back to sermons
April 20, 2008
Does Everyone Know God Exists?
a sermon on Romans 1.18-21;
2.12-16
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama
Timothy Keller in his book The Reason for God ends a chapter about clues to
God’s existence in arresting fashion. He writes: “I don’t want to argue why God
may exist. I want to demonstrate that you already know that God does exist. I’d
like to convince the reader that, whatever you may profess intellectually,
belief in God is an unavoidable, “basic” belief that we cannot prove but that we
can’t not know. We know God is there.” [p. 142] Makes you want to read what
comes next, doesn’t it? If you’ll forgive me for spilling the beans, he follows
this up with the argument for God based on morality. It’s not new to him, and
this sermon is going to be much more than rehashing his ideas. The argument from
morality is an old idea that gained popularity in the last couple of centuries.
C.S. Lewis opened his famous book Mere Christianity with the moral argument.
Francis Schaeffer often based a very personal challenge to non-believers on the
moral argument. It has received a lot of play in recent years, but the idea
itself is old, at least as old as Paul, probably even older. The argument goes
like this: Human beings have an innate sense of right and wrong, of fair play.
We may disagree on various points, and of course we do not always live as we
know we ought. Nevertheless, every human being considers some things right and
other things wrong. The reason for this is, we are created by God and bear God’s
fingerprints. This moral sense is evidence that God made us. C.S. Lewis
basically put it like this: A moral law requires a moral law maker. Because we
have the law, we know the law maker must exist. More recent defenders of
Christianity generally express it like this: If there is no God, then there is
no moral absolute. Everything is relative; everything is personal preference.
But people don’t live that way. They can’t. People invariably live as if right
and wrong exist and matter. Since that can only be true if God exists, we ought
to believe in God. Francis Schaeffer made the argument very personal,
challenging non-believers to follow their beliefs to their logical conclusions.
Love, beauty, right and wrong—these are all illusions if we are nothing more
than biological machines produced by chance. Then he would press: Can you live
that way? Don’t you really know, deep down, that this cannot be?
Does Everyone Know God Exists? 2
Paul has a different agenda in Romans. He is not trying to convince the
Christians in Rome that God exists, but as he describes the human condition and
God’s remedy for it, he lays out the ideas behind the moral argument. The verses
I read in chapter 1 state that human beings are without excuse for failing to
honor God as God. Why? Because God’s fingerprints are everywhere. “Ever since
the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible thought
they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.” In
Romans 2 he wants to make the point that everyone needs Jesus Christ. Jews, Paul
says, need the Savior because they have God’s Law, but they break it. Gentiles
(anyone who is not a Jew) need the Savior because although they may not know
God’s Law as revealed to Moses, in their hearts they know that some things are
right and some things are wrong, and they choose the wrong. Not all of the time,
certainly. Often they do choose what is right, but that just shows they really
do understand the difference. There is a moral law written on their hearts. The
problem is the occasions when they choose the wrong—that and their reason for
doing so, namely the human race is in a state of rebellion against God—so we all
need a Savior. We bear God’s fingerprints. We have a moral law written on our
hearts. This law is part of the fingerprint. These truths are the starting place
for the moral argument. There are moral absolutes, and we all know it. No matter
what we say we believe, we all live as if moral absolutes exist. But without
God, any moral absolute is impossible. And by the way, when I say “moral
absolutes” I mean that some things are just plain wrong no matter who does them
or when or under what circumstances or who says they are OK—no matter what they
are absolutely wrong. Let’s try an experiment so you can see what I mean. I want
you to think of something you know is absolutely wrong. … I am going to take as
my example selling a child into slavery. I believe that is morally reprehensible
and evil, no matter when or where or who might do it. Now, get your example in
mind, something you know is wrong. … Do you have it? Good. Now, try to prove
that it is wrong without appealing to God. I would say that selling a child into
slavery is wrong because every child is created in the image of God and endowed
by the Creator with inherent worth and dignity, that slavery is dehumanizing,
and therefore it is evil. But what happens when I can no longer bring God into
the argument? I might say, “Well, everyone knows it is evil.” But do they? Child
slavery has been widely practiced in many cultures throughout history. It
happens today. Most people, especially in our culture, would consider it evil.
But why? If you want to prove to someone from a culture that finds this
acceptable that it really is evil, just saying, “Everyone knows it is evil,”
doesn’t work.
Does Everyone Know God Exists? 3
I might say, “Well, it is against the law.” And that is true. It is against the
law here, now, and has been for 150 years. But it has not been against the law
everywhere and always. Besides, laws can be changed. If the majority of
Americans decided that child slavery was OK and we changed our laws, it would
still be wrong and evil, no matter what the majority said. Ultimately morality
cannot be based on majority rule, because too often the majority gets it wrong.
