The Deeper Source of Religion: Passional Reason in William James’s Writings

Introduction: Encountering Truth

            Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?”[1] This is no simple question. Given the gravity of the moment in which it was asked, and to whom it was directed, Pilate’s question strikes at the very heart of humanity’s encounter with God. Some answer that truth is an outcome, the product of a logical process of considering a given situation’s evidence. Some say that truth is an encounter, whereby a person’s passional nature is the means by which circumstances are experienced and volitional conclusions are drawn. Is it possible that between the two—between reason and passion—truth is to be found as a result of utilizing both one’s passions and reason? The following research considers this possibility through an expository examination of the works of American philosopher William James (1842-1910), specifically considering aspects of his The Will to Believe, and The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature.[2] Three questions provide the framework for this investigation: 1) What is passional reason?; 2) What are examples of passional reason in the writings of William James?; and 3) What is the significance of James’s passional reason for religious epistemology? Research findings will suggest that James’s emphasis on the role of the passional nature provides a view of religious beliefs as both reasonably and passionally derived.

What is Passional Reason?

            To lay the groundwork for the discussion of James’s thought regarding the role of the passional aspects of human nature in forming religious beliefs it is helpful to begin with a definition of passional reason. Drawing upon the work of Wainwright, passional reason may be defined as the culmination of human reason’s investigation of proofs, history, and other logically arguable facts regarding religious truth claims, and the affective component of the human heart regarding such rational concerns that accepts them and recognizes their role in developing religious belief.[3] Wainwright explains,

This view was once a Christian commonplace; reason is capable of knowing God on the basis of evidence—but only when one’s cognitive faculties are rightly disposed. It should be distinguished from two other views that have dominated modern thought. The first claims that God can be known by ‘objective reason,’ that is, by an understanding that systematically excludes passion, desire, and emotion from the process of reasoning. The other insists that God can be known only ‘subjectively,’ or by the heart. . . . [Passional reason] steers between these two extremes. It places a high value on proofs, arguments, and inferences yet also believes a properly disposed heart is needed to see their force.[4]

In this explanation, Wainwright brings together both objective and subjective components to form a center ground for faith formation, the ground of passional reason.

            This concept of passional reason draws upon various aspects of the Christian tradition, including Calvin (with his Augustinian influence) and Aquinas. Calvin emphasizes the necessity of the Holy Spirit in confirming the authority of Scripture, and Aquinas teaches that even though “there is good evidence for the divine origin of Christian teaching . . . [it is not] sufficient to compel assent without the inward movement of a will grounded in a ‘supernatural principle.’”[5] Thus both Calvin and Aquinas, while making their arguments for Christianity utilizing proofs and evidences of various types, clearly highlight the role of affective, non-discursively derived conclusions relative to the formation of religious belief. This is passional reason, where reason (i.e., the mind) and the passions (i.e., the heart) synergize to cultivate religious beliefs.

What are Examples of Passional Reason in the Writings of William James?

            Moving on from this definition of passional reason, the investigation turns to the thought of William James, seeking to find how passional reason contributes to his understanding of the formation of religious beliefs. As a preface to the following quotes and the ensuing discussion, it is worth noting that interpretations of James vary from, on the one hand, those who think James does not accept religious beliefs as anything more than individual predilections that serve some ultimately personal need and have no connection, necessarily or actually, to any metaphysical reality; and, on the other hand, those who argue that James did, while recognizing the individual usefulness of religious beliefs, also affirm that such beliefs were metaphysically real and not only could but should be believed.[6] Whichever view one takes of James’s ultimate intention does not necessarily detract from the discussion below, insofar as the issue under consideration is how James understood the role of passional reason in cultivating religious beliefs, not the ultimate veracity of such beliefs.

            Four quotes from James are now considered. The first two are from The Will to Believe, an address to the Philosophical Clubs at Yale and Brown Universities in 1896. The last two are from The Varieties of Religious Belief: A Study in Human Nature, a work borne of James’s delivery of the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion at the University of Edinburgh beginning in 1900. The presentation of these four quotes is an attempt to demonstrate what may be described as a “Jamesian Justification for Passional Reason,” which, though far from exhaustive regarding his thought on the topic, do, as the comments given after each quote will attempt to show, reveal the centrality of passional reason in James’s work.

            Quote One: “Our passional nature must, and lawfully may, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds.”[7] Notice in this quote that James attributes to the passional nature the role of final decider in certain matters of belief, such that the evidence as reasonably considered may bring someone to the precipice of belief, but only the passional nature can and may let them take the step into belief. In taking this approach to passion and reason, James, according to Fuller’s estimation, “deftly pull[s] the philosophical rug out from under those committed to a modernist faith in the ability of the scientific method to usher humanity into the domain of universal truths and intellectual certainties. . . . His understanding of religious belief steer[s] a defensible middle course between naive credulity and agnostic skepticism.”[8] The conclusion that may be drawn from this first quote by James is that not only the intellect, but the whole person, is required in order to make choices regarding what to believe.

Quote Two: “I have said, and now repeat it, that not only as a matter of fact do we find our passional nature influencing us in our opinions, but that there are some options between opinions in which this influence must be regarded both as an inevitable and as a lawful determinant of our choice.”[9] While similar to the fist quote by James, the key distinction in this second quote is James’s conclusion that is it not only permissible to allow passional reason to guide in forming one’s beliefs, but that the use of passional reason may be “inevitable;” more than a choice, passional reason is a requirement in certain instances. Wainwright remarks that, for James, “all conceptualizations, including scientific ones, are simply abstractions from the richness of concrete experience. The ‘personal point of view’ is thus essential.”[10] James, as this second quote demonstrates, recognizes passional reason as a universally constitutive element in belief; it is much more than a subjective option for a few.

Quote Three: “I do believe that feeling is the deeper source of religion, and that philosophic and theological formulas are secondary products, like translations of a text into another tongue.”[11] In this quote, James identifies the passional nature (i.e., “feeling”) as primary, whereas more rational considerations are secondary. His use of an analogy from language reveals that James views the passional as the vital language for religious experience, and the rational as its expression in the language of the intellect. As Croce explains, in this way James “distinguishes religion lived at first hand, which would include direct personal encounter with spiritual forces, from religion at second hand, based on traditions derived from those first hand experiences.”[12] Thus in this third quote from James there is a sense in which he views passional reason as paradigmatic for properly evaluating all religious conclusions; passional reason becomes a lens through which religious truth formulations are derived and evaluated.

            Quote Four: “In all sad sincerity I think we must conclude that the attempt to demonstrate by purely intellectual processes the truth of the deliverances of direct religious experience is absolutely hopeless.”[13] The context in which James makes this statement is his discussion of the various proofs for God’s existence presented by Aquinas and others; it is important to note, therefore, that he is not dismissing the value of proofs, per se, but acknowledging that they are not, in themselves, sufficient to the task. Just as a person made in the image of God is both reasonable and passional, so arguments for the existence of God must be more than reasonable; the passional element is indispensable. Is it possible, as Wainwright surmises, that James’s point of critique is not that proofs for the existence of God do not establish certainty, but that the passional element should be considered, along with the intellectual element, as part of a broader definition of proofs?[14] This fourth quote by James certainly leaves open the possibility that this is so; passion and intellect combine in James to make the case that passional reason is the best arbiter for religious belief.

            As this brief expository analysis demonstrates, James certainly gives a fundamental, if not primary, role to the passional elements of human nature in the formation of religious belief. However, whether or not James’s conclusions about passional reason are epistemically helpful is another matter. Although far short of a full critique of James’s religious epistemology, the next section considers one positive and one negative aspect of his thought.

What is the Significance of James’s Passional Reason for Religious Epistemology?

Briefly considered, there are two aspects of James’s passional reason of significance to religious epistemology; one is positive, and one is negative. Positively, James attempts to engage the total person in the matter of faith formation, rather than focusing exclusively on the rational and evidentiary aspects, or on the subjective and experiential aspects. In biblical parlance, there is a sense in which James encourages the formation of religious belief utilizing one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength; with the whole being.[15] In an era of radical materialism and scientism, which bring with them a diminution of any philosophical metaphysic, James’s perspective can provide a helpful corrective and balance.

However, given James’s radical empiricism and its attendant emphasis of the nature of belief as dependent on currently observable facts (be they experiential or otherwise), and his commitment to human experience as the final test of truth, James implicitly opposes the primacy of theological dogma and its necessary authority in matters of faith and practice.[16] While James may allow a place for dogma in forming religious beliefs, there is no absolute sense in which dogma provides the objective standard by which all religious matters are to be evaluated. Yes, passional reason impacts faith formation, but unless there is a final standard of truth as divinely revealed through Scripture and Tradition, then the creature, rather than the Creator, becomes the determiner of reality.

Conclusion

William James’s articulation of the role of passional reason in forming religious belief provides a seminal contribution to discussions of faith, in general, and religious epistemology, in particular. The preceding research considered this contribution of James by initially defining passional reason, then identifying and expounding examples of passional reason in James’s writings, and finally by critically evaluating the positive and negative aspects of James’s approach. Research suggests that, with correctives regarding the role of dogma in faith formation, James’s conclusions about the interplay of the rational and passional offer helpful insights for the interdependent areas of philosophy and religion.

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Bibliography

Aquinas, Thomas. The Summa Theologica. New York: Benziger, 1947.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957.

Corbett, Robert. “The Will to Believe: An Outline.” St. Louis: Webster University, 1980.

Accessed 1 December 2016. http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/philosophy/misc/james.html.

Croce, Paul. “Spilt Mysticism: William James’s Democratization of Religion.” William James

Studies 9, (July 2012): 3-26. 

Elwell, Walter A., Ed. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001.

Fuller, Robert C. "'The Will to Believe': A Centennial Reflection." Journal of the American

Academy of Religion 64, no. 3 (September 1996): 633-650. 

James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. South

Australia: eBooks@Adelaide, 2009. Accessed 25 November 2016. https://csrs.nd.edu/assets/59930/williams_1902.pdf.

------. The Will to Believe. Accessed 2 December 2016.

http://norm.unet.brandeis.edu/~teuber/James_The_Will_to_Believe.pdf.

Smith, John E. Purpose and Thought: The Meaning of Pragmatism. New Haven: Yale University

Press, 1978.

Wainwright, William J. Reason and the Heart: A Prolegomenon to a Critique of Passional

Reason. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.

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[1] John 18:38. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982).

[2] William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (South Australia: eBooks@Adelaide, 2009); and The Will to Believe, http://norm.unet.brandeis.edu/~teuber/James_The_Will_to_Believe.pdf.

[3] William J. Wainwright, Reason and the Heart: A Prolegomenon to a Critique of Passional Reason (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 3-4.

[4] Ibid., 3. Italics in original.

[5] Ibid., 4. Wainwright’s reference to Calvin is from John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), vol. I, book I, chap. 7, sec. 4; the reference to Aquinas is from Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica (New York: Benziger, 1947), vol. 2, part II-II, quest. 6, art. I.

