God and Morality
1 The Euthyphro Dilemma
Consider this: Is something holy loved by the gods because it is holy, or is it holy because the gods love it?”
— Plato, Euthyphro 10a
We can update Plato’s question to address the relationship between God and Morality:
- Does God love goodness because it is good, or is it good because God loves it?
- Does God command something because it is right, or is it right because God commands it?
Unqualified Divine Command Theory (Voluntarism)
- What makes something good or bad?
God’s will / God says so. - What makes something right or wrong?
God’s will / God says so.
Natural Law Theory
First: What is a law?
According to Aquinas a law is:
- An ordinance of reason
- for the common good
- made by him who has care of the community
- and promulgated.
See Summa Theologiæ I-II.90.
Natural Law Theory
- What makes something good or bad?
- God is goodness itself and good things resemble/share in God’s goodness.
- Conversely, those things that run contrary to the goodness of God are bad.
- The first principle of practical reason is: the good is that which all things seek after.
- Greatest good = shared union with God
- What makes something right or wrong?
- God has ordered the world in such a manner that certain actions promote goodness and others oppose it (cause badness).
- This order and the principles of practical reason lead to natural “laws”.
- The most basic natural law is: do good and avoid evil.
Modified Divine Command Theory
- What makes something good or bad?
- Option 1: Same as Natural Law
- Option 2: Promotion of Well-being
- Again: Greatest good = shared union with God
- What makes something right or wrong?
- God’s will / God says so.
- However, God only wills what is consistent with his nature—which is good/loving.
- Thus right and wrong will ultimately promote the goodness/well-being of creatures.
References
Adams, Robert M. 1999. Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics. Kindle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Aquinas. (1920) 2017. The Summa Theologiæ of St. Thomas Aquinas. Edited by Kevin Knight. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. 2nd ed. New Advent. https://www.newadvent.org/summa/.
Kinghorn, Kevin. 2016. A Framework for the Good. Notre Dame, ID: University of Notre Dame Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvpj7d2f.
———. 2018. “A Humean Account of What Wrongness Amounts To.” In Religious Ethics and Constructivism: A Metaethical Inquiry, edited by Kevin Jung, 40–62. Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion 19. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Rachels, James. 2017. “The Divine Command Theory.” In Philosophy: The Quest for Truth, edited by Louis P. Pojman and Lewis Vaughn, 10th ed., 556–58. New York: Oxford University Press.
Stump, Eleonore. 2022. “Aquinas’s Theory of Goodness.” The Monist 105 (3): 321–36. https://doi.org/10.1093/monist/onac003.