Particular Divine Moral Commands

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Hebbiethwaite, Brian. Christian Ethlcs in the Modern Age. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1982. Henry,Carl F. H. Christian Personal Ethics. Gmnd Rap& MI: Eerdmans, 1957. Hudson. W. D. Ethical Intuitlonism. New York:St. Martin's Press, 1969. Idziak, Janine Marie. "In Search of'Good Positive Reasons' for an Ethics of Divine Commands: A Catalogue of Arguments." Faith and Philosophy 6 (January 1989): 47-64. Kretzmann, Norman. "Abraham, Isaac,and Euthyphro: God and the BaJis of Morality," in Hamartia: The Concept of Error in the Western Tmdition, ed. by D o ~ l dV. Stump et al., 27-50. New York: Edwh Mellen Press, 1983. Lewis, C. S. 'On Ethics," Christian Reflections. Gmnd Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1967. Mann, William E. "Modality, Morality,and God." Nous 23 (1989):83-99. Madntyre, Ahsdair. After Virtue. Notre Dame IN:University of Notre Dame Press, 1981. Phillips, Davi Z. 'Gcd and Ought," in Christian Ethlcs and Contempomy Philosophy, ed. Ian T. h e y , 133-39. New York: Ma&, 1966. price, Richard. A Revleu, of the Principle Questions in Morals. Oxford: Chrendon Press, 1948; orlg., 1758. Quinn. PhiUo. Divine Commands and Mom1 Requirements. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1978. . "The Recent Revival of Divine Command Ethks." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (Fall. 1990): 34565. Ross, W. D. The Right and the Good. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930. Salmon. Wesley. The Foundatlons of Scientific Inference. F'ittsburgh: University of Piksburgh Press, 1967. Simon, Caroline J. "On Defending a M o d Synthetic a prlorf." The Southern Journal of Phllosophy (Summer 1988): 217-34. . "The lntuitionbt Argument." The Southern Journal of Philosophy (Spring 1990): 91-114. S w i n h e , R. G. "Duty and the Wi of God,"in Divine Commands and Momllty, ed. Paul Helm, 120-34. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981. Verhey, Allen. The Great Rewrsal: Ethics and the New Testament. Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1984. Williams, Bernard. Morality: An Introduction of Ethlcs. New York: Harper & Row, 1972. 'Ethical Consistency," and "Consistency and Realism,"in Problems of the Self, 166-206. Lodon: Cambridge University Press, 1973. -

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Particular Divine Moral Commands David €3. Fletcher

In Christian practice, believers often claim to have experiences in which God reveaIs hi' will to them. Among these experiences are those of God commanding them to undertake certain courses of action in particukr situations. Experiences of perceiving God issuing commands vary in degrees of clarity, intensity, and frequency. In biblical faith, believem report c o d to build arks, to leave home and set out for a Promised Land, to defy Phamohs, to go to baffle against God's enemies, to preach, to found religious orders, and to do many other extraordinary or ordinary deeds. Some of these commands concern actions that, prior to the command at least, are momlly neutral or merely permissible, neither impermissible nor mandatory; if their performance is to be regarded as a m o d obligation it is because doing so falls under the category of obedience to God. An example of such a command would be God's direction to Abraham to leave Ur and go to the promised land (Genesis 12) or to Jonah to preach in Nineveh (Jonah 1).Other commands concern actions which prior to being commanded had been either forbidden or mandatoly. Receiving the command, the believer now must adjust her moral beliefs and behaviors to conform to the divine decree, so that, for example, a permissible act becomes mandatory or impermissible, a mandatory act becomes merely permissible or even impermissible, or an impermissible act becomes permissible or even mandatoy. If there are supererogatory acts, they might become mandatory if God enjoins them. These particular,casespecific moral directives may be called partfcular divine moral commands (PDMCs). A dramatic, if unchamctajstic biblical example is God's command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac (Genesis 22). This command made mandatory an othenvise impermissible action, but was retracted before Abraham could fulfill it. In more familiar and less troublesome cases, a believer might perceive God as having directed him to

'Throughout I will follow the convention of referringb God with the m i n e pronoun.

