Tag Archives: morality

Refuting divine command theory

Flawed concepts,

Divine command theory is the idea that God’s commands are what determines whether things are morally right or wrong.

Believers believe that what God says is good is good, and what God says is bad is bad. But does God command certain things because they’re good? Or are those things good just because God commands them?

Divine command theory says it’s the latter. If the former was true, if God had reasons behind his judgments of certain acts as good or bad, that would be contrary to divine command theory. This would mean that there are important things that God did not create, and has no power over. It would also mean that we don’t need God to tell us what’s right and wrong, since we could just figure out for ourselves what the actual reasons behind morality are and what principles of behavior they entail.

So that first option doesn’t tend to be very popular with religious people. But it’s the only option that works.1 If the second option was true, if morality was indeed defined solely by whatever God decided to command, rather than being based on some separate objective standard, that would make morality completely arbitrary and meaningless. If there was somebody who could just say that something was good, and that was how you defined good, then anything could be “good”.

It would mean that instead of saying you shall not murder, God could just as easily have said murder was the best thing in the world, and it would be so. Imagine a world where all believers think murder is always absolutely good, because God said so. Sounds bad, right? But how could it be bad if it was what God commanded? If you think that scenario would still be bad somehow, that proves that you have moral standards that are independent of what God says.

If you think God would never command something like that because he’s not like that, what makes you think that? The idea that God wouldn’t command a particular thing seems to be based on the assumption that the thing is evil, and God would never do something that’s evil, because God is good.

But what makes you think it is an evil thing? Evil is just whatever God happens to say is evil. Unless you reject divine command theory, the only thing making the bad thing bad is the arbitrary choice of God to call it bad. You have no reason to think he couldn’t have just as easily said the opposite. Divine command theory says he could have.2

According to divine command theory, “God would never command something evil” just means “God never commands things that God doesn’t command”, which is perfectly compatible with murder being something he does command. If you don’t think that evil things could have been good things if God had happened to make different decisions when he made up the rules of morality, then you don’t believe in divine command theory.

Another problem with divine command theory is that we have no commands from God regarding a lot of ethical issues. The laws given in the Bible have nothing to say about torture, or about child molestation. So I guess there is no right and wrong when it comes to those things, according to divine command theory.3

The Bible doesn’t say God gave humanity any general commands about moral issues for the first 2500 years or so. But sexual deviancy and murder and stuff are already considered morally wrong in the Bible during that time, before God gives Moses the law. How could those things have been wrong when there had been no divine commands about them?

But why would commands be what makes things good or bad, anyway? If God had told us what the speed of light was, is this what you would be asking: “Is the speed of light 299,792,458 m/s because God said so, or did God say so because that’s what it is?” No, you wouldn’t be asking that. It probably wouldn’t even occur to you to think that God telling us it was so might be why it was so, because that’s absurd. If God has anything to do with why that value is what it is, it’s because he made it that way, not because he said it was that way.

But when we’re talking about moral facts, for some reason we instead jump to the bizarre idea that those facts are somehow caused by someone telling us about those facts. Why do people who claim to believe morality is objective not think about it the same way they think about other objective facts?

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Should people be patient?

Contradictions

Yes.

The Bible says God waited patiently for Noah to get done building the ark before flooding the earth. And God didn’t mind Abraham repeatedly challenging his plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. He didn’t get angry when Abraham repeatedly asked what he would do if there were increasingly small numbers of good people there.

So God is patient. Otherwise, he would have destroyed everybody by now. The Bible describes God as long-suffering, forbearing, and patient. It says God is love, and love is patient. And everything God does is right, so we should follow his example and be patient.

According to the Bible, Jesus is God, and Jesus is immensely patient too, which is an example we should follow.

David says you should wait patiently for God to help you. That’s what he did, and God approved of everything David ever did.

Solomon says being patient shows that you have great understanding, and being quick-tempered shows that you’re a fool. Hot-tempered people start conflicts, and patient people resolve them. Patience is better than pride, and better than being a warrior.

Paul advised his followers to be patient. He said love is patient, and you should follow the way of love. He commended himself for remaining patient throughout all his hardships. Forbearance is one of the fruits of the Spirit. (And also there’s no law against it, which means you should definitely do it!) Paul prayed for God to give his followers great endurance and patience.