What one culture may find grossly evil, another may accept without question. In
that case, there is no moral absolute, just preferences. The founders of this
country understood this. In the Declaration of Independence they wrote: “We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” They saw clearly that
human rights do not come from the king, nor do they come from the people. The
founders created a democracy, but although this would be a government by the
people, its principles would rest not just on the will of the people but on the
foundation of basic human rights. These rights are unalienable because they have
been given by God and can be given by no other. If the majority gives them, the
majority can take them away. But no one can take them away; they are
unalienable. Why? They come from God. Try it yourself. Take your example of
something you know, without a doubt, is evil. Then try to prove that it is evil
without bringing God into the argument. It cannot be done. As Keller points out,
when you try to do this, you always end up with “Sez who?” You say: “Child
slavery is wrong.” Someone might ask: “Who says it is?” Then what do you say? Do
you say, “I say it is”? If that’s the best you can do, you are expressing a
preference. Do you say, “the law”? Laws can change. Human beings cannot
legislate moral absolutes. Nor can we create them. If they exist, we can only
discover them. They have to come from an absolute source, God. Without God,
there can be no moral absolutes, but we know there are. Alister McGrath offers a
great example of this. It seems a professor was speaking to a university class
about moral absolutes. The class did not believe in them. These young people
believed that right and wrong and morality are human inventions, culturally
based, and therefore vary from one culture to another. Because of this, one
culture should not impose its values on another. So the professor gave them a
historical example. When the British began to govern India, they were horrified
by a traditional Indian custom. It had been the practice, at least in parts of
India, to burn a widow to death on her husband’s funeral pyre. A man dies and,
not only is he cremated, his widow is cremated with him. The British put a stop
to the practice. When locals protested that this was a long-standing tradition
important to their culture, the British governor replied, “We have a tradition
too, that when a man burns a woman to death we hang him by the neck from a rope
until he is dead. You practice your custom, and we will practice ours.” The
professor then asked, “Was the governor right to impose his culture’s value?”
You see the dilemma. If the students said, “No,” they would be
Does Everyone Know God Exists? 4
saying it is OK to burn women to death, and none of them really believed that.
On the other hand, if they said, “Yes,” it meant there are moral absolutes after
all. The 19th century Russian writer Dostoevsky made this idea the theme of one
of his most famous novels, Crime and Punishment. This is one of those books
everyone has heard of but few have read. Dostoevsky observed, “Without God
anything is permissible.” In other words, if there is no God, there is no right
and wrong. In Crime and Punishment, the main character is a young man, an
atheist, who believes that because there is no God, there is no real morality.
He decides that he must act on his faith. He must put his values to the test,
and he decides to do this by killing someone. He will commit murder, something
universally recognized as taboo, and thereby prove to himself that there is no
right and wrong, and thus prove his atheism. He carefully chooses his victim.
She is an old woman, a pawnbroker. Her profession makes her unpopular. The young
man reasons that she probably doesn’t have long to live, and she will not be
missed, and she doesn’t contribute to society anyway. He should have stopped
himself right there. Why do those things matter? Where does he get these values
from? If there is no God, why would any of those things matter? He doesn’t see
it. He goes ahead with his plan, which doesn’t work out just right, and he ends
up committing a double murder. And through the rest of the book he discovers
that moral absolutes do exist. He was wrong, and he acted on a false belief.
This is not exactly feel-good reading, but it makes a very significant point.
There are people who say moral absolutes do not exist, but they do. We can
identify two kinds of atheists, those who recognize that without God there are
no rules and those who want the rules but not the rule-giver. Those who admit no
morality is possible without God can never live that way consistently. The
person who probably tried hardest was Jean Paul Sartre. Sartre was a French
philosopher who became well known after World War II. He was an atheist who saw
clearly that without God life is pointless and morality is non-existent. He went
so far as to say that because there is no God, love is impossible, because in
the absence of a True God, every human being becomes his or her own god, and
there can only be one absolute. That means every individual will always treat
others as objects. He wrote a play called “No Exit,” in which three dead people
are stuck in a room together and make one another miserable. That was Sartre’s
view of life. Hell is other people. Love is impossible, gratitude is impossible,
grace is impossible, because God is impossible. A Catholic philosopher, Peter
Kreeft, has written a book about Sartre in which he suggests that the more
people Sartre convinces, the more people will believe in God, because people
will give up atheism before they will give up on love, beauty, family, and
goodness. Sartre is right about the consequences of atheism. He is wrong about
God. But, even he could not live consistently with his atheism.
Does Everyone Know God Exists? 5
Sartre wrote, “If God is dead, indeed everything is permitted, and man is
completely alone to do whatever he wants to do and whatever he will do. And it
really does not make any difference what you do. It does not matter in the end.”
