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Article #160

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 305 (Gn 18:25)

(Barton 2003:46) (Knight 1982:55) Original Research (Preuss 1992:191) (Eichrodt 1967:316)

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(translation author) by IN HTS

(page number not for citation purposes) REALISM

Barr 1999:146–171; GerickeKnierim 2007:669–688; Barr1999:146–171; ORAL cf. : M ABSTRACT IBLE INTRODUCTION er written a metaethics of ancient Israelite there seems B A POPULAR CONSENSUS

Davies 2000:20; Otto 1994:passim). Hence one typically encounters . HEORY cf. T EBREW H Vol. 65 No. 1 PageVol. 1 of 5 OMMAND C should be as the wicked. be Far it from shall you; all not of the Judge the earth justly?’ do The ancient people, like many today, religion. would What is not morally right to do be is so because prone wills it or to because it distinguishis consistent with the sharply divinely ordained structure of the world between and Also, Also, the Old Testament is not familiar with the concept of doing good for the sake of the good; rather YHWH’s willit that lays claimis human to lives. Fixed orders established are by YHWH. The power of the good rests entirely on the recognition of God as the one who is good.behaviourmoralisOfwhorecognitionone theGodthe onasforof entirely The rests goodpowerthe of the sake of an abstract good there is none. To say that ethical obligation is obedience to the will of the is to say that it is not the observationthe not is it thatsay national to theisGod of will theobedience is to obligationethical that say To human norms.of…universal ‘Far be from it toact you in this to the slay way; righteous with the wicked, that so the righteous Philosophical approaches to ancient Israelite religion are rare, ectionas onis the metaethical refl for it take to tend religion of philosophers and scholars biblical many Nevertheless, Bible. Hebrew morality and divinity between relation the about assumptions metaethical biblical the that granted involve a pre-philosophical version of Divine Command author Theory challenges the by popular consensus default. with several arguments In demonstrating the this presence of paper the in the text. It is furthermore suggested that the popular consensus came about as a result of prima facie assessments informed by anachronistic metatheistic assumptions about what with concludes study The relation. –morality the in essential be to assumed Bible Hebrew the the observation that in the texts where is absent from the dichotomy. disappears as a false moral the underlying The term ‘morality’ does not appear in concept of themorality is Hebrewmissing altogether. Bible. ifYet That by the term does we understand not the coherent mean, andphilosophical ectioncritical however, that on refl the the nature of right andits wrong behaviour, non-philosophical then the format, Hebrew Bible, literary with theological variety, pluralism, historicalcan be variability,immensely problematic sociocultural in philosophicalany perspectiveattempt complexity on the to relation betweenprovide and edreligiona and ‘biblical’unifi morality. Not surprisingly, in biblical ethicsquestions analytic of , metaethics,or bracketedbebiblical tendIntofact, (Barton 2003:45). characterisedbe pernicioustheologytendsto suchasa anti-philosophicalby sentiment, whichturnin explains the current lamentable absence of an independentancient Israeliteof thestudy religion approachtocially ( and recognisedoffi philosophical 1995:492). 1995:492). Consequently, contemporary biblical scholarship offers descriptivephilosophical little analysisassumptions themoral of underlying thereligious in beliefs,concepts the way of an and practices encountered in-depth in the Hebrew Bible. Despite the fact that no-one has ev to exist a popular consensus involving the that the Hebrew Bible, by default, presentsa us historicalwith precursor to what nowadays is known in as moral ‘Divine and Commandphilosophy of Theory’religion (DCT) (see 23; Adams Audi 1987; Alston & 1989, 1990:303–326; Wainwright Arthur 1986; 1970:61– Mouw 2005:15– Copan Morriston 2001:127–138; 1991; 2003:295–304, KretzmannMorris 1987, MackieLeibniz 1977, 1983; Hare1951; 1997, 2008; Kant 1993, Kierkegaard 66, 1990; 1985; Murphy Nielsen1998:3–27; Quinn1973; Stump1979:305–325, 1987; 2001:530–550; Wainright Zagzebski 2003:387–407; 2004; and is2005; Wierenga It others). not that 1989, biblical scholars classify the divinity–morality relation in the text with the concept of rather, DCT, in their theytheological seemclaims to imply that in ancient Israelite religion the divinefoundation will of morality, thati.e., was humanassumed actions to were beconsidered the morally ultimategood if and only if YHWHwilled or commanded them ( prominent biblical theologians over the past 50 years insinuatingwere inextricably related: that YHWH and the moral order IVINE D EYOND 1 B Faculty Humanities, of http://www.hts.org.za at: This article is available 10.4102/hts.v65i1.160 Art. 5 pages. #160, DOI: Theological Studies 65(1), HTS Teologiese Studies/ in the Hebrew Bible’, theory: Moral realism ‘Beyond divine command Gericke, J.W., 2009, 2009, Gericke, J.W., North-West UniversityNorth-West Triangle(Vaal Campus), South Africa Correspondence to: Gericke W. Jaco e-mail: [email protected] Postal address: 22 Dromedaris, Toon van den Heever Street, South Sasolburg, 1947, Africa Keywords: Divine Command Theory; moral realism; metaethicalHebrew Bible; ection;moral refl epistemology Dates: How to cite this article: Published: Sept. 10 2009 Accepted: 22 May 2009 © 2009. The© 2009. Authors. Licensee: OpenJournals Publishing. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. Received: 30 Mar. 2009 A f fi 1 l i a t i o n : Author: Gericke W. Jaco http://www.hts.org.za Original Research Gericke