[6] An example of the former evaluation of James is John E. Smith, Purpose and Thought: The Meaning of Pragmatism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978). An example of the latter evaluation of James is Wainwright, Reason and the Heart, 84-107.

[7] James, The Will to Believe, sect. IV.

[8] Robert C. Fuller, “’The Will to Believe’: A Centennial Reflection,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64, no. 3 (September 1996): 634.

[9] James, The Will to Believe, sect. VIII.

[10] Wainwright, Reason and the Heart, 93.

[11] James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 327.

[12] Paul Croce, “Spilt Mysticism: William James’s Democratization of Religion,” William James Studies 9, (July 2012), 4.

[13] James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 344.

[14] See Wainwright, Reason and the Heart, 1-6.

[15] See Luke 10:27.

[16] R. J. VanderMolen, “Pragmatism,” in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd ed., Walter A. Elwell, ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 945-946.

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T. J. Gentry is the Executive Editor of MoralApologetics.com, the Senior Minister at First Christian Church of West Frankfort, IL, and the Co-founder of Good Reasons Apologetics. T. J. has been in Christian ministry since 1984, having served as an itinerant evangelist, youth minister, church planter, pastoral counselor, and Army chaplain. He is the author of numerous books and peer-reviewed articles, including Pulpit Apologist: The Vital Link between Preaching and Apologetics (Wipf and Stock, 2020), You Shall Be My Witnesses: Reflections on Sharing the Gospel (Illative House, 2018), and two forthcoming works published by Moral Apologetics Press: Leaving Calvinism, Finding Grace, and A Moral Way: Aquinas and the Good God. T. J. is a Clinical Pastoral Education Supervisor, holding board-certification as a Pastoral Counselor and a Chaplain. He is a graduate of Southern Illinois University (BA in Political Science), Luther Rice College and Seminary (MA in Apologetics), Holy Apostles College and Seminary (MA in Philosophy), Liberty University (MAR in Church Ministries, MDiv in Chaplaincy, ThM in Theology), Carolina University (DMin in Pastoral Counseling, PhD in Leadership, PhD in Biblical Studies), and the United States Army Chaplain School (Basic and Advanced Courses). He is currently completing his PhD in Theology at North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa (2021), his PhD in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University (2022), and his PhD in Philosophy of Religion at Southern Evangelical Seminary (2024). T. J. married Amy in 1995, and they are blessed with three daughters and two sons. T. J.’s writing and other projects may be viewed at TJGentry.com.

Shame, Deserved and Undeserved

Whereas guilt reveals that we have morally transgressed, shame pertains more to who we are, not just what we have done. And so shame can be particularly damaging if we allow it to detract from recognizing the value we have in God, which it can all too easily do. If we become convinced that we are useless, that our lives are pointless, that we as people lack value, it becomes exponentially harder to see ourselves as creations of God with infinite dignity and value and worth. The topic of shame is thus vitally important for moral apologists to think about and understand.

A temptation is to think that all shame is bad—nothing but a toxic emotion. Whereas guilt might be fine, shame is thought to just saddle us with needless negative emotional baggage. Victims of abuse may feel great shame over what happened to them, even though they did nothing wrong. That is undeserved shame, and the problem is not theirs. It’s all of ours; we need to listen to such victims, not sideline them, nor silence them, but give them a voice and really hear them. There is also deserved shame, however. If I do something shameful, I should feel shame—if I were the abuser of that victims we just discussed, for example. Not that anyone should let shame decimate their sense of self or think of themselves as unredeemable, nor should engage in the practice of shaming. That is different, and little compatible with loving our neighbors as ourselves. To get a better understanding of shame, both undeserved and deserved, let’s consider an example of both.

If you have the time, watch the first half of the following clip.

It is a 1981 YouTube clip of Mister Rogers hosting a ten-year-old wheelchair-bound Jeffrey Erlanger. They had originally met five years before, and Rogers remembered him and invited him to his Neighborhood. Fred would later say that these unscripted ten minutes were his most memorable moment on television. The scene is deeply moving, and if there’s any doubt as to why, I might suggest it has to do, at least in part, with this matter of shame. Ours is sadly a society in which certain people—those who have been sexually abused, those with visible disabilities—carry a stigma and are often, for no fault of their own, riddled with a sense of shame—a loss of social standing, and a resultant tendency to shrink and hide. It threatens their sense of humanity. The solution has to be communal—usually involving someone with social capital to spare conferring honor upon them.

And that is exactly what makes those ten minutes of television so undeniably magical. It is a simply profound microcosm of the divine love that deigns and condescends to broken and marginalized people and, in the process, exalts them, replacing shame with honor, beauty for ashes. Mister Rogers gets eye level with Jeff, asks him about his experiences, gives the boy a chance to share about his condition and feelings, and talks to him like a friend. Like Mister Rogers did for Jeffrey—who was on the stage years later to confer on Rogers his Lifetime Achievement Award—this is a means by which to make goodness attractive, which is sort of part of our job description as Christians. It’s an important way to love God and our neighbor.

And now an example of deserved shame. The pages of scripture are replete with narratives of honor and shame, from Adam and Eve to the story of the prodigal son and lots in between. You know the story of the prodigal son. He insists on his inheritance ahead of time and engages in profligate spending and living, bringing shame on himself and an almost complete loss of social standing as a result. Finally, he repents and comes home, and the father, seeing him far off, comes running to him with a kiss and embrace. Here is a young man who did shame-worthy things. He felt shame, and he deserved to, and he couldn’t fix it on his own. He needed someone to confer on him the honor he had lost.

And this gives us as believers a simply wonderful opportunity. As Gregg Ten Elshof puts it in his forthcoming excellent book For Shame, “All of us, whether we have social capital to spare or not, are in a position to remind those around us that each and every person is loved and pursued by the God of the universe. The maker of heaven and earth is in a full sprint—robes and all—to embrace you, kiss you, put a ring on your finger, and throw a feast in your honor. Whatever the opinion of the company you keep, you are of immeasurable value to the One who matters most. You are so valuable that the God of the universe suffered the indignity of limited human form, betrayal, public humiliation, and naked crucifixion to rescue you not just from guilt, but also from the shame of your condition, all to enjoy an eternal life of friendship and communion with you.”

If there is any doubt that this is what the life and work of Jesus was all about, recall the OT passage that inaugurated his public ministry in Luke, from Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is on Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of our God’s vengeance, to comfort all who mourn, to console the mourners in Zion—to give them a crown of beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for a spirit of despair.”

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David Baggett is professor of philosophy and Director of the Center for Moral Apologetics at Houston Baptist University.

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What Makes Something Morally Good or Bad? Natural Law vs. Divine Command Theory (Part 3)

Editor’s note: Adam Johnson has graciously allowed us to republish his video series, “What Makes Something Morally Good or Bad?” Find the original post here.

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The two predominant positions within Christianity that answer the question of “Where does objective morality come from?” are known as Natural Law Theory and Divine Command Theory. Both theories have strengths and weaknesses, which leads to robust debate between proponents of each. Natural Law Theory says that both human moral values (i.e., what things are good and bad) and moral obligations (i.e., what things are right and wrong to do) come from facts about what causes human beings to flourish. In Natural Law Theory, God created the world, including human beings, and thus something is good or right when it causes human beings to flourish. On the other hand, Divine Command Theory says that our moral obligations come from God’s commands. Right and wrong are determined by what God commands us to do, and God commands us according to what is good. In this lecture, Adam explores each of these theories and discusses objections against each offered by proponents of the other.

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Adam Lloyd Johnson serves as a university campus missionary with Ratio Christi. He also teaches classes for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and spends one month each year living and teaching at Rhineland Theological Seminary in Wölmersen, Germany. Adam received his PhD in Theological Studies with an emphasis in Philosophy of Religion from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2020.

Making Sense of Morality: Objections from Euthyphro and Evil

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

Introduction

In the previous post, I argued that there is another explanation for the ground of core morals, such as justice and love are good, and murder and rape are wrong: they are grounded in God. However, there are a couple serious objections that I will address here, and then I will summarize several of my findings.

Euthyphro Dilemma

“Euthyphro” poses a dilemma: are morals good because God commands them, or does God command them because they are good? If the former, it seems God’s will alone is the ground of morals. But, it seems God could will whatever God wanted, and it would be moral. If so, God could will things we clearly know are wrong, even evil, such as justice being bad, and rape being permissible. Earlier, I suggested this issue seems to face Allah, due to the supremacy of Allah’s sovereignty.

If the latter, it seems God’s commands are redundant, for we already should know morals are valid. Also, they seem to be valid independently of God; if so, God is not needed to ground morals. Moreover, God must consult these morals before commanding them.

 Regarding the former, the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity portray God as being morally perfect and good. That is, God is bound by God’s character, so God would not will something that is contrary to that character. Moreover, that God is good fits with what we may know by reason and reflection (i.e., what many have called natural law), including our core morals and others too (e.g., we should not torture babies for fun).

On the latter, we may need to have some understanding of goodness before we can know God is good. But, it does not follow from that that morals are independent of God. Further, just because we can know some moral truths without God’s commands (e.g., by reason), still we possess a remarkable ability to suppress or rationalize away what we know morally. In that case, God’s commanding something we can know via reason would not be redundant, but a reinforcement and clarification of that knowledge. 

Back to Evil

So far, I’ve suggested that the best explanation of our core morals is that they are grounded in God’s moral character. But, is there more we can infer by reason?

Suppose we consider evil. Many think evil provides one of the strongest arguments against God’s existence. Yet, what kind of thing is evil? Earlier, I suggested that evil is a privation (or perversion) of goodness. Indeed, it seems hard to define evil is some way other than the way things should not be.

If that is the case, evil presupposes goodness, like Augustine suggested. What then is the best explanation for this standard of goodness? Above, I suggested it is God’s own character. Yet, we can infer more, I think. To be truly good, God must be love. This suggests God is personal. Furthermore, to be truly good, God must be truly just.

Together, these two findings suggest that God would deal with evil, yet in love and care for humans. This in turn raises questions for consideration that are beyond the scope of this book: which God is this? And, has God done this? If so, how? What are implications for us?

Final Thoughts

We have completed our survey of the major moral views in the west. I’ve argued that the best explanation for our core morals is that they are universals that are grounded in God’s morally good character. I’ve argued for this while also arguing for several more key points; e.g.:

• Nominalism is false, and Platonic-like universals exist;

• There are essences, including of core morals, human beings, and mental states (they have intentionality); and

• We can know reality directly, even though our situatedness does affect us in significant ways. So, historicism is mistaken.

Notice too that from our findings, the fact-value split, the deeply held belief that science uniquely gives us knowledge of the facts, whereas ethics and religion give us just opinions and preferences, is false. Science, if grounded in naturalism and nominalism, cannot give us knowledge at all. On the other hand, we do have ethical knowledge of at least our four core morals. Maybe there are more we can know. We also have justified reasons to believe it is true that God is ground of morals – another item of knowledge.

