How the Trinitarian God of Christianity Provides the Best Explanation for Objective Morality: Comparing the Metaethical Theories of James Sterba and Adam Lloyd Johnson

Abstract

James Sterba recently presented arguments against theories which ground morality in God and attempted “to provide an account of the norms on which an ethics without God can be appropriately grounded ….” In particular, Sterba noted that “Robert Adams is best known for his attempt to ground morality in God’s nature” and “[r]ecently, Adam Johnson significantly developed Adams’s view ….” In 2024, Sterba and I had a public debate concerning this issue at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in which I argued that the trinitarian God of Christianity provides the best explanation for objective morality whereas Sterba argued that morality can be objective without God and proposed a nontheistic account. In this paper, I argue that my theistic theory, which I call Divine Love Theory, is a better explanation of objective morality than Sterba’s nontheistic theory. First, I provide a summary of both my theory and Sterba’s. Second, I respond to Sterba’s arguments against theories which ground morality in God. Third, I provide reasons to conclude my Divine Love Theory is a better explanation for objective morality than Sterba’s theory.

1. Introduction

Moral Realism has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity lately. David Enoch noted that when he first defended a version of Moral Realism in 2003, he “claimed the great philosophical advantage of being in the ridiculed minority, putting forward a view many do not think is even worth considering (Enoch 2011, p. 6).” However, he observed that such positions are “making an impressive comeback”, and noted how Stephen Finlay “classifies this as the now dominant view (Enoch 2011, p. 6, Finlay 2010, p. 57).”

Moral Realism differs from Constructivism, Error Theories, and Noncognitive Theories in that it affirms moral truths are constituted by objective facts which are independent of any real or hypothetical perspectives. The term objective is used in this context to describe moral truths which, similar to mathematical truths, are fixed in the sense that they are not dependent on how humans think, they do not change even when our beliefs about them change, and we do not create them, but discover them1. For examples of moral realists using the term objective in this way, consider that Shafer-Landau explained the purpose of his book Moral Realism was to defend “the theory that moral judgements enjoy a special sort of objectivity: such judgements, when true, are so independently of what any human being, anywhere, in any circumstance whatever, thinks of them.” ((Shafer-Landau 2003, p. 2) Emphasis added). Similarly, Enoch described objective morality as the position that “there are response-independent …, irreducibly normative truths, … objective ones, that when successful in our normative inquiries we discover rather than create or construct (Enoch 2007).” Lastly, Alvin Plantinga wrote that “moral truths are objective, in the sense that they are in a certain way independent of human beliefs and desires. It is wrong to torture people for the fun of it, and would remain wrong even if most or all of the world’s population came to believe that this behavior is perfectly acceptable, and indeed came to desire that it be much more widely practiced.” ((Plantinga 2010, p. 249) Emphasis added).

While many agree there are objective moral truths, numerous different metaethical theories have been proposed which attempt to explain how such truths could be objective. Unsurprisingly, theists often argue that God is the best explanation for objective morality. As a result, several theistic metaethical theories have been developed by contemporary thinkers such as Robert Adams, Robert Audi, C. Stephen Evans, John Hare, Mark Murphy, Philip Quinn, and Linda Zagzebski (Adams 1999; Audi 2011; Evans 2014; Hare 2015; Murphy 2011; Quinn 1978; Zagzebski 2004). Theistic metaethical theories come in many shapes and sizes but the two most common ones are Natural Law Theory and Divine Command Theory. While both theories have been around a long time, Susan Peppers-Bates noted in particular that the “debate swirling around divine command ethics, which engrossed many medieval and early modern thinkers, revived again in the 1980’s and continues to the present day (Peppers-Bates 2008, p. 361).”

Some theists use their metaethical theory to develop arguments for God’s existence. For example, Adams argued that by showing the advantages of a theistic metaethical theory, he would thereby provide good reasons for accepting theism (Adams 1999, pp. 5–7). Elsewhere, he presented the following argument:

• Morality is objective: “certain things are morally right and others are morally wrong (Adams 1979, p. 116).”
• Objective morality is best explained by theism: “the most adequate answer is provided by a theory that entails the existence of God (Adams 1979, p. 117).”
• Therefore, there is good reason to think theism is true, and so “my metaethical views provide me with a reason of some weight for believing in the existence of God (Adams 1979, p. 117).”

Some atheists, particularly those who reject Moral Realism, actually agree that theism provides a better explanation for objective morality than atheism. J. L. Mackie wrote that “[w]e might well argue … that objective intrinsically prescriptive features, supervening upon natural ones, constitute so odd a cluster of qualities and relations that they are most unlikely to have arisen in the ordinary course of events, without an all-powerful God to create them. If, then, there are such intrinsically prescriptive objective values, they make the existence of a god more probable than it would have been without them (Mackie 1982, pp. 115–16).”

Other atheists disagree, argue that God is not the best explanation, and propose alternative theories of objective morality. One such atheist, James Sterba, recently presented arguments against theories which ground morality in God and attempted “to provide an account of the norms on which an ethics without God can be appropriately grounded …. (Sterba 2024, p. 1).” In particular Sterba noted that “Robert Adams is best known for his attempt to ground morality in God’s nature” and “[r]ecently, Adam Johnson significantly developed Adams’s view …. (Sterba 2024, p. 16).” In 2024, Sterba and I had a public debate concerning this issue at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in which I argued that the trinitarian God of Christianity provides the best explanation for objective morality whereas Sterba argued that morality can be objective without God and proposed a nontheistic account.2

In this paper, I will argue that my theistic theory, which I call Divine Love Theory, is a better explanation of objective morality than Sterba’s nontheistic theory. First, I will provide a summary of both my theory and Sterba’s. Second, I will respond to Sterba’s arguments against theories which ground morality in God. Third, I will provide reasons to conclude my Divine Love Theory is a better explanation for objective morality than Sterba’s theory.

2. Summary of Johnson’s and Sterba’s Theories

2.1. Johnson’s Divine Love Theory

In my previous work, I proposed that the ultimate ground of morality is God’s trinitarian nature, as found in, and expressed among, the loving relationships within the Trinity (Johnson 2023, pp. 41–65). I also used an abductive approach for the moral argument by starting with objective moral truth as the phenomenon to be explained and then argued that the best explanation for it is the trinitarian God of Christianity (Johnson 2023, pp. 105–225).

As Sterba noted, my theory is a development of Robert Adams’s. While Adams described his theory as a Divine Command Theory, this can cause confusion because it implies God’s commands are the key feature whereas he actually claims that God’s nature is the foundation for moral goodness (Adams 1999, p. 3). This is evident in Adams’s proposal in that he distinguishes the first part of his model as a theory of moral value and the second part as a theory of obligations, i.e., our duties, what we ought to do. It is important to make this distinction between moral value, what is good and bad, and moral duty, what is right and wrong, because in some situations, only one or the other applies. For example, there are actions which would be morally good for someone to do, such as developing a cure for cancer, but it is not necessarily their duty to do so. Though moral value and moral duty are similar and closely connected, philosophers usually develop separate explanations for them because they also have important differences.

As for moral value, Adams proposed that a human action is good if it resembles God in a morally pertinent way. He explained that “the part played by God in my account of the nature of the good is similar to that of the Form of the Beautiful or the Good in Plato’s Symposium and Republic. God is the supreme Good, and the goodness of other things consists of a sort of resemblance to God (Adams 1999, p. 7).” Further, he proposed that our obligations are generated by God’s commands (Adams 1999, p. 262). This second part of his model is the portion that can rightly be called a version of divine command theory. However, as Evans noted, it is important to recognize that the term command in “Divine Command Theory” is used to include not only direct verbal instructions from God but also all the other ways He communicates His will to us, for example, indirectly through our conscience (Evans 2014, p. 38).

