Islam, the Divine Command Theory, and Religious Fundamentalism

ABSTRACT

In 1980, George F. Hourani and, more recently in 2010, Mariam al-Attar argued that Islam is not compatible with divine command theory. They rehearsed some standard objections (namely the objectivity of morality, divine goodness, moral knowledge) targeted against meta-ethical divine command theory taking the Qur’an into consideration, and argued that it should be discarded from an Islamic point of view. In addition, they criticized divine command theory since it involves obedience to God and, therefore, does not allow moral reasoning but rather is the source of religious fundamentalism and violence. Although these objections are powerful when applied to the early Ashʿarite version of divine command theory, they are not powerful against recent formulations of it presented by Christian philosophers. For example, a divine command theory like that of Robert Merrihew Adams is well suited to respond to these objections. Thus, divine command theory, in its recent formulations, is a genuine option for Muslims and should be given due consideration.

KEYWORDS:

• Divine command theory
• religious ethics
• Qur'an
• religious fundamentalism
• moral realism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Ferhat Yöney http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0965-7637

Notes

1 Like some of the Western philosophers who have written on this issue, I shall use these terms interchangeably.

2 For a middle ground between these views in Islamic and Christian thought, see Çakmak (2017).

3 It is not the case that all normative truths are known by unaided reason. While fundamental normative truths are known by reason, some specifications of these fundamental normative truths are known by revelation. The former constitutes the moral ground for the latter (see Vasalou 2008, 38–57).

4 It is important to note that almost all of the defenders of moral non-naturalism and moral naturalism are atheists of some kind.

5 M. H. Shakir’s translation of the Qur’an (1988) is used with modifications.

6 These writers disagree on some points about the formulation of DCT. I shall not refer to them here and they do not influence my argument.

7 This distinction also appears in Islamic thought and the two are named as mandūb and wājib, respectively.

8 They argued that theistic ethics is superior to moral naturalism as a type of moral realism. For example, see Jordan (2011a, 2011b).

9 I borrowed these analogies from Joyce (2006, 117).

10 See Wainright (2005, 180–208) for a survey of the literature on the Abraham story.

11 I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pressing this point.

12 Of course, these moral obligations are also related to the relationship between God and human beings, but this relevance is constructed by scriptural injunctions and the religious tradition.