Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

Gods Command, PDF eBook

Gods Command PDF

Part of the Oxford Studies in Theological Ethics series

PDF

Please note: eBooks can only be purchased with a UK issued credit card and all our eBooks (ePub and PDF) are DRM protected.

Description

This work focuses on divine command, and in particular the theory that what makes something obligatory is that God commands it, and what makes something wrong is that God commands us not to do it.

Focusing on the Abrahamic faiths, eminent scholar John E.

Hare explains that two experiences have had to be integrated.

The first is that God tells us to do something, or not to do something.

The second is that we have to work out ourselves what to do and what not to do. The difficulty has come in establishing the proper relation between them.

In Christian reflection on this, two main traditions have emerged, divine command theory and natural law theory. Hare successfully defends a version of divine command theory, but also shows that there is considerable overlap with some versions of natural law theory.

He engages with a number of Christian theologians, particularly Karl Barth, and extends into a discussion of divine command within Judaism and Islam.

The work concludes by examining recent work in evolutionary psychology, and argues that thinking of our moral obligations as produced by divine command offers us some help in seeing how a moralconscience could develop in a way that is evolutionarily stable.

Information

Other Formats

Information

Also in the Oxford Studies in Theological Ethics series  |  View all