In Harris’ debate with William Lane Craig at Notre Dame, transcript here, Harris offered three direct lines of argument against a DCT. (I say direct lines because many of Harris’ rebuttals did not address DCT at all; rather he engaged popular objections to Christian doctrines about exclusivism and hell.) The first direct argument was as follows:

“According to Dr Craig’s Divine Command theory, God is not bound by moral duties; God doesn’t have to be good. Whatever he commands is good, so when he commands that the Israelites slaughter the Amalekites, that behavior becomes intrinsically good because he commanded it.”

Here Harris makes three claims.  First he argues that according to a DCT God does not “have to be good”. Second, he infers from this that God can therefore make any action at all intrinsically good. Third, he alludes to an incident in the book of Samuel where, on the face of it, God commands the killing of the Amalekites.

Turning to Harris’s first claim, according to DCT a person has a duty to a person to do some action only if that person is commanded by God to do it. As God does not issue commands to himself he is not bound by moral duties. Harris infers from this that “God doesn’t have to be good”.

Whether this is inference is sound depends on what Harris means by “have to be good”. There are at least two possible things he could mean by this.

Sometimes when we say someone does or does not “have” to do something, we mean they are not morally obligated to do it. When I tell my children they have to tell the truth, for example, I am saying they have a duty to tell the truth. In other contexts however, when we say that someone does or does not “have” to do something we mean it is possible for them to do it.

If Harris, in saying “God does not have to be good”, means God is not under an obligation to be good then his inference is sound; if God is not bound by duties then he obviously does not have an obligation to be good. This, however, does not entail that it is logically possible for God to lack goodness.

If, on the other hand, Harris’ claim that “God does not have to be good” carries the implication that it is possible for God to do evil then it is a a flat out straw man.

Craig’s position is that our moral obligations are constituted by God’s commands. He explained what he meant by the term ‘God’ earlier on in the debate:

“As St. Anselm saw, God is by definition the greatest conceivable being and therefore the highest Good. Indeed, He is not merely perfectly good, He is the locus and paradigm of moral value. God’s own holy and loving nature provides the absolute standard against which all actions are measured. He is by nature loving, generous, faithful, kind, and so forth. Thus if God exists, objective moral values exist, wholly independent of human beings.”

Craig specifies that he is using the definition of God proposed by 11^th century theologian Anselm of Canterbury. On this understanding the word God functions more like a title as opposed to a proper noun. Just as the title “Ceaser” designated whoever is Emperor of Rome, “God” is the title given to any person who is “the greatest possible being”, who is “worthy of worship”.  Craig is also clear that in order to be worthy of worship or maximally great the person in question must be “morally perfect”, by which be means he  must have certain character traits of being loving, generous, kind, faithful and so on.

So, as Craig has defined his terms it is impossible for God to not be good, in the same way it is impossible for Ceaser to not be the Emperor of Rome. A person might claim there is another person who currently holds this title, and one might dispute as to who at a particular point in time in fact did – rejecting  that Nero is Ceaser as opposed to Claudius let’s say – but one cannot claim that if someone is Ceaser that he is not the Emperor of Rome. Similarly, as Craig has defined his terms, it is impossible for anyone to be God and not be perfectly good. One can deny that any existent being is God, and one can deny certain candidates such as Yahweh or Allah are God, but if a being is God then he is good.

This brings us to Harris’s second claim. The inference he attempts to draw that God can make any action at all intrinsically good simply by commanding that it be done.

Harris states, “when he commands that the Israelites slaughter the Amalekites, that behaviour becomes intrinsically good because he commanded it.” This, however, is false. Pretty much all major versions of a DCT defended today are accounts of the nature of the moral obligations,  not accounts of goodness in general. To say an action is obligatory is not the same as saying it is instrically good to do. It might be good, even saintly, for me to give a kidney to benefit a stranger but it is not an act I am obliged to do. For something to be obligatory it must be more than intrinsically good; one must be required to do it so that failure to do it without an adequate excuse renders one blameworthy and appropriately subject to censure.

