The Gregarious Aristocrat

Abstract

For W. G. de Burgh moral evidence doesn’t entail theism but does incline toward it. Such evidence includes both goodness and rightness, and de Burgh endorsed a cumulative case for God’s existence. He thought it took Kant’s work on obligations to give the moral argument its teeth and momentum. Consciousness of moral obligations implies the reality of a moral order, which then implies God as its author and sustainer. Likewise with moral values, which are better explained by a personal God than by an impersonal Platonic realm. When it came to God’s love, he departed from the tradition of analogical predication, thinking it inadequate for a full appreciation of the Incarnation. He also argued that divine holiness without divine love would call into question God’s goodness.