Tag: Evolution and ethics

Evil and Evolution: A Closer Look at “Prom Mom” and the Moral Law Argument

Chapter 5 – The Problem of Evil and Suffering | A Response to Mark Clark’s The Problem of God.

In the “Prom Mom” section of Chapter 5, Mark Clark leans heavily on a single, shocking anecdote—meant to jolt the reader into moral outrage—as a cornerstone of his argument that evil proves God’s existence. He presents the now-infamous story of a teenage girl who gave birth in a bathroom during her prom and discarded the newborn in a trash can, where the child died. The media dubbed her “Prom Mom.”

Clark’s point is clear: if you feel visceral disgust or horror upon reading this story, that means you recognize that real evil exists. And if real evil exists, so must real good. If there’s real good, there must be a transcendent standard—a moral law. And if there’s a moral law, Clark argues, there must be a moral lawgiver: God.

It’s a powerful emotional appeal. But is it persuasive?

The Gut Punch ≠ The Argument

Clark is banking on the reader’s emotional response to bypass critical examination. That’s understandable—stories like this one trigger immediate moral revulsion. But let’s pause.

Feeling horror at the death of a helpless infant is not proof of a cosmic moral law. It’s a deeply human response, shaped by millions of years of evolutionary development, social conditioning, and empathy. It’s precisely the kind of event natural selection would sensitize us to, given our species’ survival depends on protecting its young.

Clark briefly mentions Steven Pinker, who explains this through the lens of evolutionary psychology: “We love our children, feel their pain, and recoil at their suffering.” But rather than engaging with Pinker’s insight, Clark brushes it aside, as if merely pointing to our feelings were sufficient evidence of the divine.

This is a crucial omission. It’s not enough to feel that something is evil; the question is why we feel that way. If there is a natural explanation, then the need for a supernatural one collapses.

Why the Evolutionary Explanation Makes Sense

From an evolutionary standpoint, the protective instinct we feel toward infants is both biologically adaptive and neurologically reinforced. Across cultures, neglect or abuse of a child is among the most universally condemned actions. Not because of divine decree—but because our species wouldn’t survive without caring for our young.

That’s the uncomfortable truth: our moral impulses have natural origins. Our revulsion doesn’t require an invisible lawgiver in the sky. It requires empathy, bonding mechanisms, and group cooperation strategies—all of which evolution has selected for over thousands of generations.

Clark’s narrative assumes that because something feels like evil, it must be evil in some cosmic, objective sense. But moral psychology shows that our gut reactions—while powerful—are products of brain chemistry and social evolution. They’re not revelations of divine law.

Can Secular Morality Condemn Prom Mom?

Yes, unequivocally.

You don’t need the Ten Commandments to conclude that what happened in that bathroom was horrific. Secular ethics—based on empathy, reason, consequences, and shared values—has long condemned such actions. The harm is real. The suffering is real. The consequences are real.

And unlike divine command theory, secular ethics doesn’t have to ask whether God’s silence that night meant something. Or why prayers weren’t answered. Or whether the baby was predestined to die. It doesn’t make suffering into a mysterious test. It just calls it what it is: tragic.

The Real Problem Clark Ignores

Here’s what Clark avoids: If God exists and is all-loving, why didn’t he intervene?

If this moment is supposed to show us how evil points to God’s existence, it raises a harder question: where was God in that bathroom stall?

Theism has always had a problem explaining inaction in the face of suffering. A God who allows the Prom Mom story to unfold is a God who chooses not to stop evil. That’s a far greater problem than whether atheists can explain morality.

Final Thoughts

Clark’s story succeeds in stirring the reader’s emotions. But that’s not the same as offering a sound argument. His leap from “this feels wrong” to “there must be a God” bypasses the real question: Are there natural explanations for our moral instincts that don’t require supernatural causes?

The answer is yes—and they’re grounded in evidence, not emotion.

Morality from Molecules?

In this section of The Problem of God, Mark Clark raises a common apologetic question aimed at naturalistic worldviews: If morality is simply the product of evolution, how can we trust it?

