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Full Idea
If it were not morally good and just in its own nature before any positive command of God, that God should be obeyed by his creatures, the bare will of God himself could not beget any obligation upon anyone.
Gist of Idea
The requirement that God must be obeyed must precede any authority of God's commands
Source
Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.3)
Book Ref
'British Moralists 1650-1800 Vol. 1', ed/tr. Raphael,D.D. [Hackett 1991], p.109
A Reaction
This strikes me as a self-evident truth, and a big problem for anyone who wants to make God the source of morality. You don't have to accept anyone's authority just because they are powerful or clever (though they do bestow a certain natural authority!).
| 6230 | If the soul were a tabula rasa, with no innate ideas, there could be no moral goodness or justice [Cudworth] |
| 6223 | If the will and pleasure of God controls justice, then anything wicked or unjust would become good if God commanded it [Cudworth] |
| 6226 | The requirement that God must be obeyed must precede any authority of God's commands [Cudworth] |
| 6225 | Obligation to obey all positive laws is older than all laws [Cudworth] |
| 6227 | Keeping promises and contracts is an obligation of natural justice [Cudworth] |
| 6224 | An omnipotent will cannot make two things equal or alike if they aren't [Cudworth] |
| 6228 | Senses cannot judge one another, so what judges senses cannot be a sense, but must be superior [Cudworth] |
| 6229 | Sense is fixed in the material form, and so can't grasp abstract universals [Cudworth] |
| 6231 | There is a self-determing power in each person, which makes them what they are [Cudworth] |