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reconcile with an enemy by whom he has been unjustly treated or to refuse to register for military service. Despite the fad that they seem to figure rather promindy in the lives of many believers, PDMCs have not atbacted their share of the philosophical attention that has been paid to divine command morality in general. Typically, divine command theorlsts are interested in the status of m o d norms, and the extent to which these standards might gain their meaning or justification from their being commanded by God. William Frankena characterizes a divine command morality as one for whidr "religious or theological premises are sufficient to justify losically some or all ethical principles."* As n o m or principles, these general action-guidiing standards range over many possible cases. For the divine command theorist, God is usually pictured as delivering the norms such as those of the Decalogue, rather than as commandi that particular moral ads be done by specific individuals in particular cases. With the notable exception of the literature surrounding Kierkegaard's treatment of the Abraham-Isaac incident in Fear and Trembling, little direct and sustained attention has been paid by philosophers to specific divine m o d directives3 Such experience merit our attention since they play a significant role in the HebrewChlistian badition and in the lives of many believers. Scriptural examples include St. Peter's experience of being released from Jewish dietary restrictions by the vision of the great sheet of forbidden animals lowered from the sky, accompanied by the Lord's command to "kill and eat" (Acts 11).In Christian histoy, St. Fmcis perceived a call of God to renounce worldly luxuy, and today's believer may hear God's call to reject a lucrative job offer to accept a position in a legal aid clinic to work on behalf of the poor. In other cases, a believer might undergo not a change in the content of her moral beliefs, but a strengthening or reaffirmation in these beliefs, on the basis of an experience of God issuing moral guidance. Similarly, she may come to have a moral belief weakened on the basis of such an experience. In either case, she may retain a belief but hold it with a different degree of conviction than she had done before, or she

might be more willing to allow it to override or be wemdden by conflicting beliefs in partiah ethical situations! Let us call a PDMC experience one in which a subject S experiences God issuing a command, on the basis of which a parttdar action X is to be regarded as either mandatory, impermissible, or permissible. The PDMC thesis is the position that S is justified on the basis of what she takes to be a PDMC experience to believe that X is, for example, mandatory, and to adjust her beliefs and pmctices accordingly. So,when S has an experience in which she takes herself to have received a PDMC she then is to revise her moral scheme to take account of this and to give the m o d belief based on the PDMC a particular status relative to her other beliefs. How justifiible are ckims to m o d knowledge made on the basis of reported PDMC experiences, and how acceptable is the PDMC thesis itself? Wouid it ever be ratiod for S to regard herself as having recejvd a PDMC, and on the basis of thii experience to revise her ethical judgments and moml behavior to accord with it? could a believer be m n a b l e in revisii her settled moral judgments on the basis of a PDMC experience, or would she rather be more reasonable to question the experience itself in order to retain her previous, presumably well-corsiderd ethical views? Were God adually to reveal his m o d will, many believers would ~ t u r a U yregard such a revelation as authoritative, but can PDMC experiences be taken to be reliable sources of rev&tion? To tackle this issue in another way, why woukl someone object to a be liever's coming to form a mod belief on the basis of a PDMC experience? Two sorts of concern arise. Fmt, many philosophers will deny that it is ever justifiable to form beliefs about God and his ways, mod or otherwise, based on a religious experience. To such thinkers a belief that Gcd has issued a PDMC is never a justified one, and thus a person who accepts that God has revealed his will on m o d mattes and adjusts her other beliefs to accord with it is never justified in doing so. This of m e is only a spechl case of the question of the rationality of forming beliefs on the basii of religiw experiences.

william K.Fmnkena, "Is Morality L o g i l y Dependent on Religion?" in Divine Commands and Morality, ed. Paul Helm (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981);emphasii mine. This literature is discussed in Philip L.Quinn, Diuine Commands and Moml Requirements (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).

'For a discussion of the related issue of moral experience as a basis for m o d knowledge, see William Tolhurst, 'On the Epistemic Value of M o d Expaience," The Southern Journal of Philosophy 29 supplement (1990):67-87; and Walter Siot-Armstrong, " M o d Experience and Jurtifkation," The Southern Journal of Philosophy 29 supplement (19901:89-96.

