On Morality (Fifth Article), From Where does Morality Originate?

FIFTH ARTICLE

From Where does Morality Originate?

Objection 1. It would seem that, as Descartes believed, morality originates in the power of God. Because of God’s power 2+2=4. But if God willed it, 2+2=5 could be true instead.

In the same way murder is only wrong because God wills it. God could just as easily will that murder be good and generosity evil. Indeed it must be so. God is all powerful, so he cannot be bound by any laws. He cannot be told what is good and evil; He alone must determine and create what is good and evil. Therefore morality originates in the power of God.

Objection 2. Morality exists in its own right. It is an eternal truth. 2+2=4. Plato said this truth is the same for all men in all ages and would apply in every conceivable world. Leibniz agreed. He said 2+2=4 on Heaven just as it does on earth and to God just as it does to men. This is an eternal, universal and changeless truth. In the same way that mathematical truths exist moral truths exist. They are eternal and universal, applicable to God and man.

Objection 3. Morality is no more than convention. Thomas Hobbes wrote in Leviathan that we create objects by means of our words. A rock is not a rock until we decide, by social compact, to call it a rock. But the sounds we use to create words are arbitrary and since objects do not pre-exist our understanding of them but are only created by our understanding (we create all order for all that precedes us is chaos) all objects are arbitrary. In the same way that we create words for physical objects we create words for mental ideas. Since the words that signify ideas are arbitrary the ideas themselves are arbitrary. Just as we could have called a rock something else we could have cowardice good or generosity bad. All our understanding of the physical world is based on arbitrary words, in the same way all our ideas are based on arbitrary words and are therefore arbitrary in themselves. They are nothing more than concepts we have agreed upon—morality is no more than social convention.

On the contrary, C.S. Lewis says (in "The Poison of Subjectivism"), God is good. Goodness is a part of Him and true law flows out of Him like water from a spring. Goodness is uncreated. God is not merely good, but goodness; goodness is not merely divine, but God.

I answer that, Morality cannot be convention, for if it was there would be no God. If morality were based on God’s power alone we would praise God for his goodness in vain—it would make no sense to praise God for being good if goodness was merely whatever God willed it to be at any particular moment. But if morality existed above and beyond God, God would not be all powerful and not God in the sense that He claims to be.

Jesus says (Mark 10:18), no one is good except God alone. God is not bound by the moral law, nor is He the creator of it. God is not reduced to the moral law, for God is far more than a mere concept. God is good. Notice Christ does not say God does good, but rather that God is good.

Creatures have attributes (Peter is alive), but God is His attributes (God is life). We as men do good acts, but God as God is goodness. He is not merely goodness just as He is not merely life or beauty, mercy or power: but He is the eternal spring, the one self sufficient being from which all life, goodness, beauty, mercy, and power naturally flow.

Reply Obj. 1. If, as Leibniz noted in "On the Common Concept of Justice," morality originates in power, then the more power one has the more moral one would be. But this is contrary to reason. Often times the powerful one is the more they abuse their power and the more immoral they end up being; morality does not lie in power.

Reply Obj. 2. If there was an eternal, uncreated moral law that even God was bound to then God would not be God. Rather, the Law that bound God would be God. It would be the controlling and guiding force of the universe. But we know that God is a person for we are people and we were created in the image of God. (Genesis 1:27). Therefore God cannot be a concept; God cannot be mere moral law.

Reply Obj. 3. Imagine you have fallen into a pit. You cannot escape the pit on your own accord and if you are left there you will starve to death. There is a rope lying next to the pit. A man walks by and you ask him to throw you the rope. He refuses and simply answers ‘I don’t want to.’ ‘This is unjust,’ you say, ‘you can provide a great and necessary good for me at no harm or inconvenience to yourself.’ He replies, ‘there is no law requiring me to do good.’ Nonetheless you argue that his inaction is unjust. For if he was in the pit he would rightly ask the same good of you.

No man truly believes that morality is convention. The response of all men to injustice, even legal or socially accepted injustice, is to complain that it is unjust. All men appeal to a notion of justice above and beyond mankind’s social and legal standards when they are they are wronged in a socially acceptable way. This common response proves that no man truly believes that morality is mere convention.