Interestingly, many philosophers of religion (both theistic and ARGUMENTS FOR MORAL REALISM atheistic) have uncritically followed suit and take it for granted Given the limitations of time and space applicable to this paper that the historical precursor to Judeo–Christian versions of I shall be offering only one or two illustrations from the biblical DCT is the Hebrew Bible itself (e.g. Hare 2008; Quinn 1979:305– text per argument. The quotations from the Hebrew Bible are 325, 1987; Stump 2001:530–550). Many introductory discussions not intended as proof-texts allowing for generalisations in on DCT assume as much, and even offer as illustration order to prove that moral realism is the only biblical perspective references to texts in the Hebrew Bible in which moral norms on the deity–morality relation. Nor am I trying to argue that are apparently acquired solely via divine commands, e.g. the giving of the . Strong arguments for the moral realism has biblical roots and is therefore philosophically presence of DCT in the text include the giving of seemingly credible. Conversely, I am not trying to prove that the basic idea unnecessary commands (as to Adam and Eve or the rituals of of DCT is absent from the Hebrew Bible altogether or even Leviticus) and even seemingly immoral commands (e.g. the that it is philosophically outdated. Rather, my aim is purely commanding of Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, of the Israelites descriptive and historical, and I make a selective and cursive to plunder the Egyptians, the slaughtering of the Canaanites, reference to particular texts only to verify the presence of being told to marry a prostitute, etc.; see Hare 2008; moral realist motifs in the biblical discourse in a way that is Kretzmann 1983; Quinn 1987). In philosophical terms this would suggestive of the possibility that the same motifs might well be mean that the Hebrew Bible took for granted a subjectivist yet more pervasively attested than popular prima facie correlations universalist form of cognitivism that one might contrast with to DCT seem to imply. other forms of ethical (e.g. ideal observer theory, moral , and individualist ), The argument from the non-tautological moral realism (which claims that moral propositions refer to predication of goodness objective facts, independent of anyone’s attitudes or opinions), error theory (which denies that any moral propositions are true A useful point of departure is to ask whether there are in any sense), and non-cognitivism (which denies that moral any examples in the Hebrew Bible of the non-tautological sentences express propositions at all). predication of goodness as an extrinsic property of YHWH based on an alleged synthetic a posteriori . That the Hebrew Bible associates the right actions with what If so, it follows that moral goodness was indeed assumed to be finds favour in the eyes of YHWH cannot reasonably be denied. something independent from the deity, and with reference to However, as Wierenga (1989:215) implied, there is more than which he could be called ‘good’ (or not). In this regard cognisance one way of interpreting the divinity–morality relation even should be taken of the fact that we do indeed encounter such a given DCT (hence strong and weak versions of the theory). This predication, e.g. in Psalm 34:9: is also readily apparent from any attempt to answer ’ question to Euthyphro in ’s dialogue (Plato 1981), which was subsequently adapted to become what is now called the (Ps 34:9) ‘Euthyphro Dilemma’. In the context of the Hebrew Bible it involves the following question: Did YHWH command The above text assumes that the implied reader already has something because it was moral, or was something moral an idea of what goodness is quite apart from YHWH and with because it was commanded by YHWH? reference to which it could be determined whether the deity is in fact good or not. This means that the knowledge that YHWH is good was not assumed to be the result of analytical

