MC

Two Foundational Claims

People Ought to behave a certain way

Two Foundational Claims

People don't behave that way

Maybe morality is just instinct or social convention?

The world is not the way it's supposed to be

Pantheism: God is the Sum Total of all there is

Pantheism: God is the sum total of all there is

The "moral God" religions

Theism: God is a personal being

Many personal gods: Paganism

Two personal gods: Dualism

One personal God: Classical Theism

What do we do with Jesus?

"Very truly I tell you," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am."

John 8:58

1. If there is a moral law, there must be a moral lawgiver.

2. There is a moral law.

3. There is a moral lawgiver.

Argument from moral law

Now the will does not have the character of a first rule, rather, it is a rule which has a rule, for it is directed by the intellect and reason. This is true not only in us but also in God...., Consequently the first thing upon which the essential character of all justice depends is the wisdom of the divine intellect....to say that justice depends simply upon the will is to say that the divine will does not proceed according to the order of wisdom, and that is blasphemous.

Divine Intellect and Divine Will

Moral Natural law in the restoration movement...

Positive Law and Natural Law

If we can have moral obligations without God's commands, then doesn't that mean we can have a moral law without a moral lawgiver?

But if there can be a natural law...

1. If there is no God, then scientific materialism is true.

2. If scientific materialism is true, then the only basis for moral goodness, for positive moral value, is in the actual evaluations made by humans, so that the actual evaluations made by human communities CAUSE the existence of moral goodness.

3. But human evaluations DON'T cause the existence of moral value.

Argument from moral value