If God Is the Source of Morality, Would that Mean Morality Is Subjective?
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The moral argument for God’s existence is often summarized as follows:
There is objective moral truth.
The best explanation for how and why there is objective moral truth is the existence of God.
Therefore, we have good reason to believe God exists.
Those who use the moral argument argue, as part of their defense of premise two, that God is the source of morality. However, some who push back against this argument (which includes atheists as well as theists who think the moral argument is a poor argument) argue that if God is the source of morality then morality would be subjective, not objective. In other words, they argue that premise two fails to accomplish what it intends to as follows: “Proposing God as the source of morality fails to provide a good explanation for objective morality because that proposal actually makes morality subjective, not objective.” In this article I will argue against this notion that morality would be subjective if God is its source.
Definitions
I need to start with an important caveat—there’s a sense in which arguing over the appropriate usage of words is a waste of time. Say I bought a vehicle with three wheels, tell my friend about it, and refer to it as a motorcycle, and he responds, “Technically, a motorcycle has two wheels; what you bought is a car.” Okay, fine, you win. Shrug. Somewhere someone at sometime decided the term “car” was going to be used to describe a certain category of things and the term “motorcycle” was going to be used to describe a different category of things. But such a decision was arbitrary; that’s just how language works. Language is also fluid over time in that terms can change in meaning or usage as the years go by. For example, in 1961 the famous children’s song told us that “when we’re with the Flintstones, we’ll have a gay old time.” Back then the term ‘gay’ was used to mean something radically different from what it’s used to mean today. Word definitions aren’t set in stone; they’re merely constructs we create to help communicate concepts with each other. While dictionaries try to capture how we’re currently using words, they can’t stop people from using those words in new and different ways. As Johnny Cash sang, “I don’t like it, but I guess things happen that way.” Back to my well-intentioned but annoying friend. If I’m being snarky, I might reply, “I don’t care if you label it a motorcycle or a car. The fact of the matter is that I bought this thing for me to drive and it has three wheels. Call it a giraffe for all I care.” Good thing I’m not snarky. Usually.
Because the concept that someone’s trying to communicate is more important than the word being used to communicate that concept, I’ll now provide a simple conceptual explanation of basic moral theory without getting bogged down in the dispute concerning the correct usage and definitions of category labels. Some people have the conceptual idea that morality is based on what humans think. They maintain that when a group of humans (or just one human) think slavery is morally okay, then that makes slavery morally okay for that group (or that one person). But if another group of humans (or just one human) think slavery is morally bad, then that makes slavery morally bad for that group (or that one person). Sometimes people call this concept ‘relative morality’ because, according to this proposal, morality is relative per group or per person. According to this concept morality is determined by how people (or a person) think. This concept has also been called subjective morality because it’s based on how the subjects (or subject) think. It’s subjective in a similar way that someone’s favorite color is subjective. Your favorite color is subjective because it’s based on how you, the subject, thinks. If you change your mind about your favorite color, then your favorite color changes. This is the case because your favorite color isn’t fixed or somehow set in stone; it changes when your subjective thinking changes.
Other people have said, no, morality doesn’t work like this; moral truth doesn’t change when people change their minds. Instead, morality is more fixed like, for example, mathematical truth. Even if someone changed his mind and started to believe that two plus two equals five, that doesn’t change the truth that two plus two actually equals four. Similarly, even if someone believed it was morally okay to rape someone, that doesn’t mean it actually is morally okay for him to rape someone. No, there’s something ‘fixed’ about the truth that it’s wrong to rape people similarly to how there’s something ‘fixed’ about the truth that two plus two equals four. These truths are not based on how people think but are somehow fixed regardless of what people believe about them. What should we call this concept that there are some moral truths that are fixed and don’t change when our beliefs about them change? You guessed it. Historically, most people have referred to this concept as objective morality.
Much of the confusion over this issue comes from people who aren’t aware of how the terms objective and subjective have been used in this context. This confusion can arise for the same reason communication in any field can be difficult—the same term can be used to mean different things in different contexts. For example, think of all the ways the term bark can be used. There’s not just one absolute usage or fixed definition of that term because it can be used to mean different things in different contexts. The same is true of nearly all words including objective and subjective.