Article #160 Due to the problems that both of the possible responses to this question are said to raise for DCT (e.g., a priori reasoning. To state as the Psalmist does that YHWH is or redundant divine revelation), much has been written in good (and to presuppose that the claim is in theory open to an attempt to respond to the dilemma within the context of falsification) would not even have been considered meaningful of religion (see the discussions in Adams were the goodness of YHWH believed to be a logically necessary 1999; Frame 1993; Helm 1981; Kretzmann 1983; Quinn 1978; property of absolute divinity. That is, if YHWH was assumed Wainright 2005 and Wierienga 1989). Curiously, however, I to be good by definition – if goodness was assumed to be in the

HTS Studies/Theological Teologiese Studies could not find any corresponding concern in biblical ethics logical constitution of the concept of deity – the stating of the in which someone tried to establish what a given text in the proposition that YHWH is good is as superfluous as confessing Hebrew Bible might imply in response to Euthyphro’s Dilemma. that water (in its non-solid state) is wet. Consequently, I would like us to consider two questions as our research problem: The argument from generic atheodicy by appeals 1. Is DCT the only or default metaethical perspective on the to the moral order relation between divinity and morality in the Hebrew The second argument for moral realism concerns textual Bible? examples of instances where God and the are charged 2. Do some texts in the Hebrew Bible offer us any hints as with moral wrongdoing within a case made by appealing to an to which (if any) of the two possible options presented by objective moral order vis-à-vis deity. Here we should remember Euthyphro’s Dilemma are implied to be correct? that, contrary to philosophical , the use of the terms for deity in their generic sense, with reference also to YHWH, With these questions in mind I wish to challenge the popular presupposes YHWH to be part of a genus or natural kind. consensus by offering a hypothesis, suggesting that the Crude as it may sound, the extension of the generic concept classification of the Hebrew Bible’s metaethics as in toto a of godhood did in fact frequently include more than YHWH form of DCT involves the fallacies of anachronism and hasty alone. Philosophical is not presupposed in the generalisation. I furthermore suspect that the errant reading texts and divinity is predicated in a variety of senses also to the resulted from prima facie assessments informed by post-biblical gods of other nations (Jdg 11:24), a second generation of divine philosophical-theological re-interpretations of the essentially beings (Gn 6:1–4), members of the divine council (Ps 82:1, 6), the alien historical metatheistic assumptions of ancient Israelite king (Ps 45:7), household spirits (Ex 20:11), spirits of the dead (1 religion. Moreover, it is possible to show that many texts in Sm 28:13), and demons (Dt 32:8). When we consider the relation the Hebrew Bible presuppose moral goodness as not in fact between divinity and morality in the Hebrew Bible we should something identical to the property of being contrary to the take cognisance that the nature of divinity was often assumed divine will. Instead, in these texts both the deity and the divine to be instantiated in, but not only in, the nature of YHWH. Of commands were non-tautologically predicated as ‘good’ just course, many Bible translations are seriously ideological in in case they instantiated goodness as an accidental property, agenda in that they render the generic term for divinity with ultimately assumed to be located in an independent and stable a capital G when used of YHWH, even when it is clearly not transworld moral order.