For Further Reading

William Alston, “What Euthyphro Should Have Said,” in Philosophy of Religion: A Reader and Guide, gen. ed. William Lane Craig

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, chs. 12-13

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R. Scott Smith is a Christian philosopher and apologist, with special interests in ethics, knowledge, and seeing the body of Christ live in the fullness of the Spirit and truth.

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One Good Reason to Believe in God: The Intrinsic Value of His Image (and Man’s Attempt to Escape It)

Editor’s note: Good Reasons Apologetics has graciously allowed us to republish their series, “One Good Reason” You can find the original post here.

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“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.’” (Gen. 1:26)

Of the 10.7 million Africans who were taken captive and brought to the new world, it is believed about 388,000 ended up in what is now the United States. Congress outlawed bringing slaves into the U.S. in 1808, and yet the population of Africans in the U.S. by 1860 was 4.4 million, 3.9 million of which were slaves, and it was almost entirely the result of natural growth (i.e., babies born into slavery generation after generation).     

According to the Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, almost 6 million Jews were killed in Europe and Russia in just a few years during World War II. This represented about 55% of the population of Jews in the regions. At least 50 million people lost their lives as a direct result of the fighting in World War II, with as many as 85 million who lost their lives in total when things like war related famine and disease are included.

Today in the US, according to the conservative numbers we have, it appears we abort about 850,000 unborn children a year. This has been occurring legally since 1973 thanks to a Supreme Court decision that birthed the idea of the “right” to abort a child. It is now estimated that there have been approximately 42 million unborn Americans aborted.

Many who championed chattel slavery did not view Africans as fully human. The idea of evolution provided racists and eugenicists a way to claim that Africans, Aborigines and other people groups were less evolved, and thus less deserving of life than their more evolved counterparts. Nazi propaganda called Jews “rats” and referred to their homes as “nests.” They systematically exterminated Jews, “invalids” and other groups they called “life unworthy of life.” The most common defense of abortion is that it is not a person, but rather a “clump of cells,” or a “choice.”

The cycle of dehumanizing other humans, followed by murder and genocide and eventually negative historical judgement through time is evidence that man still intuitively recognizes the implicit value in other men, and must overcome the idea his target is fully human before taking life in cold blood.

One might argue that humans enslaving and killing other humans on a large scale is just evolution’s “red in tooth and claw” history playing out as always. However, the overwhelming historical tendency for man’s need to dehumanize other men before enslaving or murdering others seems counter to evolution’s “survival of the fittest.” Shouldn’t it be easier to kill with all this practice?

Anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one or cried out at the senseless loss of a stranger’s life knows the unexplainable angst that comes from the unjustified or systematic taking of a human life. Does this come from blind, purposeless accidents through time that create the psychological illusion of value in one another based only on mutual advantage as is suggested by some?

It seems far more likely to be the residue of his Creator’s imprint of the value of fellow image bearers on every man’s soul. We dare not kill the King’s sons and daughters, and we know it. 

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Tony Williams is currently serving in his 20th year as a police officer in a city in Southern Illinois. He has been studying apologetics in his spare time for two decades, since a crisis of faith led him to the discovery of vast and ever-increasing evidence for his faith. Tony received a bachelor's degree in University Studies from Southern Illinois University in 2019. His career in law enforcement has provided valuable insight into the concepts of truth, evidence, confession, testimony, cultural competency, morality, and most of all, the compelling need for Christ in the lives of the lost. Tony plans to pursue postgraduate studies in apologetics in the near future to sharpen his understanding of the various facets of Christian apologetics. Tony has been married for 9 years and has two sons. He and his family currently reside in Southern Illinois.

What Makes Something Morally Good or Bad? Erik Wielenberg’s Theory (Part 2)

Editor’s note: Adam Johnson has graciously allowed us to republish his video series, “What Makes Something Morally Good or Bad?” Find the original post here.

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Erik Wielenberg has proposed an atheistic theory of where morality comes from. He claims that God is not necessary in order to have objective morality by which humans are required to live. Wielenberg’s theory has three main components: First, it is not a materialistic theory, meaning that it does not assume that the physical world is all there is. Second, Wielenberg’s theory proposes the existence of “brute ethical facts” that exist outside of nature which ground moral values and obligations. Third, Wielenberg says that these facts become applicable to human beings by something he calls the “making relationship,” whereby facts about circumstances in the world cause moral facts to become applicable to certain situations (to be instantiated). This lecture explains the main concepts of Wielenberg’s theory and also examines some objections to his theory.

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Adam Lloyd Johnson serves as a university campus missionary with Ratio Christi. He also teaches classes for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and spends one month each year living and teaching at Rhineland Theological Seminary in Wölmersen, Germany. Adam received his PhD in Theological Studies with an emphasis in Philosophy of Religion from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2020.

Making Sense of Morality: Where Do We Go from Here?

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

Summary of the Survey

We have surveyed major ethical options for what our core morals are, including:

• Are they how we happen to talk?

• Are they physical things? Perhaps evolutionary products?

• Are they ways of behaving or moving our bodies?

• Are they results of a utilitarian calculus?

• Are they emotive utterances?

• Are they particulars? (nominalism)

But, at least since Hobbes, I’ve argued that none of the views can preserve our core morals of murder and rape being wrong, and love and justice being good.

What Are These Core Morals?

For one, they seem to be objectively real. They seem to exist independently of us as moral principles and values. They also simply seem to be intrinsically valid, and not due to anything else (like, the consequences). That is, they seem to have an essential moral nature. Moreover, they cannot be just physical things or particulars, as we’ve seen. Instead, they seem to be a “one-in-many” – each one is one principle (or value), yet it can have many instances/examples. In sum, they seem to be Platonic-like universals.

That raises many questions, however. Earlier, I remarked that Christine Korsgaard rightly observed that it’s hard to see how such things could have anything to do with us. While she thinks people are physical, it still applies if we are a body-soul unity. Why should these abstract objects have anything to do with us? On Plato’s view, they exist in a heavenly realm of values as brute features of reality.

What makes justice and love character qualities that should be present in us? Why is it inappropriate morally for us to murder or rape? These are normative qualities, not merely descriptive. As we’ve seen, it is hard to see how we can get the moral ought from what is descriptively the case. Yet, that problem could be overcome if humans have an essential nature that makes these moral values appropriate for them, and these acts inappropriate.

Earlier, I argued that the soul as our essential nature provides a sound explanation for how we can be the identical person through change. Body-soul dualists affirm that the soul is our essential nature, and it sets the boundary conditions for what is appropriate for us. For instance, it is inappropriate for us to grow a cat’s tail due to our nature, and it is inappropriate for us to murder due to our nature.

We also saw another reason for the soul’s existence. We do in fact think and form beliefs, yet these have intentionality, which I argued is best understood as something immaterial and having an essence. Now, it is hard to conceive how a physical brain could interact with something immaterial, but that problem does not seem to exist for an immaterial soul/mind.

Moreover, why should we feel guilt and shame when we break these core morals? That doesn’t make sense if these morals are just abstract objects that are immaterial and not located in space and time. Instead, we seem to have such responses in the presence of persons we have wronged morally. Also, retributive justice doesn’t make sense if we repay an abstract principle or value. But it would make sense if a person should be repaid.

There is another explanation we have seen for the grounding of these core morals: they are grounded in God. That helps solve the question of why we feel shame when we break one of these morals. But, that also raises questions, such as: are they good because God commands them, or does God command them because they are good (i.e., the Euthyphro dilemma)? Also, which God would this be?

I will start to tackle these in the next essay. But, first, there is another option for properties besides universals (realism) and nominalism. It is divine conceptualism; properties just are God’s concepts. Justice in us is God’s concept. Yet, concepts have intentionality, but virtues do not. When we think about people being just, we don’t mean they have a concept of justice (though they could), but that they have that virtue present in them. So, offhand, divine conceptualism seems to trade on a confusion.

For Further Reading

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 12

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R. Scott Smith is a Christian philosopher and apologist, with special interests in ethics, knowledge, and seeing the body of Christ live in the fullness of the Spirit and truth.

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What Makes Something Morally Good or Bad? Introduction to Metaethics (Part 1)

Editor’s note: Adam Johnson has graciously allowed us to republish his video series, “What Makes Something Morally Good or Bad?” Find the original post here.

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Metaethics is the study of what makes something good or bad. It is not the study of what is good or bad, but why there are such things as moral good and moral bad. What is morality? Where did it come from? There are many theories of what morality is; some think morality is subjective and depends on individual people, cultures, and circumstances. Others believe that morality is objective, that it is independent of human beings. Most theists think that morality comes from God, but many atheists claim that God is not necessary for morality. Non-naturalists, for example, believe that morality can exist objectively without God. Thinkers throughout Western history have defended many positions, both subjective and objective as well as theistic and atheist ones. Listen in as Adam gives an overview of the different metaethical theories.

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Adam Lloyd Johnson serves as a university campus missionary with Ratio Christi. He also teaches classes for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and spends one month each year living and teaching at Rhineland Theological Seminary in Wölmersen, Germany. Adam received his PhD in Theological Studies with an emphasis in Philosophy of Religion from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2020.

Making Sense of Morality: A Brief Assessment of MacIntyre’s Ethics

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

Some Contributions

What should we make of MacIntyre’s proposals? His ethics focuses on the importance of good character by embodying moral virtues and being authentic. He also draws attention to the importance of community. And, he emphasizes the need for living out the virtues, and not merely engaging in abstract theorizing.

Broad Concerns

As we have seen, MacIntyre and other authors writing in the light of the postmodern turn embrace nominalism. Yet, we have seen its disastrous effects, leaving us without any qualities whatsoever. So, there are no people, no morals (not even our core ones), no world, etc. But surely this is false, and it destroys morality.

We also have surveyed issues with historicism, which ends up with no way to start making interpretations. Yet, are we really so situated that we cannot access reality directly? Now, surely no human is blind to nothing, and we cannot know something exhaustively. Surely we have our biases, too.

Yet, from daily life, it seems we can notice that we do access reality. For example, how do children learn to form concepts of apples? It seems it is by having many experiences of them. Then they can notice their commonalities, and they can form a concept on that basis. Then they can use that concept to compare something else they see (e.g., a tomato) and notice if it too is an apple or not. Adults do this, too, when they use phones to refill prescriptions, or enter their “PIN” for a debit card purchase.

It seems to be a descriptive fact that we can compare our concepts with things as they are, just as in that apple example. We also can adjust our concepts to better fit with reality. I think we can know this to be so, if we pay close attention to what is consciously before our minds.

However, how we attend to what we are aware of can reflect patterns. We can fall into ruts, noticing some things while not attending to others. As J. P. Moreland suggests, “situatedness functions as a set of habit forming background beliefs and concepts that direct our acts of noticing or failing to notice various features of reality” (Moreland, 311). But these habits do not preclude us from accessing reality.

Specific Concerns

Now, MacIntyre rejects the soul as the basis for one’s being the same person through change. For one, it would be an essence, and he seems to think humans are just bodies (Dependent Rational Animals, 6). Can the unity of one’s narrative meet this need?

