Matthew Lawrence wrote in this question and gave permission to blog it and my answer below:
Hello Christian Apologetics Alliance. I would like to first off say thank you for the resources that you’ve given to me. This has helped me boost my faith up greatly.
Also I was wondering if you can please help me with an objection to the moral argument. I was talking to a skeptic online about certain arguments that can help prove God’s existence. Another skeptic came in and accused the moral argument of being fallacious. The skeptic says that it “asserts necessarily subjective concepts (all concepts are subjective and relative by definition) are in fact real things, which is the reification fallacy.”
Now I know something is fishy about his objection to the moral argument, but I can’t spot out where. Can you please help me?
Thank You Very Much!
~Matthew Lawrence.
________________
Here’s my answer:
1. If all concepts are merely subjective and none of them correspond to reality, and if all assertion relies on our ability to conceptualize, then all assertion is reification and nothing is actually (known to be) real. That is an extreme skepticism that fails to explain scientific progress. Ask him if he thinks there are any “real” conclusions that are reached without employing conceptualization, and without reifying in the process.
2. The divine command theory, if the commands are not grounded in God’s essential nature, does in fact commit the fallacy of reification. The commanding is the reifying.
3. Not every version of the moral argument has the weakness pointed out in #2, but every atheist/skeptic who asserts objective morality which does not correspond to an always good being (God) in reality–fallaciously reifies their morality. If there is no God, there is nothing in reality to which moral truth is true, nothing which it describes.
4. If you’re dealing with a nihilist who thinks there is no moral truth, point out that various versions of the Golden Rule are discovered by every major culture in history; a sense of right and wrong, and a hunger for meaning, is innate–suggesting there is something good and meaningful in reality to satisfy it. Ask them if they think torturing babies for fun is okay, and walk away if they say anything but no–in that case, reason has left them. If they *do* say no, see the last sentence in #3.
5. Theists whose moral argument suffers from the weakness in 2, and atheists whose morality suffers from the weakness in 3, are both running up against something both Plato (with his justified-true distinction of beliefs) & Hume (with his is-ought distinction of moral reasoning) pointed out a long time ago: Knowledge, including moral knowledge, has to be *both* justified by good reasons *and* true by correspondence. Not all justified beliefs are true (justification does not pass for truth), and not all true beliefs are justified (truth does not pass for justification), and only when beliefs are both true & justified do you have knowledge. All else is reification.
A bit of follow up: It is possible that the mistake we are discussing is incorrectly labeled reification, but it is, indeed a mistake.
Beautiful and inspiring, thank you.
And I forgot, God bless.
“every atheist/skeptic who asserts objective morality which does not correspond to an always good being (God) in reality–fallaciously reifies their morality.”
What does it mean to ‘reify’ ones morality?
“If there is no God, there is nothing in reality to which moral truth is true, nothing which it describes.”
I’ve never met someone who actually understood contemporary metaethics, who agreed with this. Why is your account any better than saying good and evil are grounded in the flourishing and languishing of sentient beings?
Lance,
In the context of this discussion, to reify means to pretend reality for a concept that is not real, either by 1) insisting it exists based merely on having good justification for believing it does, or 2) relying on false justification for the belief in something that actually exists (being right for the wrong reasons is like being right about something entirely different).
So some atheists/skeptics affirm objective morality, but deny the existence of the only being in reality that it could describe. In so doing, they take the grounding out from under their morality so that their morality hovers over an abyss — true to nothing, grounded in nothing. Yet they assert this groundless morality is objective morality, thereby reifying it. They may have good justification for believing it exists, but they want to affirm that justification alone makes it true. They need something more than justification: correspondence to reality. Yet they deny the existence of the reality their reified truth describes.
“I’ve never met someone who actually understood contemporary metaethics, who agreed with this.”
There’s a first time for everything?
“Why is your account any better than saying good and evil are grounded in the flourishing and languishing of sentient beings”
We are not obligated to a construct that is grounded in that which passes away. I admire that intuition from the nihilists.
