Kreeft: Where Do Good And Evil Come From?

In a new Prager University video, Boston College philosophy professor Peter Kreeft argues that the existence of God is proven by the existence of objective morality, good vs. evil.

While pointing out that atheists can still be moral, Kreeft argues that the following proposals from atheists about where morality stems from—evolution, reason, conscience, human nature, and utilitarianism—are all flawed.

In an “evolutionary model” of morality—one in which morality changes over time—slavery used to be an “accepted” institution. While today, it is not, Kreeft argues that under an evolutionary view of morality, “Who is to say that it won’t be acceptable again one day?”

“Slavery was once accepted, but it was not therefore acceptable,” Kreet says. “If you can’t make that distinction between accepted and acceptable, you can’t criticize slavery, and if you can make that distinction, you are admitting to objective morality.”

Reasoning also is incapable of being the source of morality since criminals use reasoning to commit heinous crimes. Also, the fact that many went out of their way to help the Jews escape the Nazis shows that reasoning is not the source of morality because “risking one’s life to save a stranger was a very unreasonable thing to do.”

Kreeft proceeds to argue that conscience is likewise not the true source of morality. As an example he cites Nazi SS chief Heinrich Himmler and his soldiers who believed they were doing the “right thing” committing genocide against the Jews.

“How can you say your conscience is right and Himmler’s is wrong if conscience alone is the source of morality?” Kreeft asks.

Kreeft believes that human nature proves the need for morality to exist, as human nature can lead to evil, causing people to be “selfish, unkind, petty and egocentric.”

He cites the slavery example as proof against the notion that morality stems from utilitarianism. Utilitarianism determines what is moral “by whatever creates the happiness for the greatest number” of people. But under that definition, slavery would be moral if 90 percent of people benefit from slavery.

Morality, Kreeft explains, “tell us what ought to be.”

“Like physical laws, they direct and order something, and that something is right human behavior,” Kreeft says.

Morality is not a physical object, so then it must come from a higher power: God.

“Whenever you appeal to morality you are appealing to God, whether you know it or not,” Kreeft says.