ethics that are grounded in a theistic framework. Roughly, Divine
Command Theory is the view that morality is somehow dependent upon
God, and that moral obligation consists in obedience to God's
commands. Divine Command Theory includes the claim that morality is
ultimately based on the commands or character of God, and that the
morally right action is the one that God commands or requires. The
specific content of these divine commands varies according to the
particular religion and the particular views of the individual divine
command theorist, but all versions of the theory hold in common the
claim that morality and moral obligations ultimately depend on God.
Divine Command Theory has been and continues to be highly
controversial. It has been criticized by numerous philosophers,
including Plato, Kai Nielsen, and J. L. Mackie. The theory also has
many defenders, both classic and contemporary, such as Thomas Aquinas,
Robert Adams, and Philip Quinn. The question of the possible
connections between religion and ethics is of interest to moral
philosophers as well as philosophers of religion, but it also leads us
to consider the role of religion in society as well as the nature of
moral deliberation. Given this, the arguments offered for and against
Divine Command Theory have both theoretical and practical importance.
1. Modern Moral Philosophy
In her influential paper, "Modern Moral Philosophy," Elizabeth
Anscombe (1958) argues that moral terms such as "should" and "ought"
acquired a legalistic sense (that is, being bound by law) because of
Christianity's far-reaching historical influence and its legalistic
conception of ethics. For example, use of the term "ought" seems to
suggest a verdict on an action, and this in turn suggests a judge. On
a law conception of ethics, conformity with the virtues requires
obeying the divine law. A divine law requires the existence of God, as
the divine lawgiver. Anscombe claims that since we have given up on
God's existence, we should also give up the use of moral terms that
are derived from a theistic worldview. Since we have given up belief
in God, we should also give up the moral understanding that rests on
such belief, and engage in moral philosophy without using such terms.
For Anscombe, this meant that we should abandon talk of morality as
law, and instead focus on morality as virtue. Alan Donagan (1977)
argues against these conclusions. Donagan's view is that Anscombe was
mistaken on two counts. First, he rejects her claim that we can only
treat morality as a system of law if we also presuppose the existence
of a divine lawgiver. Second, Donagan contends that neither must we
abandon law-based conceptions of morality for an Aristotelian virtue
ethic. The reason for this, according to Donagan, is that a divine
command must express God's reason in order for it to be expressive of
a divine law. Given this, if we assume that human reason is at least
in principle adequate for directing our lives, then the substance of
divine law that is relevant to human life can be appreciated with
human reason, apart from any reference to a divine being. Moreover,
according to Donagan, even if we conceive of morality as Aristotle
did, namely, as a matter of virtue, it is quite natural to think that
each virtue has as its counterpart some moral rule or precept. For
example, 'to act in manner x is to be just' has as its counterpart 'to
act in manner x is morally right'. And if we can apprehend the
relevant moral virtue via human reason, then we can also apprehend the
relevant moral law by that same reason. Given the foregoing points
raised by Anscombe and Donagan, a divine command theorist might opt
for a conception of morality as virtue, as law, or both.
Before looking at some possible advantages of Divine Command Theory,
it will be helpful to clarify further the content of the view. Edward
Wierenga (1989) points out that there are many ways to conceive of the
connection between God and morality. A strong version of Divine
Command Theory includes the claim that moral statements (x is
obligatory) are defined in terms of theological statements (x is
commanded by God). At the other end of the spectrum is the view that
the commands of God are coextensive with the demands of morality.
God's commands do not determine morality, but rather inform us about
its content. Wierenga opts for a view that lies between these strong
and weak versions of Divine Command Theory. In what follows, I will,
following Wierenga, take Divine Command Theory to include the
following claims: (i) God in some sense determines what is moral; (ii)
moral obligations are derived from God's commands, where these
commands are understood as statements of the revealed divine will.
2. Some Possible Advantages of Divine Command Theory
In his Critique of Practical Reason, Immanuel Kant, who has
traditionally not been seen as an advocate of Divine Command Theory
(for an opposing view see Nuyen, 1998), claims that morality requires
faith in God and an afterlife. According to Kant, we must believe that
God exists because the requirements of morality are too much for us to
bear. We must believe that there is a God who will help us satisfy the
demands of the moral law. With such a belief, we have the hope that we
will be able to live moral lives. Moreover, Kant argues that "there is
not the slightest ground in the moral law for a necessary connection
between the morality and proportionate happiness of a being who
belongs to the world as one of its parts and is thus dependent on it"
(p. 131). However, if there is a God and an afterlife where the
righteous are rewarded with happiness and justice obtains, this
problem goes away. That is, being moral does not guarantee happiness,
so we must believe in a God who will reward the morally righteous with
happiness. Kant does not employ the concept of moral faith as an
argument for Divine Command Theory, but a contemporary advocate could
argue along Kantian lines that these advantages do accrue to this view
of morality.