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HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 307 the . (Ex 33:11) (Ex 33:14) (Ex 33:10) (Ps 15:1–3) vis-à-vis Original Research HTS (page number not for citation purposes) Ps 24), the Ps 24), stability of the moral order cf. deity as mentioned where read: we in Psalm 15:1–3, A scenario like this may be crude to the modern philosophical theologian and indeed apologists, Hebrew as Bible since itself the they have times sought to of of re-interpretYHWH the changing the idea his mind. My concern here immutabilityis not or divineits opposite, but rather the implication of text the that disobedience to the Divine Command can be a thinggood for both the deity and for his subjects. definitelyOnacted immorallyDCT, MosesifweHowever, presuppose that the metaethical assumptions of this text operated withmoral realism a and a beliefform in a of moral order independent of the thendeity, the allowance for disobedience and debate with an implicit appeal to what is the right Another thing good makes good example sense. of similar piousfortuitous consequences ‘back-chatting’ can be found in 7:1–3. with the moral order independent of YHWH. A similar scenario of corrective chutzpah is attested deliberatingappropriateanpunishment betweenon Calf’ ‘Golden thein YHWH and Moses incident. First there is the divine command in Exodus 33:10: In this text it seems that these YHWH acts was assumed because to they command arethesure,Psalm be firstly intendsTo assumedgod.moral a be to moral and because YHWH was to demonstrate YHWH’s moral requirements but seem to imply it that, had YHWH willed does the opposite, the divine not particularthestatus willchange of moralcouldtheRather, acts. what would change is the view of the deity as1997:12). Davidson moral, (only) (see as 89 andPsalms 44in be to casethe saw we Aside from Psalm 15 ( The argument from goodness as a stable transworld property fourthA argument moralforrealism concerns the stableactual worlds-in-the-text identity of the extension of goodness. theConsider the moral status concept of the virtues of Now, Now, on DCT, the ‘moral’ thing to Moses do to would leave immediately. have Moses, been however, for like frustrates Abraham, the divine will and judge regarding convinces the correct decision. YHWH Thus we read quain Exodus divine 33:11: Afterremindingsuffertheinhis reputation would YHWH how face of the foreign peoples had he now destroyed the Israelites and broken the promise to Abraham, Moses’ disobediencethe Divineto Command to be left alone has the following (Ex 33:14): result (Ps 82) (Ps (Ps 58:2) (Ps Vol. 65 No. 1 PageVol. 3 of 5 the law – a judge judge a – thelaw vis-à-vis divinity, and with reference to which (Gn 18:25) (Gn Presupposing DCT, how could Abraham DCT make explain why a the case? divine Can judge can task through be disobedience? ‘morally’ Why did taken Abraham not modify to his view of what is just? Surely it is because the text assumes that is a good thing and that its goodness is determined by Again, many translations try to the ‘divine evade condition’ implicit the by rendering ‘theodiversity’ ‘gods’ with a of host of more ‘orthodox’ substitutes. The Hebrew, however, is clear for it presupposes the divine entitiesthat Moreover, judgmentgods (Ps could82:6). be caught to be immortal behaving prior badly to suggests the moral objects,pointing by that out in realism.neither the of instances above is And lest YHWH someonehimself being accused psalmists of thewhich doingin wrong; 89, the and Psalms44fact is e.g. thattexts, such arethere blatantly accuse the god of Israel of betraying the covenant. In both Psalms 44 and 89 YHWH is critique, at again thepresupposing receivingthe justification endof the of charges the as coming from the appeal to what is given in the moral Soorder. it would seem that there are texts in the even Hebrew divinity Bible where could be judged with reference to a supposedly universal moral . The argument from divine mutability The third argument for moral realism second, takes its cue taking from the underlying seriously the Hebrew Bible’s mythological the motif of divinity judge a Consider of the role ‘judge’. as metaethical presuppositions does not make neither the doeslaw, a judge determine good or bad absolutely, nor can morality be definedas law acknowledgesthe judge witha Rather, referencejudge. the person of the to it exists independent of him, without him being above the law. This was also often considered Genesis,into appears exampleclassic be A theBible. Hebrew thecase in judge with the divine where Abraham appeals to the moral order to prevent YHWH from is what understood to be an act immoral of retribution: a proper name (the god of Israel). Translations also substitute the generic term or ones’‘mighty when ‘angels’, applied ‘judges’, entities euphemisms,withe.g. to praeternatural or humanThis ‘heavenlybeings’. obscures the divinity–morality relation, as ine.g. Psalm 58:2: Many translations of this psalm contain references to or ‘judges’ ‘rulers’. Yet in this text (as in the existence Bible) divine of many beings other than othersYHWH is taken in the Hebrew for granted. It is also taken for granted by that definitionthe moral, gods which are innot turnpresupposes of a themoral order vis-à-vis existence divine acts could be judged. The gods may be able to do what they like because they have the power – but that still does not mean that whatever they do is by definitiongood. Mightwasassumed not maketo right andthe appeal theto moralin order the charges against the gods suggests a form of moral realism whereright and wrong are theywhat are irrespective divine of whim. A similar scenario is found in Psalm 82: http://www.hts.org.za Beyond Divine Command Theory: Moral realism in the Hebrew Bible Original Research Gericke

