Divine Command Theory

Speaking of natural law and grounding it in a metaphysical, naturalistic point of view, I want to represent the problem I presented yesterday in class, namely "The Euthyphro Problem." This is also titled the Divine Command Theory.

Suppose someone asks you the following:

(1) Does God will something because it is good?

OR

(2) Is something good because God will it?

Suppose you say the first answer is correct and you hold that morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good. If this is true, then you face the independence problem, that is, if morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good, then they must be morally good prior to and so independently of God’s willing them. This quote from a philosophy website may explicate what I am trying to say here:

"If morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good, then it seems that they must be morally good prior to God’s willing them, otherwise God would not will them. If morally good acts are morally good prior to God’s willing them, though, then they must be morally good independent of God’s willing them. For if morally good acts are morally good prior to God’s willing them then God’s willing them is not a necessary condition for their being morally good. Rather, it is possible at least for acts to be morally good without their being willed by God."

In other words, if you choose the first answer as correct, then you are saying God has to appeal to something "higher" than himself, some type of goodness perhaps, when he makes judgments. This means God is not the highest being or entity.

Say, however, you choose the second answer as right. Here you face equally bad consequences. To provide another quote, this summarizes the problem with that selection:

"If the theist gives the second answer to the Euthyphro dilemma, holding that morally good acts are morally good because they are willed by God, then he faces the arbitrariness problem, the emptiness problem, and the problem of abhorrent commands.

The arbitrariness problem is the problem that divine command theory appears to base morality on mere whims of God. If divine command theory is true, it seems, then God’s commands can neither be informed nor sanctioned by morality. How, though, can such morally arbitrary commands be the foundation of morality?

The emptiness problem is that on the divine command analysis of moral goodness, statements like “God is good” and “God’s commands are good” are rendered empty tautologies: “God acts in accordance with his commands” and “God’s commands are in accordance with his commands”.

The problem of abhorrent commands is that divine command theory appears to entail that if God were to command abhorrent acts—malicious deception, wanton cruelty, etc.—those acts would become morally good."


Perhaps all this is a play on words, but I think it is interesting to see what conflicts arise if you put God as the head of all creation/law.