To clarify then, in this context (I’m referring to the context of metaethics which is the field in which this conversation primarily takes place), the term objective is usually used to describe something that is somehow fixed independently of how humans think. For example, those who believe morality is fixed use the term objective to differentiate their position from the opposite position which is that morality is subjective. In this context something is subjective if, instead of being fixed and unchanging, it’s dependent on how people think and thus is relative per person, or per culture, and changes when people’s thinking about it changes.
Here’s a good thought experiment to figure out if something is subjective or objective—imagine a mad scientist gave us all pills so that orange was our favorite color. Would that make orange our favorite color? Yes, because our favorite color is determined only by how we think; it’s subjective. But if a mad scientist gave us pills so we all thought 2+2=5, would that make 2+2=5? No, because that’s objectively fixed independent of what we think. Here’s the key question: Is morality determined subjectively by how we think, like our favorite color, or is it objective like 2+2=4? Those who maintain morality is subjective claim it’s more like our favorite color whereas those who maintain morality is objective claim it’s more like 2+2=4.
Here are examples of philosophers that specialize in this area (some are atheists and some are theists) who use the term objective in the way I’ve described above. Atheist Russ Shafer-Landau explains that the purpose of his book Moral Realism is to defend “the theory that moral judgements enjoy a special sort of objectivity: such judgements, when true, are so independently of what any human being, anywhere, in any circumstance whatever, thinks of them.”1 Additionally, atheist David Enoch describes objective morality as the position that “there are response-independent…, irreducibly normative truths, …objective ones, that when successful in our normative inquiries we discover rather than create or construct.”2 On the theistic side, C. Stephen Evans agrees with Enoch’s description of objective morality and congratulates him for offering the most comprehensive and sophisticated case for objective morality to be found in the literature.3 Further, Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga wrote that “moral truths are objective, in the sense that they are in a certain way independent of human beliefs and desires. It is wrong to torture people for the fun of it, and would remain wrong even if most or all of the world’s population came to believe that this behavior is perfectly acceptable, and indeed came to desire that it be much more widely practiced.”4
Keep in mind I’m not arguing over the appropriate naming of categories because I’m not primarily concerned with how people choose to label their categories. My only purpose in this section was to explain how people have usually used these terms in the past in order to clarify why people like me, who propose God is the source of moral truth, refer to their theories as objective, not subjective.
Those Who Argue That Morality Would Be Subjective if God Were its Source
Lately, it has become more common for people to claim that morality would be subjective if God were its source. For example, this came up in a debate between a Christian, Eric Hernandez, and an atheist, Justin Schieber, which you can watch here: Debate: Does God Exist? Both men in this debate believe there is objective moral truth, but they argued over what the best explanation for this moral truth is. The Christian argued that God is the best explanation whereas the atheist argued his atheistic moral theory is a better explanation. In this debate the atheist said:
Eric’s theistic view is that goodness is rooted in the nature of God. By definition, this is a form of metaethical subjectivism and is therefore not objective. Eric calls the view objective because he defines objective in a relatively non-standard way. Eric defines objective as being independent of human thought. He is allowed to define words however he likes but this species-specific definition appears ad hoc.
Here the atheist was trying to argue that the Christian’s proposed theory of objective morality fails because it would actually result in morality being subjective, not objective.
First, it should be noted that Eric wasn’t using the term objective in a non-standard way; he was using it how philosophers who specialize in this field normally use it, as I showed above. In addition, because I’m so used to reading the metaethical literature which uses the term subjective morality to refer to the idea that morality is determined by how humans think, it does seem quite odd when someone refers to the position that “God is the source of morality” as subjective morality.
Second, would the truths of mathematics, logic, or science be subjective if God was the source of these truths? Many Christians affirm that God is ultimately the source of mathematics, logic, and the universe (scientific truths are merely truths about the universe). If God is the source of the universe, would that mean truth about the universe, i.e. scientific truth, is subjective? No, that doesn’t seem right. So why should we think morality would be subjective if God was its source?
Third, I’m glad the atheist pointed out that people can use and define terms however they like because, as I noted above, language is flexible and fluid. Since I don’t want to get caught up in arguing over the appropriate definitions of category labels, I’m not going to spend much time arguing over how particular words should be used and defined. Instead, we need to dig deeper and go beyond battles over definitions and semantics to understand and then address the specific objection being raised here against the moral argument.
