The argument that God grounds morality makes little sense in practical, everyday reality.
That argument would make sense only if this entity we call God were demonstrably real and humans could actually interact with it.
For the sake of argument, we can grant that perhaps some entity, God or otherwise, was the original cause of reality itself. But even if that were true, it would not automatically tell us how human beings should interact with one another.
So when someone says that morality needs God, practically speaking, it does not.
Could God be the ultimate source of moral authority?
Yes, hypothetically, if we actually interacted with this entity and had sufficient reason to establish that it was what people claim it to be.
Imagine that God were observably real.
We could interact with this entity.
We had clear evidence that it existed, communicated with humanity, and was genuinely all-knowing and all-powerful.
In that hypothetical, the argument would make much more sense.
There would be an actual external authority present.
If this being were truly all-knowing and all-powerful, people could argue that its commands carry supreme authority because the entity itself is real, identifiable, and communicating with us.
But that is not the situation we actually find ourselves in.
Instead, people speculate that God exists.
They claim God has moral rules. They claim God listens to prayers.
They claim God wants certain things from humanity.
But where is this God?
Is God actually listening to what we are saying?
Is God responding to prayer?
How do we independently determine what God wants?
Once we begin asserting that an invisible authority is communicating with us without independently verifiable interaction, we risk entering a world of speculation where people can simply imagine that God agrees with them.
We can believe that God is there. We can pray to God.
We can interpret experiences as messages from God.
But how do we actually know that God is listening, responding, or issuing those moral commands?
We don’t know.
That is the problem.
In the first hypothetical, God is a real, knowable entity interacting with humanity.
God is demonstrably all-knowing, all-powerful, and communicating directly with us. Under those conditions, appealing to God as an external moral authority becomes understandable.
But that is fundamentally different from appealing to an unseen authority whose existence, communication, intentions, and commands cannot be independently demonstrated.
So my question is simple:
How can God function as the objective external grounding of morality when we cannot directly establish that we are interacting with this entity in the first place?
That is why the argument fails for me in practical reality.
If God appeared, interacted with humanity, demonstrated that this entity actually existed, and clearly communicated its moral commands, then the discussion would be completely different.
But without that, saying that morality is grounded in God amounts to appealing to an external authority that we cannot independently consult, question, verify, or confirm.
Someone might respond that humans communicate with God through prayer.
But that still does not solve the problem.
When we are discussing the objective grounding of morality, personal conviction, prayer, revelation, or belief cannot by themselves establish that the external authority being appealed to actually exists, is communicating, or has issued the moral commands attributed to it.
That is the distinction.
A demonstrably real and communicating God could potentially function as an external moral authority.
An asserted God whose existence and instructions cannot be independently verified does not practically solve the problem of moral grounding.