Doubt

I haven't written in a while, so I thought I'd make a comeback with some inquisitive questions. I have been on a sort of writing hiatus, and because of it I had the time to think about religion and how it can buoy in my practical life. This isn't going to be a thorough and analytic sort of blog but more of a personal one. There are reasons for this sort of writing, one of which is the ease and enjoyment of writing. Other kinds of writing usually invites a sort of criticism, and I usually have to prepare for those criticisms ahead of time.

Anyway, the topic is doubt. We all have it, so let's face it. I doubt all the time. I doubt God, and I doubt my faith all of the time. There are advantages and disadvantages to this sort of doubt. The major advantage is that I am able to see who really is pastoral in character and caring enough to meet another person in their state of doubt. This has also caused me to be bitter. It has caused bitterness because the people who are more rigid tend to stand out as the most narrow-minded bigots I have ever met, and I am glad they are not pastors. These sorts of people could really cause some real damage and unfortunately they already have.

The advantages tend to come in waves. The one advantage I have seen the most is that people who have doubt have an authentic spirit of getting to the truth. They do not prejudice where it comes from and hence allows a free spirit of inquiry. The way I see it, if "the truth" comes to be questioned, no matter how fundamental the belief may be, it should be tested by all quarters. We should not prejudice its origins or the person judging/criticizing the belief. This is where there is a synonymous relationship with my animosity. If we shouldn't prejudice where truth comes from and there is someone who says that we shouldn't doubt this or that belief, he is prejudicing the doubt and therefore causes my animus. This is why I have a big problem with religious folk or ultra-religious folk. They tend to come off so narrow-minded that they cannot even question simple beliefs, and this sort of reasoning will lead to bad leadership.

In thinking about all of this, I have come to terms with ignoring narrow-minded people and work as best I can to relate to people with similar doubts and come to some sort of resolution.

Morning and Evenings, April 22 —My Take

Taken from this morning's devotions. I've been devoid of this practice for a while, this thing called a "morning's devotion." Having read this, though, I've taken comfort in the reality of my worth in the coronation of the King. There's much to doubt as it pertains to coronations and exaltations, namely because as Americans we find this idea primitive. This isn't going to be an apologetic case against Roseau and for a Capitalistic economic polemic. Instead my point, I believe, is more pointed in that in thinking about Medieval coronations, Americans have a hard time grasping this idea apart from some kind of Medieval coronation. I won't deal with criticisms here, but I want to point out that in this devotional section in Spurgeon, we have a king—the King—to whom all men have to do, for all of life is in covenantal relationship with this King, including the unbeliever. For temporal kings (including presidents and figure heads that take seats in governments), for the factory worker, the merchant (remember that I'm using old terms for a contemporary setting; the labor of being a merchant has ceased since the 17th century), those in advertizing, etc. Spurgeon, however, is seeking a different vein or purpose. His point is more pointedly religious. It is in the comfort that the believer has in recognizing this King as their only comfort. All other comforts are merely counterfeits to this true comfort. How many idols will we bow down to before we realize that true comfort can only be given by the Eternal King? 

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures." James 1:17-18, ESV.

Thursday, April 22, 2010 This Morning's Meditation

C. H. Spurgeon

"Him hath God exalted."—Acts 5:31.

JESUS, our Lord, once crucified, dead and buried, now sits upon the throne of glory. The highest place that heaven affords is His by undisputed right. It is sweet to remember that the exaltation of Christ in heaven is a representative exaltation. He is exalted at the Father's right hand, and though as Jehovah He had eminent glories, in which finite creatures cannot share, yet as the Mediator, the honours which Jesus wears in heaven are the heritage of all the saints. It is delightful to reflect how close is Christ's union with His people. We are actually one with Him; we are members of His body; and His exaltation is our exaltation. He will give us to sit upon His throne, even as He has overcome, and is set down with His Father on His throne; He has a crown, and He gives us crowns too; He has a throne, but He is not content with having a throne to Himself, on His right hand there must be His queen, arrayed in "gold of Ophir." He cannot be glorified without His bride. Look up, believer, to Jesus now; let the eye of your faith behold Him with many crowns upon His head; and remember that you will one day be like Him, when you shall see Him as He is; you shall not be so great as He is, you shall not be so divine, but still you shall, in a measure, share the same honours, and enjoy the same happiness and the same dignity which He possesses. Be content to live unknown for a little while, and to walk your weary way through the fields of poverty, or up the hills of affliction; for by-and-by you shall reign with Christ, for He has "made us kings and priests unto God, and we shall reign for ever and ever." Oh!, wonderful thought for the children of God! We have Christ for our glorious representative in heaven's courts now, and soon He will come and receive us to Himself, to be with Him there, to behold His glory, and to share His joy.

