On Divine Command Theory
Divine command theory states since God is the creator of all we are and see, what is right, is right because God said its right. Which would mean what is right is completely and utterly independent of what we think. It is God's opinion of what is right that matters. Now this doesn't just apply to Christianity, or any of the Semitic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam). Every religion has these dictates and breaking them will have negative consequences.
But there are a couple of faults with this line of thinking. Since the majority of the class' readings are on Christianity that is there focus of this paper will be.
One claim is that the Bible is inconsistent. In the Old Testament book of Leviticus the laws of kosher eating are set down. You can't eat pigs, you can't eat dairy with meat, and you can't eat grapes that weren't grown by the Jewish people. The interesting thing about the pork is that according to an anthropologist since pigs at the time were basically the garbage disposals and as such they were given the leftover meat, this lead to the pigs getting trichinosis and when the pig wasn't cooked all the way through eating the meat would lead to the eater getting trichinosis.
But in the New Testament Jesus says "For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (Mark 7:19). Does this mean that the word of God can be overturned? God laid down a pretty hard law against eating foods that weren't Kosher. But in the book of Acts god tells Peter "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean" (Acts 10:15). Does this mean God can change his mind? Did God upon hearing Jesus declare all foods clean say to himself, "You know, I've been craving some bacon. I guess it's all good now." That makes things inconsistent.
The other problematic aspect of Christian Divine Command Theory is that it is practically unlivable. The bar is set so high that most people can't live up to it. When it was said "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalms 51:5), and when Jesus said "Above all else guard your heart" (Proverbs 4:23) means the field of people who are getting into God's good graces are pretty thin. If a sinful thought can condemn a man even if he doesn't act on it the only people getting saved are infants, the brain damaged, and the lobotomized.
But in the Old Testament the greatest men were flawed in some way or another. Adam and Eve couldn't follow one simple rule which was not to eat the fruit from the tree of Knowledge (I have to wonder why the tree was there in the first place). Noah was a drunk, David couldn't keep it in his pants, and Moses - considered the greatest of the Jewish people - committed a murder. A murder that would be considered a justifiable homicide in today's courts still kept him out of the Promised Land. And yet these are considered the greatest men of the bible. Wouldn't it stand to reason if only the purest can get into the kingdom of heaven that these men would be condemned for their acts?
This leads me to two possible conclusions. Either God knows that he has set his standards too high and allows for some leeway, or there is a major problem with the messengers of the good word. I consider it a distinct possibility that in reading the rules set forth in the Bible, the people reading it set the bar too high for themselves and thus set the bar too high for everyone.
But this is not just limited to Christianity. It could be argued that all religions have this problem and in those cultures there is someone there to point out the discrepancies in the theory as it applies to those religions.
That is however not to say that the theory is wrong, it's just flawed. All theories have their weak points and while the laws followed by Divine Command Theory are arguably handed down by God the theory itself was written by humans, and as most religious writings state, humans are flawed, and after reading the scriptures their interpretation is flawed. So it would stand to reason that our theories are flawed too. After all, nobody's perfect.
But there are a couple of faults with this line of thinking. Since the majority of the class' readings are on Christianity that is there focus of this paper will be.
One claim is that the Bible is inconsistent. In the Old Testament book of Leviticus the laws of kosher eating are set down. You can't eat pigs, you can't eat dairy with meat, and you can't eat grapes that weren't grown by the Jewish people. The interesting thing about the pork is that according to an anthropologist since pigs at the time were basically the garbage disposals and as such they were given the leftover meat, this lead to the pigs getting trichinosis and when the pig wasn't cooked all the way through eating the meat would lead to the eater getting trichinosis.
But in the New Testament Jesus says "For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (Mark 7:19). Does this mean that the word of God can be overturned? God laid down a pretty hard law against eating foods that weren't Kosher. But in the book of Acts god tells Peter "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean" (Acts 10:15). Does this mean God can change his mind? Did God upon hearing Jesus declare all foods clean say to himself, "You know, I've been craving some bacon. I guess it's all good now." That makes things inconsistent.
The other problematic aspect of Christian Divine Command Theory is that it is practically unlivable. The bar is set so high that most people can't live up to it. When it was said "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalms 51:5), and when Jesus said "Above all else guard your heart" (Proverbs 4:23) means the field of people who are getting into God's good graces are pretty thin. If a sinful thought can condemn a man even if he doesn't act on it the only people getting saved are infants, the brain damaged, and the lobotomized.
But in the Old Testament the greatest men were flawed in some way or another. Adam and Eve couldn't follow one simple rule which was not to eat the fruit from the tree of Knowledge (I have to wonder why the tree was there in the first place). Noah was a drunk, David couldn't keep it in his pants, and Moses - considered the greatest of the Jewish people - committed a murder. A murder that would be considered a justifiable homicide in today's courts still kept him out of the Promised Land. And yet these are considered the greatest men of the bible. Wouldn't it stand to reason if only the purest can get into the kingdom of heaven that these men would be condemned for their acts?
This leads me to two possible conclusions. Either God knows that he has set his standards too high and allows for some leeway, or there is a major problem with the messengers of the good word. I consider it a distinct possibility that in reading the rules set forth in the Bible, the people reading it set the bar too high for themselves and thus set the bar too high for everyone.
But this is not just limited to Christianity. It could be argued that all religions have this problem and in those cultures there is someone there to point out the discrepancies in the theory as it applies to those religions.
That is however not to say that the theory is wrong, it's just flawed. All theories have their weak points and while the laws followed by Divine Command Theory are arguably handed down by God the theory itself was written by humans, and as most religious writings state, humans are flawed, and after reading the scriptures their interpretation is flawed. So it would stand to reason that our theories are flawed too. After all, nobody's perfect.