Morality based on a divine being is a circular argument. Ethics based on god is in fact not ethics. Morality based on god is not ethical but simply proscriptive. Claiming such proscriptive morality as objective, or worse absolute, is deliberately eliminating ethics from morality. Divinely based, proscriptive, morality is dangerous because it’s quite easily manipulated and not validatable since interrogating god on morals is not possible.

Clarity and common understanding of terms for the purpose of this discussion is essential. As such the definitions used are all taken from Wikipedia, since these reflect the understanding of the terms of a large group of people.

  • Morality is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are distinguished as proper and those that are improper: In other words, it is the disjunction between right and wrong.
  • Ethics is the branch of philosophy that involves systematising, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.
  • Moral objectivism is the meta-ethical position that some system of ethics, or a universal ethic, applies universally.
  • Moral absolutism is an ethical view that particular actions are intrinsically right or wrong.

In short the difference between morality and ethics is that morality is the the decision of what is right and wrong while ethics is the route to arrive at that decision.

Ethics does not just ask the question “Is this right or wrong?” but, just like maths in school also asks “show your work”. When making god the ultimate arbiter of morality the purpose of ethics is eliminated. Ethics becomes trivial since the answer to these questions will always be “It’s right if god says so and because god says so”.

While this might be appealing, because it’s easy, it’s also not really ethics. “Because” is not a valid ethical examination or answer. Not just is it not a valid answer, it reduces morals to a list of proscriptions curated by the deity in question.

In effect, when claiming a deity as the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong, two things happen. First the morals proscribed by that deity become absolute morals and second the establishment of morals is externalised or delegated.

This might not be a problem if there was an actual present communicative god who speaks in clear language rather than “working in mysterious ways”. However even if one were to believe in the existence of a personal god, it is not one that directly and clearly communicates its will in the present for all to hear. Instead the deities dictums are interpreted and proclaimed by a group of people with impressive appellations such as “Priest”, “Reverend”, “Bishop”, “Rabbi”, “Mullah” or “Imam”. So rather than the deity curating the moral code it turns out that human clerics take on that charge.

Delegating the process of arriving at morals to clerics is convenient for several reasons. Firstly it eliminates the need to actually go through the process of ethical deliberation. Second it abdicates not just the work of ethics it also delegates the responsibility for the conclusions reached. Thirdly in a static world with few novel situations it reduces the overall energy expended on reevaluating valid conclusions.

This works quite well while society is static. When few if any situations come up that have no moral precedent in living memory delegating the process of ethics is quite sufficient. However when society changes because of more global interactions with people that have come to different moral conclusions, this breaks down. In such a situation every individual needs to be able to actually go through the ethical process and derive moral values.

One charge that has always been brought against people that have no use for a deity is that they are unable to arrive at universal or absolute morals. After all, that is what god is supposedly providing in the moral arena. A point, incidentally, that has been thoroughly disproven by Sam Harris in his book The Moral Landscape in which he’s laying out a method of ethics that allows for arriving at universal morals without the need for a deity.

When instead ethics has been eliminated and delegated to a deity the required practice in ethics isn’t there. As a recent example of absolute deity based morals a father strangulated his 19 year old daughter for premarital sex. He claims his morals are derived from his god, his religion.

If we delegate the ethical process to god then there is little that can be said to counter such an atrocity. It ends up in a “battle of the gods” or “whose interpretation of gods will is better”. In fact deity based morals end up being very much relativistic and atrocious.

If we want to have a solid moral foundation and ask everyone to accept it as universal, we need to actually practice ethics; we need to actually go through the process, both personally and as a society, continuously an repeatedly; we need to reason out why something is right or wrong and accept that “because it’s in the bible” or “because god said so” are not valid answers.

We as moral human beings have to come to the conclusion, in light of our experience, that morals based on a deity are not just insufficient for our current world but lead us down a dangerous relativistic path that leaves us unable to actually arrive at well founded morals for novel situations. We have to conclude that god based morals are not just insufficient but positively unethical.

To lead us into absurdity I want to close with the bible which also supports humans being capable of knowing good and evil on their own.

For God knows that when you eat of it [the tree of knowledge] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.“ Genesis 3:5-6

After all we got thrown out of paradise for it :)