Does Evil Disprove God? The Moral Argument and the Existence of Good

The existence of evil is one of the most common arguments against God. The logic goes: if God were perfectly good and all-powerful, He would eliminate evil. Evil exists. Therefore, either God is not good, not powerful, or not real. But this argument contains a hidden assumption that, when examined, turns the argument on its head: the ability to identify something as evil requires an objective moral standard — and an objective moral standard requires God.

The Argument That Points Both Ways

Many atheists argue that the existence of evil disproves God. But consider what the argument requires. To say that evil exists and that God should have prevented it, you must already have access to a standard of good that allows you to identify something as evil — to call the Holocaust monstrous, to call child abuse wrong, to call injustice unjust. Where does that standard come from?

If there is no God — no transcendent moral source outside the material universe — then there is no objective moral standard. There is only chemistry, genetics, and the preferences of human nervous systems. Richard Dawkins, in a moment of unusual transparency in River Out of Eden (1995), acknowledged this directly:

“In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. There is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music.”

Read that carefully. Dawkins — the same man who described the God of the Old Testament as “evil” — is simultaneously arguing that in the worldview he endorses, there is no evil at all. You cannot use “evil” as evidence against God in one sentence and then claim in the next that evil is not real. The two positions are mutually exclusive.

C. S. Lewis: From Atheism to God Via the Argument from Evil

C. S. Lewis was once an atheist. His argument against God was precisely the existence of evil and suffering in the world. He found the universe cruel and unjust. But then he noticed something:

“As an atheist, my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some kind of idea of a straight line.”

The very concept of “unjust” requires a standard of justice. The very concept of “cruel” requires a standard of kindness. Lewis realised that his own sense of moral outrage at the universe — the thing that made him an atheist — only made sense if there was an objective moral standard. And an objective moral standard only makes sense if there is a transcendent moral source. The argument from evil, followed to its logical conclusion, had led him not away from God but toward Him.

Lewis describes this journey in detail in Mere Christianity and his autobiography Surprised by Joy.

The Universal Agreement on Basic Morality

Here is something remarkable: people and nations that disagree on almost everything — language, culture, religion, economics, governance — tend to agree that murder is wrong, that children should be protected, that betrayal is shameful. This is not a learned cultural consensus. Anthropological and cross-cultural studies consistently find these moral intuitions appearing across isolated populations throughout history. Research in moral psychology suggests that fundamental moral intuitions (harm avoidance, fairness, care for the vulnerable) appear to be universal rather than culturally constructed.

How did isolated communities on separate continents converge on similar moral bedrock? The Christian answer is that God wrote it there: “They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness” (Romans 2:15). The moral law is not a human invention — it is an inscription.

The “We’re Good Without God” Problem

A common response to the moral argument is: “I can be good without God.” And in a limited sense, this is true — people who don’t believe in God do good things. They give their seats to elderly passengers, volunteer in their communities, love their families. I acknowledge this fully.

But there is a deeper question: why do they? And a harder one: is the goodness consistent when the cost is real? The moment someone’s own survival, comfort, or advantage is genuinely threatened, the calculation changes. Acts 7:60 records Stephen — as he was being stoned to death — praying: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” That is not natural virtue. That is supernatural grace. The deepest and most costly goodness — forgiveness without an agenda, love for enemies, mercy in the face of harm — consistently appears where the Spirit of God is at work.

Moreover, even ordinary human goodness borrows moral capital from the theistic framework without acknowledging it. When a convinced materialist says “rape is wrong,” they are making a claim that transcends genetics and cultural preference. They are, whether they know it or not, appealing to the objective moral standard that God has placed in every human conscience. For a look at how this connects to the broader problem of evil, see our article on why evil exists if God is good.

Conclusion: Evil Points Toward God, Not Away

Evil does not disprove God. It requires God. The very capacity to recognise something as evil — to feel moral outrage, to call injustice by its name, to insist that the Holocaust was not just an unfortunate genetic event but a genuine atrocity — is only possible if there is an objective moral standard. And an objective moral standard is only possible if there is a transcendent moral source. Dawkins gave us the honest materialist answer: no design, no purpose, no evil, no good. But no human being, including Dawkins, actually lives that way. The outrage we feel at evil is itself a witness. It is the image of God in us, refusing to be completely suppressed.