No DCT I know of defended today, and certainly not Craig’s version, claims that an action can be made instrinsically good because God commands it. Goodness  is an attribute God possesses essentially; it is antecedent to any commands he issues. Because God is essentially good he cannot command just anything; it is logically impossible for an essentially good person to command something that is incompatible with him being a good person.

It follows therefore that God cannot make the killing of the Amalekites intrinsically good by commanding it. God can make killing the Amalekite obligatory by commanding it, but he can do this only if it is possible for a  good person to issue such a command. If it is not then a DCT does not entail that this action could be obligatory.

This brings us to Harris’ third claim. The questions around the biblical account of Saul killing the Amalekites are strictly speaking irrelevant to the defensibility of a DCT. This is because a DCT is simply the thesis that moral obligations consist in divine commands. By itself, this thesis says nothing about whether God’s commands are accurately revealed in the Bible or the Koran or any written revelation at all. Of course, some divine command theorists, like Craig, are biblical inerrantists and hold that the Bible is the infallible word of God. However, many, such as Robert Adams and Philip Quinn, are not.  Biblical inerrancy is a separate thesis compatible with either the affirmation or the denial of DCT. Craig pointed this out earlier in his debate with Harris.

“Here the only response that I detected from Dr. Harris was to refer to the atrocities in the Hebrew Bible. But I think this is quite irrelevant to tonight’s discussion; there are plenty of Divine Command theorists who are not Jews or Christians and place no stock whatsoever in the Bible. So this isn’t an objection to Divine Command theory that I’m defending tonight.”

At the point  in the debate that Harris raised the issue of the Amalekites it had already been pointed out this question was irrelevant to the truth of a DCT. At no point subsequent to this did Harris attempt to refute Craig on this and show that a DCT entails or rationally commits one to believing in biblical inerrancy. Instead, he just repeated the Old-Testament atrocities argument.

Unfortunately when it has been pointed out to you that a particular line of argument is irrelevant, repeating that argument does not counts as a rational rebuttal – even if you are repeating a popular canard.

Harris’ first direct refutation of a DCT fails.

From the promotional material:

Are faith and reason enemies? Should we take Christianity seriously in the world of ideas? Can we even know that Christianity is true? Thinking Matters and Evangelical Union are proud to host Christian philosopher, blogger, and popular speaker Dr Glenn Peoples to explore these questions and examine the evidence.

Workshops sessions available:

• Dr Chris Tucker on the ‘problem of evil’
• Shawn Means on maths, the universe, and God
• Sean du Toit on who wrote the books of the New Testament
• Dr Matthew Flannagan on reading difficult Old Testament passages

The day will conclude with a panel featuring Dr Glenn Peoples, Dr Matthew Flannagan, and Jacqui Lloyd which is open to any question.

The location is ‘GAPS’ 17A Powell St, Avondale – slightly out of the city (and a 10 min walk from Avondale train station), this rustic location is ideal for seminars and discussion.

Cost: $15. Lunch is included.

Register at the Facebook event page here.

(Read Matthew 28:1-15 first.)

Related post: Good Friday: The Ritual of Contemplating the Cross

(Read John 19 first.)

Related post: Good Friday: Why Celebrate Easter?

“The Christian faith seems increasingly at odds with those in the world around us. From the media, to skeptical teachers and unbelieving peers, the gospel seems irrelevant and out of date. How do we talk to others about God and the Bible? Can we really argue people into the kingdom of God? Or should we just focus on compassion and loving others? Next Thursday, Thinking Matters Auckland is hosting Christian theologian Dr Matt Flannagan to speak on these questions and more. Matt will examine the Biblical and practical evidence for defending Christianity and show why it is vital to knowing and communicating our faith in the 21st Century. The event is free, so come along and bring a friend.

Matt is a theologian and prominent New Zealand Christian commentator, debater, and blogger. He specialises in applied ethics and the interface between philosophy and theology. Currently, Matt works part-time as a teaching pastor and youth group leader for Takanini Church of Christ while he runs the popular blog MandM with his wife Madeleine.

Thinking Matters is a New Zealand Christian ministry that exists to encourage the life of the mind in the love of God.”