My theory adds pertinent aspects of God’s triunity to Adams’s model, which expands it in several ways. As for moral value, I agree that a human action is good if it resembles God, but I propose that the specific aspect of God being resembled in such actions is His trinitarian nature as found in, and expressed among, the loving relationships within the Trinity. In other words, human actions are good when they resemble the loving communion within the Trinity.

Some may wonder how human actions could possibly resemble the trinitarian relationships, considering how different human persons are from divine persons. To understand this resemblance, consider two examples: first, a human protecting an innocent person from a murderer, and second, a human murdering an innocent person. It may seem puzzling how these actions could resemble the trinitarian relationships, or fail to resemble them in the second example, because the divine persons cannot die. The reason protecting an innocent person from a murderer reflects the trinitarian relationships is that, because of the way God created humans—that is, human nature—such an act is a loving thing to do, and doing something that is loving resembles the loving relationships between the persons of the Trinity; thus it is morally good. Conversely, because of the way God created humans, the act of murdering an innocent person is not a loving thing to do, and thus it does not resemble the loving relationships between the persons of the Trinity; thus it is morally bad.

In other words, it is not the protecting of the innocent (or the murdering of the innocent) but the loving (or unloving) aspect of that action that resembles (or does not resemble) the relationships among the persons of the Trinity. Thus, hypothetically, if God had made beings that felt great pleasure at being murdered and then came back to life shortly after, murder would be a loving thing to do and thus morally good. In this way, then, facts about the human nature God created and facts about the relationships between the persons of the Trinity work together to determine what is morally good and bad.

As for moral obligations, while I agree that they are generated by God’s commands, my theory extends this idea by bringing in additional aspects of the Trinity. However, even though my theory incorporates some aspects of Divine Command Theory, it should not be classified as such because it maintains that God’s triunity, not His commands, is the most important aspect of how He is the source of obligations. My theory of obligation begins by noting that the purpose God created us for to extend the loving fellowship of the Trinity. Our obligations originate from this telos—to enjoy loving relationships with Him and each other. Next, our obligations are generated when God makes us aware of what is good and bad and that we should do what is good; He does this indirectly, for example, through our conscience, and directly, for example, through commands. It is important to note God’s commands are primarily about instructing us how to best achieve the purpose we were created for—to love God and each other. We should follow God’s instructions because of our loving relationship with Him; obeying God is one of the ways we express our love for Him. In that sense, the basis of our obligations is the love we should have for God within our relationship with Him, similar to a parent/child relationship.

2.2. Sterba’s Nontheistic Theory of Objective Morality

Sterba proposed that morality can be justified by appealing to the ultimate moral norm of fairness, i.e., treating everyone’s relevant interests fairly (Sterba 2024, p. 7). He argued that all other moral norms can then be derived from this one most basic moral norm (Sterba 2024, p. 8). Furthermore, he claimed that the ultimate justification for the norms of morality must be another norm, i.e., an ultimate ought. He thus proposed that morality, in particular the ultimate moral norm of fairness, is grounded in rationality, in particular, the rational norm of nonquestion begging. This rational norm grounds the moral norm of fairness in that the rational principle of nonquestion begging is the only way to come to a compromise between egoistic and altruistic interests, which is to view morality as fairly taking into account all of those interests.

Unfortunately, Sterba’s advocacy of the generic moral principle of fairness has more to do with normative ethics than metaethics. Normative ethics focuses on answering the question “What should we do?” by establishing moral principles and guidelines to follow, whereas metaethics focuses on the question “What is morality?” by exploring the fundamental nature of morality itself. While fairness is a useful principle to help us figure out how to make good moral decisions, metaethics goes deeper and tries to explain ontologically where moral principles like fairness come from, how they can exist objectively beyond our own subjective ideas, and why we are obligated to follow such moral principles. That is what the metaethical disagreement between theists and atheists is about—what is the best explanation for objective, authoritative, mind-independent, moral truths like fairness? How could fairness generate authoritative, objective moral ‘oughts’ that we are obligated to follow? Where does our moral right to be treated fairly come from and how could it exist objectively beyond our subjective idea of it? Sterba needs to go beyond merely suggesting generic ethical principles and provide a metaethical explanation of where these moral truths come from and how they can be objectively true independent of our subjective opinions.

3. Responses to Sterba’s Arguments Against Theistic Theories of Objective Morality

3.1. It Is Contradictory for Theists to Say Both That Atheists Can Know Right from Wrong and That for Atheists All Things Are Permitted

Sterba considered it “perplexing to find that some theists—sometimes the very same theists who affirmed that atheists can know what morality requires and abide by it—also affirm that for atheists, everything is permitted (Sterba 2024, p. 7).” He explained that the “claim that if God is dead, then everything is permitted is … usually understood to imply that without God, there cannot be an objective morality …. [But] that strongly opposes the view that atheists can know what is right and wrong and act accordingly (Sterba 2024, p. 7).”

Sterba here failed to understand that when theists make such comments, they are making two conditional statements regarding two different scenarios. Theists argue that under the first scenario, if theism is true and God is the source of foundation of morality, then atheists can know what is right and wrong and act accordingly, even though they do not believe in God. In other words, with this conditional statement, theists are clarifying that they are not claiming someone must believe in God in order to know what is right and wrong and act accordingly. However, some theists argue that under the second scenario, if theism is false and there is no God, then everything is permitted because without God, there cannot be an objective morality. In other words, here they are arguing for the conditional statement that if there is no God then morality is subjective, not objective, because only God can provide a foundation for objective morality. It is important to note that in this paper, I am not arguing for this strong claim that only God can provide a foundation for objective morality, i.e., that God is the only possible explanation for objective morality. Instead, my more modest approach here is abductive in the sense that I am arguing that God is the best explanation for the existence of objective morality.

It is critical to recognize this distinction between knowing objective morality versus the existence of objective morality because that is what this metaethical disagreement is all about. The key difference is between knowing that something is objectively wrong versus explaining why it is objectively wrong. How we know moral truths is a separate topic from what makes such truths objectively true. I affirm that theists and atheists alike can know something is objectively wrong, but explaining what actually makes it wrong is something else entirely. In other words, people can know that morality is objective and that rape is wrong without appealing to God, but I am arguing that atheists in general, and Sterba in particular, do not have a plausible ontological explanation as to why rape is wrong. Explaining how there can be objective moral truth is a more fundamental issue than merely knowing a particular moral truth or knowing that morality is objectively true.

3.2. Sterba’s Problem of Evil Argument That God Does Not Exist

The primary reason Sterba rejects theistic theories of objective morality stems from his problem of evil argument against the existence of God. To put it simply, God certainly cannot be the best explanation of objective morality if He does not exist. To summarize, Sterba argued that it is “logically impossible” for an all-good, all-powerful God to exist in light of all of the horrendous evil in the world3. While this type of logical problem of evil was popular around the middle of the twentieth century, even many atheist philosophers came to recognize that it is incredibly difficult to defend such a strong claim. This is due in large part to philosophers like Alvin Plantinga, who pointed out that all one has to do to refute such a claim is provide a possible explanation for how God and evil could both exist. It does not even have to be the actual correct explanation because, since the claim—it is impossible for both God and evil to exist—is so strong, all that is required to refute the claim is a possible scenario where God and evil both exist. If something is at least possible, then, by definition, it is not impossible.

