Do We Really Need God?

Do we really need God? I’ve known plenty of people who don’t believe, or if they do believe no longer practice their religion. And they’re not cereal killers. I don’t think they’ve ever killed cereal. I’m pretty sure they like it.

But I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about the moral dilemma of whether or not theism (God) is necessary for objective morality. For example, I think William Lane Craig’s way of framing the case is pretty compelling. You can watch it here.

There are a few problems here for anyone looking into Christianity. First, the moral argument gets you to a kind of monotheism, but not to Jesus. Second, there are way too many Christians who are demonstrably immoral to think that this belief guarantees anything. As C.S. Lewis once said, “Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst.”

Finally, I’m just not running into that many atheists these days. I think most people are unashamedly spiritual in one way or another, and they would see their spiritual values as shaping how they live. So, the question becomes what kind of spirituality, or what kind of divine being, might be necessary for an objective moral law. I’ll say more about that in another post tomorrow.