Divine command theory, also called theological voluntarism, is a meta-ethical theory holding that an action's moral goodness is equivalent to whether it is commanded by God, so that what is moral is determined by God's commands and a person is moral by following them. Figures including Saint Augustine, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham and Søren Kierkegaard have advanced versions of the theory historically, while more recent philosophers such as Robert Merrihew Adams have proposed modified versions tying morality to human conceptions of right and wrong grounded in God's omnibenevolence. The theory faces the Euthyphro dilemma, first posed by Plato, which asks whether an act is good because God commands it or whether God commands it because it is already good, a dilemma that threatens either to make morality arbitrary or to make God irrelevant to it; critics have also argued that the theory would make morality unknowable to atheists and agnostics and have questioned its compatibility with God's omnibenevolence, moral autonomy and religious pluralism, though defenders have responded to each of these challenges.
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Position KindSourced to the subject's own account Origin YearSourced to the subject's own account FAQs
What is the main objection to divine command theory?
Critics call it the arbitrariness objection: if an act is right only because God commands it, morality would become arbitrary, and cruelty would be obligatory were God to command it.
The most-discussed objection traces to Plato's Euthyphro dilemma: is an act pious because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is pious? Applied to divine command theory, critics hold that if God commands an action because it is already right, then rightness does not depend on God after all; but if an action is right only because God commands it, then, in the IEP's own words, "if an act is morally right because God commands it, then morality becomes arbitrary" and God could in principle command cruelty and make it obligatory. A related line, the omnibenevolence objection raised by Leibniz, argues that calling God's own commands "good" becomes empty on this theory, since God doing what he is obligated to do would just mean God doing what he commands himself to do.
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Source Divine command theory (Wikipedia)
In Branch
Source Divine command theory (Wikipedia)
Open Questions
Source Divine command theory (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Divine command theory (Wikipedia)
WikipediaDivine command theory (Wikipedia), section General form
Philosophers including St Augustine (354-430), Duns Scotus (c. 1265-1308), William of Ockham (c. 1287-1347), and John Calvin (1509-1564) have presented various forms of divine command theory.
Lead
Divine command theory (also known as theological voluntarism) is a meta-ethical theory which proposes that an action's status as morally good is equivalent to whether it is commanded by God.
Associated With: William of Ockham, Article text
been presented: historically, figures including Saint Augustine, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham and Søren Kierkegaard have presented various versions of divine command theory; more recently, Robert
View the Source Divine Command Theory (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyDivine Command Theory (IEP), introductionQuote, Divine Command Theory (IEP), introduction
Roughly, Divine Command Theory is the view that morality is somehow dependent upon God, and that moral obligation consists in obedience to Gods commands.
Open Questions (1 open question)
When Did Divine Command Theory Originate?
Wikipedia's own account of the theory names Augustine (354-430), Duns Scotus (c. 1265-1308), William of Ockham (c. 1287-1347) and John Calvin (1509-1564) as presenting various forms of the position across more than a millennium, with no single founding text or date named anywhere in the article; this atlas records no origin-year fact rather than assign a false precise date.
What would resolve this A specialist historiographical judgment on whether Divine Command Theory names one continuous position traceable to a first articulation, or a family of related positions across many eras and traditions that should not share a single origin date at all.
History of philosophy (dating attribution)Divine command theory (Wikipedia)
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Description
The omnibenevolence objection: if what it means for an action to be morally required is that God commands it, then God doing what he is obligated to do is equivalent to God doing what he commands himself to do, which the objection holds is incoherent, and empties the claim that God is good of any real content. Raised by Leibniz and discussed since by Quinn, Wierenga, Alston and Wainwright.
A dissenting reading, from Gottfried Wilhelm LeibnizDivine Command Theory (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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