A Public Letter to the Private Sector

Date: April 17, 2010—Saturday

I have currently been in a financial battle with my bank, Altura Credit Union. And though this "decision," which I will get into in a minute, may seem impetuous to some, I think that my concerns are authentic and reflect a truly moral decision on my part. I truly understand why people are dissatisfied with the Republican Party. For all its girth and tenacity, it just does not mete out concerns with the private citizen, and this is one of those cases. I have left the Republicans about two years ago and had joined the Libertarians for a new scene in a truly conservative ideal, but I have also found its beliefs and actions inadequate. So what does one do with these feelings? Well, I'm going to express some of them with some preliminary justification, namely through a recent struggle with the private sector.

I have been a loyal customer with Altura CU for about two years. I had left Bank of America because of corporate greed (they were charging outrageous fees for overdraft, though they assured me that I had overdraft protection), a similar charge I am laying at the feet of my current financial institution. In the two years that I have been with Altura, I did not have this problem. For a long time I felt like there was some fresh air to the already constipated financial exhaustion. Finally I wasn't afraid of my wallet conflating into an abyss…but then came the shocker. Outrageously, the charges started pouring in, causing this conflation once again. One would think, "Hey, stop spending all that money and you won't have that problem." Well, the thing is that I wasn't spending any money at all. Unauthorized transactions were pouring in, transaction after another. I even got these problems fixed, and the company responsible even sent me an email apologizing. Then it came time to face the bank. Was it my fault that these transactions took place? No. So what happens? I'm stuck with the bill. There is absolutely no power given to the consumer. "But maybe this is just a pattern you have, Julio?" you ask. No! Since I've been with this financial institution, overdraft has never been a problem. There is just nothing I can do as a consumer. This is not only unjust on a business level, but it is just a bad business sense. As I began to muse this problem, I remember all the constant battles my friends and family have had with other private institutions, like health insurance, for example. These companies have on a constant basis denied people who seriously need medical insurance but will not provide it because "it is just bad business." They cover it up with clauses like "pre-existing condition" and the like. This can't be the conservative ideal. When has the quality of life ever been reduced to the dollar? Where is the human part of business? For this reason, I have decided to join the Democratic Party for its fight against corporate greed. Now let me be clear before I get these castigations from my conservative friends and family. I am still a social conservative. I also believe in competition within a free market, but not at the expense of a truly humane polemic. How many more people will die because of corporate greed? How many kids will go hungry because banks like Altura will not give hurting parents a break? When will the Republican Party finally see that corporate greed is a real problem? There's too much power in the hands of the private sector. Hasn't the recent collapse of Wall Street been enough to be a cause for worry and attention? Don't get me wrong, I believe in the private sector—I really do—but there's just too much freedom afforded to them and the middle-class and hardworking citizen is suffering for it.

A concerned citizen,

Julio Martinez , Jr.

Calvinist Cage-stage

Courtesy of ReformedForum.org. I thought this was funny.

I once heard R.C. Sproul, Jr. speak about the Calvinist "cage stage."  This is that typical period when a young Calvinist, so zealous for the truth, starts blasting people with the more explicit predestinarian texts.  Sproul, Jr. suggested that when someone becomes a Calvinist, they be locked up for two or three years until they relax.  I couldn't help remember this comment when I saw the following comics.

Altruism? Is it Right?

There's a general question that I think Calvinists like to ignore when I talk about altruism. I'm very thankful that Herald asked this question concerning non-believers doing "good deeds" on the PuritanBoard. Here is what he asks,

Is unregenerate man capable of good? Romans 3:10-18 As it is written "There is none righteous not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside together they have become useless; There is none who does good There is not even one. Their throat is an open grave With their tongues they keep deceiving, The poison of asps is under their lips; Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths, And the path of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." The above passage is often used in defending total depravity, and justly so. Still, is it accurate to say that the unregenerate man is incapable of good works? Notice that I did not ask it is possible for the unregenerate man to please God. That is a categorical difference.  There are certain things that we can classify as good works.  Looking after the welfare of widows and orphans (James 1:27)] Caring for the poor (James 2:15,16) Being a good neighbor (John 13:34) Those are just a few good works. As I read about good works in the bible, I notice that the works themselves are good; virtuous. That doesn't mean an unregenerate sinner is acceptable to God, and no work that the sinner does is done from a heart that is capable of pleasing God. Still, the works themselves are good. So, in a sense the sinner can perform good works.  Thoughts?

