God and Morality

God and Morality
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God and Morality
Shafer-Landau argues that “even if you believe in God, you should have serious reservations about tying the objectivity of morality to God’s existence.” (p. 78)
What is Shafer-Landau’s argument for this conclusion?
In this argument, the author implies that God may exist, but is not necessarily the source of the moral law. In other words, he means that Moral Objectivism can do without God, According to Landau (2003), theists, people who believe in God’s existence, have the conviction that God is the author/source of morality, and that morality is objective. The author concludes that even if one believes in God, he/she needs to have serious reservations with regard to tying the objectivity of morality to God’s existence. The author states that one of the common attributes of God is that of being Author of Morality. He states that most theists believe God to be the source of everything, including being the source of morality. They believe that standards of wrong and right come from God, since it is God who decides what is wrong and right, and it is our duty to do our part by aspiring to live according to the divine decrees. However, ethical objectivists maintain that a realm of moral truths exist, that have not been created by God (Landau, 2003).
The author reflects about Euthyphro and poses the question that modern theists should respond to: is an action right for the reason that God loves it, or God loves the act because it is right? If God loves an act because it is right, this seems to undermine God’s all-powerfulness since that would imply that God is not the author of the moral law, but rather, he is one who invariably knows how to appreciate it. The author adds that if God loves an act because it is right, then it is not God’s love that makes it right. The act would still be right, prior to, or independently of, God’s love, and this would be ...