Because the logical problem of evil faces this formidable hurdle, today, many consider it to be a dead argument. Atheist William Rowe wrote “[s]ome philosophers have contended that the existence of evil is logically inconsistent with the existence of … God. No one, I think, has succeeded in establishing such an extravagant claim (Rowe 1979).” Has Sterba successfully resurrected this logical problem of evil? Hardly. Even atheist Erik Wielenbeg wrote “[Plantinga’s] basic strategy can be used to defeat Sterba’s newer logical argument from evil … (Wielenberg 2022).” Wielenberg himself proposed a possible model where God exists and permits horrendous suffering. He explained “[i]f this model is logically possible, then the first premise of Sterba’s argument is false …. Thus, Sterba’s new logical argument from evil succumbs to a modified version of Plantinga’s old free will defense (Wielenberg 2022, pp. 5–6).” I will not address Sterba’s problem of evil argument further in this paper because I have already provided a thorough response using Plantinga’s basic strategy of proposing a possible scenario where God chooses to allow horrendous suffering (Johnson 2025).

3.3. Euthyphro Dilemma

In his critique of theistic explanations of objective morality, Sterba reiterated the classic Euthyphro Dilemma (Sterba 2024, p. 3). This objection is based on a section in Plato’s Euthyphro where Socrates asked “Is that which is holy loved by the gods because it is holy, or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?”4. The concern is often restated in monotheistic terms as follows: Either (1) Morality is based on God’s commands; thus He could have arbitrarily commanded any heinous act and it would be morally right, or (2) Morality is based on necessary truths that even God cannot change; thus morality is not actually grounded in God but is independent of Him and out of His control5. This dilemma is often raised against theistic explanations of morality because it seems that theists must embrace one of these horns, both of which they find unattractive—either morality is arbitrary or it is out of God’s control.

Since nearly all divine command theorists affirm our obligations are generated by God’s commands, this dilemma is most often directed toward Divine Command Theories. However, this objection also applies to my Divine Love Theory because it too affirms that obligations are generated by God’s commands. Sterba pressed the first horn by arguing that under Divine Command Theory “an action that we might otherwise think is wrong—intentionally killing one’s own innocent child—could be made the right thing to do simply by the commands of God (Sterba 2024, p. 4).” This concern stems from a perceived implication of Divine Command Theories—namely, that if morality is based on what God wills to command, and if God could have willed to command anything, then this means that morality is arbitrary. William Mann noted that this “can conjure up images of a God who might have approved of just any kind of action, including murder, and who might have disapproved of just any kind of action, including neighborly love” (Mann 2015, p. 273).

It should be acknowledged that some divine command theorists, William of Ockham being the most well-known, have maintained that God’s will alone determines morality such that He could choose to make anything to be good or bad. Under these theories, God could hypothetically even choose to make lying or rape morally good if He wanted to. While such versions of Divine Command Theory are often called Divine Voluntarism or Extreme Divine Voluntarism, Zagzebski referred to them as “strong” Divine Command Theories and explained that they maintain that “God’s will is logically or metaphysically prior to both good/bad and right/wrong …. God’s will is the metaphysical ground of evaluative properties, at least the evaluative properties of acts and the ends of acts (Zagzebski 2004, p. 279).” Elsewhere, she described “strong” divine command theories as those that make “the divine will the source of moral value (Zagzebski 2004, p. 258)” and maintain that “God created morality by an act of his free will and imposed it upon us (Zagzebski 2004, p. 185).”

However, most Divine Command Theorists reject this Extreme Divine Voluntarism. Instead, it is common for Divine Command Theorists to respond to this dilemma by proposing that morality is dependent upon God’s nature in such a way that He could not command something that violates His perfect moral nature. How does this help against the Euthyphro Dilemma? If morality is dependent upon God’s nature in this way, then both horns of the dilemma are avoided. As for the first horn, God’s commands would not be arbitrary because they would have to be consistent with His moral nature. As for the second horn, morality would not be independent of God, but dependent upon Him, that is, upon His moral nature.

Sterba pressed the second horn when he argued that God would have to be morally good “in order for His commands to have any moral authority over us at all. However, to say that God … is morally good is to say that what God does and what he commands, accords with the requirements of morality. But then, we can ask what grounds or justifies the requirements of morality? (Sterba 2024, p. 8).” While there is a sense in which the second horn of the dilemma is correct in that morality is based on necessary truths that even God cannot change, the implication of this horn is avoided (the idea that morality is therefore independent of God) because these necessary truths that God cannot change are truths about God Himself, and thus are dependent upon Him, making morality dependent upon Him as well. In other words, there is some thing that constrains what God can and cannot command, but this thing that constrains what God can and cannot command is not independent from God but in a sense is God Himself, i.e., His perfect moral nature. Peppers-Bates explained that “internal constraints flowing from God’s own perfect nature are not theologically worrisome as external constraints (Peppers-Bates 2008, p. 367).” Elsewhere, she helpfully contrasted the difference between this proposal and what Zagzebski called “strong divine command theory” with these rhetorical questions: “Are God’s commands grounded in His bare will, in total, radical, freedom with no criteria or constraint? Or does God’s being (encompassing His will/wisdom/goodness, etc.) ground God’s commands? (Peppers-Bates 2008, p. 367)”.

Since God’s commands are based on His moral nature, morality is ultimately dependent on His nature, not His will or His commands. David Baggett and Jerry Walls noted that “a careful distinction between questions of dependence and control allows an answer to the Euthyphro Dilemma that can serve as an important component of any thoroughly theistic metaphysic with a strong commitment to moral realism …. Moral truths can be objective, unalterable, and necessary, and yet still dependent on God (Baggett and Walls 2011, p. 91).” They concluded that “if such dependence or even identity obtains or is even possible, then the Euthyphro Dilemma is effectively defused … (Baggett and Walls 2011, p. 93)”.

Most contemporary divine command theorists have embraced this solution to the Euthyphro Dilemma. For example, Quinn wrote that it “is the divine nature itself, and not divine commands or intentions, that constrains the antecedent intentions God can form [in choosing which commands to give] (Quinn 1999, p. 71).” Similarly, my Divine Love Theory affirms that the ultimate ground of God’s commands is His trinitarian moral nature, which constrains what He is able to command6.

3.4. Divine Commands Could Conflict

Sterba argued that Divine Command Theory is problematic because “divine commands could, presumably, come into conflict (Sterba 2024, p. 5).” To press this point, he presented a hypothetical example where God commanded us to care for our family and to care for the poor and noted that these two commands could come into conflict if our limited resources prevented us from being able to do both (Sterba 2024, p. 5). He claimed that Divine Command Theory provides no guidance for “resolving conflicts between commands” and therefore “we would be at a complete loss as to what to do (Sterba 2024, p. 5).”

In response to this concern, it is important to first point out that various theistic belief systems have proposed numerous ways to prioritize and implement their understanding of God’s commands. In particular, the Judeo/Christian tradition has a long history of carefully considering, sometimes to a fault, resulting in judgmental legalism, how best to obey God’s instructions. For example, Jesus taught that the two greatest commands are to love God and to love others and that all the other commands rest on this foundation (Matt. Vol, 22, pp. 36–40).

