·
the god makes rules, or laws, known - good is
therefore defined as being in accordance with those rules, or laws
·
the god's very nature is predefined as good -
good is therefore defined as being in accordance with the god's nature
If
there is a god of some sort, and that god is interested in good and bad, right
and wrong, then these arguments are sound.
However, there are many religions believing in different conceptions of
divinity. There is ancestor worship in
which the dead are considered to enter into some state of divinity (this should
not be confused with veneration of the dead), pantheism in which we and all of
nature are parts of a greater divinity, animism in which non-human entities and
phenomenon are aspects of divinity (which could be united or disparate),
polytheism in which divinity is divided among many gods and monotheism in which
there is but one god. The Western world
is, at least culturally, overwhelmingly monotheistic but even within monotheism
there are different versions of what is essentially the same god.
To
allow divinely inspired morality as valid, one must be able to select the
correct form of divinity and then select the correct version of that form of
divinity.
Omnipotence
is a standard monotheistic principle. If
one's god is omnipotent, it follows that the god can to do whatever it chooses
to do and is not restricted in its choice.
Absolute benevolence is another standard monotheistic principle. Everything the god does is good, the will of
the god is good and the laws of the god are good. Two other standard monotheistic principles
are omniscience and omnipresence, the ramifications of which are that the god
knows what is good and cannot be limited by absence.
Because
I am the product of a culture infused with Christian heritage, I cannot help
but address divinely inspired morality in terms of standard Christian belief. (No comment on the relative strengths or
weaknesses of Christian belief is intended.
I personally believe that the arguments against Divine Command
Theory work equally well irrespective of the specific god being used as the
Divine Commander, but addressing theory in cultures which don't have any
Christian heritage is work for someone within those cultures.)
If the god of Noah,
David, Abraham and Jesus were to change his will such that it was a moral
imperative to murder one’s first born in his name, then according to the tenets
of the faith of Christians it would be automatically good and right to do
so. The reaction from most readers may
be – Oh no, God wouldn’t do that, because it is wrong. By doing so, you are hypothetically limiting
the Christian god by proclaiming that there is a standard of right and wrong
which transcends him. Even if we were
able to circumvent the concept of omnipotence which suggests that the Christian
god is free to choose what is good; we are left with a
question. Where does that concept
of right and wrong, one that transcends an omniscient and omnipotent god, come
from?----------------------------------------------
This article is one of a series. It was preceded by Morally Circular Definitions and will be followed by A Non-Circular Definition of Morality.
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