If There Is No God, Why Is There So Much Good in the World?

The opposite question: If God does not exist, then why does so much bad exist? If God does not exist, then where do "bad" and "evil" come from? If God does not exist and if evolution is true, then where do "good" and "bad" come from? Questions atheists cannot conclusively answer.

I read a lot of ‘speculative fiction,’ and one of the problems a lot of modern writers struggle with is how to write a story that matters in a fictional universe where there is no supreme, morally good, morally authoritative being.

It’s a problem for storytellers because the tales we care about all involve things like great sacrifice for love of another, courage in the face of wrong, good triumphing over evil.

(It’s not a coincidence that these tales are parallels of The One True Story we find in Scripture.)

But if you suppose a universe with nobody who embodies all that is good and reveals to inferiors what the difference is between right and wrong, stories tend to collapse into arbitrary goals pursued within arbitrary principles.

I’ve seen some authors work hard to compensate for that missing moral hub that fits everything together. I just finished a series in which self-advancement is the ultimate good, and you do this by fighting, but whom you fight and why never gets any larger than “me and my friends” or “me and my family.” In these stories, the more admirable characters don’t want to kill anyone but if they have enough power to do so, and doing so becomes “necessary,” they do not hesitate. But there is no moral reasoning beyond “protecting those I love.” Which is great as far as it goes, and if you don’t ask why.

In that series, what is swapped in to fill the hole where a transcendent moral code and eternal purpose ought to be is basically enlightened self-interest.

And this is where most thoughtful atheists and agnostics seem to go.

Mercifully, this works to a point (common grace!). If you reason that it’s in your best interest as a social being to seek the good of others and help create the kind of society where you and others thrive, you can potentially draw a lot of moral and ethical lines in the right places.

But it has problems. It can’t really give you anything that matters beyond your own death, for one. For another, it has to make some assumptions that are unprovable within that system:

1. It is good/right for humanity to survive and thrive
2. It is good/right for me to survive and thrive

We all assume it. Even the most atheistic story tellers embrace it. But why?

Random confluences of particles and chemistry can’t justify even those very basic convictions—in fact, a random universe is evidence against them.

So a lot of these fictional works are enjoyable and offer some insights into the human experience, but are ultimately sad and empty.

They don’t make me sad, though, because—mostly unwittingly, I think, stories like that do one of two things: a) push you toward moral cynicism and despair or b) make you feel more deeply hungry for an ultimate solution—for moral absolutes, an ultimate good, and a Holy One.