Second, as explained above in Section 2.1, divine command theorists use the term command to include not only direct verbal instructions from God but also all the other ways He makes us aware of moral truth, for example, indirectly through our conscience. Our conscience includes, or works in conjunction with, our moral reasoning abilities, which help us think through how God’s commands should best be implemented. This is especially pertinent in situations where God instructs us in a general direction, such as His command to ‘love your neighbor’, but we have to carefully reason through how to best accomplish this given various factors and constraints.

Third, it is surprising that Sterba considers ‘having the potential for conflict’ as a good reason to dismiss a metaethical theory as implausible. It is difficult to imagine a metaethical theory which has no potential for conflict whatsoever. In particular, Sterba’s theory, based on his fairness principle, seems especially ripe for conflict since it depends on ascertaining how to treat everyone’s relevant interests fairly. He even acknowledged that

[o]f course, there will be cases in which the only way to avoid being required to do what is contrary to your highest-ranking interests is by requiring someone else to do what is contrary to his or her highest-ranking interests. Some of these cases will be so-called lifeboat cases, as when two individuals are stranded in a lifeboat that has only enough resources for one to survive. Although such cases are surely difficult to resolve (maybe only a chance mechanism, like flipping a coin, can offer a reasonable resolution), they surely do not reflect the typical conflict between our relevant egoistic and altruistic interests.

((Sterba 2024, p. 11). Emphasis added)

While flipping a coin may be a pragmatic solution in such cases of radical conflict, it raises questions about the sufficiency of fairness as the ultimate moral ideal. As for guidance in achieving such resolutions, he merely mentioned that “a fair assessment of the relevant interests can be given in a number of ways. For example, one could employ a Rawlsian veil of ignorance with parties in an original position representing all relevant interests (Sterba 2024, p. 11).”

To be clear, I am not arguing that Sterba’s theory should be rejected merely because it has the potential for conflict; I reject the idea that a metaethical theory should be rejected for this reason. My point is that it is inconsistent for Sterba to reject Divine Command Theory for having the potential for conflict when his theory also has this potential.

3.5. God Does Not Have Property Ownership Rights over Us

Sterba claimed that divine command theorists appeal to the idea that God created us to justify His moral authority to give us commands. He used an analogy of human procreation to argue that creating someone does not generate property ownership rights like those which are generated when, say, a farmer produces a bushel of corn (Sterba 2024, p. 5). Since parents do not have property ownership rights over the children they procreate, we should conclude that God also does not have property ownership rights over the people He created. Therefore, “the idea that we were created by God no more supports the prerogatives of divine command theory than human procreation supports property rights over the children whom are thereby produced (Sterba 2024, p. 6).”

Sterba is correct in that God does not have property ownership rights over us just like parents do not have property ownership rights over their children. But why think God’s moral authority to give us commands is at all similar to, or should be understood as, property ownership rights? Sterba did not provide any evidence of theists explaining God’s moral authority in such ways. I am not aware of any divine command theorists who construe God’s moral authority to give us commands as property ownership rights.

Certainly, divine command theorists do maintain God has moral authority over us which both gives Him the authoritative right to issue us commands and obligates us to obey Him. However, they do not ground moral obligations in a transactional creator-owned relationship or use a legalistic ownership model to explain their theory. In fact, divine command theorists often use the moral authority dynamics between parents and their children as an analogy to explain the moral authority dynamics between God and people He created. In other words, parents have a similar moral authority over their children, though to a lesser degree than God has over us, which both gives parents the authoritative right to issue them commands and obligates their children to obey such commands. This does not mean that parents can rightfully command their children to do anything or to commit evil deeds, of course. Similarly, as discussed above, God’s moral nature constrains Him from commanding us to commit evil deeds.

In addition, according to my Divine Love Theory, though God has moral authority over us, His commands flow not from a despotic desire to control but from a desire that we would best enjoy the greatest thing possible—loving relationships with Him and others. Understanding that this is the purpose of God’s commands takes the teeth out of one of the most common complaints against Divine Command Theories, namely, that His commands are overly authoritarian. Similar to John Hare, I maintain that God is a personal divine lover whose commands build a relationship of communication between us and Him (Hare 2015, p. 260). This relationship is not dictatorial but relational, guiding us to our ultimate end of being in a vibrant loving relationship with the persons of the Trinity, being brought fully into their fellowship (Hare 2001, p. 119). This is a profound shift away from viewing divine commands as harshly authoritarian and upheld by the threat of punishment.

3.6. Atheists Do Not Recognize God or His Commands

Another issue Sterba raised concerning metaethical theories such as Divine Command Theories and my Divine Love Theory is the problem of how atheists could have moral obligations, or even come to know the requirements of morality, since they reject the existence of God. He argued that if “coming to know the requirements of morality is to be open to theists and atheists alike, it cannot involve recognizing the requirements of morality to be the commands of the God of traditional theism or grounded in his nature since atheists deny that any such God exists … (Sterba 2024, p. 7).” Erik Wielenberg similarly argued that under Divine Command Theory, those who do not believe in God would not have any moral obligations: “[Adams’s Divine Command Theory] implies that reasonable non-believers have no moral obligations at all, since they do not recognize any command as having been issued by God …. The Adams/Evans-style divine command theory is unable to account for the moral obligations of reasonable non-believers not in the sense that the theory implies that non-believers have moral obligations but are unaware of them (an epistemological worry), but rather in the sense that the theory implies that non-believers lack moral obligations altogether (a metaphysical worry) (Wielenberg 2014, pp. 78–79).”

As explained above in Section 2.1, the term command in the name “Divine Command Theory” has led some to mistakenly think that advocates of this theory believe that people have obligations only if God gives them direct verbal instructions. Because of this confusion, it is necessary to clarify that many divine command theorists do not use the term command in this context to mean only direct verbal instructions. Rather, they maintain that God has made us aware of moral truth in many ways, including but not limited to direct verbal commands, moral intuition, and our consciences. For example, Evans explained that “when I speak of ‘divine commands’ I will use the term ‘command’ in an extended sense to refer to what God wills humans to do insofar as his will has been communicated to humans (Evans 2014, p. 38).” Similarly, Hare described our conscience as “the human capacity that serves as the vehicle for general revelation about obligation (Hare 2009, p. 270).” Thus the term command is used within most Divine Command Theories, as well as my Divine Love Theory, as a general term to encapsulate all of the ways that God makes us aware of moral truth, not just direct verbal commands.

Additionally, in Romans 2, Paul indicated that God makes us aware of moral truth in many ways. His argument here had to do with the issue of whether someone could justifiably avoid God’s judgment by using the excuse that they were unaware of what was right and wrong. Paul reasoned that even those who never had God’s law in the form of direct verbal instructions will have no excuse because when those “who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternatively accusing or else defending them.” (Rom. Vol. 2, pp. 14–15). By arguing that no one will be excused from judgment because everyone is aware of what is right or wrong, Paul implied the alternative—that is, if someone was somehow unaware of what was right or wrong, then they would be excused (i.e., have no obligations). However, since, according to Christianity, both theists and atheists are aware of what is right and wrong and that they should do what is right, they both do have moral obligations.

Therefore, under most Divine Command Theories, as well as my Divine Love Theory, people can have obligations even if they do not understand that these obligations actually come from God. They are morally obligated so long as they are aware of what is right and wrong and that they should do the right; it does not matter whether they are aware of the metaphysical details concerning how these obligations are generated. Thus, God must make someone aware of what is right and wrong, and that she should do the right, in order for her to have obligations, but she does not have to be aware that these obligations come from God. In other words, God can make the content of moral truth, what is right and wrong, and that we should do what is right, known to us without making us aware of the origin of these truths.

