Do you have any purely logical objections to Divine Command Theory?

Anti-Climacus said:

If you've been following this discussion closely, you should have seen multiple reasons as to why I dismiss it, as so many people here have simply reiterated the old arguments against the idea that "the pious is pious only because it is loved by the gods." These simply cannot contend with the apophatic theology of classical theism, which is understandable, because Plato was not dealing with classical theism; he was dealing with Ancient Greek polytheism. Euthyphro is an old, solved problem which doesn't demand my interaction, and the reformulation of the dilemma which applies it to classical theism is naturally clumsy; many have pointed this out.

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Then you do not understand the implications of variants of the euthyphro dilemma.

I am not attacking the notion that morality is dependent on a god but that it necessarily follows that a god can only command what is good. You haven't addressed this and i am beginning to think you won't.

Anti-Climacus said:

You're simply describing how we conceive of God, whereas classical theism affirms that he transcends all descriptions we could apply to him. You misunderstand what the divine attributes actually signify in the context of classical theism as opposed to that of theistic personalism. As the philosopher David Bentley Hart says, citing several primary religious texts to this effect, 'When we speak of the goodness or wisdom of God, for instance, we cannot imagine that he is good or wise in the same manner as a finite person.' Moreover, 'God, as the source of all being, is, properly speaking, not Himself a being' (The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, p. 107, 125). So, it is not as if he is a mere being, just a better being than us; numerous thinkers have underscored this point.

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Words fail to properly describe even finite beings. But they are still used as pointers. Although it is true that God is treated as transcendental, it is false to say that God's goodness and wisdom are not interpreted as being in any way resembling of human goodness and wisdom. Let me quote Anselm on this: "What good thing is lacking to the Supreme Good, whereon depends the being of every good thing beside? ". God's goodness goes beyond humans' but it is not an entirely different attribute.

He has the epistemic authority to make such decrees, much more so than anyone or anything else, and the believer places his trust in that epistemic authority, communicated by means of revelation, to acquire divine knowledge. He is not subject to passions such as desire and emotion, so that is irrelevant. As for nature, what I meant was a naturalistic approach to morality, i.e., Sam Harris's argument in The Moral Landscape, not God's nature or our nature, i.e. ontology; that likewise fails.

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This is a major misunderstand. In DCT, God has the metaphysical authority to decree what is right and what is wrong. Not merely the epistemic authority. It is not that God knows what is right, he has sovereignty over what is right. This is why saying that it is arbitrary carries a lot of weight. God could literally order 'rape' to be moral and it would be. If that's the case, then why not pick someone, anyone, and treat that person as if it had the same power ? What difference would it make ?

Koldo said:

Words fail to properly describe even finite beings. But they are still used as pointers. Although it is true that God is treated as transcendental, it is false to say that God's goodness and wisdom are not interpreted as being in any way resembling of human goodness and wisdom. Let me quote Anselm on this: "What good thing is lacking to the Supreme Good, whereon depends the being of every good thing beside? ". God's goodness goes beyond humans' but it is not an entirely different attribute.

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Nowhere in the text of the Proslogion does it imply your interpretation. Anselm was in fact an apophaticist and this is central to his ontological proof. Read the fifteenth chapter where he says, 'O Lord, not only are You that than which a greater cannot be thought, but You are also something greater than can be thought. For since there can be thought to exist something of this kind, if You were not this then something greater than You could be thought—which is impossible.' You are taking this specific cataphatic statement dealing with God's 'goodness' as representative of the whole of Anselm's system while ignoring the essential complement to this in his apophaticism. If we say, 'God is good,' this is merely a relative description of the nature of God, whereas we know that he transcends our conception of good entirely. Anselm's apophaticism is highlighted in his very definition of God, 'that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived,' which does not say what God is; it merely says what he is not. As Anselm says in his Monologion, 'this spirit exists in its own wonderfully unique and uniquely wonderful way.' The divine names and qualities which we attribute to God are only predicable of his essence in an apparent sense:

So Anselm clearly does not think the words 'good,' 'wise,' etc. properly describe God as he merits. He is 'good' in his own 'wonderfully unique and uniquely wonderful way.'

