Divine Command Theory: Truest Moral Theory
10-17-14
Divine Command Theory I believe to have a definite moral theory we need a guide to follow. Moral Nihilism states that we cannot have any moral truths because they are a human invention. I believe this to be incorrect, because we did not invent them, but God did. Moral Nihilism states we also need something of objectivism or able to see and witness to have moral theories. I also believe this statement to be false because we do have something to see and hold, and this would be the bible. I believe Divine Command Theory to be the truest ethical theory because it has stood the test of time and comes from a higher power that is to ultimately judge what is “right” and what is “wrong.” Humans ourselves do not have the capacity to be the …show more content…
true creators of our moral principles because none of us our ‘perfect. Divine Command Theory is the belief that God is the ultimate power and created morality for men to live by.
We must do what is God’s will or belief. Divine Command Theory is correct for multiple reasons. The first and foremost is that God created everything, thus he has created our ethical rules along with it. God gave Moses the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai as a set of ethical principles to follow. For centuries since then people have used these commandments to guide them through life. Most of our laws are also based around rules made from the 10 commandments, such as ‘thou shall not kill’ and ‘thou shall not steal’. Divine command theory has proved that God exists in multiple ways but a large number of followers do so by faith and …show more content…
religion. Divine Command Theory rests on that God is three things. God is omniscient, thus he is all-knowing. Since God is omniscient, he is the only one who has the knowledge to come up with correct moral theories. Us as humans may not have to capacity to correctly know what is right or wrong with out God guiding us. God is Omnipotent, thus he is all-powerful. God created the universe, us, everything. He also created freewill, giving us the power to do as we chose. Although we may have the option to do the wrong thing, we should follow God’s path he has laid for us. Since God is Omnipotent, only he has the power to create our ethical principles. Lastly, God is Omnibenevolent, thus he is all-good. Since only God is the only form of all good in the universe he is the only one who can determine what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Humans cannot be perfect, we may have our own self-interest we are trying to please, thus we are not capable of determining ourselves what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
One major focus of Divine Command theory is the story of Abraham and being told to kill Isaac. Abraham is told to climb and mountain and ties his son Isaac to a rock. Abraham is then supposed to plunge a knife through Isaacs’s chest proving his faith to God. At the last second before Abraham stabs Isaac God appears and tells him he has proved his faith and not to kill his son. The argument is God is making an exception for Abraham to commit murder. Thomas Aquinas addresses this argument by stating “When Abraham consented to slay his son, he did not consent to murder, because his son was due to be slain by the command of God, who is Lord of life and death: for He it is who inflicts the punishment of death on all men, both godly and ungodly, on account of the sin of our first parent, and if a man be the executor of that sentence by Divine authority, he will be no murderer anymore then God would be” (Driver, 2006, pg. 24). What Tomas Aquinas is stating that since God commanded Abraham to murder his son, he is ethically fine to do so. God is the creator of our ethical principles and thus since God command Abraham to kill Isaac he would not be a murderer. There is also the “Doxastic” and “Volunturist” way of looking at Divine Command theory. Volutaristy is where morality is dependent on Gods will and Doxastic is where morality depends on what God believes is right or wrong. With the Doxastic approach God is thought of to be the perfect observer since he is impartial to all people, rational, and has full information (Driver, 2006, pg. 27). He is the ultimate decision maker, since he has all the knowledge, if God believes something to be wrong, then is must be wrong. With the doxastic approach what God believes is what morality is.
Another side of Divine Command Theory is the natural law theory. There are different versions to the natural law theory. One Thomas Aquinas held was “This theory is not a variation of divine command theory. It does not hold that God’s will is necessary and sufficient to make a particular action right or wrong” (Driver, 2006, pg. 28). Another version of the theory is where God created the universe that his morality be reveled to us in His creation (Driver, 2006, pg. 28). The idea is that there are rules for morality just as much as there are rules for physicals. God placed out these rules for us in nature so that we may have access to them. We as humans are supposed to discover these rules by studying nature and rational reflection. Within this theory comes the argument of “natural” versus “unnatural.” Things that are natural are considered good and things that are unnatural are considered bad. This view had been used to make certain things such as birth control seem immoral since it was “unnatural.”
The first and major argument I will address will be is there even a God? Of course this would be the biggest contribution to the validity of command theory because if someone were to prove there is no God, then there would be no Divine Command theory. One way to prove the existence of god is through the existence of nature. Our world has so much detail into staying stable that my mind can’t even conceive it. Just the human body how it functions down to the cell must have been created by a far more intelligent mind then anyone one earth. This brings me to the teleological argument. The teleological argument proves God’s existence through how the universe works so precisely.
“P1: The harmony of nature.
P2: The necessity of creative intelligence.