Another possible advantage of Divine Command Theory is that it
provides an objective metaphysical foundation for morality. For those
committed to the existence of objective moral truths, such truths seem
to fit well within a theistic framework. That is, if the origin of the
universe is a personal moral being, then the existence of objective
moral truths are at home, so to speak, in the universe. By contrast,
if the origin of the universe is non-moral, then the existence of such
truths becomes philosophically perplexing, because it is unclear how
moral properties can come into existence via non-moral origins. Given
the metaphysical insight that ex nihilo, nihilo fit, the resulting
claim is that out of the non-moral, nothing moral comes. Objective
moral properties stick out due to a lack of naturalness of fit in an
entirely naturalistic universe. This perspective assumes that
objective moral properties exist, which is of course highly
controversial.
Not only does Divine Command Theory provide a metaphysical basis for
morality, but according to many it also gives us a good answer to the
question, why be moral? William Lane Craig argues that this is an
advantage of a view of ethics that is grounded in God. On theism, we
are held accountable for our actions by God. Those who do evil will be
punished, and those who live morally upstanding lives will be
vindicated and even rewarded. Good, in the end, triumphs over evil.
Justice will win out. Moreover, on a theistic view of ethics, we have
a reason to act in ways that run counter to our self-interest, because
such actions of self-sacrifice have deep significance and merit within
a theistic framework. On Divine Command Theory it is therefore
rational to sacrifice my own well-being for the well-being of my
children, my friends, and even complete strangers, because God
approves of and even commands such acts of self-sacrifice.
An important objection to the foregoing points is that there is
something inadequate about a punishment and reward orientation of
moral motivation. That is, one might argue that if the motive for
being moral on Divine Command Theory is to merely avoid punishment and
perhaps gain eternal bliss, then this is less than ideal as an account
of moral motivation, because it is a mark of moral immaturity. Should
we not instead seek to live moral lives in community with others
because we value them and desire their happiness? In response to this,
advocates of Divine Command Theory may offer different accounts of
moral motivation, agreeing that a moral motivation based solely on
reward and punishment is inadequate. For example, perhaps the reason
to be moral is that God designed human beings to be constituted in
such a way that being moral is a necessary condition for human
flourishing. Some might object that this is overly egoistic, but at
any rate it seems less objectionable than the motivation to be moral
provided by the mere desire to avoid punishment. Augustine (see Kent,
2001) develops a view along these lines. Augustine begins with the
notion that ethics is the pursuit of the supreme good, which provides
the happiness that all humans seek. He then claims that the way to
obtain this happiness is to love the right objects, that is, those
that are worthy of our love, in the right way. In order to do this, we
must love God, and then we will be able to love our friends, physical
objects, and everything else in the right way and in the right amount.
On Augustine's view, love of God helps us to orient our other loves in
the proper way, proportional to their value. However, even if these
points in defense of Divine Command Theory are thought to be
satisfactory, there is another problem looming for the view that was
famously discussed by Plato over two thousand years ago.
3. A Persistent Problem for Divine Command Theory: The Euthyphro Dilemma
The dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro is nearly omnipresent in
philosophical discussions of the relationship between God and ethics.
In this dialogue, written by Plato (1981), who was a student of
Socrates, Euthyphro and Socrates encounter each other in the king's
court. Charges have been brought against Socrates by Miletus, who
claims that Socrates is guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens by
leading them away from belief in the proper gods. In the course of
their conversation, Socrates is surprised to discover that Euthyphro
is prosecuting his own father for the murder of a servant. Euthyphro's
family is upset with him because of this, and they believe that what
he is doing—prosecuting his own father—is impious. Euthyphro maintains
that his family fails to understand the divine attitude to his action.
This then sets the stage for a discussion of the nature of piety
between Socrates and Euthyphro. In this discussion, Socrates asks
Euthyphro the now philosophically famous question that he and any
divine command theorist must consider: "Is the pious loved by the gods
because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"
(p. 14).
For our purposes, it will be useful to rephrase Socrates' question.
Socrates can be understood as asking "Does God command this particular
action because it is morally right, or is it morally right because God
commands it?" It is in answering this question that the divine command
theorist encounters a difficulty. A defender of Divine Command Theory
might respond that an action is morally right because God commands it.
However, the implication of this response is that if God commanded
that we inflict suffering on others for fun, then doing so would be
morally right. We would be obligated to do so, because God commanded
it. This is because, on Divine Command Theory, the reason that
inflicting such suffering is wrong is that God commands us not to do
it. However, if God commanded us to inflict such suffering, doing so
would become the morally right thing to do. The problem for this
response to Socrates' question, then, is that God's commands and
therefore the foundations of morality become arbitrary, which then
allows for morally reprehensible actions to become morally obligatory.