vis-à-vis the possible vicissitudes of accidental divine moral law fulfills all the necessary conditions for its application? If the properties are clearly assumed in the text which reads: divine ordinances determined what is right and pure, how does it make sense to add the superfluous detail predicating these qualities of the commands themselves? Surely there must have been sufficient reason to assess the commands as such, other than this again being an allegedly tautological predication.

The same trend continues in Psalm 119, where the divine In this text the imaginary scenario of God ceasing to be ‘good’ commands are in the centre of the psalmist’s meditations. The is assumed to occur in at least one , e.g. in Psalm ascription of the property of good to the commands and 77:9–10. Yet across all possible worlds compassion and mercy of YHWH also presupposes that these were judged to be good are considered virtues. Thus the entire psalm presupposes and with reference to the moral order itself and not because it went depends on the idea of an objective moral order in relation to without saying: which YHWH appears to have changed and with reference to which his nature may be described. Without this assumption there would be no reason for the consternation the psalmist (Ps 119:39) believed himself to be in (see Crenshaw 1980, 1983, 1984). How could the psalmist need to imply the reproaches are not The argument from ‘bad’ divine commands good if whatever the deity did was good by definition? Why In non-fundamentalist biblical theology it is taken for did he have to state that the divine ordinances instantiate granted that some texts in the Hebrew Bible did not assume the property of goodness if it was an essential and necessary YHWH to be perfect in goodness in that he was at times property and goodness was in the logical constitution of the held responsible for the actualisation of not only natural but concept of divine commands? Morality in the Psalms is often also moral evil (Gericke 2005:65–92). In the context of ancient equated with and discerned with reference to the divine Israelite religion, both philosophical theology’s ‘perfect-being commands. Yet we often find the foundations for the good theology’ and the in its classical formulation are being deferred: anachronistic as the Hebrew Bible often assumed good and evil 1. The divine commands are good because they reveal the to be complimentary rather than incompatible properties of divine will the divine nature (see Carroll 1991:45 on Is 45:7). In this regard, 2. The divine will is good because it reveals the divine nature particularly relevant to this discussion are those texts depicting 3. The divine nature is good because x (where x is a sufficient YHWH as issuing ‘bad’ commands. On the one hand, this reason for the predication) sometimes involved YHWH’s commands to spiritual entities On DCT assumptions the buck stops here and there is no to commit immoral acts, e.g. in texts like Job 1–2 and 1 Kings sufficient reason as to why the divine nature is to be called 22:19–22. On the other hand, on occasion, it also involved the good; it is good by definition, whatever it may happen to be divine commands to human beings considered as immoral, e.g. in all possible worlds. However, in terms of moral realism the as in Ezekiel 20:25: equation of the good with the divine commands looks a little different and the sufficient reason for the deity being called

