The #1 Reason to Believe in Objective Moral Facts

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Objective moral facts are moral truths that are valid independently of anyone’s personal beliefs, feelings, or preferences. As philosopher William Lane Craig explains, “some things are objectively good or evil, right or wrong… Actions like rape, torture, and child abuse aren’t just socially unacceptable behavior—they’re moral abominations. By the same token, love, generosity, and self-sacrifice are really good.”1

I believe the strongest reason to affirm the existence of objective moral facts is that they are practically undeniable. Even those who deny objective morality cannot help but live as though it exists. The moral skeptic may deny objective moral facts with his words, but in everyday life he inevitably condemns injustice, praises virtue, feels remorse, and expects others to conform to certain moral standards. These are not the behaviors of people treating morality as personal preference, but of people responding to a perceived moral reality.

Philosopher J. Budziszewski captures this insight by observing that we are “moral realists by nature.”2 Denying objective morality, then, is like denying gravity while falling from a building—our reactions inevitably betray what we truly know to be morally real. Moral skepticism fails not because it lacks clever arguments, but because it collapses under the weight of lived human experience.

It is worth noting that Christian theism not only explains the existence of objective moral facts, but also grounds our obligation to obey them. God is the ultimate standard of right and wrong and the source of moral authority, providing a coherent explanation for why actions like rape, torture, and child abuse are truly wrong and why love, generosity, and self-sacrifice are truly good and worthy of our obedience. 

Courage and Godspeed,

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