How Objective Morality Disproves An All-Good God

The claim is often made that morality is objective and, as such, proves God. To begin, what do we mean by “objective”? Usually, we mean a proposition or fact is objective if it’s true regardless of anyone's opinion. That chocolate ice cream tastes good is subjective to me; other people may feel differently. But that 2+2=4 is objective, regardless of what I think. Objective morality, therefore, is the idea that there are things which are right or wrong, regardless of what anyone thinks.

Anyone except God, that is. For “laws require a lawgiver” so things are objectively moral or immoral because God considers them so. Our opinions don’t count. Therefore, to use a standard example, that the Nazis murdered Jews is objectively wrong. Even if the Nazis had won the war and everyone accepted the Nazi worldview today, what the Nazis did would still be wrong, objectively wrong.

So, murdering women for the imaginary crime of witchcraft was objectively wrong, even if medieval Christians believed they were doing God’s will. And slavery is objectively wrong even if Christians in the southern United States believed for centuries it was in accordance with God’s will.

But now we come to a problem. If slavery and death for “witchcraft” are objectively wrong, THEN HOW COULD A GOOD GOD HAVE FAILED TO INFORM US OF THOSE FACTS?? Even today, we wonder if capital punishment is objectively wrong or not, if euthanasia is allowable or not, if we should eat sentient animals or be a vegetarian, if stem cell research is objectively wrong or not, etc.

Once you decide objective moral values exist, if you believe God is good, then you must explain why God doesn’t clearly tell us what is and is not objectively moral. This, clearly, God has not done. States in the southern U.S. needed a war to be convinced slavery was wrong. Why? Why didn’t God tell them it was wrong during the centuries they bought and sold humans like cattle?

Of course, some Christians will make the (laughable) claim that God via the Bible does tell us what is right and wrong. But somehow all the bishops and cardinals of the Catholic Church, who burnt witches, and all the preachers and pastors in the U.S. South, who thought slavery was A-OK with God, were wrong. For centuries. If the Bible is that difficult to understand correctly (for instance, Exodus has explicit rules for buying and selling foreign slaves), then what good is it?

Is stem cell research moral or not? In a century, after we’ve discerned the truth, some Christian will surely claim that the Bible could have given us the answer if only we’d asked. But ask today and Christians give contradictory answers. So much for the Bible having the answers to all moral questions.

If objective moral values exist, then for most of human history, God has kept objective moral values secret. Only after a few centuries, did Christians figure out that killing for “witchcraft” is wrong. Only after the Civil War forced them, did Southern slave owners give up their slaves.

Today, the morality of many issues is an open question. Why? Where is God? One conclusion is that God doesn’t exist or God is not all-good.