Parshall Partners

Good But No God?

​        Author Greg Epstein serves as the ‘humanist’ chaplain at both Harvard and MIT and wrote the book, Good Without God. He has said:​

“This is not a book about whether one can be good without God, because that question does not need to be answered --it needs to be rejected outright. To suggest that one can't be good without belief in God is not just an opinion, a mere curious musing -- it is a prejudice.”

​​        The Pew Research Center did an expansive survey, asking people from around the globe about the intersection between morality and a belief in God.  The results, for the followers of Christ, carry much weight on the issue of effective evangelism.

​​        Pew found, “Most Americans say it’s not necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values, according to a spring 2022 Pew Research Center survey. About two-thirds of Americans say this, while about a third say belief in God is an essential component of morality (65% vs. 34%).”

​​        What is particularly alarming is that figure is 10 percentage points higher than what was reported in July 2014. It’s on par with percentages reported in 2017, as well as in September 2019 and January 2020 before the pandemic.

​​        The issue of God and morality is directly tied into whether one believes in God or not.  According to Pew, “responses to this question differ dramatically depending on whether Americans see religion as important in their lives. Roughly nine-in-ten who say religion is not too or not at all important to them believe it is possible to be moral without believing in God, compared with only about half of Americans to whom religion is very or somewhat important (92% vs. 51%).”

​​        Pew didn’t limit their research to America only.  Views on religion and morality varied among nations.  Pew found:

“In European and North American countries, at least six-in-ten respondents believe that it is not necessary to believe in God in order to be moral. That includes nine-in-ten Swedes, the highest share of any country surveyed.

In contrast, Israelis are nearly evenly split over whether belief in God is necessary to be moral: 47% say such a belief is necessary, while 50% say it is not.”

​​        Malaysia was the only nation of the 17 surveyed where an overwhelming majority embraced the idea that belief in God is a requirement to have good values and a moral life: 78% agreed, while 22% said belief isn’t necessary.

​​        Dr. William Lane Craig has clarified the question of whether or not we can be good without God.  He writes that if God didn’t exist there would be no objective moral values. But if moral values and duties exist, then there are good grounds for believing that God exists. He concludes:

"We cannot, then, truly be good without God; but if we can in some measure be good, then it follows that God exists.”

​        That’s the argument in a nutshell.

​        Those are my thoughts.  I’m Janet Parshall.