God and Ethics

The great twentieth century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, "If there is any proposition expressing precisely what I think, it is the proposition 'What God commands, that is good.'"

This view is generally known as the Divine Command Theory of ethics.  It can be defined as the theory that whatever God commands is good, whatever God forbids is evil, and nothing else is either good or evil.

There are several problems with this theory:

a) it leaves atheists without any ethics, yet surely there can be good atheists (and atheists who believe in good and evil or right and wrong)

b) how can we know what God commands?  We can read the Bible, of course, but which interpretation of it is right?  And why shouldn't we use the Koran as our guide?  Or do the bidding of voices in someone's head that seem to be from God?

c) it can make God's commands seem arbitrary.  If the only reason why we should not kill is that God told us not to, then why did God tell us not to?   If there is nothing to good and evil except God's say-so, He could just as well command that we do any random thing.  Indeed some of God's commands in the Bible seem pretty strange.  (Click here for an anonymous letter making fun of a woman who claimed that homosexuality was wrong because the Bible says so, which has been going around the internet.)  Some believers accept these rules unquestioningly, others follow only those that seem reasonable to them.  The former are true to Divine Command Theory, but seem crazy to many people.  The latter seem more sane and modern, but can be accused of cafeteria religion, picking and choosing the rules that appeal to them. 

d) on the other hand, if God's commandments are not arbitrary, if He forbids certain acts because they are wrong, then the (real) reason why they are wrong is not because God said so.  In this case we have given up on the Divine Command Theory.

e) it seems to rule out the possibility of God commanding something evil.  Isn't it wrong for a man to kill his own innocent son in cold blood?   Yet God told Abraham to do just this, if the Bible is to be believed.  At the last minute God stopped him, and so prevented a great evil.  But if Divine Command Theory is right, it seems that this sacrifice would have been not evil but good.

f) it seems to make statements such as "God's commandments are good" true merely by definition.  We cannot admire God's wisdom if whatever He does counts as good.

g) it seems to make all wrong acts equally wrong.  If murder is wrong purely because it is a violation of one of God's commandments, then any such violation would appear to be every bit as bad as murder.  But is bearing false witness or not respecting the Sabbath day really as bad as murder?

Believing in Divine Command Theory therefore seems to be giving up on the idea that reason can explain why some acts are right and some are wrong, or what it is that makes some acts right and others wrong.  Few philosophers accept this idea (although some religious believers do).

A somewhat more rational theory of ethics, which is still thoroughly religious, is the Natural Law Theory associated with St Thomas Aquinas (1224-1275).

Natural Law Theory holds that there is a natural moral law which tells us what is right and what is wrong, and which grants people certain natural human rights.  This law can be discerned by use of reason, or by careful study of nature.   Parts of it might even be self-evident.

According to Aquinas, it is our nature as human beings to be both social (like bees and ants, say, but not great white sharks or herons) and rational (unlike all other animals).  Since we are naturally social, we will be happiest living together with others.  This means not just living near others, but cooperating with them, sharing in trade and culture.  Anti-social acts such as lying, stealing, murder, and so on are therefore both bad for us (they are incompatible with a happy life) and unnatural (and therefore morally wrong).  Since we are naturally rational, we will be happiest living in accordance with reason.   Irrational, self-destructive acts are therefore wrong, as might be anything that makes us less rational, such as taking mind-altering drugs.  Finally, since what is natural is good, any unnatural act is wrong.  There are still laws in some places against such unnatural acts as sodomy and masturbation.  (These acts are considered to be unnatural uses, i.e. abuses, of the equipment God gave us for the purpose of sex, which exists as the means of propagating the species.  It is natural and good to enjoy sex (within marriage, which is itself a  natural institution properly suited for the begetting and raising of children) but only if it is the kind of sex that could lead to such propagation.  Any interference with the natural process -- masturbation, contraception, abortion -- is unnatural, anti-life, and wrong.)

Many people, especially Catholics, believe in this theory, but it does face some problems:

a) how can we tell exactly what is natural (or social or rational) and what is not?  Is it unnatural and wrong to develop new technologies or medicines, say?  Natural law theorists would say no, it is natural for us to use our reason to improve our lives in such ways.  But is it always clear what is natural and what is not?  Are left-handedness, say, or extra-marital sex wrong?  Can we defend our answers to such questions rationally?

b)  why believe that what is natural is good?  Cancer is natural, after all, but surely not good.  Cancer is anti-life, one might say, but what makes life itself, i.e. human life, good?  Aren't we just projecting our own interests onto nature and pretending to find them out there?  Or are we instead relying on a form of Divine Command Theory that says "God created nature, therefore nature is good"?    

c)  are all people the same?  If I happen to be happier living apart from society, am I unnatural or just unusual?  What reason could be given to justify the claim that I ought to be different?  Or does Natural Law Theory apply only to most people, so that ethics is then relative to the kind of person one is?

d) can we derive an 'ought' from an 'is'?  The idea that because such-and-such occurs in nature therefore such-and-such is good is often called the naturalistic fallacy.  Logically we cannot derive conclusions about what is good or right from premises about what simply is.   Defenders of Natural Law Theory might say that what is natural is not simply what is the case (or usually the case) in nature, but what is meant to be the case, what is the case when nature goes according to plan, as it were.  But is there such a plan?   Believers in God of course tend to think there is, but then again we seem to be dealing with a form of the God-is-always-right Divine Command Theory.  It is tempting to say that there are purposes inherent in nature, that hearts are for pumping blood, lungs are for breathing, and so on, but part of the point of the theory of evolution is to explain how complex and seemingly purposive features of the natural world could have arisen from a 'blind' series of random mutations and survival of the fittest.  The debate about evolution and the debate about the so-called naturalistic fallacy are not the same thing, but they are connected.  The linking question is whether nature is teleological (as Aristotle and some modern thinkers believe) or not (as most contemporary scientists believe).

Most philosophers today reject Natural Law Theory, but it does have some nice features.  For instance, if you are Christian, what should you think about issues on which the Bible is vague (e.g. abortion) or silent (e.g. suicide or the ethics of computer hacking)?  Natural Law Theory provides a way to settle such issues that is consistent with orthodox Christian teaching.

Click here for more on Aristotle, who influenced Aquinas.

Click here for more on the ethics of Aquinas.

Return to main page