Koldo said:

This is a major misunderstand. In DCT, God has the metaphysical authority to decree what is right and what is wrong. Not merely the epistemic authority. It is not that God knows what is right, he has sovereignty over what is right. This is why saying that it is arbitrary carries a lot of weight. God could literally order 'rape' to be moral and it would be. If that's the case, then why not pick someone, anyone, and treat that person as if it had the same power ? What difference would it make ?

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I never denied that. He has both, but my emphasis was on his position as the sole epistemic authority on moral facts as their author and the only one in the position to possess independent knowledge of them. His epistemic authority is directly related to his metaphysical authority as the author of the universe. As Hart says, 'God's knowledge of something created is not something separate from his eternal act of creating that thing' (The Experience of God, p. 137). In his creative act, he at once has both knowledge of the Good and sovereignty over it. This is the difference between God and anyone else as a judge of morality.

Anti-Climacus said:

Nowhere in the text of the Proslogion does it imply your interpretation. Anselm was in fact an apophaticist and this is central to his ontological proof. Read the fifteenth chapter where he says, 'O Lord, not only are You that than which a greater cannot be thought, but You are also something greater than can be thought. For since there can be thought to exist something of this kind, if You were not this then something greater than You could be thought—which is impossible.' You are taking this specific cataphatic statement dealing with God's 'goodness' as representative of the whole of Anselm's system while ignoring the essential complement to this in his apophaticism. If we say, 'God is good,' this is merely a relative description of the nature of God, whereas we know that he transcends our conception of good entirely. Anselm's apophaticism is highlighted in his very definition of God, 'that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived,' which does not say what God is; it merely says what he is not. As Anselm says in his Monologion, 'this spirit exists in its own wonderfully unique and uniquely wonderful way.' The divine names and qualities which we attribute to God are only predicable of his essence in an apparent sense:

'The names, then, that are apparently predicable of the supreme nature, merely gesture towards it rather than pinpoint it. They signify via some sort of similarity, not through what is proper (...) And how insubstantial are these signifyings through which my mind has to work! The name "wisdom" does not suffice to show me that through which all things were made from nothing, and through which all things are preserved from returning to nothing. The name "essence" cannot express that which is far above (through its unique loftiness) and beyond (through what is proper to its nature) all things. Conclusion: the supreme nature is ineffable, because it simply cannot be made known as it is by means of words.'
​

So Anselm clearly does not think the words 'good,' 'wise,' etc. properly describe God as he merits. He is 'good' in his own 'wonderfully unique and uniquely wonderful way.'

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I don't understand the nature of your objection. I have began my last post by saying: Words fail to properly describe even finite beings.

How can they then serve as perfect descriptions for the ground of all being ?

However...
You literally just have to read the next part in Anselm's work to understand what I am saying: "Thou therefore art righteous, true, blessed, and hast all attributes which it is better to have than to be without; for it is better to be righteous than not righteous, and blessed than not blessed."

Notice how he has no qualms with using multiple adjectives to describe God even if they are not perfect.

"But since it is better to have perception or to have omnipotence, to be pitiful or to be without passions, than not to have these attributes;"

He then continues by stating qualities that God does possess, once again.

"how hast Thou perception, if Thou art not a body? or omnipotence, if Thou canst not do everything? or how art Thou at one and the same time pitiful and without passions? For if only bodily things have perception, since the senses with which we perceive belong and attach to the body; how canst Thou have perception, since Thou art not a body but the Supreme Spirit, which is higher than a body can be? But if perception is only knowledge or a means towards knowledge; since he who perceives, has knowledge thereby, according to the special character of the senses, by sight of colours, by taste of savours and so forth: then whatsoever has knowledge in whatsoever manner may be said without impropriety in some sense to perceive. Therefore, O Lord, although Thou art not a body, yet of a truth Thou hast in this sense perception in the highest degree, since Thou knowest all things in the highest degree; but not in the sense wherein an animal that has knowledge by means of bodily feeling is said to have perception."

And then he states what I have been saying. That God has those attributes just not in the same way that animals do.

