To answer the question if Kierkegaard had a restricted or unrestricted view on the divine command theory I believe we need to take a close look at the divine command theory. In my opinion a great general summery of what the divine command theory is comes from the pg. 23 the first page of the chapter.
The divine command theory about to be presented is what we may call an “unrestricted” view about the relation between God and morality because it proposes to explain the nature of both the right and the good terms of God’s command (Timmons, 2013). This stands out to me more than anything else in the chapter, because that one statement outlines the criteria that Kierkegaard must fulfill to either have a restricted or unrestricted view on the divine command theory. To reentrant and to make where I’m going with this clear; if the divine command theory is “unrestricted” in its view between God and morality then
…show more content…
Now since the Divine command theory that’s a simplistic view of what is right and wrong, good and bad in the world I think it can easily be deduced what kind of stance Kierkegaard stance is. Within the context of the theory of divine command, the theory of right conduct and the theory of value is the direct outline from which the prime directives of the theory of divine command are laid out. From here it is just a simple matter of taking these rules and applying them to Kierkegaard’s examples of Abraham, Judas, Brutus, Jephtha, The Virgin Marry, and Agamemnon. According to history and the theory of right conduct in the divine command theory all of the fore mentioned examples were either doing what they thought was; right, wrong, or possible optional and same can be said, about the theory of value. Now where
I believe that God commands it because it is already right or wrong. This could possibly mean that whether or not God exist, those right or wrong actions were already right or wrong instinctively. The only difference is that, some people believe that they need a creator or God to tell them what is morally correct or wrong to believe it is.
The Divine Command theory states that” an act is morally required just because it is commanded by God, and immoral just because God forbids it.” (Lecture Notes pg. 42, slide #2.) This theory says that since God has said that it is something we must do to be good, that we must do it. Many religions believe and live by this saying that “it is the will of God or the Gods”. I truly believe that God has done his work and is still at work and since He did create us, He does know what good and evil is and does have authority to tell us what is good.
Someone who would believe a statement such as this one would most likely be in agreement with the Divine Command Theory---the reason being that the main claim in this theory is, all that is morally right, is right because God commands it so. Therefore in order to believe in the Divine Command Theory, one would need to be a strong believer in God---and would truly believe that if there were no God, morality would be absent. With this in mind, if God is the creator of all that is morally right, and there turns out to be no god at all, then nothing is morally wrong or can be capable of being morally wrong---would be a statement that non-believers of the Divine Command Theory would believe, and believe that morality can exist on its own, with or without a God. In this paper I will focus on the Divine Command Theory in relation to the statement above, and those who would oppose this statement. In doing so, I will attempt to show why I believe that those opposing this statement have a more plausible view.
The conflict between the Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro objection come with questions about who sets the rules of morality, and how it can be assumed that these rules are justifiable. On one hand, the Divine Command Theory defends the idea that an act is morally right because God commands it and wrong because He commands against it. This sets God’s will as the foundation of ethics, making morally good actions those that comply with His commandments. This religion-based concept becomes problematic when it runs into the Euthyphro dilemma, founded from Plato’s Euthyphro dating back to 395 BC. The argument centralizes on why it is that God commands rightful actions, bringing in the question of, “Are moral acts commanded by God because they are morally good, or does God command things to be right because He has good reasons for them?” The Euthyphro argument creates its foundation on the idea that either God has reasons for His commands, or that He lacks reasons for them. This divides up the Divine Command Theory in two ways, either making the theory wrong or portraying God as an imperfect being. If God does have reasons for His commands, then these reasons are what would make the actions right or wrong. God’s reasons would stand as the basis of morality, instead of God’s commandment itself. God having reasons would insinuate that goodness existed before any direction from God because otherwise, there wouldn’t be any commandment. Morality would have to stand independent
Divine Command Theory is defined as “ethical principles are simple the commands of God” (Pojman p.356). Basically, this theory states that “morally right” means “commanded by God” and “morally wrong” means “forbidden by God” (Rachels p.53). The positive feature of the Divine Command Theory is that it solves the old problem about the objectivity of ethics by providing an answer as to why anyone should bother with morality (Rachels p.53). According to this theory, if nature of what is right and what is wrong depends on God’s command, then we have to wait until judgment day to deal with the consequences of our actions due to them begin immortal (Rachels p.53). But there is
In Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard differentiates between the subject as the knower, and the world (object) as the known: the only way we know the world is through ourselves. Kierkegaard emphasizes the importance of "how" the subject is related to the truth,
Since, faith is the paradox whereby the single individual’s inner ethical is higher than the outer universal ethical, therefore the single individual preforms the absolute duty to God. When the single individual carries out his absolute duty to God it can not be allowed to be interceded and thus the absolute duty cannot be understood nor communicated in the universal. If there was the possibility of faith being communicated than, this according to Kierkegaard would not be faith in its true essence, but rather simply religious trial.
