A Critical Reflection on Divine Command Theory of Morality

A Critical Reflection on Divine Command Theory of Morality Felix Ayemere Airoboman1 Abstract This study is a critical inquiry into divine command theory of morality. The study begins by tracing the root of this theory in ancient philosophy. It posits the basic claims of the theory and the grounds on which human obedience to divine commands can be authenticated. It further examines some arguments raised by some philosophers against this theory which make it less plausible and unappealing. It queries the veracity of some of these arguments. Consequently, it examines some arguments in favour of the theory offered by some other philosophers to sustain the authenticity and plausibility of the theory. It argues that although divine command theory seems to blur the differences between law and morality, it nonetheless has the merit of addressing some problems inherent in other moral theories. It argues that the theory seems to be the most popular, widespread and appealing in guiding the concrete moral behaviour of people in their daily living. The study concludes that the theory is the most objective and universal among existing normative moral theories. Keywords: God, divine command, sovereignty, obedience, morality denominator which underlies the various conceptions is that “God's command is the ultimate source of moral obligation or that God's will is the basis of moral laws. An action is said to be good because it conforms to divine commands. An action is said to be bad or evil because it is performed even though the agent knows that such an act breaches God's commands”.3Just like some other religions, the Christian religion tells people what the will of God for them is, and how they must live if they would please God. The kind of conduct which will please God depends on the kind of person God is.4The ethical theory which pinpoints the will of God or gods as guide to moral behaviour is called divine command theory. Introduction The reliance on some external authority for moral guidance has been widespread among nearly all groups of people. The number of authorities which one might appeal to for guardian is many. They include parents, companions, teachers, customs, the laws, political leaders, religious institutions and their literature or spokesmen, some fixed “natural law,” the “will of God,” and so on.1Remarkable among them is the appeal to some religious authority. Almost all peoples have attributed their moral codes to their gods or to God. Yet these codes have been most diverse and have changed through the centuries with the development of the group and with changed conditions.2Despite the divergences, and independent of time and conditions, it seems the common Department of Philosophy, University of Benin, Nigeria; [email protected] Ewanlen: A Journal of Philosophical Inquiry Vol. 1, No. 1, 2017: 17 – 31 17 Felix Ayemere Airoboman: A Critical Reflection on Divine Command Theory of Morality Divine command theory is a nonconsequentialist ethical theory. Nonconsequentialism (also called deontological ethics) claims that consequences is not, and in fact should not be the criterion for judging whether actions are right or wrong or whether people are moral or immoral. Actions are to be judged solely on whether they are right and people solely on whether they are good, based on some other “higher” standard(s) of morality regardless of consequences. One of the most obvious examples of such theories is the Divine Command Theory. According to this theory, if one believes that there is God, goddess or gods and that they have set up a series of moral commands, then an action is right and people are good if and only if they conform to or obey these commands, regardless of the consequences that might ensue; in moral evaluation, consequences do not matter.5 This suggests that it is not particular actions that are evaluated and judged per se but kinds of action. Particular actions are evaluated and judged with reference to kinds of action. or wrong if and only if and because it is commanded or forbidden by God”.7 The Old Testament account of God giving the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai might be considered as an example. In Plato's Protagoras8there is a mythical account of how Zeus took pity on the hapless humans to make up for deficiencies, gave humans a moral sense and the capacity for law and justice, so that they could live in larger communities and cooperate with one another. Morality was then invested with all the mystery and power of divine origin since nothing else could provide such strong reasons for accepting the moral law.In the Apology9Socrates construes his dialectics as divine mandate from the god Apollo to teach the Athenians. He holds that he would continue to teach even if the state forbids him to do so because the command of the gods supersedes the command of the state. From this rendering, it is obvious that an important part of religious teaching includes morality. In this regard, Jeffrey Olen writes that to accept a religion is to accept a view of humanity's essential nature and purpose on earth. It is also to accept certain criteria of goodness and certain standards of right and wrong. It is therefore not surprising that the great world religions have been among the most forceful opponents of ethical relativism.10Olen argues that since God has created us and put us here for a purpose, there is a universal morality created by God by which we must judge the moralities of individual creatures. Kai Nielson in an inquiry 'God and the Good: Does morality depends on Religion?' submits that it is the claim of some theologians that the only genuine basis for