Divine Command Theory Essay

“Examine the key features of the divine command theory and identify its weaknesses.” (21)

The view that moral rules are true by virtue of being commanded by God is called the divine command theory. It is a deontological theory and claims that sentences such as "charity is good" mean the same thing as sentences such as "God commands charity”. If you believe that moral actions are good or bad because they are commanded or forbidden, certain things must follow. First, if they had not been commanded or forbidden by God then they wouldn’t have been good or bad. Secondly, if God has said the opposite to what he did in fact say, then the things that would have been good are now bad and vice versa. If God said “Hate your neighbour”, then that indeed would be the Christian and Jewish code of behaviour. This makes the moral codes appear somewhat arbitrary and brings up Plato’s question of “Is x good because God loves it or does God love x because x is good?”

Plato was an absolutist and may have believed in a set of absolute moral rules which are true in themselves, and not by virtue of being commanded. If we believe that God and morals are separate from one another we have to ask the question what we make of God. This is due to the fact that God would defer to a higher set of absolutes which would take away from the classical theistic view that he is omnipotent. Therefore it would mean that there is no religious reason to be good and that god is not worth of worship. A biblical example of the divine command theory is where God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son as a test of his faith. Here we have a conflict between the religious and the ethical. Abraham does not kill Isaac, but if he did his community would have judged 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.

A problem with the divine command theory is that it is contingent upon the existence of one true religion. The moral codes of Islam, for example, may conflict with those of Christianity. Given that religion is by nature based on faith and not observable facts, there is no simple resolution to two religions having differing moral codes as they are both commanded by what each religion thinks is the true God. The theory also implies that humans are morally blind and have no direct knowledge of good and evil, so have to rely solely upon God's knowledge and guidance on such matters.

There is also the epistemological question of how one comes to know the will of God. Most religions point to their scriptures for answers, however, few if any religions claim to have texts detailing their deity's will concerning every possible situation. These gaps often concern situations that the writers of ancient religious scriptures couldn't have foreseen, such as those involving advanced technologies, especially biological and medical ones. Due to these problems, critics claim that one can never be sure if a person, including oneself, who claims to know God's will actually does know, or is lying, mistaken, or even mad.

“Comment on the view that the strengths of the divine command theory outweigh the weaknesses.” (9)

However, the divine command theory also has its strengths writers like William of Ockham argue that if God had commanded murder, then murder would indeed have been morally obligatory. Indeed, Ockham goes so far as to say that God could change the moral order at any time. Thus Ockham embraces divine command theory wholeheartedly; his view has been characterized as being that "God's command is good" is analytically true as god is omniscient and onmibenevolent and therefore commanding for the complete good of the world. Ockham can be thought of as saying: "God could have commanded us to commit murder, and then it would have been obligatory — but he didn't, so it isn't." The divine command theory also gives us the answer to where morals come from. If we believe that morals don't come from God then we would not have an answer to where they did come from. As the theory is also objective due to it being god’s commands then we can also use it to answer moral dilemmas for modern society, for example Euthanasia would be wrong due to the fact that murder is condemned by God.

According to many people the theory 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.

All of these arguments lead us to the fact that the divine command theory is not as universal and robust as many might believe it is. It should not be viewed as an anti-religious argument, rather simply to evoke deeper thought into the issues. Some of the greatest religious thinkers of all time such as St. Thomas Aquinas rejected the divine command theory because of the very logical dilemmas presented here. Therefore, in this sense, elements of religion certainly do and should borrow from moral concepts, but moral conceptions may exist separate from religion.