On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision

by William Lane Craig

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. 2. Objective moral values and duties do exist. 3. Therefore, God exists. This simple little argument is easy to memorize and is logically ironclad. I had argued for the truth of the first premise and the students had insisted on the second. Together the two premises imply the existence of God. What makes this argument so powerful is that people generally believe both premises. In a pluralistic age, students are scared to death of imposing their values on someone else. So premise 1 seems correct to them because of its implicit relativism. At the same time, certain values have been deeply instilled into them, such as tolerance, open-mindedness, and love. They think it’s objectively wrong to impose your values on someone else! So they’re deeply committed to premise 2 as well.