Divine Command Theory | Critique of Religious Arguments #1
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- Опубликовано: 9 фев 2025
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In this video, I critique the divine command theory. The critiques are: we have no evidence of a god, there are conflicting morals within religions (i.e., thousands of Christian denominations), and religious texts have conflicting morals (i.e., the Old Testament and New Testament). The divine command theory is inconsistent and does not make any sense with all of these considered. This means religious people cannot say, "I think this is wrong because god".
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The assertion that, “God is good” is meaningless in the context of the Divine Command Theory because it implies the basis for morality is independent from God’s actions. With DCT, “God does what is good” is reduced to “God does what God does.”
Just to note: If anyone hasn't had the opportunity to read the Christian bible. I would recommend doing so. You can listen to it as well if time is an issue. I would say, just because it's in the bible doesn't mean it's inherently good or morally right. As we know there are lots of morality issues in the world the Christian bible doesn't cover that up. So, the bible itself is a great text to read, as well as Is God a moral monster. There are some insight into what's being said here and I honestly feel it's worth looking into before we cast judgement.
Interesting video dude. I’m wondering how you approach justifying your moral intuitions? I agree that reading the things you just read in the Old Testament certainly feel, intuitively, to be abhorrent and unjustifiable. But I guess it begs the question: why? I guess it seems “obvious”, but if we assume we live in a Godless world, how would it being wrong be obvious at all? How do we not end up in Moral Nihilism? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this :)
I believe that we have intuitions that we are born with, such as the desire for pleasure, the desire for survival, etc. In other words, we have the intuition to care about our well-being, and in most cases, the well-being of others, seeing as we are social creatures. Now, these desires are subjective, and they only tell us how we are, not what we ought to do. But, since every human being has these desires, I think it's possible to come together and create common goals for ourselves that better allow us to achieve well-being. There is obviously way more to dive into, but this is the general idea behind a secular morality. There have been entire books, video series, and podcasts done on the topic, so it's too much to type in a RUclips comment.
So, since seemingly from your channel you're a Muslim, I have a question for you. This was first presented by Paulogia in a video called "Morality Challenge for Christians", but I think it can apply to any religion. Are there any morality claims within Islam that are intuitive to everyone that do not have to do with well-being?
One additional note. This falls into the same category of "Just because something is true doesn't mean I can prove that it's true". Not all truths can be proven. We see this unfold with respect to mathematics, which IMO defines reality.
“A young Obi-Won decides to get philosophical”
It seems to me that you have two main points: Divine Command isn't a valid moral framework because people disagree about what the Divine has or hasn't commanded. And the Bible in particular is an unreliable source for morality because God commands awful things in the Old Testament. I think it's essential to remember that big questions about God and morality are rarely easy to answer and the answers often include a frustrating amount of uncertainty. I heard someone say recently that if religion didn't have a certain amount of mystery it would be science, and that a God we humans could completely understand wouldn't be a very impressive God.
To say Divine Command isn't a valid moral framework because people disagree about what the Divine has or hasn't commanded seems to me to be the same as saying the Founding Fathers aren't real and the Constitution is an invalid source of law because people disagree about what the Second Amendment means. The fact that people disagree about something, or that there are a great many views about something, does not mean that no objective truth exists on that matter. Saying that people have all kinds of different beliefs about God and morality is a good reason not to have a state church or try to enforce a religion's tenets as law for everyone, but it's not proof that none of those religions can be true.
To your second point, I am not an Old Testament Law expert so take this with a grain of (kosher) salt, but I believe you're misrepresenting some of those commands a bit. For instance, in Deuteronomy 22:23-27, the clear implication is that the incident of adultery where both parties are to be stoned was consensual, whereas the incident in the country is a genuine instance of rape and the victim should not be punished. As to Deuteronomy 21:18-21, where a rebellious good-for-nothing son can be legally stoned, I think the purpose is to stress how serious God is about honoring one's parents and also to limit the behavior of parents so that the father can't just murder his own kid and say "oh, he was rebellious so it's fine." Both parents have to be onboard and then they have to take the kid to the elders of the city and the whole town participates in the stoning. It seemed like the whole process is designed to KEEP the stoning from happening.
