Religion and Morality

Religion and Morality

Is God the sole ground for our moral obligation?

·         Divine Command Theory

o    Morality stems from what God tells us to do, our ‘ought’ is Gods command

q  Euthyphro Dilemma

[Is something right because God commands it or, does God command what is right?]

Is goodness independent of God – if so; is this a limit on his omnipotence?

·         X is commanded by God

·         God is the source of our morality

·         Therefore X is a moral action

-          Religion is interlinked into morality, as we in general still follow the majority of Christian teachings and a lot of law is based on Christian versions of right and wrong.

-          However, people followed the 10 commandments and saw them as ‘wrong’ before they were officially commanded

-          God has created us and given us these rules to live by. Made our nature in a certain way.

·         If ‘X’ is ‘it is right to kill’, then following divine command theory, killing is a moral action

·         This to us in our perspective is absurd, it seems to imply goodness is independent of God.

o    God is good, he would never command killing (or other immoral actions). But surely the statement ‘God is good’ is synthetic God does not have to be good.

o    What is God commands us to ‘put our left sock on first’ – how should be consider this a moral action? To us, it is irrelevant, pointless…