Kierkegaard’s position on faith is represented with the Knight of infinite resignation and the Knight of faith. The Knight of faith is regarded as the one who believes in that which is absurd. For, he is the knight that is able to believe in the things that are
Starting with Kierkegaard, it is best to understand that he has a deep fulfillment to God and that he feels is the absolute. This absolute is to live in the realm of a paradox and that paradox is proving the existence of God and experiencing it for yourself. To understand this is to go through the different stages, of aesthetic, moral and religious. The aesthetic is all about the individual and focuses on oneself as an individual. The moral is having to be antagonistic towards yourself in
Firstly, he tries to give answer on question whether Jesus is always the same or he has changed in history and whether we can learn anything about him from history. To this question Kierkegaard responds: ‘Yes, He is the same yesterday and today.’[10] Therefore we can not learn anything new about him from history; we can know him only from sacred history. This means we can know God only as humbled, as ‘lowly one,’[11] but never as the one, who is in glory and who will in glory come. ‘about His coming again nothing can be known; in the strictest sense, it can only be believed.’[12]
The divine command theory is composed of two maxims. First, it is right for an agent to do x. Second, God commands the agent to do x. Thus, God commands what is right for the agent to do. These statements are logically equivalent, as they together can only be either true or false. The second statement must also precede the first in order for the overall theory to make sense. For example, if God commands a man to love his neighbor as himself, then it is right for that man to do so. He cannot act on a command that is morally right if that command is not given to him. This idea of the divine command theory is presented by Plato in his Euthyphro. One of the main characters, Euthyphro, is prosecuting his father for killing a servant. Socrates, his philosophical counterpart, observes this act
Korsgaard uses this idea as a kind of thought experiment to see whether a particular approach to morality is convincing. In /Sources of Normativity/ she discusses several approaches to morality and asks whether their answer to the normative question would be `appealing' to an agent in this
Divine Command Theory theorizes that God it is the author of moral law and the right actions are those willed by God and that God clearly defines right and wrong. This allows the concept that sometimes situations are only right or good because God deems it so. In the simplest terms, God can determine right and wrong since he is omnipotent. Since God is all powerful, he can establish moral norms. Critics of Divine Command Theory believe that if a specific action is only right because God wills it so then evil acts would also be right since God willed them into existence. For example, if God wills murder or torture than these actions would be considered morally right.
The divine command theory states that “An act is morally required just because it is commanded by God and immoral just because God forbids it” (Shafer-Landau, The Fundamentals of Ethics, p.67). In interviewing an Elder of a local Jehovah’s Witness congregation on the ethics involved in religion, he agreed that the divine command theory is correct, and that there are many commands and things that are forbidden in the bible that are considered to be God’s standards for the way we live our lives. But, when asked the modified version of the Euthyphro Question: is an action morally right because God commands it, or does God command an action because it is morally right, (Shafer-Landau, The Ethical Life, p.57) he picked the latter. Despite agreeing with the statement that the divine command theory makes, picking the latter is not uncommon even if the first affirms the theory. The statement that God commands an action because it is morally right, “implies that God did not invent morality, but rather recognized an existing moral law and then commanded us to obey it” (Shafer-Landau, The Fundamentals of Ethics, p.67-68). This does not make the Elder’s message wrong, in fact most theists don’t follow the divine command theory. This is based on the fact that if the theory were true, whatever God says is a command, and therefore morally right, but God could have said that rape, murder, and stealing is morally right if that was the line of thinking.
Foremost among the structural similarities between Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein works is the use of indirect communication: as paradoxical as it may sound, both authors deliberately obfuscate their philosophy for the purposes of clarifying it. Clarification of the preceding assertion is obviously required. Each author felt that, due to inherent properties of their subject matter, outright delineation of their conclusions would somehow be a self-contradiction. Clearly their respective subject matter, the logical structure of language and the task of becoming a Christian, is inherently disparate. But let us examine more closely particular instances of indirect communication from both of the philosophers with the intention of finding similarity.