When theists like Eric and me use the moral argument, we’re using the term objective to mean that morality is independently fixed apart from what humans think; as I showed above, that’s often how the term is used in the metaethical literature. We do this in order to differentiate our position from moral subjectivism. However, in premise two we argue that morality is dependent upon God in the sense that God is the source of morality. The fact that our position proposes morality is dependent on God might be why some, including the atheist above, see this as a form of subjective morality. Of course, they’re free to call our position a version of subjective morality, but doing so doesn’t help them refute the moral argument because we can easily restate it as follows:
There is moral truth that’s fixed in that it’s not dependent on what humans think.
The best explanation for how and why there is such fixed moral truth is the existence of God.
Therefore, we have good reason to believe God exists.
By restating the argument this way, we can avoid having to waste time arguing over the definitions of subjective and objective.
Would the Real Objection Please Stand Up?
It seems to me the deeper objection that’s being made here by those who push back against the moral argument is that if God is the source of morality, then that would make morality as arbitrary and fluid as it would be if morality were dependent on how humans think. In other words, they’re arguing that if God were the source of morality, then moral truth wouldn’t be fixed and unchanging because God could change it to be whatever He wanted it to be or He could’ve chosen for it to have been radically different from what it currently is. If I’m correct about this, then this objection is merely a restating of the famous Euthyphro Dilemma.
The Euthyphro Dilemma is a common rebuttal to the moral argument. In Plato’s Euthyphro, Socrates asked, “Is that which is holy loved by the gods because it is holy, or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?”5 The dilemma is often restated in monotheistic terms as follows: Either (1) morality is based on God’s commands, and thus He could have arbitrarily commanded any heinous act and it would be morally right, or (2) morality is based on necessary truths that even God can’t change, and thus morality is independent of God and out of His control.6
Theists have historically responded to this dilemma by proposing that morality is dependent upon God’s nature in such a way that He couldn’t command something that violates His moral nature.7 How does this help against the Euthyphro Dilemma? Here’s one way to think of it: there’s a sense in which the second horn of the dilemma is correct in that morality is based on necessary truths that even God can’t change, but the implication of the second horn is avoided (the idea that morality is therefore independent of God) because these necessary truths that even God can’t change are truths about God Himself and thus are dependent upon Him, making morality dependent upon Him as well. In other words, there is something that constrains what God can and can’t command, but this thing that constrains what God can and can’t command isn’t independent from God but in a sense is God Himself, i.e., His perfect moral nature. Since God’s commands are based on His moral nature, the ultimate source of morality is His moral nature, not His will or His commands.
If morality is dependent upon God’s nature in this way, then both horns of the Euthyphro Dilemma are avoided. As for the first horn, God’s commands wouldn’t be arbitrary because they would have to be consistent with His moral nature. As for the second horn, morality wouldn’t be independent of God but dependent upon Him, that is, upon His moral nature. However, this proposed solution agrees with the second horn of the Euthyphro Dilemma that morality is based on necessary truths that God cannot change or control, that is, truths concerning His moral nature. Baggett and Walls noted that “a careful distinction between questions of dependence and control allows an answer to the Euthyphro Dilemma that can serve as an important component of any thoroughly theistic metaphysic with a strong commitment to moral realism…. Moral truths can be objective, unalterable, and necessary, and yet still dependent on God.”8 They concluded that “if such dependence or even identity obtains or is even possible, then the Euthyphro Dilemma is effectively defused and the moral argument for God’s existence accordingly gains strength.”9
The First Good Argument
Some claim the reply above doesn’t really defeat the Euthyphro Dilemma but just kicks the Euthyphro can down the road a bit, creating a new dilemma. For example, Jeremy Koons argued that this proposed solution just pushes the dilemma back one level beyond God’s commands to His nature: Is God’s moral nature good because He has it or does He have it because it is good?10 The resulting dilemma is as follows: Either (1) if God’s moral nature is good because He has it, then no matter what type of nature He had, even a heinous one, it would be considered good, or (2) if God’s moral nature is based on necessary truths that even God can’t change (He just has the nature He has), then His moral nature is independent of God and out of His control.
