The Concept of a Divine Command

Abstract

The concept of a divine command may be approached from more than one angle. It plays a major role in the scriptures, and the ethical thinking, of several religious traditions. I am particularly interested in questions about the viability of a theistic ethical theory which would explain the nature of ethical obligation in terms of commands of God. There is much in the phenomenology of obligation, and the related phenomena of wrong-doing and guilt, that supports an understanding of obligation in terms of social requirements. The great difficulty with such a view, to sum it up bluntly, is that human social requirements are not good enough. If we seek a better sort of social or quasi-social requirement, something transcendent, that might ground a more perfect system of ethical obligations, the most obvious candidate is divine commands.

I am indebted to the members of my Spring, 1988, seminar at Yale Divinity School for pressing on me the problem addressed in this paper, and to them and the members of my Spring, 1990, seminar at UCLA for helpful discussion of my earlier attempts to deal with it.