Relational Divine Command Theory

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Abstract

Abstract: I argue for the establishment of objective morality and values which are indirectly relationally contingent on God’s existence and not a directly tethered result of God’s actual nature or commands. This navigates around common atheistic objections or misunderstandings surrounding Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro dilemma. In addition to both these objections I apply the principles of RDCT to the moral argument for the existence of God. This will be the main thesis of the essay which will demonstrate that the core ingredients to Dr William Lane Craig’s original argumentation are sufficient for establishing God’s existence.

Introduction

First I will present Dr William Lane Craig’s original formulation of the moral argument for the existence of God. I will elaborate on what this argument presupposes and entails. Following this I present a recent objection encountered in the modern discourse. This objection was forwarded by Benjamin Watkins and focuses on introducing identity statements in order to undermine the initial argumentation as a vacuous assertion. I examine this objection and propose a solution which acknowledges and navigates around the conundrum exposed by the critique. This leads into the development of Relational Divine Command Theory; henceforth rendered as RDCT. By introducing RDCT as a solution I use the wide explanatory scope of this framework to additionally counter traditional critiques of DCT. This reinforces and provides extra scaffolding support for apologetic responses. These age-old initial responses to the atheistic critique of DCT seemed to arguably fall short of receiving a full and sufficient refutation.

1.0 DR William Lane Craig’s Moral Argument For The Existence Of God

The moral argument for the existence of God¹has been popularized and successfully defended in the public arena by veteran apologist and Christian philosopher and theologian Dr William Lane Craig. The formulation of the argument is as follows.

The Moral Argument

P1: If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.

P2: Objective moral values do exist.

Conclusion: God exists.

Summary Of The Argumentation

This is a surprisingly parsimonious and deductive argument that presupposes the metaethics of a form of cognitivism known as moral realism. A brief explanation of this position is that moral statements have a genuine and factually observable mind independent truth value. Alternatively a cognitive anti-realist rejects that moral statements have any mind independent objective truth value. Instead the anti-realist position entails that morality is ultimately subjective. Either self prescribed by the individual or culturally relative.

Moral non-cognitivist on the other hand reject that moral statements have any truth value or meaning whatsoever. It follows from this extremely brief but necessary foray into the realm of metaethics that any sort of anti-realist or non-cognitivist can simply dismiss the moral argument. This is because the anti-realist and non-cognitivist already reject the existence of an objective morality. They would need to abandon and reverse their positions and be persuaded of moral realism before entertaining or accepting the proposed reality of objective morality.

In other words, As it stands without any further elaboration and debate, Craig’s argument could be said to suffer from a limited persuasive scope. The argument may be convincing for anyone that already accepts objective morality or believes in a deity. Its strength is in its intuitive simplicity and wide ranging accessibility. This strength can also be seen as a weakness. Metaethical discourse under the surface of objective morality becomes extremely slippery terrain to navigate. The argument by those familiar with moral discourse may be seen as too simple and vague without enough substance.

1.1 The Identity Objection To The Moral Argument

I have written this essay in response to the objection put forward into the public domain by the popular atheist and member of the RealAtheology team Benjamin Watkins. The objection is that the moral argument is vacuous and loses all prima facie meaning when it is reframed and incorporated explicitly with aspects of God’s identity made clear in the premises. The argument was reformulated as follows.

The Moral Argument Reformulated With Identity Entailments

P1: If God does not exist, then [God’s nature] and [God’s commands] do not exist.

P2: [God’s nature and commands do exist].

Conclusion: Therefore, God does exist.

Evaluation Of Identity Entailments

Essentially the modified and identity incorporated argument attempts to undermine the original argument’s premises and deductive impact. However it seems to be a legitimate critique aimed to show the original argumentation may unintentionally smuggle in God’s nature and commands into the premises. This provides an interesting opportunity to thoroughly investigate the moral argument. What I think this modification actually does is very subtle. It effectively changes the argument by focusing on what might be called a necessary or contingent mechanism which instantiates objective morality. By integrating and asserting God’s Nature and God’s Commands explicitly into the argument, God’s essential existence, which should be the keystone premise and should take primacy in God’s subsistence. Is de facto inverted and reframed and made contingent upon his apparent accidental nature and commands. When the opposite is more accurate. God’s nature and commands are essential to his self subsistent essence and transcendent existence.

