Divine Command Theory - Blake Bauserman

 Following up on the post about dispositionalism, I would like to briefly discuss Divine Command Theory and its more concerning implications as discussed by Charis Steffel.

Steffel's position is that there are no limits upon God, so by the very nature of his existence, anything he commands would be necessarily good. This would include actions such as genocide. This, however, is necessarily concerning, though Steffel offers reassurance that God is not arbitrary and we already know everything about Him to know that He would not command such things.

I would like to play an opposite side, however, and ask what about the Old Testament. As the Israelites enter the promised land, they are told to kill the Canaanites. While any theologian might offer the opinion that they needed to cleanse the land, I ask, does it justify killing all of them? Yes, there were indeed very troublesome people with child sacrifices being engaged in. Moving forward several hundred years, I ask again was it necessarily good that Saul was commanded to kill the Amalekites fully. All the women, men, and children. Was the death of children justified? I am not sure, I can say with all fullness. Perhaps the people were poisoned like the doctrine of original sin. However, such rhetoric is dangerous as it creates more godly groups of people than others.