Here's what I wrote in response,

I think it's safe to say that they are capable of some good. I think that Christians who tend to swing the pendulum and say that man is totally corrupt—which is not the historical development of the Canons of Dort on reprobation—do mankind a disservice. Calvin himself saw a place for Seneca in his writing. Although his work on Seneca was one of his earliest works, he still gave some credence to Seneca's doctrine of clemency. (For further reading, the inquisitive reader might want to pick up Charles Partee's book, Calvin and Classical Philosophy.) Am I saying that the writings of non-believers are commensurate to "good works?" Yes and no. Both intellectual pursuits and practical concerns for the Christian fall under ethics (cf. Acts 17:29; Col. 2:8,13; Eph 2:3). I think it's safe to say that developments of "doing justice" can be both practical and intellectual, and these decisions ultimately have ethical implications. I still question, however, whether or not the attitude in which any altruistic endeavor takes place is innocuous. Practically we give individuals and their efforts approbation because it serves the benefit of mankind, but it lacks what the Heidelberg Catechism calls "any good" (Question 8). I'm just really precarious about Calvinists who want to efface God's image from man completely and say that man cannot do any good. I don't believe that's the historical Reformed approach. I like the way Francis Schaeffer puts it in his works: It's like looking at a piece of art. We know there's something there, albeit obfuscated or nebulous. 

Visible and Invisible Church

As promised, I finally posted something on ecclesiology. There has been some confusion within some Baptist circles about the subject of the Visible/Invisible aspects of the church, which are understandable for those not acquainted with the thoughts and writings of church history. In discussing key topics in ecclesiology, however, there are more than just one issue at hand when dialoging about the Visible/Invisible distinction. Most of my dialogs have been about the sacraments in the visible church and election in the invisible church. I don't think those issues are the only ones that Christians will encounter if they do not pay attention to the subject of ecclesiology. Another problem without seeing this distinction is a negligent attitude of yoking oneself to a local body. A Christian will join a church if he or she feels like it, but it is not an ethical matter if he or she chooses not to. This is clearly a problem. (I remember doing research a while back, and I had come across Calvin's Geneva and his role on ecclesiastical matters. One of the chief accomplishments Calvin made was germane to compulsory church attendance. I found this fact not only attractive but conclusive about a Reformed ecclesiology—and a biblical one! It's no wonder the Westminster Divines, speaking of the visible Church, say that "out of which [the Church] there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.") So I hope you guys will enjoy this installment of Reformed ecclesiology.

A Blog about Ecclesiology in History

I have been reading the book by McCrie and The Doctrine of the Church in Scottish Theology, and I've been having some trouble with some of the constructs of ecclesiology in history, vis-a-vis the Independents and Romish churches. My question has more to do with the difference in the doctrine of the visibility and invisibility of the Church.

Here are some of Augustine's ideas in the book,

In the same chapter Bellarmine, borrowing from Augustine, describes the Church as a living organism, made up of soul and body, the soul being the inward graces of the Spirit, the body an outward profession of faith and partaking of the sacraments. And he distinguishes three classes of members of the Church: (1) Those who are of the soul and of the body, members in the fullest sense; (2) those who are of the soul but not of the body, excommunicates and catechumens; (3) those are of the body but not of the soul, who have only a profession without any real faith.

In the first place, I know this (1) is the classical view of the protestants throughout Europe during the reformation (see the chapter in the Westminster Confession of Faith, "Of the Church"). But for those who don't understand what I am saying here—in effect what the church has said throughout the centuries—I will explain and outline.