Therefore, the universe is the product of a creative intelligent mind” (Divine Command Theory. PP 9.) There are also arguments proving the existence of numbers. We cannot actually see 3+2=5, we can take 3 objects and then 2 and count 5 but we cannot actually prove or disprove the numbers. Thus this works similarly with God.
Another theory proving the existence of God is the Ontological Argument created by St. Anslem. The ontological argument is that God is the greatest being. With the ontological argument St. Anslem refers to God as Alpha, but doesn’t exist, and a Beta, which is identical, that does exist. “G: What exists is greater than what doesn’t exist.
So: Beta is greater than Alpha.
Alpha is greater than all other beings.
Alpha is greater than Beta. So: Beta is not greater than Alpha.
Our assumption that Alpha doesn’t exist has led to a contradiction.
So: Alpha does exist.
Q.E.D. “ (Metaphysics, Pg. 312)
Through this argument they are proving the existence of God by showing nothing that is objective is greater then Alpha, thus proving Alpha. Descartes worked on this argument and thought of it more as a triangle and geometry. He used the idea of how with a triangle all the angles must add up to two 90 degree angles, and how a circle all sides are the same distance from the center, to create the perfect being. By the demonstration of Geometry he proved the existence of God. His idea differs from St. Anselems because Descartes work more with the idea with perfection instead of greatness.
When defending Divine Command Theory the problem of evil tends to come up. The argument is that if God is all good why does he allow bad things to happen? “Argument Against God: The Problem of Evil.
1. There is evil in the world (hard to deny, slavery, the Holocaust, etc.)
2. God is omniscient (all-knowing). (God knows about the evil)
3. God is omnipotent (all-powerful). (God has the power to stop the evil)
4. God is Omnibenevolent (all-good). (God is obligated to stop the evil).
Contradiction! One of the above premises must be false” (Divine Command Theory. PP 11). With the problem of evil we must remember that God gave us freewill. With freewill we are able to make our own choices whether they are right or wrong. For God to act upon our freewill would be the more morally wrong act. “If a world without both freedom and suffering would be worse than a world with both of them, then the existence of suffering caused by freedom would be consistent with God’s being perfectly good” (Metaphysics. Pg. 336). Thus even though there may be suffering and horrible things people do in the world it is God’s gift to us to have freewill. Others also may make the argument that there are things that are bad in the world that have nothing to do with freewill. Some of these things may be a horrible genetic disease, hurricanes taking out entire towns, or epidemics breaking out in countries. Philosopher John Hick addresses this point by stating that are made better through suffering and this also gives us opportunity to express kindness to those in need. “Hick argues, in a world without suffering there would be ‘no need for the virtues of self-sacrifice, care for others, devotion to the public good, courage, perseverance, skill, or honesty’” (Metaphysics. Pg. 337). Without suffering there would be no proving ones self or character building. We need suffering to have soul making. Socrates raises one major point with the Euthyphro Problem. The Euthyphro problem is supposing that God is making murder obligatory such as in the case with Abraham and Isaac. Also the example of if supposedly said it was okay to torture kittens is okay, then it would be permissible to torture kittens is brought up by Driver in Ethics The Fundamentals. With the example of Abraham and Isaac I fall on the belief that God was truly only testing Abraham and was never actually going to allow him to kill his son. I think this was a true test of his faithfulness. But I am a fallible person so I my belief very well could be wrong. On the case of torturing kittens, it should be brought up that God is Omnibenevolent. Since God is Omnibenevolent he would not command that torturing kittens is permissible. But once again I am a fallible person and my interpretation could be wrong.
When defending Divine Command theory it is challenging to remain rational, because there is a lot of faith involved in believing in something no one has ever seen or witnessed in the last several centuries. We base all we know to be morally right within a book that has been wrote by many different men a long time ago. It is also at times challenging to remember that we are all fallible and someone could very well come up with refutable evidence that our entire reality really was made by an accidental “Bang” in the universe. But at this time these are still all hypothesis and I remain strong in my belief that God created the earth and the universe and thus our moral principles. Divine Command theory is the ultimately correct theory because it is the only theory which moral principles are not made by men.
The existent of God is proven through the existence of nature, the teleological argument, the ontological argument by St. Anslem, and geometry with Descartes. To have the most morally correct principles this cannot be made by man who is subject to his own self-interests and contingencies, therefore our principles must be made by God who is morally perfect. God created the earth and placed us on it thus we are created to fulfill his will. Through this Divine command theory is the ultimate theory and should be the one we
follow.
