Why Being a Calvinist Is Awesome

[This is satire. Everything said here is meant to be funny.

I am fully aware that what I am saying is an exaggeration.]



I've given up. After much struggling, I've finally have been convinced by robust arguments of the Young, Restless and Reformed. Now I can enjoy all of the benefits of my better understanding of the Bible, like:

1. I get all the cool teachers: I can just enjoy everything Piper, MacArther, and White have to say. Not to mention historically I can claim Calvin, Luther, Augustine, Edwards, Pink, etc. Sure, I may loose leading Christian apologists such as William Lane Craig, John Lennox, and Ravi Zacharias, and I may loose John Wesley, C S Lewis, and all but one of the early church fathers, but its not who they are, or what they teach, but their popularity that matters.
2. Being both proud and humble at the same time: One of the great things about being Calvinist is that no matter how much better, or smarter, or more godly I may be to the other people around me, I don't have to worry about losing my humility because of how aware I am of God being greater than I am.
3. Calvinists have their own code: It is fantastic that words like soveriegnty, election, and grace mean something completely different when I use than when the rest of the world uses them. It's our own code language, and since when was that not fun?
4. I get to be a serious theologian while only having to learn 5 terms: I can learn TULIP and its basic collorlaries in a couple of days. Who cares that I have not thought out all of the implications. That's what the cool teachers are for. I can simply be confident that they have answered all the questions that really matter and then just quote them. After all, the Calvinist answer is always the best answer
5. I'm the only one that's allowed to claim mystery: It's only a contradiction if its in someone else's theology.
6. Being thoroughly biblical:I care about basing my beliefs solely on the Bible. That is why I only read and quote Calvinist authors.
7. Balanced theology: Unlike Arminianism, Calvinism carefully balances all of the issues. That is why we have Hypercalvinism on one-side, and Arminianism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Semiaugustinianism, Semipelagianism, and Pelagianism on the other side. We're smack dab in the middle!
8. Being against the flesh: We want to believe in free will, because of our sinly impulses. Calvinism shows its integrity of going against those worldly impulses by denying it, unlike Hinduism, Islam, Atheism, Gnosticism, and Plato and Aristotle.
9. A better name: When was the last time "Calvinist" was confused with a nationality? And it's recognized by spell check.

I couldn't think of a 10th reason. Anyone else who can think of a really good 10th reason why being a Calvinist is awesome, please mention it in the comments below.

WHY ONE SHOULD BELIEVE IN GODPart V: Design

Induction

I am a theorist. That means that I mostly deal with the theory of something, and that I am more concerned with argument than I am with evidence. Indeed, I have a disinterest in evidence if it is not properly explained, because I know how easy it is the manipulate facts to give the appearance of truth. So, for this reason I may not be the best person to discuss the Teleological Argument, or the Argument for Design, because it is a very evidence laden argument.

However, I am also perhaps the best person to read a short essay on the subject, for the very simple reason that I can tell you that if you have come to a conclusion in regards to this argument after reading a couple of books, or essays, or after hearing two men debate on the issue, then you have never really considered it. I am not a theorist because I think evidence is unimportant. Indeed evidence is the very thing that grounds one's beliefs in reality. I am a theorist instead because I recognize that it takes a considerable amount of time to sort through evidence, and I am just as nervous about someone accepting my argument because I have presented a lot of contextless facts as I am someone rejecting it.

Therefore I would encourage anyone reading this to go and examine the evidence for yourself. I highly recommend Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel as a primer, but only as a primer. I recommend it not because it argues the point well, but because it points to sources that one can go and examine for one's self.

A second point that I believe is important is understanding the difference between deduction and induction. Deduction is the logical process where a conclusion is demonstrated to necessarily come from the premises. Induction is the logical process where a conclusion is demonstrated to probably come from the premises. I bring this up because all arguments for and against the existence of God are examples of induction. God is neither falsifiable or provable, unless He chooses to be of course. I have often noticed that atheists seem to insist on deductive arguments for God's existence  yet offer inductive arguments against His existence, which is simply special pleading. Yet this is precisely why I have been talking about arguments for God's existence rather than proofs.