1. Presbyterian/Reformed view,
   
2. Separatist/Independence view (Baptist),
   
3. Papist externalism or formalism.
   

My problem is trying to make sense of (2) and (1). Some have stated that the church is not locally visible but merely invisible, much like the Separatist and Libertines of Calvin's day. My problem has a lot to do with the compulsory responsibility of "churchless" Christians to become members of a church (visible). It is my belief that one cannot be a true member of the church (invisible) without belonging to the visible church (WCF 25.2). (I would like the add that I am not making the similar mistakes that the Popish church makes when they say that joining the visible church is joining the invisible church, for the eternal Word is what gives birth. The reason I think that is largely because I, as a Presbyterian protestant, hold to the two-fold distinction of the church, as did St. Augustine. In fact, throughout the history of the church I do not believe that Roman Catholics ever held to this two-fold distinction, as noted by McCrie.)

Euthyphro Dilemma in the Philosophy of Religion

The Euthyphro Dilemma Explained

As promised, I said I would post the problem of evil as explained by Plato in the Euthyphro Dilemma. I had previously stated that I would post this for my YouTube watchers. I got this quick summary from the Wikipedia website. I know it's not the best as far as research goes, but it is good for acquainting oneself with the argument(s). I will also post my video on the bottom. (Note: Blue ink lettering is the article.)

The dilemma can be modified to apply to philosophical theism, where it is still the object of theological and philosophical debate, largely within the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions. As Leibniz presents this version of the dilemma: "It is generally agreed that whatever God wills is good and just. But there remains the question whether it is good and just because God wills it or whether God wills it because it is good and just; in other words, whether justice and goodness are arbitrary or whether they belong to the necessary and eternal truths about the nature of things."

Explanation of the dilemma

The first horn

The first horn of the dilemma (i.e. that which is right is commanded by God because it is right) goes under a variety of names: intellectualism, rationalism, realism, and/or naturalism. Roughly, it is the view is that there are independent moral standards: some actions are right or wrong in themselves, independently of God's commands. As seen above, this is the view accepted by Socrates and Euthyphro in Plato's dialogue. The Mu'tazilah school of Islamic theology also defended the view, with some (e.g., Nazzam) maintaining that God is powerless to engage in injustice or lying. Though Aquinas never explicitly addresses the Euthyphro dilemma, interpreters often put him on this side of the issue. Aquinas draws a distinction between what is good or evil in itself and what is good or evil because of God's commands, with unchangeable moral standards forming the bulk of natural law. Thus he contends that not even God can change the Ten Commandments (adding that God can change what individuals deserve in particular cases, in what might look like special dispensations to murder or steal). Among later Scholastics, Vásquez is particularly clear-cut about obligations coming prior to anyone's will, even God's. Modern natural law theory saw Grotius and Leibniz also putting morality prior to God's will, comparing moral truths to unchangeable mathematical truths, and engaging voluntarists like Pufendorf in philosophical controversy. Cambridge Platonists like Benjamin Whichcote and Ralph Cudworth mounted seminal attacks on voluntarist theories, paving the way for the later rationalist metaethics of Samuel Clarke and Richard Price: what emerged was a view on which eternal moral standards (though dependent on God in some way) exist independently of God's will and prior to God's commands. Contemporary philosophers of religion who take this horn of the Euthyphro dilemma include Richard Swinburne and T. J. Mawson (though see below for complications).

Problems

This horn of the dilemma faces several problems:

• Sovereignty: If there are moral standards independent of God's will, then "[t]here is something over which God is not sovereign. God is bound by the laws of morality instead of being their establisher. Moreover, God depends for his goodness on the extent to which he conforms to an independent moral standard. Thus, God is not absolutely independent." 18th-century philosopher Richard Price, who takes the first horn and thus sees morality as "necessary and immutable", sets out the objection as follows: "It may seem that this is setting up something distinct from God, which is independent of him, and equally eternal and necessary."
  
• Omnipotence: These moral standards would limit God's power: not even God could oppose them by commanding what is evil and thereby making it good. As Richard Swinburne puts the point, this horn "seems to place a restriction on God's power if he cannot make any action which he chooses obligatory... [and also] it seems to limit what God can command us to do. God, if he is to be God, cannot command us to do what, independently of his will, is wrong." This point was very influential in Islamic theology: "In relation to God, objective values appeared as a limiting factor to His power to do as He wills... Ash'ari got rid of the whole embarrassing problem by denying the existence of objective values which might act as a standard for God's action." Similar concerns drove the medieval voluntarists Scotus and Ockham.
  