He’s not alone in asking. Christian apologists from C.S. Lewis to William Lane Craig have long argued that if moral values are not grounded in a transcendent source (i.e., God), then they are arbitrary at best and illusory at worst.

But let’s slow down and examine what Clark is really claiming—and where his argument fails to account for what science, psychology, and philosophy have already uncovered.

1. The Straw Man: Evolution Equals Relativism

Clark begins by suggesting that if morality evolved naturally—i.e., as a byproduct of survival-based behaviors—then we have no reason to consider those moral instincts true or binding. They’re merely “useful” for survival, not grounded in ultimate right or wrong.

But this misrepresents how moral reasoning is understood in an evolutionary context.

Yes, evolution may have shaped our emotional and cognitive responses—empathy, fairness, disgust, loyalty, etc.—because those traits helped humans live together cooperatively. But from these building blocks, humans developed moral systems, reflective traditions, and philosophies that transcend mere utility.

In other words: Evolution gave us the capacity for morality. Culture, reasoning, and reflection shaped the content of our ethics.

To claim that evolved traits can’t produce “real” morality is to misunderstand what morality even is. It’s not about divine commands. It’s about flourishing, suffering, justice, and harm—all things humans are wired to care about deeply.

2. The False Dilemma: Objective Morality Requires God

Clark, like many apologists, presents a false choice:

Either morality comes from God, or it’s meaningless and subjective.

But this ignores a third—and widely accepted—option: objective morality as a natural phenomenon.

  • Morality can be objective without being supernatural.
  • Suffering is objectively real.
  • Human flourishing is objectively measurable.
  • Actions that cause widespread harm—genocide, rape, torture—can be judged objectively wrong because they reliably cause suffering and degrade human dignity.

We don’t need a cosmic lawgiver to know this. We need only empathy, reason, and a commitment to minimizing suffering.

3. Evolution Doesn’t Undermine Morality—It Explains It

Instead of seeing evolution as a threat to morality, many philosophers see it as a powerful explanatory framework:

  • Why do we feel empathy when others are in pain? Because social cooperation enhanced survival.
  • Why do we punish cheaters or value fairness? Because groups that punished freeloaders thrived.
  • Why do we instinctively recoil from murder, even when no one is watching? Because deeply ingrained social norms keep groups stable.

None of this makes morality unreal. It makes it natural—and all the more remarkable for being grounded in our shared humanity, not imposed from outside.

4. The God Hypothesis Doesn’t Help

Clark wants to assert that without God, we can’t call things truly right or wrong. But invoking God doesn’t solve the problem—it merely pushes it back a step.

  • If something is good because God commands it, then morality is arbitrary—God could command genocide, and we’d have to call it good.
  • If God commands it because it is good, then goodness exists independently of God.

This is known as the Euthyphro dilemma, and it still dismantles the claim that morality must be grounded in a deity.

Ironically, when the Bible itself condones slavery, commands genocide, and treats women and children as property, it’s hard to argue that this God is the source of a perfect moral law.

5. We Are the Moral Beings We’ve Been Waiting For

Clark dismisses evolutionary ethics as insufficient. But the truth is: the evolution of morality is one of humanity’s most awe-inspiring achievements.

  • We’ve built systems of justice.
  • We’ve outlawed slavery.
  • We’ve expanded human rights.
  • We’ve even reformed religious moral codes themselves.

This progress didn’t come from religion—it often came in spite of it.

We no longer burn heretics, stone adulterers, or shun menstruating women—not because God changed, but because we did.

Conclusion: Morality Doesn’t Require the Divine

Mark Clark’s insistence that morality must come from God is a theological assertion, not a philosophical necessity.

In reality:

  • We can explain moral emotions through evolution.
  • We can build ethical systems through reason and reflection.
  • We can ground our values in shared goals: reducing harm, protecting rights, and promoting well-being.

None of that requires belief in God. And none of it is diminished by understanding where it came from.

To the contrary, it affirms something beautiful: that we are moral not because we were commanded to be, but because we care.

