Preview

Divine Command Theory. Are people's moral standards right because God commands them, or does God command them because they are right?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1618 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Divine Command Theory. Are people's moral standards right because God commands them, or does God command them because they are right?
There are millions of people who believe in God, but among these people the differences lie in to what extent each believes that God has control over what is right and wrong. Are people's moral standards right because God commands them, or does God command them because they are right? The Divine Command Theory most simply states that God's commands are what is morally right, and what God forbids is morally wrong. This means that loving one another is right because God commands humans to do so. Advocates of the Divine Command Theory believe this, and believe that morality is the same as that which God commands. Things are good because God created them and/or willed them.

Divine Command Theorists believe that there are objective moral standard that are the same for everyone and are independent of individual beliefs. These moral standards are true for everyone regardless of whether or not they believe them or know of them. These ultimate moral standards exist in commands given by God. God commands only things that are good, and he would never command a person to act immorally. God is all-powerful, all knowing, and all loving. God commands these things in order to do what is good for us as humans, and his commands are automatically morally right.

The opponents of the Divine Command Theory do not believe that God has that much control over the earth and what is morally just and unjust. They believe that morality is subjective, and that even if there is a God morality would still be subjective. What does it matter anyway what God commands or thinks since it is just another subjective opinion? One of the only reasons that people obey God's commands is that they fear that they will be punished in someway if they do not. They fear that they will go to hell if they do not obey, or that something bad will happen to them. This would mean that their motives are merely self-interested. But, a Divine Command Theory advocate would argue that God created us, and it is our

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Monotheism vs. Polytheism

    • 1585 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Morality exists throughout all cultures and religions of the world in some shape or form. In monotheism, the fact that there is one god that sits in judgment over all of his followers is evidence of morality. For example, in Judaism, God gave his followers ten commandment outlining right and wrong for them. God then places judgment on his followers based upon their obedience to the commandments. Therefore, if there is one god judging the people’s actions, deciding if their actions are right or wrong, then the people have a standard by which they try to live by or achieve.…

    • 1585 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Russ Shafer- Landau has presented his ideas against this concept that the ethical subjectivity can be only related to the God. He says that this cannot be true because the command of God is anything but that is arbitrary in nature. The command of God cannot be doubtful or illogical. There must be some reasoning behind the particular command of the God that could guide the human being. The other actions performed by the human beings are their own responsibility which cannot be blamed to God. The commands are the foundations or bases of the moral actions and morality that is the essence of the ethics and ethical subjectivity. The responsibilities of arbitrary actions are mistakenly performed by the people or it is their won will that triggers them perform such actions and the God is not responsible for those actions and behaviors. The argument presented by the author Russ Shafer- Landau is that if the divine command theory is considered to be true then we must believe that the God has some kind of objective…

    • 1085 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Deciding if an action is moral can vary greatly depending on which theory is applied in order to make a decision. A Divine Command Theorist would evaluate morality by consulting religious or sacred texts and by possibility consulting a religious authority on said texts. Through this approach the Divine Command Theorist would be looking for guidance from the “word of God” on the matter. A Natural Law Theorist on the other hand would attempt to decide if an action is moral by deciding the action's purpose and how it fits with the natural working order of the world, this idea is often coupled with the influence of religion as it's ideas are incorporated into many religions like Christianity. They would try through their version of science to…

    • 638 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Another issue with any divine command morality theory is that we have no confirmation that there even is the essential God, a great deal less which God's commands are the commands of that God. There are many distinctive moral frameworks credited to God. This is so even inside of the umbrella of Christian belief in a higher power; more so when we consider different belief…

    • 611 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Divine Command Theory

    • 1962 Words
    • 8 Pages

    People are extremely motivated by self-interest, even as societies have evolved and grown larger. While the more intertwined societies did lead to a greater need for cooperation in order to live as peacefully as possible, the need to follow the rules of that society can still be ignored when self-interests are present. The need to live by a set of moral rules is well explained by connecting God and morality. As God holds a person accountable, following the moral rules is now is that person’s interest. So even while the person may act according to society, the actions are still explained by the incentives and sanctions placed by God with the promise of Heaven and the threat of Hell, respectively. However, the Divine Command Theory falls short by basing morality solely on God’s commands. Morality then seems subject to God’s whims, which makes morality arbitrary. The opposing view counters strongly with the existence of morals within atheists. For if morals are based only on God’s will, then atheists must be godless brutes lacking any semblance to a moral compass. The morality of atheists is clearly evident, yet the argument failed to establish a reason for morals other acknowledging damage done to the…

    • 1962 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    What is Divine Command Theory? According to Emil Brunner "Genuine humanly good is found only in the unconditional, unquestioned obedience of man to God." That this is a power from God. According to Ms. Rodrigues' explanation "morality is determined entirely by God's command." I believe that it means that the only way to be a goodly and moral person is by following God's commands. That obeying human laws or human moral codes does not make you a "good person." Nevertheless, when we follow God's commands, we become people of genuine human goodness. Mr. Brunner believes that good is done for the sake of God and that we do good to please God because this is what God commands. He believes that God is in total control of our happiness and God's plan for our happiness is found in sanctions, rewards and punishments. These sanctions are the make-up of our moral code. God knows all and has a plan. We, as humans, may not know what that total plan is. If we follow the Divine Command Theory, it would not matter because the moral code dictates that we follow God's command. We are to do as God commands us and we will then be genuinely good humans. We will be good if we follow Gods commands.…

