On the afterlife (part 1 of 3): Morality as impossible without it

Micah Stefan Dagaerag

Honest Engagements

“But without heaven and hell, what’s to stop me from murdering or raping somebody right
now?”

“Well, even without an afterlife, we must still live with purpose and meaning to make this world
better.”

This was how part of a conversation went in college with an atheist friend of mine. I could
not give a better response at the time, and I remember just repeating the same point over
and over. More than ten years later, of course, I’ve had some time to think about it just a little
bit more.

Back in college, I would argue that morality is impossible without an afterlife because then
there would be no way of holding ourselves accountable for our deeds on earth. While I still
agree with that point, it is no longer the foremost or the strongest in my mind. More
importantly, morality is impossible without an afterlife because the afterlife provides the
groundwork and the foundation for morality to exist in the first place.

Atheists often use moral judgments against God in justifying their disbelief. One of the more
famous quotes on this is from English comedian, actor, and activist Stephen Fry, in an
interview he did on the Meaning of Life TV program that was broadcast on February 2015,
saying, “It’s not right. It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-
minded, stupid god who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?” He added, “It’s
perfectly apparent that he is monstrous. Utterly monstrous and deserves no respect
whatsoever. The moment you banish him, life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth
living in my opinion.”
This naturally begs the question; how can we really know what constitutes goodness when
this is just left for humans to determine? Inevitably, disagreements will ensue, and when two
people have conflicting ideas about what is good, how then can we settle which, if any, is
right?

For something to be truly moral, it must be moral universally. But a world of mere human
opinions cannot produce a universal morality. Without God as a universal basis for goodness,
everything is just a matter of opinion, including, ironically, Stephen Fry’s own moral
judgments on God. And if everything is just a matter of opinion, moral judgments are
impossible because there would no longer be a true right and a true wrong.

My purpose in this article is not to give a theodicy in response to those comments by Stephen
Fry. I include them to demonstrate the clear unsustainability of objecting to the existence of
God on the basis of morality, when morality itself in order to be binding must be universal,
which would be impossible if God does not exist.

The Christian position is that the afterlife reflects certain aspects of the character of its
Creator, God. The afterlife is eternal because God is eternal. It has no beginning and it has no
end, in the same way that God also has no beginning and has no end. There is an afterlife
because there is a God.

The atheist, then, is actually philosophically unable to make moral judgments. Or at the very
least, he or she cannot do so with any moral authority beyond the human person. They
cannot claim any basis higher than human opinion. Every time they adjudge something to be
universally right or wrong they are forced to borrow concepts and ideas from the believers
that they disagree with.

Believers base their morality on the character and being of God. We are bound to certain
standards of right-ness and good-ness because these reflect the righteousness and goodness
of who God is, such that to contradict thereto is an act of rebellion against God himself. That
is why any moral claim by the believer based on divine revelation bears a basis and a source
beyond the person making the claim, giving it the weight of something greater than mere
human opinion.

It’s easy to see that morality is inescapable, and so is the afterlife.