morality is in religion. According to these theologians, “the only Historical Origin of Divine Command theory of Morality Ethics, which is the systematic study of morality, is concerned with how we should live and how to justify our living or the course of action we choose. If ethics is defined as the systematic study of what we ought to do, this would imply that ethics can only have come into existence when human beings started to reflect on the best way to live. 6 “Perhaps the oldest monistic deontological theory is theological voluntarism or the divine command theory, which holds that the sole ultimate standard of right and wrong is the will or law of God, i.e., that an action or a kind of action is right 18 Ewanlen: A Journal of Philosophical Inquiry truly adequate foundation for moral belief is a religion that acknowledges the absolute sovereignty of the Lord found in the prophetic religions”. They contend that “without a belief in God and his Law there is no ground or reason for being moral. Without God, there can be no objective foundation for our moral beliefs”.11These theologians argue further that “[w]ithout religious belief, without the Living God, there could be no adequate answer to the persistently gnawing questions: What ought we to do? How ought I to live”.12 Consequently, life would be pointless and morality baseless. forbids is immoral, whatever God permits is morally acceptable, and whatever God requires is morally obligatory.14This means it is God's commands that make things right and wrong, just as a legislature's pronouncements make thing legal and illegal.15 In fact, C. F. Henry16equates the right and the good and identifies them with the will of God, or rather with obedience to the will of God. Emil Brunner argues that the Christian conception of the good differs from every other conception of the good in that it cannot be defined in terms of principle at all. According to him, The Canon of Divine Command Theory of Morality Divine command theory of morality (which may also be called theological voluntarism or theological ethics or supernaturalism) holds that the sole ultimate standard of right and wrong is the will or law of God. It holds that an action or a kind of action is right or wrong if and only if it is commanded or forbidden by God.13Many people believe that the ultimate and only correct standard of right and wrong is God's law as revealed by their religion's tradition. They therefore appeal to their religion's tradition as the ultimate authority or test of right and wrong; they also turn to it to know what God's law is. These different religious traditions provide their adherents with a moral code that includes rules prohibiting, permitting or requiring certain behaviour, thus providing them with the ideals of how they should live and the conception of virtue and vice. According to this divine command theory of morality, an action is wrong if and only if it is forbidden by God and an action is right if and only if it is either permitted or required by God. It follows from this that whatever God in the Christian view, that alone is “good” which is free from all caprice, which takes place in unconditional obedience. There is no good save obedient behaviour, save the obedient will. But this obedience is rendered not to a law or a principle which can be known before hand, but only to the free sovereign will of God. The good consists in always doing what God wills at any particular moment.17 From the doctrine of God as the creator and the source of all that is, it follows that a thing is neither right simply because we think it is nor because it seems to be expedient. It is right because God commands it. This implies that there is a real distinction between right and wrong independent of what people think. It is rooted in the nature and will of God. The pattern of conduct which God has laid down for man is the same for all men. It is universally valid. Hence when we speak of Christian ethics for instance, we do not mean that there is one law for Christians and another for non19 Felix Ayemere Airoboman: A Critical Reflection on Divine Command Theory of Morality Christians. We mean the Christian understanding and statement of the one common law for all men.18But why did God institute any command? The conduct which God demands of men, He demands out of His own Holiness and Righteousness. Holy Lord commands and what he forbids. What accords with his edicts is right, what opposes his holy will is wicked. The good is what God rewards and the bad is what He punishes.22 Henry submits that “the moral law that lays an imperative on the human conscience is nothing more or less than the manifested will of God. For man nothing is good but union with the sovereign holy will of God”.23 He argues that since God fashioned man to bear his moral likeness, nothing other than the fulfilment of this divine purpose is man's supreme good. This purpose of God is the moral standard by which man throughout history will be judged. To be morally good is to obey God's commands since the performance of God's will alone constitutes man's highest good. Be ye perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect.... The grandeur and majesty of the moral law proclaims the weakness and impotence of man. It shatters human pride and self-sufficiency: it overthrows the complacency with which the righteous regards the tattered robes of their partial virtues and the satisfaction with which rogues rejoice to discover other men more evil than themselves.19 This requires that man should be humble and avoid pride and arrogance. In this regard, Felix Airoboman argues that part of the reasons God institute commands is to teach humanity how to live by example to ensure social harmony, stability and good interpersonal relationship. Borrowing from the book of Wisdom which states that “by his leniency and mildness in judgement… God… teaches virtuous men how to be kind with their fellow men”,20Airoboman infers that God requires that good persons should tolerate, and live in harmony with their fellow human beings. 