Thursday 4 April @ 7.30pm @ Auckland Chinese Presbyterian Church, 105 Vincent Street, Auckland, New Zealand

At the time of the accident I was on track to become an in house counsel for one of NZ’s leading brands; the company were paying for me to complete my law degree.

Initially ACC covered my income and treatment costs (well, part of them). They did not cover the part of my remuneration which related to my university fees and text books.

They sent me to see a specialist who is considered by many within his own field and has been found by the court to have, in the face of contrary evidence, “stuck to his tried and true assertion that degeneration is the cause” (read the judgment in Lu v ACC). He made no exception for me stating that was his diagnosis as I entered his rooms, before he asked me a single medical question, before he saw my scans. Matt was with me and saw this.

ACC cut my cover after he wrote his report. This spun us into significant hardship. So I hired the best ACC lawyers I could find. I took ACC to a review hearing conducted by ACC’s own reviewer. I lost. My lawyer told the court I would appeal. Two other specialists have now examined me and my files, both agree my condition is the result of an accident, both have written evidence for the court stating this. My lawyer has written her submissions. Yesterday Matt and I swore our affidavits, which we wrote ourselves and had my lawyer vet. This coming week my appeal will finally be filed. I hope to have a court date this year.

“Without limiting the generality of subsection (1), no celebrant who is a minister of religion recognised by a religious body enumerated in Schedule 1, and no celebrant who is a person nominated to solemnize marriages by an approved organisation, is obliged to solemnize a marriage if solemnizing that marriage would contravene the religious beliefs of the religious body or the religious beliefs or philosophical or humanitarian convictions of the approved organisation.”

It is clear that any marriage celebrant exercising their public function who is not covered by the amendment risks being in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the Human Rights Act 1993 if they refuse to perform their public function as marriage celebrants because it is a same sex couple seeking to be married.

Church ministers, marriage celebrants, court registrars, church elders, leaders, photographers and caterers and any other person or entity supplying services to the public risks being in breach of the Human Rights Act 1993 if they refuse to supply services to a couple seeking to be married because the couple are same sex. For some this could also mean risking their employment.

Service providers to the public risk being in breach of the Human Rights Act 1993 if they refuse to supply services to a married couple because the couple are same sex.

The New Zealand Law Society’s Law Reform Committee headed by Professor Paul Rishworth LLB (Hons) M Jur highlighted the risk to freedom of religion and belief in the Bill in its submission to Parliament:

“The proposer of the Bill said that the Bill was not intended to compel marriage celebrants to perform marriages contrary to their religious beliefs. However, in the Law Society’s view, Professor Rishworth says it is arguable that marriage celebrants who refuse to perform same-sex marriages will be acting unlawfully under the Human Rights Act 1993, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, or both.

“We want to highlight arguable conclusions which seem to be at odds with the settled intentions of the Bill’s drafters. Whatever the position, the Law Society believes it makes sense to put the matter beyond doubt,” Professor Rishworth says.

The only thing that the amended Bill puts beyond doubt is that the critics of those raising fears about the Bill’s threat to freedom of religion and belief were wrong. By recommending an amendment the Select Committee are agreeing that a risk existed, as the likes of Ian Bassett, Grant Illingworth have argued, contra to The Human Rights Commission’s claim that all “…religious officials and leaders are free to refuse to perform marriages that are not in accordance with their religious beliefs.”

Bassett, Illingworth and Rishworth are not alone with their concerns among the legal fraternity.

Graeme Edgeler, a Wellington Barrister has been quoted in the Herald saying:

… if an independent celebrant declined to marry a same-sex couple, the couple could then complain to the Human Rights Commission.

“It’s not about [celebrants] being forced, it’s about people getting in trouble afterwards if they didn’t,” he told APNZ.

“They’re not breaking any rule in the Marriage Act, but rules in other acts. The main one would be the Human Rights Act, which says you can’t discriminate on the basis on sexual orientation or gender.”

Auckland Barrister Rachel Wong has raised issues against the Bill.

