The Personal and Transcendent ground of true morality

This was a response I made in a conversation on social media to a person who disclosed that  she did not believe in any god but protested that she was a good person. 

This seemed to me to be a good time to show why this is incoherent and why God is a necessary condition for the existence of morality.

 I am curious about how you define good and evil given your atheistic perspective?

I believe morality requires a ground that is both personal and transcendent:

If it is personal but not transcendent, then it is merely a matter of individual or collective preferences. What is perceived to be good for you might be bad for me. What 1930's Germany thought was good for Germany was very bad for Jews. Without transcendence there is no ground to views morals as binding on anyone who does not consent to the principle (moral subjectivism, moral relativism).

If morality is transcendent but not personal, then morality is a inanimate thing that sits alongside other things. Murder and the law against murder are equally real. Labeling one good and the other evil is arbitrary since both have an equal claim to existence. Without a personal ground, there is no basis to adequately differentiate an 'ought' from an 'is' (moral platonism).

If morality is neither transcendent nor personal, then morals do not exist. (moral nihilism).

If morals require both a personal and transcendent ground, then morals can only exist in a reality that allows such grounding. I would conclude that morals are only possible in a reality where some version of theism is true. (moral argument for God's existence).

I will conclude with a few thoughts on why denial of both a personal and transcendent ground for morality amounts to  a denial that morals exist. If morals are not grounded by personal perspective of at least one transcendent self and are not grounded by anything that transcends all finite selves, then it is grounded nowhere as these exhaust all of the logical possibilities. 
 

The Evolution of Immorality

The prevalence of Darwinian thinking has had a negative effect on morality. At least four factors in Darwinian thought have conspired to undermine morality.

The first is that, if life developed through undirected material processes, there is no frame of reference from which to condemn even the most heinous acts. Moral principle are merely another is, with no more ontological status than their violation. In other words, murder is just as real as the law against murder.

Secondly, if man evolved from lower animals, then he has not created in the image of God. This idea destroys the sanctity of human life. If man is merely an animal, then it is ethical to treat him accordingly. This idea can, and has been used, to justify all sorts of human rights violations.

Thirdly, if man evolved from lower animals, then why can't  supermen evolve from the human race. It was this type of thinking  that animated the Nazis' master race theories and led to the atrocities they committed. 

Fourth, if evolution is true, then robbery, rape, and murder are not only normative, but essential to the survival of a group.  Acceptance of evolution as a meta-narrative leads to conclusions that are at odds with the values of liberty, tolerance, and compassion that have been a blessing to modern civilization. Consider what Richard Weikart writes in an article on the Web site of the Evangelical Philosophical Society.

By accepting an evolutionary account of the origins of morality, Darwin and other leading Darwinists accepted several ideas that put them in conflict with classical liberalism’s natural rights philosophy. First, Darwin rejected the timelessness of moral precepts, which had evolved and could still be evolving. Since variation among biological organisms was a crucial part of his theory, he also denied the universality of morality. Some races of humanity could have different moral sentiments, just as they could have different physical traits. Further, the idea that humans had evolved from simian ancestors altered many people’s view of humans and human nature. Instead of understanding humans as beings created in the image of God, they now thought humans were “created from animals,” to use Darwin’s own phrase. This altered vision of humanity would have a profound impact on the field now known as bioethics. Finally, another ingredient in Darwin’s theory that affected bioethics was his idea that death brings progress. Instead of being a curse, the mass death of organisms causes evolutionary progress.

From  A History of the Impact of Darwinism on Natural Rights and Bioethics
by Richard Weikart

It has been fashionable for the so-called New Atheists to counter by arguing that empathy came as a result of evolution. Richard Dawkins explains this idea  in his video series The Fifth Ape.

Evidence of selfless behavior of individual members of a species for members in their in-group would be cited as evidence of empathy. Would this actually supports is that tribalism came out of evolution - tribalism whose most extreme manifestations include things like holocaust and genocide. True altruism would involve empathy for strangers. That type of empathy would be an evolutionary disadvantage in the evolutionary paradigm. Even Dawkins admits that embracing empathy is rebellion against the dynamic of evolution.