With regard to God's commands of violence against Israel's enemies, some of that stuff is really rough and I don't understand it either. Based on God's character as defined throughout Scripture, I have to believe those people were given ample opportunities for repentance, and the Bible also makes clear that they were engaged in some really disgusting practices like child sacrifice that had to be stamped out. But like I said above, I don't fully understand why wholesale slaughter was necessary but if I believe what the rest of the Bible says about God I trust that he was somehow being just and merciful even in those commands.
Just to chime in on your last point, God does give the inhabitants within Canaan "ample opportunities for repentance" approximately 400 years actually. God told Abraham that he would one day judge the Canaanites (Genesis 15:16). Thus, the alleged "genocide" can be seen as God's judgement against a terrible people who, as you have said, did some pretty awful things such as child sacrifice. Another purpose besides judgement against the Canaanites was to prevent the Israelites from adopting their immoral practices (such as child sacrifice). We see through Scripture that the Israelites failed to complete God's command and they ended up practicing Canaanite religion anyways. Lastly, this type of judgement was only reserved for the Canaanites. God did not wipe out the Egyptians, the Moabites, the Babylonians, etc. Only the Canaanites because of their sin.
Thanks for the comment, Jason.
My first main point is that we have no empirical evidence of any god existing. If we did, there would be no debate on whether or not god exists. Religious people say, "our morals are grounded in our god", but if that god cannot be demonstrated to exist, then that is just an empty statement.
By saying that the Divine Command Theory is invalid because there are many different interpretations of morals is not to say to that objective morals or god do not exist. That is not what I am trying to prove. When I say that there are many different interpretations of every god, I'm saying this reveals that even if that god is real, we have no way to verify those characteristics about that god. Therefore, we should not believe anyone's claims about any god because they are unverifiable. This same argument applies to morals. Different denominations of Christians attribute different moral systems to the same god. While this does not disprove that there could be a god with objective morals, it does prove that we have no way to deomonstrate or verify the existence of this objective morality, or if it exists, we have no way to verify what that objective morality is, thus the religious person is stuck with creating morality themselves, which puts the religious person in the same boat as the secular person.
My third argument is not necessarily that the Bible is an unreliable source of morality. While i think it is an unreliable source of morality, I am arguing that the morals of the Bible have changed over time, which could mean three different things that I mentioned in my comment to The Logical Apologist. If these commandments are god's commands, you have to say that god's commands change over time and are relative, or that god was wrong and commanded something immoral, or that the the Bible is not the word of god and the Israelites recorded things incorrectly. If god's commands are relative, then you are stuck with the problem of relativism. If god was wrong, there is no reason to trust that god. If the Bible is not the word of god, there is no reason to trust the Bible. All of this is to show that the Divine Command Theory is unreliable, because this "source" of morality is inconsistent and hidden, whether you view that source as god or the Bible.
I conceded to The Logical Apologist your guys' points on Deuteronomy 22. I suggest reading my comment to him in response about what you guys have to say about the Old Testament.
Hope this comment is insightful.
I love the reasoning approach that was done here. Nice video. Have you considered this. One can neither prove or disprove the existence of a God. I'm not saying a Hebrew God. I'm merely saying a God. That being the case we can't simply say God doesn't exist, because we really don't have any proof of that. If our proof is the confusion of which God than we can't simply say God isn't there. Everything else falls apart after that.
One additional note. This falls into the same category of "Just because something is true doesn't mean I can prove that it's true". Not all truths can be proven. We see this unfold with respect to mathematics, which IMO defines reality.
I don't see how God commanding things that you don't like makes the old testament immoral. If someone really held to Divine Command Theory they'd just say all of those things are moral.
They're not just things "I don't like". They're immoral. Genocide, slavery, oppression of women, killing homosexuals, wars, etc. are all immoral, and you have to be a psychopath to justify them. But that's not even the argument against the DCT. My argument is that the DCT is inconsistent and unproven. We don't know if a god exists, if a particular god actually gave commands we should follow, and what those commands are. Christians can't agree even agree what morals their god gave them. A theist has no more objective morality than an atheist does.
@@skepticallyskeptical6495 I recognize those criticisms, but I wanted to address that specific point because of a lack of time on my end. Regardless if someone believed in DCT, why would they think that's immoral? Would they not think that those things are moral simply because God ordained it to be so?