For him, a narrative does not have an essence; it is composed of sentences that tell a person’s story. At any time, the narrative’s identity just is the bundle of sentences that are its members. However, if a new sentence is added, then the set of members has changed, and a new story has taken the old one’s place. Sadly, then, someone cannot grow in virtue or rationality on this view, for they do not maintain their identity through change.

Moreover, can we really see that one tradition is rationally superior to another? MacIntyre in banking on our ability to become bilingual. However, on his view, a person at any time is constituted by his or her narrative, and that in turn cannot be pried off from the tradition on which it is based. When a person immerses him or herself into another tradition to learn its language, that learning always will be done from the interpretive standpoint of the first tradition, by which that person has been formed. Indeed, it could not be otherwise, since that person is narratively “constituted” by the first tradition’s conceptual/linguistic framework. But, as that person “learns” that second language, new sentences should be added to that person’s narrative. Yet, if so, that person no longer is the same! So it becomes impossible to see the rational superiority of another tradition on his own views.

For Further Reading

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd ed.; Dependent Rational Animals; and Whose Justice? Which Rationality?

J. P. Moreland, “Two Areas of Reflection and Dialogue with John Franke,” Philosophia Christi 8:2 (2006)

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 11

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R. Scott Smith is a Christian philosopher and apologist, with special interests in ethics, knowledge, and seeing the body of Christ live in the fullness of the Spirit and truth.

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Making Sense of Morality: Alasdair MacIntyre’s Ethics

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

MacIntyre’s Diagnosis

MacIntyre (b. 1929) observes people seem to speak from different moral standpoints, or languages. Some talk as though they are emotivists, while others are Kantians, utilitarians, relativists, Aristotelians, etc. But, it seems we no longer have a way to dialogue morally and come to agreements. These different ways of morally talking seem to presuppose objective standards to evaluate them. However, he claims that fails because they presuppose different evaluative concepts and frameworks.

This situation leads to shouting matches. This happened, he thinks, because the Enlightenment “project” dropped the idea of a moral telos (goal, end) from Aristotle and Aquinas. Without it, we seem left with just human nature as it is, and ethics as the tools to become moral. But, what should we be like?

With the different moral theories so far, MacIntyre thinks we lack how rationally to decide between them. He claims this is because no independent, rational standards exist to decide between them.

Without a cogent answer, Nietzsche wins – ethics is just about power after all. Or, perhaps we discarded an earlier moral tradition too quickly. MacIntyre thinks we should recover the Aristotelian moral tradition (and later, Thomism) to solve this dilemma.

MacIntyre’s Proposal

To recover Aristotle’s ethics, MacIntyre recommends several changes. First, while Aristotle depended upon the soul to ground a person’s identity through change (including growth in virtue), MacIntyre says we must reject the soul. In its place, he argues for the narrative unity to a person. One’s narrative is drawn from the narrative context of that person’s form of life (community), with its formative story and language.

While Aristotle’s virtues were universal properties present in one’s soul, MacIntyre needs a new basis for them. He appeals to practices, such as medicine, which are socially established, systematic, cooperative activities with goods internal and external to them. For a doctor, the internal goods include helping sick people get well, while an external good could be material prosperity. Practices have standards of excellence (virtue, or arête), and practitioners’ abilities to achieve those goals, and their understanding thereof, grow.

Instead of Aristotle’s context (the Greek polis), MacIntyre appeals to traditions, which are extended historically. They are socially embodied by particular peoples in their communities. A tradition is an argument “about the goods which constitute that tradition” (MacIntyre, After Virtue, 229). For example, Christianity could be a tradition, formed by many particular Christian communities down through time.

The telos of one’s life come from the intersection of that life with the master story of the tradition. Moral virtues enable the pursuit of a telos for the good of that person, to sustain the tradition, and help achieve the goods internal to practices.

MacIntyre and Language

MacIntyre draws heavily upon the later Wittgenstein’s (d. 1951) views of language. Each language is nominal and tied to a given form of life. Language does not have universal meaning. Instead, meaning is a matter of language use (verbal and nonverbal behavior) in that context, according to its grammatical rules and formative story.

Rationality is not some universal phenomenon; it is tied to a tradition with its master story (e.g., for Christians, the gospel story) and language. Though we always access reality through the interpretive lens of our tradition, MacIntyre still maintains there is a real world apart from our interpretations.

Yet, MacIntyre argues that we can rationally adjudicate which tradition is rationally better than another. How? It cannot be done as an outsider to a tradition; it has to be done from the inside. One learns the language of one’s own tradition, and learns to interpret and reason from under that “aspect.” But, that person also can immerse him or herself in another tradition and learn its language as a second first language. That way, by being able to reason and interpret in both ways, that person can “see” if a tradition can solve its own problems and that of another. If so, that tradition is rationally superior and deserves one’s allegiance. So, we can avoid relativism, even though rational standards are internal to each tradition.

For Further Reading

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd ed., and Whose Justice? Which Rationality?

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 9

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A Critical Review of Is Goodness without God Good Enough?

Chapter Three: Louise Antony, “Atheism as Perfect Piety”

 Louise Antony, professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), begins her essay with the admirably lucid statement that William Lane Craig is wrong to say that God’s existence is sufficient to ground morality and that there would be no morality without God.  To explain why she thinks this is the case, she enters into a discussion of the reasons that compelled her to abandon her religious beliefs during college. 

In addition to citing the problem of suffering as a reason that motivated her to give up theistic belief, she recounts how she developed (while in college) another argument that helped to separate (in her mind) morality from religion and God.  Given this separation, the truths of morality are derived neither from theism nor from religious belief (p. 68).  The argument turns on a distinction between two kinds of piety: imperfect contrition (which is contrition due to fear of punishment) and perfect contrition (which is contrition motivated by a desire for what is morally right).  The argument, formally stated, runs as follows:

(1)  Perfect contrition (even without belief in God) is more pleasing to God than imperfect contrition (even with belief in God). 

(2)  The only psychologically possible way for human beings to achieve perfect contrition is to cease believing in God. 

(3)  Human beings ought to do that which is most pleasing to God.

Therefore: 

(4)  Human beings ought to cease believing in God.  (From 1-3)

The assumption behind premise (2) is that humans are contrite (at least in part) due to fear of punishment by God or for the desire for reward from God.  However, this assumption is questionable.  On what grounds does Antony claim that perfect contrition is psychologically impossible for a theist?  It is not at all clear that theistic conviction makes perfect contrition psychologically impossible.  However, we can set that problem aside for there is a much more serious issue facing this argument.  Antony herself recognized that the argument contains a contradiction insofar as it implies both that God does not exist and that God will refrain from punishing someone for believing that God does not exist.  Obviously, a non-existent God cannot do (or refrain from doing) anything.  While Antony eventually abandoned this admittedly incoherent argument, she explains that it was this argument that first helped her to see the independence of morality and theism.  Specifically, the argument caused her to ask this question: Why would God prefer perfect contrition to imperfect contrition?  On one hand, if there were no reason, then God’s preference would be arbitrary.  This result seems unacceptable.  On the other hand, if there is a reason that God should prefer one to the other, then that reason is something independent of God – and, so, the moral rightness of preferring perfect contrition to imperfect contrition is a moral standard independent of God.  Of course, the line of reasoning that Antony stumbled into here is similar to that found in Plato’s classic argument known as the Euthyphro Dilemma. 

Antony explains that the relevant question posed by Socrates in his dilemma is this: Do the gods love pious actions because they are pious – or are actions pious simply as the result of being loved by the gods?  She says that translating the question into modern terms yields the following question:  Are some actions moral simply in virtue of God’s choice to favor them – or does God favor those actions because they are morally good independently of what God favors?  Either answer to this question is supposed to constitute a problem for theists who want to say that ethics depends on God.  According to the first option (which she calls Divine Command Theory), if God commands us to torture children, then it would be right and morally obligatory for us to do so.  However, this cuts strongly against the moral intuitions of most people (p. 71).  According to the second option (which she calls Divine Independence Theory), that which is morally right or wrong does not depend on God.  In fact, she says that if Craig claims it is impossible or inconceivable for God to command something like torturing children, then even Craig should be considered a Divine Independence Theorist.  She adds that only “the theorist who believes that right and wrong are independent of God’s commands could have any basis for thinking that she or he knows in advance what God would or would not command” (pp. 72-73).  She then points out that if Divine Command Theory were correct, then it would reduce morality to a set of rules that is no less arbitrary than the rules of etiquette (pp. 72-73).  She illustrates the arbitrary nature of morality on Divine Command Theory with an extended discussion of the Biblical account of Abraham being commanded by God to sacrifice Isaac – and she suggests that the attempts of theists to resolve the problem presented in this text actually suggest the truth of Divine Independence Theory (pp. 77-79).  She then suggests that Divine Independence Theory appears to be at odds with saying that God (at least as described in the Old Testament) is a moral agent. 

Now all of this is very interesting, but it turns out that she has missed Craig’s fundamental point – namely, that God’s nature is the Good itself.  Further, according to Craig, given that God and the Good are identical, God cannot simply give any arbitrary command (but can only issue commands consistent with the divine nature).  Craig explicitly states in the debate that, “on the theistic view, objective moral values are rooted in God” (p. 30).  Craig adds, “He is the locus and source of moral value. … He is by nature loving, generous, just, faithful, kind, and so forth” (p. 30).  On this approach, Craig is free to say that God cannot command anything in an arbitrary fashion (despite Antony’s insistence otherwise).  Moreover, on Craig’s approach, he can still maintain that morality is dependent on God insofar as the paradigm of moral goodness is located in God’s nature (so that, had there been no God, there would be no moral truths).  If Craig’s view is right, then morality is nothing like arbitrary rules of etiquette.  Further, on this approach, there is no reason for Antony to maintain that we could not predict what God would command (at least in some cases) – especially if God makes some of those commands known to us by way of conscience or various other mechanisms.  This is a much more plausible reading of Craig’s position than what Antony provides.  Beyond this failure to engage Craig’s position, there are three particular claims made by Antony towards the end of her essay that need to be addressed.

First, Antony claims that a glaring problem with Craig’s view is that “he offers no argument for the particular claims that there is no morality without God.  What he does instead is cite authorities” (p. 81).  Somehow, she crucially misses the point that the ideas supporting Craig’s claim are found in the cited materials – even if they are not spelled out as formal arguments.  So, one may ask why Craig thinks that naturalistic forms of atheism entail that there is no morality.  Craig specifically answers this question.  He says, “After all, on the atheistic view, there’s nothing special about human beings.  They’re just accidental by-products of nature that have evolved relatively recently on an infinitesimal speck of dust called the planet Earth” (p. 31).  Craig adds, “On an atheistic view, moral values are just by-products of sociobiological evolution” and that such values might be “advantageous in the struggle for survival,” but that “on the atheistic view” there is nothing that would lead one to think that such values are “objectively true” (pp. 31-32).  To state Craig’s argument with greater precision, we get the following:

(5)  If atheistic naturalism is true, then human values are only subjective judgments brought about as by-products of our sociobiological evolution.  