Article #160 good is assumed to be the correspondence of his character with what is required by the moral order in itself (x). Not surprisingly, (Ezk 20:25) a closer inspection of the biblical data reveals the following subtle distinctions to be presupposed in many texts: In the context of Ezekiel 20 these ‘bad’ divine commandments are previously said to have been issued because of (Ezk 4. The divine commands mediate (not create) moral norms 20:24). Yet the very possibility of divine commands being not 5. The divine will corresponds to (not causes) what is good good (irrespective of the motive for issuing them) certainly 6. The divine nature instantiates (not defines) the property of HTS Studies/Theological Teologiese Studies complicates DCT’s equation of the good with whatever the deity goodness commands. Even if YHWH’s act is assumed to be fair and just On this reading it would mean that it is not the deity or the this changes nothing about the fact that the divine command divine commands that ultimately create the moral order – rather itself could not be looked to in order to determine what is it is humans who, from their point of view, could determine moral. So whatever we think about the nature of the deity what is good by referring to the divine commands, which were himself implicit in this text, the divine commands themselves called good because they corresponded to the moral order. were not assumed to instantiate the property of goodness just in case they were issued by YHWH. The good was therefore CONCLUSION assumed to exist vis-à-vis the commands with reference to which they themselves could be judged, namely as being either Together these arguments cumulatively demonstrate the good or not. presence of marked traces of moral–realist assumptions in the Hebrew Bible showing that DCT was not the only metaethical The argument from relative mediatory trajectory operative in the history of the ancient Israelite religion. That the particular kind of moral realism involved had little in functionality in moral epistemology common even with weak versions of DCT, where the deity also The final argument pertains to the way in which the concept has a primarily mediatory function, should be readily apparent of goodness is predicated of the divine commands themselves. from the alien metatheistic assumptions in ancient Israelite Good illustrations in this regard come from the so-called Torah religion on which its moral-realist metaethical assumptions are Psalms, especially Psalms 19 and 119. In Psalm 19:9 we read: based. Yet because DCT is anachronistic in the context of the Hebrew Bible, the upside is that in the context of the moral– realist trajectories in ancient Israelite religion the Euthyphro’s Dilemma qua dilemma is in fact a pseudo-problem. For while (Ps 19:9) the Hebrew Bible often implies that YHWH commanded something because it is good the deity was not made redundant, On what grounds and with what criteria are the above claims thereby as is the case with DCT when this divinity–morality made? Do they not presuppose that the concept of what is right relation is opted for. The reason for this is that, unlike what is and pure is already possessed and that the nature of the divine assumed in Euthyphro’s Dilemma, the ancient Israelites were

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(ed.), 2005, ‘Morality, religion, and conscience’, in Audi, R. & 1986, Wainwright, W., not optimists in their religious epistemology. Even though the moral order was believed to have existed independent divine, of thethe divine will – if the deitywas stillwas of believedthe tomoral betype humanity’s – only Thethusdeitywasassumed accessfunctionto inrelation the moralto to that order. order as an instructor, a mediator, a judge and an authority on right and wrong – not as its creator. From this at least in it the contextfollows of thosethat texts in the Hebrew Bible where moral realism is presupposed, the Ethyphro Dilemma indeed representsfalsea dilemma. then But asnotAquinas suggested, because goodness is an essential but because the underlying part moral epistemology of assumed the that divinehumans needed nature, good gods to tell them what all about. the good life is 2003, Barton, J., Frame, J.M., Gericke, J.W., 2005, ‘Beyond Gericke,reconciliation J.W., – monistic Yahwism ‘The 2007, quest Gericke,for a J.W., philosophical YHWH (part Hare, J., 2008, ‘Religion and morality’, in E.N. Zalta (ed.), T ‘Religion2008, in Zalta E.N. and(ed.), Hare, J., morality’, Hare, J., 1997, 1997, J., Hare, 1981, Helm, P., Kant, I., 1993, 1993, I., Kant, Kierkegaard, S., 1985, theology, Testament OldThe oftask 1995, Knierim,R.P., Knight, D., 1982, http://www.hts.org.za Beyond Divine Command Theory: Moral realism in the Hebrew Bible