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Our judgements of good and evil ... presuppose God as the standard. If there's no God, there's neither good nor evil. There's just nature doing what it does
Peter Kreeft
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote suggests that the concepts of good and evil are reliant on the existence of a divine standard. Without God, morality is reduced to mere natural occurrences.

Peter Kreeft argues that our understanding of morality, specifically what we deem as good and evil, is fundamentally rooted in the belief in God. If we dismiss the notion of a higher power, we undermine the basis for moral judgment, reducing ethical considerations to subjective human perceptions and natural instincts, rather than objective truths.

Themes

MoralityGoodEvilGodPhilosophyJudgment

In practice

Example use cases

In a debate about ethics, one might reference this quote to emphasize the importance of a moral standard.

More from Peter Kreeft

Trusting God's grace means trusting God's love for us rather than our love for God. [...] Therefore our prayers should consist mainly of rousing our awareness of God's love for us rather than trying to rouse God's awareness of our love for him, like the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:26-29).
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Remembering the facts of death and Heaven gives us an even more pressing reason to learn to pray: We do not have an infinite amount of time. We are one day nearer Home today than we ever were before. I guarantee you that after you die you will not say 'I spent too much time praying; I wish I had watched more TV instead.'
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Like apes, we breed, sleep, and die. Yet like God we say, "I am." We are ontological oxymorons.
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The modern mind always tends to reduce the greater to the lesser rather than seeing the lesser as reflecting the greater.
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Our soul, like Mary's body, is to receive God Himself if only we, like her, believe, consent and receive; if only we speak her truly magic word fiat, "let it be." It is the creative word, the word God used to create the universe.
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Protestants believe that the sacraments are like ladders that God gave to us by which we can climb up to Him. Catholics believe that they are like ladders that God gave to Himself by which He climbs down to us.
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Quote by Peter Kreeft | QuoteProject