• Freedom of the will: Moreover, these moral standards would limit God's freedom of will: God could not command anything opposed to them, and perhaps would have no choice but to command in accordance with them. As Mark Murphy puts the point, "if moral requirements existed prior to God's willing them, requirements that an impeccable God could not violate, God's liberty would be compromised."
  
• Morality without God: If there are moral standards independent of God, then morality would retain its authority even if God did not exist. This conclusion was explicitly (and notoriously) drawn by early modern political theorist Hugo Grotius: "What we have been saying [about the natural law] would have a degree of validity even if we should concede that which cannot be conceded without the utmost wickedness, that there is no God, or that the affairs of men are of no concern to him" On such a view, God is no longer a "law-giver" but at most a "law-transmitter" who plays no vital role in the foundations of morality. Nontheists have capitalized on this point, largely as a way of disarming moral arguments for God's existence: if morality does not depend on God in the first place, such arguments stumble at the starting gate.
  

The second horn

The second horn of the dilemma (i.e. that which is right is right because it is commanded by God) is sometimes known as divine command theory or voluntarism. Roughly, it is the view that there are no moral standards other than God's will: without God's commands, nothing would be right or wrong. This view was partially defended by Scotus, in arguing that not all Ten Commandments belong to the natural law. Scotus held that while our duties to God (found on the first tablet) are self-evident, true by definition, and unchangeable even by God, our duties to others (found on the second tablet) were arbitrarily willed by God and are within his power to revoke and replace (which is why God was able to command the murder of Isaac, the spoiling of the Egyptians, and the adulterous marriage of Hosea). Ockham went further, contending that (since there is no contradiction in it) God could command us not to love God and even to hate God. Later Scholastics like Pierre D'Ailly and his student Jean de Gerson explicitly confronted the Euthyphro dilemma, taking the voluntarist position that God does not "command good actions because they are good or prohibit evil ones because they are evil; but... these are therefore good because they are commanded and evil because prohibited." Protestant reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin both stressed the absolute sovereignty of God's will, with Luther writing that "for [God's] will there is no cause or reason that can be laid down as a rule or measure for it", and Calvin writing that "everything which [God] wills must be held to be righteous by the mere fact of his willing it." The voluntarist emphasis on God's absolute power was carried further by Descartes, who notoriously held that God had freely created the eternal truths of logic and mathematics, and that God was therefore capable of giving circles unequal radii, giving triangles other than 180 internal degrees, and even making contradictions true. Descartes explicitly seconded Ockham on hating God: "why should [God] not have been able to give this command [i.e., the command to hate God] to one of his creatures?" Hobbes notoriously reduced the justice of God to "irresistible power" (drawing the complaint of Bishop Bramhall that this "overturns... all law"). And Paley held that all moral obligations bottom out in the self-interested "urge" to avoid hell and enter heaven by acting in accord with God's commands. Islam's Ash'arite theologians, al-Ghazali foremost among them, accepted voluntarism: scholar George Hourani writes that the view "was probably more prominent and widespread in Islam than in any other civilization." Today divine command theory is defended by many philosophers of religion, though typically in a moderate form (see below).

Problems

This horn of the dilemma also faces several problems:

• No reasons for morality: If there is no moral standard other than God's will, then God's commands are arbitrary (i.e., based on pure whimsy or caprice). This would mean that morality is ultimately not based on reasons: "if theological voluntarism is true, then God's commands/intentions must be arbitrary; [but] it cannot be that morality could wholly depend on something arbitrary... [for] when we say that some moral state of affairs obtains, we take it that there is a reason for that moral state of affairs obtaining rather than another." And as Michael J. Murray and Michael Rea put it, this would also "cas[t] doubt on the notion that morality is genuinely objective."
  
• No reasons for God: This arbitrariness would also jeopardize God's status as a wise and rational being, one who always acts on good reasons only. As Leibniz writes: "Where will be his justice and his wisdom if he has only a certain despotic power, if arbitrary will takes the place of reasonableness, and if in accord with the definition of tyrants, justice consists in that which is pleasing to the most powerful? Besides it seems that every act of willing supposes some reason for the willing and this reason, of course, must precede the act."
  
