The results of a recent Pew Research study probably won’t surprise you. Apparently, 68% of Americans don’t believe that a belief in God is necessary “to be moral and have good values.” Well, 68% of Americans are both right and wrong at the same time!

They’re right in the sense that, yes, people can act “morally” and hold to good values without believing in God. Two reasons for that come to mind.

• Every person is made in the image of God and has been given a conscience by their Creator (Romans 2:14). There’s a reason people just “know” it’s wrong to murder or commit adultery. Their conscience tells them it’s wrong, but, of course, the conscience can be dulled and is not sufficient—that’s why we have God’s Word!
• The United States (and many of the other countries that answered similarly) has a Christian heritage, and even though it’s rapidly being eroded and replaced with secular humanism, that heritage gives a shared set of “good values” or “morals” that come from God’s Word, whether the person holding to them believes in God or not.

But 68% of Americans are also wrong—and I’ll give two reasons why.

Without God (the Creator God of the Bible), there is no objective standard for morality or “good” values versus “bad” values. What makes murder wrong? What makes adultery wrong? We intuitively know they are wrong, but what actually makes them wrong is the objective standard of the absolute authority of the Word of God. Without that standard, everything is arbitrary and there really is no such thing as morality or good values—because who would be the authority on what qualifies as moral or good?

No one is truly good or moral! Sure, people may hold to some values we call good or may act in moral ways at times, but ultimately we are all sinners! We sin in word, thought, and deed. Even the “good” things we do are counted as filthy rags before God because of our unrighteousness. So, no, apart from God no one is good because God alone is good! (This is why the good news of the gospel is so good! We can’t save ourselves, but Jesus did what we can’t do when he lived a perfect life, died on the cross in our place, and rose again—and now he offers eternal life to all who will believe in him).

“And Jesus said to him, Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.” (Mark 10:18)

So can you be good without God? No! For that, we need the righteousness of Christ applied to us.

Ken Ham is an author, speaker, and Founder and CEO of Answers in Genesis and its two popular interests: the acclaimed Creation Museum and the internationally known Ark Encounter.