Sublime

myself stumbled into the moral argument while speaking on university campuses on the absurdity of life without God. I argued that if there is no God, then there is no foundation for objective moral values. Everything becomes relative. To my surprise the response of the students was to insist that objective moral values do exist. Certain things

“Classical” apologists, such as Norman Geisler, R.C. Sproul, and William Lane Craig, insist that, prior to making a factual, historical case for Jesus Christ, one must establish God’s existence—generally using the classical, Aristotelian proofs, or sophisticated variants on those proofs (such as Craig’s favourite, the medieval, Arabic kalam

Schaeffer’s own Reformed theology undercuts classical apologetics insofar as it is committed to the “noetic effects of sin”—that is, the effects of sin on the mind, distorting both what counts as true and what can be recognized as true for the unbeliever (Rom. 1:18–22; 1 Cor. 2).

The point is that if there is no God, then objective right and wrong do not exist. As Dostoyevsky said, “All things are permitted.” But man cannot live this way. So he makes a leap of faith and affirms values anyway. And when he does so, he reveals the inadequacy of a world without God.