Additionally, it is also true that all of science is a process of induction. This is why the highest classification of scientific thought is theory (most scientists today have rejected the idea of scientific law). The value of a scietific theory is not how definate the claim is, but how explanatory it is. This means that it explains the evidence better than other claims, not that it has been proven. Indeed the scientific method, as powerful a process as it is, is a formalization of guess and check. That is not a knock on it, but it is important in understanding that as we consider this argument, and are not assessing if it is the only possible conclusion, but if it is the best conclusion.

THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Prima Facie

A Prima Facie case is the first step to any actual argument. It means that there appears on the surface to be legitmacy to the argument. The prima facie case is not the conclusion, but the first step in presenting an argument. In other words, it demonstrates that the argument is worth hearing out.

The prima facie case for the teleological argument is usually presented as an analogy. Consider a man, he living without exposure to modern times, is walking through a jungle, and he comes across a watch. He picks it up and examines it. He then concludes that this object was fashioned by someone with a purpose; it could not have formed naturally.

The teleological argument makes the same hypothesis about the nature itself. The above analogy is basicly arguing that there are signs which points to a designer: order, focused functionality, language and uniqueness. These attributes denotes purpose behind something, and purpose implies a designer.

The Privileged Planet

One thing that all atheists insist on is that there is life on other planets. After all, if life is simply the result of chemical reactions, then with the right mix, it is an inevitability  Originally it was assumed that there must be life in our solar system, but as time went on, we began to realize how unlikely that was. We then assumed in was in the next nearest star, but again, that not seems unlikely. It seems that the more we learn about life, and the more we learn about space, the rarer life seems to be.

The main reason for this is that even if life is merely chemical reactions, proper conditions for those reactions is actually quite rare, not to mention a variety of other factors necessary for life to be sustained. First of all, all of the necessary chemicals (especially water and carbon of course). Also, a magnetic field, atmosphere, plate tetonics, the carbon cycle, a large moon for maintaining ocean currents and a tilted axis, proper tilted rotation, stable circular orbits (for liquid water), and near by gas giants to pull in asteroids and other hazards. As for the sun, it needs to be the appropriate distance from other stars (for stable orbits and less radiation), large enough (most stars are smaller than Sol), emit the right kind of light for photosynthesis to be possible and other phenomena, stable, having a circular orbit in the galaxy, and being in a same zone between the arms of a spiral galaxy. The above list is not comprehensive, but it is important to note that everything listed above is rare. These are all unusual features.

Quite frankly I don't understand how many who think life is common in the universe are actually environmentalists. Either life is fragile, or it isn't. But in either case, it seems like we are uniquely positioned to have life, which implies that the Earth was designed with life in mind.

Irreducible Complexity

Irreducible complexity (IC) is often misunderstood. First of all, it is not a Creationist argument, though it is used by Creationists such as myself. Dr. Michael Behe who first proposed it merely proposed that evolution needs to be managed by an intelligence. Its point is merely that evolution cannot account for all biological phenomenon.

However, before I go on, I need to define it. IC refers directly to proteinic systems which exist in our bodies. This is important because or DNA is primarily a recipe book for proteins*.  Indeed, when we say that we are carbon-based life-forms, we are in fact referring to proteins, which are long chains of amino acids and are composed mostly of carbon. Proteins are kind of the biological molecule because they not only can be so large, but they are so variable. Most of the functions in are bodies are done by a collection of proteins working together. This also means that an variation in DNA influences the production of proteins.

[* When I say "primarily" here, I am referring also to developmental regulatory genes which reference a system of proteins instead of a single protein. And by system of proteins, I mean activation of other genes]

IC is most easily defined as a system which every component is necessary for the operation of that system. Here is where we have the second most common misunderstanding, which is what I like to call the bicycle bell fallacy. If you have an IC system, you can't subtract from it, but you can add. Most systems in the body which have IC, are actually IC systems with a couple of things added to them, like a bike with tassels and a bell. However, you can't disprove the IC of a bike by taking the bell off, and many do that. In order to prove that a system isn't IC, you have to show that the intermediate stages of development are viable systems, that is systems that actually accomplish something. Otherwise, you don't have evolution.