The response I give to this new dilemma is similar to the response theists often give when they’re asked “Who made God?” My response is related to a moral argument for God I developed that I call “the First Good Argument” because it parallels the First Cause Argument. So let me step back for a moment and set up this “First Good Argument” by first summarizing the First Cause Argument. The First Cause Argument begins by noting that when we evaluate an effect, we naturally ask, “What caused this?” Once we figure out what caused it, then we may ask, “Well, then what caused that? And then what caused that?” and so on. To avoid this going on forever, there must be something ultimate that just is, that doesn’t have a cause. Those are the only two options—either there’s an infinite number of causes going backwards forever or there was a first cause. Philosophers have shown the difficulty of proposing there have been an actually infinite number of causes by pointing out that it seems illogical for an actually infinite series to exist. Therefore, it seems highly likely that there must be a first cause, something that wasn’t caused by anything else but just exists on its own. Since there must be a first cause, eventually we reach a point where, when you ask “Well, then what caused that?”, you’d just have to stop because there must be something that doesn’t have a cause. Many scientists used to think the universe itself was the thing that was uncaused, but over the last hundred years many scientific discoveries have indicated that the universe had a beginning and thus had a cause. Theists argue God is the best explanation of this first cause.
My First Good Argument that parallels the First Cause Argument was inspired by ideas discussed in the writings of G. E. Moore and Thomas Aquinas. Moore’s open question dilemma noted that people commit a naturalistic fallacy when they try to define moral goodness by identifying it with a property such as the avoidance of harm or human flourishing. No matter which property someone claims is identical with moral goodness, it’s an open question whether that property itself is morally good. If someone claims moral goodness is just what causes humans to flourish, Moore’s open question becomes “Well, why is human flourishing morally good?” Moore argued the only way to avoid this open question dilemma is to conclude, as he did, that moral goodness is a separate, non-reductive property. Aquinas argued similarly that “each good thing that is not its goodness is… good by participation. But that which is [good] …by participation has something prior to it from which it receives… goodness. This cannot proceed to infinity…. We must therefore reach some first good, that is not by participation good… but is good through its own essence.”
The conversation would go like this: Why is fighting injustice morally good? Someone might say it’s morally good because it leads to human flourishing. But why is human flourishing morally good? And so on and so forth. To avoid this going on forever, there must be something ultimate that just is The Good itself. Eventually we reach a point where, when you ask “Well, why is that good?”, you’d just have to stop because, to avoid an infinite series, there must be something that just is goodness itself. That’s why every moral theory has to propose some sort of ultimate moral good, as many atheist philosophers have recognized. For example, atheist Wes Morriston, in describing his moral theory, wrote
Why are love and justice and generosity and kindness and faithfulness good? What is there in the depths of reality to make them good? My own preferred answer is: Nothing further. If you like, you may say that they are the ultimate standard of goodness. What makes them the standard? Nothing further. Possessing these characteristics just is good-making. Full stop…. No matter what story you tell about the ontological ground for moral value, you must at some point come to your own full stop.11
Atheist Erik Wielenberg even used what theists say about God being the ultimate being to explain his point that there must be some ultimate good. He wrote that brute ethical facts
are the foundation of (the rest of) objective morality and rest on no foundation themselves. To ask of such facts, ‘where do they come from?’ or ‘on what foundation do they rest?’ is misguided in much the way that, according to many theists, it is misguided to ask of God, ‘where does He come from?’ or ‘on what foundation does He rest?’ The answer is the same in both cases: they come from nowhere, and nothing external to themselves grounds their existence; rather, they are fundamental features of the universe that ground other truths.12
This First Good Argument is strikingly similar to the First Cause Argument in this way: the First Cause Argument points out there’s nothing causally before the First Cause that caused it. Likewise, the First Good Argument points out there’s nothing behind the First Good that makes it good, it just is the good. Every moral theory proposes an ultimate good, but here’s the key question: which proposed ultimate good is the better, more plausible explanation for objective morality? In my work I’ve argued that the trinitarian God of Christianity is the best explanation for this First Good. God is the end (or beginning, depending on how you’re thinking of it) of the explanatory chain of causes and of moral goodness.
Now, let’s focus on how this helps us respond to the revised Euthyphro Dilemma. We can avoid the first horn of the dilemma because God’s moral nature is necessary and thus couldn’t be any other way than it is. And just like with the original Euthyphro Dilemma, we can affirm the first part of the second horn, i.e., God’s moral nature is based on necessary truths that even God can’t change (He necessarily has the moral nature He has). But the implication of the second horn is avoided (the idea that His moral nature is therefore independent of God) because these necessary truths about His nature that even God can’t change are truths about God Himself and thus are dependent upon Him, making morality dependent upon Him as well. In other words, God just is the Good. It’s not a weakness of theism to propose an ultimate good like this because, as I argued above, every metaethical theory must include some ultimate good in order to avoid an infinite regress.
