37 Divine Command Theory (Part 2)
Various forms of divine command theory have been presented by philosophers including William of Ockham, St Augustine, Duns Scotus, and John Calvin. The theory generally teaches that moral truth does not exist independently of God and that morality is determined by divine commands. Stronger versions of the theory assert that God’s command is the only reason that a good action is moral, while weaker variations cast divine command as a vital component within a greater reason.[3] The theory asserts that good actions are morally good as a result of their being commanded by God, and many religious believers subscribe to some form of divine command theory.[4] Because of these premises, adherents believe that moral obligation is obedience to God’s commands; what is morally right is what God desires.[5]
Augustine
Saint Augustine offered a version of divine command theory that began by casting ethics as the pursuit of the supreme good, which delivers human happiness. He argued that to achieve this happiness, humans must love objects that are worthy of human love in the correct manner; this requires humans to love God, which then allows them to correctly love everything else. Augustine’s ethics proposed that the act of loving God enables humans to properly orient their loves, leading to human happiness and fulfilment.[6] Augustine supported Plato’s view that a well-ordered soul is a desirable consequence of morality; unlike Plato, he believed that achieving a well-ordered soul had a higher purpose: living in accordance with God’s commands. His view of morality was thus heteronomous, as he believed in deference to a higher authority (God), rather than acting autonomously.[7]
Scholasticism
Scholastic philosopher John Duns Scotus argued that the only moral obligations that God could not take away from humans are to love one another and love God. He proposed that some commandments are moral because God commands them, and some are moral irrespective of his command.[8] Duns Scotus argued that the natural law contains only what is self-evidently analytically true and that God could not make these statements false. This means that the commands of natural law do not depend on God’s will; these commands were those found on the first tablet of the Ten Commandments – the first three, which consist of obligations to God. He suggested that the rest of the Ten Commandments, and any other commandments God makes, are morally obligatory because God commands them.[9]
Kelly James Clark and Anne Poortenga have presented a defence of divine command theory based on Aquinas’ moral theory. Aquinas proposed a theory of natural law which asserted that something is moral if it works towards the purpose of human existence, and so human nature can determine what is moral. Clark and Poortenga argued that God created human nature and thus commanded a certain morality; hence he cannot arbitrarily change what is right or wrong for humans.[10]
Immanuel Kant