21 The preceding suggests that the moral law is the standard we should strive to meet up with in our actions if we want to be good persons. An important factor in divine command theory is that morality is not based on consequences of actions or rules, nor of self-interest or other interestedness but rather on something “higher” than these mere mundane events of the imperfect humans or natural worlds. It is based on the existence of an all good being or beings who are supernatural and who have communicated to human beings what they should do and not do in a moral sense. In order to be moral, then, human beings must follow the commandments and prohibitions of such a being or beings to the letter without concerning themselves with consequences, self-interest, or anything else.24 C. F. Henry also stresses the importance of divine revelation of the statutes, commandments and precepts of the Living God in ethics particularly in HebrewChristian ethics. Its whole orientation of the moral life may be summarized by what the According to Stanley Honer and Thomas Hunt, this theory is 20 Ewanlen: A Journal of Philosophical Inquiry an absolutist ethical theory of justification of human actions. Absolutism, also sometimes called objectivism because it holds that values are grounded in a reality outside man, holds that what is valuable is independent of what an individual thinks or likes, and it is independent of what a particular society happens to sanction. It holds that moral laws are universally binding for all men and eternally true whether or not any moral law is in fact universally respected or obeyed.25 and situating it in individual and cultural caprices. It also indicts situationism for consigning moral rightness and wrongness to specific occasions. Now that the will of God is taken to be the sufficient criterion of morality, we shall next examine the justifications for obedience to His commands. The Grounds of Obedience to God's Commands Should we obey God's commands? If yes, what is the justification for obedience? Is His authority legitimate? If yes, what legitimizes it? There are motives for obeying God's law. Just as we are obliged to obey the laws or magistrate only because of reward or punishment, so we are obliged to obey God's commands. This is why one of the reasons we are obliged to obey the commands of God is, according to many religions, God will reward or punish us for obedience or disobedience in heaven or hell respectively after death. Therefore our unconditional obedience to God's commands is partly premised on self-interest. Since God's commandments come with punishment and reward, these sanctions give us reason for obeying them. So reward is a compelling reason for obedience to God's commands. They argue further that probably, the most widely held view of the different ways of talking about absolute values is the belief in moral laws established by God and interpreted in a religious tradition. These moral laws apply to everybody everywhere and are not dependent for their valuableness on what produces human satisfaction or on the mores set up by particular societies. The justification of moral laws rests directly on the authority of God or indirectly on the authority of different religions (such as Christianity, Islam and Hinduism) through the authoritative interpretation of God's will by their leaders.26 This theory is thus opposed to some other ethical theories in this regard and to others in other regards. One other ground for obedience is that God's commands are authoritative.28Since it is God who created us and gave us the blessings of life and divine love, we should in gratitude accept God's law as authoritative and obey it in reciprocal. It has been argued that According to C.F. Henry, “[t]he doctrine that the good is to be identified with the will of God cuts across secular ethics at almost every point. It protests against utilitarianism and its validation of the good by an appeal to consequences alone. It indicts Kant's supposition that duty and obligation rests upon a wholly immanental basis”.27It protests against subjectivism and relativism for removing universal elements in morality God made us and (the whole-mine) world. Because of that he has an absolute claim on our obedience. We do not exist in our own right, but only as his creatures, who ought therefore to 21 Felix Ayemere Airoboman: A Critical Reflection on Divine Command Theory of Morality do and be what He desires. We do not possess anything in the world, absolutely, not even our own bodies; we hold things in trust for God, who created them, and are bound, therefore, to use them only as he intends that they should be used.29 we could lose by obeying God's commands, we have an overriding reason to obey. Terence Irwin puts it that this way of explaining the status of morality provokes the objection that the divine command attitudes to morality are purely instrumental and they do not allow us to care about morality for its own sake.33 This will now lead to a discursive examination of this theory. Since He pays the piper, He should dictate the tune. Another reason which legitimizes God's authority and in consequence justifies our obedience to His commands emanates from His nature of goodness. Kai Nielson cites Karl Barth and Emil Brunner as arguing that “we owe God unconditional obedience, but we owe this to God