Most advocates of Divine Command Theory do not want to be stuck with
the implication that cruelty could possibly be morally right, nor do
they want to accept the implication that the foundations of morality
are arbitrary. So, a divine command theorist might avoid this problem
of arbitrariness by opting for a different answer to Socrates'
question, and say that for any particular action that God commands, He
commands it because it is morally right. By taking this route, the
divine command theorist avoids having to accept that inflicting
suffering on others for fun could be a morally right action. More
generally, she avoids the arbitrariness that plagues any Divine
Command Theory which includes the claim that an action is right solely
because God commands it. However, two new problems now arise. If God
commands a particular action because it is morally right, then ethics
no longer depends on God in the way that Divine Command Theorists
maintain. God is no longer the author of ethics, but rather a mere
recognizer of right and wrong. As such, God no longer serves as the
foundation of ethics. Moreover, it now seems that God has become
subject to an external moral law, and is no longer sovereign. John
Arthur (2005) puts the point this way: "If God approves kindness
because it is a virtue and hates the Nazis because they were evil,
then it seems that God discovers morality rather than inventing it"
(20, emphasis added). God is no longer sovereign over the entire
universe, but rather is subject to a moral law external to himself.
The notion that God is subject to an external moral law is also a
problem for theists who hold that in the great chain of being, God is
at the top. Here, there is a moral law external to and higher than
God, and this is a consequence that many divine command theorists
would want to reject. Hence, the advocate of a Divine Command Theory
of ethics faces a dilemma: morality either rests on arbitrary
foundations, or God is not the source of ethics and is subject to an
external moral law, both of which allegedly compromise his supreme
moral and metaphysical status.
4. Responses to the Euthyphro Dilemma
a. Bite the Bullet
One possible response to the Euthyphro Dilemma is to simply accept
that if God does command cruelty, then inflicting it upon others would
be morally obligatory. In Super 4 Libros Sententiarum, William of
Ockham states that the actions which we call "theft" and "adultery"
would be obligatory for us if God commanded us to do them. Most people
find this to be an unacceptable view of moral obligation, on the
grounds that any theory of ethics that leaves open the possibility
that such actions are morally praiseworthy is fatally flawed. However,
as Robert Adams (1987) points out, a full understanding of Ockham's
view here would emphasize that it is a mere logical possibility that
God could command adultery or cruelty, and not a real possibility.
That is, even if it is logically possible that God could command
cruelty, it is not something that God will do, given his character in
the actual world. Given this, Ockham himself was surely not prepared
to inflict suffering on others if God commanded it. Even with this
proviso, however, many reject this type of response to the Euthyphro
Dilemma.
b. Human Nature
Another response to the Euthyphro Dilemma which is intended to avoid
the problem of arbitrariness is discussed by Clark and Poortenga
(2003), drawing upon the moral theory of Thomas Aquinas. If we
conceive of the good life for human beings as consisting in activities
and character qualities that fulfill us, then the good life will
depend upon our nature, as human beings. Given human nature, some
activities and character traits will fulfill us, and some will not.
For example, neither drinking gasoline nor lying nor committing
adultery will help us to function properly and so be fulfilled, as
human beings. God created us with a certain nature. Once he has done
this, he cannot arbitrarily decide what is good or bad for us, what
will help or hinder us from functioning properly. God could have
created us differently. That is, it is possible that he could have
made us to thrive and be fulfilled by ingesting gasoline, lying, and
committing adultery. But, according to Aquinas, he did no such thing.
We must live lives marked by a love for God and other people, if we
want to be fulfilled as human beings. The defender of this type of
response to the Euthyphro Dilemma, to avoid the charge of
arbitrariness, should explain why God created us with the nature that
we possess, rather than some other nature. What grounded this
decision? A satisfactory answer will include the claim that there is
something valuable about human beings and the nature that we possess
that grounded God's decision, but it is incumbent upon the proponent
of this response to defend this claim.
c. Alston's Advice
In his "Some Suggestions for Divine Command Theorists", William Alston
(1990) offers some advice to advocates of Divine Command Theory, which
Alston believes will make the view as philosophically strong as it can
be. Alston formulates the Euthyphro dilemma as a question regarding
which of the two following statements a divine command theorist should
accept:
1. We ought to love one another because God commands us to do so.
or
2. God commands us to love one another because that is what we ought to do.
Alston's argument is that if we interpret these statements correctly,
a theist can in fact grasp both horns of this putative dilemma. One
problem with opting for number 1 in the above dilemma is that it
becomes difficult if not impossible to conceive of God as morally
good, because if the standards of moral goodness are set by God's
commands, then the claim "God is morally good" is equivalent to "God
obeys His own commands". But this trivialization is not what we mean
when we assert that God is morally good. Alston argues that a divine
command theorist can avoid this problem by conceiving of God's moral
goodness as something distinct from conformity to moral obligations,
and so as something distinct from conformity to divine commands.
