Essay about Morality Religion

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The Divine Command Theory (DCT) is nothing more than a law set to Gods will. An action is morally obligatory in virtue of the fact that God commands it while on the other hand an action is morally wrong in virtue of the fact that God prohibits it. Strong advocates of the Divine Command Theory believe that apart from God’s will there is no “true” morality.

Socrates made a major argument against the divine command theory, in what we can just easily call, the “Euthyphro dilemma”. Socrates asked the simple question of whether “divine morality” is right because God says so, or does God see merit in those actions as being right. For example, if God had commanded the murder of innocent children than that would be morally correct according to the DCT. Socrates biggest point in his argument against the DCT is that God is morally arbitrary. If we say that it is simply God's loving something that makes it right, then how do we know that is what’s “morally right”? In essence we’re just doing what God wants us to do. Arguing that God would never order us to do something as malevolent as murder little children because God only wants what’s good can be countered by the fact that our definition of “good” comes straight from His word, and respectively, the Divine Command Theory.

With that said the Divine Command Theory could also be defended. In the same way that our parents many times tell us no about something when we were younger in a, what seemed to be at the time, arbitrary manner we usually always come to find out when we are older that they were, in fact, right and that their wisdom exceeded ours. You can use this same template with God. His wisdom and knowledge are much greater than ours, so sometimes we might have to set our own intelligence and thoughts aside.

The Theory of Natural Law states that God created the laws of morality. Even though God formulated these laws they are separate from his will. Another way to describe natural law is to do what
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