because He is supremely good and supremely loving. When we reflect on what he must be like, as a Being worthy of worship, we realize he ought unconditionally to be obeyed”.30 We also need to obey God's commands since morality prescribes what is good for individuals and communities, and God, being good and wise, knows what promotes these goods and commands us to do what promotes them, so that we have good reason to observe his commands.31 In so far as a general reason is given for observing the demands of the Law, they are represented as commands of God, on the assumption that this is a sufficient reason for obedience. Interrogating Some Objections to the Divine Command Theory There are many problems (such as the problems of the validity of the existence of God or gods, of the opposing views about the belief or non-belief in God or gods, of how to know what God's law is, of how to account for morality in spheres where God or gods do(es) not legislate, of arbitrariness, and so on) associated with this theory. We shall attend to some of them. JacquesThiroux34argues that the difficulties of the divine command theory are inherent in the lack of rational foundation for the existence of some sort of supernatural being or beings and the further lack of proof that He or they set up the ethical system in question. Thiroux argues further that even if one could prove conclusively the existence of the supernatural, there still exists, the problem of how one could prove that any supernatural being is morally correct. According to him, although the rules themselves might be morally valid, but the justification for following them regardless of the consequences is indeed weak. Thiroux asks in perturbation the validity of these rules for a person who does not believe in any kind of supernatural existence. Even if we will accept the existence of this supernatural and its commandments, there Closely connected with the above motive is that God's commands creating right and wrong are authoritative and binding on us because God has the power to enforce them.32It is arguable from this that God's commandments constitute moral rightness and we ought to do what he commands just because he commands it. Since these sanctions are more powerful than anything 22 Ewanlen: A Journal of Philosophical Inquiry still remains the difficulty of how to interpret them correctly. beings. At any point, there must be an influence of external authority which people rely on as a guide. There is no any other way of obeying any secular law apart from respect for the law or fear of punishment when violated. So acting in accord with God's will for fear or respect would not invalidate divine command theory. “Some would argue that, if God exists, then at least it follows that murder is immoral, because it would be immoral to destroy what God in infinite wisdom created”.37 Cahn also see problem in this. According to him, this argument fails on several grounds. In his thinking, since God38also created germs, viruses and disease carrying rats, it follow that they ought not to be eliminated. Second, but at the opposite end, he argues that if God arranged for us to live, God also arranged for us to die. It follows that by killing we are assisting the work of God. Third, God provided us with the mental and physical potentials to commit murder. It follow that God wishes us to fulfil this potential. Jeffrey Olen35 corroborates this objection. Since the various religions are themselves social institutions, they display as much variation as other institutions. The resultant problem therefore is: how can we know which of these variations to accept? Is there any one that is right to accept among the divergent religious interpretations? It follows that if morality is dependent on religion, then, this same problem that arises in religion will characterize ethics which is dependent on it. Such uncertainty partly provokes an enormous controversy over whether there is a God, or whether there is any grand design in which we have a predetermined place. But it can be arguably retorted that this problem raised by Jeffrey Olen need not arise given the fact that with or without divine command theory, just like social institutions, there is a display of much variation in ethics. The existence of different contending ethical theories lays credence to this claim. In short, the display of variations is characteristic of ethics. Cahn argues further that “an individual becomes persuaded that a reliable guide to God's will is contained in the Ten Commandments. This person, therefore, believes it wrong to commit adultery, steal, or murder” but why is it wrong? Is it wrong because God says it is wrong, or does God say it is wrong because it is wrong?39 Here Cahn refers us to Plato's Euthyphro dilemma where Socrates was in a résumé “inquiring whether actions are right because of God's fiat or whether God is subject to moral standards”.40 According to Cahn if actions are right because God commands them, then anything God commands would be right. Therefore had God commanded adultery, stealing and murder, they would be right. For Cahn, the difficulty here is that “if the good Steven Cahn, in his article God and Morality, claims that a theological conception of right and wrong does not suffice as a basis for moral reasoning. He writes that “[s]ome people would feel more secure in the knowledge that the world had been planned by an all-good being. Others would feel insecure, realizing the extent to which their existence depended on a decision of this being.... [M]ost people, out of either fear or respect, would wish to act in accord with God's will”36But such insecurity and fear raised is unwarranted since the existence of people