Category Archives: Divine Command Morality

Using Divinity in Divine Command Morality

In a post arguing that male masturbation is a grave matter , I explicitly referred to an argument for God’s existence and justification for interpreting moral commands as coming from God. There I talked about God because I was explicitly trying to interpret a teaching of Catholicism was a grave matter. I had made the point earlier that moral gravity was a religious dimension of morality; not purely a moral question.

My treatment of this issue illustrates how, in general, I use the divinity in divine command morality. For purely moral matters, there is no use of the belief that moral laws and the human goods which are the goals of the moral laws are from God. The moral reasoning of someone who holds divine command morality is accessible to an atheist. Not surprisingly, the divine source of morality is invoked only when one is interested in religious matters, viz., that which is connected with divinity.

It may be surprising, though, that one can hold both that masturbation is a grave matter and, though immoral, a trivial matter. It is a grave matter with respect to how one relates to God. For social and legal control, masturbation is a trivial matter in the sense that it is something about which nothing much needs to be done to protect the public from it. I make a similar judgment about male homosexual acts. They are immoral. But if kept “in the closet,” I think they are socially harmless immoralities.

My judgment about the triviality of the immoralities of masturbation and sodomy are factual judgments; not moral judgments. I could very well be in error about their triviality. I am convinced of their immorality and gravity, viz., they are mortally sinful. I have not started a careful sociological investigation of the connection between male masturbation and the vast destructive pornography industry. Pursuit of stimulation for masturbation satisfications might be on of the most destructive social forces.

Eve’s Eating the Apple is the Paradigmatic Grave Matter

The Gravity of Eating the Apple of Eden

God directly commanded Adam and Eve not to eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They disobeyed That disobedience was a grave matter. It was bad enough for humanity to be banished from paradise. We had to struggle with choices of good and evil as a fallen race; always being by our own choices less than what we ought to be.

It is not my intention to develop an interpretation of the Adam and Eve myth. It is my intention to support my interpretation of “grave matter” as disobedience to the divine moral commander. My definition of “grave matter” is not idiosyncratic. In a fundamental myth of our civilization a physical and moral triviality has existential consequences for all of humanity. The only outstanding feature of eating the apple was its relation to God’s command. That relational property made an act of apple eating a grave matter.

The Adam and Eve myths are well worth taking seriously by all of us whether religious or irreligious, atheists or theists, educated or uneducated and young or old. The myths are clear and interesting shared stories for a wide variety of discussions of the human condition. Probably, the only uninteresting discussion of the myths is whether or not they report literally true facts of human history. To learn from a myth requires putting yourself, imaging yourself, in the story. One blessing we did not lose in the “fall” is our capacity to live vicariously in stories.

For uses of Adam and Eve myth see Moral Gravity and Forgiveness of Original Sin and the last paragraph of The Supernatural Origin of Humanity

Moral Gravity as Degrees of Disobedience to a Moral Authority

It is inconsistent to use “moral gravity” to specify degrees of immorality. However, my Church uses a concept of moral gravity to mark out some acts as morally grave. If the “matter of the act” – what the act is- is morally grave and done with full consent of the will after sufficient reflection the act is a mortal sin. For the Church, “morally grave” has the negative connotation of morally wrong. I intend to follow the Catholic Church’s usage.

(Added Sept. 1, 2022: Perhaps I should not write of “morally grave matter” but write simply “grave matter. For when I transition from command moral theory to divine command moral theory, I should allow for direct commands of God to do more than what is morally required. But I do not need to allow for the prospect of the divine moral commanded directly commanding an act contrary to morality. For in development of this moral theory we move up from being a moral commander to being a divine moral commander.)

The question remaining for me is, “What do I intend to say about acts when I follow the Church in labelling them “grave matters?” I am developing an intension -definition- to cover the extension picked out by the Church’s use of “grave matter.”

Here is how the Church specifies “grave matter” in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

1858 Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: “Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother.”132 The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.

