moral arguments for existence of god

bertrand russel

• People believe in God because they feel that God can compensate for suffering in this life by providing an afterlife 

• Russell rejects this by arguing that if there is injustice in this part of the universe, there is probably injustice throughout the universe 

• The Christian church has slowed social progress by insisting on a very narrow set of moral rules which have nothing to do with human happiness or fulfilment 

james rachels

• Takes Russell’s argument further by saying that religious systems of morality are inferior to other systems of morality 

• When believers worship God they give up their moral autonomy and this is in turn immoral 

• God cannot logically exist: 

• If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship. 

• No being could possibly be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one’s role as an autonomous moral agent. 

• Therefore, there cannot be any being who is God. 

kant

• in his Critique of Practical Reason he wrote that, ‘it is morally necessary to assume the existence of God’. What Kant meant by this was that his duty-based system of ethics only truly works if God exists. In other words, there are practical rather than theoretical reasons for believing in God. 

• What seems to have concerned him is that is was possible to spend your life doing your duty and striving the summum bonum, the and yet still be unhappy or find oneself in unfavourable circumstances.

• Meanwhile, there are others who seem to flourish and enjoy happiness without being moral. Put somewhat crudely, it is bit like someone saying to themselves, ‘Why should I bother to do the right thing when other people are getting away with murder?’. 

• Kant’s response to this question is that the summum bonum must still be achievable, given that that ‘ought implies can’, and so if being virtuous doesn’t seem to be rewarded with happiness in this life then it will in the next one. So there must then be a heaven presided over by an God where this can happen.

• Therefore it is worth acting morally. 

evaluation of kant

• However, there are some obvious problems with this argument. First of all, Kant’s system is meant to be deontological. It is supposed to be about doing your duty for duty’s sake rather than because a consequence of doing so is that this will eventually lead to happiness. So Kant seems to have had to smuggle in a consequentialist, almost Benthamite motive for being moral into his ethical system in order to make it work, which would appear to undermine the deontological foundation on which it is based. 

• Secondly, Kant’s argument does not necessarily presuppose that the God of classical theism exists, namely, a being that is all-powerful, all-loving, and so on. All it suggests is that there must be an afterlife presided over by a being or beings who are powerful enough to create and oversee a system that will ultimately make us happy in the next world if we do our duty in this one.