Can we be good without God? For many people, the answer is absolutely. We often experience non-theists who are good people.  However, the question is not can we be good without believing in God. The question is can we be good without God? See, here’s the problem. If there is no God, what basis remains for objective good or bad, right or wrong? If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist. In addition, here is why. Without some objective reference point, we have no way of saying that something is up or down. God’s nature provides an objective reference point for moral values. We measure all actions and decisions against the standard. However, if there is no God, there is no objective reference point. We are left with is one person’s viewpoint, which is no more valid than anyone else’s viewpoint. This kind of morality is subjective, not objective. It is like a preference for strawberry ice cream; the preference is in the subject, not the object, so it does not apply to other people. In the same way, subjective morality applies only to the subject. It is not valid or binding for anyone else. Therefore, in a world without God, there can be no evil and no-good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. God has expressed his moral nature to us as commands. These provide the basis for moral duties.

For example, God expresses His essential attribute of love in His command to love our neighbor as ourselves. This command provides a foundation upon which we can affirm the objective goodness of generosity, self-sacrifice, and equality, and we can condemn as objectively evil greed, abuse, and discrimination. This raises a problem. Is something good just because God wills it, or does God will something because it is good? The answer is neither one. Rather, God wills something because he is good. God is the standard of moral values, just as a live musical performance is the standard for a high-fidelity recording. The more a recording sounds like the original, the better it is. Likewise, the more closely a moral action conforms to God’s nature, the better it is. However, if atheism is true there is no ultimate standard, so there can be no moral obligations or duties. Who or what lays such duties upon humanity. The answer appears to be no person. Remember, for the atheist, humans are just accidents of nature, highly evolved animals. However, animals have no moral obligations to one another.

When a lion kills a baby buffalo, the lion has not done anything morally wrong. The lion is just being a lion. If God does not exist, we should view human behavior in the same way. We should consider no action as morally right or wrong. However, the problem is that good and bad, right and wrong, do exist. Just as our senses, experience convinces us that the physical world is objectively real; our moral experience convinces us that moral values are objectively real. Every time we say hey that is not fair! That is wrong; that is an injustice! We affirm our belief in the existence of objective morals. We are well aware that child-abuse, racial discrimination, and terrorism are wrong, for everybody, always. Is this just a personal preference or opinion? No. The man who says that it is morally acceptable t

o rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says two plus two equals five. What all this amounts to then is a moral argument for the existence of God. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. However, objective moral values and duties do exist. Therefore, God exists. Atheism fails to provide a foundation for the moral reality every one of us experiences every day. In fact, the existence of objective morality points us directly to the existence of God.

PRIMARY SOURCE: Dr. Craig Videos; The Moral Argument.