I never denied that. He has both, but my emphasis was on his position as the sole epistemic authority on moral facts as their author and the only one in the position to possess independent knowledge of them. His epistemic authority is directly related to his metaphysical authority as the author of the universe. As Hart says, 'God's knowledge of something created is not something separate from his eternal act of creating that thing' (The Experience of God, p. 137). In his creative act, he at once has both knowledge of the Good and sovereignty over it. This is the difference between God and anyone else as a judge of morality.

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But, once again, what difference does that make... in practice ? Let me put it this way: Why do I ought to do whatever God commands as moral ?

Koldo said:

Notice how he has no qualms with using multiple adjectives to describe God even if they are not perfect.

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He has no qualms with using them, because:


So he can use these descriptions while still acknowledging that they only mirror what God actually is, thus reconciling both the cataphatic and apophatic descriptions. The former descriptions do not define God but 'merely gesture.'

Koldo said:

But, once again, what difference does that make... in practice ? Let me put it this way: Why do I ought to do whatever God commands as moral ?

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One might just as well ask, 'Why should I obey any moral code?' Of course, if you're stubborn enough, you're not going to, but just as you can ask, 'Well, what if I don't care what God has decided to be good?' so can a sociopath ask, 'Well, what if I don't care what society has decided to be good?' I would answer your question by saying that there is no reason to do anything else. Ideally, one would obey it out of their love for God, but at the very least, one would obey the divine command for one's own sake, i.e. out of fear of punishment. Even worse, however, would be to not obey at all, for then there is no hope for you. A murderer can evade the police; you can't evade the wrath of God.

I've been worried about an Equal ethical agnosticism, although near the total lack of a Divine Command Theory. We say Calvinism suggests Total Depravity suggests total personal inability at ethical choice. Then we have Early America and Andrew Jackson signing off with, May God correct all My Decisions, what kind of moral meaning does that give his Reformed Governance? The Divine Command , says rational man, will not come. Identitcal is that God should come down and give a sign to all the American missionaries that America could have given the world. Ethical agnosticism extends to Calvinistic belief in the Total Depravity of humanity only corrected by the Bible or God's morality.

Logical objections to "Divine Command Theory" as best as you explained it wouldn't be forthcoming, until liberalism or humanism, and personal choice, not associated with a Baptist Free Will or that a man will 'come to the right decision' for God.

Anti-Climacus said:

He has no qualms with using them, because:

'We do often speak of lots of things without expressing them properly, i.e in the way proper to the way they are. What we do, when we cannot, or will not, utter something properly, is to signify it by means of something else—a riddle for example. And often we do not see something properly (i.e. as it is), but we see it by means of some likeness or image—when, for example, we make out someone's face in a mirror. Thus we say and do not say, see and do not see, one and the same thing. For it is through something else that we say it, and we see it. But through what is proper to it, we do not. This line of reasoning, therefore, allows our conclusions about the supreme nature to be true and the supreme nature itself to remain ineffable.'​

So he can use these descriptions while still acknowledging that they only mirror what God actually is, thus reconciling both the cataphatic and apophatic descriptions. The former descriptions do not define God but 'merely gesture.'

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That is also true of descriptions in general, even when used for finite beings though. What does it mean to say someone is good or evil ? Can those terms be used to describe anyone as a whole ? Is it even possible to measure how good or evil someone is ? They are largely abstract concepts that fail to describe concrete beings properly.

Which is why it is accurate to say that God has attributes comparable to humans' but in a larger degree. If that was not the case, any adjective used to describe God would be absolutely wrong in every possible way even as a mirror.

One might just as well ask, 'Why should I obey any moral code?' Of course, if you're stubborn enough, you're not going to, but just as you can ask, 'Well, what if I don't care what God has decided to be good?' so can a sociopath ask, 'Well, what if I don't care what society has decided to be good?' I would answer your question by saying that there is no reason to do anything else. Ideally, one would obey it out of their love for God, but at the very least, one would obey the divine command for one's own sake, i.e. out of fear of punishment. Even worse, however, would be to not obey at all, for then there is no hope for you. A murderer can evade the police; you can't evade the wrath of God.