Alston summarizes his argument for this claim as follows:
…a necessary condition of the truth that 'S ought to do A' is at
least the metaphysical possibility that S does not do A. On this view,
moral obligations attach to all human beings, even those so saintly as
to totally lack any tendency, in the ordinary sense of that term, to
do other than what it is morally good to do. And no moral obligations
attach to God, assuming, as we are here, that God is essentially
perfectly good. Thus divine commands can be constitutive of moral
obligations for those beings who have them without it being the case
that God's goodness consists in His obeying His own commands, or,
indeed, consists in any relation whatsoever of God to His commands (p.
315).
Alston concludes that Divine Command Theory survives the first horn of
the dilemma. However, in so doing, perhaps the theory is delivered a
fatal blow by the dilemma's second horn. If the divine command
theorist holds that "God commands us to love our neighbor because it
is morally good that we should do so," then moral goodness is
independent of God's will and moral facts stand over God, so to speak,
insofar as God is now subject to such facts. Hence, God is no longer
absolutely sovereign. One response is to say that God is subject to
moral principles in the same way that he is subject to logical
principles, which nearly all agree does not compromise his sovereignty
(See The Omnipotence Objection below). Alston prefers a different
option, however, and argues that we can think of God himself as the
supreme standard of goodness. God does not consult some independent
Platonic realm where the objective principles of goodness exist, but
rather God just acts according to his necessarily good character. But
is not arbitrariness still present, insofar as it seems that it is
arbitrary to take a particular individual as the standard of goodness,
without reference to the individual's conformity to general principles
of goodness? In response, Alston points out that there must be a
stopping point for any explanation. That is, sooner or later, when we
are seeking an answer to the question "By virtue of what does good
supervene on these characteristics?" we ultimately reach either a
general principle or an individual paradigm. And Alston's view is that
it is no more arbitrary to invoke God as the supreme moral standard
than it is to invoke some supreme moral principle. That is, the claim
that good supervenes on God is no more arbitrary than the claim that
it supervenes on some Platonic principle.
d. Modified Divine Command Theory
Robert Adams (1987) has offered a modified version of the Divine
Command Theory, which a defender of the theory can appropriate in
response to the Euthyphro Dilemma. Adams argues that a modified divine
command theorist "wants to say…that an act is wrong if and only if it
is contrary to God's will or commands (assuming God loves us)" (121).
Moreover, Adams claims that the following is a necessary truth: "Any
action is ethically wrong if and only if it is contrary to the
commands of a loving God" (132). On this modification of Divine
Command Theory, actions, and perhaps intentions and individuals,
possess the property of ethical wrongness, and this property is an
objective property. That is, an action such as torturing someone for
fun is ethically wrong, irrespective of whether anyone actually
believes that it is wrong, and it is wrong because it is contrary to
the commands of a loving God.
One could agree with this modification of Divine Command Theory, but
disagree with the claim that it is a necessary truth that any action
is ethically wrong if and only if it is contrary to the commands of a
loving God. One might hold that this claim is a contingent truth, that
is, that in the actual world, being contrary to the commands of a
loving God is what constitutes ethical wrongness, but that there are
other possible worlds in which ethical wrongness is not identified
with being contrary to the commands of a loving God. It should be
pointed out that for the theist who wants to argue from the existence
of objective moral properties back to the existence of God, Adams'
stronger claim, namely, that an action is wrong if and only if it goes
against the commands of a loving God, should be taken as a necessary
truth, rather than a contingent one.
At any rate, whichever option a modified divine command theorist
chooses, the modification at issue is aimed at avoiding both horns of
the Euthyphro Dilemma. The first horn of the dilemma posed by Socrates
to Euthyphro is that if an act is morally right because God commands
it, then morality becomes arbitrary. Given this, we could be morally
obligated to inflict cruelty upon others. The Modified Divine Command
Theory avoids this problem, because morality is not based on the mere
commands of God, but is rooted in the unchanging omnibenevolent nature
of God. Hence, morality is not arbitrary nor would God command cruelty
for its own sake, because God's nature is fixed and unchanging, and to
do so would violate it. It is not possible for a loving God to command
cruelty for its own sake. The Modified Divine Command Theory is also
thought to avoid the second horn of the Euthyphro Dilemma. God is the
source of morality, because morality is grounded in the character of
God. Moreover, God is not subject to a moral law that exists external
to him. On the Modified Divine Command Theory, the moral law is a
feature of God's nature. Given that the moral law exists internal to
God, in this sense, God is not subject to an external moral law, but
rather is that moral law. God therefore retains his supreme moral and
metaphysical status. Morality, for the modified divine command
theorist, is ultimately grounded in the perfect nature of God.
5. Speech Acts and Obligations to Act
Philip Quinn (1978, 1998) offers the following two statements, which
he takes to be equivalent:
(1) The moral law imposes the obligation that p.
(2) God commands that p.