However, this post isn't about proving IC, or disproving Darwinism. My point is that this kind of complexity implies a designer of these systems.

Mathematical Precision

In science there are several mathematical constants. All of these has to be precisely what they are in order for the universe to exist as it is, and for life to be possible in it. This includes the strong nuclear force, the gravitational constant, the cosmological constant, the electromagnetic force, and many more.

There have been two defenses for this. One is the multiverse, which I dealt with on an earlier post. The second is called the Anthropic Principle. It simply states that if the universe were not capable of life, then we wouldn't be able to comment on it. Therefore no explanation is necessary. In other words, the question is merely a consequence of the existence of our minds, rather than something that actually is based on reality. However, this is nonsense for the basic reason that in any other instance, when something unlikely occurs, we look for a reason. Without light from the sun, we wouldn't have existed either, but that doesn't mean that asking how the sun gives off this light is somehow illegitimate.

Final Remarks

As I said at the beginning, many people have presented this arguement better than I could. Additionally, due to how long it took to get to writing this, I have to admit that I merely pounded out the last few sections to get this done. Please look into other sources to better understand the details to this argument.

Christ Is Risen

Let no one caught in sin remain*

Inside the lie of inward shame

We fix our eyes upon the cross

And run to him who showed great love

And bled for us

Freely you bled, for us

Christ is risen from the dead

Trampling over death by death

Come awake, come awake!

Come and rise up from the grave!

Christ is risen from the dead

We are one with him again

Come awake, come awake!

Come and rise up from the grave!

Beneath the weight of all our sin

You bow to none but heavens will

No scheme of hell, no scoffer's crown

No burden great can hold you down

In strength you reign

Forever let your church proclaim

Christ is risen from the dead

Trampling over death by death

Come awake, come awake!

Come and rise up from the grave

Christ is risen from the dead

We are one with him again

Come awake, come awake!

Come and rise up from the grave

Oh death! Where is your sting?

Oh hell! Where is your victory?

Oh Church! Come stand in the light!

The glory of God has defeated the night!

Oh death! Where is your sting?

Oh hell! Where is your victory?

Oh Church! Come stand in the light!

Our God is not dead, he's alive! HE'S ALIVE!

Christ is risen from the dead

Trampling over death by death

Come awake, come awake!

Come and rise up from the grave

Christ is risen from the dead

We are one with him again

Come awake, come awake!

Come and rise up from the grave

Rise up from the grave...

Short Hiatus

SEA has moved to a new web-based platform. Since I am a leader in that organization, I am going to be focusing on doing work in finishing up that project until everything is running smoothly. So my final installment of my recent series will be delayed. Sorry for the inconvenience.

WHY ONE SHOULD BELIEVE IN GODPart IV: Cosmos

The cosmological argument for the existence of God is one of the more classic arguments for the existence of God, second only to the teleological argument for its logical power. There have been some attempts to counter the argument, but none have been truly lethal to it. That isn't to say that there aren't some flaws, but I will get into that, and why I think these flaws are moot.

First of all, definitions. Cosmology is the study of the origins of the cosmos, that is the whole universe. The cosmological argument for the existence of God then is simply that the origin of the cosmos requires explanation, and that God is the best explanation for it. However that is merely what the argument attempts to show, not the argument itself. We shall see that the argument can actually be presented in several different forms, and we will deal with each in turn.

UNDERSTANDING THE ARGUMENT
Argument from Contingency: Thomas Aquinas

While there were some precursors to Aquinas' presentation of this argument, Aquinas was really the first to pen it as such. Aquinas presented the cosmological argument in 3 different forms. The first two, the argument from movement and the argument from causation, are really the same thing, the latter merely being an abstract form of the former. We will look at this in the next section.

