain, and seek pleasure, and, from a Christian perspective, our wiring alerts us to God’s moral truths. But to know moral truth is different from providing a godless basis for moral truth, as Harris is attempting to do. Besides, if this wiring is just the product of a blind and amoral evolutionary process, obeying our wiring is like following a blind man.

REASON OR SCIENCE ALONE CANNOT ACCOUNT FOR VALUES AND MORALITY. Science can observe phenomena but not values. It can observe what is, but not what should be. Likewise, reason can proceed only after it has been given a value to serve. Only after we establish “human flourishing” as a value worth pursuing can science inform us what foods to eat and how to live in order to flourish.

MORALITY CANNOT BE COHERENT WITHOUT THE CONCEPTS OF FREEWILL AND CULPABILITY. In his recent book, “Free Will,” Harris wrote, “Free will is an illusion.” Consequently, what feels like freewill is nothing more than chemical processes that had mindlessly evolved. This leaves no room for human culpability. If our thoughts and actions are entirely controlled by biochemical reactions, then we couldn’t have done otherwise. Hence, there is no basis for guilt and culpability. Nor is there any rational basis for Harris’ outrage against the atrocities of Islam.

Last night, I was pleasantly surprised at a Sam Harris discussion group to find that the participants were not taken in by Harris’ answers. However, they didn’t seem to have any problem to merely make-believe that there are moral absolutes and even, when necessary, that there is a God.

To this, I responded that if they chose to make-believe for the sake of their “flourishing,” why not then take to the next step to consider the evidence for God’s actual existence? Evidently, that was a step too far.