Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pjpqr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-02T08:41:23.641Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Modified Divine Commands, Atheistic Moral Realism, and Thomistic Natural Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

G B Siniscalchi
G B Siniscalchi*
Affiliation:
Notre Dame College Dept. of Theology and Philosophy, 4545 College Road, South Euclid, OH, USA
*
gbsiniscalchi@yahoo.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Original Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 96 , Issue 1064 , July 2015 , pp. 419 - 444
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 The Dominican Council

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Hereafter, ‘divine command’ will be replaced by ‘DC’.

2 For representative texts on the modified divine command theory, see Adams, Robert, Finite and Infinite Goods, (Oxford: Oxford University, 1999)Google Scholar; Hare, John, God's Call: Moral Realism, God's Commands, and Human Autonomy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000)Google Scholar; idem, The Moral Gap: Kantian Ethics, Human Limits and God's Assistance (Oxford: Oxford University, 1997)Google Scholar; Helm, Paul, Divine Commands and Morality (Oxford: Oxford University, 1981)Google Scholar. For texts representing atheistic moral realism, see Nielson, Kai, Ethics Without God, rev. ed. (Amherst: Prometheus, 1990)Google Scholar; Kurtz, Paul, Forbidden Fruit: The Ethics of Secularism (Amherst, Prometheus, 2008)Google Scholar; Wielenberg, Erik J., Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2005)Google Scholar; Martin, Michael, Atheism, Morality, and Meaning (Amherst, Prometheus, 2003)Google Scholar; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter, Morality (Oxford: Oxford University, 2009)Google Scholar.

3 One atheist who repeatedly juxtaposes God (an unlimited reality) and human reason (a limited reality) against one another is Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit, pp. 11, 13, 17, 18, 20, 33, 43, 47–49, 53, 55, 61, 70, 72, 73, 77, etc.

4 Wielenberg, Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe, p. 66.

5 Wielenberg, Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe, p. 34; idem, ‘In Defense of Non-Natural, Non-Theistic Moral Realism’, Faith and Philosophy, 26.1 (January 2009), p. 26.

6 Wielenberg, Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe, p. 66.

7 Ibid., 64.

8 Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit, p. 15. Cf. 30, 31.

9 Ibid., 35.

10 Nielson, Ethics Without God, pp. 10, 11.

11 Martin, Atheism, Morality, and Meaning, p. 12. Cf. Sinnott-Armstrong, Morality, pp. 75, 77.

12 Kurtz, Paul, ‘The Kurtz/Craig Debate: Is Goodness Without God Good Enough?’, in Garcia, Robert K. and King, Nathan L., (eds.), Is Goodness Without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), p. 25. Cf. 35Google Scholar.

13 Moreland, J.P. and Craig, William Lane, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003), p. 492Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., 493.

15 Ganssle, Gregory E., ‘Necessary Moral Truths and the Need for Explanation’, Philosophia Christi, 2.1 (2000), pp. 105–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Cf. Reppert, Victor, C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003)Google Scholar.

17 Anscombe, Elizabeth, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, Philosophy 33, (1958)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Copan, Paul, ‘Hume and the Moral Argument’, in Sennett, James F. and Groothuis, Douglas, (eds.), In Defense of Natural Theology: A Post Humean Assessment, (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005), p. 210Google Scholar.

19 Wielenberg, ‘In Defense of Non-Natural, Non-Theistic Moral Realism’, p. 40.

20 Ibid., 40.

21 Russell, Bertrand, Why I Am Not A Christian (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957), p. 107Google Scholar.

22 Russell, Bertrand, Human Society in Ethics and Politics (London: Allen and Unwin Publishing, 1954), p. 124Google Scholar.

23 Mackie, J.L., The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Oxford University, 1982), pp. 115, 116Google Scholar.

24 Dawkins, Richard, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), pp. 132, 133Google Scholar.

25 Cf. Sinnott-Armstrong, Morality, p. 88. ‘The most common religious account of morality is a divine command theory’.

26 Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit, p. 46.