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If God punished you for doing what is moral, would you do what is moral ?

Koldo said:

That is also true of descriptions in general, even when used for finite beings though. What does it mean to say someone is good or evil ? Can those terms be used to describe anyone as a whole ? Is it even possible to measure how good or evil someone is ? They are largely abstract concepts that fail to describe concrete beings properly.

Which is why it is accurate to say that God has attributes comparable to humans' but in a larger degree.

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You can't seem to make up your mind. Is language futile in general, or is it useful for describing God? If it is already flawed for describing comprehensible beings, then how much more would it be flawed for describing an incomprehensible being?

Koldo said:

If God punished you for doing what is moral, would you do what is moral ?

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What definition of 'moral' are you using in this question? If it is God saying to me, 'This is what is moral, but I am going to punish you if you do it,' then I would do what is moral in spite of that, because if one merely worships God (by obeying him) out of fear, one has a deficiency in their worship. So I said, then, that 'at the very least,' one would obey him to avoid punishment, while ideally, one would obey him because he is God. An even worse thing, then, is to disobey God out of fear of him. The highest and most sincere form of worship would naturally be to worship God even if nothing would come of it or if something bad, like hell, would come from it. So I would still do what God has decreed to be moral, even if he were to punish me for doing so.

Anti-Climacus said:

You can't seem to make up your mind. Is language futile in general, or is it useful for describing God? If it is already flawed for describing comprehensible beings, then how much more would it be flawed for describing an incomprehensible being

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Not futile, merely flawed.
But still useful nevertheless.

What definition of 'moral' are you using in this question? If it is God saying to me, 'This is what is moral, but I am going to punish you if you do it,' then I would do what is moral in spite of that, because if one merely worships God (by obeying him) out of fear, one has a deficiency in their worship. So I said, then, that 'at the very least,' one would obey him to avoid punishment, while ideally, one would obey him because he is God. An even worse thing, then, is to disobey God out of fear of him. The highest and most sincere form of worship would naturally be to worship God even if nothing would come of it or if something bad, like hell, would come from it. So I would still do what God has decreed to be moral, even if he were to punish me for doing so.

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If punishment is not sufficient to make you behave in a given way, then why would it be to someone else ?

Anti-Climacus said:

Because the divine being who has done it does not err.

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No, it's because the standard that the divine being is measured against is defined by what the divine being does.

You don't understand what I'm saying.

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I understand what you've said. I may very well not understand what you're trying to say; but if what you're trying to say isn't getting expressed properly, well, learn to communicate better.

My point was that humans are in no position to criticise the divine command from an ethical standpoint, because humans frankly have no ability to make objective ethical judgments of themselves, whereas we can, to a degree, make objective epistemological judgments.

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Why wouldn't we be in a position to criticize God? Even if we assumed - for whatever reason - that God doing something magically made that action moral, we can still pass judgement on whether the morality that God has created ought to have been some other way.

Deciding whether a command is from God is a completely different matter from determining whether a command is just. You cannot know whether a command is from God by the command itself, because we are in no position to know moral facts of our own ability. So you cannot judge the divine command by any external ethical standard.

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... but we are in a position to be able to reliably deduce which "divine commandments" are real and which aren't? Please tell me more about this. Be sure to give lots of details around the part where you explain why people still disagree about what God has revealed... and about whether God exists at all.

You don't need to believe in God to accept DCT. In that case you would just say that the only possible rational basis for morality is a divine command, and since there is no god, there is no rational basis for morality.

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That would be a silly position to take, since rational bases for morality that don't depend on a god are already available.

Anti-Climacus said:

One might just as well ask, 'Why should I obey any moral code?'

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As a rule, you should not. It is even a bit of a contradiction to talk of "moral codes" as something that should be obeyed.

It is a common, fairly prestiged mistake, but nonetheless a mistake.

One, I understand, that comes with valuing deontology as a source of ethics. The problem of deontology is, as a matter of fact, that it is just obedience to rules, and as such can not reason, can not adjust to circunstances, can not learn, adapt and improve itself.