For Quinn, then, an agent is obliged to p just in case God commands
that p. God is the source of moral obligation. Quinn illustrates and
expands on this claim by examining scriptural stories in which God
commands some action that apparently violates a previous divine
command. Consider God's command to the Israelites to plunder the
Egyptians reported in Exodus 11:2. This seems to go against God's
previous command, contained within the Ten Commandments, against
theft. One response to this offered by Quinn is to claim that since
theft involves taking what is not due one, and God commanded the
Israelites to plunder the Egyptians, their plunder of the Egyptians
does not count as theft. The divine command makes obligatory an action
that would have been wrong apart from that command. Such moral power
is not available to human beings, because only God has such moral
authority by virtue of the divine nature.
Elsewhere, Quinn (1979) considers a different relationship between
divine commands and moral obligations. Rather than equivalence, Quinn
offers a causal theory in which our moral obligations are created by
divine commands or acts of will: "…a sufficient causal condition that
it is obligatory that p is that God commands that p, and a necessary
causal condition that it is obligatory that p is that God commands
that p" (312).
Quinn's accounts lead us to the question of the relationship between
speech acts and obligations to act, discussed by philosophers such as
Rawls (1999) and Searle (1969). Consider the act of making a promise.
If S promises R to do a, is this sufficient for S incurring an
obligation to do a? On the account offered by Rawls, under certain
conditions, the answer is yes. Just as rules govern games, there is a
public system of rules that governs the institution of promising, such
that when S promises R to do a, the rule is that S ought to do a,
unless certain conditions obtain which excuse S from this obligation.
If S is to make a genuine promise that is morally binding, S must be
fully conscious, rational, aware of the meaning and use of the
relevant words, and free from coercion. For Rawls, promising allows us
to enter into stable cooperative agreements that are mutually
advantageous. If the institution of promise making is just, then Rawls
argues that the principle of fairness applies. For Rawls, the
principle of fairness states that "a person is required to do his part
as defined by the rules of an institution when two conditions are met:
first, the institution is just (or fair)…and second, one has
voluntarily accepted the benefits of the arrangement or taken
advantage of the opportunities it offers to further one's interests"
(96). If these conditions are met, then S does incur an obligation to
do a by virtue of S's promise to R.
What implications does the above have for Divine Command Theory?
Speech acts can entail obligations, as we have seen with respect to
the institution of promise making. However, the case of divine
commands is asymmetrical to the case of promising. That is, rather
than incurring obligations by our own speech acts, Divine Command
Theory tells us that we incur obligations by the communicative acts of
another, namely, God. How might this work?
An advocate of Divine Command Theory might argue that some of Rawls
points apply to the obligations created by the communicative acts of
God. For example, our divine command theorist might claim that if God
commands S to do a, S must do a if S meets Rawls' demands of full
consciousness, rationality, awareness of the meaning and use of the
relevant words, and freedom from coercion. The rule of fairness
applies and its demands are satisfied, according to our divine command
theorist, because she holds that the institution of obedience to God's
commands is just and fair, given God's nature, and because S has
voluntarily accepted the benefits of this arrangement with God or
taken advantage of the opportunities afforded by the arrangement to
further her own interests. So, if S has consented to be a follower of
a particular religion, and if the requirements of that religion are
just and fair, and if S benefits from this arrangement, then S can
incur obligations via divine commands. The upshot is not that the
foregoing religious and metaphysical claims are true, but rather that
by applying some of Rawls' claims about promise making, we are able to
recognize a possible connection between divine commands and the
obligation to perform an action. In the next section, Kai Nielsen
challenges the truth of these claims, as well as the overall
plausibility of Divine Command Theory.
6. Ethics Without God
In his Ethics Without God, Kai Nielsen (1973) argues against the
Divine Command Theory and espouses the view that morality cannot be
dependent on the will of God. Nielsen advances an argument for the
claim that religion and morality are logically independent. Nielsen
admits that it may certainly be prudent to obey the commands of any
powerful person, including God. However, it does not follow that such
obedience is morally obligatory. For a command of God's to be relevant
to our moral obligations in any particular instance, God must be good.
And while the religious believer does maintain that God is good,
Nielsen wants to know the basis for such a belief. In response, a
believer might claim that she knows God is good because the Bible
teaches this, or because Jesus embodied and displayed God's goodness,
or that the world contains evidence in support of the claim that God
is good. However, these responses show that the believer herself has
some logically prior criterion of goodness based on something apart
from the mere fact that God exists or that God created the universe.
Otherwise, how does she know that her other beliefs about the Bible,
Jesus, or the state of the world support her belief that God is good?
Alternatively, the religious believer might simply assert that the
statement "God is good" is analytic, that is, that it is a truth of
language. The idea here is that we are logically prohibited from
calling any entity "God" if that entity is not good in the relevant
sense. In this way, the claim "God is good" is similar to the claim
"Bachelors are unmarried males." But now another problem arises for
the religious believer, according to Nielsen. In order to properly
refer to some entity as "God," we must already have an understanding
of what it is for something to be good. We must already possess a
criterion for making judgments of moral goodness, apart from the will
of God. Put another way, when we say that we know God is good we must
use some independent moral criterion to ground this judgment. So,
morality is not based on God because we need a criterion of goodness
that is not derived from God's nature. It follows that God and
morality are independent.