“but deny the existence of the only being in reality that it could describe”
this begs the question
I’m not sure why you think so. It does not assume such a being exists–only that objective moral truth is true to nothing *unless* such a being exists.
but saying that God is the good turns it into a meaningless tautology and as well its still subjective morality
This is not about definition or epistemology, it is about grounding or metaphysics/ontology. I “define” the good elsewhere: http://www.christianapologeticsalliance.com/2013/08/15/defining-the-good-golden-rule/
but the problem is that your response seems to imply that good is independent of god
Tony, to suggest good could be independent of god is to un-ground it. I implied no such thing. It needs both definition (epistemic justification) and grounding. All else is reification.
See the last sentence in #3.
then if what you say is true then you just admitted your own argument is inchoerent. You indeed did imply that good is independent of god as you spoke of the golden rule being essential part of god’s character (this implies there is something special about the rule that god has to have in his nature.) If “good” has to be grounded in a “good” being then its just a meaningless tautology as you just are saying good is good is good, so the ontology of your morality is a meaningless tautology!
Tony, I do not say good is good is good when I reason to the Golden Rule. All the reasoning in the world does not make the Golden Rule correspond to reality. The only way it would correspond to reality is if, in fact, a being it describes does exist.
ok then anwser me this what is god’s nature and character exactly?
Are you going somewhere with that question, or are you just prolonging down a rabbit trail?
its to show you that “god’s character” is an empty tautology if you wish to hold it as the ultimate standard of your morality
If by standard you mean definition or justification, then you have misunderstood me. I do not take his character/nature to be the definition/justification–I take it to be what grounds it in reality. I say God “is” the standard/good only in the ontological sense–not by way of definition/justification.
Now, if you want the definition, go back to this:http://www.christianapologeticsalliance.com/2013/08/15/defining-the-good-golden-rule/ (I linked to that above) but remember, it cannot be true unless there is some being in reality which it describes.
Referencing the Golden Rule does nothing to support the argument for objective morality originating from a deity. All it does is show a trend in cultures towards empathetic behavior. Presenting it as evidence or a God’s existence is just question begging.
Also, her argument against nihilism consists entirely of an appeal to extremes (and no, I’m not a nihilist, I just recognize a poor argument when I see it).
Her point one just invalidates the connection between God and human as humans interact with the world by use of creating concepts so they can interpret reality. To suggest that God somehow supersedes this process is to effectively say that human beings cease to be human beings when they obtain divine revelation which fails for pretty obvious reasons (well, obvious to me on both a naturalist and scriptural level).
Or, if you support general revelation it’s a pointless argument as all you’re really saying is; “We have no way of knowing for sure what is real so we’re just going to assume a God put this all together” which does nothing for the Christian apologist. It actually damages their position. This is why I say conquest-oriented Christian presup is obligated to avoid general revelation.
In point 2 when she discusses “God’s essential nature” you can toss out the word “essential” as it’s excessive. All that’s being stated there is;
“These are things that make up the creature that we refer to as God”.
If the apologist is presenting a version of God that is good as in; “God = good” then they’re reducing God to an abstract concept which brings god’s existence into question (also there’s an issue with the law of identity there but we’ve discussed that in the presup group).
If they’re just saying; “Good is one of the components of god’s nature” then you run up against the problem of evil. If you allow for good and evil in God then you start to get a somewhat coherent picture of God but you blow up Judeo-Christian thought.
Finally, from what I’m seeing the author is referring to a classic JTB model of knowledge which means she’s just allowed Gettier to tank any argument she may offer for knowledge, be it theistic or naturalistic. The question of concepts and abstraction in that case becomes moot.
This was interesting, thanks or the linkage.
Hi Pooka. You mention you are not a nihilist. Can you tell me what you reference rather than the Golden Rule, and how you ground it in reality?
Can you help me understand why you think my point one invalidates the connection between God and humans? What process do you think I suggest God supersedes, and how would that cause humans to cease being humans when they receive divine revelation? Keep in mind I begin by drawing the implication of the skeptic’s objection–I don’t agree with it.
I just noticed there was more to your reply. I am not in your presuppositionalist group, so I do not know to what you are referring. However–the “conquest” language reminds me of Jonathan Homrighausen…ring a bell? I am not a presuppositionalist, for what it’s worth, nor do I deny general revelation.
