God and Moral Obligation

by C. Stephen Evans

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

, 2014

Overview

Is there a connection between religion and morality? Ivan Karamazov, in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, famously declares that if God does not exist, then "everything is permitted." Most philosophers reject such a view and hold that moral truths do not depend on God. C.Stephen Evans argues that the truth lies somewhere between these two claims. It is not quite right to say that there would be nothing left of morality if God did not exist, but moral obligations do depend on God ontologically. Such obligations are best understood as God's commands or requirements, communicated to humans in a variety of ways, including conscience. In God and Moral Obligation, Evans also argues that two views often thought to be rivals to a divine command morality, natural law ethics and virtue ethics, are not rivals at all but provide necessary complementary elements of a comprehensive morality. A number of objections to a divine command account of moral obligations are posed and answered. In the concluding chapters Evans points out the advantages such an account has over secular rivals. The authority and objectivity of moral obligations are best explained by seeing them as divine commands.

Contents

Top Highlights

“In the strong form, the charge is that morality, to be recognized as morality at all, must be based on reasons or arguments that humans can recognize for themselves.” (Page 95)

“God must have genuine moral authority in order for God’s commands to create moral obligations. However, if I have good reasons to believe that God has this moral authority, and also good reasons to believe he has issued commands, then I would have good reason to follow God’s orders. If I have good reasons to believe that all of the moral obligations I have are in fact God’s commands, and that part of their moral status as duties stems from that command, then I would have good reason to hold a DCT. All of this is perfectly compatible with autonomy in Rachels’ sense.” (Pages 96–97)

“Let me begin with the claim that a DCT does not even count as a moral theory because a genuine moral theory must ground morality in principles and/or arguments that an agent can recognize as true and/or sound for herself. The first point to make is that on the DCT I have developed a person does not have to recognize a moral obligation as a divine command in order to have knowledge or at least justified belief that he or she has the obligation.” (Page 95)

“The prior obligations objection argues that there must be some moral obligations that are not grounded in divine commands because they hold antecedently to or independently of divine commands. Specifically, the claim is that humans have a moral obligation to obey God.” (Page 99)

“The concept of an obligation is one of a ‘deontic’ family of concepts, which include ‘being forbidden,’ and ‘being permitted,’ as well as ‘being obligatory.’” (Page 3)

Product Details

• Title: God and Moral Obligation
• Author: C. Stephen Evans
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Print Publication Date: 2014
• Logos Release Date: 2020
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subject: Textbooks
• ISBNs: 9780198715375, 9780191648731, 9780199696680, 0198715374, 0191648736, 0199696683
• Resource ID: LLS:WS_D7E47252E3E24D719C31DF0623EF02FC
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T04:24:43Z

About C. Stephen Evans

C. Stephen Evans is University Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University. He is also a Professorial Fellow at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University and is a widely travelled speaker. Evans is the author or editor of more than two dozen books, including the Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics and Philosophy of Religion, Faith Beyond Reason: A Kierkegaardian Account, Why Believe? Reason and Mystery as Pointers to God, and God and Moral Obligation.