God is the greastest being that could exist. By definition, the uncreated Creator is superior to humanity and all other created things. There is quite a bit of evidence for the existence of a supreme, transcendent Being. Currently, my favorite bit of evidence for the existence of God is the evidence of SHOULD, otherwise known as the moral argument for God.
I don’t know anyone who thinks that all behavior is morally acceptable. Some people claim that morality is merely a cultural construct. In other words, it’s only because our culture has deemed that specific actions are wrong that we consider them inappropriate. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with any activity. Society determines what is right and wrong.
Yet, even if someone dismisses objective morality, he will quickly complain that he has been wronged if a perpetrator harms him. And he won’t mean that “it’s merely my opinion that I have been wronged” or that “society has deemed that the perpetrator wronged me.” No, he means that it is objectively true that the perpetrator shouldn’t have slandered him, stolen from him, killed his daughter, or vandalized his property. His actions betray his dismissal and show that we all believe that certain behaviors are objectively morally wrong.
In the same way, all of us believe that wrongdoers SHOULD have behaved differently. The claims are myriad, “Trump is evil; he SHOULD act differently.” “People who neglect and abuse dogs SHOULD act differently.” Many people have pet causes about which they are passionate. When a woman says, “No man should be able to tell a woman what she can do with her body,” she is not saying, “It’s merely my opinion that women are entitled to ‘reproductive rights.’” No, she is saying that this “right” exists for all women everywhere, regardless of whether her culture grants it or not. The examples of such pet beliefs that arouse such passion are many.
Yet, this begs the question: How can it be that some deeds are objectively wrong if there is no moral standard that originates beyond humanity?” Suppose morality is simply a product of personal opinion or is simply a matter of what our culture accepts. In that case, it’s incoherent to argue that some moral situations SHOULD require different behavior. After all, if morality is merely a cultural construct, it wouldn’t make sense to argue for gay rights or equity if the culture endorses a different set of values. What’s more, it’s contradictory to claim that morality is not objective by nature and then argue that an “unjust” culture SHOULD change its values. Regardless of what we declare, our actions belie the Truth, that morality points to a moral law code that originates from beyond human opinion or cultural convention. And a transcendent moral code requires a transcendent being—God.
Christianity provides the best explanation of the world we experience. Christianity proclaims a Holy God who is our Lawgiver and Judge. Concepts like justice are incomplete and empty without a transcendent moral standard that originates in God.
Christianity also explains why people disagree about WHAT is morally right and wrong. The doctrine of the depravity of man explains this phenomenon. Sin warps us so that we have a distorted understanding of moral Truth. Thus we often see chaos with various factions arguing about what they believe is right and what should be legal.
The Lord provides a two-fold solution to the problem of moral confusion. First, God revealed Truth to us in the Bible. The Bible discloses God’s transcendent standard of purity to humanity. And second, the solution to moral confusion is the spiritual transformation that God works in us when we turn to God through faith in Jesus Christ. As we learn to live according to the Bible and be transformed by God’s moral code, we gain clarity.
There is much more evidence for the existence of God, but the evidence of SHOULD is my current favorite.
