An Introduction to Religion and Ethics Eduqas AS Knowledge Organiser:
Theme 1A Divine Command Theory
Key words:
Divine Command revelation strong weak
Euthyphro dilemma omnipotence omnibenevolence modified
arbitrariness injustices Adams
benevolent nature Baggini another question
Key quotes:
“...if you obey my voice and keep my covenant,
you shall be my treasured possession out of all the
peoples.” (Exodus 19:5)
“There are some whose killing God orders, either
by law, or by an express command to a particular
person at a particular time.” (Augustine)
“If I am liable to be sent to hell for not doing what
God commands, I am thereby provided with a
corrupting...motive for serving the good.”
(A. McIntyre)
“God, if he exists, is the greatest relativist of them
all.” (J. Baggini)
Key arguments/debates
The main debate is that some philosophers see
morality as something external to God and there are
many different non-theistic explanations for morality.
Others would argue that if morality had a divine
source there would be similar moral systems between
religions.
Key questions
Does Adams solve the Euthyphro dilemma?
Are there better alternatives to Divine Command
theory?
Issues for analysis and evaluation:
■Divine Command theory is usually associated with
religious traditions that see morality as part of divine
revelation.
■God establishes a moral order as an omnipotent and
omnibenevolent being for the good of humanity.
■Divine Command Theory followers associate the sense of
‘right’ and ‘wrong’ as something given by God and directly
related to teachings of scripture.
■For example, the 10 commandments or the revelations
found in the Qur’an. From this, human beings are
directed to right behaviour.
■Strong Divine Command Theory sees all scripture as
detailing behaviour; weak Divine Command Theory
argues that God gives commands that determine the
boundaries and content of one’s decision making e.g. the
general moral duties extracted from teachings such as
the Sermon on the Mount.
■Other challenges have been raised including:
■There is too much variation within and between religions
to take Divine Command theory seriously.
■Divine Command Theory seemingly promotes injustices
against women, homosexuality and accepts the existence
of slavery.
■Jesus demonstrated the internal conflict between the
old laws and the new kingdom he was establishing
suggesting that some Divine Command theory rules can
be dispensed with or at best reinterpreted.
Key concepts:
■The traditional challenge to Divine Command theory is
Euthyphro dilemma.
■Plato’s historical character Socrates raises an important
question for the character Euthyphro about the
foundation of ‘goodness’.
■Is the holy approved by the Gods because it is holy or is
it holy because it is approved by the Gods? (holy refers to
ethical goodness).
■This has two important implications for the omnipotence
and omnibenevolence of God:
■1. If God commands something because it is morally right
then this means morality is independent of God and is
something God neither created nor controls. Therefore
God is not omnipotent.
■2. If something is good because God says it is then this
means that the ‘objectivity’ of morality is dependent
upon God. This means that it is arbitrary in theory since
God could will genocide to be good. The arbitrariness
problem begs the question of God’s omnibenevolence.
■The philosopher Robert Adams modified Divine
Command theory to meet the Euthyphro challenge,
specifically the second criticism.
■Adams proposed that goodness is part of God’s being and
as such cannot be arbitrary since goodness dictates that
God would never command anything beyond this.
■Julian Baggini responded by pointing out that this just
raises another question: is God’s nature good because it
is God’s or because it is good?
