Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T01:09:36.526Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Counterpossibles and the ‘terrible’ divine command deity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2014

RICHARD BRIAN DAVIS  and
W. PAUL FRANKS
RICHARD BRIAN DAVIS
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Tyndale University College, Toronto, Ontario M2M 4B3, Canada e-mail: rdavis@tyndale.ca
W. PAUL FRANKS
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Tyndale University College, Toronto, Ontario M2M 4B3, Canada e-mail: pfranks@tyndale.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In a series of articles in this journal, Wes Morriston has launched what can only be considered a full-scale assault on the divine command theory (DCT) of morality. According to Morriston, proponents of this theory are committed to an alarming counterpossible: that if God did command an annual human sacrifice, it would be morally obligatory. Since only a ‘terrible’ deity would do such a ‘terrible’ thing, we should reject DCT. Indeed, if there were such a deity, the world would be a terrible place – certainly far worse than it is. We argue that Morriston's non-standard method for assessing counterpossibles of this sort is flawed. Not only is the savvy DCT-ist at liberty to reject it, but Morriston's method badly misfires in the face of theistic activism – a metaphysical platform available to DCT-ists, according to which if God didn't exist, neither would anything else.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 1 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Davis, Richard Brian (2006) ‘God and counterpossibles’, Religious Studies, 42, 371–391.Google Scholar
Freddoso, Alfred (1986) ‘Human nature, potency, and the incarnation’, Faith and Philosophy, 3, 27–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, Paul M. & Davis, Richard Brian (2014) ‘Modified theistic activism’, in Gould, P. M. (ed.) Beyond the Control of God? Six Views on the Problem of God and Abstract Objects (New York: Bloomsbury Academic), 51–64.Google Scholar
Leftow, Brian (1990) ‘God and abstract entities’, Faith and Philosophy, 7, 193–217.Google Scholar
Leftow, Brian (2006) ‘Impossible worlds’, Religious Studies, 42, 393–402.Google Scholar
Leftow, Brian (2012) God and Necessity (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Lewis, David (1973) Counterfactuals (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).Google Scholar
Menzel, Christopher (1990) ‘Theism, Platonism, and the metaphysics of mathematics’, in Beaty, M. (ed.) Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press), 208–229.Google Scholar
Morris, Thomas (1987) Anselmian Explorations (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press).Google Scholar
Morriston, Wes (2001) ‘Omnipotence and necessary moral perfection: are they compatible? Reply to Mawson’, Religious Studies, 37, 143–160.Google Scholar
Morriston, Wes (2009) ‘What if God commanded something terrible? A worry for divine-command meta-ethics’, Religious Studies, 45, 249–267.Google Scholar
Morriston, Wes (2012) ‘God and the ontological foundation of morality’, Religious Studies, 48, 15–34.Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin & Tooley, Michael (2008) Knowledge of God (Malden MA: Blackwell).Google Scholar
Pollock, John (1976) Subjunctive Reasoning (Dordrecht: Reidel).Google Scholar
Stalnaker, Robert (1968) ‘A theory of conditionals’, in Rescher, Nicholas (ed.) Studies in Logical Theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), 64–80.Google Scholar
Wierenga, Edward (1983) ‘A defensible divine command theory’, Nous, 3, 387–407.Google Scholar
Wierenga, Edward (1989) The Nature of God (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Wierenga, Edward (1998) ‘Theism and counterpossibles’, Philosophical Studies, 89, 87–103.Google Scholar
Yandell, Keith E. (1994) ‘The most brutal and inexcusable error in counting? Trinity and consistency’, Religious Studies, 30, 201–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zagzebski, Linda (1990) ‘What if the impossible had been actual?’, in Beaty, M. (ed.) Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press), 165–183.Google Scholar