I am not trained in formal logic, so I was hoping you could help me with the moral argument for the existence of God, postulated as follows: 1. If God doesn't exist, then objective moral standards don't exist. 2. Objective moral standards exist. Therefore God exists. I don't really understand why the arguer is allowed to throw in premise 2. It seems that in order to prove that objective moral standards exist, you must first prove that God exists (because the objective moral standards come from God). Since the truth of premise 2 depends on the conclusion of the argument, it seems the argument collapses into a circle. I guess what I'm really saying is that any theist I know would concede that premise 1 is actually an if and only if statement (again, because morality is inextricably linked with God). After all, if you could prove that objective moral standards exist without appealing to God, then you've demonstrated morality's independence from the existence of God and thus nullified the argument. I think the argument fails for other reasons, but is this particular criticism valid? Thanks for your time.