Relativism and Divine Commands

It's going to be difficult to be a relativist if you think there is a God who gives binding commandments. If relativism is true, then different individuals or groups think of something as right or wrong, and if so, there is no place for saying that they are really wrong. It is just your opinion or your group's opinion against someone else's opinion. But what if someone in your moral community has the status of God? Could an adulterer say to God "Yes, you say adultery is wrong, but I don't see anything wrong with it myself. Who's to say which of us is right about adultery?" (It's too bad you are not here to hear me give this last statement with my Bill Clinton voice). 

Because I Said So: The Straw Man of Theological Voluntarism

Is the essence of Christian ethics, in the area of sexuality as elsewhere, summed up in the familiar parental phrase "Because I said so?" A Catholic writing in the Stanford Review thinks not.

The Emptiness Objection

This is an article on divine command theory. I am wondering what versions of the divine command theory would be able to surmount this objection: namely, that if we define goodness in terms of God's commands, or even of God's nature, then "God is good" becomes non-informative. What we would mean would be "God obeys his own commands (does he give himself any?), or "God acts in accordance with his nature," which of course would be true if someone whose motivations with respect to all created beings were completely destructive.

Additionally, if any particular action is good only because God commands it, then God serves as the ultimate arbiter of what is morally right and what is morally wrong. An issue then arises as to whether the sentence "God is good" has any meaning in a world where God determines what is good. This criticism can be referred to as the Emptiness Objection. For example, DCT proponents state that "God is good," while the DCT itself claims that "Good is whatever God commands." The Emptiness Objection transposes these statements and claims that saying "God is good" is the same as saying "God is whatever God commands." The argument is then made that this statement is empty, trivial or entirely without meaning. Because adherents of the DCT strongly believe that the concepts "God is good" and "good is whatever God commands" have meaning, then any suggestion that these belief statements are meaningless tautologies undermines a core principle of the DCT.

A Prosblogion entry on whether divine command theory is false or circular

Reply to Pike on God and Morality in Calvinism

Peter Pike claims that I haven't done the job of defining goodness. Let's have a look at his own attempt to do so.

1. God exists with certain attributes that make up His nature.
2. God's nature determines how He acts, what He wills, etc.
3. God gives general commands to us, based on His nature.
4. God is immutable.
5. Logically, then, God's general commands will not change. They are what they are.

I argue that for us good is doing what God commands us to do, and evil is not doing so (including acts of comission or omission; that is, doing what you shouldn't do or NOT doing what you should do are both evil).That means we only have to concern ourselves with the commands of God.

At the risk of becoming tiresome, I would have to ask what definition of God we are working with here? If God is a being omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good, then but something is good if it is in accordance with the commands of God, we have a problem.

In my view moral obligation is created by the fact that God creates us with an intended purpose which is identical to our good, in that we as humans flourish if we fulfill that purpose. Further, God acts in a way that is consistent with the pursuit of that good for all his creatures. Our good is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, evil is what gets in the way of that.

On Calvinist theory there is a large gap between what makes God's character good, and what makes us good, a gap that cannot be explained in terms of a difference in God's wisdom or knowledge. A native may believe that men in white coats bearing long needles are mean to little kids because he lacks knowledge that the men in the white coats possess, but the standard of goodness for natives and for missionary doctors is the same. Both the native and the doctor want the child to be well, and for the child not to suffer, but they have different ideas as to how to go about it. Piper seems concerned to respond to the charge that God's interest in his glory makes him selfish, since selfishness is a vice amongst humans. If I were to read on someone's tombstone "He pursued his own glory single-mindedly throughout his life" I don't think I would think I was looking at the grave of someone I wish I had known. Glory hogs in basketball don't help the team win.

It seems to me that when you say God gives commands based on his nature, it is pretty clear that we don't have obligations to reflect all aspects of God's moral nature in our own conduct. We might be rightly wrathful when someone we love is raped, but we aren't supposed to be looking for or artifically creating opportunities for us to exercise our attribute of being wrathful at evil, (maybe by creating androids who commit crimes so that we can punish them for those crimes) as if there was some aspect of us that is going to go unfulfilled if we are fortunate enough never to be in a position where that sort of wrath is called for. So while divine commands are supposed to be based on the divine nature, the kind of people we are commanded to be fails to fully reflect the character of God, and there are actions on the part of God which are deemed right which, if parallel actions are performed by humans, they would contravene the commands of God.

C. S. Lewis's critique of the raw divine command theory

I asked what refutation might be available for what I called the raw divine command theory. This critique, for Lewis's A Grief Observed, is the closest I've seen to a refutation.

And so what? This, for all practical (and speculative) purposes
sponges God off the slate. The word good, as applied to him, becomes
meaningless: like abracadabra. We have no motive for obeying Him.
Not even fear. It is true that we have His threats and promises. But why
should we believe them? If cruelty is from His point of view “good,”
telling lies may be “good” too. Even if they are true, what then? If His
ideas of good are so very different from ours, what He calls “Heaven”
might well be what we should call Hell, and vice versa. Finally, if reality
at its very root is so meaningless to us—or, putting it the other way
round, if we are such total imbeciles—what is the point of trying to
think either about God or about anything else? The knot comes undone
when you try to pull it tight.

The Raw, Naked, Divine Command Theory

Here is a moral theory.

Good = In accordance with the will of the most powerful being.

Why is infanticide wrong for humans? Because the most powerful being forbids it.

Why is the infanticide of the Amalekites justified? Because the most powerful being commanded it.

Why is God justified in predestining people for hell? Because he is the most powerful being.

Why are humans not justified in making the lives of others a living hell? Because the most powerful being has commanded them not to do it.

I find this position morally repugnant, of course. But is there an actual refutation available?

Do all Christians accept divine command theory?

The textbook mentions, and criticizes divine command morality on p. 57. It says "The Divine Command Theory states that moraltiy is based not on the consequences of actions or rules, not upon self-interest or other-interestedness, but rather upon something "higher" than these mere mundne events of the imperfect human or natural worlds. It is based upon the existence of an all-good being or beings who are supernatural and who have communicated to human beings what they should and should not do in a moral sesne. In order to be moral, then, human beings must follow the commands and prohibitions of such a being or beings to the letter without concerning themselves with consequences, self-interest, or anything else."
Now obviously no one is going to follow this unless they believe in a supernatural being like God. But suppose you did. God by definition is supposed to be omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. Given that definition, and given the fact that this being has given a commandment, is it possible that you could say "Yes yes I know. God has commanded X, but I ought to do not-X instead."
Does this mean that all religious believers who think that God has given commandments are, to some extent, committed to the Divine Command Theory?

The Divine Command Theory

From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.