The Problem of God’s Existence–(Chapter 2, Part 1): The Evidence of Morality?

📘 This post is part of a continuing response series to The Problem of God by Mark Clark. Each day, we examine one section of the book and critically respond using reason, clarity, and The God Question’s core philosophy: what’s true doesn’t fear investigation. Today’s entry addresses Chapter 2 (pp. 41–45), including the introductory setup and the first major argument: The Evidence of Morality.

🚲 The Setup: Personal Injury as Proof?

Clark begins with a story from childhood—being pulled on Rollerblades behind a bike, ignoring his mother’s warnings, and eventually getting injured. The lesson he draws? He didn’t believe her until he had evidence. He concludes this shows why he’s “always been that way.” A skeptic until shown otherwise.

But the story ironically undercuts the point he’s building toward.

He claims to be persuaded by evidence—yet the book itself isn’t offering scientific evidence for God. It offers apologetics. And as we’ll see below, his moral argument is built not on data or empirical support, but on intuition, anecdote, and assertion.

⚖️ The Moral Argument: C.S. Lewis in the Waiting Room

Clark’s first major claim in Chapter 2 is familiar: moral values prove God. He leans on C.S. Lewis (as many apologists do), citing Mere Christianity and the universal experience of people saying “That’s not fair!” as evidence that humans recognize some kind of absolute moral law.

He then adds layers:

  • Observations of his kids arguing about fairness.
  • A zoo encounter where strangers cut in line.
  • The idea that morality must come from a transcendent source—i.e., God.
  • Rejection of moral relativism as “logically bankrupt.”

But let’s examine this claim more closely.

❌ What Clark Gets Wrong About Morality

1. A shared sense of morality doesn’t require a supernatural source.

Clark assumes that because people share common moral instincts, they must be wired by a moral lawgiver. But that conclusion doesn’t follow. Evolutionary psychology explains these instincts well: empathy, fairness, loyalty, and justice evolved in social species to increase cooperation and survival. These adaptive behaviors became deeply embedded in our biology—not because a god wrote them into us, but because they worked.

2. He ignores the cross-cultural diversity of moral frameworks.

Clark cherry-picks examples where most modern people agree (“don’t cut in line”) but ignores where morality diverges—gender roles, caste systems, slavery, honor killings, child discipline, dietary laws, sexual taboos. These aren’t random differences—they reflect culture, geography, historical context, and social structures. If morality were truly “absolute” and God-given, wouldn’t we expect far more consistency?

3. He falsely equates moral feeling with moral fact.

Clark writes: “We feel like we should care… We know it’s wrong to drop napalm on babies…” But this is emotion—not evidence. Moral intuition is not moral ontology. Feeling that something is wrong doesn’t make it objectively so in a metaphysical sense. And if you define “objectivity” that broadly, you can make anything a pointer to God—from hunger to gravity.

4. He never addresses the Euthyphro dilemma.

This ancient critique—Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?—goes unmentioned. It exposes the fatal circularity of grounding morality in God. If God is the source of morality, then “good” becomes whatever God says—even if it includes genocide, slavery, or eternal torture. But if morality is separate from God, then God is not its source—he merely affirms it.

🧠 The God Question Rebuttal

We don’t need to believe in an invisible being to explain why we say “that’s not fair.” We need only understand:

  • Our evolutionary past
  • Our social conditioning
  • Our empathy and tribal psychology
  • Our need for cooperation and group cohesion

Morality is a human construct rooted in our biology, shaped by our culture, and evolving alongside our societies. It’s not flawless, fixed, or universal—but it’s real. And it doesn’t require a moral lawgiver any more than language requires a divine linguist.

The question isn’t “How do we know right from wrong?”

It’s “What happens when we stop pretending that morality proves anything about God?”

A 5-minute animated video that explains the secular foundations of morality—and why goodness doesn’t need a god.

📚 Next Up: “What If They Ate Your Sister?”

Yes, that’s the actual title of the next section in The Problem of God, and yes—we’ll be responding to it next.