Hare explained well the important distinction “between our knowledge of moral goodness or obligation and our knowledge of what makes them good or obligatory. It is possible that what makes something good or obligatory is some relation to God …, but that we can know by right reason that the thing is good or obligatory without knowing this relation. On some versions of the doctrine of general revelation, God can reveal that some route to our end is required of us without our knowing that it is God who requires it (Hare 2015, p. 75).” In other words, people do not have to understand how or why they have moral obligations in order to have them and know that they have them. Certainly Sterba would agree; he would not claim that people are required to understand his metaphysical explanation for how and why we have moral obligations in order for them to have such obligations and know that they have them.

A related issue has to do with how we can identify which commands are really from God. As Sterba noted, different theistic groups have claimed they have received revelations from God that include direct verbal commands but we would be naïve to think all such claims are true (Sterba 2024, p. 6). This concern stems from the more fundamental question of how we can ascertain what is really communication from God and what is not.

The Judeo/Christian answer to this question is often referred to as the ‘miracle test.’ Because there are so many fakes (people who claim to have a message from God but are lying) and mistakes (people who think they have a message from God but really do not), we should be skeptical about anything that claims to be from God. However, if someone claims to have a message from God and can perform impressive miracles, then this should greatly increase our confidence that their message really is from God, because only God can perform miracles or give someone such abilities. There have been many proponents of this miracle test throughout history. For example, John Locke argued that because miracles contain a hallmark of the divine, they are crucial in establishing whether or not something really is a message from God (Locke [1695] 2010). As for Christianity, in particular, because we have so many early, independent, corroborating, and extensive historical sources that describe Jesus’ miracles and resurrection, many are convinced that Jesus’ message, as described in the New Testament, is from God7. Antony Flew, one of the most well-known atheists of the twentieth century, agreed that “the evidence for the resurrection [of Jesus] is better than for claimed miracles in any other religion. It is outstandingly different in quality and quantity (Habermas and Flew 2009, p. 85).”

3.7. The Prior Obligations Objection—Why Should We Obey God?

Sterba argued that a problem with claiming morality derives its authority from God is that “we could still ask why then should we obey God? (Sterba 2024, p. 8).” This concern of what obligates us to obey God’s commands has often been raised concerning Divine Command Theory. Evans summarized this “prior obligations objection” as follows:

A [Divine Command Theory] holds that all moral obligations are divine commands …. The prior obligations objection argues that there must be some moral obligations that are not grounded in divine commands because they hold antecedently to … divine commands …. [T]he claim is that humans have a moral obligation to obey God. This obligation is not itself grounded in God’s commands. Rather, it is precisely because there is a prior obligation to obey God that God’s commands can create new obligations. There must therefore be some moral obligations other than those that are created by God’s commands.

(Evans 2014, p. 99)

It seems that there is at least one obligation that does not come from God’s commands, namely, the obligation to obey God’s commands. Some critics of Divine Command Theory argue that it is circular, or results in an infinite regress, if one claims this obligation also comes from God’s command. Other critics argue this obligation to obey God’s commands is an ungrounded brute moral fact, much like the brute moral facts proposed by Robust Realists, and thus models such as Divine Command Theory and my Divine Love Theory fail to ground all moral truths in God (Wielenberg 2014, p. 53).

John Hare, drawing on Scotus’s theology, provided a compelling response to this objection:

It is necessarily true, Scotus holds, that God is to be loved. We know this just by knowing the terms ‘God’ and ‘to be loved’ … because we know that, if God exists, God is supremely good, and … what is supremely good is to be loved [and] to love God is at least to obey God …. I am not terminating the justification in something that itself requires justification, except in as far as I have to justify the claim that God exists. This means that divine commands do not generate all our obligations, because there is one important exception, namely the obligation to obey divine commands. But this is not a troubling exception once one accepts the necessary truths … that God is to be loved and that God is to be obeyed.

(Hare 2015, pp. 17–18)

I concur with Hare that there is a sense in which our obligations ultimately stem from the truth that God should be loved (Johnson 2023, pp. 62–63). This truth comes before God’s commands and obligates us to obey His commands because that is how we are to love Him. His commands then generate all our other obligations.

In response, someone may ask, “What grounds the truth that God should be loved?” Quite simply, God does. “God should be loved” is not an ungrounded brute moral fact because, as opposed to the Robust Realist’s proposed brute moral facts, it has a source, a foundation, and an explanation in that the ultimate ontological grounding of this truth is God Himself. One could list reasons why God should be loved—He is supremely good, He created us, He loved us first, etc.—but these are merely facts about Him. Such facts are not the ultimate ontological stopping point; the ground for even these is God Himself because, as will be discussed more fully in Section 4.1, He is the fundamental reality, the ground and ontological basis for everything, and these facts just describe Him. Hare affirmed this line of reasoning in the quote above when he noted that God’s existence is what terminates the regress of moral obligation. Even the reason why we should obey God’s commands is grounded in Him because He’s the ultimate fundamental reality. “God should be loved” is not out there floating independently from God; rather, it stems from His attributes, which are grounded in Him. As Adams explained, “God is the supreme Good” ((Adams 1999, p. 7). Emphasis added), the ultimate stopping point that needs no further explanation.

4. Reasons to Conclude Divine Love Theory Is a Better Explanation of Objective Morality than Sterba’s Theory

4.1. The First Good Argument

G. E. Moore’s Open Question argument helps explain why Sterba’s moral theory is unsuccessful. Moore argued that people commit a naturalistic fallacy when they try to define moral goodness by identifying it with a non-evaluative property such as the avoidance of harm or, in Sterba’s case, fairness. Whatever non-evaluative property someone claims is identical with moral goodness, it will always be an open question whether that property itself is morally good. If someone claims moral goodness is fairness, the open question becomes: Why is fairness morally good? Sterba has not provided good reasons to accept that major assumption at the foundation of his theory. Moore argued the only way to avoid this ‘open question’ argument is to conclude, as he did, that moral goodness is a separate non-reductive property. Aquinas argued similarly that “each good thing that is not its goodness is … good by participation. But that which is [good] … by participation has something prior to it from which it receives … goodness. This cannot proceed to infinity …. We must therefore reach some first good, that is not by participation good… but is good through its own essence (Aquinas 1975, vol. I, p. 38).”

In order to show how God is the ground for all moral truth, I have developed a moral argument for God inspired by these ideas from Moore and Aquinas that I call The First Good Argument because it parallels The First Cause Argument. The First Cause argument begins by noting that when we evaluate an effect, we often ask ‘what caused this?’ Once we figure out what caused it, we may ask, well, then what caused that? And then what caused that? And so on. To avoid this going on forever, there must be something ultimate that just is, that does not have a cause. Those are the only two options—either there is an infinite number of causes going backwards forever or there was a first cause.

Philosophers and mathematicians have illustrated numerous problems with the idea that there have been an actual infinite number of causes (Pruss 2018). Therefore, it is most plausible to conclude that there is a first cause, something that was not caused by anything else but just exists on its own as the ultimate fundamental reality. Since it seems there must be a first cause, eventually we reach a point where when we ask, “Well, then what caused that?”, you would just have to stop because you have arrived at something that does not have a cause. While many used to think the universe was the ultimate uncaused reality, over the last hundred years, scientific discoveries have provided strong evidence that the universe had a beginning, and thus we can reasonably conclude the universe is not the uncaused cause (Barr 2003, pp. 33–64). Of course, theists argue that God is the best candidate for this first cause, that He is the ultimate fundamental reality.