Nielsen considers another possibility that remains open to the divine
command theorist: she might concede that ethics does not necessarily
depend on God, but maintain that God is required for the existence of
an adequate morality, that is, one that satisfies our most persistent
moral demands. If we take happiness to be the ultimate aim of all
human activity, then the ultimate aim of all of our moral activity is
also happiness. The divine command theorist can then claim that the
mistake of Nielsen and other secular moralists is that they fail to
see that only in God can we as human beings find ultimate and lasting
happiness. God gives purpose to our lives, and we are fulfilled in
loving God. Given this fact of human nature, the divine command
theorist can argue that only by faith in God can we find purpose in
life. Goodness may not be identical with the will of God, but loving
God is the reason we exist. On this account, we need God to be
fulfilled and truly happy. We are secure in the knowledge that the
universe is not against us, ultimately, but rather that God will guide
us, protect us, and care for us. This frees us from anxiety, and
enables us to direct our lives towards genuine happiness by living
according to the will of God in friendship with God. While from a
secular perspective it may seem irrational to live according to an
other-regarding ethic, from the viewpoint of the religious believer it
is rational because it fulfills our human nature and makes us
genuinely happy.
In response to this, Nielsen argues that we simply do not have
evidence for the existence of God. Without such evidence, the
religious believer's claim that human nature is truly fulfilled in
relationship to God is groundless (for more on the issues Nielsen
raises, see Moreland and Nielsen, 1990). Moreover, people can, have,
and do live purposeful lives apart from belief in God. Religious faith
is not necessary for having a life of purpose. Nielsen adds the
skeptical doubt that human beings do not have any ultimate function
that we must fulfill to be truly happy. We were not made for anything.
This realization need not lead us to nihilism, however. For Nielsen,
the notion that in order to have a purpose for our lives there must be
a God trades on a confusion. Nielsen argues that even if there is no
purpose of life, there can still be a purpose in life. While there may
not be a purpose for humans qua humans, we can still have purpose in
another sense. That is, we can have purpose in life because we have
goals, intentions, and motives. Life is purposeless in the larger
sense, but in this more restricted sense it is not, and so things
matter to us, even if God does not exist. Life has no Purpose, but our
lives can still have purpose. A divine command theorist would likely
challenge Nielsen's view that purpose in the latter sense is
sufficient for human flourishing.
7. Other Objections to Divine Command Theory
a. The Omnipotence Objection
An implication of the Modified Divine Command Theory is that God would
not, and indeed cannot, command cruelty for its own sake. Some would
argue that this implication is inconsistent with the belief that God
is omnipotent. How could there be anything that an all-powerful being
cannot do?
In his discussion of the omnipotence of God, Thomas Aquinas responds
to this understanding of omnipotence, and argues that it is misguided.
Aquinas argues that we must consider "the precise meaning of 'all'
when we say that God can do all things" (First Part, Question 25,
Article 3). For Aquinas, to say that God can do all things is to say
that he can do all things that are possible, and not those that are
impossible. For example, God cannot make a round corner, because this
is absolutely impossible. Since "a round corner" is a contradiction in
terms, it is better to say that making a round corner cannot be done,
rather than God cannot make such a thing. This response, however, is
insufficient for the issue at hand, namely, that on a Modified Divine
Command Theory, God would not and cannot command cruelty for its own
sake. There is no logical contradiction in terms here, as there is in
the case of the round corner. Aquinas offers a further response to
this sort of challenge to God's omnipotence. His view is that "to sin
is to fall short of a perfect action; which is repugnant to
omnipotence" (Ibid). For Aquinas, there is something about the nature
of sin (a category in which commanding cruelty for its own sake would
fall) that is contrary to omnipotence. Hence, that God cannot do
immoral actions is not a limit on his power, but rather it is entailed
by his omnipotence. Aquinas' view is that God cannot command cruelty
because he is omnipotent.
b. The Omnibenevolence Objection
On Divine Command Theory, it problematically appears that God's
goodness consists in God doing whatever he wills to do. This problem
has been given voice by Leibniz (1951), and has recently been
discussed by Quinn (1978), Wierenga (1989), Alston (1989), and
Wainright (2005). The problem is this: if what it means for an action
to be morally required is that it be commanded by God, then God's
doing what he is obligated to do is equivalent to his doing what he
commands himself to do. This, however, is incoherent. While it makes
sense to conceive of God as forming an intention to do an action, or
judging that it would be good to do an action, the notion that he
commands himself to do an action is incoherent. Moreover, on Divine
Command Theory, God could not be seen as possessing moral virtues,
because a moral virtue would be a disposition to do an action that God
commands. This is also incoherent.
