Although "divine command" is the standard term in the literature, God addresses people in all sorts of ways. The
scholastics distinguished between five different forms of God's revealed will, and they can be summarized in a
Latin dactylic hexameter, "
Praecipit et prohibet, permittit, consultit, implet".
Praecipit means "gives precepts to". Precepts tell people to do something. They can include warning, admonishment or exhortation.
Prohibet means "prohibits". A prohibition is a command not to do something.
Permittit means "permits". A permission is not a command because a person is permitted both to do the thing and not to do it.
Consultit means "counsels". They can include advice, instruction or invitation. They are different from commands as the latter generally generate obligation, and there is normally some expectation of condemnation if the command is not carried out. Finally,
implet means "fulfils", which are directly effective commands. They do not need language-using human recipients. An example is "Let there be light", and there is light. Sometimes "command" is taken to mean the whole family of speech acts, but sometimes it only includes those prescriptions which generate obligation. Philosophers including
William of Ockham (),
St Augustine (354–430),
Duns Scotus (), and
John Calvin (1509–1564) have presented various forms of divine command theory. The theory generally teaches that moral truth does not exist independently of
God and that divine commands determine morality. Stronger versions of the theory assert that God's command is the only reason that a good action is moral, while weaker variations cast divine command as a vital component within a greater reason. The theory asserts that good actions are morally good as a result of divine command, and many
religious believers subscribe to some form of divine command theory. Because of these premises, adherents believe that moral obligation is obedience to God's commands; what is morally right is what God desires. In
ancient Athens, citizens commonly held that moral truth was tied directly to divine commands, and religious piety was almost equivalent to morality. Although Christianity does not entail divine command theory, people commonly associate the two. DCT can be a plausible theory to Christians because the traditional conception of God as the
creator of the universe parallels the idea that he created moral truths. The theory is supported by the Christian view that God is
all-powerful because this implies that God creates moral truths, rather than moral truths existing independently of him, which seems inconsistent with his
omnipotence.
John Duns Scotus Scholastic philosopher
John Duns Scotus argued that the only moral obligations that God could not take away from humans involve loving God, as God is, definitionally, the most loveable thing. Scotus argued that the
natural law, in the strictest sense, contains only what is self-evidently
analytically true and that God could not make these statements false. This means that the commands of natural law do not depend on God's will, and thus form the first three commandments of the
Ten Commandments. The last seven of the Ten Commandments do not belong to the natural law in the strictest sense. Whilst humanity's duties to God are
self-evident,
true by definition, and unchangeable even by God, mankind's duties to others (found on the second tablet) fundamentally derived from the will by God and are within his power to revoke and replace (although, the third commandment, to honour the Sabbath and keep it holy, has a little of both, as humanity is absolutely obliged to render worship to God, but there is no obligation in natural law to do it on this day or that). Scotus does note, however that the last seven commandments: Scotus justifies this position with the example of a peaceful society, noting that the possession of private property is not necessary to have a peaceful society, but that "those of weak character" would be more easily made peaceful with private property than without. Hence, the last seven commandments do belong to the natural law, but not in the strictest sense, as they belong to the natural law by rectitude rather than by definition.
Thomas Aquinas Whilst
Thomas Aquinas, as a natural law theorist, is generally seen as holding that morality is not willed by God, Kelly James Clark and Anne Poortenga have presented a defence of divine command theory based on Aquinas' moral theory. Aquinas proposed a theory of natural law which asserted that something is moral if it works towards the purpose of human existence, and so human nature can determine what is moral. Clark and Poortenga argued that God created human nature and thus commanded a certain morality; hence he cannot arbitrarily change what is right or wrong for humans. American philosopher
Lewis White Beck takes Kant's argument to be a refutation of the theory that morality depends on divine authority. John E. Hare challenges this view, arguing that
Kantian ethics should be seen as compatible with divine command theory. Adams presents the basic form of his theory by asserting that two statements are equivalent: • It is wrong to do X. • It is contrary to God's commands to do X. Adams proposes that an action is morally wrong
if and only if it defies the commands of a loving God. If cruelty was commanded, he would not be loving; Adams argued that, in this instance, God's commands would not have to be obeyed and also that his theory of ethical wrongness would break down. He proposed that divine command morality assumes that human concepts of right and wrong are met by God's commands and that the theory can only be applied if this is the case. Adams' theory attempts to counter the challenge that morality might be arbitrary, as moral commands are not based solely on the commands of God, but are founded on his
omnibenevolence. It attempts to challenge the claim that an external standard of morality prevents God from being sovereign by making him the source of morality and his character the moral law. Adams suggests that a believer's concept of morality is founded in their religious belief and that right and wrong are tied to their belief in God; this works because God always commands what believers accept to be right. If God commanded what a believer perceived as wrong, the believer would not say it is right or wrong to disobey him; rather their concept of morality would break down. Michael Austin writes that an implication of this modified divine command theory is that God cannot command cruelty for its own sake; this could be argued to be inconsistent with God's omnipotence. Aquinas argued that God's omnipotence should be understood as the ability to do all things that are possible: he attempted to refute the idea that God's inability to perform illogical actions challenges his omnipotence. Austin contends that commanding cruelty for its own sake is not illogical, so is not covered by Aquinas' defence, although Aquinas had argued that sin is the falling short of a perfect action and thus not compatible with omnipotence. As an alternative to divine command theory, Linda Zagzebski has proposed divine motivation theory, which still fits into a monotheistic framework. According to this theory, goodness is determined by God's motives, rather than by what he commands. Divine motivation theory is similar to
virtue ethics because it considers the character of an agent, and whether they are in accordance with God's, as the standard for moral value. Zagzebski argues that things in the world have objective moral properties, such as being lovable, which are given to them through God's perception of them. God's attitude towards something is cast as a morally good attitude. The theory casts God as a good example for morality, and humans should imitate his virtues as much as is possible for finite, imperfect beings. ==Objections==