Hey Chase,
Thanks for your thoughts and discussion on this topic. You bring up a valid question with Euthyphro's Dilemma. It is a question that many theists have struggled with and attempted to answer. I hate to just toss a source at the topic without much discussion, but this source explains the topic at length and I don't think I could attempt to say it any better. See: theologyonline.com/showthread.php?47024-A-Christian-Answer-to-the-Euthyphro-Dilemma
However, I did want to comment on your thoughts about the "absolutely disgusting and immoral things" within the Old Testament, specifically Deuteronomy 22. Previous to this video, I hadn't done much study into this specific passage, however you challenged me to do so. First, the passage about "rape" can more largely be categorized as sexual misconduct or sexual immorality. Deut.22:23-24 seems like the passage you are referring to when you state that the woman must also die simply because she did not scream for help. If this is all it was left at, someone being raped and then being punished for it, I would also recoil from this passage. However, the wording used in these two verses denotes sexual intercourse which is consensual. The section contained in V.25-26 speaks to acts of rape. These two sections of verses (23-24 & 25-26) don't just speak of sexual immorality in different locations (in the city vs. in the open country) but also different circumstances the woman is in (consensual sex vs. rape). This can be seen in two ways. First, the word used in describing how the man was laying (shakab) with the woman. In V.25-26 the word used is "chazaq" or by force. This word is used to denote rape in several other passages as well (Gen. 34:1-7, 2 Sam. 13:10-22, 32). Second, I did a quick search for targum/mishnah/Rabbinic thought on this passage. All of the sources I found interpreted the distinction of not crying out has historically been taken to be a "prima facie" of consensual sex. Some sources took even a more literal reading stating that this distinction made sense because ancient Hebrew living quarters were tightly packed (whether in a tight configuration of tents in the wilderness or tightly packed buildings in walled cities/towns). Therefore, a woman screaming or protesting to a man's advances would've been heard. Regardless, this law should be taken as a case law within Deuteronomy showing how an unfaithful wife/engaged woman, as well as the man, should be put to death for adultery and a man raping a woman should also be put to death. Deuteronomy is filled with such case laws showing the "root" or "heart" of the specific law. (Jesus touched on this idea of case laws in his Sermon on the Mount when he addresses murder and adultery). Lastly, to briefly touch on this same text as "forcing women to marry their rapists", this claim falls short as I have discussed above, the wording here in this passage also denotes consensual sex. The phrase "and they are discovered" also points at showing both parties were willing. The man paying the usual dowry and being forced to marry the woman was actually a mercy to the woman. Women who were not virgins and unmarried in ancient Hebrew society were not considered very highly in society. They would've been poor and destitute. Therefore, the man would have to marry the woman and provide for her.
All this is to say that the passages you used, these from Deuteronomy in particular, seem to be misread and misinterpreted. A quick search for commentaries, both Jewish and Christian, show that these are not examples of "absolutely disgusting and immoral things." They actually condemn rape with death and assist an unmarried, non-virgin woman. See these sources: www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/ot_and_rape.htm , www.thetorah.com/article/deuteronomys-uncompromising-demand-for-womens-sexual-fidelity (this last source I feel takes too heavy of a feminist hermenuetic but it is a good discussion.)
Lastly, a quick question, why would you consider these things "absolutely disgusting and immoral" if you do not have an objective moral standard to hold to and be held to? With out something objective, morals become rather relative.
I would like to see Chase tackle that last question in a future video. If Divine Command isn't a good source for morality, then what's a better alternative?
Thanks for the comment, Josh.
That first link you shared actually conceded the point that the Divine Command Theory does not work for Christians. The author presents what he calls a Recognition View of morality in which the Christian god's character is the source of goodness, and that god's testimony of itself is evidence for people because they recognize the goodness. I think the same problems are still there. There is no empirical evidence of this god, and also no way to consistently and accurately communicate with this god to learn about this god's character. Therefore, even if this god did exist and is the ultimate source of goodness, we have no way to access that. The same problem still stands that people have many different interpretations of this "source of goodness", and thus the word "goodness" is a relative term, at least in any accessible way. Finally, I think the last point stands as well that if this god is the "source of goodness" then this god would be able to recognize, let's say, that slavery is immoral. There is still the issue of commandments in the Old Testament that Christians deem immoral today.