Should Any Theistic Theories of Morality be Considered Subjective?
Theists like myself believe there are some fixed moral truths that aren’t dependent on, or relative to, what any beings think—not human beings, not alien beings, and not even on what the being God thinks. Rather, they are dependent on God’s unchanging moral nature. Those of us who believe morality is fixed by God’s nature wouldn’t describe morality as subjective because it’s not based on how God thinks but on His moral nature. Historically, that’s why such a position has not been labeled as subjective.
But it should be noted that there are some versions of Divine Command Theory (sometimes people call them Divine Voluntarism or extreme Divine Voluntarism) which maintain that God’s will alone determines morality and thus He could choose anything to be good or bad. For example, He could hypothetically even choose to make lying or rape morally good if He wanted to. Some extreme Calvinists affirm this idea because they want to maintain God’s will is sovereign and not restricted by anything.13 Would it be appropriate to label such theories as subjective because they base morality on God’s subjective thinking or will? I wouldn’t call such theories subjective because usually the term ‘subjective moral theory’ refers to theories in which morality is based on what humans think. But I can understand why some people might choose to call such theories subjective moral theories. Regardless, as I’ve stated previously, I don’t want to waste time getting caught up in the semantics of category labels.
It’s important to recognize, though, that most theistic theories of morality, including nearly all Divine Command Theories and my Divine Love Theory, maintain that the core of morality is based not on God’s will but on His nature. It doesn’t seem to me that the term ‘subjective’ is appropriate to describe this type of moral theory at all. But again, it all depends on how someone chooses to use and define the term subjective. Feel free to call it a giraffe theory if you’d like. I’m much more interested in knowing if my conceptual idea is true or not than in determining how it should be labeled.
How Deep Does This Rabbit Hole Go?
Thus far, I’ve oversimplified the discussion by narrowing the options down to moral objectivism versus moral subjectivism. However, the actual situation is much more complex. There’s a plethora of moral theories that have been proposed and defended. This field exploring the foundations of morality, which is sometimes called metaethics, contains a dizzying array of terms, labels, and classifications. Below is a list of commonly used categories and subcategories followed by brief descriptions from those who specialize in this field.
Cognitive theories
Constructivism
Objectivist constructivism
Subjectivism
Relativism
Kantianism
Contractarianism
Ideal observer theories
Ideal agent theories
Realism
Naturalism
Moral functionalism
Cornell Realism
Nonnaturalism (sometimes called robust realism)
Supernaturalism
Error theories
Noncognitive theories
Prescriptivism
Expressivism
Emotivism
Plan-expressivism
Norm-expressivism
Most begin by making a distinction between cognitive theories and noncognitive theories.14 All cognitive theories maintain that moral judgments are beliefs that can somehow be true or false, but the different cognitivist positions disagree among themselves as to what makes these beliefs true or false.15 Noncognitive theories, on the other hand, argue that our moral judgments do not express true or false propositions because ultimately there’s nothing that makes them true or false; according to these theories, moral judgments are merely ways we communicate our noncognitive commitments such as our emotions.16
As for different cognitive theories, constructivist theories claim that moral truths are created and fixed through some sort of constructive function that usually involves their ratification from within an actual or hypothetical idealized perspective of one person or a group of persons.17 They think moral obligations do have authority and a sense of fixed objectivity but are not constituted by objective facts.18 In opposition to this, realism is a type of cognitive theory that says moral truths are not made true by their ratification from within a perspective but instead the moral standards which fix moral facts are objectively real because they’re true regardless of anyone’s perspective of them.19 Lastly, error theories agree that moral statements do reflect moral beliefs—hence technically they’re a form of cognitivism—but they say that all these moral statements are false because ultimately there is no moral reality.20
As for different forms of constructivism, objectivist constructivism says that moral claims are objective in the sense that they require some degree of idealization beyond particular people for the perspectives that construct and thus fix moral truth.21 Subjectivism holds that morality is constructed out of particular individual perspectives and opinions.22 Relativism maintains that morality is constructed out of particular social conventions or agreements among particular people.23 Kantianism proposes that morality is specifically constructed out of a particular person’s rational will.24 Contractarianism claims morality is constructed out of the edicts of deliberators situated in special circumstances.25 Ideal observer theories propose that morality is constructed by the perspective that a hypothetical ideal observer would have if there were such an ideal observer. Ideal agent theories are similar but instead propose that the hypothetical ideal individual is a participant in moral issues and not merely an observer.