• Anything goes: This arbitrariness would also mean that anything could become good, and anything could become bad, merely upon God's command. Thus if God commanded us "to gratuitously inflict pain on each other" or to engage in "cruelty for its own sake" or to hold an "annual sacrifice of randomly selected ten-year-olds in a particularly gruesome ritual that involves excruciating and prolonged suffering for its victims," then we would be morally obligated to do so. As 17th-century philosopher Ralph Cudworth put it: "nothing can be imagined so grossly wicked, or so foully unjust or dishonest, but if it were supposed to be commanded by this omnipotent Deity, must needs upon that hypothesis forthwith become holy, just, and righteous."
  
• Moral contingency: If morality depends on the perfectly free will of God, morality would lose its necessity: "If nothing prevents God from loving things that are different from what God actually loves, then goodness can change from world to world or time to time. This is obviously objectionable to those who believe that claims about morality are, if true, necessarily true." In other words, no action has its moral status necessarily: any right action could have easily been wrong, if God had so decided, and an action which is right today could easily become wrong tomorrow, if God so decides. Indeed, some have argued that divine command theory is incompatible with ordinary conceptions of moral supervenience.
  
• Why do God's commands obligate?: Mere commands do not create obligations unless the commander has some commanding authority. But this commanding authority cannot itself be based on those very commands (i.e., a command to obey one's own commands), otherwise a vicious circle results. So, in order for God's commands to obligate us, he must derive commanding authority from some source other than his own will. As Cudworth put it: "For it was never heard of, that any one founded all his authority of commanding others, and others (sic) obligation or duty to obey his commands, in a law of his own making, that men should be required, obliged, or bound to obey him. Wherefore since the thing willed in all laws is not that men should be bound or obliged to obey; this thing cannot be the product of the meer (sic) will of the commander, but it must proceed from something else; namely, the right or authority of the commander". To avoid the circle, one might say our obligation comes from gratitude to God for creating us. But this presupposes some sort of independent moral standard obligating us to be grateful to our benefactors. As 18th-century philosopher Francis Hutcheson writes: "Is the Reason exciting to concur with the Deity this, 'The Deity is our Benefactor?' Then what Reason excites to concur with Benefactors?" Or finally, one might resort to Hobbes's view: "The right of nature whereby God reigneth over men, and punisheth those that break his laws, is to be derived, not from his creating them (as if he required obedience, as of gratitude for his benefits), but from his irresistible power." In other words, might makes right.
  
• God's goodness: If all goodness is a matter of God's will, then what shall become of God's goodness? Thus William P. Alston writes, "since the standards of moral goodness are set by divine commands, to say that God is morally good is just to say that he obeys his own commands... that God practises what he preaches, whatever that might be", and Hutcheson deems such a view "an insignificant Tautology, amounting to no more than this, 'That God wills what he wills.'" Alternatively, as Leibniz puts it, divine command theorists "deprive God of the designation good: for what cause could one have to praise him for what he does, if in doing something quite different he would have done equally well?". A related point is raised by C. S. Lewis: "if good is to be defined as what God commands, then the goodness of God Himself is emptied of meaning and the commands of an omnipotent fiend would have the same claim on us as those of the 'righteous Lord.'" Or again Leibniz: "this opinion would hardly distinguish God from the devil." That is, since divine command theory trivializes God's goodness, it is incapable of explaining the difference between God and an all-powerful demon.
  
• The is-ought problem and the naturalistic fallacy: According to David Hume, it is hard to see how moral propositions featuring the relation ought could ever be deduced from ordinary is propositions, such as "the being of a God". Divine command theory is thus guilty of deducing moral oughts from ordinary uses about God's commands. In a similar vein, G. E. Moore argued (with his open question argument) that the notion good is indefinable, and any attempts to analyze it in naturalistic or metaphysical terms are guilty of the so-called "naturalistic fallacy". This would block any theory which analyzes morality in terms of God's will: and indeed, in a later discussion of divine command theory, Moore concluded that "when we assert any action to be right or wrong, we are not merely making an assertion about the attitude of mind towards it of any being or set of beings whatever".
  
• No morality without God: If all morality is a matter of God's will, then if God does not exist, there is no morality. This is the thought captured in the slogan (often attributed to Dostoevsky) "If God does not exist, everything is permitted." Divine command theorists disagree over whether this is a problem for their view or a virtue of their view. Many would argue that morality does indeed require God's existence, and that this is in fact a problem for atheism. But divine command theorist Robert M. Adams contends that this idea ("that no actions would be ethically wrong if there were not a loving God") is one that "will seem (at least initially) implausible to many", and that his theory must "dispel [an] air of paradox."
  

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