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Arguments for the Existence of God: The Rational Arguments (09)
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Paul Jang
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2008-03-04 21:39:16, hit : 4,207 |
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The Moral Argument
This moral argument for the existence of God is to prove the moral Creator on the basis of the subjective and objective moral law. This was not taken as a rational argument using a pure reason but as a practical postulate. But later this has been offered as bona fide approach to prove God's existence by rational argument.
This argument has been discovered in the simplest form of the absolute unconditional moral law of conscience (Categorical Imperative) which is the Great Imperative of Immanuel Kant. Kant points out that in the Critique of the Pure Reason, theoretic proofs, namely ontological argument, cosmological argument, and teleological argument cannot give us the knowledge about moral God, therefore, in the Critique of Practical Reason, we need a moral postulate (Wahl, 1948, 32; Thiessen, 1976, 61).
In other words, the eternity of soul, the existence of God, and freedom cannot be known because our mind cannot be beyond an imaginative and conjectural category in the sphere of pure reason, and therefore, in order to be beyond this category, we need to get into the practical reason which is the sphere of moral principle.
In fact, man has a conscience in nature, and it needs a morality. And every man has an evidence of the existence of God who gives the morality in his own nature, because man's nature takes after some nature of God who is personal and moral Being. Therefore, man's conscience has proved the existence of God by the moral postulate.
Kant's Moral Argument out of Morality
Kant rejected, in fact, any theoretical arguments of the existence of God because He could not be proved in the sphere of pure reason but in the practical reason. He asserted that God, an eternity of soul, and a freedom could not be proved in the sphere of pure reason, therefore those needed a moral postulate.
His reasoning for the moral argument runs as this: (1) Happiness is the desire of all human beings. (2) Morality is the duty of all persons. (3) Unity of these two is the summum bonum. (4) The summum bonum ought to be sought. (5) The unity of duty and desire is not possible by finite human beings in limited time. (6) But the moral necessity of doing something implies the possibility of doing it. (7) Therefore, it is morally necessary to postulate (Kant, trans. Beck, 1956, 137-143)
In the light of this development of proving the existence of God, Kant uses not the method of the Criticism of Pure Reason but that of the Criticism of Practical Reason. But this argument has several objections as a proof for God's existence. For Kant, the moral postulate makes no sense for the proof of God's existence through the sphere of pure reason, but it is necessary to prove the existence of God through the sphere of practical reason. Therefore, the postulate is practically required to make sense of a moral experience.
Firstly, this proof is impossible because the summum bonum (the highest good) is not achievable.
Secondly, Man cannot arrive at the level of morality which God desires and requests.
Thirdly, man cannot achieve the duty and desire in his life.
Fourthly, it is impossible for man to live as if he is a God, or he has immortal state. What is more, some insisted that God's revelation has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with morality (Ellul, 1987, 69).
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Introduction
Theology 