Henry Imler February 12th, 2006

As mentioned in an earlier post, Objectivism is the “main squeeze” among Ethicists. This does not mean there is much agreement among them about out the “rules” work. There are many variations among the different sets of possible rules and where the various rule sets get their authority.

This is perhaps the easiest to understand of the flavors. In the Divine Command Theory, the objective set of rules that make up ethics are the commands of a specific deity or set of deities. This view set is most commonly found in religious circles. For example, the laws that Allah sets forth in the Qu’ran are the absolute laws of right and wrong. The authority comes from the power of the deity itself. Although the different religions will vary, the general idea is that “he who makes the place, sets the rules.” Or, God created us, so He gets to set the rules.

Given that there is a God and that the rules that one attributes to Him are in fact the rules that He has set forth, Divine Command Theory is quite a valid ethical theory. For the Christians, all you need to prove is that the Bible is true and that its version of God also really exists. Same thing with the Hebrews and the Talmud.

However, getting to the givens is the hard part. It takes an enormous amount of work to prove there is a God and then for a mere human to comprehensively demonstrate that the text is what the proved God wishes for moral law is an equally hard task. For each demonstration of existence there is a counter-demonstration of non-existence. This is most famously examined in Kant’s (in)famous antinomies.

Due to this hardship, even religious Ethicists have relied on the other theories to prove their Ethic Set, such as Consequentialism, Deontology, and Virtue Ethics.

• Divine Command Theory , Ethics
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Henry Imler November 28th, 2005

Norman L. Geisler, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary, presents a Christian view of how to deal with consequences in conjunction with divine command theory in his article entitled Absolutes? Absolutely!. I thought it was an interesting read in light of my earlier post on Ethical Relativity.

In the first part of the article, Geisler attempts to refute the various branches of ethics. He then goes on to argue for the Divine Command Theory for ethics, with the divine command coming from the Christian God, via the Bible. Critiquing this part of the article, especially his treatment of consequential or teleological ethics, is a topic for another post. What I am interested in for the sake of this post is the latter part of the article, where Geisler attempts to answer the question of what to do when two divine command conflict with each other. Under the “Conflict Situations” portion, he lists the following six ways of approaching conflicting moral absolutes:

1. Antinomianism - Bypasses the problem by maintaining that there are no moral absolutes.
2. Generalism - There are only general moral laws, but not absolute ones.
3. Situationism - Only one absolute law, i.e. Love, is to be followed.
4. Unqualified absolutism - Many absolute laws that never conflict.
5. Conflicting absolutism - Many absolute laws that sometimes conflict and we are to do the less evil (but evil is being done.)
6. Graded absolutism - many absolute laws that sometimes conflict and we are responsible for obeying the higher law.

Of the six approaches, only four of them hold to absolutes, which Geisler has argued for with his argument for Divine Command Theory, so we can throw the first two out. Geisler maintains that only Graded Absolutism holds up to a Christian Divine Command Theory worldview. Because the Christian Ethic demands that there are many absolutes (even though Jesus’s golden rule could indicate otherwise) Situationalism does not hold.

Nor does the idea that none of the laws conflict fly. It seems that lying is sometimes justified. It would seem that lying to save 50 lives is a moral duty. To suggest that the moral weight of not lying overrides the moral weight of 50 lives is hard to justify. Despite this difficulty, there are many Christian Divine Command Theorists that would say that you simply can say nothing when asked to lie to save 50 lives. You have a duty to reveal the information and a duty not to lie, therefore you must remain silent. While this does rid oneself of the problem in some situations, there is always the issue when the storm troopers search your house if you remain silent. In those cases, the same difficulty arises. Sometimes there is no third choice.

So at this point we are left with the last two possible choices, either we have a duty to choose the less evil path and are held responsible for it, or we have the same duty to choose the less evil path and are not held responsible for it. The first approach seems to be unjust because one can only be held responsible for the situations one finds himself in.

Giesler maintains that the only way to deal with the problem of conflicting absolutes is Graded Absolutism. Put briefly:

[Graded Absolutism] insists there are many moral absolutes and they sometimes conflict. However, some laws are higher than others, so when there is an unavoidable conflict it is our duty to follow the higher moral law. God does not blame us for what we could not avoid. Thus He exempts us from responsibility to follow the lower law in view of the overriding obligation to obey the higher law.

Which is the higher law? Giesler paints a picture of a hierarchy of values. First one is to respect the source of the law (God), then moral objects (persons) and then everything else (animals, and other non-persons).

For a more detailed discussion on the topic, see Giesler’s Christian Ethics: Options and Issues, chapter 7.

• Christianity , Divine Command Theory , Ethics , The Ethics of God
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Henry Imler August 1st, 2005

How does one start when approaching a classic such as this? One starts with an overview, then proceeding on to the writer, for he is its source, style, content, and finishing up with commentary. At least this is the route that will be taken here. The book, Miracles: a Preliminary Study, in contemporary Christianity is championed as one of the greatest apologies of the miraculous ever penned. However, in reality, most patrons have never read it. There is so great a wind about C.S. Lewis�s memory that anything penned by him is at once slotted into the �one of the greats� category. There may be reason behind the wind, which we will get to in a moment, but it is interesting to note that the mass of Christians who recommend this book have not read a drop of it.

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• Christianity , Divine Command Theory , Ethics , Hume , Metaphysics , Reading Reviews , Religion , Science , The Existance of God , Undergraduate Papers
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