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Second, even if PDMCs were allowed in principle, individual putative PDMCSseem not to cany with them a guaAtee of authenticity, so some means is needed to screen out cases attributable to selfdeception and other sources of error. While St. Francis of Assiii might daim to have received a PDMC to espouse a life of holy simplicity, SO might Jim Jones daim to have been commanded to lead his followers into mass suidde. In many seds today, children are severely "disciplined" or denied necessary medical care because of such "revelations," and people claim PDMG that require them to obey or offer f i i c i a l support to particular leader. Is it possible to accept the revelation to St. Francis while rejecting the "revelation" to Jones? Are they equally to be rejected or equally worthy of acceptance? The existence of at least some spurious experiences raises questions of discernment between the genuine and the counterfeit. Thii is of special practical import, furthermore, because not merely his beliefs but also the believer's conduct in the world will be affected by the belief produced by the experience. Holders of the PDMC thesis have reason to seek criteria to distinguish "Fmciscan PDMCs" from "Jonesian PDMCs." The task then will be to relate the deliverance of the PDMC to the network of m o d beliefs already held. Is S justified in taking the PDMC as authoritative, or must it somehow be checked and possibly corrected by appeal to that network? In short, the PDMC thesis faces problems, some having to do with the believer's daim to have had an experience of God with cognitive content, and others that arise as we try to distinguish Fmndscan from Jonesian PDMG and to integrate the deliverances of Fmciscan PDMCs into a rationally acceptable ethic. Regarding the former concern, William P. Alston has argued on behalf ofthe justifiibility of the epistemic practice of forming M-beliefs, beliefs about manifestations of God's existence and nature, on the basis of religious experiences? For the purposes of this paper I will limit myself to the other questions concerning criteria and the means of integrating m o d M-beliefs into one's ethical scheme.

to be made on the basis of the PDMC and on the interpretation that should be given to these putative m o d revelations. The wgnitive claims come in three strengths. On (11,the weakest, X is an otherwise merely permissible act that God simply wishes done or avoided. God,in issuing a command, invests X with m o d significance only in the respect that S's perfonning X in this instance falls under the g e n d category of obedience, this is combined with a g e n d claim that one has a m o d obligation to obey God. Examples of (1)include a PDMC that God wishes S to relocate to another city, change jobs, or sail to Nineveh, or that God desires that S refmin from cutting the hair or taking strong drink. While doing X is a m o d matter for S because obedience to God is involved, X remains a merely permissible act in and of itself, and there is no temptation to generalize that God expects other people to regard X as obligatory. PDMCs of this type require no revision of the believer's network of mod beliefs. (2) Accordii to the "modmte" PDMC claim, action X prior to the issuing of the command was either marjdatory, permissible, or impermissible, but the command moves X from its present m o d category into the other category that God has directed. A permissible act is now regarded as impermissible, as was the case with Samson's cutClng his hair or the Hebrew people's eatiing pork. Most striking, if perhaps not the most common, are the cases such as those of Abmham (and alas, of Jim Jones), in which an impermissible act becomes mandatory! On the modetate claim, then, receipt of a PDMC forces the believer to do serious ethical thinking in o d e r to reorder her network of m o d beliefs to make conceptual room for this new and authoritative piece of m o d Information. It is this group of PDMCs that will form the body of the philosophicaUy interesting cases. (3) The strongest PDMC daim poses the greatest challenge to the believer as a mod agent. This daim as advanced by Philip @inn is that PDMG can genemte cases of what he calls "Kierkegaardian conflid."' A

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6For example, St. Augustine foundtroubling the seeming sukide in the biblical case in which the Minded and humllhted Samson pulled the Philistine banquet hall down on himself and his foes, and offered an interpretation that Samson was not +ty of the sin of suicide because the Hob SDirit had secretlu umunanded. him to . . .do this. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologka,Z-2.64.5 (NewGork: Benziger Bra.,

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A PDMC theory is an ethical theory that accepts the PDMC thesis and takes a position on the strength of the claim to moral and religious knowledge is

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1947-1948). % l h P. &on, "Christiin Experience and Christian Belief," in Faith and Rationality, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983)10334.

'Philip L. Quinn,"Moral Obligation, Religious Demand.and Practical Contlkt," in Ratlonality, Rellgious Belief. and Mom1 Commitment, ed. Robert Audi and William J. Wainwright (Ithaca NY:Cornell University Press, 1986)202.

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Kierkegdan conflict, for Quinn, can be s e p in the paradigm case of Abraham and Isaac. This case is not to be understood in terms of God giving Abmharn a new, particular mod obligation (i.e., to sacrifice his son) that conflicts with the establiihed mod obligation not to take the life of the innocent, particularly that of his son. That, of courre, would be an instance. of what we have called the moderate claim. On that modemte daim, Ab* ham's difficulty would be in determining that such a basic, seemingly incontrovertible, e s t a b l i i duty could ever be o v d e n by a M&er duty, and thus in acting on it. Quinn argues, however, that Abraham's mod duty to his son is not overridden by a higher moral duty; this new obligation to kill Isaac rather is a rellgious one. Religious duties derive from God's goodness,a goodness which is "not exdusively m o d goodness." We should not precisely call these commands particular divine moral commands at all ( s h e the duties are not properly speaking moral). They are only "mod commands" in the sense that they make reference to actions normally taken to be in the m o d realm. How do these daims differ in practice? On (1)and (2). putative PDMCs could presumably be checked by appeal to other sources of mod knowledge. Morality is not simply a "set of fiats from the p a r a n o d , " in Monis B. Storer's caustic phrase? On (1)God commands othenvise nonmod actions; should a putative divine command conflict with anything we know about momlity, immediately it will be seen to be a spurious command. This at least is the case if we have prior grounds for believing that God would not command that an evil be done. Claim (2) will have more difficulty in handling the seemingly immod or irrational, putative PDMCs, but it seems to allow in principle for checks on at least those spurious PDMCs which most outrageously conflict with the broader network of moral beliefs. In (3), howarer, we are seemingly left with no way to evaluate putative divine commands. A parucubr c o d would seem to take precedmce over any prior m o d belief, however firmly entrenched in our network, and yet oddly enough would call for no revision of that network, since the revelation is not a new bit of moral knowledge.

