The first chapter of my dissertation has two aims: situating divine command theory (DCT) within the ongoing debate on theistic metaethics and defending it against a number of important objections. I begin by defining a theistic metaethics as a metaethics where the explanation of core ethical concepts, assumptions, etc., bottoms out in God or something closely related to God. I, then, distinguish a theistic axiology from a theistic deontology. The former is a theistic theory of value and goodness/badness. The latter is a theistic theory of moral obligation and duty. My dissertation focuses on theistic deontology, specifically on DCT which is a subfamily of a wider family of views called theological voluntarism. There are some well-known objections against DCT among which I discuss the following in this chapter: Murphy’s Trilemma, Horrible Commands Objection, Uncommunicated Obligations, and Inconsistency Between DCT and God’s Having Moral Obligations. I survey these objections and argue that they fail to establish the falsity of divine command theory.

The second chapter of my dissertation also has two goals. First, it attempts to present an objection that is fatal for extant versions of DCT (EDCT). According to EDCT, all moral obligations depend on divine commands. Wielenberg challenges EDCT  by arguing that we have strong reasons to believe that, even if God does not exist, humans would still be morally required to act in certain ways in virtue of how things are intrinsically and in virtue of us having decisive reasons to act in certain ways. I argue that Wielenberg’s challenge to EDCT can be strengthened by appealing to the relational aspect of morality: we are morally required to act in such-and-such ways because of the ways in which we are related to others. If this is true, then it follows that even if we assume that God does not exist, humans would be morally required to act in certain ways, a claim that is inconsistent with EDCT. The second goal of this chapter, then, is to present an alternative theory as a better candidate for a DCT. Thus, I develop a MDCT that overcomes Wielenberg’s challenge to EDCT and is not committed to certain claims to which EDCT is committed that are implausible at best. For example, I argue that my MDCT is not committed to the claim that God is a necessary being.

In this chapter I argue that the greater good defense (GGD) conjoined with my MDCT provides a new refutation of the logical argument from evil. The logical argument from evil is an argument for the conclusion that God does not exist because God’s existence and evil’s existence are logically incompatible, i.e., it is impossible for both to exist. GGD challenges the premise of this argument by affirming that, for all we know, every evil is entailed by a good that outweighs that evil in the sense that its  (positive) value is (in absolute terms) equal to or greater than the (negative) value of that evil. One main problem with this solution is that sometimes bringing about a good that outweighs some evil is still morally wrong. For example, it may be good to kill one unknown, innocent bystander, donate his organs, and save five people in need of those organs. But doing this is still morally wrong. Furthermore, we know of evils so bad that bringing them about would be wrong no matter how great the goods that entail them are. Thus, GGD fails to successfully address the logical problem of evil.

Nevertheless, according to the command theory of moral obligation I endorse, we are morally obligated to act in virtue of the commands we receive from legitimate authorities. If God existed, he would be the sole legitimate authority over himself. Thus, we can affirm that, possibly, God has different obligations from humans because God gives himself different commands from the ones he gives humans. Therefore, for all we know, God is morally permitted to bring about such goods while humans are not because God gives different commands to himself than he does to human being.

In this chapter, I investigate the conceptual requirements for an adequate theory of moral obligation and base a new moral argument for God’s existence on the results of that investigation. A theory of obligation is adequate only if it accounts for or explains certain essential features of moral obligation. It needs to explain, say, the motivational force of obligations, i.e., the fact that they give us reasons for action; their guilt-making power, i.e., the fact that the agent that intentionally fails to fulfill his duty is objectively guilty and responsible and that others are justified in adopting certain attitudes toward that person (like blame for example), etc. I argue that MDCT is an adequate theory of moral obligation in this respect and that it is a better theory than some of its well-known competitors. Then, I develop a new moral argument for the conclusion that certain known moral facts provide evidence for God’s existence. Specifically, I argue that the fact that we have moral obligations toward strangers, animals, and the environment—is more probable given the truth of theism than given its falsity. Formulated as an inference to the best explanation, I appeal to the idea that positing God’s existence allows us to explain that we have obligations toward strangers, animals, and the environment, by appealing to a relation that generates such moral obligation which we wouldn’t otherwise have if God did not exist.