For one, I intend to use it with the negative connotation of being wrong. To say that a type of act is a grave matter is to say that it ought not be done.

But of most importance, I intend to use it as a moral concept in command moral theory and then as a religious morality concept in divine command moral theory. Because I intend to use the concept of “grave moral matter” in divine command moral thinking, I wrote of grave matter as generally “something which ought not be done” instead of as specifically “something which ought not morally be done.”

There are no degrees of immorality. But there can be degrees of the disobedience in the disobeying of a moral command. Disobeying a moral command places an agent in confrontation with the moral commander. This confrontation need not be total confrontation which puts the agent at enmity with the moral commander.

So, I propose to use “moral gravity” to measure the degree of disobedience in disobeying a moral command. An act is a grave moral matter if its performance is the highest degree of disobedience to the moral commander.

There is a critical point in the gravity of acts at which they become grave. Below this point grievousness is not grave. At this critical point acts are grave. Above this critical point acts become more and more grave.

How might we decide that an act is a grave matter? If we stay at the level of command moral theory, brevity of the argument to show that the act violates a moral command might measure degree of disobedience. Acts whose wrongness is almost axiomatic would be grave matters. If we move to religious command theory, resources of the religion such as scriptures, tradition and teaching authority are available to specify what comes directly from the religious moral commander.

Note, though, neither the intentions of the agent, the circumstances of the act and consequences of the act are used to determine its gravity. The gravity of an act, thus, seems similar to intrinsic immorality of acts. Gravity, though, is a concept of a relation between the act and the moral commander; thus, not only about features intrinsic to the act. Independently of the performance of an act, there is a degree of command relation between the moral commander and the act. There is a varying degree of directness of command. That relation prior to performance is measured by moral gravity. There is a declining scale of directness of command by the moral authority of immoral acts.

For instance, Killing someone is directly forbidden by the Fifth Commandment. But punching someone in the face is only a distant implication of this commandment.

Call the performance of an act an “action.” The sinfulness of an action is not an intrinsic feature of the act performed. Sinfulness is a relation between the agent of an action and the moral commander. Sinfulness comes in degrees and it depends upon the intention of the agent and the agent’s circumstances as well as what is done, viz., the matter of the action.

Moral Gravity and Forgiveness of Original Sin

Moral Gravity and Forgiveness of Original Sin

I use this topic to speculate on the Christian Paschal mystery. I try to show that taking gravity -the seriousness – of an offense as an intrinsic feature of the offense is a theologically rich concept although in secular thinking gravity of an offense is extrinsic.

A fruitful opening question runs “Is an intrinsically grave wrong forgivable?” We turn away from legal and ordinary moral thinking because there are no intrinsically grave acts for those ways of thinking. For in legal and everyday moral thinking gravity depends upon the harm done by the act and the intention of the actor to do harm in the circumstance.

In the previous post, it was proposed that by interpreting moral rules as divine commands, we might be able to develop a concept of intrinsically grave wrong. Consider the following working definition.

An act is an intrinsically grave wrong if it is direct disobedience of a command of God. In the Judaic-Christian myth, Eve’s eating the apple was a grave wrong despite the triviality of eating an apple and Eve’s good intention to attain knowledge of good and evil. On the tempter’s suggestion, she directly with full consent of her will disobeyed God’s command. Adam endorsed and participated in the disobedience. So, at our beginning, humanity, represented by Adam and Eve, has directly willed to disobey God’s commands. So, from our beginning we are guilty of grave wrongs. For what Adam and Eve’s choice represents is each of us, except Mary mother of Jesus, accepting as a live option choosing evil – defiance of God – as a means to good.

How can God forgive us for that?

Consideration of what is involved in direct defiance of God, shows what might be needed to forgive such a wrong. Direct disobedience of a command of God is to will not to be as God wills us to be. However, willing not to be as God wills us to be is to will not to be at all. For what God does not will is nothing. So, Adam and Eve willed not to be – that is total evil: complete lack of any being.