(6)  If human values are only subjective judgements brought about as the by-products of our sociobiological evolution, then there is no objective morality. 

Therefore:

(7)  If atheistic naturalism is true, then there is no objective morality.  (From 5 & 6 by Hypothetical Syllogism)

 Now, this argument might be unconvincing to Antony.  This argument might even be entirely dubious.  However, whether or not it is a good or bad argument, it is mystifying why Antony would say that Craig offers no supporting reasons for his claim that there is no morality without God – and this was not the only supporting reason he offered for his position.  The fact that Craig drew the content of these premises from the citation of other authors is manifestly irrelevant.  

Second, toward the end of the essay, Antony says that Craig does not “acknowledge, much less endeavor to answer, the main objection to his own position, the objection found in the Euthyphro” (p. 81).  Given that Craig has formulated a position that avoids the typical problems associated with the Euthyphro Dilemma, it seems odd that Antony would make this claim.  It appears as if she is committing the straw man fallacy against Craig’s position.  In other words, Antony is criticizing a view similar to Craig’s but which is not, in fact, Craig’s position.  To see why this is the case, we need to review Antony’s presentation of the Euthyphro Dilemma.   Specifically, we need to focus on that horn of the dilemma that says that morality being dependent on God would make it arbitrary.  Antony suggests that if Divine Command Theory is true, then God could command heinous acts (like torturing animals and killing children for pleasure) and then those acts would be morally required – or God could just as easily command the opposite (so that heinous acts would be morally prohibited).  However, she thinks that such actions are so obviously wrong that not even God commanding those actions could make them morally right or obligatory.  In other words, she appears to hold that the truth of Divine Command Theory would make the truths of morality contingent rather than necessarily true.  She thinks that this result counts as evidence against the truth of Divine Command Theory.  However, there are some significant problems with this line of thought.  

To begin, there is not just one version of Divine Command Theory.  There are versions of Divine Command Theory that are vulnerable to this line of thought – namely, those versions of Divine Command Theory that explicitly stipulate that if God were to command heinous acts, then we would be morally obligated to do those actions.  We can refer to that sort of Divine Command Theory as Radically Voluntarist Divine Command Theory.  So, applying Antony’s objection, we get the following argument: 

(8)  If Radically Voluntarist Divine Command Theory is true, then heinous actions could be morally obligatory. 

(9)  Morally heinous actions could never be morally obligatory.  

Therefore: 

(10)  Radically Voluntarist Divine Command Theory is not true.  (From 8 & 9 by Modus Tollens)

In this argument, the conclusion follows from the premises, but are its premises true?  Some defenders of Radically Voluntarist Divine Command Theory think that this argument can be overcome.  In particular, one may consult Paul Rooney’s book, Divine Command Morality (Avebury, 1996; especially Chapter 6).  However, as we have already mentioned, this is not the only version of Divine Command Theory, and in fact it is quite rare.  Since it is Craig’s view of Divine Command Theory that is being discussed here, the only relevant question is whether Craig endorses Radically Voluntarist Divine Command Theory.  The answer to that is “no.”  One could hardly fault Craig if he were to look at the conclusions expressed in (10) and ask, “What does that have to do with me?”  Further, Craig could point out that the divine nature is loving and merciful and add that the divine nature just is the standard of the Good from which God issues divine commands.  In short, Antony seems to be misrepresenting Craig’s view.  Louise Antony needs to demonstrate that Craig’s version of Divine Command Theory is (despite appearances) radically voluntarist.  It clearly is not; in answer to the Euthyphro Dilemma, Craig splits the horns and distinguishes between the good and the right, embracing a divine nature theory of goodness and a Divine Command Theory of the right.  Until Antony can show why Craig’s view is vulnerable to her arbitrariness objection, Craig would be justified in dismissing this criticism as an irrelevant misrepresentation (because it is aimed at a different version of Divine Command Theory).

However, Antony could try to change the argument above to include Craig’s position.  She might be thinking that all versions of Divine Command Theory entail the moral permissibility of heinous acts.  If so, then her argument amounts to the claim that any version of Divine Command Theory somehow dissolves or cancels out the necessary status of moral truths.  If this is her argument, then she is committing a different fallacy – namely, the fallacy of begging the question (that is, assuming what needs to be proved).  David Baggett and Jerry Walls explain the problem Antony faces in their book, Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality (Oxford, 2011): 

What seems to be going on in the argument is that Antony and Sinnott-Armstrong are attempting to drive a subtle wedge between God and necessary [moral] truth.  …  One suspects, then, that she’s implicitly assuming without argument that the necessary truth of morality, if such there be, is independent of God.  But this is question begging and, though not an uncommon assumption, is open to dispute.  (p. 211; Appendix A)

In other words, Antony needs to provide some sort of compelling reason to dispute the idea that the necessity of moral truth resides in (or depends on, or is identical to) the divine nature.  Until she (or someone else) does so, Craig is justified in dismissing her assumption against his view as ineffectual.  In concert with such contemporary thinkers as Thomas Morris, Chris Menzel, Robert Adams, and many others (not to mention several luminaries from the history of philosophy), Craig affirms that necessary moral truths can plausibly be thought to depend essentially on God.

Third, at the end of the essay, Antony begins to engage in character assassination (or the ad hominem fallacy).  She writes, “I have the dark suspicion that Dr. Craig is not really interested in engaging with atheists in rational discussion, but rather is speaking exclusively to his theistic contingency, with the aim of reinforcing for them the vile stereotype of atheists so prevalent in American society” (p. 81).  So, rather than engaging Craig on the substance of his arguments, Antony (without the slightest evidence) chooses to waste time by raising dubious and unfounded questions about Craig’s alleged motives.  Further, she says nothing that would reconcile her dark suspicions that Craig wants to reinforce vile stereotypes about atheists with Craig’s clear and explicit assertion, “Let me just say at the outset, as clearly as I can, that I agree that a person can be moral without having belief in God” (p. 29).  Craig states this as the very first sentence of his opening statement in the debate.  This fact does not boost one’s confidence that Antony read carefully (or even understood) the case that Craig makes.  So, how does Craig’s claim (that atheists can be moral without believing in God) reinforce stereotypes about the immorality of atheists?  Antony does not say.  If Craig is trying to reinforce vile stereotypes about how evil atheists are, then he is rather bad at it.  Antony’s choice to end her essay by focusing on Craig’s alleged motives (rather than his arguments) is more than a little disappointing, and likely predicated on her uncharitable failure to distinguish between what Craig said of atheists themselves (on one hand) and of the position of atheism itself (on the other hand).

Making Sense of Morality: An Introduction to Postmodernism

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

Introduction to Postmodernism

Postmodernism is the last major kind of ethical views I will survey. Since it is post-modern, we will need to survey the modern era’s traits to which postmoderns are responding. In this essay, I will explore some of the historical and sociological factors leading to postmodernity, along with some key philosophical positions, too.

Historical, Sociological Influences

People date modernity’s beginning differently, but we can point to the rise of the Scientific Revolution with Gassendi’s and Hobbes’s influences in the 16th century, and the related scientific shifts then and in the 17th century. As a first trait, modernity was marked by a tendency to believe in the inevitability of progress from scientific discoveries, particularly from the theory of evolution. Due to this progress, humankind could get better and better.

In sharp contrast, in postmodernity, people are far less trusting of science’s inherent goodness. They have witnessed the 20th century, with two world wars, concentration camps, genocides, and mass murders. (Indeed, some mark the end of modernity with World War II.) Nazis used medical science to perpetrate gross experiments upon Jewish and other subjects. Science also provided the most destructive weapon yet developed, the nuclear bomb. So, people therefore are far less trusting that science and scientists are working just for peoples’ good.

Second, moderns had confidence in human reason, apart from divine revelation, to know universal truths. For example, witness Descartes’s (d. 1650) view of having certainty as a foundation for our beliefs. But, postmoderns stress the fallibility of human reason and its biases, and how all too often people use it to oppress others. Further, they reject knowledge of universal truths; we know truths from our particular standpoints (such as a community and its formative narrative).

Third, in modernity,people tended to trust their political and religious leaders. Yet, there have been many political scandals and cover-ups which have eroded that trust. Scandals also surfaced amongst religious leaders, such as accusations of molestation by Catholic priests. Many assume televangelists simply want money. In postmodernity,people have grown suspicious from the fallout of these betrayals of trust.

Fourth, moderns tend to think we can find objective, universal truths that apply to everyone. There are normative ways for all cultures to live. However, to postmoderns, that idea seems oppressive and imperialistic. 

Philosophical Influences 

We already have seen major shifts in western history from universals to nominalism; from mind-body dualism to materialism, and with both of these, a turn to empiricism; and from the view that we can know reality directly to historicism. But, postmodernity is not a complete rejection of what developed during modernity. Even though we have seen the above mentioned sociological and historical shifts in mindsets in postmodernity, postmoderns continue the modern focus on nominalism with its rejection of universals with their essences. For instance, they focus on knowledge being tied to particular “forms of life” (or communities, social groups). We are so shaped by our situatedness (the various social, familial, historical, cultural factors that shape how we interpret and understand life) that we cannot gaze directly into reality from a universal standpoint. Moreover, they tend to reject an essential nature to all humans, leading some toward materialism.

A key factor in postmodern thought is the turn to interpretation. This reflects a further turn than just the “turn to language.” We already have seen how Nietzsche placed much stress on how we use our words. Often, in modernity, the focus was on individual sentences that could be understood by anyone due to their universal meaning. However, for postmoderns, the focus is on holism: meaning is found in a whole – a form of life – which cannot be separated from its language and formative story, or narrative. And, we all speak different languages. Meanings then are a matter of how we use language (i.e., verbal and nonverbal behavior) in a given form of life, according to the “grammar” of that community.

Next, I will explore the views of a particular ethicist, Alasdair MacIntyre, who writes in light of the postmodern turn.

For Further Reading

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 8

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R. Scott Smith is a Christian philosopher and apologist, with special interests in ethics, knowledge, and seeing the body of Christ live in the fullness of the Spirit and truth.

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Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro Dilemma: Part IV

Editor’s note: This article was originally posted at MandM. It has been posted here with permission of author.

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This is a talk I gave to the Philosophy Club at Glendale Community College in Phoenix, Arizona, this weekend. The talk was followed by a long discussion with some faculty, students at the college, and others who zoomed in.

In this talk, I introduced and defended a divine command theory of ethics. I divided the talk into three parts. In section I, I set out what modern divine command theories of ethics typically contend. I distinguished this from some common misunderstandings in section II. In Section III, I discussed the Euthyphro dilemma. I argued this objection is not the conclusive rebuttal it is often assumed to be. In my first post, I reproduced sections I and II. My second post began my discussion of the Euthyphro objection in section III. Focusing on the Anything Goes Objection. My third post examined the claim that a divine command theory would, if true, entail that morality is arbitrary. This post concludes this discussion. 

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In my last post, I argued that divine command theories do not entail that morality is arbitrary. If anything, the opposite is the case. A divine command theory entails that actions will be wrong in virtue of those actions’ non-moral properties, properties that would provide an informed, loving and just person with reasons for prohibiting those actions.

