← All positive arguments
Layer 2 · personal, necessary, good
Evidence 06

Real moral obligations require a moral lawgiver

The claim

We do not invent the wrongness of torturing children for fun. We discover it. Moral facts that bind every rational agent require a ground that is itself rational and binding.

Naturalist meta-ethics either denies the reality of moral facts (and then cannot account for indignation) or smuggles in a non-natural source (and is theism by another name). Christianity has always said: the moral law is the character of God impressed on the conscience.

Evidential weight
C.S. Lewis
literary apologist
1898–1963

The Tao is not invented. It is recognized.

Every culture, including those isolated from one another, condemns cowardice, treachery, and cruelty to the weak. They differ on whom to count as kin; they agree on the form of the law.

When you say 'that's not fair,' you appeal to a standard you did not invent and that binds you whether you like it or not. That standard is the fingerprint of the Lawgiver.

If there is no real Right, your indignation is a chemical event. If there is, you have already conceded more than naturalism can pay for.

Citations The Abolition of Man (1943) · Mere Christianity, Bk. I
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam