The Primacy of God's Will in Christian Ethics

Abstract

In this paper I argue that some form of theological voluntarism ought to be the ethical theory of choice for Christian moral philosophers. The audience I hope my argument will convince consists of Christians of a fairly traditional cast of mind, and so my assumptions are things I take to be widely shared in conservative Christian communities. They will not be shared by all communities of moral inquiry. Those who do not share them may be persuaded that they cohere well with theological voluntarism; they are not likely to be convinced of its truth by my argument. It should therefore be read as a contribution to a debate within a distinctively Christian tradition of moral reflection and as an attempt to promote progress internal to that tradition. It does not aim to convince the adherents of rival traditions that are not Christian. The argument has two parts The first part is an attempt to build a cumulative case for a divine command conception of Christian morality. The case has three elements. None of them by itself is decisive; together they have considerable force. The first element in the case appeals to a conception of the divine nature that is not restricted to Christian theism. I argue that a particularly strong form of the doctrine of divine sovereignty can be used to furnish theists of all sorts with a positive theoretical reason for divine command ethics. The second element in the case appeals to narratives from the Hebrew Bible that have some authority for Jews, Christians and Muslims. I argue that the cases often described as the immoralities of the patriarchs have in Christian tradition been interpreted in a way that provides Christians with a positive historical reason for divine command ethics. And the third element in the case appeals to the Gospel accounts of the command to followers of Jesus to love their neighbors. I argue that these accounts should, for reasons that Kierkegaard made clear, be interpreted so as to provide a positive moral reason for divine command ethics. As I see it, then, divine command ethics rests securely on a tripod whose legs come from philosophical