To see how my First Good Argument parallels this First Cause Argument, consider that the conversation often goes like this: Why is refraining from rape and murder morally good? Sterba would say that it is good because it accords with fairness. But why is fairness morally good? Sterba would say fairness is good because it accords with rationality, in particular, the rational principle of nonquestion begging. But why is rationality good? To avoid this going on forever, there must be something ultimate that just is The Good itself. Eventually, we reach a point in every moral theory where when we ask, “Well, why is that good?”, you would just have to stop because to avoid an infinite series, there must be something that just is goodness itself. When the question is asked, well, why is that good, the answer is similar to the end of the First Cause argument—because it just is. Not only must explanation come to an end at some point, unless we are willing to accept turtles all the way down, there must be an ultimate ontological foundation for morality.

This First Good Argument is similar to the First Cause Argument in that the First Cause argument concludes that there is nothing causally before the First Cause that caused it, and the First Good argument concludes that there is nothing behind the First Good that makes it good, it just is the good. According to Christianity, God is the ultimate ontological stopping point, or rather, starting point, that prevents an infinite regress both with causation and morality. In other words, God just is the Good. It is not a weakness of theism to propose an ultimate moral good like this because every metaethical theory must include an ultimate good in order to avoid an infinite regress.

Many non-theist philosophers have recognized that metaethical theories cannot avoid this, that they must include some sort of ultimate moral good. For example, non-theist Wes Morriston, in describing his moral theory, wrote

Why are love and justice and generosity and kindness and faithfulness good? What is there in the depths of reality to make them good? My own preferred answer is: Nothing further. If you like, you may say that they are the ultimate standard of goodness. What makes them the standard? Nothing further. Possessing these characteristics just is good-making. Full stop …. No matter what story you tell about the ontological ground for moral value, you must at some point come to your own full stop.

(Morriston 2012, p. 29)

Wielenberg even used what theists say about God being the ultimate being to explain his point that there must be some ultimate moral good. He wrote that brute ethical facts

are the foundation of (the rest of) objective morality and rest on no foundation themselves. To ask of such facts, ‘where do they come from?’ or ‘on what foundation do they rest?’ is misguided in much the way that, according to many theists, it is misguided to ask of God, ‘where does He come from?’ or ‘on what foundation does He rest?’ The answer is the same in both cases: they come from nowhere, and nothing external to themselves grounds their existence; rather, they are fundamental features of the universe that ground other truths.

(Wielenberg 2014, p. 38)

Similarly, Sterba explained that “[i]n the case of morality, I claim that the ultimate norm can be expressed as treat all relevant interests fairly.” ((Sterba 2024, p. 6). Emphasis added). Later, he argued that “the ‘oughts’ of ethics needs to be grounded … in one or more fundamental oughts …. [I]n morality, torturing infants for the fun of it is wrong because it is a clear violation of morality’s most basic norm to treat all relevant interests fairly. If any further moral justification for this claim were needed, that is it; nothing else is required.” ((Sterba 2024, pp. 8–9). Emphasis added). However, he went on to claim that “the most basic norm of morality—treat all relevant interests fairly—is further justified by the nonquestion-begging requirement of good argumentation.” ((Sterba 2024, p. 11). Emphasis added). He summarized his position as follows: “I have argued that … ethics must be given an independent justification, the highest moral norm of which is to treat all relevant interests fairly, and that norm in turn is derivable from an ultimate norm of rationality, the principle of nonquestion-beggingness.” ((Sterba 2024, p. 16). Emphasis added). Regardless of whether in Sterba’s theory the ultimate ontological ground of morality is fairness or rationality, my point here is that his theory, like all metaethical theories, must propose some ultimate good in order to avoid an infinite regress.

In summary, to avoid an infinite regress, every metaethical theory must include an ultimate Good that just is goodness itself. Sterba proposed fairness or rationality as the ultimate, whereas I propose the trinitarian God of Christianity. Here is the key question: Which proposed ultimate is the better, more plausible explanation for objective morality? In the sections below, I will provide several reasons to conclude that the trinitarian God of Christianity is the best candidate for this first good.

4.2. Abstract Moral Norms Cry out for Explanation

Sterba wrote that “I contend that the standard of goodness, and especially the standard of moral goodness, must be a norm, a requirement that one ought to act or be in a certain way. In the case of morality, I claim that the ultimate norm can be expressed as treat all relevant interests fairly. By contrast, the God of traditional theism, if he exists, would be just a concrete rational being, not an abstract norm (Sterba 2024, p. 6).” Unfortunately, Sterba did not provide a metaphysical explanation of how his proposed fairness principle could exist objectively apart from our subjective idea of it. However, since he described this principle as an abstract norm and contrasted it with a concrete object, we may assume that he proposed, much like Robust Realists, that it exists as a Platonic abstract object8. In light of this assumption, let us consider the suggestion that a moral principle such as fairness, construed as a Platonic abstract object, is the ontologically ultimate first good.

In terms of other abstract truths, Sterba argued that “in logic, it makes no sense to ask who causes the law of identity to be true or whose command makes it true. Nor in arithmetic, does it even make sense to ask who causes 2 + 2 = 4 or whose commands make it be the case? Similarly, in morality, I contend that it does not make sense to ask who causes torturing infants for the fun of it to be morally wrong or whose commands make that action morally wrong (Sterba 2024, p. 8).” While discussing this idea that such truths have no cause, Evans argued that it “is far from obviously true” that abstract moral truths exist on their own without a foundation because the “fact that so many naturalists, including philosophers such as Mackie and Nietzsche, find the idea of … moral facts odd or queer, shows that they are indeed the kind of thing one would like to have an explanation for (Evans 2014, p. 152).” Evans pointed out that it “seems almost irresistible for a Platonist to ask what the fact that moral truths are deep truths about the universe says about the nature of ultimate reality. Platonism itself in some ways makes the world mysterious and posits features of the world that cry out for explanation (Evans 2014, pp. 153–54).” Even from the very beginning, when abstract objects were first proposed by Plato, he himself posited the Good, which had strong theistic overtones, as the explanation, or source, of his Forms.

Many throughout history have specifically posited God as the best explanation for the existence of abstract truths. Evans noted that “many theists in fact have thought that Platonism itself makes far more sense in a theistic universe than it does otherwise, since in a theistic world the Forms do not have to be seen as independent realities but can be understood as Ideas in the divine mind (Evans 2014, p. 154).” Thus, it “is no accident that there is a long tradition of theistic (and even Christian) Platonism (Evans 2014, p. 153).” Though Sterba claimed “it makes no sense”, numerous theists have argued that God is the best explanation for the abstract truths of mathematics and logic ((Walls and Dougherty 2018). See also (Welty 2014)). The fact that these people have argued for the existence of God in this way implies two things about their position: first, it implies that they thought that abstract truths were not a satisfactory ontological ultimate but that abstract truths themselves needed an explanation, and second, it implies that they thought God is a satisfactory ontological ultimate.