Even if it had been a valid source of ethics at some hypothetical point in human history, deontology would unavoidably start to become obsolete the very next moment, as possibilities and circunstances made any set of rules incomplete in scope and in wisdom.

Ethics are applied reason. Obedience to rules are an entirely separate endeavor.

We all should instead turn to virtue ethics and, above all, to consequentialism as the superior alternatives to deontology that they always were.

If God he comes up with commands with reason and commands them and sees the wisdom of it, than they are not arbitrary. However, it means he doesn't make them up but they are more like mathematical truths. If he makes them up, and we have to obey them, he can technically make the most evil things good and vice versa which would make it arbitrary.

Actually, this can be used to prove God exists, but command theory is bunk.

Anti-Climacus said:

One might just as well ask, 'Why should I obey any moral code?'

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Why on Earth would you consider morality in terms of a "code?"

Morality is a matter of values, not codes.

Link said:

If God he comes up with commands with reason and commands them and sees the wisdom of it, than they are not arbitrary.

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By definition, if they are not arbitrary then it must be possible to demonstrate their validity objectively, therefore without any need to refer to a hypothetical God.

However, it means he doesn't make them up but they are more like mathematical truths. If he makes them up, and we have to obey them, he can technically make the most evil things good and vice versa which would make it arbitrary.

Actually, this can be used to prove God exists, but command theory is bunk.

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I would say that it is possible to validate or reject specific conceptions of God-given morality by other criteria.

How that would evidence the existence of the presumed source of those conceptions of morality, I don't know.

Anti-Climacus said:

Also, think about this. Who is really the more rational actor? The person who only acts "morally" because he/she personally feels that he/she should, or the person who only acts "morally" because someone's given him/her a good reason to? I'll go with the latter.

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I'll go with the former. If somebody gives me a good reason to do something contrary to my initial ethical calculus, then I comply only if convinced, meaning that I am still acting because I think an idea is morally sound, not because of a command.

Anti-Climacus said:

'do unto others as you would like them to do unto you' thing isn't empathy; that's just the golden rule and is more of a matter of self-interest than anything else. It's a questionable moral standard at best.

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It's the only moral standard, overriding all other contenders including (especially) DCT, but it needs to be stated properly. Treat others as they wish to be treated unless you find that request morally reprehensible.

Anti-Climacus said:

Also, there are plenty of situations which call for one to set aside their empathy in favour of the greater good.

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Working for the greater good is empathetic.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

you assert without justification. I'm not willing to just assume your conclusion. Make an actual argument.

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That request has been ignored repeatedly. No argument has ever been presented for why, as is claimed, accepting DCT is either logical or a good idea. The claim has never been supported by argument here, making it an opinion that can be ignored without refutation. That settles the matter.

Anti-Climacus said:

Note that I have never claimed that DCT offers a "more moral" standard, just that it provides a more rational one.

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I prefer both - more moral and rational. There is nothing moral or rational about obeying a set of commands given by human beings claiming that a god told them to tell the rest of us how to behave, often in conflict with conscience.

That's a formula for disaster. Ask the Branch Davidians, who were convinced through divine command through Koresh that they and their children were to remain in harms way notwithstanding alarms that must have been going off in their heads.

Tell me what is either moral or rational about submitting to that method of making decisions?

Anti-Climacus said:

Just as God would determine the laws of gravity, which are so by his command, so has he determined moral facts.

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My conscience is the only source for moral truth for me. It has to be, unless I am willing to accede to the commands of others telling them to tell me what to do, and frankly, even if I went that route, it would be my subjective choice anyway to submit to such a list of alleged moral imperatives, a choice I might rescind in the future if somebody with another moral code comes along and I decide that that is what divinity actually commands.

Anti-Climacus said:

we are obliged to obey his command, if only for our own sake.

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Anti-Climacus said:

Being such lowly beings, our definition of good and bad is skewed.

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Anti-Climacus said:

They are moral/immoral because he has decreed so.

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Not to me. All I have are the claims of pretenders claiming to speak for a god. No god has decreed anything to me, unless you mean through my conscience, which is what I am heeding anyway, whether those impulses are endogenously generated or received instructions.