The third form he presented was the argument from contingency. The flow is as follows:

P1: All contingent beings require a source for their existence
P2: If everything were contingent, than nothing would exist
C1: Thus there exists at least something which is necessary, from which ultimately comes things which are not.
C2: God is that necessary being.

The ultimate problem with the argument as Aquinas puts it is that it is incomplete. The move from C1 to C2 is forced. Additionally, it doesn't deal with the possibility that the universe itself is contingent. For the first, he primarily refers to the argument from causation. However, as to the second, I believe that to some degree Aquinas here was primarily interested in the existence of humans and life, as opposed to rocks, planets and stars.

We can extract this out and think about this in a more modern way. There exists material in the world, in the sense of atoms and energy. There are certain things which are simply the formation of these particles due to the natural interaction of forces. However, the fact that some of this material gathers in such a manner as to become something greater than its constituent parts, such as a human, requires explanation. Planets and stars to necessary manifestations of physics, but the development of human is physically odd. It is demonstrable that the development of life is something which is incredible difficult, even if we can develop from natural causation. Therefore, unlike rocks, planets, and stars, we require special explanation.

This is why he distinguishes from necessary beings which come from other necessary beings, like rocks and planets, versus necessary beings which have no cause, like God. Ultimately God is the ultimate cause for all contingent beings because he is a being without cause, however, that goes to the argument from causation which we will discuss below.

But before we move on to that, it is important to note how much more potent this argument becomes when understood in light of the big bang and eventually universal death. These two events act as a kind of merism for the whole of the universe, showing that the universe itself (i.e. the rocks, planets and stars) is contingent and thus requires explanation.

God is thus offered as a parsimonious answer to such a question. I shall discuss the parsimony of God as an answer in the final section of this post.

Argument from Causation: A Simple Matter of Time

The argument from causation is what most people refer to when they refer to the cosmological argument. This is mostly because it is considered the superior form of the argument. However, the argument has changed over the course of the years.

Aquinas presented the argument as a series of events: every thing moves, but each movement is in fact caused by something else. This is further extended to the nature of causation, where every cause has an effect. He then makes a very important move: he insists that the concept of infinite regress is illogical. Therefore, for every chain of causation, there must be a beginning place which was not caused or moved, but simply is. Due to the interconnectivity of causation, recognizing events seems to have a multiple interrelated causes, it is considered parsimonious to say that all lines of causation have a single ultimate cause. Aquinas simply names this ultimate cause God (again a conclusion which is a bit forced).

In parallel, this argument was also presented in Islamic circles, specifically of the Kalam tradition, but formulated slightly differently. Instead of focusing on a line of causation, they instead consider the ontology of a thing, in that anything which has a beginning must have a cause. While Aquinias's arguments do not assume the beginning of the universe but instead focus on the natural operations of it, the Kalam argument does assume the beginning of the universe, and states that because the universe began, it must have a beginning. The syllogism is pretty airtight:

P1: Everything which has a beginning has a cause
P2: The universe has a beginning.
C1: The universe has a cause

Again in a forced move, God is offered as this cause.

I personally would expand on this, focusing on Aquinas's presentation. If we consider a moment to be an event, and that moment to have been brought into existence by the last moment (considering the recent theory of the discrete nature of time, this a rather accurate way to think of it), we can then see the full timeline to be a chain of causation. Therefore, we agree with the premise that infinite regression is categorically false, we can then conclude that time itself must have a beginning, and that it is an aspect of the universe. Therefore we can expand the Kalam definition and say that anything which is bound by, or exists within time must have a cause, but it existence is an aspect of this causation chain.

Therefore, when we consider what this ultimate cause is, we conclude that is must be something which is not bound by time. The Christian view of an eternal God anticipates such a quality, instead of being formed by it, further establishing God as a solution.

