Can an atheist be a good moral person?

It will not do to value ourselves upon our morality, honesty, benevolence, and that sort of thing. The world knows perfectly well there is no testimony merely in that, because it will find you honest men, benevolent men, and moral men, without the least pretense to religion. The world is keen-eyed, and knows that that is no sufficient testimony. "If that is all you have to show," they will tell you, "we can do without your Christianity. We have just such people who have none." But if we appear as people of another sphere, people who have their backs upon the world, as having beyond it a sufficient and satisfying portion, such as in it they have not, — that is another matter. "There be many that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased."

It is true many a person admits himself to be ungodly that has not been brought to feel the full meaning of the word. It is wonderful how our moral distance from God has rendered us incapable of judging of this. If a man say that God is holy, and that he is a sinner, as judged of by his natural conscience, yet not admit that he is shut out from the presence of God, but reply, "Oh, I hope not!" he has not the power of apprehending His presence. On the one side, God is "of purer eyes than to behold iniquity;" on the other, he is a sinner; but he has no sort of conscience or consciousness that he is in the presence of God. There is not a single individual that would not put off being there. Our consciences can never naturally bear it; the whole secret is, that we have never been in the presence of God. (In one sense we are always in His presence, but I speak now of being brought near in conscience.) A man may be living absolutely without God, and yet be accounted a very good man after all. If he hurts his fellow-man it is another affair. In judging of right and wrong in the world, God is always shut out. There is no surer proof of the way man has cast off God, than his judgment of right and wrong; he calls "wrong" that which injures man, but the Divine presence and claims are shut out. It all shows this first great truth, that men are "without God."

Then, what about the stream called morality. Many a proud infidel, who would not go to church, rests satisfied in a strict morality. For instance; Colonel Robert Ingersol sneers at the Bible, and talks about the mistakes of Moses. He denies that Christian virtues are Christian virtues. He claims Christian virtues in the name of infidelity, and preaches a gospel of morality, proclaiming on the house-tops that a man ought to be strictly moral, upright, kind, and philanthropic—that he ought to do the best he can to help mankind, and, that being the case, he will lead a happy life, and die an easy death. What will a moral life do for the sinner? It may bear the fruits of respectability in this life, but it cannot atone for sin. It can do absolutely nothing for the guilty sinner, when he stands before the bar of the Judge of all the earth. Morality, be it ever of such a profound and exalted nature, cannot, any more than religion, remove one blot of the leprosy of sin.

Then, what about the stream called morality. Many a proud infidel, who would not go to church, rests satisfied in a strict morality. For instance; Colonel Robert Ingersol sneers at the Bible, and talks about the mistakes of Moses. He denies that Christian virtues are Christian virtues. He claims Christian virtues in the name of infidelity, and preaches a gospel of morality, proclaiming on the house-tops that a man ought to be strictly moral, upright, kind, and philanthropic—that he ought to do the best he can to help mankind, and, that being the case, he will lead a happy life, and die an easy death. What will a moral life do for the sinner? It may bear the fruits of respectability in this life, but it cannot atone for sin. It can do absolutely nothing for the guilty sinner, when he stands before the bar of the Judge of all the earth. Morality, be it ever of such a profound and exalted nature, cannot, any more than religion, remove one blot of the leprosy of sin.

But to return to the consideration of human responsibility, it is plain that the acquisition of the knowledge of good and evil — in a word, the acquisition of conscience — necessarily forms the basis of man's condition as a responsible being subsequent to that fact. He knows good and evil now, and is therefore responsible on the principle of conscience, or moral discernment, which is in him as possessed of that knowledge, even when he has no direct word or revelation from God about himself or his path. In fact we are taught in Romans 1 - 2, that the former is in itself a sufficient guide to the consciousness of having to do with God, and of what is morally suited or unsuited to Him, for those who have not any further revelation from Him, but who are honest and sincere in the desire to own Him, as being themselves properly subject to Him. Romans 2:5-16 makes it plain that, as regards God's judgment of such men (and those whom we call the "heathen" come within the range of this scripture), that principle becomes the measure of responsibility in their case; and although, in view of what the Cross has revealed of man's natural heart and will, we may seriously question whether there are any who actually meet the demands of God's righteous judgment on this ground, yet we may see from Acts 10:2, 30 to end, and specially from verses 34, 35, how He is wont to deal with any who may be found truly devout before Him, even while outside the range of His revelation.