Moral Realism is a term often used to describe the idea that moral truth is somehow fixed objectively apart from anyone’s perspectives, ideas, thoughts, minds, or opinions.26 In many conversations the terms ‘moral realism’ and ‘objective morality’ are used interchangeably, but Moral Realism is a useful clarifying term because it distinguishes itself from some constructivist theories which are somewhat objective as I explained above. While these types of constructivist theories propose that moral obligations do have a sense of authority and objectivity, the key difference that distinguishes them from realists is that constructivists don’t believe moral truths are constituted by objective facts but by some sort of actual or hypothetical perspective.
Moral realists, on the other hand, believe moral facts are constituted by objective facts which are separate from any real or hypothetical perspectives, ideas, thoughts, minds, or opinions. This is why well-known moral realist Russ Shafer-Landau prefers to characterize the realist position “by reference to its endorsement of the stance-independence of moral reality. Realists believe that there are moral truths that obtain independently of any preferred perspective, in the sense that the moral standards that fix the moral facts are not made true by virtue of their ratification from within any given actual or hypothetical perspective. That a person takes a particular attitude toward a putative moral standard is not what makes that standard correct.”27 Something being stance-independent is similar to being mind-independent in that it’s true independent of anyone’s perspective, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, or preferences. Shafer-Landau’s definition of moral realism will be important to keep in mind for the next section below.
As for different forms of realism, in this context naturalism refers to the belief that moral properties are some type of natural property such that the strict ontology of naturalism can be maintained.28 In particular, moral functionalism is a form of naturalism that claims moral facts are determined by their function or place in a complex network. Cornell Realism argues that moral properties are their own category of natural properties and thus are not identical to, and cannot be reduced to, other natural properties.29 Nonnaturalism (sometimes called robust realism) rejects the naturalist’s claim that moral properties are nothing over and above natural properties but instead proposes that moral properties are unique nonnatural properties that exist beyond the physical, material, natural universe.30 Lastly, supernaturalism is a form of realism that maintains that God somehow serves as the foundation of morality. The two most common forms of supernatural metaethical theories are Divine Command Theory and Natural Law Theory. (For an explanation of the differences between these two supernaturalist theories, see here: Natural Law Theory vs. Divine Command Theory.)
As for different types of noncognitive theories, prescriptivism claims that moral statements function as imperative sentences such that when someone says “rape is wrong,” he’s actually communicating the prescription “do not rape.” On the other hand, expressivism maintains that moral statements merely express a person’s evaluative attitude. Emotivism, the most common type of expressivism, holds that the evaluative attitude being expressed in moral statements stems from our noncognitive emotions.
Theists Who Reject Moral Realism
Some theists say they reject moral realism because, even though they affirm God is the source of morality and that some moral truth is fixed independently from how humans think, they believe moral truth is made true by virtue of ratification from within God’s perspective. Since that doesn’t satisfy some definitions of moral realism, e.g., the definition put forth by Shafer-Landau, they conclude that they must reject moral realism. As a reminder, Shafer-Landau characterizes the realist position “by reference to its endorsement of the stance-independence of moral reality. Realists believe that there are moral truths that obtain independently of any preferred perspective, in the sense that the moral standards that fix the moral facts are not made true by virtue of their ratification from within any given actual or hypothetical perspective. That a person takes a particular attitude toward a putative moral standard is not what makes that standard correct.”31
But is moral truth made true by virtue of ratification from within God’s perspective? It seems to me this would only be the case if extreme Divine Voluntarism were true. As I explained above, extreme Divine Voluntarism is the idea that God’s will alone decides moral truth such that He could choose anything to be good or bad. According to extreme Divine Voluntarism, God could even choose to make rape morally good if He chose to do so. This position probably shouldn’t be considered moral realism according to Shafer-Landau’s definition because it affirms that moral facts are made true by virtue of their ratification from within a given perspective, that is, God’s perspective.
