Blake McAllister

Mark Murphy argues that the property identity version of divine command theory, coupled with the doctrine that God has freedom in commanding, violates the supervenience of the moral on the nonmoral. In other words, they permit two situations exactly alike in nonmoral facts to differ in moral facts. I give three arguments to show that a divine command theorist of this sort can consistently affirm moral supervenience. Each argument contends that there are always nonmoral differences between worlds with different divine commands. If there are such nonmoral differences, then there’s no conflict between divine command theory and moral supervenience.

William Lane Craig offers two philosophical arguments for the conclusion that the universe began to exist. To be compelling, these arguments must not only be sound—we must also have reasons to believe that they are sound. I determine that these arguments do not provide such reasons to many individuals. The arguments ultimately rely on supposedly intuitively obvious absurdities. However, if one fails to see these ostensible absurdities—as many philosophers do—then for her, Craig’s arguments lack all epistemic force.