Introduction
The question of where morality comes from has long divided believers and non-believers. For many religious people, morality cannot truly exist without God — without a divine source to make moral laws objective, binding, and meaningful. They argue that without God, moral claims are reduced to personal preferences, cultural habits, or social contracts, none of which carry the same authority as a God-given command. To them, this raises a pressing question: Why should we regard morality as valid and true at all, unless God is behind it?
This argument, however, often relies less on demonstrating that God actually grounds morality and more on the assumption that nothing else possibly could. It is a conclusion reached through a process of elimination — a kind of philosophical corner into which many back themselves without fully considering the consequences. If God is accepted as the only option simply because other explanations are rejected, then God becomes less of a foundation and more of a fallback — a placeholder, a prop, rather than a true moral anchor. This approach deserves closer scrutiny.
THE ARGUMENT
Believers say that if you want a reason to be moral, to be loving and just, you need God. Otherwise, your morals are not morals but mere opinions.
So they say the question is, "Why should we regard morality as valid and true?"
Believers only accept that God is the answer through a process of elimination. Some realise that is what they are doing, and others do not.
They need to be careful that he really is at the end of the process. Otherwise, they are treating him like a prop.
They say God is a mystery. If so, then they cannot be sure that if morality is grounded in mystery, exactly what the mystery is. The mystery does not have to be in the form of God.
They say that if we have no free will, which they say is a creation of God, then we are just machines, and you cannot expect or ask machines to be moral or to do good. But even if we are determined, the fact remains that we know from experience that asking people to be good works. That is all that matters.
They agree with the "if we are animals, then we cannot have a genuine morality," so they think that proves that you must ground morality in God in order to really believe in it and follow it.
If man is nothing but a superior animal, how ultimately do we distinguish good from evil? If man is superior, then there is a distinction between man and animal, even if man is an animal. That gives us an important clue.
The Christian reasoning is that if we are animals, there is no reason why we cannot be non-moral, like dogs are non-moral. So Christians say the answer is that God helps us to be moral, and he teaches us morality, and morality comes from God. This creates a dichotomy — animal nature theory means we are not really moral, versus God theory, which says we are.
This is a morality-of-the-gaps argument. It sees a hole. Then what you want morality to mean is projected into the void to fill it. It is a very cosmetic enterprise. Instead of seeing morality as valid in itself, you see what you want to see in the hole. But wanting to see something in a hole and telling yourself it is there is no solution.
You feel compelled — and often are compelled by others — to see morality in the hole. But morality needs to be recognised freely to be morality. If you hurt a child, you need to see it as wrong. A morality of the gaps means, "I do not see it as wrong but have to figure out that it is wrong in case lots of harm will ensue if I don't." There is something damaging and inhuman about such a "morality." It is a clever counterfeit for morality, but it is not morality.
It is sometimes hard to figure out morality on ethical grounds as opposed to religious. The gaps get in the way. The gaps are worsened by religion.
HARM
Harm can only be understood as follows: if action x makes the person worse off than if some other action had been done, then the person has been harmed.
Philosophers debate something called normative authority. They mean normative moral authority. This authority is independent of anybody's rules — even God's. You are to do good because it is good. Religion opposes this, though it is plainly correct.
Just see diminishing suffering and increasing happiness as important. Make that your main value. Forget about God. Even if we make mistakes in trying to help people, at least we are still true to our value. The value matters more than any rules about how to implement it. If you have to love values or rules about the values, and it has to be one or the other, then you know what you must choose.
If a mind could only choose one thing, it would not be God or rules — it would be a value such as kindness or justice or affinity. The notion of God is incorrect, for it implies God alone matters, when he simply cannot.
FINALLY
A God who grounds and validates morality only because nothing else is able to do it is a God who is embraced for a very negative reason. If morality needs a proper source, having to resort to that is negative. Worship would, in effect, be a sin! There is worse. Strictly speaking the believer says God is a mystery. If morality is grounded in mystery then why not just say that? Why does it have to be God specifically? God is an artificial prop.