Your “Imaginary” Morality
Skeptics like to talk about Christians and their “imaginary God.” It’s a sharp rhetorical move. The charge isn’t just that God is undetected but that theists treat as real something that has no ground in reality. The behavior is real; the referent is fictional.
Fair enough. Let’s apply that standard consistently.
The Flip
If “imaginary” means functioning as if real while lacking ontological ground, then the criterion cuts both ways. On consistent naturalism, the skeptic operates with:
Imaginary morality. They act as though some things are genuinely wrong, not merely disadvantageous or socially penalized. But if moral facts reduce to evolutionary pressures or social contracts, then “wrong” just means “disfavored by selection or convention.” The felt bindingness is real; the objective ground is fictional.
Imaginary reason. They trust their cognitive faculties to track truth. But if those faculties were selected for survival rather than truth-tracking, their confidence in reason is borrowed capital with no cosmic underwriter. The reasoning process is real; the warrant for trusting it is fictional.
Imaginary purpose. They live as though their lives have meaning, as though some pursuits matter more than others. But on closed naturalism, “purpose” is projection onto indifferent physics. The experience of significance is real; the objective telos is fictional.
The naturalist lives as a moral realist, trusts reason, and experiences purpose while holding a worldview that cannot fund any of these. They’re spending inherited capital without asking where it came from.
The Circle Problem
Here’s where it gets interesting. Every worldview faces circularity. You can’t step outside reason to validate reason. You can’t step outside moral intuitions to ground moral intuitions. Everyone is trusting something at the foundation.
The question isn’t whether your worldview involves circularity but whether your circle is vicious or virtuous.
A vicious circle floats untethered. It provides no resources to explain why the trust embedded in it should be warranted. The naturalist trusts her faculties because they seem reliable. They seem reliable because she’s tested them. She tested them using those same faculties. The circle spins but never touches ground. Worse, the origin story (blind selection for survival) gives positive reason to doubt that truth-tracking was ever the point.
A virtuous circle is anchored. It includes resources that explain why the circularity is appropriate, and it touches down at points where independent investigation can occur.
Three Types of Circles
This gives us a three-way comparison:
Naturalism: Vicious circle. No resources to explain why faculties should track truth. Origin story provides reason for doubt. No anchor point. No falsification condition. The circle floats over an abyss.
Generic theism: Abstract circle. Resources to explain why truth-tracking should be expected (divine design). But the content of “God’s nature” remains a philosophical postulate. Critics can always ask: “Why think this God exists? Why think He’s good rather than deceptive?” The theist can offer arguments, but those arguments use the faculties whose warrant is in question. The circle hovers but doesn’t touch down.
Christianity: Anchored circle. Here’s where it gets different. Christianity doesn’t just posit “God is good” as a philosophical primitive. It claims God’s character has been materially demonstrated in a concrete historical person.
The Anchor
Christianity claims that Jesus Christ embodies what God is like:
Self-sacrificial love that absorbs the cost of others’ failures
Enemy love extended even to those executing Him
Truth-telling despite the cost
Compassion for the marginal
Justice without vindictiveness
This isn’t an abstract list of divine attributes inferred from philosophical requirements. It’s a portrait drawn from historical testimony about a concrete life.
And the resurrection, if it occurred, is God’s public endorsement of everything Christ represented. It’s not just a miracle demonstrating power. It’s divine confirmation that this character, this teaching, this life reflects ultimate reality.
If the resurrection happened, then “good” can be defined as “Christlike.” Moral obligation becomes: conform to the character of Christ, because that character is identical with the character of the reality that made and sustains you.
Probabilistic vs. Demonstrative
The sophisticated naturalist will object that naturalism does offer a kind of anchor: the long-run success of our practices. Science works. Predictions succeed. Moral intuitions converge. This track record provides probabilistic warrant for treating our faculties as truth-tracking.
That’s fair. Call it probabilistic anchoring: “Given this pattern of success, it’s highly probable our faculties are broadly reliable.”
But notice what probabilistic anchoring cannot provide. It cannot explain why the pattern holds. It cannot say whether our faculties were meant for truth or merely happen to correlate with it. And it’s self-referential: we use our faculties to assess the track record that’s supposed to warrant those faculties. The anchor is internal to the system.
Christianity claims something different. Call it demonstrative anchoring: “A concrete person embodied a determinate moral shape. An event occurred that, if genuine, constitutes God’s public endorsement of that person.”
The difference isn’t certainty versus probability. Christians still assess resurrection evidence probabilistically. The difference is what kind of thing we’re anchoring to:
Probabilistic: Pattern of success → inference that faculties probably track truth → but no account of why, and no external check
Demonstrative: Historical event → if genuine, constitutes divine communication → anchored in something that either happened or didn’t, and can be investigated
Both are defeasible (capable of being shown wrong by new evidence). But they’re defeasible in different ways.
The naturalist’s anchor could only be undermined using the faculties in question. Self-referential.
The Christian’s anchor could be undermined by showing the resurrection didn’t happen. That’s a historical question, investigable by historical methods, without presupposing Christianity’s truth.
The Falsification Condition
This is why Paul’s statement matters: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile” (1 Corinthians 15:17).
He’s not offering a probabilistic bet. He’s staking everything on a claimed event. If the event didn’t occur, the anchor fails and Christianity collapses. If it did occur, the anchor holds.
Naturalism has no analogous move. There’s no event, no finding, no investigation that could confirm or disconfirm whether unguided evolution produces truth-tracking faculties. The question is unanswerable from within the system.
The Bottom Line
Whose “imaginary” is more honest?
The naturalist’s circle floats. It spins over an abyss with no anchor point and no way to check itself against anything external.
The generic theist’s circle hovers. It has explanatory resources but no concrete demonstration.
The Christian’s circle is anchored to an event that either happened or didn’t. If it happened, her foundations aren’t imaginary but revealed. If it didn’t, she should abandon her faith.
The skeptic calls God “imaginary” while operating with imaginary morality, imaginary reason, and imaginary purpose. The Christian claims not to have an imaginary at all, but a revelation confirmed by resurrection.
The investigation of that historical claim is where the real work begins.