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    What God wills is right not because God was bound to will... — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    What God wills is right not because God was bound to will it, but because God's willing it makes it right

    Against an attribute of GodDivine Attributes
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.God is not obligated or bound to will any particular thing
      ?

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    • 2.Whatever God wills takes place as right by virtue of God's willing it
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.As Plato's Euthyphro establishes, if rightness is constituted solely by divine will, then moral goodness becomes arbitrary rather than a genuine property God possesses.
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    • 2.Classical theists from Aquinas onward hold that God's nature is identical with Goodness itself, meaning God's will is constrained by what God essentially is.
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    • 3.A God whose will alone constitutes rightness cannot be praised as genuinely good, since 'good' would mean only 'whatever God happens to will' — rendering divine praise empty.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.If God's willing X makes X right, then God could will gratuitous cruelty, and it would be right — which contradicts our most secure moral intuitions.
      ?

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    • 2.A divine command theory that licenses any possible divine act, including monstrous ones, undermines the very moral framework it claims to ground.
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    Divine AttributesAgainst an attribute of God

    Related

    A God whose will alone constitutes rightness cannot be praised as genuinely good...A divine command theory that licenses any possible divine act, including monstro...As Plato's Euthyphro establishes, if rightness is constituted solely by divine w...Classical theists from Aquinas onward hold that God's nature is identical with G...
    +3 moreShow less
    God is not obligated or bound to will any particular thingIf God's willing X makes X right, then God could will gratuitous cruelty, and it...Whatever God wills takes place as right by virtue of God's willing it

    Similar

    Whatever God wills takes place as right by virtue of God's willing it89%When a will is in accord with God's will, God may — but is not require...78%God is not obligated or bound to will any particular thing78%If God's mere will constituted right and wrong, then any contradiction...77%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: religion-morality
    View source passageHide passage
    Many of the central figures in the Reformation were humanists in the Renaissance sense (where there is no implication of atheism). But there is also a fundamental similarity in the way the relation between morality and religion is conceived between Scotus and the two Reformers Martin Luther (1483–1546) and John Calvin (1509–64), though neither of them make the distinctions about natural law that Scotus (the ‘subtle doctor’) does. Luther says ‘What God wills is not right because he ought or was b
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit