Divine Command Theory

my foot!

Here is WLC opening his mouth to exchange shoes on morality. He was asked what one were to do if the IS god is the one true god and it commanded rapine and murder if you hold DCT to be true. He starts by deflecting the issue by questioning the emotional status of the person asking the query.

I am going to lift a few of his quotes here and you can read the rest for yourself.

He writes, with emphasis by us

Most divine command theorists are non-voluntarists who hold that moral values are not grounded in God’s will but in His nature. Moral duties are grounded in His will or commands; but moral values are prior to His will, since God’s own nature is not something invented by God. Since His will is not independent of His nature but must express His nature, it is logically impossible for Him to issue certain sorts of commands. In order to do so, He would have to have a different nature, which is logically impossible.

And we must ask whether he admits that if his god exists, it cannot have free will. And in some sectors, theologians have said the nature of god is unknowable, me wonders how Craig has come to this knowledge and two is who invented god’s nature?

Craig the goes ahead to say

It is logically impossible that there be any other God. So if you were mistaken and believed in the wrong God, you would be a Muslim or a Hindu or a polytheist or what have you; but there wouldn’t be another God. Remember: on perfect being theology, God is a maximally great being, a being which is worthy of worship. Lesser beings are not “Gods” at all. In fact, in my debates with Muslim theologians, this is one of the arguments I use against the Islamic conception of God: that Allah cannot be the greatest conceivable being because he is not all-loving and therefore cannot be God.

And we must ask why is it logically impossible that there be any other god? What criteria does Craig use to arrive at the conclusion that the christian god is the only one and the right one to boot. Please god, I want such powers of cognition as Craig does! Amen. While still on this matter, JZ asked if being worshiped is to be seen as a virtue or vice. And how is YHWH all loving when we hear there are two paths, one to damnation and the other to the pearly gates? or are these lies to keep people in church?

And I think this

The idea is that moral values are based in God, but if your concept of God is inadequate, then your ethics are going to be messed up. The problem lies in a defective concept of God.

explains why those who are so steeped in belief and faith are not useful to the society. I am waiting to hear the one believer who will give a logically coherent definition of god. Am patient, I will wait.

In the end Craig brushes the problem away by making a claim that only his god is god, the rest are defective conceptions of god. I hope he will give us reasonable answers to how he comes to this conclusion without obfuscation and a wave of the hand.

Professor Coyne has written on this here.