I am using a command theory of morality in which choice of wrong requires retributive punishment.

Choice of wrong is choice to have a good inhibited. In general, the retributive punishment for choice of a good not to be is to be deprived of the good one chose to inhibit i.e., not to be. For instance, the apt retributive punishment for choosing death for another in murder is to lose one’s own life. So, in the case of Adam and Eve’s choice of not to be, the suitable retributive punishment is not to be. But, in this model of original sin, based on the Adam and Eve myth, Adam and Eve chose for humanity. The punishment, then, would be the annihilation of humanity.

God forgave Adam and Eve, viz., humanity, by not requiring of us the evil of annihilation that we have chosen. But how might God have forgiven the punishment? God gave humanity free will. Humanity used free will to choose not to be. Letting the choice of a free will come about is a great good because free will is a great good. So, God would not hinder the choice of humanity to be annihilated. But annihilation of humanity would be an evil – lack of being for all humans. God loves, wills the good, of humans. So, God wills that human not be annihilated as they have chosen.

How can God protect us from our punishment of annihilation which we have chosen? God becomes incarnate as a the human Jesus. In Jesus’ execution, human nature was annihilated as a punishment, Jesus’ death was more than our deaths. Jesus’s death was total annihilation. Jesus suffered exceedingly. As a man he suffered horrible biological death on the cross. After biological death, he suffered the total evil -non being- of annihilation which is hell. Only God who sustains all things in being could have had human nature annihilated, kept humans in existence and then re-created human nature.

Intrinsic Gravity and Divine Command Morality

Is Moral Gravity Intrinsic to Acts

In this post, I reconsider previous posts in which I treated moral gravity as a feature which depended upon subjective reactions to what was done and the harm produced by what was done. From that perspective moral gravity is extrinsic to the act done – the so-called object of the action. This reconsideration reinforces the previous view that for moral, legal and ordinary judgments about wrongdoing, gravity is extrinsic to object of the act.

However, there is the prospect that for divine command morality, gravity is intrinsic to some acts. This is an intriguing proposal for those of us who favor interpreting morality as divine commands. Simply representing morality as divine commands is not especially interesting. It would be of more interest to construct a model of morality as divine commands which yielded all of secular morality plus some additional rules requiring the religious interpretation of morality.

I start my reviewing four basic concepts for evaluating actions.

1. The intention of the person doing the action (-the actor)
2. The circumstances in which the act is done or to be done.
3. The object of the action – a characterization of the act – the object of the choice
4. The consequences of what is done or to be done.

An action is intrinsically wrong if the object of choice is wrong regardless of the intention, circumstances or consequences. Let’s illustrate use of these concepts with two thefts: Shoplifting a $.25 candy bar from a UDF convenience store and robbing the store at gunpoint of all $250 in its cash register.

Case one

Actor: 9-year-old boy
Intention: To get the candy bar to enjoy eating it.
Object: Taking what belongs to another – stealing
Circumstances: Normal activity of a convenience both before and after the theft
Consequences: Insignificant loss of revenue for the store but boy’s character is corrupted by starting him on the way to being a thief.

Case two

Actor: 19-year-old youth (boy of case one ten years later)
Intention: to get the cash to enjoy the drugs the case can buy
Object: Taking what belongs to another – stealing
Circumstances: Use of a deadly weapon
Consequences: Fairly significant loss to the store and traumatization of the cashier

There could be much discussion about the characterization of these four features. The characterizations would influence the moral judgments about the actions. Even if use of these four marks does not settle moral disputes about actions, they provide a framework for specifying the topic of disagreements. In these two cases, I think that it is fair to characterize the objects of choice very broadly as simply theft with no mention of intentions. For my goal is to investigate whether we can plausibly characterize the object as grave in both cases.

If gravity were intrinsic to some actions, I think that there would be some objects of actions which are intrinsically grave. An object of an action would be intrinsically grave if it were grave independently of any circumstances, intentions or consequences of the action. In particular, in these two cases the gravity of the thefts would depend only upon the object which is stealing. So if the $250 theft at gunpoint is a grave wrong, then so is the $.25 pilfering of a candy bar. Alternatively, if the candy bar theft is not grievously wrong, neither is the armed robbery.

A conclusion that both acts are equally bad certainly conflicts with legal policy. There are all sorts of degrees of misdemeanors and felonies. Morality and common-sense reject ignoring the amount stolen in deciding upon the seriousness of the crime.

Zero-tolerance policies propose that all violations of a rule receive an identical harsh punishment. But zero-tolerance policies clash with morality and common sense and the burden of proof is upon them to justify making seriousness intrinsic to the act.

Ordinary morality is in a state of confusion about abortion in July of 2022. Still, it is easy to appreciate how some who think that abortion is morally wrong tentatively believe that gestational time of the fetus is relevant to the moral gravity of an abortion. Gestational time is extrinsic to the act of aborting.

So, if some acts are intrinsically grave, the gravity must be determined by factors beyond secular morality. I propose exploring divine commands as that which makes certain violations intrinsically grave.

Why the Function of Sexuality Is a Moral Purpose

My moral defense of sexual privacy me to a break-through in how to justify and defend principles of traditional sexual morality. I finally employed the improved way of thinking about sexual morality which I have been developing in these blog posts in the eight years since I published my book, Confronting Sexual Nihilism. *

In Confronting Sexual Nihilism, I faced a theoretical problem challenging all of us who, in the last analysis, morally condemn a wide range of sexual acts as frustrating the natural function of the acts in question. In general, though, frustrating natural functions is morally accepted and, indeed, morally required. So, why, select from the innumerable morally neutral natural functions of natural functions the procreative and bonding function of human coitus as morally significant? Note in passing, that the problem is not about selecting procreation and bonding as THE function or main function. The main functions of most natural systems are also morally neutral.

In my book, I tried to solve the selection problem in a theoretically unsatisfactory way. I made an empirical case with anecdotal evidence that if we regarded our sexuality as too trivial for moral control or too animalistic for moral control, we alienated our sexuality from ourselves as moral beings. Then, assuming that sexual alienation was a bad condition, I justified taking a stance that the function of human coitus was a moral purpose. I did not answer why sexual alienation was a bad condition needing moral correction.

The selection of procreation and male female bonding purposes of coitus as morally significant requires argument that these purposes are basic human goods. It is not enough merely to observe that they are natural purposes. I believe that after careful reflection on natural facts about human sexuality a persuasive case can be made that these purposes are basic human goods. However, because the arguments require reflection on natural facts, I concede that intelligent people may not be persuaded. This lack of persuasive power arises because the notion of basic human good is tenditious. Basic human goods are obligatory goods. This means that we ought to pursue them and ought never act to inhibit them. It is the obligatory goodness which some might not accept. Obligatory goodness entails the notion of intrinsically immoral act. Intrinsically immoral acts are those intentionally inhibitingbasic goodness.

The selection problem for naturalistic sexual morality is solvable. But not without hard work. There is theoretical work in moral theory to establish a theory with a notion of obligatory goods. There is empirical work of making a case that procreation and life long male female bonding are obligatory goods.

* A free copy of my book can be ordered at kielkopf.1@osu.edu

Real Moral Rules Come From No One

Real Rules Come From No One

I do not recall any book or article in which someone claims that we lose freedom if we accept moral rules which we have not made ourselves. So, here I am responding to remarks I have read or heard about contemporary opinion with regard to admitting being bound by moral rules which they have not made. Of course, if one makes up a moral rule by himself, it is not a moral rule. For rules one makes up for oneself can be revoked. Moral rules cannot be revoked.

Can rules restrict freedom? Of course, rules for any community or institution to which we belong, voluntarily or involuntarily, restrict our freedom by threatening sanctions if we do not obey. Nominally we are free to choose to accept the sanction. But freedom under threat of a sanction is not in general a freedom worth wanting.

Of course, if we are the boss who makes up the rules for the business or community, the rules do not restrict our freedom. The rules are for restriction of the employees or citizens’ freedom.

All of the rules for institutions and communities are objective. They are objective in the sense that it is a fact that such-and-such is a rule or not. Let’s call these rules natural rules because the rule makers are part of the natural world even if the rule comes from the traditions of a community.

So, people who think objective moral rules restrict their freedom, are thinking of objective moral rules as natural rules. From this perspective accepting objective moral rules is accepting as having our whole life being subject to the will of some rule giver. There is no escape such as going to another community or coming home from work where we are free of the work rules. Our whole life is bondage.

What are the implications of this type of mentality for my project of justifying moral rules?
When I try to justify a moral rule, I should raise considerations which lead me, my readers or listeners to accept the moral rule as irrevocable. Allegations that some authority commands these rules tends to undercut the case for the rules.

Only after we have accepted the rule as irrevocably binding may we ask what the source of these rules might be. An answer that the rules are divine commands is only a metaphysical interpretation of the rules. A divine foundation for morality is not an essential part of any argument for a moral rule.

Some natural functions can be selected as morally protected purposes

Male female bonding and the selection problem.

My moral defense of sexual privacy led me to a break-through in how to justify and defend principles of traditional sexual morality. I finally employed the improved way of thinking about sexual morality which I have been developing in these blog posts since I published my book, Confronting Sexual Nihilism * in 2014.

In Confronting Sexual Nihilism, I faced a theoretical problem challenging all of us who, in the last analysis, morally condemn a wide range of sexual acts as frustrating the natural function of the acts in question. In general, though, frustrating natural functions is morally accepted and, indeed, morally required. So, why, select from the innumerable morally neutral natural functions of natural functions the procreative and bonding function of human coitus as morally significant? Note in passing, that the problem is not about selecting procreation and bonding as THE function or main function. The main functions of most natural systems are also morally neutral.

In my book, I tried to solve the selection problem in a theoretically unsatisfactory way. I made an empirical case with anecdotal evidence that if we regarded our sexuality as too trivial for moral control or too animalistic for moral control, we alienated our sexuality from ourselves as moral beings. Then, assuming that sexual alienation was a bad condition, I justified taking a stance that the function of human coitus was a moral purpose. I did not answer why sexual alienation was a bad condition needing moral correction.

The selection of procreation and male female bonding purposes of coitus as morally significant requires argument that these purposes are basic human goods. It is not enough merely to observe that they are natural purposes. I believe that after careful reflection on natural facts about human sexuality a persuasive case can be made that these purposes are basic human goods. However, because the arguments require reflection on natural facts, I concede that intelligent people may not be persuaded.

This lack of persuasive power arises because the notion of basic human good is tenditious. Basic human goods are obligatory goods. This means that we ought to pursue them and ought never act to inhibit them. It is the obligatory goodness which some might not accept. Obligatory goodness entails the notion of intrinsically immoral act. Intrinsically immoral acts are those intentionally inhibiting basic goodness.

The selection problem for naturalistic sexual morality is solvable. But not without hard work. There is theoretical work in moral theory to establish a theory with a notion of obligatory goods. There is empirical work of making a case that procreation and life long male female bonding are obligatory goods.

* A free copy of my book can be ordered at kielkopf.1@osu.edu

Limits and Importance of the Law of Love

In Matthew 22:37-40, of the New International Version, we read the following.

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

How does the moral law “hang on” these two commandments? For instance, can we use these two commandments to decide that premarital sex is immoral? No, but they do tell us that there is an objectively correct answer to the question and God has determined the objectively correct answer.

To love is to will the good of the other. We cannot choose that things good for God happen to God for nothing bad could happen to God So, to will good for God is to will, or always try to will, the good God wills. The good God wills for people is lives in accordance with the moral laws since lives in accordance with moral laws are good lives for humans. For God always wills what is good.

