The Divine Command Theory

In order to understand divine command theory we must first understand the nature of God and Morality. So we will start by taking a look at what makes an action moral. Once we understand what makes an action moral, we can then try to understand the author's’ viewpoint on the divine command theory of ethics. Understanding the viewpoint will allow us to dissect the author’s viewpoints and come up with counter-arguments that the author must then contend with.

Divine command ethics is a theory that states, that an action's moral content is equivalent to if it was commanded by God. It states that if God is all powerful, then he must also be all good. It then follows that if God is all good, everything He commands must be moral. It uses God as the only basis of determining if a particular action is moral. Moreover it states that an action cannot be moral if, God did not expressly command the action to be performed, this theory also does not allow an atheist to be able to perform a moral action even by mistake. Since the morality of the action depends entirely on if God would have commande...