However, there are very few theists who’ve held to this extreme Divine Voluntarism. The vast majority of theists maintain that God’s perfect moral nature, not His will or His commands, is the ultimate root of morality. If God’s perfect moral nature is the ultimate foundation of morality, would that mean moral truth is true by virtue of ratification from within God’s perspective? If so, then such a position couldn’t be called a form of moral realism, at least not according to Shafer-Landau’s definition. But it doesn’t seem to me that moral truth is true by virtue of ratification from within God’s perspective if God’s perfect moral nature is the ultimate foundation of morality. This position is a form of moral realism, at least according to Shafer-Landau’s definition, because it doesn’t affirm that moral truth is true by virtue of ratification from within God’s perspective; instead, it affirms that moral truth is true because it’s grounded in God’s perfect moral nature. In other words, this position affirms morality is stance-independent (an important aspect of Shafer-Landau’s definition of moral realism) in that it maintains moral truth is independent even of God’s stance (perspective, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, or preferences).
Should My Divine Love Theory Be Considered a Theory of Moral Realism?
It should be clear by now that the answer to such a question depends on how the term ‘moral realism’ is being used:
If the term ‘moral realism’ is being used to mean that moral truths (moral values and moral obligations) are independent of human beings, then yes, my Divine Love Theory should be considered a theory of moral realism because my theory affirms moral truth is independent of human beings.
If the term ‘moral realism’ is being used to mean that moral truths (moral values and moral obligations) are independent of any being, including God, then no, my Divine Love Theory should not be considered a theory of moral realism because my theory affirms moral truth is dependent on God.
If the term ‘moral realism’ is being used to mean that moral truths (moral values and moral obligations) are independent of the stance (perspective, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, or preferences) of all human beings, real or hypothetical, then yes, my Divine Love Theory should be considered a theory of moral realism because my theory affirms moral truth is independent of the stance of all human beings, real or hypothetical.
If the term ‘moral realism’ is being used to mean that moral truths (moral values and moral obligations) are independent of any being’s stance (perspective, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, or preferences), including God’s, then yes, my Divine Love Theory should be considered a theory of moral realism because my theory affirms moral truth is dependent on God’s nature but independent of His stance (perspective, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, or preferences).
Some may argue that if moral obligations are generated by God’s commands, which is what Divine Command Theories and my Divine Love Theory affirm, then they are dependent on God’s stance and thus don’t meet this common definition of moral realism. However, it doesn’t seem to me that moral obligations would be dependent on God’s stance (God’s perspectives, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, or preferences) if His commands are what generate our moral obligations because His commands are based on His divine nature, not His stance.
Some people may push back here by pointing out that, according to my Divine Love Theory, only some of God’s commands are based directly on His nature while others are based on God’s preferences, not His nature (like commanding the Israelites not to eat pork), though it could be argued even His preferences are based on His nature.32 Hence, our moral obligations from these commands, since they come from God’s preferences and not His nature, shouldn’t be considered a form of moral realism according to this definition. They may even go further and say that God’s commands that are based on His nature are dependent on God’s stance in that His nature influences His stance such that He then issues those commands. In other words, even if His nature causes Him to have the stance that He does, all His commands then come from His stance. This seems like an odd way to think of it, but if that is, in fact, correct, then only the moral value aspect of my Divine Love Theory should be considered a form of moral realism and the moral obligation aspect shouldn’t. Keep in mind that it all goes back to how someone is defining and using their terms. When I use the term ‘moral realism,’ I’m using it to mean that moral truths (moral values and moral obligations) are independent of the stance (perspective, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, or preferences) of all human beings, real or hypothetical. Thus, I’m comfortable describing my theory of moral value and moral obligations as a theories of moral realism.
Let’s say someone is adamant that moral realism should only be used to mean that moral truths (moral values and moral obligations) are independent of any being’s stance (perspective, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, or preferences), including God’s. This person believes moral obligations fail to meet this requirement in my Divine Love Theory and therefore my theory of moral obligations shouldn’t be considered a form of moral realism. What has such a person actually accomplished beyond making the point that part of my theory shouldn’t be considered a theory of moral realism according to this particular definition? Have they shown my theory is false? No. Have they shown that the moral argument doesn’t work? No. We can easily restate the moral argument as follows to avoid this controversy about how to precisely define the category label ‘moral realism’:
There are fixed moral truths (moral values and moral obligations) that are independent of the stance (perspective, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, or preferences) of all human beings, real or hypothetical.