The Vacuity Objection

Finally, critics press what is known as the vacuity objection. A divine command theory entails that “the doctrine of the goodness of God is rendered meaningless”[1]  Oppy puts the objection forcefully: “It cannot be…that God’s commands or decisions determine what is morally good because God is morally good prior to the giving of those commands or the making of those decisions.”[2]  If God is essentially good, he must be good prior to the issue any commands. However, this means that goodness cannot depend upon the existence of these commands. If it did, goodness would exist prior to itself. 

Like the previous objection, I think this one is based on an equivalent. In the first section of this talk, I pointed out that the word “good” is ambiguous”. I stated that a divine command theory is an account of moral requirements, not an account of goodness in general. This observation is essential here. When divine command theorists say God’s commands determine what is good, they mean only that the existence of moral obligations or moral requirements depends upon God. By contrast, when a divine command theorist says God is good, he means by this that God has certain character traits: God is loving, just, impartial, faithful, in all possible worlds.  

But the question of whether someone has certain character traits is distinct from whether they have moral requirements to behave in a certain way. 

Consider a nihilist who denies the existence of objective moral requirements. This nihilist could, if he wanted, choose to live in accord with the norms of justice and could decide to be a faithful, loving and impartial person. What he could not do is claim that there exists any moral obligation to live this way.[3] 

This distinction removes the sting from Oppy’s objection. God’s commands determine the existence and content of moral requirements. This does not mean his commands determine whether people can have certain character traits. Consequently, God can have these character traits prior to giving any commands.

Even if, antecedent to commanding, God has no moral duties, it does not follow that he can’t have certain character traits. Traits such as being truthful, benevolent, loving, gracious, merciful. Nor does it mean he is not opposed to actions such as murder, rape, torturing people for fun, and so on. If God has no duties, he is not under any obligation to love others or tell the truth, but that does not mean he cannot love others or be truthful. God does not have to have a duty to do something to do it.

 Conclusion

The “anything goes,” “arbitrariness,” and “vacuity” objections, therefore, all fail. This is significant because these are the three reasons commonly given for rejecting Divine command theories. Almost everyone who dismisses the claim that morality is dependent upon God cites these three objections as decisive. Seeing that these objections all fail, in the absence of further argument, one cannot proclaim with any confidence that a divine command theory is a flawed theory.

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[1] James Rachels, Elements of Moral Philosophy (New York: Mcgraw-hill Education, 2003), 50.

[2]Graham Oppy, “Morality Does Not Depend Upon God,” in Problems in Philosophy: An Introduction to the Major Debates on Knowledge, Reality, Values, and Government, ed. Steve Cowan (Bloomsbury Publishing House, Forthcoming 2018).

[3] For this point, see John L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1981), 26-27.  

Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro Dilemma: Part 3

Editor’s note: This article was originally posted at MandM. It has been posted here with permission of author.

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This is a talk I gave to the Philosophy Club at Glendale Community College in Phoenix, Arizona, this weekend. The talk was followed by a long discussion with some faculty, students at the college, and others who zoomed in.

In this talk, I introduced and defended a divine command theory of ethics. I divided the talk into three parts. In section I, I set out what modern divine command theories of ethics typically contend. I distinguished this from some common misunderstandings in section II. In Section III, I discussed the Euthyphro dilemma. I will suggest this objection is not the conclusive rebuttal it is often assumed to be. In my first post, I reproduced sections I and II. My second post began my discussion of the Euthyphro objection in section III. This post continues that discussion. 

In my last post, I argued that a divine command theory does not entail the content of morality is arbitrary, in the sense that anything at all could be right or wrong. It entails that an action can only be permissible, only in situations where it is possible for a fully informed, rational, loving and just person to command it knowingly. Far from being absurd, this implication is entirely plausible. 

Some have objected that divine command theory makes morality arbitrary in a different sense. It means there is no reason why one action is right or wrong rather than another. Russ Shafer-Landau presses the following dilemma: “Either there are, or there are not, excellent reasons that support God’s prohibitions. If there are no such reasons, then God’s choice is arbitrary, i.e. insufficiently well supported by reason and argument.” [1] Alternatively:

If God is, in fact, issuing commands based on excellent reasons, then it is those excellent reasons and not the fact of God’s having commanded various actions, that make those actions right. The excellent reasons that support the requirements of charity and kindness are what make it right to be charitable and kind.[2]

We can summarise this argument as follows, take a paradigmatically immoral action such as rape.

(P1) Either (a) God has a reason for prohibiting rape, or (b) God has no reason for prohibiting rape. 

(P2) If God has no reason for prohibiting rape, then God’s commands are arbitrary. 

(P3) If God has a reason for prohibiting rape, then that reason is what makes rape morally wrong. 

(P4) If something distinct from God’s commands is what makes rape morally wrong, then the divine command theory is false.  

(C1) Either morality is arbitrary, or the divine command theory is false 

This argument is based on a subtle equivocation. (P3) and (P4) refer to what “makes” something morally right. But the word “makes” is ambiguous. 

In this context, Stephen Sullivan has argued that the word “make” can be used in two different senses.[3] The first sense refers to what Sullivan calls a constitutive explanation: On a hot February day, I pour a glass of water to drink it and quench my thirst. There is a legitimate sense in which I can say that what makes me pour a glass of water is the fact that I am pouring a glass of H20. When I speak like this, I use the word “makes” to refer to a relationship of identity. I am explaining one thing (the pouring of the water) but citing the existence of another thing that I take to be identical with it.

The second sense involves what Sullivan calls a motivational explanation, such as when I state that what makes me pour a glass of water is the fact that I am thirsty. Motivational explanations do not explain an action by referring to something taken to be identical with it. Instead, they attempt to tell us why an agent acted the way they did by giving us the reasons and motivations the agent acted upon. 

Let’s assume that Landau is using the word “makes” in the “motivational” sense. The inference is:

(P1) Either (a) God has reasons for prohibiting rape, or (b) God doesn’t have reasons for prohibiting rape. 

(P2) If God doesn’t have reasons for prohibiting rape, then God’s commands are arbitrary. 

(P3)’ If God has reasons for prohibiting rape, then those reasons motivationally explain why rape is morally wrong.  

(P4)’ If something distinct from God’s commands motivationally explain why rape is morally wrong, then a divine command theory is false.  

(C1) Either morality is arbitrary, or the divine command theory is false. 

On this interpretation of the argument (P3)’ is plausible. Suppose God has reasons for issuing the commands he does, and the property of being wrong is identical with the property of being contrary to God’s commands. In that case, these reasons do provide a motivational explanation as to why rape is wrong. However, (P4′) is false. The fact that God’s prohibition does not motivationally explain the wrongness of rape is wrong does not entail that the prohibition is not identical to the moral wrongness of rape. Divine command theories contend that wrongness is identical with the property of being contrary to God’s commands. So it only in the constitutive sense of the word “makes” that they deny anything other than God’s commands “make” actions wrong. 

Consequently, For Shafer-Landau’s argument to have a bite, he must use the word “makes” to refer to a constitutional explanation. So interpreted, the argument is:

(P1) Either: (a) God has reasons for prohibiting rape, or (b) God doesn’t have reasons for prohibiting rape. 

(P2) If God doesn’t have reasons for prohibiting rape, then God’s commands are arbitrary. 

(P3)” If God has reasons for prohibiting rape, then those reasons are identical with the property of moral wrongness.   

(P4)” If something distinct from God’s commands is identical with the property of moral wrongness, then a divine command theory is false.  

(C1) Either morality is arbitrary, or the divine command theory is false. 

On this interpretation (P4)” is plausible, if something distinct from God’s prohibition is identical with wrongness. God’s prohibition cannot be identical with wrongness.

However, now (P3)” turns out to be implausible. Why should the fact that God has reasons for issuing a command mean that those reasons are identical with the property of being morally wrong? The Landau seems to assume the following inference: If A is identical to B, and someone has reasons r for bringing about B, then A is identical with r.  However, this inference is invalid. An analogy will show this; A Batchelor is identical to an unmarried man, John has reasons for being unmarried, he dislikes women. Does it follow that the property of being a Bachelor is identical with the property of disliking women?[4]

Landau’s argument, therefore, is unsound. Graham Oppy proposes a more direct argument for the conclusion that a divine command theory makes morality arbitrary:

Could it have been, for example, that murder, rape, lying, stealing and cheating were good because God proclaimed them so? Surely not! But what could explain God’s inability to bring it about, that murder, rape, lying, stealing and cheating are good by proclaiming them so, other than its being the case that murder, rape, lying, stealing and cheating are wrong quite apart from any proclamations that God might make?[5]

However, this is implausible. Suppose God has character traits such as being essentially loving and just. In that case, God can and would have reasons for prohibiting actions like rape, murder, or cheating, quite apart from whether these actions are antecedently wrong. Antecedent to any command on God’s part, these actions won’t have the property of being morally prohibited. But they could still have other properties such as being cruel or harmful or unjust or detrimental to human happiness— or being expressions of hatred, for example. And a loving and just God could prohibit these actions because these actions have these non-moral properties.

Consequently, divine command theories do not entail that morality is arbitrary. If anything, the opposite is the case. A divine command theory entails that actions will be wrong in virtue of certain non-moral properties those actions have. Non-moral properties that would provide an informed, loving and just person with reasons for prohibiting those actions.

[1] Russ Shafer-Landau, “Introduction to Part IV,” in Ethical Theory: An Anthology, ed. Russ Shafer-Landau (Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 237.

[2]Ibid., 238.

[3] Stephen Sullivan, “Arbitrariness, Divine Commands, and Morality,” International Journal of Philosophy of Religion 33:1 (1993): 33-45.

[4] These points are made cogently by Stephen Sullivan, “Arbitrariness, Divine Commands, and Morality,” 37-39. See also Matthew Flannagan’s, “Is Ethical Naturalism More Plausible than Supernaturalism: A Reply to Walter Sinnott-Armstrong,” Philo 15:1 (2012): 19-37.

[5]  Graham. Oppy, Best Argument against God (Hampshire: Palgrave Pivot, 2014), 44.

Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro Dilemma: Part 2

Editor’s note: This article was originally posted at MandM. It has been posted here with permission of author.

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This is a talk I gave to the Philosophy Club at Glendale Community College in Phoenix, Arizona, this weekend. The talk was followed by a long discussion with some faculty, students at the college, and others who zoomed in.

 In this talk, I introduced and defended a divine command theory of ethics. The talk was divided into three parts. In section I, I set out what modern divine command theories of ethics typically contend. I distinguished this from some common misunderstandings in section II. In Section III, I discussed the Euthyphro dilemma. I will suggest this objection is not the conclusive rebuttal it is often assumed to be. In my first post, I reproduced sections I and II. This post will begin my discussion of the Euthyphro objection in section III. 