from time to time depends on a decision of other human 23 Felix Ayemere Airoboman: A Critical Reflection on Divine Command Theory of Morality is whatever God commands, to say that God's commands are good amounts to saying that God's commands are God's commands, a mere tautology. In this case, the possibility of meaningfully praising the goodness of God would be lost”.41With these submission, it appears Cahn tends to underrates (probably because he is not able to see) the seriousness of the matter at hand and then trivialized and consigned it to a mere linguistic wrangling. Generally, it seems the lesson which Cahn hopes to teach here is that “might does not make a right, even if the might is the infinite might of God”. Therefore, “[t]o act morally is not to act out of fear of punishment; it is not to act as one is commanded to act. Rather, it is to act as one ought to act, and how one ought to act is not dependent on anyone's power, even if the power be divine”.42 Cahn is making a significant point here. Moral acts result from free choice, or else, they would not be moral act and can thus not be subject of moral evaluation. Otherwise we turn morality into legislation.“Thus actions are not right because God commands them; on the contrary, God commands them because they are right”.43Cahn writes that “what is right is independent of what God commands, for what God commands must conform to an independent standard in order to be right”.44 God commands whatever He commands because they are right and because they already conform to moral standard. Cahn45argues that one could act intentionally in accord with this independent standard without believing in the existence of God. Thus, the extent of human morality is not wholly dependent on belief or disbelief in God since some of those who believe or do not believe exhibit a high sense of morality, as well as immorality. First, that God says we should not commit murder does not mean we should not kill those beings which by their nature are inimical to human well-being. To refuse to kill viruses or germs for example, when oneis able to do so is to commit murder with negligence if these viruses or germs attack and kill people since if they were killed, such human deaths which result from their attacks would have been averted. This in itself is a violation of God's command not to commit murder. Secondly, that life and death are part of God's divine arrangement for human being does not mean that killing people is a fulfilment of this divine arrangement. If God had wanted people to die in the hands of others (in fact this is what He wants to prevent), He would not have prohibited murder. Thirdly, it is doubtful whether God endowed us with the potentiality to commit murder. Even if He does, He also endowed us with the potentialities of other numerous good things which we have not fulfilled. Since the potentiality to do or become something is not an imperative to doing or becoming that thing, and conversely since potentiality also implies truncation of the process of doing or becoming, then, why commit murder? Pertaining to this same divine source of rightness of moral actions, Joseph Omoregbe46asks a question recently which mimics Euthyphro question: Is it because God says for example that “thou shall not steal” that stealing is wrong? In other words, if God had not commanded “thou shall not steal”, would it have been good to steal? His answer is that it is not because God says “thou shall not steal” that stealing is wrong. 24 Ewanlen: A Journal of Philosophical Inquiry The sense of right and wrong of actions, according to Omoregbe, are naturally accessible to human reason but God only note them down because man has failed to acknowledge them in his heart. knowledge fall under the supervision of reason and receive their obligatory power from rational insight. Consequently, obligatory gratitude for divine bounty precedes the orders given by (divine) Law; just as (italicized-mine) beauty and ugliness are qualities belonging intrinsically to what is beautiful and ugly”.49In a simple and clear term, just like Steven Cahn and Joseph Omoregbe, the claim made by the Mu'tazilites here is that moral rightness and wrongness are independent of God. The Mu'tazilites has a similar view. The Mu'tazilites is a sect in Islam with philosophic temperaments and orientations. Compared to orthodox Muslims, they are critically minded and vast in argumentations. They “are thorough going rationalists. They believed that the arbiter of whatever is revealed has to be theoretical reason”.47Mir Valiuddin, who was a Professor of Philosophy at Osmania University, India48 writes that according to the Mu'tazilites, things are not good or evil because God declares them to be so. Rather, God makes the distinction between good and evil on account of their being good and evil intrinsically. This implies that goodness or evil are innate in the essence of things themselves. This very goodness or evil of things is the cause of the commands and prohibitions of the Law. According to the Mu'tazilites, the human intellect is capable of perceiving the goodness and evil of a few things and no laws are required to express their goodness and evil. For example, it is commendable to speak the truth and it is despicable to commit oneself to untruth. This shows that the evil and goodness of things are obvious and require no proof from the Shari`ah. Shameful and unjust deeds for example, are evil-in-themselves: therefore God has banned indulgence in them. It is not God putting His ban on them that makes them shameful and unjust deeds. Mir Valiuddin quotes Kitab al-Milalwal-Niha Al-Shahrastani as expressing the thoroughgoing rationalism of the Mu'tazilites in