Uping the Ante

This is an attack on Divine Command Theory of Ethics using quotes from one of it's chief proponents.

This is not an attack on God. This is not an attack on Dr. Craig. This is an attack on the theory of ethics based on Divine Command.

The Audio was taken from The Reasonable Faith Podcast:
Did God Commit Atrocities in the Old Testament?

08-03-03

Category:

Education

Tags:

• atheist
• atheism
• divine
• command
• theory
• ethics
• christianity

[qonf]

2:10, so according to WL Craig, God is a racist, who believe in keeping the "Jewish race" pure.

[MichaelPayton67]

@qonf

i was going to reply to your comment on my other video, but i see that since you made it to this video i won't have to

[DazedSpy2]

Ok, a few problems with your video:

1) You said if you can justify killing children, your wrong etc. You cant just blindly state this and hold it to be true, thats fallscious.

2) Divine command theory is subjective. Well, no. A) "Does God command us to do these things because it is good, or is it good because god commanded us?" neither is true. Rather, God is by his very nature "the good" in the platonic sense, and therefore commands us to do things that are an extension of his nature.

[MichaelPayton67]

@DazedSpy2

1) P1) Killing children is morally permissible if and only if divine command theory is true P2) Killing children is not morally permissable

Therefore Divine Command theory is false.

Show me the "fallacy" in that and please identify what fallacy I am committing.

[MichaelPayton67]

@DazedSpy2

2) The "nature" response doesn't help the situation. Either God is control of his nature or he isn't. If he does control his nature than it is subjective. If God doesn't control his nature then there is some other appeal to the good which makes God irrelevant to moral theory.

[HonestDiscussioner]

"Divine command theory is subjective . . . god only communicates to people through insight"

I agree, but even without that fact it is still subjective, for Craig and his followers submit that god himself is a mind of sorts, so therefore his commands are themselves arbitrary.

[MichaelPayton67]

@HonestDiscussioner

Yes absolutely, usually a moral theory is considered subjective if the referent of the moral fact or principle is dependent on conscious awareness. Also I've noticed that the youtube/blog community seem to routinely confuse the absolute/relative distinction with the subjective/objective distinction. It bugs me every time.

[qonf]

@MichaelPayton67 I agree that WL Craig is appauling. Take it as a compliment that i hold you to the high standard of pointing out what appears (to me) to be a minor quote out of context. Thank you for your great videos. I only discovered your channel a few days ago, but have allready been watching a bunch of your vids.

[zarkoff45]

Here is a weird take on Divine Command theory:

watch?v=OfH0NcuJRKM

It's Epydemic2020's video, "Morality and ShwaNerd."

[DazedSpy2]

@MichaelPayton67 God is unchanging, and no, the inability to change what you are fundamentally does not result, logically in "some other appeal to the good". By definition when we use the term God we are referring to the maximal being, if there is something greater, than we term that God.

[DazedSpy2]

@DazedSpy2 your source of knowledge for God's commands are valid, than the command is objective and extends to all mankind.

[DazedSpy2]

@DazedSpy2 and therefore god is not being arbitrary. B) There can be nothing more subjective to do insight issues: Well, again, this is fallacious. It is obviously true that if my perceived insight is wrong, my following actions will be wrong, but thats hardly a hit against divine command theory, its rather just double underlining the necessity that you get your knowledge from a reliable source. So long as you can have reasonable confidence that