Therefore, if we take into account the original argument and consider the structure logically valid, the premises and conclusion should stand on its own merit without needing to appeal to God’s nature or commands. In other words they are not needed to frame the argument and are dispensable for proving the existence of God and objective moral values. It follows that we should reject the second premise of the above reformulated argument. Therefore, remaining faithful to the original argumentation and tackling the modified argument as I see it, the objective moral values we sense are the result of an existential mechanism that could be said to indirectly reflect God’s transcendental existence. We have the sentient faculties to apprehend this existence and self prescribe indirectly what we perceive as God’s nature and commands. Furthermore, God need not make any commands or limit the influence of his omnipotence. I shall now construct a framework to argue and advocate for this position.

1.2 Addressing The Identicality Of God’s Nature And Commands

Below I have reformulated the argument as suggested and presented in the public domain by Benjamin Watkins. I argue that God’s transcendent existence radiates his perceived nature and commands throughout the entirety of God’s contingent creation. We don’t apprehend God’s commands or nature directly. Instead we experience God’s nature and commands indirectly through the existential energies of creation and our finite biological and intellectual sentient faculties. An analogy that might partially communicate this idea more effectively is similar to being invited into the palace and court by the incredibly powerful benevolent or malevolent king. With or without the king in attendance one would be on their absolute best behavior. When I use such terminology as “Existential Relational Awareness or Relational Existence” this analogy should be remembered to serve as a means to convey my intended meaning. This analogy bears similarity with Ideal Observer Theory however there are key differences which I examine and discuss when evaluating objections in section 1.4.

The Moral Argument Addressing The Identicality Of God’s Nature And Commands

P1: God is not required to issue commands or limit the influence of his omnipotent nature.

P2: Objective moral values are innate, intuitive, rational, and emotional experiential intelligent creaturely behavioural states of existential relational awareness. From which emerge conceptual metaethical theories regardless of whether God further exercises his nature or issues commands.

P3: Therefore, in the absence of God, objective moral values would not exist.

P4: However, objective moral values do exist.

Conclusion: Therefore, the existence of God is affirmed, and objective moral values are not exclusively rooted in God’s actual nature, but relationally ontologically grounded and reflected in his perceived nature and commands concomitantly and contingently as a natural consequence of his existence.

Evaluation And Entailments Of Accepting This Formulation

Evaluation And Entailments Of Accepting This Formulation.

Accepting this above formulation has some interesting entailments. I think it effectively dismisses any concern that God’s nature and commands are unintentionally or purposefully smuggled into the moral argument. For the sake of argument, God’s nature and commands can be made dispensable. This doesn’t prevent objective moral values from emerging indirectly from his existence. Alternatively and more traditionally without any further modification, God’s commands and nature can be viewed as transparently subsistent and one with his essence and transcendent existence. This avoids unnecessarily over simplifying and conflating God’s nature and commands as potentially pantheistic contingent secondary parts or divisional aspects of his actual being.

Objective morality is usually explained as mind or stance independent and existing regardless of whether we can identify or verify its existence. This explanation, if true, means that objective moral values can be framed as necessarily ontologically grounded in God’s transcendent existence. These objective moral values are only contingent in the sense that they emerge as partially accessible through an existential relational mechanism that perceptively mirrors and prescribes God’s existence indirectly. Therefore, as stated above, we experience God’s existence indirectly yet relationally through the energies of creation and our own finite and existential biological cognitive and intellectual sentient faculties. Theologically this affirms scripture, for we alone are made in the image of God and his likeness.

