Editing Divine command theory (section)

{{Short description|Meta-ethical theory of morality}}
{{Redirect|Theological voluntarism|the medieval theological movement|Voluntarism (philosophy)#Medieval theological voluntarism{{!}}Medieval theological voluntarism}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=September 2012}}

{{Philosophy of religion sidebar|theories}}

[[File:Saint Augustine by Philippe de Champaigne.jpg|thumb|Portrait of [[Saint Augustine]], the oldest proponent of the Divine command theory]]

'''Divine command theory''' (also known as '''theological voluntarism''')<ref>[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voluntarism-theological/ Theological Voluntarism]&nbsp;— [[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]</ref><ref>Not to be confused with [[medieval theological voluntarism]] and [[theological voluntarism as an approach to natural philosophy]].</ref> is a [[Meta-ethics|meta-ethical]] theory which proposes that an action's status as [[Morality|morally]] [[good]] is equivalent to whether it is commanded by [[God]]. The theory asserts that what is moral is determined by God's commands and that for a person to be moral he is to follow God's commands. Followers of both monotheistic and polytheistic religions in ancient and modern times have often accepted the importance of God's commands in establishing morality.

Numerous variants of the theory have been presented: historically, figures including [[Saint Augustine]], [[Duns Scotus]], [[William of Ockham]] and [[Søren Kierkegaard]] have presented various versions of divine command theory; more recently, [[Robert Merrihew Adams]] has proposed a "modified divine command theory" based on the [[omnibenevolence]] of God in which morality is linked to human conceptions of right and wrong. [[Paul Copan]] has argued in favour of the theory from a Christian viewpoint, and [[Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski]]'s divine motivation theory proposes that God's motivations, rather than commands, are the source of morality.

Semantic challenges to divine command theory have been proposed; the philosopher William Wainwright argued that to be commanded by God and to be morally obligatory do not have an identical meaning, which he believed would make defining obligation difficult. He also contended that, as knowledge of God is required for morality by divine command theory, [[Atheism|atheists]] and [[Agnosticism|agnostics]] could not be moral; he saw this as a weakness of the theory. Others have challenged the theory on [[Modal logic|modal]] grounds by arguing that, even if God's command and morality correlate in this world, they may not do so in other possible worlds. In addition, the [[Euthyphro dilemma]], first proposed by [[Plato]] (in the context of polytheistic Greek religion), presented a dilemma which threatened either to result in the moral arbitrariness of morality itself, or to result in the irrelevance of God to morality. Divine command theory has also been criticised for its apparent incompatibility with the omnibenevolence of God, moral [[autonomy]] and [[religious pluralism]], although some scholars have defended the theory from these challenges.