References
Hill, C. Divine Command Theory [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from Online Web site: https://blackboard.unomaha.edu/
Driver, J. (2006). Ethics the Fundamentals. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Metaphysics. Retrieved from Online Web site: https://blackboard.unomaha.edu/
Divine Command Theory I believe to have a definite moral theory we need a guide to follow. Moral Nihilism states that we cannot have any moral truths because they are a human invention. I believe this to be incorrect, because we did not invent them, but God did. Moral Nihilism states we also need something of objectivism or able to see and witness to have moral theories. I also believe this statement to be false because we do have something to see and hold, and this would be the bible. I believe Divine Command Theory to be the truest ethical theory because it has stood the test of time and comes from a higher power that is to ultimately judge what is “right” and what is “wrong.” Humans ourselves do not have the capacity to be the …show more content…
true creators of our moral principles because none of us our ‘perfect. Divine Command Theory is the belief that God is the ultimate power and created morality for men to live by.
We must do what is God’s will or belief. Divine Command Theory is correct for multiple reasons. The first and foremost is that God created everything, thus he has created our ethical rules along with it. God gave Moses the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai as a set of ethical principles to follow. For centuries since then people have used these commandments to guide them through life. Most of our laws are also based around rules made from the 10 commandments, such as ‘thou shall not kill’ and ‘thou shall not steal’. Divine command theory has proved that God exists in multiple ways but a large number of followers do so by faith and …show more content…
religion. Divine Command Theory rests on that God is three things. God is omniscient, thus he is all-knowing. Since God is omniscient, he is the only one who has the knowledge to come up with correct moral theories. Us as humans may not have to capacity to correctly know what is right or wrong with out God guiding us. God is Omnipotent, thus he is all-powerful. God created the universe, us, everything. He also created freewill, giving us the power to do as we chose. Although we may have the option to do the wrong thing, we should follow God’s path he has laid for us. Since God is Omnipotent, only he has the power to create our ethical principles. Lastly, God is Omnibenevolent, thus he is all-good. Since only God is the only form of all good in the universe he is the only one who can determine what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Humans cannot be perfect, we may have our own self-interest we are trying to please, thus we are not capable of determining ourselves what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
One major focus of Divine Command theory is the story of Abraham and being told to kill Isaac. Abraham is told to climb and mountain and ties his son Isaac to a rock. Abraham is then supposed to plunge a knife through Isaacs’s chest proving his faith to God. At the last second before Abraham stabs Isaac God appears and tells him he has proved his faith and not to kill his son. The argument is God is making an exception for Abraham to commit murder. Thomas Aquinas addresses this argument by stating “When Abraham consented to slay his son, he did not consent to murder, because his son was due to be slain by the command of God, who is Lord of life and death: for He it is who inflicts the punishment of death on all men, both godly and ungodly, on account of the sin of our first parent, and if a man be the executor of that sentence by Divine authority, he will be no murderer anymore then God would be” (Driver, 2006, pg. 24). What Tomas Aquinas is stating that since God commanded Abraham to murder his son, he is ethically fine to do so. God is the creator of our ethical principles and thus since God command Abraham to kill Isaac he would not be a murderer. There is also the “Doxastic” and “Volunturist” way of looking at Divine Command theory. Volutaristy is where morality is dependent on Gods will and Doxastic is where morality depends on what God believes is right or wrong. With the Doxastic approach God is thought of to be the perfect observer since he is impartial to all people, rational, and has full information (Driver, 2006, pg. 27). He is the ultimate decision maker, since he has all the knowledge, if God believes something to be wrong, then is must be wrong. With the doxastic approach what God believes is what morality is.
Another side of Divine Command Theory is the natural law theory. There are different versions to the natural law theory. One Thomas Aquinas held was “This theory is not a variation of divine command theory. It does not hold that God’s will is necessary and sufficient to make a particular action right or wrong” (Driver, 2006, pg. 28). Another version of the theory is where God created the universe that his morality be reveled to us in His creation (Driver, 2006, pg. 28). The idea is that there are rules for morality just as much as there are rules for physicals. God placed out these rules for us in nature so that we may have access to them. We as humans are supposed to discover these rules by studying nature and rational reflection. Within this theory comes the argument of “natural” versus “unnatural.” Things that are natural are considered good and things that are unnatural are considered bad. This view had been used to make certain things such as birth control seem immoral since it was “unnatural.”
The first and major argument I will address will be is there even a God? Of course this would be the biggest contribution to the validity of command theory because if someone were to prove there is no God, then there would be no Divine Command theory. One way to prove the existence of god is through the existence of nature. Our world has so much detail into staying stable that my mind can’t even conceive it. Just the human body how it functions down to the cell must have been created by a far more intelligent mind then anyone one earth. This brings me to the teleological argument. The teleological argument proves God’s existence through how the universe works so precisely.
“P1: The harmony of nature.
P2: The necessity of creative intelligence.