27 Sinnott-Armstrong, Morality, p. 54.

28 Other examples of this false dichotomy can be found in Martin, Atheism, Morality, and Meaning, p. 31.

29 Cessario, Romanus, Introduction to Moral Theology (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2001), p. 80Google Scholar, argues that participation is the key term when understanding Thomistic natural law. Pope John Paul II has made similar contentions, speaking of ‘participated theonomy’.

30 Craig, William Lane, ‘The Kurtz/Craig Debate: Is Goodness Without God Good Enough?’ in Garcia, Robert K. and King, Nathan L. (eds.), Is Goodness Without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics, (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), p. 37Google Scholar.

31 Craig, William Lane, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd ed., (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), p. 172.Google Scholar

32 Cf. Craig, Reasonable Faith, p. 172.

33 As Hanink, James G. and Mar, Gary R., ‘What Euthyphro Couldn't Have Said’, Faith and Philosophy, 4.3 (1987), p. 254CrossRefGoogle Scholar, suggest: ‘the best expression of the divine command morality and the best expression of natural law ethics … form a structural unity.’

34 Wielenberg, ‘In Defense of Non-Natural, Non-Theistic Moral Realism’, p. 39.

35 Ibid., 36, 37. Cf. Paul Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit, pp. 42, 54.

36 Anthony Lisska, Aquinas's Theory of Natural Law: An Analytic Reconstruction (Oxford: Oxford University, 1996), p. 126.

37 Atheists repeatedly make the mistake of assuming that the theistic position is that belief in God is necessary for morality. See, e.g., Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit, pp. 11–13, 15, 18, 34, 40–46, 61–67, etc.; Nielson, Ethics, pp. 10, 18, 19, 52–60, 62, 71, 72, 82, 83, etc.; Sinnott-Armstrong, Morality, xi, xiii, 13, 14, 134, 135 etc.; Martin, Atheism, Morality, and Meaning, pp. 11, 21, 34, 44, 45, etc.

38 Pinckaers, Servais, The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Sr. Noble, Mary Thomas (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1995), pp. 127, 182Google Scholar.

39 For a discussion, see Baggett, David and Walls, Jerry L., Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality (Oxford: Oxford University, 2010), pp. 34, 35Google Scholar.

40 David Baggett and Jerry L. Walls, Good God, 104, make this important distinction.

41 Boyd, Craig A., A Shared Morality: A Narrative Defense of Natural Law Ethics (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), p. 142.Google Scholar

42 Craig, Reasonable Faith, p. 175.

43 Nielson, Ethics Without God, pp. 189, 190, agrees with this dismal assessment: there is no objective meaning to life on an atheistic premise. Since human life has no objective meaning in an atheistic view of the world, there is only room for subjective meaning.

44 Even atheists dispute the notion of atheistic moral platonism. See Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit, pp. 54, 55. ‘Justice, for example, is not a non-natural entity floating in ideal space separate and distinct from the world of men and women; it is a notion applied to human institutions that we have chosen to designate by language.’

45 McInerney, Ralph, ‘Thomistic Natural Law and Aristotelian Philosophy’, in Goyette, John, Latcovic, Mark S., and Myers, Richard S., (eds.), St. Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Law Tradition (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2004), p. 38Google Scholar.

46 Sometimes Thomists have accused other natural law theorists of not including God either. This group is usually dubbed the ‘new natural lawyers’ (Germain Grisez, John Finnis, Robert George, etc.). These theorists have clearly affirmed that one does not have to believe in Christ to know and live by the moral precepts of the law. But these basic precepts do not make sense unless individuals have genuine free will, which implies the existence of God. Traditional Thomists do not have to endorse this particular perspective, but it is a mistake to say that God is dispensable to objective morality in the new natural law theory. For an account, see Finnis, John, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Oxford University, 1979), pp. 371–410Google Scholar; Boyle, Joseph M. Jr., Grisez, Germain, and Tollefsen, Olaf, Free Will: A Self-Referential Argument (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1976)Google Scholar.

47 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, 94.2.

48 Some of the best commentary on the Fourth Way is found in Gilson, Etienne, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1994), pp. 70–74Google Scholar; Wippel, John, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2000), pp. 469–479Google Scholar.

