The Cosmic Skeptic (Alex) has an interesting video ranking the arguments for the existence of God here. The video is a discussion between the Cosmic Skeptic and Joe Schmid, who we learn is an agnostic.
In this post I'd like to address the discussion of the Moral Argument for the existence of God. That occurs at 1:28:40 of the video. As presented, the Moral Argument is formulated this way:
P1: If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.
P2: Objective moral values do exist.
C: Therefore, God exists.
The conversation notes that P2 may be denied, but they leave this aside as they are more interested in whether the existence of God does in fact follow if moral values exist. Joe Schmid asks an interesting question: What does God add to the question? When God commands something, he either has a reason for the command or he doesn't. If God doesn't have a reason, then he is arbitrary. If God has a reason, then it is that reason that is significant, not the fact that God has commanded it (I am paraphrasing here.)
As they note, this is a version of the Euthyphro dilemma from Plato. Schmid thinks his version is stronger than Plato's, because Plato is concerned with what makes things right or wrong, whereas Schmid's argument just refers to whether God has a reason or not.
They then get into a discussion of God's relationship to goodness, and raise the idea that goodness just is being more like God. They raise some problems with it, for instance that if God is immaterial, then I am somehow better if I become immaterial, which doesn't seem to make sense. Schmid argues that God is simply acting as intermediary, because it is the loving, the kindness (as concepts) that are doing the heavy lifting, not God. It is the intellectual and moral virtues themselves, not God.
Alex then brings up a functional account of goodness. A chair, for example, is a good chair to the extent that it fulfills its designers function for which it was made. It seems odd, however, to speak of it as a bad table even if it can be used as a table.
They discuss the idea that moral values are doing what God designed us for, but they find that this is arbitrary as well, for God could have simply proclaimed the function of women is to be raped. Antecedent to God's design, there are no moral facts God is looking on in terms of which to structure his designs or define their functions.
Alex brings up what he considers an equivocation between the functional use of "good" and "bad", i.e. in describing a chair as good or bad depending on how well it serves as a chair, and "good" and "bad" as used in moral language with respect to people, which is not merely functional. The language of virtue used with respect to people is not used with respect to chairs.
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The conversation could have used an exploration of a Thomistic understanding of good and evil. What happens in God's creative act? He gives a nature and existence to a being. Embedded in the nature of the being are formal and final causes that give substance to that nature. They implicitly define good and evil with respect to that being. Were God to then command something in contradiction to the natures he has created, he would simply be contradicting himself.
Suppose a piano maker builds a beautiful piano, paying attention to the smallest details to make the instrument easy to play and so it will produce a beautiful sound. He tunes it painstakingly so every string is in tune with every other. Then, when he is finished with it, he never plays it, but instead sleeps on top of it because he has declared the function of the piano to be a bed.
We would find the piano maker ridiculous. His construction of the piano was built under the obvious plan that the function of the piano would be as a musical instrument. To then use it as a bed is simply to contradict everything the piano maker implied in his construction of the instrument. We might argue that the piano maker's choice to use the piano as a bed is an act of "freedom", but whether we wish to call it free or not, it nonetheless contradicts everything the piano maker did in construction the piano. "Freedom" to frustrate your own designs is a degenerate form of freedom.
When God creates, he creates natures with embedded formal and final causes. A dog has a certain nature and a certain mode of being; his life is centered around scent and is naturally sociable. If God then commands that dogs should always be kept in isolation and live in water, this would contradict what God did in the creative act that established the nature of dogs in the first place. Contradicting himself is not a "power" that an omnipotent creator need have, because it is actually an expression of impotence, not power.
So with respect to Schmid, God does not reference some already existing values in his creative act. He establishes good and evil with respect to particular natures in the very definition of those natures; just as playing a piano well is defined with respect to the inherent potentialities of the piano as a musical instrument. To be good is simply to be in the best way with respect to individual nature. To be evil is to not be in some way that is appropriate for a given nature. God won't command that women should be raped because that would contradict the good for women that was defined by God in creating women in the first place.
Man is the particular subject of moral judgment because, unlike dogs and tables, he has an intellect and will that can perceive good and evil and act accordingly. So to be a good man involves having a good intellect and a good will, which is not involved in being a good dog.
And what about the Moral Argument for the Existence of God itself? I am not a fan of it, because it seems to assume a certain arbitrariness with respect to morality, as though morality is layered on to already existing being, rather than being embedded within natures themselves when they are created. The appropriate way to argue from morality to God is not to claim that the atheist can't know moral values without knowing God, but to argue what the knowledge of morality implies about the nature of being and its foundation, i.e. something like Aquinas's Argument from Perfection.
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