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28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / d. God decrees morality

[God as the authority behind morality]

16 ideas
In 'The Laws', to obey the law is to be obey god [Plato, by MacIntyre]
     Full Idea: The divine is important in 'The Laws' because it is identified with law; to be obedient before the law is to be obedient before god.
     From: report of Plato (The Laws [c.348 BCE]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.6
     A reaction: Christian conservativism in a nutshell. Plato is rejecting his view in Euthyphro that piety (etc.) must precede the will of the gods. The obvious problem is bad laws, made by corrupt rulers.
Stoics teach that law is identical with right reason, which is the will of Zeus [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Stoics teach that common law is identical with that right reason which pervades everything, being the same with Zeus, who is the regulator and chief manager of all existing things.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.53
The source of all justice is Zeus and the universal nature [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: It is not possible to discover any other beginning of justice or any source for it other than that from Zeus and from the universal nature.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 326), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035c
     A reaction: If the source is 'universal nature', that could agree with Plato, but if the source is Zeus, then stoicism is a religion rather than a philosophy.
God doesn't obey the laws of nature; they are subject to the law of God [Cicero]
     Full Idea: God is not subject to obey the laws of nature. It is nature that is subject to the laws of God.
     From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.77)
William of Ockham is the main spokesman for God's commands being the source of morality [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: The most notable philosopher who makes God's commandment the basis of goodness, rather than God's goodness a reason for obeying him, is William of Occam.
     From: William of Ockham (works [1335]), quoted by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.9
     A reaction: Either view has problems. Why choose God to obey? Obey anyone who is powerful? But how do you decide that God is good? How do we know the nature of God's commands, or the nature of God's goodness? Etc.
Ideas in God's mind only have value if he makes it so [Descartes]
     Full Idea: It is impossible to imagine that anything is thought of in the divine intellect as good or true, or worthy of belief or action or omission, prior to the decision of the divine will to make it so.
     From: René Descartes (Reply to Sixth Objections [1641], 432)
If the will and pleasure of God controls justice, then anything wicked or unjust would become good if God commanded it [Cudworth]
     Full Idea: If the arbitrary will and pleasure of God is the first and only rule of good and justice, it follows that nothing can be so grossly wicked or unjust but if it were commanded by this omnipotent Deity, it must forthwith become holy, just and righteous.
     From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.I.I.5)
     A reaction: This is the strong (Platonic) answer to the Euthyphro Question (Idea 336). One answer is that God would not command in such a way - but why not? We may say that God and goodness merge into one, but we are interested in ultimate authority.
The requirement that God must be obeyed must precede any authority of God's commands [Cudworth]
     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.
     From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.3)
     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!).
The finite and dependent should obey the supreme and infinite [Locke]
     Full Idea: It is certain that the inferior, finite and dependent is under an obligation to obey the supreme and infinite.
     From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.13.03)
     A reaction: Locke's liberal politics has gradually helped to undermine this view. Once an inferior and dependent person owns some property, they acquire rights and do not have to submit to anyone in that respect. Modern people would defy God if they met Him.
If goodness is constituted by God's will, it is a tautology to say God's will is good [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: To call the laws of the supreme Deity good or holy or just, if these be constituted by laws, or the will of a superior, must be an insignificant tautology, amounting to no more than 'God wills what he wills' or 'His will is conformable to his will'.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §VII.V)
     A reaction: This argues not only against God as the source of morality, but also against any rules, such as those of the Categorical Imperative. Why should I follow the Categorical Imperative? What has value must dictate the rules. Is obedience the highest value?
Abraham was willing to suspend ethics, for a higher idea [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: The story of Abraham (and Isaac) contains a teleological suspension of the ethical. ...In his action he overstepped the ethical altogether, and had a higher idea outside it, in relation to which he suspended it.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling [1843], Prob I)
     A reaction: My immediate response is to find this proposal very sinister. I can't remotely understand what Abraham's (or God's) 'higher' idea could be that could justify this crime. Maybe ethics is suspended if you are on the beach and a tidal wave arrives?
Morality can only be upheld by belief in God and a 'hereafter' [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Naivety: as if morality remained when the sanctioning God is gone. The 'hereafter' is absolutely necessary if belief in morality is to be upheld.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[165])
     A reaction: This is the 'good' and 'evil' of social values, not the natural values which accompany the life of any creature (see Idea 7136). Even with a God, it required the priests to interpret the morality and the sanctions, and they had their thumbs in the scales.
Morality cannot survive when the God who sanctions it is missing [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Morality cannot survive when the God who sanctions it is missing! The "beyond" is absolutely necessary if faith in morality is to be maintained.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §253)
     A reaction: It strikes me that Nietzsche is self-evidently wrong. We must ask why people hang on to moral absolutes after they lose religious faith. Nietzsche seems to think it is a comfort blanket. But he admits the contractarian origins of morality.
Without God there is no intelligibility or value [Sartre]
     Full Idea: For the atheist existentialist there disappears with God all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. (Dostoevsky wrote "If God did not exist, everything would be permitted").
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.33)
Nominalists defended the sovereignty of God against the idea of natural existing good and evil [Taylor,C]
     Full Idea: Late medieval nominalism defended the sovereignty of God as incompatible with there being an order in nature which by itself defined good and bad.
     From: Charles Taylor (Sources of the Self [1989], §3.3)
     A reaction: Part of their attack on Platonism. But what made them place such a high value on the sovereignty of God?
How could God have obligations? What law could possibly impose them? [Davies,B]
     Full Idea: We have good reason for resisting the suggestion that God has any duties or obligations. …What can oblige God in relation to his creatures? Could there be a law saying God has such obligations? Where does such a law come from?
     From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 3 'Goodness')
     A reaction: Plato can answer this question. Greek gods are not so supreme that nothing could put them under an obligation, but 'God' has to be supreme in every respect.