Objective Value versus Objective Purpose - The ball of clay argument

It is the opinion of Christian Apologists like William Craig Lane that a) If there is no God then the universe has no objective purpose except for a pretend/ subjective purpose and b) If there is no objective purpose to life there can be no objective morality.

But what if life is like a ball of clay that can be made into many different things; used for many different purposes.

 

Although the ball of clay may not have one specific purpose we still value it, objectively, because of all the different purposes it can potentially serve.

 

Similarly the universe and life and humanity may not have objective purposes but they are still valuable because of all the many different purposes they can potentially serve.
Thus life has objective value even when it lacks an objective purpose.

And how does this relate to the question of objective morality? 

William Craig Lane thinks that without objective purpose there can be no objective morality.
But as I've demonstrated, like a ball of clay, life has objective value even without objective purpose and anything that is valuable to us is something that we want to protect.

From the desire to protect this thing of objective value there naturally arises an objective morality, for example, "Thou shalt not kill because to kill is to destroy the thing of objective value, life".​    

 

"But does objective value really exist?", you may ask, "Aren't there those who see no value in a life or in a ball of clay?".

Yes but value, like energy, exists in both a potential and a kinetic form. Even if there is no one around to find a thing of value, it still has the potential to be of value and only awaits a value giver to come into contact with it.

So even if something is not valued it has the objective potential to be valued.

 

For example, one day a man might think his life is worthless but the next day he might find a worth to his life and so, irrespective of wether he sees the value in his life or not, his life has the potential to be valuable to him; its value just awaits to be discovered.