Furthermore in this manner objective morality is grounded not directly in God’s nature or commands but primarily in the mirror of God’s transcendent existence. Finally this interpretation of the moral argument demonstrates the parsimony, cogency and validity of Dr William Lane Craig’s original argumentation. This interpretive spin doesn’t necessarily entail and only implies the possibility that God need not ever directly issue any further new commands. His existence alone ensures universal order and the finite and contingent apprehension of objective morality is a necessarily natural and intentional consequence. This framework has implications for Divine Command Theory.

1.3 Relational Divine Command Theory And The Euthyphro Dilemma

A common objection of DCT is that God could command a heinous act and because God is the arbitrator of the universal standard of benevolence, this heinous and usually morally repugnant act would be transmuted into a morally pure obligation and command to follow. This can alarmingly place DCT counterintuitively into the subjective moral category of the anti-realist. However with RDCT this critique cannot be justified as God may give no further commands and his immutable eternal existential nature transcends any relational change as a consequence of his actual existence. In other words, with RDCT objective morality contingently emerges indirectly as a necessary natural consequence of God’s existence and isn’t arbitrarily determined solely and directly by his will. This places the framework of RDCT in the realist moral category of genuine objective morality. Another critique utilized by the Euthyphro dilemma is the suggestion that the ‘goodness’ of God’s nature is dependent on an abstract external more fundamental property of ‘goodness’. Again this critique would also fail for the same reason. God’s immutable and eternal existence transcends any relational change as a consequence of His actual existence. Thus, His goodness is existentially intrinsic and not dependent on any external factors.

1.4 Potential Objections To RDCT

Similarities To Ideal Observer Theory

It may be suggested that RDCT has too much of a similarity to Ideal Observer Theory. This critique was pre-emptively mentioned in section 1.2. Ideal observer theory (IOT) is a form of moral realism postulated by Frederick Firth.² This theory draws on an imaginative conceptual framework in which we can measure approval or disapproval of our moral actions based purely on the hypothetical and conceptual idea of an impartial, disinterested, omniscient, omnipercipient and dispassionate ideal observer. This hypothetical phantom observer would have full and impartial knowledge of any conceivable moral operation. An atheist can prescribe to this ideal and thus thereby establish objective moral values. This position is acceptable to the atheist because the hypothetical observer doesn’t actually need to exist.

There may be similarities between both theories but there are also distinct differences. First it seems to me that IOT lends credence and plausibility to justifying the idea that there is a reasonable and rational contingent mechanism. A mechanism for indirectly apprehending God’s transcendent existence, nature, and commands through an experiential relational existence.

Therefore, advocates of RDCT can appeal to axiomatically grounded objective moral values in God’s transcendent and relational existence. Furthermore, RDCT posits all the attributes of classical theism, this includes the attributes of love, justice, compassion, and omnibenevolence. This means that RDCT has a wider scope of implementation and applicability making it overall more adaptable to the nuance sometimes involved in moral states of affairs that go beyond the framework of an ideal observer.

In contrast this vastly differs from IOT in that the ideal observer is described to be a purely hypothetical and abstract construct of impartiality. Void and dispassionate without any compassion or investment in volitional subjects. Furthermore, and as if to emphasize my point on the plausibility of RDCT, the ideal observer of IOT is contingent and need not effectively have any actual existence. Therefore, IOT rather than as a solid objection and challenge to RDCT seems to confirm its coherence and plausibility.

The Ambiguity Of The Phrase Relational Existence Covers Its Incoherence

In order to prescribe to RDCT one must come to the realization and acknowledge the importance of affirming that the theory is predicated on the absolute primacy of God’s existence and not directly either upon his attributes, nature, and commands. Although advocates of this theory may affirm or reject divine simplicity depending on their theological preferences. God’s attributes as it were, are figuratively and strictly second place to the primacy of his existence. This is an incredibly subtle distinction that makes a theological apologetic difference in our interpretation of traditional conceptions of DCT.