This blog’s Madeleine Flannagan LLB, Associate Barrister and Solicitor at Coast Legal, adds her voice:

“The Bill, in its present form, fails to protect individual freedom of religion and belief (belief being a comprehensive viewpoint not based on religion). The proposed amendment only protects group religious rights, which is little protection at all for most religious celebrants as few denominations hold formal views on marriage, many practitioners of religion do not belong to a group and for those that do they might hold a different personal view on this topic to the group view. The amendment then fails to protect the religious freedom of most religious celebrants just as it utterly fails to protect the freedom of belief of non-religious celebrants who have no group to appeal to to protect their freedom.”

Ian Bassett’s latest opinion thoroughly analyses the legal effects of the amended Bill, a summary as to whose freedom of religion and belief it protects and whose it does not follows:

Protected
A marriage celebrant (who is a minister of religion recognised by a religious body enumerated in Schedule 1) or a celebrant (who is a person nominated to solemnise marriages by an approved organisation) will be able lawfully to refuse to solemnise a marriage if solemnizing that marriage would contravene the religious beliefs of the religious body or the religious beliefs or philosophical or humanitarian convictions of the approved organisation.

Not Protected
A marriage celebrant (who is a minister of religion recognised by a religious body enumerated in Schedule 1) or a celebrant (who is a person nominated to solemnise marriages by an approved organisation) will not be able lawfully to refuse to solemnise a marriage if the religious body or the approved organisation endorsed same sex marriage.

Independent marriage celebrants will not lawfully be able to refuse to solemnise a same sex marriage even if solemnising that marriage would contravene their religious beliefs or conscience.

Registrars will not lawfully be able to refuse to solemnise a same sex marriage even if solemnising that marriage would contravene their religious beliefs or conscience.

Church ministers, marriage celebrants, church elders supplying their churches, temples, mosques or synagogues to the public will be in breach of the Human Rights Act 1993 and acting unlawfully. If they refuse to supply their buildings to a couple seeking to be married because the couple are a same sex couple.

Unclear
It is unclear what will be the position of a marriage celebrant (who is a minister of religion recognised by a religious body enumerated in Schedule 1) or a celebrant (who is a person nominated to solemnise marriages by an approved organisation), where the approved religious body or organisation is split on the issue of same sex marriage or refuses to adopt an official position on the issue.

The amendment does not protect the rights to religious freedom or belief of any individual person, celebrant or minister. Rather it only protects the rights of various State-recognised religious groups. Bassett points out:

Bassett adds further:

Yesterday several church leaders called for the government to amend the Bill to to prevent discrimination against any teacher or other person who believes that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Christian Network director Glyn Carpenter is cited as stating:

“People should not be denied employment, they should not be denied promotion, and should not be dismissed from employment for refusing to go along with the new definition of marriage”.

Some teachers worried they could face accusations of discrimination if they did not teach that all marriages were equal.

The Rev Stuart Lange of the Presbyterian Affirm movement said the change was needed to stop the Government from fixing funding criteria that discriminated against religious-based social service agencies that did not support gay marriage.”

No MP is yet to be found willing to move such an amendment. After months of MP Louisa Wall, whose qualifications according to Wikipedia are “netball player and rugby union player“, assuring the New Zealand public this Bill was never intended to violate religious freedom or belief, it was not going to, that those who said it did were “fear mongers” the question needs to be asked why won’t they amend the Bill to protect freedom of religion and belief?

Ian Bassett, Grant Illingworth, Paul Rishworth, the Law Society, Graeme Edgeler, Rachael Wong and myself are hardly “fear mongers”. We are members of a profession who are qualified to make the statements we do.

Download Ian Bassett’s Legal Opinion of 6 March 2013
Download Ian Bassett’s Legal Opinion of 19 November 2012
Download Ian Bassett’s Legal Opinion of 27 August 2012
Download UPDATE to Legal Opinion of 29 August 2012

8:15am Rego’s and tea & coffee (YouTube videos in main hall)
9:00am Introduction, housekeeping, and ice breaker (people bingo)
09:30am session: ‘Relativism, Utilitarianism and Abortion’ – Dr Matthew Flannagan
10:30am Morning tea break
10:50am session: ‘Abortion Apologetics’ – Brendan Malone
11:50pm Break
12:00pm session: ‘The media and the culture of life’ – Bob McCoskrie
12:45pm Lunch Break
13:30pm WORKSHOPS:

1. ‘Modern medicine and abortion’ – Dr C. Hallagan
2. ‘The truth about post-abortion trauma’ – Carolina Gnad
3. ‘Practical media skills’ – Bob McCoskrie

14:30pm Break
14:45pm WORKSHOPS:

1. ‘What women in crisis-pregnancy need from us’ – Sandra Martin
2. ‘Using the Internet to build a culture of life’ – Jason McTague
3. ‘Skills every pro-life apologist needs’ – Dr Matthew Flannagan

15:45pm Afternoon tea break
16:15pm session ‘Be the voice your culture needs you to be!’ – Brendan Malone
17:00pm Small group discussion
17:15pm Final wrap up
17:45pm BBQ Dinner
19:00pm Finish and clean up

When and where:
Saturday 16 March, 2013 at:

Burwood Christian Centre
54 Bassett Street
Burwood
Christchurch

Registration starts at 8:45am on Saturday 16 March, and the event runs all day finishing with a BBQ dinner at approximately 5:45pm.

The registration fee is $20 per person (includes lunch and dinner plus morning and afternoon tea).

More information including how to register is available on the Stayin’ Alive website.

I listened in disbelief as John Humphrys interviewed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor on Radio 4′s Today programme this week. Surely, he said, like a headmaster addressing an errant teenager, if highly placed people knew about the behaviour of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, somebody in authority should have done something rather than covering it up? I waited for the former archbishop of Westminster, who sounded weary of the whole thing, to come up with any of the phrases that might have stopped the interview in its tracks: “Jimmy Savile”; “BBC”; “people in glass houses”. Perhaps he was too polite. So Humphrys pressed on: the church claims it can tell people how to behave, so surely it has to live up to those standards itself?

The joke here is that it is usually the media that tell people how to behave. Yes, the church sometimes “speaks out”. But if it’s moralising you want, turn on the radio. Or pick up a newspaper. And the institution the media especially love to attack is of course the church. There is a logic to this. The media want to be the guardians of public morality, but some people still see the church that way. Very well, it must be pulled down from its perch to make way for its secular successor.

Don’t be fooled when “religious affairs correspondents” look prim and solemn and shake their heads at the latest clerical scandal. They are enjoying every minute of it. It keeps them in a job (did anyone imagine that the real “religious affairs” of this country, the prayerful and self-sacrificial work that goes on under the radar every day of every year, would ever make headlines?). More: it makes it easier to sustain the fiction that the journalists have taken over as the nation’s moral police.

Until there’s another scandal – in the media themselves. Savile at the BBC. Phone hacking at the News of the World. Try suggesting that these were isolated, maverick one-off lapses, and listen to the hollow laughter echoing round the country. The church has rightly been attacked for hypocrisy. But is nobody else guilty? If the church is hypocritical about sex, the media are hypocritical about hypocrisy.

The whole article in the Guardian is well worth reading. Wright goes on to  make some astute points about virtue, moral failure, morality and hypocrisy.

ACC claim mother: I would have aborted

Woman says she would have terminated pregnancy had she been told baby was disabled.

A woman who says she would have terminated her pregnancy had doctors properly diagnosed her unborn child with spina bifida is seeking ACC cover for her disabled daughter.

In what her lawyer says could be a landmark case if she is successful, the woman has won the right to a hearing in the Court of Appeal against the decision by the Accident Compensation Corporation not to grant her cover for her young daughter.

The Auckland mother says her 5-year-old daughter, who walks mostly with a support frame, may miss out on crucial and costly physiotherapy as she grows older.

“We want her to have the best possible life that we can give her and with ACC cover it makes it a lot easier for us to be able to provide everything we need to provide,” said the mother, who did not want to be named.

She said her evidence to the court that she would have chosen to abort the pregnancy if she and her partner had been told of their daughter’s condition at 20 weeks’ pregnancy was difficult testimony to give.

“Obviously once she’s with us we want and love her,” the mother said yesterday.

Continues…