I read the op-ed piece "What Atheists Can't Answer" by Michael Gerson in The Washington Post of July 13, 2007. I want to address Gerson's logic.

He seeks in this brief piece to address the question:

If the atheists are right, what would be the effect on human morality?.....So the dilemma is this: How do we choose between good and bad instincts? Theism, for several millennia, has given one answer: We should cultivate the better angels of our nature because the God we love and respect requires it.

Gerson is requiring not only Theism, but belief in a God that requires humans to behave morally, allows them the free will to behave immorally, and apparently does not forgive moral transgressions.

I would suggest that there are Theists who do not believe God cares whether or not people behave morally, that there are others who believe that some people are predestined to do so and for the others it does not matter, and still others who believe that their moral transgressions will be forgiven if they later repent. I have been reading about Cyrus and Darius, the ancient Persian kings, who argued that when the Persians conquered a people it must be because that people's gods favored their conquest, and when the Persians put down a rebellion they destroyed the temples to the local gods saying that those gods must have been false gods to lead their people into a losing rebellion.

Gerson states that:

There is something innate about morality that is distinct from theological conviction. This instinct may result from evolutionary biology, early childhood socialization or the chemistry of the brain, but human nature is somehow constructed for sympathy and cooperative purpose. But there is a problem. Human nature, in other circumstances, is also clearly constructed for cruel exploitation, uncontrollable rage, icy selfishness and a range of other less desirable traits.

I would suggest that history is replete with Theists who have believed that cruel exploitation and a range of other less desirable traits were required of them by God; think of the Crusades or the Inquisition. Moreover, even if our instinctive knowledge of right and wrong is God given, it is often not clear which of various options open to us is the most moral and ethical.

Gerson does not show why moral philosophy is a less meaningful guide to the morally perplexed than Theism. He is of course right that America's founding fathers were Theists who generally believed that religious belief by the population was an important ingredient for the formation of a moral society, and history suggests that they were indeed wise in the ways of governance and society.