This approach means that although God’s existence can perhaps be apprehend only indirectly and partially, it is accurate enough to describe the set of classical theist attributes. These attributes can be said to both veil and reveal the majesty and mystery of God’s existence. To emphasize this point analogously, it can be semantically demonstrated that in order to predicate God with any of these attributes his existence must first be presupposed. From this theological paradigm it follows that rather than prescribing to the belief that God’s nature and commands specifically result in the emergence and intuitive perception of objective moral values. Objective moral values instead emerge from the existential relational nature of God’s existence.

This existential relational nature can be understood and interacted with indirectly through our existence as sentient beings. This “existential relational nature” is made tangible and ingrained in the complexities of our biological and emotive intellectual cognition. We exist as created contingent creatures uniquely imbued with an important and essential set of emotional and reasoning cognitive powers. The bestowal of which enables the intuitive and descriptive perception and experience of moral truths.

The perception and experience of these truths envelop our humanity with commonly shared altruistic and relational traits. Traits such as empathy, love, and compassion. These when additionally combined with intellect are perhaps species’ unique and are both higher order universal and personal traits enabling to help shape and form the development and exercise of moral reasoning. With these attributes, our humanity can be seen to reflect the relational attributes of deity. Attributes not beyond our partial contemplation and action, such as God’s love, justice, and compassion. In this sense God’s primary relational nature of existence is revealed and made manifest through the very fabric of our existence as sentient beings. Therefore through social interactions, moral contemplation and action we can learn to trust and participate in and reflect God’s existential relational nature.

Conclusion

Explicitly integrating and identifying God’s nature and commands into the premises of the moral argument resulted in identifying a possible interpretive error. This may have been a well meaning attempt to clarify with transparency the implications of the argumentation. However this resulted in a confused and conflated view of God’s nature and commands with his existence. I have attempted to show that this error subtly modified the argumentation in a way where God’s existence was dependent on his nature and commands.

This modification of the premises, rather than clarifying the argument and its implications, instead had the effect of dividing God’s attributes from his existence. I first argued that God’s nature and commands aren’t accidental properties but essential to his necessary existence and self subsistence. Furthermore, the modified argumentation in 1.2 propositionally remains faithful to the original argumentation. These modifications clarify the parsimony, cogency, and the validity of Dr William Lane Craig’s original argument.

I take what some might consider a controversial stance. I propose that it is possible that God need not ever provide any commands and that:

“Therefore, the existence of God is affirmed, and objective moral values are not exclusively rooted in God’s actual nature, but relationally ontologically grounded and reflected in his perceived nature and commands concomitantly and contingently emerging as a natural consequence of his transcendent existence.”

In other words, the mere perception of God’s possible existence is enough to effectively ground objective moral values.

Taking this conclusion as the foundation for my reasoning. I’ve argued that we have an innate and intuitive conceivability of objective moral values. Metaethical theory emerges from this conceivability. I suggested that our existential intellectual and sentient faculties enable us to relationally and indirectly apprehend God’s transcendent existence. This occurs contingently and mechanistically through the energies of his creation. Our existence recognises his transcendent existence, albeit indirectly whether we interpret this as mere possibility or objective given fact.

With this important distinction it becomes apparent that objective moral values aren’t exclusively and directly rooted in God’s nature or commands. Objective Moral values are perceptible to us as we have the combined sentience of intellectual and emotional sense capacity to apprehend the mere possibility of God’s existence. Whether or not God exercises his nature and limits his omnipotence or issues any further commands. God’s existence is the primary causation of the actual concrete and conceptual form of objective morality.

If we are to understand and ground objective moral values from within this paradigm, then additional entailments provide counter arguments and refutations to traditional critiques of DCT. Throughout the argumentation elucidated in this essay I believe it is possible that I may have modified a form of DCT immune to any of the traditional critiques. I’ve labelled this modified version; Relational Divine Command Theory. I present this idea to the public arena for further analysis. Whether in agreement or disagreement of its coherence and for constructive atheistic and theistic dialogue and unofficial peer review and feedback.