You're made the wrong, but you're made the right. You're made the wrong, but you're made the right. You're made the wrong, but you made the right. Bill, we're going to look at an article from David Baggett. And before we do, talk about your work with David Baggett. David Baggett is a Christian philosopher who has truly distinguished himself in the area of theistic based ethics. He has written about five different books with Oxford University Press, the premier academic publisher, defending the view that objective moral values and duties are rooted in the nature and commands of God. And I had the privilege last fall of team teaching, of course, with Professor Baggett at Houston Baptist University, where he is a professor of philosophy. This article is reasons for divine command and he's talking about divine command theory of ethics. We will get into that here. His article begins recently, I came across a couple of similar but subtly different critiques of divine command theory. Both came from philosophers, our respected a great, though neither is a theist. One came from Ruth's Shevar Landau, and here's a succinct formulation of the argument. One, either God does not have reasons for his commands, or he does. Two, if he does not, then morality is entirely a function of divine command, rendering morality

whatever he wills it to be, which is to say it is altogether arbitrary. 3. On the other hand, if God were to have reasons for his commands, then those reasons, rather than God's commands, would be why we have the obligations that we do. So, so morality is either arbitrary or it is not the divine commands that are the real reasons for the obligations. This is from whatever happened to good and evil. Bill, what do you think of that argument? Well, I think it's an odd argument. that as we'll talk about later, it seems to think that moral obligation arises from

God's having certain reasons for commanding what he does. But it seems to me that it is the command itself that imposes an obligation upon usations arise from imperatives issued by a qualified authority. And if those imperatives are not issued, then I can't see that any obligation arises. Imagine, for example, that God had reasons to command something, but He just kept those reasons to Himself, and never actually commanded anything. Would we be under obligation? In that case, to do it, I can't see that we would. It seems to me that the notion of a command is essential for the reality of obligation. David continues, quoting, the other argument is from Michael Humor, which he articulates as follows, why does God command what he does? If God has no moral reasons for his commands, then they are merely arbitrary, and why should we obey arbitrary commands? But if God has moral reasons for his commands, then some moral truths must exist independently of his commands. Either way, the divine command theory is false. Bill, that seems to be a dilemma for divine command. Well, I'm a little surprised that Michael Humor would raise this objection since he was one of the commentators in Adam Johnson's edited volume of my debate with Eric Wheelanberg on is the foundations of objective values supernatural or natural and it was very clear in that debate and in the comments on the debate that we are not committed to saying that there are no moral truths independent of God's commands. And so I'm just really puzzled that he would think that those of us who hold a divine command morality would believe that. Next, David Wright's quoting, both philosophers are taking on a version of divine command theory that says that all moral truths are rooted in divine commands. This isn't the strongest version of divine command theory. Steve Evans and Robert Adams, for example, build their versions of divine command theory on a theory of the good, in Adams' case, a platonic theistic account of the good, and in Evans' case, a natural law conception, and confine their theories to accounts of moral obligation. So the fact that both Schaefer Landau and Humor are taking on a radically volunteerist notion of divine command theory rather than a more nuanced and sophisticated conception introduces real limitations into their analysis. End of quote. Several things to address their bill, including the theory of the good and why volunteerism limits their analysis according to David. I think what Baguette is saying is that this critique only applies to volunteerist views of divine command theory. An example of a volunteerist account would be William Ockham, the late medieval philosopher, who thought that God just makes up his commands as to what is good and evil

right or wrong, and there are no constraints upon what God might will in that regard. But as Baggit says, I can't think of any contemporary Christian moral philosophers who who are voluntaryists in that way.

In the case of someone like a Robert Adams, what Adam says is that God himself is what Plato called the good. God is the paradigm and the locus of moral value. And the commandments that he gives reflect his essential moral character. And therefore there certainly are truths about what is good and what is evil independently of any commands that God might give. Moral obligation or right and wrong are rooted in God's commands, but moral values, what is good and what is evil, are rooted in God Himself, not in His commands." Next, the article continues. At any rate, assuming, as I think we are, that God does indeed have reasons for any commands that he issues, does it follow that as Shae for a Land of Puts it? Those reasons, rather than God's commands, would be why we have the obligations we do. You know, I end up quote there. I wondered about that too, Bill. Is it the reasons for God's commands or just the fact that