Sterba claimed that “the ultimate justification for the requirements or norms of morality must be another norm, or, put another way, it must be an ultimate ought; it cannot be a purely factual claim …. Failure to recognize that this is the case is the core mistake made by divine command theories in all their varieties because they all attempt to ultimately ground the ‘oughts’ of ethics in a fact, namely the fact of God’s existence (Sterba 2024, p. 8).” While it is true that theists believe that there are certain necessary facts about God—that He exists, that He has a certain moral nature, etc.—they do not believe such facts are ontologically ultimate. Rather, the ground for these facts is God Himself, because, as discussed above in Section 4.1, they propose He is the ultimate fundamental reality, the ground and ontological foundation of everything, and these facts merely describe Him.

Therefore, these facts about God are merely facts about a concrete being that theists believe exists necessarily, whereas Sterba’s fairness principle is supposed to be a stand-alone abstract fact. There is a vast difference between positing facts about a proposed concrete being, especially facts that are anchored in the moral nature of that being, and mere facts that supposedly exist abstractly on their own without any grounding. Sterba is free to posit the existence of such moral facts, but it does not seem plausible to many theists and atheists that such facts could just exist on their own without any source, cause, explanation, or ontological foundation. While fairness is certainly an important aspect of morality, it just does not seem like a plausible candidate for the ultimate first good. If there is no God, where could the idea of fairness come from besides subjectively from ourselves? If there is no God, how could fairness exist objectively on its own apart from us?

One reason God is a better candidate than abstract truths for the ultimate ontological foundation is that He, as commonly understood by theists, is an infinite, necessary, and, most importantly, a concrete causal being. The key distinction between abstract objects and concrete objects is that the former are noncausal, that is, they cannot enter into the causal chain of events. Concrete objects on the other hand, which include both material things such as cucumbers, planets, and electrons and immaterial things, if they exist, such as angels, God, and souls, can enter into the causal chain of events. Since abstract truths, if they exist on their own, are noncausal entities, it is difficult to fathom how they could be the ultimate ontological foundation that serves as the source of everything else. It is more plausible to think that God is the ultimate fundamental reality because He, as a concrete causal agent, could have caused everything else to come into existence.

4.3. Concrete Moral Exemplar

In this section, I argue that the concrete God of Christianity is actually a more plausible candidate than an abstract norm for the ultimate standard of moral goodness. Zagzebski summarized well the vital role a concrete exemplar plays when she explained that its function “is to fix the reference of the term ‘good person’ … without the use of any concepts, whether descriptive or nondescriptive. An exemplar therefore allows the series of conceptual definitions to get started. The circle of conceptual definitions of the most important concepts in a moral theory—virtue, right act, duty, good outcome, and so on—is broken by an indexical reference to a paradigmatically good person (Zagzebski 2004, pp. 45–46).” Alternatively, Sterba’s fairness principle is unable to break the circle of conceptual definitions because it falls prey to Moore’s Open Question Argument, discussed above in Section 4.1. Later, she noted that an exemplar serves “as a standard of perfection against which the rest of us are measured [and thus] what is good for us in that sense is to imitate the exemplar (Zagzebski 2004, p. 113).” Without such a fixed concrete exemplar, it is difficult to see how there could be a standard by which to objectively measure whether actions are good or bad. As for Sterba’s proposal, though fairness can be measured objectively, it is unclear how it could be used as an objective moral measuring tool considering that Sterba did not provide an explanation for how it could exist objectively beyond our mere subjective notions of it.

While discussing how important it is for the concrete exemplar to be morally perfect, Zagzebski argued that “perfection has the capacity to ground value in a way that nothing short of perfection can. Like the sun in Plato’s allegory of good in the Republic, perfect goodness is essentially diffusive, the source of all lesser goods (Zagzebski 2004, p. 274).” Alternatively, Sterba’s fairness principle is merely a generic moral principle. Like Adams, Zagzebski maintained that God is the best candidate for this perfect exemplar: “[I]f God is not only good, but perfectly good, His perfect goodness is the standard for, and the source of, all evaluative properties (Zagzebski 2004, p. 274).” With a concrete and morally perfect being as the exemplar, there is something by which the goodness of other things can be measured. Zagzebski concluded that “God is good in the same way that the standard meter stick is one meter long. God is the standard of goodness (Zagzebski 2004, p. 285).” Therefore, God, as perfect goodness, fits well as a candidate for the moral measuring tool that can be used to objectively determine how good or evil other things are.

I affirm, along with Adams and Zagzebski, that God is the Good, but my Divine Love Theory extends this idea by emphasizing that it is specifically God’s triune nature that provides the ultimate exemplar for morality. This has the advantage of including loving relationships within the concrete exemplar itself, helping explain what we know from experience—that loving relationships play a key role, if not the key role, at the very root of morality. God exists as three persons in loving communion and thus it is these relationships that provide an essential and constitutive part of the perfect standard of moral goodness. These loving relationships within the Trinity function as part of the foundational exemplar on which all morality rests, and by which other things can be morally measured objectively.

4.4. A Social Context for Moral Obligation

Sterba has not provided a convincing explanation of our objective moral obligations, where they come from, or why they have authoritative force over us. Why should we do good things? Sterba wrote “I contend that the ‘oughts’ of ethics need to be grounded … in one or more fundamental oughts …. I take the norm ‘treat all relevant interests fairly’ and all those norms that can be derived from it to be the basic requirements of an objective morality …. Moral requirements would then apply to any being who is capable of fairly assessing the relevant interests of others and acting upon that assessment (Sterba 2024, pp. 8–9).” However, even if fairness is grounded in rationality, as Sterba claimed, why are we obligated to be fair or rational? Sterba failed to explain how the norm of fairness, our capabilities, or rationality could generate authoritative moral duties for us. In contrast, in the next three sections, I argue that my Divine Love Theory provides a fitting explanation of moral obligations by showing how his proposal includes three important aspects of objective duties that Sterba’s theory lacks—a social context, a personal authority, and a human telos.

Adams presented a compelling case for the social theory of obligation, affirmed by many ethicists, which proposes that our obligations arise in a social context of personal relationships. He argued that “matters of obligation … must be understood in relation to a social context …. If I have an obligation … it can only be in a personal relationship or in a social system of relationships. If an action is wrong … there must be a person or persons … who may … have an adverse reaction to it (Adams 1999, p. 233).” Because morality is inherently personal, it is reasonable to conclude that we are only obligated to other persons, not impersonal things such as material objects, circumstances, properties, or even moral and rational principles.

Adams went on to argue, however, that “human social requirements fail to cover the whole territory of moral obligation” and gave several reasons for concluding that “actual human social requirements are simply not good enough to constitute the basis of moral obligation (Adams 1999, p. 248).” Instead, he argued that it is only by bringing God into the picture that “a social theory of the nature of moral obligation” avoids the charge that “it is too subjectivist (Adams 1999, p. 247).” He noted that a “divine command theory of the nature of moral obligation can be seen as an idealized version of the social requirement theory … [because] our relationship with God is in a broad sense an interpersonal and hence a social relationship (Adams 1999, p. 249).” Therefore, “a theory according to which moral obligation is constituted by divine commands remains tenable, and is the best theory on the subject for theists, inheriting most of the advantages, and escaping the salient defects, of a social theory of the nature of moral obligation” (Adams 1999, pp. 249–50).

While affirming Adams’s conclusion, Linda Zagzebski also argued that “the notion of obligation in the social context that holds between God and us is indirectly defended by its similarity to obligation that arises out of relationships among human beings …. If something like obligation arises in loving relationships between human persons … then it is only a small step to the view that all obligation arises in a similar fashion (Zagzebski 2004, p. 263).” Evans similarly concluded that obligations are universal because all “humans are God’s creatures and thus all participate in the social relation that grounds moral obligations” (Evans 2014, p. 32).

