The moral argument is sound

My opponent offers two objections to my claim that God is necessary for morality. The first point is that a mental process is only necessary to recognize/know morality but this does not account for its ontology. He is assuming that morality can arise from and be grounded in something other than mind. What could that be? Is it a brute fact, one of those 'facts' that are unexplainable? My opponent is taking for granted that any fact (truth/what is real), not just those that he says stem from 'brute facts', can be known without reference to God. How does he know this? How does he even know there are brute facts; facts that can never be explained? He doesn't. It is just his philosophical worldview that takes him there and gives him these assertions that he supports by like-minded ‘experts’. First he has to deal with the nature of reality. If he has a false view of reality then he doesn't know what he thinks he knows. How can he ever be sure he knows what he thinks he knows about morality or origins in the first place? He can't. He assumes that life can come from something non-living, intelligence from non-being, a thinking mind from matter, morality from something amoral, laws from chance happenstance, etc. Rational Thinker, in his limited knowledge of anything, thinks that he can determine truth without a sufficient basis for truth. He takes this for granted, along with all kinds of subjective experts to solve the problem of why there is something rather than nothing. The question of facts, (as Greg Bahnsen put it), is "which universal [explained by Van Til as any truth of a general or abstract nature, whether a broad concept, law, principle, or categorical statement] can state or give meaning to any fact?" [1] Bahnsen also said, and I agree, "Facts without God would be brute facts. They would have no intelligible relation to one another. As such they could not be known by man." [2] That they could not be known by man is essentially what my opponent said, but the point I find compelling is the Bahnsen statement that they would have no intelligible relation to one another. A 'brute fact' is just, IMO, another way of saying nothing, and Van Til does not believe there is such a thing as a brute fact because all facts are known by God. Here again, I agree. The Christian worldview, when correctly interpreted, I believe, is the only worldview that can make sense of morality/meaning, reality, origins, objectivity, because of God's revelation to us. Bahnsen again: [Because] "all the facts are part of God's personal plan and serve His personal purpose; all of the laws by which we relate the facts (whether conceptually, logically, or causally) are a reflection of God's personal mind and His ordering of reality. Man's mind was created to imitate God's thinking with respect to these...facts and...laws. God's personal influence over all the objects of knowledge as well as the mind of man, and His purpose to have man understand and control the facts of his environment, provide for the possibility of the mind accurately apprehending the extramental world. Everything and every event must be ultimately related to God (who controls the relationships between things and between events) in order to be part of a coherent and intelligible system." [3] In any other system of though, such as the atheistic or nontheistic, you get different views that cannot justify themselves because they don't thinking God's thoughts after Him. They make up their own, 'Did God really say?' the start of relativism. What is necessary to understand and make sense of ourselves, this world, this universe, morality, truth? Without God morality would have to arise from a random, chance, non-thinking process, something without intent or purpose that is incapable of reason. How does something like this come about without intent? It’s an illogical and far-fetched worldview. The magic ingredients are chance plus time plus energy - poof - morality and everything else under the sun. Next, for something to be objective it would have to correspond to a measure independent of the subjective human mind alone. It has to correspond to what actually is - to truth, to reality. How does a subjective being make sense of morality without first knowing what is truly objective? To my opponent’s second objection in 'The Presumption of God…’ I believe the problem with relativism is that it cannot justify its own beliefs. It says that all values are relative to the individual, situation or culture but at the same time it believes its values are better than those of another individual, situation or culture or else those values would not be believed by the relativist. In effect, it places its view of morality as a truth. Truth is something objective. For something to be true that something could not be false. Yet if Society 'A' believes abortion is a woman’s right to 'terminate' a life and Society 'B' believes that it is not the woman’s right, in fact it is murder, then one of these two beliefs about abortion is not true because it states the opposite of the other, regardless of which society, which individual, which group thinks it. Only one of these two beliefs would conform to objective reality, if there is such a thing. If there is no objective morality/reality, nothing is true, just lip service to what you like, then anything is permissible and morality means nothing. It means do whatever you like or whatever you can get away with. Yet all over the world we see that people do have a sense of justice, of obligation, however confused that may be with the Fall. When someone wrongs you then you seek retribution. People everywhere believe there is objective truth or fact, but without God they can't make sense of what it is or see it as it is. Con states: "There is no reason why the nature of existence itself cannot ground these facts; why must the nature of some conscious being ground these facts? A conscious being would only need to be present to acknowledge the truth and act, or not act on it; not to be the foundation of it. Also, as I stated in my last round, moral truths could be non-contingent brute facts." That is just the point, isn't it - there is no reason, yet here my opponent is trying to give one. What is the nature of existence? This is just another one of Con's question begging. How does nature ground any fact? Only a mind can ground a fact and then only an omniscient Mind that understands the facts as they really are because He made them to be what they are. Again, my opponent takes it for granted without any proof [brute facts], any explanation, that a mind is not necessary, just this magical connection. Con thinks he can ultimately judge what can and can't be; that his mind, his authority and the authority of those he places as his ultimate measure of all things is/are capable of determining what is or what should be. These 'brute facts' which I don't believe even exist, are ultimately irrational for you can't even interpret what they are. There is no explanation for them. It is just a convenient way of avoiding an explanation. What kind of thinking is this? Con states: “Pro still needs to knock down all Atheistic accounts of morality, including the accounts that human beings have not conjured up as of yet” No, I don’t. All I have to do is to show that without God, or thinking His thoughts after Him, any other position is groundless, having its feet firmly planted in mid-air; that these assumptions cannot make sense of themselves because the person thinking them is not a necessary being and he believes he is living in a universe (outside of God) that holds no meaning other than what this person gives it. Con says: “Either way, he claims that God is perfect goodness. However, no reason is given as to why this is necessary to ground morality. If there is objective morality, then there is objective immorality. One could easily posit and evil being to ground objective immorality. Pro says that goodness is the difference which allows God the ability to ground these moral truths, but does not actually state what the supposed relevance is supposed to be.” The relevance is that when we speak of goodness we actually have something objective to ground it upon, an ultimate true measure - a best. How can you even use the word ‘good’ without first having an objective sense to what good means. You can’t make sense of evil if you don’t have a standard of good to contrast it with. That is why we see one man’s good as another man’s evil. My opponent states: “Additionally, even if morality changes that does not make it subjective. If a mountain is at one height at one stage of its existence, but another height at another, it is still objectively true that at both of those times, the mountain was at that particular height. It is not clear at all why changelessness is required for the grounding of morality.” First Con confuses the thing with its standard of measurement. The standard for measuring the mountain does not change or else Con would not be able to compare or contrast its height in regards to its existence. Morality, likewise, changes when men do not know the standard of measurement. Con states: “These two statements alone, without a qualification, would be contradictory: i) Abortion is wrong ii) Abortion is not wrong However, in logic, if you qualify a difference, then contradictions can be easily avoided. These two statements below are not contradictory: i) Abortion is wrong to society A ii) Abortion is not wrong to society B” Yes they are. They are stating a truth that is contrary. They both concern abortion. One society believes abortion is wrong, another that it is right. Logically, both cannot be right or true statements. If you would like to pursue this further bring it up again. I’m out of space and I touched on it above. [1] Van Til’s Apologetic, Readings and Analysis, Greg Bahnsen. P.38 [2] Ibid, p. 38 [3] Ibid, p. 278