CRITICIZING THE ARGUMENT
False Criticisms

There is a very legitimate criticism to his argument,and it has already been mentioned several times, but I want to treat it last. First I want to deal with three criticisms which I feel do not really work: rejection that contingents need causes, acceptance of infinite regress, and the proposition of a cause for God.

First let us deal with the principle premise of the argument: that things with a beginning require a cause. Many Atheists have argued that within quantum mechanics, things often pop into existence without cause. Therefore the tautology that all things with a beginning require a cause is defeated because it assumes Newtonian physics.

There are two responses to this. First of all, quantum mechanics has more unknowns than it has knowns. It is an incredibly controversial area of science. What may seem like a particle coming into existence without cause may simply be a particle coming into existence by an unknown cause. It is premature to declare victory from such an example. But it is equally premature to say that therefore the point is completely illegitimate. This brings me to my second point: the rules of quantum mechanics do not operate within the macrocosm. Big Bangs are not occurring within the universe all the time. No one is concerned about the sudden appearance of a singularity within the solar system. This kind of event isn't happening. However, that is precisely what such an argument is presupposing. The commencement of the macrocosm is an event within the macrocosm, and as such a quantum level event would seem to have no baring on it.

Now for the second criticism: the acceptance of infinite regress. One of the major moves that the cosmological argument makes is that an infinite chain of causations is an absurdity. However, one could say, "Why? Let's just believe in infinite regress." Well, first of all, one could say anything. I could say, "Why can't we have a square circle?" At some point, we need to assume some things. This is a basic fact of logic: we need to start somewhere. Therefore, we need to consider the fact that the notion of infinite regress certainly seems absurd. Even those that advocate otherwise recognize that the notion is at least ineffable. Therefore, I would argue that those who propose infinite regress need to first show that it is a possibility, and they have yet to do so.

The final criticism is that the proposition that God himself also requires a cause. However, simply from my presentation one can see why such a criticism is ridiculous. Whether we accept the Kalam premise (that all things with a beginning have a cause) or my own (all things bound by time have a cause), one can see that neither premise would apply to the articulation of God proposed by Christians. We hold that God is eternal (which is different than infinite BTW) and does not exist within time. As such, this criticism is nothing more than a straw man.

It is admitted that Aquinas does not offer explanation as to why God is exempt from his arguments. I would assume though that he would reference both God's eternalness, and His immutability.

Alternative Theories

There is a real flaw to the cosmological argument: there is no deductive reason why God has to be the answer to causation. While God is in fact an answer, and a good answer at that, it may be possible for there to be other answers.

There has been three proposed possibilities for the ultimate cause: A single eternal omnipotent God, several gods, and the multiverse. Here we are including the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Deistic views of God as a singular possibility, for they differ in character, rather than ontology. As to a single God, verses several gods, we can say that a single God is more likely due to parsimony (the inductive principle that the simplest answer is the more likely answer). This leaves us with God vs. the multiverse.

Here it is important to point out that both are equally unfalsifiable, so neither can assessed scientifically, only philosophically. Any favor granted to the multiverse for being more "scientific" is based solely off of it being an atheist position, which is either begging the question or special pleading (or both).

The hypothesis of the multiverse (I refuse to consider this to be theory) is based to some degree on a thought experiment on the nature of dimensions, but being able to fathom greater dimentions does not demonstrate those dimensions to not be flat. The concievability of the multiverse does not demonstrate the existence of the multiverse. To another degree it is also part of string theory which itself is quite controversial.

It is also important to note that nature of the multiverse is barely proposed. It appears to be a place where realities pop into existance, and either manage to sustain themselves or fail. However, how are these realities able to exist side by side? What mechanism within the multiverse causes their creation?
To what extent can we say the law of entropy to be at work here, since that is the problem with most singular reality cosmological models.

Additionally, the multiverse is a realm of caused contingent realities. Nothing within the multiverse seems to be necessary, or seems to be able to give account for the commencement of a new reality. A collection of contingents requires explanation as much as a single contingent, and the multiverse as it is currently articulated, is defined by its contingent members, rather than by the environs within which this members exist. Therefore it doesn't seem to directly address any of the points of the cosmological argument.