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'Morris B. Storer, "A Factual Investigation of the Foundations of Morality," in Humanist Ethics, ed. Monis 8. Storer (8uffdo NY:P r o d e u s Press, 1980)281.

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It will then be important to look for criteria to distinguii Franciscan and Jonesian PDMCs in a PDMC theory that makes c l a i m of types (1)or (2). Type (3)presents a special problem. If there are putative divine commands of that sort, it will be exceediily difficult to check their credenthls. It is not clear what would be allowed to stand agaimt the claim that X be done since we are debarred from using the factthat X is momlly euil for this purpose.

Alasdair Maclntyre has argued that any putative commands that can only be followed with "divided mind, feelings, or wUI" simply cannot be from Gcd. and that in fact "it is incompatible with the nature of this God that he should every command" such things. It is theologldy ruled out that "obedience to the divine command" could be "combined with a justified judgment that in some respects it was bad to do what God commanded. Anyone who takes this to be losicauy possible has failed to distinguish adequately between God and J~piter."~ For the believer to "distinguish between God and Jupiter" (or her own fantasies), she must have some prior idea as to what God w d or would not command morally. It is difficult to im@w Abraham's knowing that indeed it is God speaking in a PDMC that directs him to hansgress a clear. important, and nonoverridden duty. However, I fear that M h t y r e ' s suggestion foredoses the possibility of God issuing sovereign initiatives. Gcd on thii view is limited to saying only what we expect Him to say, what preexisting m o d beliefs, that in effect renders it probable for there to be any genuinely informative PDMCs. Maclntyre's insight, however, is at least this: any putative PDMC must at least be open in prindple to evaluative a m parison with other things -we know, morally or theologidy. In particubr, there is r e i o n for extreme caution when an impermissible action is taken to be permissible or mandatory on the basis of a PDMC experience. I believe that it is intellectual and moral suicide to allow that God an command things that are plainly repugnant to the Christian conscimm, particularly that conscience as expressed in the consensus of the historical Christian community. Whenever people claim genuine knowledge of external reality based on their own subjective experiences, there will be perceived a need to specify

'AlaSdair Maclntyre, "Which God Ought We to Obey and Why?" kith and Philosophy 3/4 (odober 1986):362.

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criteria that will distinguish experiences $at indeed convey truth from those that do not. Efforts have been made to detail the criteria that are met by valid experiences of sense perception, memoy, and m o d intuition. For example, Descartes advanced the criterion that a perceiver's experience must be "clear and distinct" in order to secure truth, and for David Hume veridical memories can be distirguishd from imaginatiom by virtue of their being "much more lively and strong" with a "superior force and vivacity." Heny Sidgwick suggested four criteria to be met by a moml precept which is claimed to be known by moml intuition: (1)that its terms be "dear and precise," (2) that its "self-evidence . . . be ascertained by careful reflection," (3)that it be consistent with other "propositions accepted as self-evident," and (4)that they are accepted by "other minds," presumably those of other intuitionist ethicists.'' What criteria are available to determine the legitimacy of a m o d belief genemted by a putative PDMC experience? If a believer S had a putative PDMC experience which seemed to yield a command, how could she mark it as a Franciscan rather than a Jonesian PDMC? In practice, believers in such situations naturally appeal at least to these five, listed in no particukr order: (1)consistency with Scripture, (2) consistency with other PDMCs (similar to Sidgwick's condition [3]),(3)acceptability by other believes, the Church in our own and other times (similar to Sidgwick's condition 148,(4) the command's practical consequences in one's life over time, and (5)congruence with our best ethical reflection. An id& acceptable PDMC would pass muster in all five categories; while they are not a set of necessary and sufficient conditions, failure in any one would raise serious doubts about the validity of the PDMC experience and the acceptability of the belief genemted by it. Mus turn briefly to each of these to see whether they seem to be useable criteria. (1)Consistency with Scripture is sine qua non for a PDMC that would merit the assent of an orthodox believer. If a moml belief based on a PDMC experience ran specifically contrary to Scriptural teaching, thii would provide strong reason to reject it since God presumably will not contmdict h i written revelation. However, thii criterion has limits. Spurious revelations can nonetheless avoid contradicting any plain teaching of Scripture, as when

S believes wholly from self-deception that God wants him to leave his job and live with street people. Another problem lies with biblical interpretation; if S believed God led him to shoot his wife, an advanced Altzheimer's disease suff erer, many serious students of Scripture would not see this as a clear contradiction of the Scriptural ban on unjust killing. At thii point the discipline of biblical moral theology can be d e d to determine whether this PDMC contradicts Scripture. (1)is then an effective defeater of those daims that are dearly contrary to the express teachlng of Scripture, but it is less helpful against spurious claims that are nonetheless congruent with Scripture, and will be more difficult to apply in those moml realms that lie in an area of unclear interpretation and application. (2) "Consistency with other PDMCS" will suffer from the problems of (l),and in addition from another problem. If two PDMCs are in conflict, and Scripture does not provide adequate grwnds to disuiminate between them, on what basii can it be d d e d that either is the one against which the other is to be judged? It is tempting to think that the preponderance of testimony on one side will be detenninative of the truth, but even if a solitay PDMC stands against a group of contriuy, putative PDMCS, the truth may still lie with the solitary dissenter. Criterion (2)gives us reason to bold the dissenting putative PDMC under suspicion while further inquiry is conducted. Alan Domgan's discussion of Sidgwick's use of condition (4),which we noted bears strong similarity to our criterion (2),will be instructive. Sidgwick required that m o d precepts delivered by intuition be "self-evidentat once to any theorist to whom they are presented," in Donagan's words." Sidgwick then went on to show that only those precepts that are vague and gendd l satisfy thii fourth condition, and these of come cannot satisfy the other conditions of clarity and precision. On the basii of such criticism, Sigwick "made havoc of intuitionism through ten remorseless chapters." Yet, Domgan argues that Sidgwick here overlooked the fact that "[m]oral theorists going about their difficult work, even intuitio&t theorists, can seldom bring a pure and attentive mind to bear upon results that travme their own," and thus placed a requirement on intuitionist theory which it could hardly be expected to have met." The lesson to be learned from this for PDMC theoy is that the adolowledged existence of contlicts between

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'Venry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishg, 1981)338-42.See also the discussion of this in Alan Donagan, The Theory of Momllty (Chiago: University of Chicago Press,1977)19-21.

"Donagan, The Theory of Momllty, 19-21. "hid.

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ethical precepts which are based on PDMC experlencef do not undermine a theoy which takes PDMC experiences as a source of moral knowledge. Thae conflicts need not be attributed to a defect in the reception of veridical moral infonnation from God but can be atbibuted to lapses of attention on the part of the recipients and others who retlect on what was perc&ed. (3)The broader Christian community and their understnndings of God and his ways provide a check, as is implied by the fact that the Christian faith is not exclusively an individual relationship between God and an individual person but is essentially the relationship between God and his church. While widely held orthodox beliefs have great usefulness in idenfake PDMCs, this check encounters now-familiar difficulties. If S has a spurious revelation that is not outrageous, it will be difficult to iden* a clear Christian consensus against it. Further, when there is a conflict between the solitary individual and the group, it might be the individual after all who is right and the group wrong. A Christian in the early 1960s who believed that God demanded racial equality would have been at odds with the interpretatiins of God's will extant among many of the white Christians with whom he associated, and he would encounter similar difficulty as he looked to the broader Christian community in history. (4) Certain PDMCs, such as the command to enter a religious vocation, are susceptible to being tested in the come of one's Me. How well does the belief based on the PDMC =panout" in experience? Much is learned about the wisdom of decisions and choices as one has an opporlunity to put them into pmctice and reflect on them over the course of years. William &ton claims that Christian practice, of which PDMC expeJtenca would presumably be part, has as its basic goal enabling "the individual to transform himself, or to be transformed, in ways that when they occur will sees by the individual as supremely f~lfilliing."'~ Certilrnly St. Fmnds over the m e of his life experienced hi calling to holy simplicity in this way; while difficult to teU, the accounts suggest that Jim Jones progressively declined in character and psychological integrity. (5)The fifth criterion appeals to ethical truths known in other ways, so that S is to accept the belief yielded by the PDMC only if it can be made to fit with what the believer takes as his existing ethical knowledge. If the new moral belief does not contradict fundamental ethical judgments that are held by S , he is free to integrate it into his ethical system.