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In my last post, I argued that semantic and epistemic objections to a divine command theory fail. However, the most famous and important objection to divine command theories is an argument known as “The Euthyphro Objection”. After a dialogue written by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato in the 4th century BC. Plato’s original argument is somewhat obscure and applied only to polytheistic religions (those religions that believe in many gods). However, the version used by philosophers today is an adaptation of Plato’s argument for use against monotheistic faiths. Critics of divine command theories appeal to three arguments that are loosely associated with Plato’s dialogue. These are (1) the anything goes objection, (2) the arbitrariness objection, and (3) the vacuity objection. I will take each in turn.

The Anything Goes Objection

One objection is that a divine command theory makes morality arbitrary in the sense that anything at all could be right or wrong. King and Garcia explain the alleged problem in this way:

[Divine command theory] implies that it is possible for any kind of action, such as rape, not to be wrong. But it seems intuitively impossible for rape not to be wrong. So [Divine command theory] is at odds with our common-sense intuitions about rape.[1]

We can formalise the objection as follows:

(P1) If the divine command theory is true, then whatever God commands is morally required.

(P2) God could command rape.

(C1) So, if the divine command theory is true, rape could be morally obligatory.

(P3) But rape could not be morally obligatory.

(C2) Therefore, the divine command theory is false.

In response, divine command theorists have contested (P2) Divine command theorists do not contend that moral requirements are dependent upon the commands of just anyone. They base moral obligations on the commands of God conceived in a particular way. God is an all-powerful, all-knowing, essentially loving, just, immaterial person who created the universe on their conception. Once we realize this, the horrendous deeds objection appears to be unsound.

We can put this in terms of a dilemma: consider (P2): (P2) only holds if it is possible for a fully informed, rational, loving and just person to knowingly command rape. However, this is unlikely. Critics cite examples of rape because they view it as an action that no virtuous person could ever knowingly entertain. So (P2) appears to be false. However, suppose; I am mistaken about this. It is possible for an essentially loving and just person to command rape. Rape, then, would only be commanded in situations where a just and loving person aware of all the relevant facts could endorse it. Under these circumstances, it is hard to see how (P3) could be maintained.

Once we realize that God, as conceived by the divine command theorist, is essentially loving and just, it is difficult, if not impossible, to see how both (P2) and (P3) can be true. Whatever reasons we have for thinking (P2) is true seem to undermine (P3). By contrast, whatever reasons we have for accepting (P3) undermine (P2).

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[1]Nathan L King, “Introduction”, in Is Goodness without God Good Enough: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics, eds. Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2008), 11.

Mailbag: How to Decide Which Moral Principles to Use in the Moral Argument

Dear Dr. Baggett,  

What underlying principle determines which moral principles should be accepted by the “gods”? Every religion is different and wouldn’t one have to assume that all religions share a moral common ground? It seems to me that one has to first specify their metaphysics (perhaps even their epistemology) before arguing from morality.  

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this email. God bless!  

In Christ,  

Matthew  

Hi Matthew, 

Thanks for the note. 

This sounds like a question of first principles. Here I tend think morality has a sort of primacy. A German philosopher named Hermann Lotze affirmed a principle that our metaphysics is rooted in morality. This is rather different from what often gets affirmed today—start with metaphysics and epistemology, and then fit everything else in and around those disciplines. Lotze thought it okay to start with morality, sensing that it is somehow fundamental. I'm inclined to agree.  Following Mark Linville, I call this "Lotze's Dictum." I see something like such a principle at the heart of the moral apologetics enterprise.  

Then, following Robert Adams, I tend to think, based on basic credulity principles and such, that we are entitled to think that our moral convictions of the deepest ingression can be taken as generally reliable. Without some such assumption, there's not much hope of constructing anything like a moral argument. But again, if morality is considered for principled reasons a real indicator of reality, and evidentially significant in enabling us to figure out aspects of the world, these starting points seem eminently reasonable to me. If someone demurs, they're perfectly entitled to, of course, but I don't find there to be compelling reasons for me to overly concerned with their skepticism on the matter. I simply don't think I'm surer of just about anything than I am that, say, torturing kids for fun is wrong. So to me this can function axiomatically. I don't have apodictic certainty, but such an aim is unrealistically high. As I said in class, putting it this way makes it seem like affirming moral objectivism is nothing more than an intuitive matter, but I think there's a lot more to it than that. That's more appearance than reality. But for a starting point, it's not bad. 

Up until now religion and God haven't played any part in the conversation, you will note. We're just talking about a basic axiomatic moral principle or two. Once one becomes convinced of something like moral realism, the question then becomes, what worldview best accounts for the existence of objective moral facts (again, if such there be)? Now, there are two matters here: the modality of these truths, and the content of these truths. Some might simply wish to run a moral argument based on moral realism--the modality of these truths--their necessary truth or existence, for example. Others might wish to delve into the content.  

As for me, I stay away from the content except a few general claims. I like the example of torturing kids for fun. It's not particularly controversial. It's something I suspect most every religion would agree on. And most every atheist. It's a likely contender for a synthetic necessary moral truth if there is one, something we're more sure of than most anything that could challenge it, perhaps even something that's properly basic (though it needn't be for the moral argument to get off the ground). In other words, its epistemic credentials are pretty impeccable, as far as I'm concerned. 

At this point if one insists we must first lay out the metaphysics of such a truth before arguing from morality, I think I'd say I don't think so. The self-evidence of the proposition in question makes it such that it's more likely to be argued from than to. The moral argument is an effort to get at the metaphysics behind such a moral truth. Getting to the metaphysics is what the moral argument tries to do. If something like an Anselmian God provides the best explanation of such a moral truth, then I consider myself altogether justified and warranted to infer, at least tentatively, to God as the likely true explanation, which is to say, the metaphysical foundation, the ontological grounding, of such a truth. 

Part of what's going on here, I think, is this: our epistemic faculties are such that we can hold our belief about child torture for fun with a high degree of assurance. This is good, since it's basically a premise in the moral argument, and the premises of an argument, if the argument is a good one, need to be strong. If you're convinced of the truth of realism, with at least this minimal content held in common across a broad array of worldviews and religious persuasions, the rest of the work the argument needs to do falls on how well theism generally (or perhaps Christianity particularly) provides the most robust explanation on offer.  

When it comes to basic moral principles, I say I lean toward focusing on noncontroversial content (the vexed questions can be taken up later; this is a matter of ethical foundations)—but it's true that I also extend my four-fold approach to include matters of performance, knowledge, and rationality. But I at least start with minimal content and matters of metaphysics and epistemology—but with a high view of what morality has to say to us and a basic confidence in pre-theoretical moral convictions of a certain stripe. It has always seemed to me that we can know with great confidence the nonnegotiable truth of at least certain basic ethical principles, which is why I'm convinced they're as good a place as any to start doing natural theology. I figure if I'm wrong, well, I'm wrong, but it's where I feel good throwing my lot. People should not be sawn in two; dignity should be upheld; etc. (I'm not saying the rest of the moral argument is this obvious, but the starting point, at least, seems to be.) 

This is all too brief, but in a nutshell, it gives you an idea of what I think. I encourage you to keep thinking about this stuff! I appreciate your note very much. 

Blessings, 

Dave B. 

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David Baggett is professor of philosophy and Director of the Center for Moral Apologetics at Houston Baptist University.

Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro Dilemma: Part I

Editor’s note: This article was originally posted at MandM. It has been posted here with permission of author.

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This is a talk I gave to the Philosophy Club at Glendale Community College in Phoenix, Arizona, this weekend. The talk was followed by a long discussion with some faculty, students at the college, and others who zoomed in.

In this talk, I introduced and defended a divine command theory of ethics. The talk was divided into three parts. In section I, I set out what modern divine command theories of ethics typically contend. I distinguished this from some common misunderstandings in section II. In Section III, I discussed the Euthyphro dilemma. I will suggest this objection is not the conclusive rebuttal it is often assumed to be. This first post will contain sections I and II. 

I. What is a Divine Command Theory 

For purposes of this talk, the term “divine command theory” will refer to the divine command meta-ethics defended by Robert Adam’s, William Lane Craig, William Alston, and C Stephen Evan’s. This theory contends that the property of being morally required is identical to the property of being commanded by God. [1] Where God is understood, in orthodox fashion, as a necessarily existent, all-powerful, all-knowing, essentially loving and just, immaterial person who created and providentially ordered the universe.

Note three things about this thesis:

First, it is a thesis about the nature of moral requirements, not about the nature of goodness in general. The concept of “good, is ambiguous, as is seen by the following statements “I had a really good dip in the spa pool last night”. Or “going on a low carb diet is good for you”. Or, “Carlos the Jakal was a good hitman”. The concept of the morally obligatory, or morally required, is not identical to the concept of what it is good to do. It might be good, even saintly, for me to give a kidney to benefit a stranger, but it is not an act I am obliged to do.[2] To be obligatory, an action must be more than just good or praiseworthy in some sense. Obligatory actions are actions we are required to do; another person can legitimately demand we do them. Omitting to do them without an adequate excuse renders one guilty and blameworthy. Others can justifiably blame you, censure you, and sanction you in various ways. 

Nor is this is an idiosyncratic limitation of theory. While some critics of divine command theories characterize it as an account of “goodness” or of all “all evaluative properties.”  Almost all contemporary defenders of divine command theories; Quinn, Adams, Alston, Craig, Wierenga, Hare, and  Plantinga present a divine command theory of obligation, not goodness per se. Nor is this unique to modern divine command theorists; older divine command theorists such as William Paley, John Locke, George Berkeley, and Francisco Suarez limited divine command theories to accounts of moral obligations or requirements, not to goodness in general. 

Second, the postulated relationship between moral requirements and God’s commands is one of identity. Mark Murphy refers to this sort of explanation as “informative identification”. Such as when “we explain the nature of water by identifying it with H2O or explain the nature of heat by identifying it with molecular motion”. We are aware of something we refer to as “water” and want to understand its nature. We answer this question by postulating that what we refer to as water is identical with H20; by doing this, we answer the question, “what is the nature of water?”. In this instance, divine command theorists attempt to explain the nature of a particular kind of moral property, the property of being morally required. The theory is that the property we refer to when we say “X morally required” is the property of being commanded by God.

Third, this is a thesis about the relationship between God and morality. It is not a claim about the relationship between the bible and morality. To claim that moral requirements are identical with God’s commands is not to claim our moral requirements are identical with the commandments laid down in a particular sacred text. The thesis I laid out makes no mention of any sacred text such as the Bible, Quran, Hadith, Torah or Talmud. While many divine command theorists accept that God has revealed his commands in an infallible sacred text, some do not.

Moreover, the claim that God’s commands are contained in some particular sacred text is not part of or entailed by a divine command theory itself. It is the result of other theological commitments they have. One could consistently be a divine command theorist without holding this. Divine command theories are ecumenical; they have had advocates within the Christian, Islamic, Jewish and even deist traditions.

Of course, what role sacred texts should play in our moral thinking and decision-making is important. Whether God has infallibly revealed himself in such text is a question of great interest. However, it is not the question that the divine command theorist is addressing when he says moral requirements are identical with Gods commands.