Christians should imitate people who have been patient enough to get what God promised them. James says you should patiently wait for Jesus to come back, like a farmer patiently waits for rain.

Jesus commands you to patiently endure the trials he’s going to inflict on you, and if you do, then maybe he’ll give you a break from them for an hour. Or something. You might be destined to be taken captive and killed with a sword, but just be patient. Everyone is going to be forced to worship the beast, and then everyone who worships the beast will go to hell forever. But being patient will help, apparently, somehow.

No.

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The Story of the Calling of the Disciples—
Fishing for People

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Two disciples of John the Baptist decided they would rather follow Jesus. One of them was Andrew, and he introduced Jesus to his brother Peter. Then Jesus went to a lake, where he met two pairs of brothers who were fishing. One of those pairs was Peter and Andrew. When he said he could teach them how to fish for people, they immediately abandoned their task and followed him.

Jesus’s new followers followed his example by immediately abandoning their families when he called them. Jesus required them to do this, because dividing families was his purpose in life. He promised to give each of them a hundred new families, because Jesus thinks families are replaceable. In total, Jesus chose twelve men to be his main disciples, also known as the apostles.

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Fishing for People →
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How to keep God from killing you

The bad book, ,

God kills people a lot. If you want to make sure God won’t kill you, maybe the stories in the Bible can help you figure out what you should or shouldn’t be doing. Here are some Bible-based tips for staying on God’s good side:

Things to avoid

How to stop him when you think he’s going to kill you

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Had David killed Saul’s relatives against God’s will?

Contradictions, , , , ,

In 2 Samuel 16, Shimei accuses David of having murdered Saul’s relatives, and says God is punishing him for it. David makes no objection to this claim, and accepts that this message and curse are from God. But what Shimei claimed David had done is not at all what the Bible says actually happened.

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Should people envy?

Contradictions, ,

No.

Envy leads to the death of the simple-minded people who indulge in it, at least according to Eliphaz.

One of the Ten Commandments is: You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. Moses also warned the Israelites not to covet the Canaanite idols. When Achan coveted some of the plunder from Jericho and took it for himself, God refused to help Israel anymore until they killed Achan’s whole family. And when some other Israelites envied Moses’s authority, God made the earth open up and swallow them.

David says you shouldn’t be envious of those who do wrong. And Solomon says you shouldn’t envy the violent. He says envy rots your bones, and jealousy is worse than cruel and overwhelming anger. He says greed brings ruin to your whole household, and anyone who is eager to get rich will be punished with poverty. Asaph envied the wicked and arrogant when he saw how well-off they were, but he considered that a mistake. The wise will tell you not to let yourself envy sinners, because those people are going to die.

Isaiah says greed is sinful and enrages God. Jeremiah says people should be ashamed of their greed, and God will punish them for it. Ezekiel says God will judge people for wanting to take possession of countries. And Micah says God will inflict disaster on people who covet and seize fields and houses.

Jesus says envy is an evil thought that defiles people. And he warns people to be careful not to be greedy.

Paul says greed and envy are among the evils that people become filled with when they have depraved minds, and those people deserve death. People who get jealous are “acting like mere humans“, which is a bad thing, apparently. Paul says we should walk in the way of love, and love doesn’t envy. He says envy is a result of arguments from corrupt minds that understand nothing. People who live in envy are foolish and disobedient.

Paul says anyone who is greedy isn’t a real Christian, and can’t be part of the Christian community. Greedy, jealous, selfishly ambitious, and envious people can’t enter the kingdom of God, either. Paul says the greedy part of your nature must be put to death, before it brings on God’s wrath. Eagerness to gain money is a root of all kinds of evil, causing people to leave the faith and come to grief.

Paul instructed his followers to behave decently, as opposed to indulging in jealousy. He didn’t want there to be any jealousy among his followers. He told them not to envy each other, and not to be full of greed. It would be improper to have even a hint of greed among them.

James says envy and selfish ambition are demonic, and invariably go along with every other evil practice. He says violent fights are the result of covetous desires. And Peter tells his followers to rid themselves of all envy. He says experts in greed are accursed, and greedy false teachers will be destroyed.