Again, these criteria are only applicable b cognitive clalms of the f i and second types. On Quinn's account, religious duties that conflict with moral duties do not seem to be amenable to such criteria. The seeming simplicity of the task of applying the five criteda belies the genuine complexity that we face when we attempt to relate our PDMCbased moral judgments to othets that we accept For example, if 5 previously had regarded X as impermissible but now believes that God had told her that X is mandatoqt, what is she to do? Is she justified in overtumhg her previously held convictions and subjecting other parts of her m o d scheme to critical scrutiny to make it all comport with this new belief? Or should she refuse to accept the new Mef if it eithm (a) has no independent rational support or (b) runs contrary to beliefs which do have rational support? How do PDMC-based beliefs relate to 0th~ moral beliefs? There are two views about how PDMG relate to other ethical beliefs Let us call the supplementarian position the view that PDMCs yield particular, casespedfic ethical judgments to supplement and ckrlfy an ethic of principles derived from such sources as %ripture and reason, a view held 1think by many many believers. PDMCs play a role in their lives, vet they might

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not accept an exclusively divine command theoqt of the nature of ethical judgments, and might in typ\cal situations rely for guidance much more on moral des applied by the usual methods of moral reasoning rather than on particular revelations.Even a CMstian who finds himself in sympathy with Kantian ethics need not rule out that God issues PDMCS on occasion. On a more radical, exbeme revebtionist view, w we shall call it, PDMCs are either the defiitive core or the whole of Christian morality. This view has its adherents, and although few philosophers have defended it, versions ofit have played a surprisingly large role in Protestant ethics ir this centwy. James Gustafson uses the terms "OCEaSiOnaUSm" a r ~ "Protestant intuitionism" to refer to the position of such theologians a Rudolph l3ultmann and Karl Barth, a position stressing the cencmlity Q PDMCS for Christian ethics. Occasionalism "emphasizes the uniqueness c each moment of serious m o d choice.*I4 For Barth, the Law of God "is IX merely a general d e but also a specifK prescription and norm for each ind vidual ease."'5 As Gustafson tells us, "within Barth's theological ethic, it

14James M. Gustafson, Pmtesfont and Roman Catholic Ethics (Chhs University of Chicago Press, 1978)71. I5Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV2 (Edinburgh. t&T. ckrk, 1936-39:

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the command of God, heard by the moral agent, that determines whether somethii is right or wrong.n16God's command, Barth says, is always a single decision, indudii all the thoughts and words and move ments in which we execute it. We encounter it in such a way that absolutely nothii either ouhvard or inward, either in the relative secret of our intention or in the unambiguously observable fulfillment of our acts, is left to chance or to ourselves, or rather in such a way that even in every visible or invisible detail He wills precisely the one t h i i and nothing else, and measures and judges us precisely by whether we do or do not do with the same precisin the one thing that He so precisely wilk. Our responsibility is a responsibility to the command

as it LS given us in this way.'7

Barth offers a model of divinehuman intemction that may be thought of as a "covenant partnership." God issues commands to the believer from above, as it were, and issues "a sovereign direction in each event and to each person." Barth specifidy denies that gened norms or definitive examples are to be our guide; rather, "obedience to God's command is right ~onduct."'~ For Barth, morality simply consists in obedience to PDMCs, an obedience not be alloyed with secular e-thid theories or even norm-based theolcgid ethics. The question of criteria will be addressed quite differently by the supple mentarian and the extreme revelationist. The supplementarian will recognize the need to integrate putative PDMC experiences with other avenues of moral knowledge. On extreme revelationist premises the use of such uiteria could be seen as a faithless concession to secular thought, as it seems to have been for Barth. However, as Philip Quinn has insisted, an important distinction exists between " unqualified obedience to a command which is of divine origin and unqualified acceptance of the dalm that a command is of divine origin.""Even for one who regards unquestioning and immediate obedience to genuine PDMCs as obligatory for believers, it is still quite in order to entertain questions about the legitimacy of any particular putative

663-64;sea ais0 Gustafson, Protestant and Roman Cutholic Ethics, 73. 16James M. Gustafson, Theology and Christian Ethics (Philadelphia: United Church Press, 1974)137. "Barth, Chunh ibgmatics 11/2.663-64. '*E3arth, Church Dogmatics W2.538. "Philip Quinn, Divine Commands and Mom1 Requimments (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978)10.