God even arbitrarily commands something that gives us obligations? I agree with you, Kevin. As I said earlier, I just can't see why God having certain reasons would result in an obligation or prohibition for us if those reasons are never expressed to us in the forms of commands that thou shalt do this thou shalt not do that is in virtue of the commands by a qualified authority that our moral obligations arise. And so I think that apart from the divine commands, we would not have the obligations that we do. And then he continues in the article, quoting, and does it also follow, again, assuming God has moral reasons for his commands that as humor puts it, some moral truths must exist independently of his commands. Let's address humor's point first. Humor seems right to suggest that God's having reasons for his commands would entail that some moral truths exist independently of God's commands. Since most contemporary divine command theorists, though, as noted, delimit application of their theories to matters of moral obligation and predicate their accounts on a non-voluntuous theory of the good. This is no criticism of divine command theory thus explicated. All moral truths might depend on God without depending on God's commands alone. So what about that Bill? Moral truths existing apart from God's commands? The moral truths that David is speaking of here would be moral truths about good and evil. it is good to act justly. It is evil to be cruel and selfish. There are moral truths about good and evil that is based upon God's very nature, wholly apart from questions of moral obligation that would arise if God commands us, for example, do not act unjustly or do not act cruelly, then we would have an obligation. But there are moral truths about good and evil apart from divine commands and apart from our obligations. And these are rooted in the very nature of God. David concludes by discussing God and libertarian freedom. By the way, Bill, I've noticed that in any theological discussion, done take very long before free will comes up. Yeah, libertarian freedom, libertarian free will. He says God God presumably has libertarian free will and can contend just the article. So now consider a case where God issues a contingent command, a command that could have been otherwise. Take a command to tie, say 10% of our income. This example seems to be a likely case of what Evans calls the discretionary hypothesis. According to which God's command could have been different. He could have told us to tithe say 20%. Not everyone believes in the discretionary hypothesis, but David says, but I do. It seems quite intuitive that at least some of God's commands are contingent

rather than necessary. So Bill discretionary hypothesis. I've come to adopt this view myself. In my earlier work on the moral argument, I made some careless statements where I said that God's commands are necessary reflections of his morally perfect nature. And I think that what is correct to say is that God cannot issue commands that are incompatible with his nature or inconsistent with his goodness. But as David says, there can be contingent commands like to tithe 10% rather than 20%, which are consistent with God's perfectly good and morally perfect nature. So I do think that he's right in saying that God has the ability to issue contingent commands which become our contingent moral duties. There are possible worlds in which God wills otherwise and in those worlds we would have a different set of these duties. And finally David writes According on the reasonable assumption that at least some of God's commands are contingent, they could have been different. But neither set of reasons would entail the command and thus entail the obligation. Rather, it's the command that generates the obligation, contra, shaffer, landals claim. Since God's ways are above own, and we see through a glass darkly, we don't always know God's reasons for His commands, which is an epistemic point. My points for now are different ones. An element of contingency when it comes to God's commands might be thought to introduce problematic armatrariness. I rather suspect it's a theoretical advantage of theistic ethics that we serve a living God rather than an abstract set of principles. Contingent commands do not preclude God's having reasons for the commands and His having reasons for His commands does not always mean those reasons in tale the the commands. This leaves a real room for divine command theory to do important explanatory work. End of quote there. Bill, David appeals to both scripture and philosophy here, it seems. Yes, quite rightly so. When you think about the Old Testament, it's filled with seemingly arbitrary commands. You shall not eat pork, for example. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with eating pork and that restriction was done away with in the New Testament when Jesus pronounced all foods clean. And there are many, many other sorts of these seemingly arbitrary laws laid down in the Old Testament that governed the people of Israel for a certain time in their history. And God had good reasons for doing that. I once was talking to an Indian, that is, say Asian Indian, who said to me that there is an invader tendency on the part of Eastern people to assimilate everything into the one, into the unity, said that Indian people will say to you, subaik Sahib, Subakiyeh, which means all is one. Sahib all is one. And he said, I think that the reason that God gave all of these, seemingly arbitrary commands to Israel and the Old Testament, was to teach them the objective distinction between good and evil. That there is, it is not all one. And that by so training them in this way to think of either or, either or rather than both and, he morally educated them and prepared them then ultimately for the gospel.

So God could have good reasons for issuing these contingent commands and I think we have

great examples of that in Scripture.