Yes.

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The Story of the Exile of Israel and Judah—
The End of the Independent Hebrew Kingdoms

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Where the Samaritans came from, according to the Jews

Jotham’s son Ahaz was an evil king of Judah, so God sent the kings of Israel and Aram to fight against him and defeat him after God had promised they wouldn’t defeat him.4 After God predicted Assyria would destroy Judah, Ahaz got the king of Assyria to instead help him attack Israel, by giving him all the gold and silver from the temple of God.

Hoshea, the next king of Israel, was an evil traitor. When the king of Assyria found that out, he took Hoshea prisoner and conquered his country, putting an end to the kingdom of Israel. The people of Israel were exiled to Assyria, becoming the Ten Lost Tribes. The king of Assyria sent foreign pagans to settle in the former land of Israel, becoming Samaritans.

How Hezekiah used the gift of success

Ahaz’s son Hezekiah was the most righteous king Judah ever had. So God made him successful at everything. Hezekiah successfully convinced God to let his people break God’s law by celebrating the Passover in any way they wanted.

He successfully rebelled against the king of Assyria, so God told the king of Assyria to destroy Judah. But righteous Hezekiah kept the king of Assyria from conquering Judah by giving him all the gold and silver from the temple of God (which his father had already given to the king of Assyria). After Hezekiah successfully convinced the king of Assyria not to conquer Judah, the king of Assyria continued to try to conquer Judah, as God had commanded him, until God got him killed.

Hezekiah got sick, and God sent a prophet to tell him that he would never recover. But Hezekiah successfully convinced the never-changing God to change his mind, and so he recovered anyway.

Men from Babylon came to visit Hezekiah, and he showed them all the treasure and stuff he owned. The prophet told Hezekiah that now that the Babylonians knew about all that treasure, they were going to steal it all some day. And they would kidnap and castrate some of Hezekiah’s descendants. Righteous Hezekiah said he didn’t mind that, since he wouldn’t be around when it happened.

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The End of the Independent Hebrew Kingdoms →
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The Story of the Good Kings of Judah—
No Rest for the Righteous

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After Queen Athaliah was murdered, she was replaced by the seven-year-old king Joash. He reigned for 40 years, doing what was right. Joash had two wives, and he wouldn’t worship God or listen to his prophets. God got Joash severely wounded in battle, and then his own officials murdered him.

Joash was succeeded by his son Amaziah, who killed his father’s murderers. He reigned for 29 years, doing what was right. Just like his father, Amaziah wouldn’t worship God or listen to his prophets. So God got the king of Israel to attack Judah, and then Amaziah got murdered, too.

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No Rest for the Righteous →
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Should people honor their parents?

Contradictions,

Yes.

God’s law says you should honor your father and your mother, and then you’ll have a good long life. It also says that people who dishonor their parents are to be cursed. And that people who curse their parents are to be killed.

Solomon says you should listen to and hold to what your parents teach you, and not despise them. If you mock your father or scorn your mother, ravens will peck your eye out. And if you curse your parents, you’ll die.

God said he was going to send the prophet Elijah to his people again, and if Elijah didn’t succeed in turning the hearts of the children to their parents, then God would totally destroy the land.

Jesus says honoring your parents is one of the good things you have to do to get eternal life. He says if you think giving money to God is more important than using it to help your parents, then you are breaking God’s command. So honoring your parents is even more important than honoring God. And Paul says it’s right for children to obey their parents “in the Lord”, whatever that means.

No.

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The Story of the Evil Kings of Judah—
David's Dynasty Starts to Approach Hitler Levels of Evil

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Rehoboam, the first king of Judah, was evil. He and his cousin Maakah had a son named Abijah, who succeeded him as king and was also evil. With God’s help, Abijah killed half a million Israelites.5

The next king of Judah was Abijah’s son Asa, and he always did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Asa brutally oppressed his own people, led them to steal building materials from the king of Israel, and imprisoned people when they criticized him. He took money from God’s treasury and used it to pay the king of Aram to fight against God’s people Israel. God was displeased with this, because he had wanted to fight against Israel himself. So then Asa developed a severe foot disease, and he died two years later.

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David’s Dynasty Starts to Approach Hitler Levels of Evil →
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