Therefore, the universe is the product of a creative intelligent mind” (Divine Command Theory. PP 9.) There are also arguments proving the existence of numbers. We cannot actually see 3+2=5, we can take 3 objects and then 2 and count 5 but we cannot actually prove or disprove the numbers. Thus this works similarly with God.
Another theory proving the existence of God is the Ontological Argument created by St. Anslem. The ontological argument is that God is the greatest being. With the ontological argument St. Anslem refers to God as Alpha, but doesn’t exist, and a Beta, which is identical, that does exist. “G: What exists is greater than what doesn’t exist.
So: Beta is greater than Alpha.
Alpha is greater than all other beings.
Alpha is greater than Beta. So: Beta is not greater than Alpha.
Our assumption that Alpha doesn’t exist has led to a contradiction.
So: Alpha does exist.
Q.E.D. “ (Metaphysics, Pg. 312)
Through this argument they are proving the existence of God by showing nothing that is objective is greater then Alpha, thus proving Alpha. Descartes worked on this argument and thought of it more as a triangle and geometry. He used the idea of how with a triangle all the angles must add up to two 90 degree angles, and how a circle all sides are the same distance from the center, to create the perfect being. By the demonstration of Geometry he proved the existence of God. His idea differs from St. Anselems because Descartes work more with the idea with perfection instead of greatness.
When defending Divine Command Theory the problem of evil tends to come up. The argument is that if God is all good why does he allow bad things to happen? “Argument Against God: The Problem of Evil.
1. There is evil in the world (hard to deny, slavery, the Holocaust, etc.)
2. God is omniscient (all-knowing). (God knows about the evil)
3. God is omnipotent (all-powerful). (God has the power to stop the evil)
4. God is Omnibenevolent (all-good). (God is obligated to stop the evil).
Contradiction! One of the above premises must be false” (Divine Command Theory. PP 11). With the problem of evil we must remember that God gave us freewill. With freewill we are able to make our own choices whether they are right or wrong. For God to act upon our freewill would be the more morally wrong act. “If a world without both freedom and suffering would be worse than a world with both of them, then the existence of suffering caused by freedom would be consistent with God’s being perfectly good” (Metaphysics. Pg. 336). Thus even though there may be suffering and horrible things people do in the world it is God’s gift to us to have freewill. Others also may make the argument that there are things that are bad in the world that have nothing to do with freewill. Some of these things may be a horrible genetic disease, hurricanes taking out entire towns, or epidemics breaking out in countries. Philosopher John Hick addresses this point by stating that are made better through suffering and this also gives us opportunity to express kindness to those in need. “Hick argues, in a world without suffering there would be ‘no need for the virtues of self-sacrifice, care for others, devotion to the public good, courage, perseverance, skill, or honesty’” (Metaphysics. Pg. 337). Without suffering there would be no proving ones self or character building. We need suffering to have soul making. Socrates raises one major point with the Euthyphro Problem. The Euthyphro problem is supposing that God is making murder obligatory such as in the case with Abraham and Isaac. Also the example of if supposedly said it was okay to torture kittens is okay, then it would be permissible to torture kittens is brought up by Driver in Ethics The Fundamentals. With the example of Abraham and Isaac I fall on the belief that God was truly only testing Abraham and was never actually going to allow him to kill his son. I think this was a true test of his faithfulness. But I am a fallible person so I my belief very well could be wrong. On the case of torturing kittens, it should be brought up that God is Omnibenevolent. Since God is Omnibenevolent he would not command that torturing kittens is permissible. But once again I am a fallible person and my interpretation could be wrong.
When defending Divine Command theory it is challenging to remain rational, because there is a lot of faith involved in believing in something no one has ever seen or witnessed in the last several centuries. We base all we know to be morally right within a book that has been wrote by many different men a long time ago. It is also at times challenging to remember that we are all fallible and someone could very well come up with refutable evidence that our entire reality really was made by an accidental “Bang” in the universe. But at this time these are still all hypothesis and I remain strong in my belief that God created the earth and the universe and thus our moral principles. Divine Command theory is the ultimately correct theory because it is the only theory which moral principles are not made by men.
The existent of God is proven through the existence of nature, the teleological argument, the ontological argument by St. Anslem, and geometry with Descartes. To have the most morally correct principles this cannot be made by man who is subject to his own self-interests and contingencies, therefore our principles must be made by God who is morally perfect. God created the earth and placed us on it thus we are created to fulfill his will. Through this Divine command theory is the ultimate theory and should be the one we
follow.
References
Hill, C. Divine Command Theory [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from Online Web site: https://blackboard.unomaha.edu/
Driver, J. (2006). Ethics the Fundamentals. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Metaphysics. Retrieved from Online Web site: https://blackboard.unomaha.edu/