DIVINE COMMAND THEORY

Divine Command Theory

Divine Command Theory

Background

Atheism (the belief that neither God nor any other supernatural phenomena exist) was once thought to be a form of madness. As late as the seventeenth century even such a progressive thinker as John LOCKE (1632-1704) thought atheism to be beyond the pale of intellectual and moral respectability. But by the end of the twentieth century, particularly among the intelligentsia, atheism had become commonplace. There is no distinctive ethical theory that goes with atheism, though atheists will typically have the spectrum of values characteristic of the Enlightenment. Atheists are frequently utilitarians; but some are deontologists or perfectionists. In Metaethics atheism fits well with either ethical Naturalism or noncognitivism. While religious thinkers tend to be cognitivists and intuitionists, the link, however, is not tight. Henry Sidgwick (1838-1900), G. E. Moore (1873-1958), and C. D. Broad (1887-1971) were distinguished intuitionists; one might say the most distinguished intuitionists. Yet they were either atheists or agnostics (Frankena & William, 1974).

The key problem for atheists vis-à-vis morality is not to work out a distinctive ethical theory providing the unique fit for atheism but to meet the challenge thrown out by religious believers and even by some existentialist atheists — CAMUS (1913-1960) and SARTRE (1905-1980) — that if God is dead nothing matters, or at least nothing really ultimately matters. Or, more moderately, atheists need to meet the claim of some religious moralists that a secular ethic must be inadequate when compared with at least a properly nuanced religious morality.

In our societies moral perplexity runs deep and cynicism or at least ambivalence about moral belief is extensive. Recognition of this situation is common ground between reflective and informed atheists and believers. Atheists will argue that there is no reason to lose our nerve and claim that we must have religious commitments in order to make sense of morality. Torturing human beings is wrong, cruelty to human beings and animals is wrong, treating one's Promises lightly or being careless about the truth is wrong, exploiting or degrading human beings is vile. If we know anything to be wrong, we know these things to be wrong and to be just as wrong in a godless world as in a world with God. God's not existing has no effect on their moral status or on our moral standing (Hauerwas. 1983).

There is a philosophical problem about how we know these things to be wrong, but that is as much a problem for the believer as for the atheist. For if any person, believer and nonbeliever alike, has an understanding of the concept of morality, has an understanding of what it is to take the moral point of view, than that person will eo ipso have an understanding that it is wrong to harm others, that promises are to be kept and truth is to be told (Idziak, 1979). This does not mean that such a person will be committed to the belief that a lie can never be told, that a promise can ...