I concede your point on Deuteronomy 22. There are, however, many other commandments that Christians would deem immoral today, i.e., slavery. The Christian god commands the owning of other people, or at the very least is okay with it happening. The Bible never universally condemns slavery. Exodus 21:1-11, 20-21 and Leviticus 25:44-46 are verses that advocate for slavery, and there are more. Exodus 21:20-21 says that a master can beat their slave as long as they do not die because that person is their property. Owning slaves and also beating those slaves are, I assume, things you would consider to be immoral today. If these commandments are god's commands, you have to say that god's commands change over time and are relative, or that god was wrong and commanded something immoral, or that the the Bible is not the word of god and the Israelites recorded things incorrectly. If god's commands are relative, then you are stuck with the problem of relativism. If god was wrong, there is no reason to trust that god. If the Bible is not the word of god, there is no reason to trust the Bible. Slavery, again, is just one issue among many. Viewing women as second class citizens, viewing women as property, genocide, etc., but slavery is a pretty clear case of something that god commanded, but Christians view as immoral today.
I do plan on making a video on my views on morals. I do not have it completely flushed out yet but I can give a short answer. All morals are ultimately subjective, meaning that without the human subject, morals do not exist from some external source (check this out for a deeper study of the meaning of objectivity and subjectivity: www.iep.utm.edu/objectiv/). I also think describing morality in terms of "objectivity" and "subjectivity" are not useful. Again, a short answer would be that I think the language we use to talk about morality needs to be shifted from "universal", "objective", "subjective" etc. to "practical", "useful", "well-being" etc. This has a lot of underlying arguments, and I will flush all that out in a future video. Anyway, if you break down any moral system by continually asking "why?", you always get to the answer of well-being. So, there is the science of morality which is centered around well-being, in the same way that the science of medicine is centered around health. Therefore, we can, as Sam Harris would say, know that throwing acid in someone's face is immoral because that is clearly bad for their well-being. I would argue that a secular morality is superior to a religious one because a secular morality can be refined. If we realize something is not working anymore then a secular person can say, "we have learned this is bad for well-being, so we're going to stop doing it." A religious person is stuck in whatever their god has commanded to be true and cannot change.
Hope all this is a worth while response!
@@skepticallyskeptical6495 Sorry for the delay, but here is an article I wrote about slavery within the OT: thelogicalapologist.blog/2019/11/11/bad-morality-within-the-good-book-discussing-slavery-in-the-old-testament/
While this article addresses mainly slavery, I think it can be said that good study and research done within the right context leads to interpretations that show the OT as well as God as being far from immoral.
Consideration with respect to the Christian Bible for example, although the bible does say what we should and should not do. It doesn't say that these commands are Good. The bible is very clear when it says that something is good. If you are curious you can see this play it out in the 1st few chapters of Genesis. I'm saying this because the Bible is a ancient piece of literature. You don't have to have faith in it in order to read it or understand it.
The more I think morality regardless if it's grounded in God or not is by nature flawed. No matter what system you choose to side with. Why? Reality is flawed. This is the 2nd law of thermodynamics that permeates everything around us including our sense of morality.
Since this discussion is grounded on divine commandment theory we can see this being played out with respect to the Israelites. Although they are God's chosen people they still lack the ability to follow God's commandments at times within scripture. Why? Reality is flawed.
You need more information. There are the traditional laws of the people and there are the moral laws of God.
Hi. New to you channel. IF God is defined as Monotheistic, Nessesary and, the key here, transcendent, he must then be a maximally great being.
It follows that his morality is the opposite of random, arbitrary and possibly capricious too.
If Gods epistemology is transcendent, it’s ‘ beyond A vs Non A. One can’t box him in logically as he creates logic . For God it’s a tool, for us it’s a rule.The spotlight is on us not him.
Thus the supernatural fallacy I call it ,is overturned. You can get the ought from the is.
The problem as they say is in the details. How can an omnibeneveleant deity create this world?
As far as I can tell, the monotheistic Abraham faiths fail miserably.
So far all the theodicy’s bite the dust.
There is a ray of sunshine though. ‘ Absolute Acountability, ie, Non biblical monotheism.
I believe it can solve all the moral problems on the ground.
It can account for animal and hunan suffering , both soul breaking and soul making.
It turns, given the context, freewill into amaximally great making morality done in a maximally great making way.
Hint. Angel world is omnibenevelant world level one. Adam and Eve world is level two.
This world I call the 3 D theodicy where the rubber hits the road- should you choose to except it.
It has an upside as well as a downside not possible in A world and A and E world. Plus, bonas points, level 4 awaits. “ Come on up, your new and improved paradise, your new and improved spirit body.’
And all were saved😊