In response, divine command theorists have argued that they can still
make sense of God's goodness, by pointing out that he possesses traits
which are good as distinguished from being morally obligatory. For
example, God may be disposed to love human beings, treat them with
compassion, and deal with them fairly. These dispositions are good,
even if they are not grounded in a disposition to obey God. And if we
take these dispositions to be essential to God's nature, that is, if
they are possessed by God in every possible world in which God exists,
then, as Wierenga (1989) points out, while it is still the case that
whatever God does is good, "the range of 'whatever God were to do'
includes no actions for which God would not be praiseworthy" (p. 222).
Wainright (2005) explains further that while it is true that the moral
obligatoriness of truth telling could not have been God's reason for
commanding it, the claim that God does not have moral reasons for
commanding it does not follow. This is because the moral goodness of
truth telling is a sufficient reason for God to command it. Once God
does command it, truth telling is not only morally good, but it also
becomes morally obligatory, on Divine Command Theory.
c. The Autonomy Objection
The idea that to be morally mature, one must freely decide which moral
principles will govern one's life serves as an objection to Divine
Command Theory, because on the theory it is not our own wills that
govern our moral lives, but the will of God. We are no longer
self-legislating beings in the moral realm, but instead followers of a
moral law imposed on us from the outside. In this sense, autonomy is
incompatible with Divine Command Theory, insofar as on the theory we
do not impose the moral law upon ourselves. However, Adams (1999)
argues that Divine Command Theory and moral responsibility are
compatible, because we are responsible for obeying or not obeying
God's commands, correctly understanding and applying them, and
adopting a self-critical stance with respect to what God has commanded
us to do. Given this, we are autonomous because we must rely on our
own independent judgments about God's goodness and what moral laws are
in consistent with God's commands. Additionally, it seems that a
divine command theorist can still say that we impose the moral law on
ourselves by our agreeing to subject ourselves to it once we come to
understand it, even if it ultimately is grounded in God's commands.
d. The Pluralism Objection
The last objection to note is that given the variety and number of
religions in the world, how does the divine command theorist know
which (putatively) divine commands to follow? The religions of the
world often give conflicting accounts of the nature and content of the
commands of God. Moreover, even if such a person believes that her
religion is correct, there remains a plurality of understandings
within religious traditions with respect to what God commands us to
do. In response, some of the issues raised above regarding autonomy
are relevant. A divine command theorist must decide for herself, based
on the available evidence, which understanding of the divine to adopt
and which understanding of divine commands within her particular
tradition she finds to be the most compelling. This is similar to the
activity and deliberation of a secular moralist who must also decide
for herself, among a plurality of moral traditions and interpretations
within those traditions, which moral principles to adopt and allow to
govern her life. This takes us into another problem for divine command
theory, namely, that it is only those who follow the correct religion,
and the correct interpretation of that religion, that are moral, which
seems highly problematic. However, Divine Command Theory is consistent
with the belief that numerous religions contain moral truth, and that
we can come to know our moral obligations apart from revelation,
tradition, and religious practice. For example, a divine command
theorist could grant that a philosophical naturalist may come to see
that beneficence is intrinsically good through a rational insight into
the necessary character of reality (see Austin, 2003). It is
consistent with Divine Command Theory that we can come to see our
obligations in this and many other ways, and not merely through a
religious text, religious experience, or religious tradition.
8. Conclusion: Religion, Morality, and the Good Life
In his A Just Society (2004), Michael Boylan argues that we must
engage in self-analysis for the purpose of both constructing and
implementing a personal plan of life that is coherent, comprehensive,
and good. In this activity, we must recognize that there are many
types of values by which we live, including but not limited to
religious, ethical, and aesthetic values. Of particular interest in
this context is Boylan's discussion of God's command to Abraham to
kill Isaac. Here we have a conflict between the religious and the
ethical. Boylan notes that in the story, Abraham does not kill Isaac,
but if he had his community must judge him to be a murderer. The
reason for this is that Abraham's community does not know whether the
command to kill Isaac was a legitimate divine command, or some
delusion of Abraham's. So, this community must depend upon the ethical
prohibition against murder when evaluating Abraham's actions. Boylan's
position contrasts with Kierkegaard's, who is generally interpreted as
believing that Abraham's action is justified by a suspension of the
ethical, so that in this case the religious trumps the ethical.
However, in such disputes, Boylan argues that when the commands of
religion (or the values of aesthetics) clash with the demands of
morality, in a just society morality should win the day.
Regardless of what one makes of this, when evaluating the
philosophical merits and drawbacks of Divine Command Theory, one
should take a broad perspective and consider the possible connections
between the theory and other religious and moral issues, as well as
the relevant aesthetic, epistemic, and metaphysical questions, in
order to develop a personal plan of life that is coherent,
comprehensive, and good.