This is compared to the articulation of the Christian God: incorporeal, ontologically simple, eternal, and necessary. Additionally, God is a cognitive reality, and as such can account for the commencement of something new. The nature of thought can account for the transition of the non-existence of reality to the existence of it better than some vague mechanism of a multiverse. As such, God seems to be a superior answer to the cosmological argument than the multiverse, if we can consider the multiverse even satisfactory.


For more on the cosmological argument, I highly recommend the site of William Lane Craig, who re-popularized the argument back in the 70s: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/popular-articles/existence-and-nature-of-god

WHY ONE SHOULD BELIEVE IN GODPart III: Transcendance

The Transcendental Argument is a fairly easy argument to misunderstand. In a nut shell, it states that because there are things which observably exist which transcend matter/energy, that therefore atheism must be false.

It is important to note that like the morality argument mentioned in an earlier post, the transcendental argument is polemical rather than apologetic. By this, I mean that it is criticizing atheism, rather than defending Christianity or theism. However, unlike the morality argument, it is a logical proof, rather than an appeal to what is best for society. It does not seek to say that Christianity is merely socially superior to atheism, but to show that atheism is philosophically untenable.

Therefore, it is inaccurate to say that this argument proves that God exists. It does not demonstrate monotheism, nor does it demonstrate a sentient transcendent being, though I will argue later that it does imply it. It is more accurate to say that this argument disproves materialism, which is a necessary tenant of atheism itself.

Materialism: True Or False

Materialism is the philosophic belief that only matter-energy exists. Everything else is imaginary, illusionary, or conventional. Atheism believes in Materialism as a central tenant.

The logic to disprove this flows as follows:
P1: Materialism is true if and only if everything which exists is matter-energy
P2: 'A' is not matter-energy
P3: 'A' exists
C1: Therefore, there exists something which is not matter-energy
C2: Therefore Materialism is false.

The trick of course is to find something which satisfies 'A'. We call this a transcendental: something which transcends physical reality. The debate usually is over premise 3, and what constitutes existence. If 'A' can be shown to be possibly conventional or illusionary, then it cannot be said that 'A' satisfies the argument. Theists have proposed several transcendentals which we feel satisfy the argument.

Examples of Transcendentals
Morality

Unfortunately, the existance of a transcendent universal moral code is probably the most common transcendental proposed. Now, I say unfortunately for a few reasons.

First of all, it causes people to confuse the Transcendental Argument with the Morality Argument. This is often done by those that the argument is aimed towards, and by those attempting to use the argument. I think both arguments suffer for this, since it makes the Transcendantal Argument appear less formal, and the Morality Argument to simply be muddled.

Second of all, it is incredibly difficult to demonstrate that such a moral code objectively exists. Atheists often can easily rhetorically avoid this by claiming that morality is conventional in nature.

Third, I'm not even sure if I would say that such a moral code exists. While I believe there to be one law by which we will all be judged, I consider this to be administered by a divine government, not something which can be said to exist in and of itself. I have yet to find an argument which truly demonstrates that a certain moral code is woven into the fabric of reality, or how such a code can be demonstrated.

Math/Logic

The original transcendental proposed was math and logic, and I think there is something to this. There is some debate about whether logic is derivative of math, or whether they simply can overlap, but I don't really think it matters for the purpose of this argument.

So how can we say that math/logic exists, and are not merely conventions? Simply put, because they are universal. The rules of math/logic are not invented, but rather discovered, and are the same in all societies, though they may be represented differently.

Since it is not a convention, atheists must try to say that that it is illusionary. However, nothing illusionary can have an effect on something real, and it appears that math/logic affects reality. Proving it is a bit more difficult, but I believe it to be doable.

Ideas/Thoughts

A better transcendental, IMO, is one that I proposed a couple of years ago: thoughts. This is more than an appeal to Descartes. I'm not talking about self-evident subjective experience of thinking. Thoughts clearly exist in some sense, but what must be demonstrated is that they exist distinctly, and are not simply illusions of the brain.

