I cooked this little argument up at work the other day. Most axiological arguments tend to use the idea of objective morality to point to God, which is great. However I wanted to go a slightly different route and explore the idea of moral authority.
Please note this one is a little long so stay with me, and this is still VERY much in the baby stages 👶
P1. A command is only intelligible if received from a higher authority. (i.e. a Private in the military commanding a General is unintelligible)
P2. Human societies, generally speaking, dish out moral commands.
P3. Human societies at times command morally egregious things as though they were moral (i.e the orders of Nazi Germany, etc.)
P4. Therefore the innate "moralness" or "immoral-ness" of any particular moral command is not derived from strictly human authority.
P5. Since this is the case all moral commands should be unintelligible
P6. However there are intelligible moral commands
P7. Therefore they are derived from an authority higher than human beings.
P8. Any issuer of moral commands must be capable of reasoning and using intellect.
P9. A higher authority that issues moral commands to humans exists, and has the capacity to reason and make moral judgments. In a word, a mind.
P10. This issuer of commands cannot be subject to a higher authority, if said issuer were, for all we know, that authority's commands could contradict our intelligent issuer's commands, rendering them unintelligible, leaving us back to p5. But since there are intelligible commands, the one issuing them must be the highest authority.
P11. A rational mind that is not subject to a greater authority and issues moral commands exists. All men call this Mind God.
P12. Therefore God exists
Thoughts?