Divine Command Theory
Divine Command Theory (DCT) is a system of morality that says that morality is derived from the command of God. That is, murder is wrong, not because of the consequences to the victim, but because God has said it is wrong - though it is (maybe) assumed that God said it is wrong out of consideration of the consequences to the victim. Why should we take God as a moral authority? As far as I can see, we have three choices: 1. We have to prove that he is perfectly good. If, for example, this follows from omnipotency, then all well and good. Unfortunately there seems to be no such argument (and it would also be necessary to prove he really was omnipotent; and to ensure the same meaning for omnipotent is used across both arguments). And anyway, what does perfectly good mean under DCT? How can it be applied to God? 2. We look at God's morality. Of course this is not satisfactory as we cannot judge God's morality if we have none to judge it against. 3. We take his word for it...