No one really proposes that thoughts are conventions. They are not sociological constructs, but individual manifestations of the subjective mind. However, thoughts produce sociological constructs, i.e. ideas. And ideas change reality.

Something which is illusionary cannot affect that which is real. Yet, ideas cause racial separations, the impractical weaving of material (i.e. decorations), and the radical alterations of physical objects (launching satellites into space, and detonating atomic bombs). It seems to me that explaining such occurrences in purely physical terms is unparsimonious, if not down right impossible.

Information

The last transcendental we'll deal with here is information. It can be easily demonstrated that information is greater than the medium within which it is represented. Clearly language is conventional in nature, and cannot be said to properly exist, but the fact that symbols can be carved into a rock, which allows me to unearth an object in an entirely different location demonstrates that information exists distinctly from the material.

Greater Implications

What all these transcendentals imply is that reality can at least be divided into two distinct categories: matter/energy and cognitive realities. Classicly, such cognitive realities are called spirits or souls.
This demonstrates that materialism, and therefore atheism, cannot be true, but it also leaves some serious questions: how can souls exist? In what way do they exist? How do souls interact with matter/energy (since clearly they do)? Can a soul exist seperately from matter/energy? Is there only one soul, or many?

Simply saying "God" does not answer these questions, of course, anymore than saying "parents" answers the questions of my anatomy. Origin does not equate with description. However, I would say that the existance of God, an ultimate cognitive reality, is a good parsimonious starting place for approaching these questions.

WHY ONE SHOULD BELIEVE IN GODPart II: Morality

During our conversation, Higgs was very interested in the morality argument. The morality argument, in a nutshell, is that a common morality, or a well grounded ethic, is not possible without a belief in God. However, before I go into the argument itself, there are a few of things that need to be explained.

First of all, the morality argument is not an argument for God's existence. It is relatively simple for an atheist to simply say, "well, I guess there's not morality" even when you demonstrate the logic of the argument is solid. All you can demonstrate is that it behooves a society to believe in God.

Second, it is not an apologetic argument but a polemical one. Apologetics is the art or practice of defending a position. Polemics is the art or practice of criticizing a position. It is important to understand that this argument isn't really defending Christianity; it is criticizing atheism. Atheists seem to have trouble with this, since they view themselves as having a kind of non-position, like people who don't think they have an accent. But, of course, it is a position. Even people without a fully formed opinion have a position. After all, a moving train is still somewhere. Each of us, regardless of how formed our positions are, have made decisions, ruled out possibilities, and have established what kinds of criteria we take seriously. The fact that atheists have trouble admitting this is one of the many reasons that they end up coming off as arrogant, and also one of the many reasons why the fail to understand simple arguments like this one.

The third thing is that a major reason why this argument comes up is because atheists attempt to criticize God on moral grounds. However, this is non-sensical, since they have no moral basis from which to critize (or so the argument goes).

Finally, we need to establish before diving in is that there is a difference between morality and ethics. Ethics is the systematization of moral behaviors. It is the understanding of the difference between right and wrong. Morality on the other hand is the personal sense of right and wrong: the motivations inside of us which guides us into making such decisions. Ethics is of the head, morality is of the heart. Ethics is morality in theory, morality is ethics in practice. Atheism has trouble with both of these concepts, but I will treat them in turn.

Morality

The basic morality argument is the moral behavior cannot be expected without a judge. For true morality to exist within a culture or society, there must be an expectation of justice. That fundamental need for order and reason in the cosmos is a fundamental need for humans psychologically. That is why children who are not disciplined often yearn it, while acting immorally.

Just look at the world around us! Often good people suffer, and evil people excel. It is unjust, and we know it. But what motivation is there for someone to obey the rules if there is not guarantee that they will bring safety or stability. If there is no law-giver, then there is no law. We become a law unto ourselves, which generally yields selfishness.