49 Rziha, John, Perfecting Human Actions: St. Thomas Aquinas on Human Participation in Eternal Law (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2009), pp. 6–28Google Scholar.

50 For more on participation metaphysics and how it relates to natural law, see Oderberg, David, ‘The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Law’, in Zaborowski, Holger, (ed.), Natural Law in Contemporary Society (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2010), pp. 44–75Google Scholar; Rhonheimer, Martin, Natural Law and Practical Reason: A Thomist View on Moral Autonomy (New York: Fordham University, 2000), pp. 234–256Google Scholar.

51 Rziha, Perfecting Human Actions, p. 74, 114, 115.

52 Ibid., 184, 185. Cf. 258, 259, 264.

53 Lisska, Aquinas's Theory of Natural Law, p. 126

54 The classic example is still found in Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. The best secondary source still remains Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald, God: His Existence and Nature, 2 vols. (New York: B. Herder, 1934)Google Scholar.

55 See Craig's evasion of the issue in ‘The Kurtz/Craig Debate: Is Goodness Without God Good Enough?’, p. 37. I submit that if we take moral ontology and the connection between objective morality and God seriously, then God's nature should be a significant concern for pinpointing the ground of morality. Craig does not take that connection seriously enough; nor can he take the nature of God seriously in his moral argument.

56 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 2.3.

57 Kretzmann, Norman, ‘Abraham, Isaac, and Euthyphro: God and the Basis of Morality’, in Stump, Donald et al., Harmartia: The Concept of Error in the Western Tradition (New York: Edwin Mellon, 1983), p. 35Google Scholar.

58 Sinnott-Armstrong, Morality, pp. 101, 106, 137, 145; Nielson, Ethics Without God, pp. 18, 58, 52, 56–61, 63, 65, 68, 74, 75, 77, 79, 80, 91, 110, 188.

59 Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter, ‘Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality’, in Is Goodness Without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics, ed. Garcia, Robert K. and King, Nathan L., (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), p. 107Google Scholar.

60 Nielson, Ethics Without God, p. 31.

61 Sinnott-Armstrong, ‘Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality’, p. 102. Cf. 104.

62 McIntyre, Alasdair, ‘Which God Ought We to Obey and Why’, Faith and Philosophy, 3.4 (October 1986), p. 364Google Scholar.

63 Porter, Jean, Nature as Reason: A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), pp. 50, 247Google Scholar.

64 Nielson, Ethics Without God, 15, 101, 102; Kurtz, ‘The Kurtz/Craig Debate: Is Goodness Without God Good Enough?’, p. 26. Sinnott-Armstrong, Morality, pp. 22, 23; Martin, Atheism, Morality, and Meaning, p. 28.

65 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, 1.17.

66 Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit, pp. 13, 14, 62, 63; Nielson, Ethics Without God, p. 100; Kurtz, ‘The Kurtz/Craig Debate: Is Goodness Without God Good Enough?’, pp. 27, 34, 39; Kurtz, Paul, ‘Ethics Without God: Theism versus Secular Humanism,’ in Garcia, Robert K. and King, Nathan L., (eds.), Is Goodness Without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics, (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), p. 192Google Scholar. Martin, Atheism, Morality, and Meaning, pp. 128, 138.

67 Sinnott-Armstrong, Morality, pp. 122, 123, 136, 137; idem, ‘Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality’, in Garcia, Robert K. and King, Nathan L., (eds.), Is Goodness Without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics, (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), p. 108Google Scholar. Martin, Atheism, Morality, and Meaning, p. 128; Nielson, Ethics Without God, p. 30.

68 Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit, p. 57.

69 Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit, p. 41.

70 Sinnott-Armstrong, Morality, pp. 42, 103, 121, 125, 126, 140–143; idem, ‘Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality’, pp. 110, 111.

71 Ward, Keith, Is Religion Dangerous? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), pp. 36–38Google Scholar.

72 Baggett and Walls, Good God, pp. 136–142.

73 Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit, pp. 33, 45, 53.

