Does morality need God? A fine and accessible book on the subject is Why Bother Being Good? The Place of God in the Moral Life, by John Hare, professor of philosophy at Calvin College. He is one of the most important Christian moral philosophers writing today (see The Moral Gap and God's Call). He argues powerfully that morality does need God. His point is not that a person who doesn't believe in God can't be good-there are many such people, and some of them live lives worthy of saints.
SOME HAVE SUGGESTED that recent scandals in the world of business, politics and the academy are practical consequences of a worldview that has pushed God out. Morality needs God, the argument goes, and without God the social fabric will be torn by uncontrolled greed, lust for power and striving for glory.
Clearly, however, you can also have a good deal of "immorality" even if God occupies a central place in your worldview.
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Benedict de Spinoza: moral problems and our emotio...
English: Cover of a publication of Baruch Spinoza'...Scandals in the religious communities are proof of this, if proof is needed. Moreover, convictions about God sometimes explicitly underwrite morally reprehensible acts, as when greed and violence are justified on religious grounds. What should we conclude from the fact that those who believe in God both do evil and legitimize their deeds by belief in God? Only that belief in God is compatible with "immoral" life, not that morality does not need God.
But does morality need God? A fine and accessible book on the subject is Why Bother Being Good? The Place of God in the Moral Life, by John Hare, professor of philosophy at Calvin College. He is one of the most important Christian moral philosophers writing today (see The Moral Gap and God's Call). He argues powerfully that morality does need God. His...