these words: “All objects of One of the objections to divine command theory which some people worry about is that it is bound to be socially divisive.50In this regard, William Frankena argues that however deep and sincere one's own religious beliefs may be, if one reviews the religious scene, one cannot help but wonder if there is any rational or objective method of establishing any religious belief against the proponents of other religions or of irreligion. But then one is impelled to wonder also if there is anything to be gained by insisting that all ethical principles are or must be logically grounded on religious beliefs. According to him, to insist on this is to introduce into the foundation of any morality all the difficulties involved in the adjudication of religious controversies, and to do so hardly encourage the hope that mankind can reach, by peaceful and rational means, some desirable kind of agreement on moral and political principles. 51 This argument seems very sound and almost irrefutable for its truth and existential glaringness. Philip Quinn tells us that Frankena is quite correct in pointing out that religious disagreement has been and continues to be a source of serious conflict. 25 Felix Ayemere Airoboman: A Critical Reflection on Divine Command Theory of Morality Kai Nielson also objects to God-dependent morality. He submits that the fact that God has commanded, willed, or ordained something (if he actually did so) cannot, in the very nature of the case, be a fundamental criterion for claiming that whatever is commanded, willed, or ordained ought to be done. Relying on A.C. Ewing, he refutes the claim of Karl Barth and Emil Brunner that ethical principles gain their justification simply because they are God's decrees. Nielson writes: But as Ewing points out, if “being obligatory” means just “willed by God,” it becomes unintelligible to ask why God wills one thing rather than another.52 Another problem noted by Nielson is that, if we say we ought to do what God wills because God will punish us if we do not obey Him, this may very well be a cogent selfinterested or prudential reason for doing what God commands. The implication is that we will hardly have a morally good reason for doing what He commands since such considerations of self-interest cannot be an adequate basis for morality.53 Nielson's position here is that actions that result from fear of punishment cannot be correctly said to be moral actions. The earliest and one of the first standard criticisms of divine command theory is contained in Plato'sEuthyphro.55In the Apology Socrates construes his dialectics as divine mandate from the god Apollo to teach the Athenians. As mentioned earlier, Plato holds that he would continue to teach even if the state forbids him to do so because gods' command supersedes state's command.56 However, Plato does not believe that actions are pious or right just because they are commanded or desired by the gods. He explains this in the Euthyphro.57The core of his argument here is that that which is loved of God is not holy because it is loved by God. Rather, that which is holy is loved by God because it is holy. For our purpose here, actions are not moral (right, good, just, virtuous) because they are commanded by God but they are commanded by God because they are moral. It has also been objected that despite its initial plausibility, this theory has the problems which seems to make it impossible for atheists to make moral judgments. But how plausible is this objection? If this theory is true, the existence of atheists will not invalidate it. The existence of atheists would not make God not to exist if He exists. So if God exists and if He makes an imperative, the existence of atheist will not make it unimperatival. What it means is that they wound be violators of this imperative. Think of this analogy. The existence of criminals and other violator of laws neither invalidate nor obliterate the existence of the institutions that made such lawsor those who are empowered to do so. These violators, dissenters and contesters are not exempted from the law. Ordinarily, we do not say because they are dissenters, the law is untenable for them and are thereby C.F. Henry54 cites Ralph Cudworth as arguing that the distinction between right and wrong does not depend upon sovereign will, but on the moral order which confronts the whole reality. Ralph Cudworth insists that the principles of morality are addressed even to the divine will and hence are determinative of it. The point which Cudworth is trying to make here is that if there is a divine order which commands or requires for example, dishonesty, unjust murder, stealing and so on, such order, though divine, are morally condemnable since they fail the test of moral praiseworthy. 26 Ewanlen: A Journal of Philosophical Inquiry unguidedd by it. This is what the argument about atheism portends in the discourse or criticism of divine command theory. So the argument does not follow at all since everybody does not always obey law or conform to standard and do what is good. do so. We shall make some few others here from the legion of existing responses. Patterson Brown in defence of theological voluntarism argues that the statement “God's commands us to do so and so ”is a partially moral one. It entails we ought to do it. His attempt is not so much defining right as what is commanded by God as by defining God as “He who commands what is right”.60 This suggests that God will always command what is right. As part of their criticisms, Stanley Honer and Thomas Hunt write that [i]n their attempt to resist the moral anarchy of relativism, men have turned to divine authority, with its promise on one set of