    • 1293 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Divine Command Theory leaves no room for reconciliation with the concepts of Christian liberty and God’s undeserving grace. There is no room for failure according to this concept because we will never be able to keep all of God’s commandments. It is difficult, dare I say impossible, to accept this theory if one is a true believer. By rejecting the concept of grace, one rejects the very compassion and reason Jesus died on the cross for us. The apostle Paul states, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God-not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life" (Hollinger, 2002, p.100) (Ephesians 2:8, New Living Translation). I will never be able to earn the grace of God, yet it is his “internal working of grace” that allows me to be ethical (Hollinger, 2002, p.100). "If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free for real" and free from the condemnation of the law.…

    • 232 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Ten Commandments are the clear example of God setting the standards of what is morally right and wrong. We follow these laws that God has set because we believe that they show us are sins and if we follow these laws that we will be reward towards the light. These Commandments show us the righteous side of being a human being, and that we should follow them because God has set them however God was the one who gave us free will to do what we want but with this free will we must follow what is right in life for example ‘Thou shalt not kill’ this is quite obverses because we know that killing is wrong however some people do it because they.…

    • 1012 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It can be argued, that when referring to the Bible, teachings within it are too rigid for moral decision making. There are many reasons for this, some which are very evident, particularly when looking at certain teachings. On the other hand, some argue that most religious ethics are the right way to approach moral decision making as these contain the teachings and word of God so must be correct.…

    • 1027 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ethics: Moral Absolutes

    • 1184 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Christians base their beliefs in moral absolutes through the Bible. Of course, you cannot solve all moral decisions by referring to the Bible but there sufficient guidelines provided to give us a sense of what is morally right. These guidelines are the Decalogue also known as the Ten Commandments and tat is how specific the authority is.…

    • 1184 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    I believe that the Bible gives us God’s absolute moral standards that apply to every culture and…

    • 3668 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Nt1310 Unit 1 Assignment

    • 1341 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Devine Command Theory is a theory that makes morality dependently solely on the individuals god and god’s word or teaching establishes a moral obligation to the god’s followers. The morality is determined by the character of the god and his command and this morality is the right action to be taken as required. These morality guidelines can vary depending of the specific religion that…

    • 1341 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ethical Egoism: Rachels

    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The name "divine command theory" can be used to refer to any one of a family of related ethical theories. What these theories have in common is that they take God's will to be the foundation of ethics. According to divine command theory, things are morally good or bad, or morally obligatory, permissible, or prohibited, solely because of God's will or commands. Alternatively, in the history of Christian thought, the dominant theory of ethics is not the Divine Command Theory, but rather the Theory of Natural Law. A central conception of this theory is that everything in nature has a purpose. Aristotle said that in order to understand anything, we must ask ourselves four questions: What is it? What is it made of? How did it come to exist? And what is it for? According to Aristotle, everything has a purpose. Another idea in this view, says that some ways of behaving are "natural" and some are "unnatural"; and unnatural acts are said to be morally wrong. Furthermore, the Theory of Natural Law endorses the familiar idea that the right thing to do is whatever course of conduct has the best reasons on its side.…

    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For example, if I were a defender of the Divine Command Theory, I would argue that although God’s commands are arbitrary, God still holds moral authority. To further explain my case, I would acknowledge that if God’s commands are in fact arbitrary and hold no moral authority, that means they must be based on random choice or whim, rather than any reason or system. However, that cannot be the truth when my faith teaches me that God’s commands are necessary to create order in society. If it is to my belief that God is the omnipotent power and makes no mistakes, then I must also believe that God does have a reason for his commands and without them, we would be worse off as a society. Those who are against the Divine Command Theory like to label God’s commands as arbitrary because they are not be able to understand the reasoning behind them, but there does not mean there needs to be a clearly outlined background for a command in order for it to be moral. God would have not created the command in the first place if He thought it would not help to preserve order in society, making it reason enough to prove the Divine Command Theory. By denying the conclusion to the first horn of the DCT, I have resolved the Euthyphro…

    • 448 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are two types of morality, justified and unjustified. Justified morality can usually stand on its own. It does not require intense reasoning because it is common sense. For example, “Do not kill” and “Do not steal” are justified moral commands because if you kill or steal, you are bringing evil upon someone else and that is immoral. Unjustified morals are harder to find reason for because they are “unjustifiable” in nature. An example of an unjustifiable moral is “Do not have sexual relations out of wedlock.” For this example, and for many other instances of unjustified morality, it is difficult to explain why doing the act is immoral. It becomes difficult to answer the question “Why shouldn’t I do this in order to remain moral?” Or,…

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics