A BRIEF ABDUCTIVE ARGUMENT FOR THEISTIC ETHICS

Mark Murphy (2011) argues that natural theory (NLT) is not a viable theistic explanation of moral law (TEM).1 Murphy thinks that NLT does not meet the immediacy desiderata which he takes to be crucial for a viable TEM. I argue that Murphy is mistaken with respect to the immediacy desiderata for a viable theistic explanation of moral law. Murphy incorrectly characterizes the NLT position and his arguments rest on two false premises. I show that when properly understood, NLT does satisfy immediacy. The paper proceeds as follows: First, I discuss Murphy's account of a viable TEM, focusing on the immediacy desiderata. Second, I present Mur- phy's objection to NLT from its failure to satisfy the immediacy desiderata. Third, I argue that Murphy is mistaken on two accounts: First, Murphy's argument against NLT rests on a false premise: that NLT entails that the goodness of created goods exists independent of God (e.g. that there is some sort of competition between our loyalty to created goods and God). I present a defense of NLT as a viable TEM in light a clear understanding of the view. I show that God is not in competition with his creation and the NLT position is not analogous to mere conservationism. The NLT position denies that there is such a thing as existential inertia, or that there can be causal activity independent of God, and that it's not the case that God merely sustains substances in existence. Rather, I will explicate the divine premotion view which I take to be more representative of the natural law position, in order to show that Murphy's criticism of NLT as a viable TEM fails.

International journal of philosophy of religion , 2025

Noah McKay (2023) has proposed a novel argument against naturalism. He argues that while theism can explain our ability to arrive at a body of moral beliefs that are generally accurate and complete', naturalism fails to do so. He argues that naturalism has only social and biological grounds to account for our moral beliefs, which means that naturalism can only claim pragmatic value for our moral beliefs. McKay dedicates his paper to arguing against naturalism. This paper will focus on theism and examine whether theism can explain what naturalism cannot. Theism could rely on guided evolution or the miraculous intervention of God. In contrast to naturalism, theism has revelatory and supernatural grounds for our moral beliefs. This paper will demonstrate some of the challenges that these grounds would encounter. Finally, McKay's argument implies a dichotomy between unguided evolution and theism, which rests on a problematic assumption about evolutionary theory; by abandoning the assumption, the dichotomy also dissolves.

Journal of Islamic Thought and Civilization

In this article, the author examines the dependence of ethics on theistic foundations. The Western conception is that ethics is a result of a natural evolutionary process. The Modern West has never accepted or believed in any ethical system governed by religion, and modernity has tried to establish that the universal moral principles are independent of any metaphysical context. The modernity project and rising secularization have taken charge of the field, and religious significance has gone absent from the mainstream, on account of which many challenges have occurred in moral and ethical matters. We will also examine whether Modern Western Civilization has established an ethical code independent of religion and whether we should follow the Western Model, if any. Moreover, this article examines how ethics is a cause and consequence of the development of personality, and no ethical system is ever there without any religious foundations. Human beings are built on the essence of servit...

2009

Many believe that objective morality requires a theistic foundation. I maintain that there are sui generis objective ethical facts that do not reduce to natural or supernatural facts. On my view, objective morality does not require an external foundation of any kind. After explaining my view, I defend it against a variety of objections posed by William Wainwright, William Lane Craig, and J. P. Moreland.

"The scientific revolutions of the nineteenth century had major repercussions on Western moral philosophy. In the Christian tradition, God had been assigned two special roles: first as the creator of the world, including humanity; and second as its moral legislator, overseeing the actions of each person and distributing rewards or punishments according to whether they conformed to a divinely-sanctioned universal moral law. If this view were correct, people would have a clear, pragmatic reason to try to live well: they would gain the favour of God and be rewarded in the afterlife. However, since the case for the creator God’s existence had been undermined, the existence of a divine and all-knowing legislator could no longer be assumed. This led some philosophers to conclude that the language of morality was ultimately meaningless. Moral philosophers who were sceptical about God's existence faced several difficult questions. Why, if at all, should we be interested in doing ‘the right thing’? How can any version of morality have sufficient authority for anyone to have reasons, and especially decisive reasons, to behave according to it? Are there any distinctively moral reasons at all? If the decision to act morally is really pragmatic—that is, we refrain from lying, cheating and stealing because we will otherwise be punished—is the content of morality, or the specific rules that we ought to follow, ultimately arbitrary? This presentation will describe some of the ways in which moral philosophers have responded to the (possible) absence of a divine legislator. Among the theories discussed will be utilitarianism, which is the doctrine of promoting human happiness, developed as a scientifically-grounded alternative to dogmatic rule-following; natural law theory, which says that morality is derivable from facts about human nature; and constructivism, which says that moral authority is created by means of rational procedures. As we will see, the central challenge for each set of theorists is to locate the source of moral authority not in some external entity, but within the very people who are supposed to be answerable to it."

European Journal for Philosophy of Religion

In this paper I argue that theism provides the best explanation of the reality of Justice and Moral Law. I defend this position using 5 propositions: 1. The nature of Justice exceeds historically contingent laws. 2. A necessary requirement of justice and moral action is free will which is incompatible with Scientific naturalism. 3. Many leading atheist philosophers have agreed that without God there is no objective standard of morality (eg Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Sartre, Foucault, Zizek), 4. If God does exist the ultimate real is objective Goodness. 5.The Moral argument in providing an ontological ground of Goodness, at the same time overcomes objections raised by the presence of evil and suffering in the world.

In this paper the question of God’s necessity for morality is examined from an ontological perspective. Two ways of answering “no” to the question are explored in section one: reductionistic ethical naturalism, and non-theistic ethical non-naturalism. The former is found to end with a reduced conception of morality, while the latter, though remaining non-theistic, posits a ground of reality somehow capable of making ethical facts true without providing an account of what it is about that reality that achieves this. Three ways of answering “yes” to the question are then explored in part two: a combination of theistic platonism and divine command theory, theistic essentialism, and a non-theistic religious theory. The first theory vacillates between understanding God as a concrete particular and ultimate value in a problematic way. The second theory attempts to root morality in God’s essence but is found not to succeed. And finally, the third theory is found to be the most satisfactory by being able to assimilate many of the insights of all prior theories while avoiding their pitfalls. This theory does so largely because of an understanding of God not as an existing being—one that is either the source of morality or subordinate to an ultimate value—but being-itself.

This paper has three parts; in the first, I look at the role that God plays as an explainer of morality. In the second part, I ask what difference Christianity makes to us, as practical and moral agents. In the third part I ask about God’s communication of normative matters to us.

2009