Can We Be Good Without God?

Author: Walter Nuñez

To the small minds, the answer could come in handy and really quick: yes we can! To the average minds, perhaps, this requires some room for considerations in the attempt to provide a thoughtful answer, but overwhelmed with practicality, still readily dispatch a positive answer: Yes we can be good without God!

Well, they can’t be blame for what they perceive as it appears to them as such answers. Many a people, after all, live as if God does not exist. Even, worse considers that God is not the source of goodness, but themselves. Needless to say, that there are broad spectrum of nonbelievers say atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and the likes, who all thought that everything can be explained through a natural cause, which for that matter alleges that the source of goodness is nothing but us, hence, is only a natural phenomenon.

They (nonbelievers) claim that Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are either atheists or a non – theists (someone who does not believe in a personal God), and yet, at the same time, noted for being a first rate philanthropists. A philanthropist is a person noted for his “effort to increase the well – being of humankind, as by charitable donations”. Melinda and Bill Gates foundation stands out in this enterprise, without question. Also, at one time, Warren Buffet, is notable to have unloaded millions of dollars to the former’s foundation. So apparently given the foregoing examples one can indeed be or do good even without God. Or so it seems…..

However, to the big minds they know that there are more to it than meets the eye. After all, “what is essential is invisible to the eye.” So, they look for ultimate causes, and arrived at the metaphysical idea that God must have been the source of goodness. Therefore, one cannot be good without God in the ultimate sense of the word.

Now, to delve into the core of the matter, it is extremely necessary to set the definition of terms in order to have a common ground for the necessary meeting of minds:

The word “can” is an auxiliary verb. It “used to indicate: physical or mental ability.” Or, “to express capacity to do something”. “Good” is an adjective indicating something ” being positive or desirable in nature.” It also means being “upright, righteous, and kind.” Being good is a learned attribute. The idea of good and / or  act of goodness is somehow learned along the course of experience, where one learns it from someone else at one time or the other. While, God is “A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omnicient, originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions”. Or, for want of a better definition, the ultimate reality and cause of everything, and more specifically: the source of goodness.

The bone of contention here is one cannot have an idea of an act of goodness unless, one learns or imitates it from someone else in the context of experience, at least, as in the present case. For instance, we see a child learns acts of goodness by imitating such actions from his immediate family. Or, learns it from school through values education subject.  But to say of this, before in a time where according to science and genetics there is only one “genetic eve” in the world, and no ones to learn from, is deemed problematic. A question now can be raised: where did she (genetic eve) learn its rudiments of morality? To be sure, she must have someone to learn it from apart from herself. Otherwise, she must not have learned in the first place, and in so doing taught such rudiments of morality to her offspring up until it reaches to our present generations.

Such acts of goodness are contained in moral codes, for us to abide in order to be good. Thus, one can never learn apart from the moral laws. Laws, specifically, moral laws are made by an intelligent mind. This proposition is self – evident. There are no moral codes in the jungle. Beasts have no sense of morality.

On the other hand, man can make laws no doubt. There are laws galore to be had (e.g. scientific laws, civil laws, criminal laws, constitutional laws, but to mention a few). All these can be made by man.

But can man make a moral law? Given the fact that all of the  ideas of man are nothing but modifications from the past, which ultimately can only be traced to the one dubbed by science as the “genetic eve.” Then, again we have in our midst another dilemma.

All things considered, one cannot be good without a moral law to serve as a measure of guidance. Consequently, moral laws could not exists in the first place without being made by an intelligent mind far beyond the human intelligence. We could only take a leap of faith as the Christian Existentialist Philosopher Soren kierkegaard advises us to do: that God must have been the source of everything that includes the very source of our morality.

Going back to the question: Can we be good without God? To the big minds: The answer is a categorical NO!