changeless values. But the conflicting interpretations of what values are absolute have left men faced with an anarchy of competing moral values. At one time God is revealed as a jealous God, a God of wrath; at another time, as a God of love and forgiveness. How can one trust a method that justifies as God-given such conflicting values?58 Alastair Norcross61argues that unless one does espouse a simple form of divine command theory, according to which the deity's commands should be obeyed just because they are the deity's commands, it seems that the main justification for the imperatival model of morality is pragmatic. After all, if we do not have the justification that the commands are issued from a deity, then it is always legitimate to ask what grounds them. That certain states of affairs are good or bad, and therefore should or should not be brought about, seems to be a far more plausible candidate to be a fundamental moral fact than that someone should act in a certain way. They add that those who believe in absolute value do not find them liveable and so they have in fact change their values in the light of human experience in order to better satisfy human needs. “For example, “thou shall not kill” has been modified by interpretation to sanction killing in self-defence, wars, and capital punishment”.59 Divorce which is also biblically condemned absolutely except on the ground of adultery is being modified beyond recognition not because of new revelation or new biblical insight, but out of increased regard for earthly happiness. Conclusion Divine command theory seems to blur the difference between law and morality. It posits its claims as if Gods law stands for human morality. What God has given man is law just as a nation gives its statutes to its citizen through its constitution. Failure to comply with law either of man or of God is backed with threat. But morality springs from the free will or free action of the moral agent, independent of law or threat. However, divine command theory has the merit of addressing some problems of morality inherent in other ethical theories. The objections to God-dependent morality are many, but they are not all weighty. We have made some responses to some of these objections where we have been impelled to 27 Felix Ayemere Airoboman: A Critical Reflection on Divine Command Theory of Morality As a theory, it adds to existing body of knowledge and provides an alternative for moral guidance or consideration. Some people are satisfied with it and are guided by it because they believe in what God commands as standard of morality. Some people refrain from doing evil only because they believe God prohibit it and or because of the divine dangers they believe threaten from violation. No matter the difficulties the theory is faced with, it has some advantageous, practical consequences. In our day to day life, people would normally do or refrain from doing something because of their belief in what God requires, permits or prohibits. They would normally say “if not because of God”, and not “if not because of Immanuel Kant or John Stuart Mill or Joseph Fletcher”, and so on, the authors of other ethical theories. This points to the fact that divine command theory has more concrete impact on the life of people than other existing, contending theories. Besides it appears to be the most widespread moral theory than others. It is not only popular within the scope of philosophy or among the learned, or adults but among the educated and uneducated, young and old, philosophers and non-philosophers alike. rancour, national and international peril which moral relativism portends. It stands very tall when compared with situation ethics which makes morality bound to circumstances; it takes care of the problem of the insincerity of the subject in a situation to judge in his own case with impartiality or disinterestedness. It also resolves the problem of who should be the arbiter of rationality and universalizability in duty ethics and the feared consequent insincerity of the moral agent in universalizing a principle, including who decides on how to treat humanity in another person as an end in itself. Divine Command theory therefore seems more plausible in satisfying the thirsts or filling the vacuums of moral famish inherent in these other theories. Although it might not provide the most rational alternative in human reckoning since it is not secular-based, it seems to provide the most objective, impartial, universal, single moral theory for human action and judgement. Endnotes 1. See Harold Titus and Morris Keeton, Ethics f o r To d a y , ( N e w Yo r k : D . Va n Nostrandcompany, 1973), p. 47. For some general introduction to moral theories, see for example, David Copp, Introduction: Metaethics and Normative Ethics, In David Copp,Ed.,The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory,(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp.3-38. Harry J. Gensler, Moral Philosophy, In Harry Gensler, Earl Spurginand and James Swindal, Eds.,Ethics: Contemporary Readings,(New York:Routledge, 2004), pp. 1-24. James Swindal, and Earl Spurgin, The History of Ethics, In Harry Gensler, James C.Swindal a n d E a r l W. S p u rg i n , E d s . , E t h i c s : Contemporary Readings,(New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 25-41. Emmett Barcalow, Moral Philosophy: Theory and Although we do not claim that divine command theory is a panacea to the lingering, perennial controversies about the status and validation of moral theory for human actions and that it is the correct moral theory, we do not as well say it is not. At least it helps to diminish the inherent problems of most other theories. It diminishes the controversies concerning who decides the utilitarian greatest good and pleasure maximization principles and the impending moral anarchy or normlessness of ethical subjectivism. It shrinks the socio-cultural 28 Ewanlen: A Journal of Philosophical Inquiry Issues, 4Ed,(Belmont: Thompson Higher Education, 2007). 