Good is not a mere abstract concept–it is grounded in God. God “is” the good, which resolves Euthyphro’s dilemma. http://www.christianapologeticsalliance.com/2012/10/16/resolving-euthyphros-dilemma/
Do you think God being good runs up against the problem of evil? Evil is a privation of good, so if there is no good God, there can be no evil–for which we are responsible when we stray from the good (God).
I have answered Gettier here: http://ichthus77.blogspot.com/2011/01/answering-gettier.html
and grounding morality in all else that is not your god is NOT refication, this is a botched hasty generalization fallacy!
saying that the golden rule has no grounding if your god didnt exist also just shows you dont even understand what the golden rule means, that you are more interesting in who gave a command then what the command means
If your belief (moral or otherwise) is justified but lacks grounding in reality, then you reify it. If your belief is grounded in reality but is unjustified, then your present justification reifies it.
As I mentioned above, the Golden Rule is not true because God commanded it, but because it is grounded in God’s being. The meaning of the Golden Rule is a separate issue from its truth (correspondence, grounding in reality). I am interested in both meaning and truth. We are not obligated to a construct.
but here is the problem saying its gorunded in god’s character actually suggests a standard above god that even he must obey to be considered good! There is no need for a god to ground anysort of golden rule because the very definition of that rule tells why we should obey it, it is a logical nessecity that will always exist no matter what, always remain true no matter what
Tony, the good (standard) is not over God–God *is* the good (standard). If the Golden Rule describes nothing, it is not true and there is no standard (good) in reality.
again Maryann we run into the same problem i mentioned earlier, if the golden rule is a part of god’s character/nature/essense then there has to be a standard above god even he must obey. But since you claim that what i said is impossbile then all we have is a tautology that is very hallow 🙁
the golden rule, again like i said it is a logical nessecity that will always exist no matter what, always remain true no matter what in any and all universes that are possible to exist
True……to what being in reality?
It doesn’t make any sense to ask to what being in reality is the golden rule true. The truth of propositions don’t belong to anyone or anything, and if the golden rule is true then it’s true of all *possible* persons.
Lance,
You say “if the golden rule is true, then it’s true of all *possible* persons.”
If you had said, “for” instead of “of”–I would have agreed, in the sense that it would be obligatory *for* all possible persons (and not “descriptive of” them). However, you said “of”.
First: I don’t know of any strictly human persons “of” which the Golden Rule is true/descriptive.
Second: Possible persons are not actual persons, so how can anything be true/descriptive “of” them? They are as yet “nothing”.
You say, “The truth of propositions don’t belong to anyone or anything.” That’s right, but they do need to be true to something in reality (they need to match real being in reality), or they are true to nothing…in other words, they are not true at all.
Why is it a fallacy to think that things can be made true by God saying so? Surely some things are like that, even if morality isn’t. Isn’t this the standard Protestant view on justification, for example? It’s not a legal fiction. It’s a declaration that it’s so, and that makes it so. There’s even a linguistic category for this: performatives. When a monarch knights someone, you get something like this, and no fallacy is being committed. They make it so by declaring it so, because they are in an authority position to do that. It’s not subjective. It’s recognizing that knighthood declarations are within the power of the monarch.
They may not be subjective, but they are relative (which is just collective subjectivity). Such declarations are constructs (as are powers of the monarch)–“so” only as constructs. Justification is a demonstration in time of what is true in eternity (from beyond the beginning: God’s love never changes and cannot be earned or lost, only received or rejected)–so it is not a mere construct.
I think these are good reasons not to hold the view, but I’m hesitant to say some of the things you said in the original post. I’m not sure what the fallacy is in thinking something can be made true by God saying so, particularly.
To say that he makes moral truth true by his saying so is equivalent to saying that he makes statements about himself true by his saying so. He grounds the truth of statements about himself, including statements about objective morality.
You may be thinking about the creation of the universe making all statements about it true. Before that creation, nothing existed in order for such statements to be true. In that sense, something (a statement) can be made true by God saying so (creating the universe).
However, God is the sort of thing that cannot have been created. If something is created, it isn’t God. Objective morality is identical to God–to what else would it be true? What other being would it describe? God can no more make it true by saying so, than he can make himself exist (or cease existing) by saying so–because it would amount to the same thing.