And yet, at one point he signed a petition against French military action in
Algeria. He believed what the French were doing was wrong. But why? I don’t know
the circumstances or what the French were doing, probably it was wrong. But how
would Sartre know that? On what basis, apart from God, could he make that moral
judgment? Sartre tired harder than anyone else to live atheism consistently, and
even he found it impossible. Now I do need to say something about the other kind
of atheist, because there are a lot of them. Many atheists are lovely, decent
people. Some of them are far more moral and kind than many Christians. They are
tolerant, gracious—the kind of folk who make good neighbors. The problem is not
how they live. They live beautifully. The problem is their beliefs provide no
reason for living that way. Hard core atheists like Sartre and Christians both
ask the same question: Why? Why live this way? How can you justify traditional
moral values apart from God? I believe people are right to live this way, but
they are actually more right than they know. Their head does not believe in God,
but their heart believes in right and wrong; and in this case their heart is
smarter than their head, because right and wrong do not exist if we are nothing
but biological machines generated by mere chance. Anyone who believes in right
and wrong should believe in God, and everyone believes in right and wrong. They
may say they do not, but in their hearts they do, and sooner or later the truth
will come out. You may think, “Well, that’s an interesting idea, but it doesn’t
work if our innate moral sense comes from something beside God.” I agree. But,
when we start looking for where our moral sense might come from, the options are
pretty limited. Either God created us, or we are the product of the impersonal
plus time plus chance. We are here because God wanted us here, or we are here by
accident. Our origin is supernatural, or it is merely natural. Now, couldn’t we
have evolved with a moral compass, so to speak? Might moral behavior give
individuals a competitive advantage in the quest for survival of the fittest?
You might think so, but there are good reasons why not. First, kindness and
fairness to people in one’s own family or social group might give an advantage;
but the truly moral person is one who is kind and fair to those outside his or
her group. How you treat those who are different from you (and weaker than you)
is the true test of your moral character. How would that confer an advantage?
Wouldn’t hostility to people who do not share your genetic material make more
sense, if there is no God? Second, suppose we did evolve with a moral compass.
At best that would mean traditional morals are practical for survival, not that
they are really true. If we are biological machines, then life really is
meaningless and nothing truly matters. Therefore, your heart may tell you a
specific act is morally wrong, but your head knows better. It knows you only
feel that way because that feeling gave your ancestors a
Does Everyone Know God Exists? 6
competitive edge. If you want to go that route, however, you will have to end up
not trusting your reason either. In this case, all your thoughts and feelings
would be nothing more than your genetic code responding to your environment.
Life would be meaningless. How many people do you know who live as if life is
meaningless and nothing matters? We know better. In our hearts, if not always in
our heads, we know better. Time to wrap things up … You might be wondering what
the point of this sermon is. After all, why try to convince a bunch of
church-going Christians that God exists? That wasn’t really my intention. I do
find my own faith strengthened by this kind of thing. I helps me, personally,
whenever I find that my faith and the world around me match up very nicely. I
have a moral compass inside me that I did not create. It is there because God
made me that way. I find this reassuring and it strengthens my faith. I wanted
to share that with you. Also, when we realize that moral absolutes are
impossible without God, we ought to do a couple of things. First, we ought to
praise God and rejoice and marvel and celebrate his grace and goodness. The
human race may be in rebellion against God, but God has not abandoned us. Our
moral sense is evidence not only that he created us but also of his grace. He
wants good for us. Of course, just knowing the difference between right and
wrong does not mean we will choose the good. This is why God sent us the Savior,
Jesus Christ. We are morally bankrupt, as our own hearts ought to show us. Deep
down we know we need a Savior, and God has graciously given us one. Second, we
ought to pray. Our society is moving farther and farther from its Christian
roots. Our traditional values come from the Bible. As people give up on the
Bible, those values erode. I do not think that society will ever devolve into
total chaos. Our innate moral sense prevents that. No matter how far we get from
God, we still have a sense of right and wrong. However, many of the good values
present in our society today cannot be justified apart from the God of the
Bible. We still have them because they have become habit, but what happens when
they are challenged? They are like a house that remains standing although its
foundation has been slowly eaten away by termites. At what point does the house
collapse? Already there are areas for concern. All are created equal and have
unalienable rights, unless … they are unborn, they are handicapped, they are old
and very sick. In India today the poor sell organs, especially kidneys, to the
rich for money. How long before that happens here? Is respect for human dignity
and the value of human life eroding? I’ll let you decide. If you think it is,
you ought to pray and work and speak up. Finally, I simply want to encourage you
to do what is right and keep on doing it. We have a church filled with good,
honest, decent people. We need a Savior, certainly. We are all just sinners
saved by grace. Yet God has done some work on you. I have seen your love and the
way you care for others. Don’t get tired of it. It does matter. You
Does Everyone Know God Exists? 7
know in your heart it does. Sometimes the temptation comes to be selfish. You
get discouraged and wonder, “What’s the point?” Why try so hard to be
good—especially when you have to swim against the stream to do it? I don’t have
to answer that question. You already know the answer. It is worth it because God
created us and loves us and wants good for us. You know that. In your heart, if
not always in your head, you know it. And because you know it, you can be sure
that God exists. “Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and
divine nature, invisible thought they are, have been understood and seen through
the things he has made.” Amen. rev_mauldin@yahoo.com
back to sermons