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Woody Allen puts it with pointed

And Sarah who heard Abraham's plan grew vexed and said, How doth thou know it was the Lord and not, say. thy friend who bveth practical jokes. . . 1 And Abraham answered, Because I know it urag the Lord. It was a deep, resonant voice, well modulated, and nobody in the desert can get a tumble in it like that?'

Perhaps Barth has something like thii in mind when he speaks of "prominent lines," or rules of thumb, derivable from scripture, which provide a mther loose check on wayward "revelations." So for both the supplementarian and the extreme revelationist, critexia are needed to detemrine whether PDMCs are legitimate deliverances of God.

Iv How do we evaluate putative PDMCs in terrns of the mod knowledge we already have, and how can the moral beliefs generated by PDMCs be inte grated into odsting ethical systems so that they can become a useful source of moral knowledge? These questions address the issue of how a specifidly Christian ethic relates to one derived solely from human reason and ex@ence and acceptable in principle to anyone. Any conflict between these "ethics" will be conflicts withii the bosom of the believer, who uses both Christian and ordinary rational considerations in hi ethics. There are two views about how Christian moml revelations can relate to gened philosophical ethics. Exclusionism is a name we may give for the view that excludes from the ethkal system of any tatiod person any beliefs based on revelation, whether PDMCs or geneml religious norms. Like extreme revelationism, it refuses to allow interaction between secuhr and religious ethics. The other view is a more modest claim that any ethical pre cepts based on revelation be required to present tational credentiais to be admitted into one's system of ethical beliefs. philosophers, comes in Exclusionism, found among many n o d two strengths. Strong exclusionism is the view of those who speak of "the autonomy of morality," such as the writers of the Humanist Manlfestos, who assert that "ethics sterns from human need and interest. To deny this distorts the whole basis of life."" Similarly,Kal Nielsen insists that

2owoody Allen, Without Feathers (New York:Random H w e , 1972)23. "Humon Manlfestos I and 11, ed. Rid Kurtz (BuHalo NY:Romsthsus Pmss.

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Christian Theism and Mom1 Philosophy

the claims to intelligibility and the claimsto truth given us by Christianity and Judaism are so scandalously weak that we have no grounds for using these re& gions as a basis for morality or as an answer to the "riddle of human destiny."22 For Strong Exdusionism the conditions of rationality in the formation of ethical beliefs forbid even the believer henelf to make reference to specifically Christian content in this process. Weak Exdusionism allows religion a role in the development of an ethic for religious believexs, but it forbids ethical beliefs formed on the basis of faith to be introduced into the public debate. H. Tristam Engelhardt, Jr., argues that the public debate about various ethical topics in medicine, for example, must be kept secuiar and clear of all theological influence. Secular ethii addresses us "simply as rational individuals without the s p d illumination of some divine gmce." It is a "neutral" and "pluraliitic" instrument "for the peaceable negotiation of moral intuitions" which vary between individuals and their woridviews.23 The introduction of a religious voice into the public debate can only deteriorate into intolerant appeals to force, to "contempormy versions of the writ de haeretico comburendo" ("the writ for the burning of the heretic"). The Christian who wishes to speak to the contemporary scene must see how much of the "great body of JudeoChristian precepts" she can "establish through reason alone," and present these reasons to the bar of public ethics. Otherwise she is to remain silent in this debate.24 Exclusionism would banish Christian concems either from the formation of an individual's ethic or from its application to the broader society. However, 1 believe that Exclusionism is unacceptable for at l& three reasons. First, on both Strong and Weak Exdusionism we would have to reject the ethical approaches of the many of those whom presently we regard as the most morally enlightened among us, since so many of them derive the motivation and much of the content of their momlity from their faith and freely apply this morality to public life. These include Martin Luther King,Jr., and other leaders in the U.S. civil rights movement, those in our history who bore witness against slavery and the industrial exploitation of women and

1973)17. % a i Nielsen, Ethics without God (Buffalo NY: Prometheus Press, 1973)46. =H.Tristam Engehdt, Jr., The Foundations ofBioethfcs(New York:Oxford University Pres, 1986)11. 24ibid.,11-12.

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children, Mother Theresa, Mahatma Gandhi, people in the Sanctuary Movement, opponents of war, nudear armament, and environmena despoilment, and Desmond Tutu and other prominent leaders in the struggle for social change in South Africa. Any theory such as exdusionism that requires us to dismiss our most widely admired moral exemplars simply because they advocate a religious morality would seem to exhibit ankdigious intolerance to a high degree. second, it is arguable that the introduction of Uuistian concerns in ethics is sometimes necesszlly to correct wayward tendendes in purely p h b sophical ethics, particularly its seeming inability to rise above our culture's obsession with individualist freedom and with prooaduml mattas of ethics rather than the substance of the moral life. Even the searkrist Engelhardt admits that it is withii moral communities that one finds a full and concrete moral life.