Anti-Climacus said:

How are you going to judge them by any external, fallible standard?

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I don't use an external standard. I judge all moral claims against my own sense of right and wrong. I am compelled to do so. So are you.

Anti-Climacus said:

My point was that humans are in no position to criticise the divine command from an ethical standpoint

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Disagree. I find the god of the Christian Bible to be immoral. The Garden story depicts that god immorally, as does the flood story. Creating a torture pit, staffing it with demons and devils for the purpose of eternally torturing souls forced to remain conscious just to inflict gratuitous suffering of no benefit to anybody but sadists has got to be about the most immoral act imaginable, but perfectly just and acceptable to the individual who has abdicated his natural moral ability and allowed somebody to substitute their preferences for your own.

Anti-Climacus said:

I suppose if you're fine with going to hell, you could say that, but by definition there is no higher moral duty than to obey the divine command, whether you agree with it or not.

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Your definition, not mine. I have a moral duty to make those judgments.

Perhaps this is why so many Christians are bigoted against atheists and homosexuals. They have been convinced that their god considers such people fit to be burned forever in a lake a fire because that god feels that way for no good reason, but because they believe the source is divine, the accept that position uncritically and against what their consciences should be telling them.

Anti-Climacus said:

Why is societal wellbeing a moral good?

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This is one result of accepting DCT. It leaves one morally untethered regarding what really matters - life and love, not obedience to any of the alleged gods of the present generation of believers.

Anti-Climacus said:

I would have a problem with people murdering others--I'm human after all--but it would make no sense to say murder is immoral. That statement is nonsense if you don't presume objective morality

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No.

This is one of the things I object to about faith-based thought. You seem morally lost. I don't consider morality objective, and it makes no sense to me not to say that murder is immoral

Anti-Climacus said:

yes, if God told me to kill someone, I would do it.

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You mean that if somebody told you that a god told him to tell you to go kill somebody. If they exist, gods are inaudible and otherwise undiscernable.

Anti-Climacus said:

Yes, DCT calls for one to abandon their own sensibilities when the divine command is contrary to them.

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A dangerous choice.

It Aint Necessarily So said:

That request has been ignored repeatedly. No argument has ever been presented for why, as is claimed, accepting DCT is either logical or a good idea. The claim has never been supported by argument here, making it an opinion that can be ignored without refutation. That settles the matter.

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It seems like @Anti-Climacus is looking for someone to tell him why DCT is false, but doing that would need DCT to be coherent. I'm not sure it is.

LuisDantas said:

How that would evidence the existence of the presumed source of those conceptions of morality, I don't know.

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Because it analyses relationships and value which are non-material, and if it's not arbitrary, it's eternal, and if it's eternal and requires perception than there is eternal perceive to morals.

To prove "if it's not arbitrary, it's eternal", is to say "if evolution can make it come out of non-existence to existence, then so can a Creator make it come out of nothing (as it can create evolution for example or all that evolution can create)."

If A Creator can create morality out of nothing, than command theory is true, and that would mean he could make the most evil thing good and vice versa. But if he can't, then you negate all these...
And the only way it's impossible for a Creator to not be able to create out of nothing, is that's eternal (ie. It's Him).

Link said:

Because it analyses relationships and value which are non-material, and if it's not arbitrary, it's eternal, and if it's eternal and requires perception than there is eternal perceive to morals.

To prove "if it's not arbitrary, it's eternal", is to say "if evolution can make it come out of non-existence to existence, then so can a Creator make it come out of nothing (as it can create evolution for example or all that evolution can create)."

If A Creator can create morality out of nothing, than command theory is true, and that would mean he could make the most evil thing good and vice versa. But if he can't, then you negate all these...
And the only way it's impossible for a Creator to not be able to create out of nothing, is that's eternal (ie. It's Him).

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I don't know where to begin to analyze that. It is just so... empty. Do you truly believe in that?

I do believe in it.

Morality and perception go hand to hand.
But morality can't come to existence after non-existence, the reason, is because it would logically mean divine command theory is possible, while it's been proven impossible.
Therefore Eternal perception of morality exist.