Cultures may recognize and employ moral principles, but this doesn’t mean they created these principles. In fact, many scientists and philosophers are suspicious about any causal relationship between evolution and moral virtue. The evolutionary process often results in disharmony and strife; morality seems to require us to overcome the “evolved beast” in each of us.

In my new book, God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for A Divinely Created Universe, I examine eight pieces of evidence in the universe by asking a simple investigative question: “Can I explain the evidence ‘in the room’ (of the natural universe) by staying ‘in the room’?” This is a question I ask at every death scene to determine if I actually have a crime scene. When evidence “in the room” can’t be explained by staying “in the room”, I’ve got to consider the involvement of an intruder. If the evidence inside the universe can’t be explained by staying “inside” the natural realm of the universe, we must similarly consider the involvement of a cosmic intruder. One critical piece of the evidence in the universe is the existence of transcendent moral truths. Can we explain these truths by staying “inside the room”?

Many atheistic philosophers and thinkers seek to explain moral truth from “inside the room” of the natural universe by offering societies and cultures as the source of morality. According to this view (termed “moral relativism”), morality varies from culture to culture. There are no objective, transcendent, universal moral standards “on all men at all times.” Moral relativists believe cultures and people groups create their moral codes rather than discover them. Moral codes are a social construct designed by the majority to help the group maintain social harmony and increase their ability to survive. But if cultural agreement determines moral truth, several problems emerge:

This Approach Confuses Cultural Diversity with Moral Clarity

Moral relativism rightly recognizes the cultural and moral diversity of our world, but this observation fails to falsify the existence of transcendent, objective moral truths. Cultures can differ on their beliefs about what causes tuberculosis, for example, but this does not mean there isn’t an objective truth about the cause and nature of the disease. Diversity of subjective belief has little to do with the existence of objective truth.

This Approach Fails to Identify Which “Culture” Reigns

If moral truths emerge from the consensus of people groups, which people group gets to decide? Does size or power dictate which groups are qualified to be an authority? Moral relativism denies us the ability to declare one group more authoritative than the other, unless we are willing to appeal to an authority transcending all groups.

This Approach Silences Cross-Cultural Criticism

If moral truth is a product of cultural consensus, no specific culture is in the position to criticize or praise the behavior of any other culture. Moral relativism does not allow us to say, “Torture is objectively wrong.” At best we can simply proclaim, “We don’t like torture here in our culture.” But why should anyone care what we think in the first place if moral truth is relative to each culture? If morals are simply the product of cultural opinion, proclamations about moral truth are like statements about food preferences: interesting, but ultimately meaningless.

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