A psychological constraint on obedience to God's commands
The reasonableness of obeying the abhorrently evil
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20311652 |
|---|---|
| Authors | JAMES D RISSLER (University of Notre Dame, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 125-146 |
| Publication date | 2002-06-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religious Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-4125 • E-ISSN: 1469-901X |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0034412502005966 |
| OpenAlex | W2001745758 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 1 |
Robert Adams, in Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics , suggests a moral constraint on our obedience to God's commands: if a purportedly divine command seems abhorrently evil, then we should infer that it is not really God so commanding. I suggest that in light of his commitments to God as the standard of goodness, to the transcendence of God, and to a critical stance towards ethics, Adams should be willing to consider the possibility of a good God commanding us to do something that seems abhorrently evil to us, but really is good according to His transcendent goodness. I suggest that the ought-to-is moral constraint that Adams advocates is only appropriate when we are not certain that it is God giving the command, and that an is-to-ought constraint based on psychological certainty should be the ultimate constraint on our obedience to purportedly divine commands. This constraint advocates that if one is certain upon reflection that a command is from God, then one should obey that command, regardless of how evil it seems. After responding to several objections to this psychological constraint, I offer my own qualification, according to which it is appropriate to disobey a command that one is certain is from God if one cannot conceive that the command is good. Finally, I offer some reason to think that, contrary to Adams's assertions, the project of considering how to react to a purportedly divine command that also seems abhorrently evil is worth both philosophic and spiritual energy
Certainty · Constraint (computer-aided design) · Epistemology · Good and evil · Moral evil · Obedience · Political science · Problem of Evil · Law · Mathematics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Theology and Philosophy of Evil · War, Ethics, and Justification
| Citations per year | 0.12 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2009 - 2012 (4) |
| Highly cited | No |