Many times Atheists criticize the justice of God by complaining about Him being a judge over us. But God being a judge is the foundation of justice. If God does not ultimately punish those who are wicked and ultimately reward the righteous, than there is no justice, and morality is a sham. So even though this doesn't prove God exists, it does show that society cannot stand without Him.

Ethics

There are two basic ethical standards that have been proposed within the context of a secular society: hedonism and utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is the belief that goodness is ultimately defined by what is best for the society. "It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong." On the surface it seems like a very positive way to deal with the ethical problem, but it has some major problems.

First, like all forms of consequentialism, it lacks practicability. Because you are defining what is right or wrong based off of consequence, you can never truly know whether you are acting morally until long after the deed is done. While such a system may make sense for an omniscient being,  for us humans there is no way of fully knowing the ultimate results of our actions. Therefore, how can we ever truly know if what we are doing is ethical?

Second, it can be used to justify almost anything. Even though we don't fully know the consequences of our actions, we can speculate. However, we are much poorer at speculating than we like to admit. If we have a reason for wanting to force a certain outcome, we can often justify any action to achieve. Utilitarianism empowers such justification. Good examples of the dangers of this ethic can be found in the character of Ozymandias from Watchmen, or from the characters from The Company in Heroes. In both cases you have people willing to sacrifice thousands or millions of lives for the sake of all of humanity. Indeed, Heroes is an even better example, because the future they were hoping to build with their sacrifice doesn't come to pass even in the cases where they succeed. It is a scary scary thing for mortals to play god.

Third, it has no power in generating morality. While it almost makes sense for politicians and world leaders, it doesn't seem to apply to the average Joe. How would a belief in the ultimate benefit for society really affect my choices in the day to day decisions of my life? And if the ethic of a society has no moral power for the denizens of that society, then it has no real moral power for the society as a whole either.

Hedonism

Hedonism is the belief that morality should be defined by the pursuit of pleasure, and the eschewal of pain. This is not only within one's self, but also in regards to those around one. Unlike Utilitarianism, which is focused outwardly, Hedonism is focused inwardly, and doesn't have the same problem of moral impotence. But it certainly has its own problems.

First of all, since it is usually conceived as a form of consequentialism, it can therefore lack the same practicability that  I mentioned above. It is impossible for anyone to truly know how much pleasure or pain would actually yield from a particular event or action. For instance, will a particular relationship bring you happiness or pain? How do you know? How do you compare the joy of a baby in your arms to a teenager who has become a criminal and shamed your family?

Second it places certain things into moral categories which really shouldn't be. Playing games, or having children should be seen as moral choices within Hedonism, since they yield pleasure/pain. However, they are amoral activities, in of themselves.

Third, it can be used to justify many things that I at least would consider immoral, such as gluttony, the euthanasia of children, and other actions which may make life easier for a person, but degrades their character. It often descends into a kind of selfishness, either a pure egotism, or too much of a focus on one's own social circle to the neglect of charity.

The Christian Ethic

So what is the Christian ethic? I am only going to go over this briefly since this post is already much longer than I had though it would be. The Christian ethic is based on two ideas (which are interconnected IMO): that humans are made in the image of God, and that Christians are called to represent God.

In regards to the first point, because we are made in God's image, every human has an innate dignity. This includes all races, classes, genders, intelligence quotient, or lifestyle. While external cultural and political pressures have suppressed this in history, the essential Christian understanding of humanity means that there is a respect that we have for all people. Christ died for all of humanity, even the sinful. We are called to love all, even our enemies. This universal love defines Christianity and is the ultimate guide to how we interact with others.

In regards to the second point, because we are called to represent God, we seek to imitate Him. The truly moral Christian is one who behaves like Christ. We don't fall into the flaws of relying on consequences, but instead focus on the transformation of our internal character based on a model. This makes Christian ethics far more practicable then its atheist counterparts, and allows us to be able to be forgiven, and move past former mistakes.

While all this doesn't prove that Christianity is true, it does show that when Christianity is actually followed within a society, it is better for that society.