Next, to love our neighbors as ourselves is to will for them the same good life we will for ourselves when we correctly will what is good for ourselves. Hence, to love our neighbors as ourselves is to will, or try always to will, that all of us live in accordance with the moral laws God has laid out for human beings.

The limits of the two laws of love are that they do not tell us any definite moral rules. And, of immense significance, they do not tell us that any feelings of love are a guide to morally correct behavior. The importance of the laws of love are that they tell us that there are objectively true moral answers and getting and following these right answers lead to good human lives.

How God’s Commands are in Human Nature

Here “human nature” does not stand for a type which can be defined. As a type or form human nature is a timeless abstraction which is in no place. What is in the type is there by definition. For this post, human nature is that in reality which are the humans – the human part of nature. Perhaps, “humanity would be a better term. If we think of the type or form of human nature, no definition of this type would imply that humans fight endless wars. Humans are not necessarily by definition warlike. So, being warlike is not in the type human nature. But in actuality humans are warlike. So, even if it is a contingent fact that we fight endless wars, we can say that being warlike is natural for humans.

Humanity does not have a fixed spatial location. Humans might leave planet earth. Humanity has a temporal location. Humanity began when God gave a species of hominids moral souls. In this connection see: Supernatural Origin of the Human Soul. Human nature as humanity will cease to be if the human beings become extinct.

Human nature is a complex reality which includes radically different levels of reality. There is, of course, the physical reality of individual living human beings. The bodies of humans have definite spatial locations at any time. Individual humans have thoughts and feelings which can be dated but which have only an imprecise spatial location as in the vicinity of the thinking and feeling body. There are the vast intermingled collective thoughts and, I say, feelings of human beings. Some of these collections can be given imprecise spatial and temporal locations. For instance, the religious beliefs of an isolated tribe may imprecisely be located where the tribe lives. But they cannot be located as in the vicinity of individuals as can the religious thoughts of those individuals.

But there are other thoughts and sentiments or the capacity for them which are common to all individuals and cultures. Here I would emphasize that the universal thoughts and sentiments as residing primarily in the cultures because they do not come into existence and pass away as does the thinking of feeling of individuals. The universal thoughts and feelings could be called reason. However, labelling them as reason is not to classify all of them as correct.

God’s placed His commands in the reason of this complex reality of humanity. How? God gave human beings the capacity to think and feel morally. The capacity to think morally is primarily the capacity to think that what is good is to be promoted and never directly inhibited. The capacity to feel morally is primarily the capacity to desire ends God has intended for humans. The divinely intended ends are the goods which ought to be promoted and never inhibited. Human beings use reason to articulate basic universal moral imperatives to the effect that the basic goods God intends are to be promoted and never inhibited. Moral thinking and feeling is the crucial part of humanity for uncovering and articulating these divine commands.

The articulation, which includes justifying the articulation, is a human achievement. However, man is not the measure of all things because God’s commanding is the intending of the ends for humans. Our uncovering and articulating is a response to what God intends.

Can we be absolutely certain that what has been articulated as God’s commands are indeed what God commands? When we actually provided a defense for an articulation of a moral command we can be very confident that we have “got it right.” However, when we raise this question about absolute certainty, in abstraction from considering any argument, we can only reply as in the case of getting it right about facts. We cannot know that we know.

But the whole moral order is not given by God. The whole moral order consists of basic moral laws which, as I just wrote, can be understood as response to what God intends. But rules on how to implement basic moral laws in particular circumstances can be understood as human constructions which very from place to place.

But there are other moral laws which are human constructions and are also universal. These are the moral laws requiring correction for violation of moral laws. They can be called laws of justice. In general they prescribe that some harm ought to be done. I once called these rules of justice ad hoc moral laws. See Making ad hoc moral laws. I need to elaborate much more on what I have just called the moral order. But the purpose of this post is only to specify the foundational part of this order as given by God.