by Jeffrey Jason Hill

Created on: April 16, 2009

Well, there is quite a tough job ahead . . . the toughest of them all, I think, as far as this matter of moral truth - of objective moral values is concerned. Now here's the way I see it: moral truths do exist, and we all know it. But, the toughest job we have to do in this whole matter, and it's a job of thinking - of rejecting the facts as they are in our minds in favor of the facts as the are - is seeing what's right in front of us. It can be seen, but not with our retinas. In fact people have always been able to see what is right and wrong.

But first, if we wish to be rational, not every now and then, but all the time, we must first throw over this whole business that all we see around us is just an accidental explosion of nothing. Does a ball move unless some force acts upon it? But I can hear you say, "Well, if God is real, then why do bad things happen to good people?" That is a good question. If God is all-powerful, then she could no doubt have reversed by a wave of her hand the results of the first bad thing that ever happened; but this would not have made much sense unless she was ready to throw out the results of the second bad thing, and of the third, and so on forever. Don't you see where this is leading? Yes, the problem of human suffering is real. Yet, if we try to leave out the suffering - which is a product of people's free will - for the sake of making the bad thing go away, don't we find that we have left out life itself? Can we deny that something deep within us echoes its yes and no just because we violate it on a daily basis?

But back to the subject. The atheist J.L. Mackie of Oxford was talking about this. He said: "If there are . . . objective moral values, they make the existence of a god more probable than it would have been without them. Thus we have . . . a defensible argument from morality to the existence of a god." But in order to get around having to admit that, he denied that absolute moral truths exist. He wrote: "It is easy to explain this moral sense as a natural product of biological and social evolution." Does this mean that, if I can escape the social consequences, I can get away with snatching an old lady's purse today in broad daylight? Because I need the money. If objective moral values do not exist, does it matter one way or the other? Says who?

Could it be any clearer? Nearly every person takes a stand against killing someone. In most cases. Why then do you deny the objective reality of moral values but not the objective reality of physical things? We know the man who says 2+2=5 is wrong. How then can we get away with saying actions like rape, torture, and child abuse are not just as wrong?

I notice the leading article on this topic was written by a man who denies an absolute morality. He takes a stand against the objective reality of moral values and what it brings about, but then in the very next breath he shows how we could not get away with burning witches at the stake today. So which is it? Keep on burning witches at the stake to prove his point that there is no absolute morality? I felt like saying, "Don't worry, sir. Your free will is not at stake." No pun intended.

There is no bulletproof defense against the ocean of unpredictability that surrounds us. But there are weapons. Someone obviously thought (and thinks) this state of war in the world is a price worth paying for our free will. Armed with the improbability of all that surrounds us happening by chance, I believe it is possible to know calmly that moral truths do exist. We just don't follow them.

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