10.See Jeffrey Olen, Persons and Their World: An Introduction to Philosophy,(New York: Random House, 1983), p. 62. 2. See Titus and Keeton, p. 48. 11.See Kai Nielson, God and the Good: Does Morality need Religion? InKarstenStruhl and Paula Struhl, Eds.,Ethics in Perspective: A Reader,(New York: Random House, 1975), p. 75. 3. Nicholas Bunnin and JiyuanYu, The B l a c k w e l l D i c t i o n a r y o f We s t e r n Philosophy,(Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), p. 188. 12.Nielson, p. 76. 4. Robert Mortimer, Religious Absolutism, In Raziel Abelson and Maurice-Louise Friquegnon. Ethics for Modern Life,4Ed.,(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), p. 15. 13.See Frankena and Granrose, p. 94. 14.See details in Emmett Barcalow, Moral Philosophy: Theory and Issues, Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1994: 21, 24. The general argument about the Divine command theory can also be found in Emmett Barcalow, 2007. 5. See Jacques Thiroux, Ethics: Theory and Practice,5Ed.,(New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1995), p. 64. 6. See ZaineRidling, Philosophy Then and Now: A Look Back at 26 Centuries of Ideas that have shaped our Thinking,(No place of publication: Access Foundation, 2001), pp. 962, 963. 15.Barcalow, p. 24. 16.See details in Frankena and Granrose, p. 94. 17.Emil Brunner, The Divine Imperative, In William Frankena and John Granrose, Eds.,Introductory Readings in Ethics,(New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs, 1974), pp. 202203. 7. William Frankena, and JohnGranrose, Eds., Introductory Readings in Ethics,(New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs, 1974), p. 94. 8. See details of this argument in Ridling, p. 964. 18.See details of this argument in Mortimer, 1991, pp. 16-18. 9. See details of this argument in Plato's Apology, Reprinted in The Harvard Classics, Charles W. Eliot, Ed., Benjamin Jowett, Tran.,(New York: P.F. Collier and Son Corporation, 1937), pp. 5-30. 19.Mortimer, p. 19. 20.The Book of Wisdom, 12: 15-19. 29 Felix Ayemere Airoboman: A Critical Reflection on Divine Command Theory of Morality 21.See details in Felix Airoboman, “Reconciling the Problem of Evil with the Perfection of God”,African Pentecost: Journal of Theology, Psychology and Social Work, Vol.4, No. 2, 2012, p. 127. Irwin, 2007), p. 392. 32.See Barcalow, pp. 24-25. 33.See Irwin, p. 392. 22.See C.F. Henry, The Good as the Will of God, In William Frankena and John Granrose, Eds.,Introductory Readings in Ethics,(New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs, 1974), pp. 98-99 and Edward Carnell, An Introduction to Christian Apologetics,(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), p. 15 34.See more detailed argument in Thiroux, p. 68. 35.See this argument in Olen, p. 63. 36.Steven Cahn, God and Morality, In Steven Cahn. Ed.,Exploring Ethics: An Introductory Anthology,(New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 30. 23.Henry, p. 99. 24.Thiroux, p. 67. 37.Cahn, p. 31. 25.Stanley Honer and Thomas Hunt, Invitation to Philosophy: Issues and Options,2Ed., Grace Clifford Holloway, Ed.,(Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc., 1973), p. 107. 38.See Cahn, p. 31. 39.Cahn, p. 31. 26.See Honer and Hunt, p. 107. 40.Cahn, p. 32. 27.Henry, p. 95. 41.Cahn, p. 32. 28.See details in Barcalow, p. 25. 42.Cahn, p. 32. 29.Mortimer, p. 15. 43.Cahn, p. 32. 30.Frankena and Granrose, p. 110. 44.Cahn, p. 32. 31.See Terence Irwin,The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical Study, Vo l u m e 1 : F ro m S o c r a t e s t o t h e Reformation,(Oxford: Great Clarendon. 45.See Cahn, p. 32. 30 Ewanlen: A Journal of Philosophical Inquiry 46.See this in Joseph Omoregbe, Ethics: A Systematic and Historical Study,3Ed.,(Lagos: Joja Educational Research and Publishers Limited. 1993). 56.See details of this argument in Plato, pp. 5-30. 57.See details of this argument in Plato's Euthyphro, Reprinted in The Dialogues of Plato, Benjamin Jowett, Tran, In Great Books of the Western World, Robert Maynard Hutchins, Et.al. Eds.,(Chicago: Chicago University Press), pp. 191-199. 47.Mir Valiuddin, Mu'tazalism, In M.M. Sharif, Ed.,A History of Muslim Philosophy, 1961, p. 279. Presented by h t t p : / / w w w. a l h a s s a n a i n . c o m &http://www.islamicblessings.com. 58.Honer and Hunt, p. 108. 48.See detais in Valiuddin, 1961, p. 282.\ 59.Honer and Hunt, p. 109. 49.See Valiuddin, 1961, p. 282. 60.Frankena and Granrose, p. 105. 50.See details in Philip Quinn,Theological Voluntarism, In David Copp,Ed.,The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory,(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 79-80. For some debates on this, seeBrad Hooker, “Cudworth and Quinn”, Analysis,Vol.61, 2001, pp. 333–335. 61.See details of this argument in Alastair Norcross, Reasons without Demands: Rethinking Rightness, In James Dreier,Ed.,Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory,(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.,2006), pp. 45-46. 51.See William Frankena, Is Morality Logically Dependent on Religion? In Gene Outka and J o h n R e e d e r, E d s . , R e l i g i o n a n d Morality,(Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1973), p. 313, cited in Philip Quinn,2006, pp, 79-80. 52.See Nielson, p. 77. 53.See Nielson, pp. 77-78. 54.See this argument in C.F. Henry, p. 95. 55.See this argument in Frankena and Granrose, p. 99. 31