The best explanation for how and why there are such fixed moral truths is the existence of God.
Therefore, we have good reason to believe God exists.
By restating the argument this way, we can avoid having to waste time arguing over exactly how the term ‘moral realism’ should be defined and used.
To summarize, nearly all theistic moral theories, including most Divine Command Theories and my Divine Love Theory, maintain that the ultimate foundation of morality is not God’s will or His commands but His nature. It seems to me, then, that under Shafer-Landau’s definition, theories which base morality on God’s nature should be considered theories of moral realism because they don’t maintain moral facts are made true by virtue of their ratification from within God’s perspective but are made true by His moral nature. Many theists affirm God’s nature is also the ultimate source of mathematics and logic. Should those who affirm such a position therefore consider themselves non-realists about mathematics and logic? No, that doesn’t seem right. Similarly, those who think God’s perfect moral nature is the source of morality shouldn’t consider themselves moral non-realists, at least according to Shafer-Landau’s definition.
However, let me say one final time that I’m not interested in getting caught up in debates over the definitions of category labels. The bottom line is that I believe God’s trinitarian moral nature is the source and foundation of morality. I’m very interested in debating whether or not my proposed moral theory is true, but I have little interest in arguing over how to best label it. I refer to my idea as a theory of objective morality and a version of moral realism, but if you’d like to label it as a non-realist theory, a subjective theory, or a giraffe theory, you are certainly free to do so.
Footnotes
[1] Russ Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 2. Emphasis added.
[2] David Enoch, An Outline of an Argument for Robust Metanormative Realism, ed. Russ Shafer-Landau, vol. 2 of Oxford Studies in Metaethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 21. See also David Enoch, Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
[3] C. Stephen Evans, God and Moral Obligation (Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2014), 166.
[4] Alvin Plantinga, “Naturalism, Theism, Obligation and Supervenience,” Faith and Philosophy Vol. 27 No. 3 (2010): 249. Emphasis added.
[5] Plato, Euthyphro, 9e.
[6] For a brief summary, see Evans, God and Moral Obligation, 89–91. For a fuller treatment, see John Milliken, “Euthyphro, the Good, and the Right,” Philosophia Christi 11.1 (2009): 145–55.
[7] William Lane Craig, “The Most Gruesome of Guests,” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism, and Ethics (eds. Nathan L. King and Robert K. Garcia; Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009), 171–73.
[8] David Baggett and Jerry Walls, Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 91.
[9] Baggett and Walls, Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality, 93.
[10] Jeremy Koons, “Can God’s Goodness Save the Divine Command Theory from Euthyphro?,” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4.1 (2012): 177–95.
[11] Wes Morriston, “God and the Ontological Foundation of Morality,” Religious Studies 48.1 (2012): 29.
[12] Erik J. Wielenberg, Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 38.
[13] It should be noted that, according to nearly all theistic moral theories, including my Divine Love Theory, some of God’s commands are chosen by His will alone and thus aren’t directly determined by His moral nature. For example, consider God’s command to the Israelites in the Old Testament not to eat pork or the hypothetical situation where God commands people in a certain country to drive on the right side of the road but people in another country to drive on the left side. However, such theists maintain that the core of morality is based not on God’s will but on His nature. For a detailed discussion about how God’s various commands, and thus our moral obligations, are related to His moral nature in different ways, see Adam Lloyd Johnson, Divine Love Theory: How the Trinity Is the Source and Foundation of Morality (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2023), 148–57.
[14] For a more detailed taxonomy of moral theories, see Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defence, 13–79. For a book length treatment, see Mark van Roojen, Metaethics, Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy, ed. Paul K. Moser (New York: Routledge, 2015), especially the helpful flow-chart on page 5.
[15] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 17.
[16] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 5, 19.
[17] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 17, 45.
[18] Evans, God and Moral Obligation, 8.
[19] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 17.
[20] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 19.
[21] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 39.
[22] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 17.
[23] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 17.
[24] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 17.
[25] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 17.
[26] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 15.
[27] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 15.
[28] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 19, 55.
[29] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 63.
[30] Enoch, Taking Morality Seriously, 4.
[31] Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism, 15.
[32] For a detailed discussion about how God’s various commands, and thus our moral obligations, are related to His moral nature in different ways, see Adam Lloyd Johnson, Divine Love Theory: How the Trinity Is the Source and Foundation of Morality (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2023), 148–57.