Only in terms of the values that direct such communities does one learn which moral and nonmoral goods ought to be pursued at what costs, and for what goals.=

Third, many have noted an incompleteness in a purely secular philosophic ethic. To his disappointment as he tried to reconcile the "methods of ethics," Henry Sidgwidc identified a seemingly irresolvable "dualism of practical reason." The problem is the seeming impossibility of finding a comp&ig reason to follow morality in those cases in which it is dearly contrary to self-interest to do so. If the Christian story is true, on the other hand, God could certainly be expected to provide adequate reason to support morality over self-interest. It seems that the PDMC thesis is not to be disqualified because of the demands of Exclusionism. There is no reason for a Christian to be e m b a d as a rational person to admit into her ethical system those moral elements which she believes God has revealed to her. Still, isn't it at least necessary that she present the r a t i d credentbls for these beliefs? Isn't the onus on h a to show that these beliefs are reasonable? There are two ways to meet this challenge: the positive strategy is to show that the beliefs enjoy such strong rational support that they could have been established by r e o n alone, and thus are commendable to rational persons of whatever faith commitment. Negatively and more weakly, she could show

slbid., 14.

Christian Theism and Moml Philosophy

Particular Divine Moml Commands

that the Aiefs are defensible with r a t i o 4 considerations in their favor, even if they may not have been capable of being arrived at by reason alone. The positive strategy would amount to a concession to the Strong Exclusionist thesis, since any belief derived from a PDMC would have to be one we could have known independently. and thus God does not function as a source of moral knowledge. While the believer is not obligated to adopt thii approach in order to hold her belief rationally, she nonethela must give rational support for her belief if the m o d knowledge that she believes God has granted to her is to be useful not only in the conduct of her own affairs but for advising others and for entering into public debate. As we have just seen, there is a difference between fully establishing a moral claim by an appeal to reason and finding rational support for a claim which had been revealed. The latter task is one the believer should undertake, and success here will enable her to commend her belief to othm who have not shared her exp&ence. It is to be expected that if God is the source of truth, then any truths revealed to her in PDMCs will cohere with truths known by the proper exercise of her m o d reason. We should then accept the negative strategy for showing the ethical acceptabiity of PDMCs, although the believer need be able to defend his PDMC-based beliefs rationally In order to be justified in holding them. Rational defense is necesmy to enable him to commend the beliefs to others, and to provide rational c ~ ~ e c t i to o nother ~ parts of his moral belief network. Another charge that PDMC theory must answer is the traditional objection leveled against all divine command theories, the charge as old as Plat& Euthyphro that alleges that divine commands might well be arbitmy unless God were held to an independent standard of mod rightness in issuing them. From our discussion, however, it can be seen that we have left adequate room to challenge the authenticity of PDMCs on the basis of their moral content. We have however allowed that there might be genuine PDMCs that challenge received moral knowledge, although even here the believer can accept the challenge of entering into debate about these beliefs in order to show them to be defensible.

those spurious PDMCs that are also blatantly outrageous; 1 believe they would have shown that Jones’s daims were bogus. However, criterion (5) shows us that even when receiving divine revelations we cannot dispmse with o r d i m moral mtiodty. at least in the sense of showing mwmally that the beliefs derived from PDMCs are defensible. I hope to have stimulated further exploration of this underdeveloped topic, and to have a f f i i e d the acceptability of PDMCs under certain drcum~ht~es. Assuming that there is a God as described in the Hebrew-Christ&n tditions, a believer could under certain circumstances be intelledually and morally justlfied in fonning mod beliefs based on a putative PDMC. We are far from having necessaty and sufficient condikns for genuine PDMCs, and our set of criteria is perhaps but a loose screen that can both let pass some spurious “commands” and even intercept some legitimate ones. W e Christian practice would certainly benefit from a more rigorous check on error in evaluating putative commands. we seem here, as we seem in our geneml epistemological sibtion, to lack such precision.

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V In this brief foray into the PDMC thesis we have attempted to clarify what can be claimed on the basis of PDMC experiences and what is asserted in the PDMC thesis, and we have reviewed criteria for evaluating beliefs generated by putative PDMCs. Criteria (1)through (4) are effective in eliminating

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