This is a general principle of truth connected with the doctrine of conscience. There is that in every man which indicates the broad distinctions of right and wrong with clearness to his mind, and which makes him know the quality of the actions he performs. But the language of the apostle in this passage is susceptible of a more especial and confined interpretation. While it is generally true that conscience is to every man a faithful witness of moral right and wrong, the force of the comparison is more apparently to show that, whereas the Law, conferring nothing upon its subject but the obligation and responsibility of obedience, left the Jew without hope on failure of that obedience, Gentiles individually might become subject to the fear of God, and so produce the fruits of obedience, such as the letter of the Law enjoins, to the shame and deeper condemnation of the carnal Jew. A Gentile was, as a man, capable individually of Divine favour. The grace and power of God, though it regarded the nation of Israel as its especial object, could, and doubtless did work upon Gentile hearts in individual cases. Neither Job nor his friends were of Israel, and yet the letter of the Law could have added little to their knowledge of the truth of God. The case of the sons of Rechab (Jer. 35, where the moral obligation of a parental command receiving its obedient recognition at the hands of those who knew not the Law of Moses, is avouched in special evidence of Judah's sin) may also have been in the mind of the apostle while writing these words.

How solemn a thing it is to find oneself in the presence of Him who searcheth the heart! But the thing that governs the heart, its motive is the true measure of man's moral state, and not the qualities which he possesses by birth, however pleasing these may be. Good qualities are to be found even in animals; they are to be esteemed, but they do not at all reveal the moral state of the heart. A man who has a hard and perverse nature, who tries to control his bad disposition by grace, and to be amiable to others and pleasing to God, is more moral and better before Him than a man who, amiable naturally, seeks to enjoy himself with others in a pleasant way, but without conscience before God; that is, without thinking of Him; loved by men, but displeasing to the God whom he forgets. That which gives moral character to a man is the object of his heart; and it is this the Lord shews here in so powerful a manner, that it touches to the quick the pride of the human heart.

How solemn a thing it is to find oneself in the presence of Him who searcheth the heart! But the thing that governs the heart, its motive, is the true measure of man's moral state, and not the qualities which he possesses by birth, however pleasing these may be. Good qualities are to be found even in animals; they are to be esteemed, but they do not at all reveal the moral state of the heart. A man who has a hard and perverse nature, who tries to control his bad disposition by grace, and to be amiable to others and pleasing to God, is more moral and better before Him than a man who, amiable naturally, seeks to enjoy himself with others in a pleasant way, but without conscience before God - that is, without thinking of Him - loved by men, but displeasing to the God whom he forgets. That which gives moral character to a man is the object of his heart; and it is this the Lord shows here in so powerful a manner that it touches to the quick the pride of the human heart.

The conscience also of the Gentile bears witness with his works, which are not fortuitous and arbitrary in character, but such that his thoughts argue against or for him, as he violates or follows the injunctions of his guide, just as with the Jew his conscience. Thus while as to the whole neither of them can plead righteousness, the Gentile may stand comparatively higher than the Jew.

Here is a rich man who, when requested, will draw out his cheque-book and sign away large sums for charitable services. There is a poor woman who is astonishingly kind and helpful to her equally humble neighbours. What do their works show? Their faith in Christ? Not with any certainty. True it may be that their kindly spirit is the result of their having been converted, but on the other hand it may only spring from a desire for notoriety or for the approbation of their fellows. But suppose they both begin to display great interest in the Word of God, together with a hearty obedience to its directions, and a real affection for all the people of God. Now we can safely draw the deduction that they really do believe in Christ, for that is the only root from which springs such fruit as this.