In the Euthyphro dilemma, Socrates questions how Euthyphro can be so certain of what actions are considered pious. Socrates asks Euthyphro the important question if “Gods love piety because it is pious, or is it pious because they love it? ” (Timmons 27) Put simply, are God’s commands right because God commanded them or did God command them because they are right?
In what follows, I will explain what unrestricted divine command theory tries to accomplish, why Euthyphro’s dilemma poses a few significant problems to its views, and I will argue how embracing a restricted version of divine command theory an help avoid the obstacles the dilemma sets in place. It can be well argued that the unrestricted divine command theory is aimed to explain what is right and good depending on God’s commands.
To understand the unrestricted divine command theory, one must understand the Theory of Right Conduct, which encompasses the nature of what makes an action right or wrong, and the Theory of Value, which helps explain intrinsic goodness and badness in relation to God’s commands. Intrinsic means a thing has its value in itself or “as it is”. It does not represent value like a dollar bill, but is the value. The Theory of Right Conduct states “An action A is obligatory if and only if (and because) God commands that we A” (Timmons 24).
An obligatory action is an action one should morally do and is often referred to as required. “An action A is wrong if and only if ( and because) God commands that we not A” (Timmons 24). The theory also states that some actions can be optional simply because God never commanded we should or should not do the action. An important thing to note is in the unrestricted divine command theory the only criteria that determines if an action is bligatory, good or bad, is only what God commands and nothing else. The Theory of Value follows the Theory of Right Conduct in concept having obligatory, wrong, and value neutral.
For example, “S is good if and only if (and because) God commands that we bring about or preserve S. ” (Timmons 24) This also means if the Theory of Value along with unrestricted command theory is true and value is truly only dependent on God’s commands then nothing can have true intrinsic value. The reason being that God’s commands set the value of anything so it is not within itself that sets the value. Following this reasoning, tealing, killing, and adultery are wrong or bad because God commands they are, and they are wrong solely because of God’s commands.
This is important because this point appears later in arguments against the unrestricted divine command theory. There are clearly strong historical and cultural connections between morality and religion and the unrestricted divine command theory is one, arguably, effective way of bridging the two. Using an unrestricted view it applies to all of morality and expands the determinacy and applicability criteria of evaluating theories as far as historic scripture and teaching can allow it.
This is comforting to people who decide to accept unrestricted because with the strict interpretation of what God commands not allowing much for debate, along with a fair amount of scripture to base decisions from it plays into the main appeals of consistency, determinacy, and applicability. Now I will take a step back from explaining what unrestricted divine command theory tries to accomplish and look instead at how the Euthyphro dilemma exposes significant, and in my opinion, fatal flaws in its reasoning.
This stems from three statements or traits that many believe characterize God. God is he creator of everything besides himself (divine creator), God does everything for a good reason (divine rationality), and morally God is perfect (divine moral perfection). One of the most important drivers behind unrestricted divine command theory is what is right or wrong, bad or good, is dependent and only dependent on what God commands is right or good. This leads one to think what if God said that to kill and steal was right?
There is no other standard to go by so it must be right to do then if one truly follows unrestricted divine command theory and believes God is the divine creator. This sets up the issue called arbitrary whim because with no independent right or wrong standard anything God decided to say would be considered just even if it brought upon pain or suffering. This issue challenges God’s divine rationality and divine creator traits. Since, God has no good reasons for commanding what he has commanded, and he created all but himself, there is no independent standard for right or wrong that exists but his commands.
If one believes there is an independent standard than one cannot believe fully that God is the creator of everything. One must decide to either accept that an ndependent standard does exist which means God is not the divine creator, or accept that God cannot be defined as morally perfect and does not do everything for good reason since “good” is self-defined. This presents a significant issue to most devote theists since devotion depends heavily on those three divine characteristics of God.
However, it is unwise to fully deny that God’s commands do not play a role in contemporary society and morality. While the unrestricted divine command theory has significant issues in its reasoning, it is foolish to abandon the theory in its entirety. Fortunately, there is an intermediate option between the unrestricted divine command theory and rejecting the theory completely called the restricted divine command theory. To help explain this imagine the unrestricted divine command theory says “all birds can fly”.
Yes, most birds can fly but there are clear exceptions to this rule. To fully reject the divine command theory would be equal to saying “no birds can fly”, while the restricted divine command theory allows the option of saying “NOT all birds can fly” taking the basis of the statement while altering it enough to avoid conflict. To accept the restricted divine command theory I would choose to restrict God’s all- powerful nature slightly by acknowledging that God did not specifically create the standard for right and wrong.
However, the standard of right and wrong, bad or good can be viewed as a “necessary truth” allowing the theist to argue that God can be “goodness”. The textbook does a decent job of stating it as “God is the ultimate realization of moral goodness and stands as the paradigm of moral goodness. ” (Timmons 32) This allows the theist to avoid the arbitrary whim issue by stating that since God s “goodness” and stands as the model of the necessary truth that God would never command to kill and steal.
Therefore, God would never do those actions because of the necessary truth of what is right. The theist can also avoid the divine goodness problem using this similar logic. By acknowledging what is right or wrong as a “necessary” idea the restricted divine command theory can avoid clarifying God’s goodness using his own commands. This successfully avoids much of the conflict from the Euthyphro dilemma by limiting God as creator, while keeping his image of all perfect, all good intact that many use as major reason in following his commands.
Even though Socrates’ question to Euthyphro presents a dilemma to divine command theory by questioning the three basic beliefs of God, divine command theory can still be used to explain the deep rooted connections between religion and morality. This can be done as I have explained, by considering what is deemed right or wrong to be a “necessary” truth instead of being determined entirely by God commands. Therefore, adopting a restricted view of divine command theory can arguably avoid the issues that arise from Euthyphro’s dilemma.