The Moral Argument is Sound

Warrant for P1 "Grounding values in God" appears to be misleading, adding notions of divinely separable abstract tokens. But my claim is that if you separate God's essence from God, specifically his moral nature, then he's no longer God. Suppose a possible world in which God refrained from creating, in such a world there would never be other agents capable of moral action, & so no 'contra-Good' would emerge, & so therefore no value scale would exist. Yet God would remain as a supreme reality. This is what's meant as objective. It's not until 'not-Good' emerges that an ontological value frame dawns. And I argue 'the Good' is God, a standard. Within such a scenario we can colloquially say God is the ontological grounds for morals, but what we really mean is God is (what Plato called) "the Good," the standard from which all other moral events, states, etc are judged against; the very paradigm of what ought to be, if you will. Any value judgement, as such, requires a standard (which is P1 regarding morals, not a circular statement). I'm not arguing that God is the objective moral value or the duties, rather I'm arguing that God, as the standard, is just as necessary for moral value (& therefore duty) as any standard is necessary for a value judgment. This is not circular, for if it's not begging the question to argue: "If the Sun does not exist, then day & night as we know it doesn't exist; day & night as we know it exists;therefore the sun exists." ...then likewise it's not question begging to affirm P1. So Con's objection appears to be misunderstood. He makes this obvious by pointing to my defense of P1, not the argument. But it's the argument he's claiming is circular. How? All I've defended was that God is the standard from which morals are judged. Why? Because if God (so defined as "the maximal moral value by virtue of being the maximally great being, MGB; and by virtue of being a MGB, God's maximal greatness is either exemplified in all worlds or none") exists then we have a necessary condition for distinguishing moral truths. Con's argument is clearly ignorant when he writes, "To argue that “God's nature is the highest moral value”, one has to first assume that God’s nature (and thus God) exists" Right, that's why the premise states a conditional: If God doesn't exists, then..., etc: what's the problem? Furthermore I've presented an argument for why we should think God is the standard of moral value, which Con hasn't yet rebutted. Namely, that God is a maximally great being, and since it's greater to be the standard of moral perfection rather than exemplify it, then it's just intuitive to affirm God as such an entity or standard. Warrant for P2"Moral Mirror" ObjectionCon hasn't given an argument for thinking moral truths fit better in a atheistic framework, he simply asserts they're objective... and 'oh yes, I'm an atheist, we're a friendly bunch, who don't' need to explain morals any further' (*Mao Zedong grins & nods his head*). Jokes aside his reasoning here comes from the idea that the realm of objective morals require no further explanation. Which is also implicit in his "Mt. Impossible" Objection.Likewise Cave's 'full stop' quote also falls prey to an unjustified affinity towards the objective morals which I've shown to fit in a theistic ontology over any non-theistic one anyway. Cave assumes moral truths needn't require an explanation too. But at best this shows that morals are necessarily true, it does not show they don’t need an explanation. Many necessary truths have an explanation, e.g.,necessarily, 2 + 3 = 5 because the Peano axioms are necessarily true. Necessarily, no event precedes itself because temporal becoming is real, etc...So Cave's idea that necessary truths can’t stand in relations of explanatory priority to one another is just simply an implausible notion: far cry from a "full stop," and indeed a defeater for Con's assumed Atheistic Friendly morality. Back to Warrant for P1 "Subjective Moral Values Objection I affirm God exists necessarily & thus objectively. Con only quotes here that there are universalist forms that include God as a subject whose moral existence is based upon his attitudes. (Let me just say, this is one of the weakest attempts I've seen in trying to undercut the moral argument... attitudes?) First, I don't argue that moral values are based in God's attitudes, that's a straw man on Con's quote, rather I argue that moral values are judged from God's very essence-- remove the essence & you remove God; remove an attitude and you still have God. Case closed. Secondly, though God is a person hood in Christianity, it doesn't follow that a maximally great being [who's greatness is either possible or impossible & therefore exists necessarily if it exists] is best explained in a subjective sense if theism were true, that just seems silly. "Irrelevance" Objection I don't argue that God is a more plausible basis for morality in the sense that Con thinks. But what I do seek to show is that it's more plausible that God is necessary for morality. That's what I meant when I said God is a plausible ground for morals, I assumed simple speech wins the character count. So at best we have a semantical misunderstanding here. I only argue for what P1 proposes; with the non-existence of God, a competent transcendent moral standard & prescriber of moral prescriptions, then there's just no meaningful way to speak of objective values let alone duties. So if I've shown it's more reasonable to think that God is necessary for moral value & duty, & that it's more reasonable to think objective morals exist, then the theistic conclusion follows necessarily. That's where we're at with the irrelevance objection. Which, if anything, afforded a chance to better clarify the soundness of the argument. For if God doesn't exist, then I affirm moral values; but only subjective values. Hence when Con says "NO objective morals" without God, he's right. But there very well could be subjective morals without God. Yet if morals are objective, then the theistic conclusion is accepted on pain of irrationality. So I'm not committing ignoratio elenchi since I'm not arguing that objective morals make it more plausible God's existence, that would be a misrepresentation of what I wrote. Rather I affirm P1, that it's more plausible that God's existence is a necessary condition for objective morals, and not subjective morals."Atheist Moral Duties" ObjectionI have too much to say before I respond to other rebuttals on this objection- extended like Viagra. "What's the Problem" ObjectionI ignore Con's argument from "disregards thousands of years of secular morality" since I specifically warned this is referring to moral epistemology, not ontology. Hence it is irrelevant, I'll continue to ignore it since I don't want to be led down a red-herring trail. But now he says I ignore atheistic moral realism, not so- for I provided an evolutionary argument against such nonsense. To which I'll respond his rebuttal next round. For Swinburne's & Armstrong's quote see my P2 rebuttal above. For he seems to also think moral truths don't need an explanation. Moreover I don't deny Atheists affirm moral truths! I even said scripture affirms that the moral law is written upon the hearts of all, regardless of beliefs."Argument from Ignorance" ObjectionI'm not arguing from ignorance since I present good reasons for thinking moral truths are ontologically derived theistically and not atheistically. Con just says, well I don't have to show you're wrong! (Great!)"Climbing Mt. Impossible" Objection Con argues from authority (S. Law) without ever opening up an argument himself here. All he does is assert I must refute all possible atheistic ontological accounts of moral realism, without arguing for any. (Regardless there's only a few working ontology's & I took down 2 metaphysical & all natural ones if EAN is true).