Divine command theory

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Divine command theory hypothesis, in the simplest terms, states;

An action or a person is right/wrong/good/bad if and only if God said so.

The proof of this is as follows: because God said so.

It is the underlying assumption in argument from morality.

This often leads to the branch of thought that all ethical propositions can be directly inferred from the contents of the scripture, which is believed as the word of God. This developed the habit of people quoting the scripture every time they require justifications to any ethical statements they are making.

Contents

[edit] Formulations, allegedly

Further information:Christian Apologetics

According to the Bible, in reference to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God had told Adam and Eve:

Genesis 2:16-17
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Since God created such a tree, every piece of knowledge of Good and evil comes directly from God.

Various verses has attributed God as sovereign, or judge and ruler of all. If anything is good for the reason other than his commands then He is not in charge of everything.

[edit] As a code word

Divine command theory is the code word for "Arbitrarily defined morality that uses God to label disagreement/dissent as evil/immoral."

The argument is that since God communicates in revelations, it is indistinguishable between an actual revelation to the speaker and stuff made up by the speaker. Since the revelation is attributed to God, anyone disagreeing with the speaker can be labelled as disagreeing with God.

Scriptural morality, in a similar manner, is the code word for "I said the book is right, so I am quoting it in the way I like in order to convince people that the morality I made up is correct."

These can be used to label debate opponents negatively in a debate, especially a debate about morality.

[edit] Criticisms

[edit] Euthyphro dilemma

The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are then in this situation: is that difference due to God's fiat or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good.
—Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian

In a nutshell: does God say it is good because it is intrinsically good, or is it good because God says so?

  • The first option (known as the "first horn") simply denies the validity of divine command theory because it implies God is beholden to a separate, observable standard to determine what's good. This preserves objective morality but reduces God's sovereignty.
  • The latter (the "second horn") effectively renders Morality arbitrary; nothing is intrinsically good, and God could declare something bad one day to be good the next day.

Whether the arbitrariness of divine fiat is a "problem" is debatable; just because God could do something doesn't mean He would. It certainly poses a logical problem to those who say, on the one hand, that morality is absolute, but on the other, that God's actions are by definition moral—even if they contradict previous commandments. To put it another way, many Christians vehemently oppose moral relativism in principle, but will also assert that God is good and just in all cases (even genocide, which by definition violates "do not murder"), even if it means adopting relativism themselves.[1] If the "first horn" above is true, God's violation of his own commandment is immoral; if the second is true, goodness is ultimately meaningless, which is problematic for Christianity. Besides, seeing as moral relativists and absolutists tend to arbitrarily change their own morals to whatever is most convenient, there seems no reason why God shouldn't get in on the fun. It should be noted that concerns surrounding the arbitrariness of something which is dependent on an omnipotent God's whims extends to cover the laws of physics and existence itself.

A defense of this is typically the following tautology:

It is good because God says it to be good, but since goodness is God's nature/essence, the commands made by God are not arbitrary.

This defense has the following problem:

  • Uniqueness proof: It has never been established that God alone possess such nature/essence. Citing things such as Original sin and redefining goodness to fit the purpose implies all of these becomes utter bullshit unless the alleged facts lines up exactly as they want it.
  • Lack of omnipotence: Can God change his own essence/nature so that goodness becomes arbitrary?
  • Does God have to command Himself in order to observe such essence/nature?
    1. If God has to command Himself in order to observe such essence/nature, it is indistinguishable to determining goodness solely by God's fiat
    2. If God does not have to command Himself in order to observe His nature, then no proof has ever been presented[2] that it is impossible for human beings to observe such nature without God's command.
  • The problem that "how do we know God is good without going through God" is not solved. Suggesting that God made the human mind able to determine what is good still suffers the same problem in an indirect way.

On top these problems come the one of how theists can claim to know what their god would and would not want to do (after all, He works in mysterious ways, doesn't He?). The outcome of the biblical deity demanding Abraham to sacrifice his own son wasn't exactly predictable, just as these same scriptures showed that genocide isn't something this deity disdains either, trying to "reason on your own" what this god would see as good or evil is futile. This seems to indicate that the believer already has some personal moral code separate from religion, and is able to formulate an opinion of what actions would be "good or bad".

[edit] Authenticity of revelations

The underlying assumption is that God communicates through revelations, which, the assumptions made in the definition of God (specifically, existence of omnipotent beings) will make it difficult to validate the authenticity of revelations without using special pleading (That God's existence is unique in set of omnipotent beings, and God is omnibenevolent). See the derivation here.

[edit] Uniqueness of summum bonum

If it is good because God says so, then there exists a unique Summum bonum (the highest good), namely, approval by God[3]. Existence of unique highest good means one should sacrifice everything for it,[4] including but not limited to:

  • Consciousness (including consciousness to being approved by God)
  • Knowledge (Including knowledge of what will get God's approval, and knowledge of whether God actually exists)
  • Wisdom (Including the biblical definition of "Fear of God")
  • Free will (Refutes theodicy)

and the exchange should be taken at every opportunity regardless whether God approves any and all of those things, because (i) God approving those things by no means imply the individual possessing such things will be automatically approved/commented and (ii) the assumption is that God is capable of changing opinions[5] from time to time.

On the contrary, if "being conscious that oneself is being approved by God" is the summum bonum, then such consciousness may be merely an illusion due to the authenticity of revelation problem.

[edit] Interpretations of scriptures

If the source of ethical propositions come from the scriptures, an additional issue arises that concerns with how to interpret the scriptures correctly.
Christianity, for example, can have various interpretations on the same issue. Take killing people for example:

  • Story of Cain and Abel: Killing carries additional punishment on top of the one from the original sin.
  • The Ten Commandments is translated as saying either "Thou shalt not kill." or "Thou shalt not murder." But God actually commands killing, even genocide, elsewhere, and if the commandment is merely against "murder", then it requires a pre-existing legal code establishing just what "murder" is (and since "murder" is "killing that is not allowed", saying "murder is not allowed" is rather tautological).
  • God killing people, for some reason, is justified, every single time (by calling God "good" and "just").
  • Satan killing people, for some reason, does not come with corresponding punishments (perhaps due to being contracted out from God).
  • It is assumed that justified killings are performed for every instance of capital punishment for this list of crimes in the Old testament, which is rather convenient considering that appeal processes do not exist back then. Not that you will need the appeal process if you just send everyone to the afterlife and let the almighty sort them out given his omniscience. With his omnipotence He should be able to put you back to life in one way or another in case you are wrongfully convicted.
  • Biblical battles mandates that any non-virgin women and men in the settlements besieged by the Israelites are to be killed after a successful siege regardless whether they have participated in the battle.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2009/09/25/how-could-god-command-genocide-in-the-old-testament/
  2. Then comes the argument that everything is contingent on God such that no action can be performed without God as an ultimate cause.
  3. In case it isn't obvious enough, approval by God is the only good in this case. Therefore, it is the highest good.
  4. The derivation is similar to the hedonism problem in Plato's dialogue Philebus.
  5. If He isn't, there goes His omnipotence.
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