Morality : Can You Have Morals Without God or Religion?

A young man recently wrote, “I believe you can have morality without God or religion,” in response to a post on Facebook.

Is it true? Can people have morality without God or religion?

Romans 2:12-16 directly addresses the concept of morality without God or religion:

For as many as have sinned without law (moral rules) will also perish without the law. As many as have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. It isn’t the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified. For when Gentiles who don’t have the law (moral rules) do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the law (moral rules) written in their hearts, their conscience testifying with them, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or else excusing them, in the day when God will judge the secrets of men, according to my Good News, by Jesus Christ.

We can see from this scripture, from a Biblical perspective, people who are not religious can do what is morally right. Each person has morality built into his character. So, my young friend is right: People can have morals, and do not have to practice any religion to have morals.

As to the question of whether you can have morals without God, we must answer a number of questions.

• What exactly is morality?
• Where do morals come from?
• Do single cells have morals?
• Does a cluster of cells, such as a kidney, have morals?
• If an organ or cluster of living cells does not have morals, why do people have morals?
• Where do the morals exist in a person?

What Exactly is Morality?

Morals are knowing what is right or prudent. Having morals is knowing what is acceptable behavior and what is not acceptable. To even have a standard of “acceptable,” we have to have morals established for humans.

From Where Does Morality Come?

Did a single cell or a cluster of cells create morals? Since every human on earth has different, amazing DNA, shouldn’t we have a wide range of morals? Shouldn’t morality be as diverse as our physical characteristics?

If we had a wide range of morality based upon DNA, everything from love, to indifference, to intolerance, to cruelty, to torture, and even murder would be acceptable. The vast majority of people agree that love and acceptance are morally right, while hatred and murder are morally wrong.

If there wasn’t a universal code of what is moral, then morality would be all over the map. People would be totally unable to agreed upon morals. Most of us agree the commands God gave us about our behaviors are pretty solid moral laws. (See the Most Important Command and the Ten Commandments)

In the Bible, God tells us:

I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jeremiah 31:33).

If God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul,” then God gave man his soul. He also wrote His laws on our inner parts. Thus, Christians and Jewish people believe we wouldn’t have a soul or morals without God giving them to us.

God and Morality

There is only one truth: that God either exists or He doesn’t. One group of people is right, the other is not.

Every single person’s beliefs are based on their own kind of faith. That’s because there is no scientific proof for how everything was created. We don’t know how lifeless material became living matter. There is no scientific explanation as to how man’s non-moral cells come together to create a man with a sense of morality. We can’t agree whether people have souls that are separate from their physical bodies or not.

For those who believe in God, the fact that people have a defined sense of morality speaks towards evidence that God exists. We have a fairly universal code of morality for which there is absolutely no scientific basis. Thus, Christians believe God gave everyone a soul and a moral compass.

We can each freely embrace or go against what is morally right, whether we believe in God or not. Going against the morals we have defined within us is the basis for our sins.

And this brings us back to Romans 2:12-16, where the Bible tells us men can have good morals, even if they are not believers. Given that God exists, each person who does not earnestly seek God’s grace will be judged according to the morality of their lives.

Learn more about Who is God?