According to many religions (although not all), the world was created by God, an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good being. Although God’s existence has been doubted, let us for the moment assume its truth. What implications of this supposition would be relevant to our lives?
Some people would feel more secure in the knowledge that the world had been planned by an all-good being. Others would feel insecure, realizing the extent to which their existence depended on a decision of this being. In any case, most people, out of either fear or respect, would wish to act in accord with God’s will.
Belief in God by itself, however, provides no hint whatsoever of which actions God wishes us to perform or what we ought to do to please or obey God. We may affirm that God is all-good, yet have no way of knowing the highest moral standards. All we may presume is that, whatever these standards, God always acts in accordance with them. We might expect God to have implanted the correct moral standards in our minds, but this supposition is doubtful in view of the conflicts among people’s intuitions. Furthermore, even if consensus prevailed, it might be only a means by which God tests us to see whether we have the courage to dissent from popular opinion.
Some would argue that if God exists, then murder is immoral, because it destroys what God with infinite wisdom created. This argument, however, fails on several grounds. First, God also created germs, viruses, and disease-carrying rats. Because God created these things, ought they not be eliminated? Second, if God arranged for us to live, God also arranged for us to die. By killing, are we assisting the work of God? Third, God provided us with the mental and physical potential to commit murder. Does God wish us to fulfill this potential?
Thus God’s existence alone does not imply any particular moral precepts. We may hope our actions are in accord with God’s standards, but no test is available to check whether what we do is best in God’s eyes. As we have noted, some good people suffer great ills, whereas some seemingly evil people achieve happiness. Perhaps in a future life these outcomes will be reversed, but we have no way of ascertaining who, if anyone, is ultimately punished and who ultimately rewarded.
Over the course of history, those who believed in God’s existence typically were eager to learn God’s will and tended to rely on those individuals who claimed to possess such insight. Diviners, seers, and priests were given positions of great influence. Competition among them was severe, however, for no one could be sure which oracle to believe.
In any case, prophets died, and their supposedly revelatory powers disappeared with them. For practical purposes, what was needed was a permanent record of God’s will. This requirement was met by the writing of holy books in which God’s will was revealed to all.
But even though many such books were supposed to embody the will of God, they conflicted with one another. Which was to be accepted? Belief in the existence of God by itself yields no answer.
Let us suppose, however, that an individual becomes persuaded that a reliable guide to God’s will is contained in the Ten Commandments. This person, therefore, believes that to murder, steal, or commit adultery is wrong.
But why is it wrong? Is it wrong because God says so, or does God say so because it is wrong?
This crucial issue was raised more than two thousand years ago in Plato’s remarkable dialogue, the Euthyphro. Plato’s teacher, Socrates, who in most of Plato’s works is given the leading role, asks the overconfident Euthyphro whether actions are right because God says they are right, or whether God says actions are right because they are right.
In other words, Socrates is inquiring whether actions are right because of God’s fiat or whether God is subject to moral standards. If actions are right because of God’s command, then anything God commands would be right. Had God commanded adultery, stealing, and murder, then adultery, stealing, and murder would be right—surely an unsettling and to many an unacceptable conclusion.
Granted, some may be willing to adopt this discomforting view, but then they face another difficulty. If the good is whatever God commands, to say that God’s commands are good amounts to saying that God’s commands are God’s commands, a mere tautology or repetition of words. In that case, the possibility of meaningfully praising the goodness of God would be lost.
The lesson here is that might does not make right, even if the might is the infinite might of God. To act morally is not to act out of fear of punishment, nor to act as one is commanded. Rather, it is to act as one ought to act, and how one ought to act is not dependent on anyone’s power, even if the power be divine.
Thus actions are not right because God commands them; on the contrary, God commands them because they are right. What is right is independent of what God commands, for to be right, what God commands must conform to an independent standard.
We could act intentionally in accord with this standard without believing in the existence of God; therefore morality does not rest on that belief. Consequently those who do not believe in God can be highly moral (as well as immoral) people, and those who do believe in the existence of God can be highly immoral (as well as moral) people. This conclusion should come as no surprise to anyone who has contrasted the benevolent life of the Buddha, the inspiring teacher and an atheist, with the malevolent life of the monk Torquemada, who devised and enforced the boundless cruelties of the Spanish Inquisition.
In short, believing in the existence of God does not by itself imply any specific moral principles, and knowing God’s will does not provide any justification for morality.