9. References and Further Reading
Adams, Robert M. 1987. The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in
Philosophical Theology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Adams, Robert M. 1999. Finite and Infinite Goods. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Alston, William. 1989. Divine Nature and Human Language: Essays in
Philosophical Theology. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Alston, William. 1990. "Some Suggestions for Divine Command
Theorists." In Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy. Edited
by Michael Beaty. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press:
303-326.
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1958. "Modern Moral Philosophy." Philosophy 33: 1-19.
Arthur, John. 2005. "Morality, Religion, and Conscience." In Morality
and Moral Controversies: Readings in Moral, Social, and Political
Philosophy. Edited by John Arthur. Seventh edition. Upper Saddle
River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall: 15-23.
Audi, Robert and William Wainwright. 1986. Rationality, Religious
Belief, and Moral Commitment. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Austin, Michael W. 2003. "On the Alleged Irrationality of Ethical
Intuitionism: Are Ethical Intuitions Epistemically Suspect?" Southwest
Philosophy Review 19: 205-213.
Beaty, Michael, ed. 1990. Christian Theism and the Problems of
Philosophy. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.
Beaty, Michael, Carlton Fisher, and Mark Nelson, eds. 1998. Christian
Theism and Moral Philosophy. Macon, Geo.: Mercer University Press.
Boylan, Michael. 2004. A Just Society. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.
Clark, Kelly James and Anne Poortenga. 2003. The Story of Ethics:
Fulfilling Our Human Nature. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
Copan, Paul. 2003. "Morality and Meaning Without God: Another Failed
Attempt." Philosophia Christi Series 2, 6: 295-304.
Donagan, Alan. 1977. The Theory of Morality. Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press.
Hare, John. 1997. The Moral Gap: Kantian Ethics, Human Limits, and
God's Assistance. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hare, John. 2000. "Naturalism and Morality." In Naturalism: A Critical
Analysis. Edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland. New York:
Routledge: 189-212.
Kant, Immanuel. 1993. Critique of Practical Reason. Third Edition.
Translated by Lewis White Beck. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice
Hall.
Kent, Bonnie. "Augustine's Ethics." 2001. In The Cambridge Companion
to Augustine. Edited by Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann. New York:
Cambridge University Press: 205-233.
Kierkegaard, Søren. 1985. Fear and Trembling. Translated by Alastair
Hannay. New York: Penguin.
Kretzmann, Norman. 1983. "Abraham, Isaac, and Euthyphro: God and the
Basis of Morality." In Hamarti, The Concept of Error in the Western
Tradition: Essays in Honor of John M. Crossett. Edited by D.V. Stump,
E. Stump, J.A. Arieti, and L. Gerson. New York: Edwin Mellen Press.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1951. Theodicy. London: Routledge, Kegan, and Paul.
Mackie, J. L. 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. New York: Penguin Books.
Moreland, J. P. and Kai Nielsen. 1990. Does God Exist?: The Great
Debate. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
Morris, Thomas V. 1987. "Duty and Divine Goodness." American
Philosophical Quarterly 21.
Morris, Thomas V. 1991. Our Idea of God: An Introduction to
Philosophical Theology. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press.
Morriston, Wes. 2001. "Must There Be a Standard of Moral Goodness
Apart from God?" Philosophia Christi Series 2, 3: 127-138.
Murphy, Mark. "Divine Command, Divine Will, and Moral Obligation."
Faith and Philosophy 15 (1998): 3-27.
Nielsen, Kai. 1973. Ethics Without God. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
Nuyen, R. T. 1998. "Is Kant a Divine Command Theorist?" History of
Philosophy Quarterly 15: 441-453.
Plato. 1981. Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo.
Translated by G. M. A. Grube. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing
Company.
Quinn, Philip L. 1978. Divine Commands and Moral Requirements. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Quinn, Philip L. 1979. "Divine Command Ethics: A Causal Theory." In
Divine Command Morality: Historical and Contemporary Readings. Edited
by Janine Idziak. New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1979: 305-325.
Quinn, Philip. 1992. "The Primacy of God's Will in Christian Ethics."
Philosophical Perspectives 6: 493-513.
Stump, Eleonore, and Norman Kretzmann. 1985. "Absolute Simplicity."
Faith and Philosophy 2: 353-382.
Stump, Eleonore. 2001. "Evil and the Nature of Faith." In Seeking
Understanding: The Stob Lectures 1986-1998. Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Eerdmans: 530-550.
Thomas Aquinas, Saint. 1947. The Summa Theologica. Translated by the
Fathers of the English Dominican Province.
Wainright, William J. 2005. Religion and Morality. Burlington, Verm.: Ashgate.
Wierenga, Edward. 1983. "A Defensible Divine Command Theory." Nous 17,
pp. 387-407.
Wierenga, Edward. 1989. The Nature of God: An Inquiry into Divine
Attributes. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
William of Ockham. Super 4 Libros Sententiarum II, 19.
Zagzebski, Linda. 2004. Divine Motivation Theory. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
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