Current Controversies in Philosophy of Religion by Draper Paul;

Author:Draper, Paul;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2019-02-21T16:00:00+00:00

Is Moral Perfection an Independent Divine Perfection?

Grant for a moment that the argument of the previous section was successful, and that a being’s omniscience, omnipotence, perfect rationality, and perfect freedom do not of themselves entail that being’s moral perfection. One might propose that this does little to call into question the view that moral perfection is among the perfections of an absolutely perfect being. One might retort simply that moral perfection is “independent”: though it is not entailed by the other divine perfections, we may nevertheless posit it as a further perfection alongside these. So long as there is no internal incoherence in the idea of unsurpassable moral excellence and no inconsistency with the other divine perfections, one may posit that the absolutely perfect being is not only omniscient, omnipotent, fully rational, and fully free, but morally perfect as well.

Some have called into question the internal coherence of the notion of unsurpassable moral excellence (Rowe 2004, 88–150; and Wielenberg 2004), but I think that such arguments are not very successful (Murphy 2014). The central difficulty here is, rather, that if the uncontroversial divine perfections do not entail divine moral perfection, then they entail that it is false that the absolutely perfect being must be morally perfect.

Here is why. For the absolutely perfect being to be morally perfect, there must be a pattern of action that the absolutely perfect being’s choices must exhibit: they must fit a pattern given by the norms of morality. Even if those norms allow some flexibility for discretionary choice, nevertheless, if they really are necessitating norms, then there are some ways of action that are ruled out, and we can state—in some very abstract way—what the pattern of action is that the absolutely perfect being’s choices must fit. Now, on the face of it, to say that the absolutely perfect being’s actions must fit some pattern looks like the basis of a prima facie charge that the absolutely perfect being is not, after all, free. So, we need some way to rebut this charge for, otherwise, it would turn out that the moral perfection of the absolutely perfect being would entail that such a being is not free. Since we are treating perfect freedom as uncontroversial, this is tantamount to admitting that the absolutely perfect being is not morally perfect.

Our characterization of perfect freedom allows only one way to avoid the charge that the absolutely perfect being’s necessarily choosing a certain way shows that such a being is not free. The sketch of perfect freedom offered at the outset allows that if the reasons for acting a certain way are judged by the absolutely perfect being to be decisive, then the absolutely perfect being’s necessarily acting that way does not detract from that being’s freedom. It does not count against God’s being free that, for example, God necessarily loves God.

Unfortunately, this one way is blocked to us. For it would allow us to reconcile God’s moral perfection and God’s perfect freedom only if God has decisive reasons to further the ends that morality prescribes.

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