Page "Argument from morality" Paragraph 1

German philosopher Immanuel Kant devised an argument from morality based on practical reason.

Kant argued that the goal of humanity it to achieve perfect happiness and virtue ( the summum bonum ) and believed that an afterlife must exist in order for this to be possible, and that God must exist to provide this.

Both theist and nontheist philosophers have accepted that, if objective moral truths exist, then God must too exist ; the argument from moral objectivity asserts that objective moral truths do exist, and that God must exist too.

C. S. Lewis supported this argument and challenged the evolutionary naturalistic view of morality – that morality evolved and is a human construct – by arguing that without objective moral truths, moral scepticism would set in, leading to moral anarchy.

He concluded that, because people act as if is morality is an objective truth, then it must be, and that God must exist.

A related argument is from conscience ; John Henry Newman argued that the conscience supports the claim that objective moral truths exist because it drives people to act morally even when it is not in their own interest.

Newman argued that, because the conscience suggests the existence of objective moral truths, God must exist to give authority to these truths.