II What the Divine Command Theory is Not: Avoiding Strawman

These clarifications as to what a divine command theory enable us to address two common objections to the theory: semantic and epistemic objections.

 1. Semantic Objections

Harry Gensler expresses one common objection to a divine command theory. Gensler writes:

 “Imagine an atheist who says the following: “kindness is good, but there is no God”. If “x is good” meant “God desires x”, then this claim would be self-contradictory (since it would mean “God desires kindness, but there is no God”). But it isn’t self contradictory. So “x is good” doesn’t mean “God desires x”.[3]

Gensler concludes that the phrases “X is good” and “desired by God” are not synonymous phrases. This is a conclusion about the meaning of moral terms and words. However, a divine command theory isn’t a theory about the meaning of moral terms. It is a thesis about the nature of moral properties. It contends that the property of being morally required is identical with the property of being commanded by God.

Consequently, Gensler’s argument has an implicit assumption. If two phrases such as “x is wrong” and “X is contrary to Gods commands” are not synonymous in meaning, they cannot refer to the same property. 

 This assumption is questionable. Consider the example of water and H20; the phrase “x is a cup of water” is not synonymous with the words “x is a cup of H20”. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle could, without self-contradiction, claim “this cup is full of water and atoms don’t exist”. Yet that doesn’t entail that water is not identical to H20. “water” and “H20” are distinct non-synonymous ways of referring to what turns out to be the same property. The fact two phrases are not synonymous does not entail they are not referring to the same property. 

Gensler’s argument appears to conflate two separate questions. The question of whether the words “x is morally required” has the same meaning as the phrase “God commands x” and the question of whether those words pick out the same or distinct properties. He mistakenly takes a divine command theory as answering the first of these questions, when it is proposed as an answer to the second.

 2. Epistemic Objections

Many critics of divine command theories object that we know the truth of moral claims independently and prior to any beliefs they have about divine commands. This idea figures prominently in criticisms posed by Nowell Smith.[4], Lehrer and Corman[5], Louise Anthony[6]. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong[7]. Paul Kurtz provides an example:  

 If God is essential, then how can it be that millions of people who do not believe in God, nevertheless behave morally. On [the divine command] view they should not and so God is not essential to the moral life[8]

Like the semantic objection I just discussed, this one is based on a confusion. This objection takes a divine command theory to entail that people cannot know what is right and wrong unless they first know what God has commanded. 

 However, this is incorrect. Divine command theorists contend the property of being morally required is identical with the property of being contrary to God’s commands. If two descriptions refer to the same property, that doesn’t entail we cannot know something answers one description unless we believe something answers the other. 

 It is a fact that water is identical to H20. This does not mean that we cannot know about the existence of water unless we first know about hydrogen and oxygen. The Polynesians who first settled New Zealand around 1300 AD were very good at navigating water: they knew what water was, what rain was, and how to discern currents and tides. They had lots of justified belief about water. However, they knew nothing about atomic or molecular theory. 

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[1]Robert M. Adams, “Divine Command Meta-Ethics Modified Again,” Journal of Religious Ethics 7:1 (1979): 76.

[2] Example from C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard’s Ethic of Love: Divine Commands and Moral Obligations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 16.

[3]Harry Gensler Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction (London: Routledge Publishing, 1988) 39.

[4]Patrick H. Nowell-Smith, “Morality: Religious and Secular,” in Christian Ethics and Contemporary Philosophy, ed. Ian T. Ramsey (London: SCM Press, 1966) 97.

 [5]James W. Cornman & Keith Lehrer, Philosophical Problems and Arguments (New York: MacMillan, 1979), 429.

 [6]Louise Anthony “Atheism as Perfect Piety” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics, Eds. Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2008),67-84

 [7]  Armstrong writes, “The divine command theory makes morality unknowable [because such theories entail] we cannot know what is morally wrong, if we cannot know what God commanded … we have no sound way to determine what God commanded.” For critique, See my “Is Ethical Naturalism more Plausible than Supernaturalism: A Reply to Walter Sinnott Armstrong” Philo 15:1 (2012):19-37

 [8]Ibid 33-33, note the slippage in Kurtz statement; he goes from the claim that belief in God is unnecessary to live a moral life to the claim that God is unessential to morality. This is like arguing that; because people can fly successfully in planes without believing in the laws of aerodynamics, it follows, the laws of aerodynamics are not essential for flight.

Making Sense of Morality: A Brief Assessment of Critical Theory

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

What then should we think of critical theory (CT) and its shaping influences in these other views? I’ll consider some strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths

First, proponents rightly point out many injustices that should be addressed. They are right that too often, people in power abuse it to oppress people, which is wrong. Second, they rightly note that (for example) racial injustices can be embedded in systems, even if there are no individuals’ racist intentions. Third, reasoning morally in abstract ways can blind us to oppression and harms. We need to attend to peoples’ particular, embodied, social-historical factors in our policies, for they have to live with their good and bad effects. Fourth, people should be treated with justice, dignity, and equality.

Reality

CT proponents tend to adopt materialism and nominalism. Now, we saw with Daniel Dennett how without essences, everything becomes interpretation, yet without a way to get started and know anything. Also, with nominalism, while focuses our attention on particulars, it also undermines reality. But this end undermines all for which CT advocates have labored, for there is no real oppression or liberation, no rights or wrongs, or anything else. What they rely on to give their views strength (i.e., nominalism) actually destroys them.

Yet, if we don’t come to grips with the end result of nominalism, we can seduce ourselves to think everything is what it is in name only – due to how we have conceived of it. So, both these views lead us to think that what exists is our construct. Yet, to be consistent, that means oppression (as well as liberation) is just some particular group’s construct. Justice, dignity, and equality, all of which are good moral values, end up being just the way a particular group has constructed their morals. But that result is anything but what critical theorists want. They argue for their views as the way things really are, and the way things should be for all people. Yet, based on their own theory’s bases, they cannot be such. Indeed, they are just a particular group’s constructs, and if they try to universalize them, they actually could be imperialistic and oppressive.

Knowledge

Earlier, I explored how Kant’s epistemology led to an inability to know anything, since we cannot traverse the series of appearances that “stand between” us and something as it really is. A similar problem resurfaces with historicism. Here, we cannot access reality directly; we can know it only insofar as we interpret it. Now, there is a very good point to be made here: what we experience we do need to interpret. It is one thing for me to see an animal in my yard; it is another for me to see it as one of our pets and act accordingly.

Similarly, the strength of CT claims depends upon our ability to see real people in real conditions, and see them as unjust. But, can we do this on historicism? I do not think so. Since we can never access something real as it is in itself, apart from our interpretation, it seems we only access our interpretation (call it I1) thereof. But, now a new regress appears. I1 is real, but, per the theory, I cannot access it as it really is, but only as I interpret it (I2). But then that same repetition occurs with I3, I4, and so on, without a way to ever get started. Knowledge becomes impossible on historicism. (Moreover, how can we even form an interpretation if we cannot access something as it really is, even if we do not know it exhaustively?)

Ethics

So, justice, dignity, and equality are nothing but our constructs, and they cannot be preserved due to the reasons above. Plus, since they are just “up to us,” it is possible (conceivable) that their moral goodness could have turned out otherwise.

Further, the fundamental duty on CT (that we are to liberate the oppressed from the oppressors) seems to lead to never-ending violence. Since there are only two groups, once the oppressed have been liberated, now they are the oppressors, and they and the former oppressors have switched places. But, now the cycle must repeat endlessly, with wanton violence.

Though CT identifies real injustices and oppression, it cannot hope to be an adequate basis to address them.

Making Sense of Morality: Liberation, Feminist, & Queer Ethics

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

Introduction

In this essay, I will survey key points of three theories that have been deeply shaped by critical theory (CT). I will try to draw out their ethical implications. In the next essay, I will assess CT.

Liberation Theology

The first is liberation theology. We will explore it through the teachings of the Catholic theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez (b. 1928). His ideas have been widely influential in Latin America and the west.

For him, the purpose of liberation is achieve freedom from anything that hinders humans’ fulfillment and communion with God and one another. Economic oppression is a key, but not the only, form of domination. In general, liberation is from sin. Yet, liberation can take many forms, such as by abolishing private property, changing the access to power by the exploited, and using a social revolution to break dependencies, such as upon the United States and its capitalist system. In his mind, socialism is far more fruitful as a political organization.

Rather than stressing abstract, universal principles, Gutiérrez focuses on concrete, particular people and their embodiment of oppression and suffering. For him, he endorses the interpretive lens of liberation as normative, and he sees liberation as a dominant biblical theme. So, we should read Scripture through this lens and in light of our embodied experience.  

Feminist Ethics of Welch and Harrison

There are varieties of feminist thought, but here I will look at two exemplars, Sharon Welch and Bev Harrison. For them, feminism follows CT in some key ways. First, feminist thought assumes the dynamic of oppression by oppressors. Second, it rejects many dualisms, such as of body and soul. Third, it stresses embodied, situated particulars in a historicist epistemology. Fourth, it rejects universals and essential natures.

For Sharon Welch (b. 1952), by attending to universal, abstract theorizing, we overlook practical effects thereof. For example, if we attend to the actual history of Christianity, she thinks we can see “the denial by the church and by Western culture of full humanity to women and minorities” (Welch, 59). Welch also embraces a historicist view of truth (Welch, 10). Our concepts are contingent upon our historical conditions.

Bev Harrison (d. 2012) agrees that we are historically situated. All our concepts, including our norms, dualisms, and even what is right or wrong are the social constructs of a given people. Since all knowledge is a construct, based on the particulars in a given setting, she thinks we should focus on praxis versus abstract theory in ethics.

Our historical situatedness entails we are embodied beings. To her, mind-body dualism is mistaken for various reasons. For one, we cannot pry the body off the soul, for all knowledge is body mediated. Two, it denigrates the body. Third, dualism entails difference and therefore subjugation.

To her, male-female dualism grounds patriarchy and its oppression of women. Further, other oppressive power relations and injustices are interrelated with sexism. These include racism, economic exploitation, and cultural imperialism, from all of which we need liberation.

Gender Studies and Queer Theory

Gender studies focuses on embodied particulars and historically situated knowledge. The American Psychological Association defines gender as “the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women.” Gender identity is an interpretation of oneself as a particular individual, without reference to universals or essences. Yet, it is not separated from groups, and these in turn are tied to oppression.

Moreover, queer theorists reject heteronormativity and male-female “binary” thinking as static and oppressive views. Michele Foucault (d. 1984) thought there is no essence to sex. Judith Butler (b. 1956) describes gender as “the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being” (Butler, 45). Thus, queer theory creates many possibilities for how to conceive of one’s sexuality, resulting in a perception of having a liberated sexuality, notwithstanding one’s anatomy.

For Further Reading

Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, rev. ed.

Bev Harrison, Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 8

Sharon Welch, Communities of Resistance and Solidarity

“What is the Difference Between Sex and Gender?”

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R. Scott Smith is a Christian philosopher and apologist, with special interests in ethics, knowledge, and seeing the body of Christ live in the fullness of the Spirit and truth.

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