74 Porter, Nature as Reason, pp. 17, 142.

75 Baggett and Walls, Good God, p. 107, 180ff.

76 Hursthouse, Rosalind, On Virtue Ethics (New York: Oxford University, 2003), pp. 29Google Scholar, 36, 39; See also Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, p. 453; Porter, Nature as Reason, pp. 162, 163, 272, 273; idem, The Recovery of Virtue: The Relevance of Aquinas for Christian Ethics (Nashville: John Knox, 1990), p. 105Google Scholar.

77 Annas, Julia, The Morality of Happiness, (Oxford: Oxford University, 1997), pp. 9, 10Google Scholar. As she keenly observes, ‘all ancient theories understand a virtue to be, at least, a disposition to do the morally right thing; but the notion of the morally right thing to do is not defined or justified in terms of (still less reduced to) the disposition to do what will produce or sustain the virtue. We need to grasp in its own right what is the morally right thing to do. Indeed, if we do not do this, we will not have understood what makes this disposition a virtue, rather than some disposition which does not involve morality’.

78 Nielson, Ethics Without God, pp. 160, 193, 206. Kurtz, ‘The Kurtz/Craig Debate: Is Goodness Without God Good Enough?’, pp. 28, 29; idem, ‘Ethics Without God: Theism versus Secular Humanism’, p. 196.

79 Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, pp. 329, 343, 349, 350.

80 Ibid., 17.

81 Ibid., 39.

82 Porter, Nature as Reason, pp. 24, 27, 28.

83 Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, p. 352.

84 Ibid., 91.

85 Ibid., 452.

86 Porter, Nature as Reason, p. 14. Cf. 289.

87 Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit, p. 71; Nielson, Ethics Without God, pp. 53, 73, 90, 188; Sinnott-Armstrong, Morality, pp. 110, 119.

88 Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, p. 101.

89 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, 94.4.

90 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, 94.6.

91 For a comprehensive account of natural law ethics, see Porter, Nature as Reason. See also Pamela Hall, Narrative and the Natural Law: An Interpretation of Thomistic Ethics, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1999).

92 Nielson, Ethics Without God, pp. 54, 126; Sinnott-Armstrong, Morality, pp. 46, 47.

93 Cf. Flannery, Austin, ed. Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1975)Google Scholar, Gaudium et Spes, N. 20, 21, 34, 39, 43.

94 Zagzebski, Linda, ‘Does Ethics Need God?’, Faith and Philosophy, 4.3, (July 1987), p. 295CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

95 Sinnott-Armstrong, Morality, pp. 57, 68, 74, 117, 128.

96 Craig, William Lane, ‘This Most Gruesome of Guests’, in Garcia, Robert K. and King, Nathan L., (eds.), Is Goodness Without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), pp. 180, 181Google Scholar.

97 Sinnott-Armstrong, Morality, pp. 96, 97.

98 Wielenberg, ‘In Defense of Non-Natural, Non-Theistic Moral Realism’, p. 40.

99 By no means is Thomistic natural law incompatible with biological evolution. See Boyd, Craig A., ‘Thomistic Natural Law and the Limits of Evolutionary Psychology’, in Clayton, Philip and Schloss, Jeffrey (eds.), Evolution and Ethics: Human Morality in Biological and Religious Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), pp. 221–238Google Scholar; Ashley, Benedict M., ‘The Anthropological Foundations of the Natural Law: An Engagement with Modern Science’, in Goyette, John, Latcovic, Mark S., and Myers, Richard S., (eds.), Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Law Tradition: Contemporary Perspectives (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 2004), pp. 3–16Google Scholar.

100 Sinnott-Armstrong, Morality, pp. 92, 93.

101 Paul Copan, ‘God, Naturalism, and the Foundations of Morality’, in Stewart, Robert B., (ed.), The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2008), pp. 154–157Google Scholar.

102 Murphy, Mark C., ‘Theism, Atheism, and the Explanation of Moral Value’, in Garcia, Robert K. and King, Nathan L., (eds.), Is Goodness Without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), p. 122.Google Scholar