Adding in important aspects of God’s triune nature explains how social relationships exist at the deepest level of ultimate reality—within God. This additional information helps explain how and why reality itself is inherently social. For example, Millard Erickson pointed out that if God consists of three persons in loving communion, then “the fundamental characteristic of the universe is personal … [and] reality is primarily social (Erickson 1995, pp. 220–21).” Because relationships are a primordial part of reality, they enjoy the gravitas of a metaphysical necessity as opposed to merely a contingent reality that only came about when God created other persons. It is not too much of a stretch to see an application for moral obligation from the following explanation by William Hasker, who, though not discussing morality in particular, noted how God’s trinitarian nature reinforces the importance of personal relationships: “For those who find personal relationships to be central to what transpires between God and God’s human creatures, a … doctrine of the Trinity provides a powerful reinforcement by finding such … relationships in the very being of God (Hasker 2013, p. 211).”

Because obligation is ultimately relational, God’s triunity provides a fitting explanation for why there is a relational context to reality in the first place, in which obligation can arise. Since God exists as three divine persons in communion, there is a sense in which ultimate reality itself is relational, and thus all of reality takes place in a social context. God’s trinitarian nature provides the overall social context for reality in general and then His creation of human persons was merely an extension of that ultimate social context.

Social relationships were not something new that came about when God created other persons but are a necessary part of ultimate reality. When God created us, it was a natural carryover from the ultimate reality of divine persons that we, as human persons created in His image, would be accountable to Him via such a social relationship. Because relationships are part of the fabric of being itself, we should not be surprised that personal relationships play such a large role in moral obligation. God’s existence as a fellowship of three persons provides a foundation for the social context that plays such an important role in generating our objective moral obligations. The obligations that arise in our social relationship with God are but an image of, and flow out of, the social relationships within God. Therefore, because a social context is an important element in establishing that moral obligations are objective, and since my Divine Love Theory includes this element whereas Sterba’s theory does not, my theory is a superior explanation for objective moral obligations.

4.5. A Personal Authority at the Head of the Chain of Moral Obligation

Another important element of objective moral obligations that my Divine Love Theory provides, and Sterba’s theory does not, is a personal authority at the head of the chain of moral obligation. If objective moral obligations arise out of a social context of personal relationships, then it is reasonable to conclude that there must be someone that humanity is in a relationship with to generate our obligations. In addition, if we are obligated only to persons, not impersonal things such as material objects or moral principles, then this someone must be personal. This someone must also be an agent that we are accountable to such that, as our ultimate moral authority, he functions as the top of the hierarchy of our moral duties.

A case can be made for these requirements from our moral experience and with reasoned arguments. Vern Poythress made such an argument when he wrote that “moral absolutes imply personal responsibility. Persons are ultimately responsible only to persons …. The rule, to make a claim on us, must come from an authority. And authority is always personal …. If we doubt the personal character of authority, we can also observe that a rule must be specific, and this requires language like meaning and articulation, which belong only to persons. So moral authority is personal. And to have moral absolutes, the moral authority must be absolute. So we must have a personal absolute” (Poythress 2018, pp. 335–36).

The work of Immanuel Kant provides support for this line of reasoning here in that he too argued that there must be an ultimate source of moral duty. Some might find this surprising since Kant is often portrayed as a critic of appealing to religion in general when it comes to morality and even a harsher critic of Divine Command Theory in particular. However, Hare developed an extensive case that Kant was against only a specific type of Divine Command Theory and that overall “Kant continued to believe and urged us to believe that a personal God exists, and that we should recognize our duties as God’s commands (Hare 2001, pp. 87–88).” Hare observed that the previously predominant secular interpretation of Kant has been “shifting somewhat in the last decade or so, and we are starting to see a new type of Kant scholarship that is much more faithful to his Christian background and continuing sympathies.”9. Hare admonished Kant’s secular followers by noting that “when we enter into his system from the inside, rather than reading into him our own preferences, we can see that the system depends on a large number of traditional theistic assumptions. If we abandon these assumptions, the system simply does not work (Hare 2001, p. 88).”

To summarize Hare’s case, it is best to begin with the following quote from the preface of Kant’s Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, a quote often used by people to try to prove Kant’s disdain for thinking that religion is necessary for morality: “Morality, insofar as it is based on the concept of the human being as one who is free, but who precisely therefore also binds himself through his reason to unconditional laws, is in need neither of the idea of another being above him in order for him to cognize his duty, nor, in order for him to observe it, of an incentive other than the law itself …. Hence on its own behalf morality in no way needs religion …. Morality needs … no purpose, neither for cognizing what one’s duty is, nor for impelling one to its performance” ((Kant 2009, pp. 1–2). Emphasis added).

However, just two paragraphs later, Kant concluded his preface by claiming that “morality, therefore, leads inescapably to religion, through which it expands to the idea of a powerful moral legislator, outside the human being, in whose will the final purpose (of the world’s creation) is that which at the same time can be, and ought to be, the final purpose of the human being (Kant 2009, p. 4).” Hare argued that these two statements can be reconciled when we understand that Kant was presenting a hypothetical conditional in the first section, as indicated by the following phrase from the first quote: “insofar as it is based on the concept of the human being as one who is free.” Kant’s point is that in fact “we are not merely free beings; we are also what he calls ‘creatures of need’. If we were merely free, then we would not need the idea of a being over us, because we would be like God, who has no idea of a being over God …. Kant distinguished between ordinary members of the kingdom of ends and the head of the kingdom, who is also a member, but who (unlike the other members) is not subject to the will of any other (Hare 2009, p. 163).” In other words, God is the head of the kingdom of morality, the ultimate authority to whom we are accountable.

Hare elaborated on Kant’s position: “Kant distinguishes between the head of the moral kingdom to which we belong and the rest of the membership of this kingdom, and says that the head of the kingdom must be a completely independent being, without needs and with an unlimited power adequate to his will. There is no doubt that Kant is talking about God here, as head or king of the kingdom, and without such a king … there cannot be a kingdom at all (Hare 2001, p. 95).” According to Hare’s interpretation of Kant, in order for us to have moral obligations, there must be a head at the chain of moral obligation who is completely independent, without needs, and unlimited in power. Kant was even more explicit about this in his Critique of Practical Reason, where he wrote that

the moral law leads through the concept of the highest good, as the object and final end of pure practical reason, to religion, that is, to the recognition of all duties as divine commands, not as sanctions—that is, chosen and in themselves contingent ordinances of another’s will—but as essential laws of every free will in itself, which must nevertheless be regarded as commands of a supreme being because only from a will that is morally perfect (holy and beneficent) and at the same time all-powerful, and so through harmony with this will, can we hope to attain the highest good, which the moral law makes it our duty to take as the object of our endeavors.

(Kant 1997, pp. 107–8)

From this quote, we can see that Kant added the following requirements for the head of the moral kingdom: he must be the supreme being, morally perfect, and all-powerful. According to Kant, then, for us to have real moral duties, there must be someone—a head, so to speak—at the end of the chain of moral obligation. Evans expressed his agreement with this interpretation of Kant when he wrote that Kant “clearly holds that it is correct to understand moral obligations as divine commands, and also that God plays a significant role as the ‘Head’ of the Kingdom (Evans 2014, p. 142).”

Nearly all Divine Command Theories, as well as my Divine Love Theory, fulfill this requirement in that they postulate God as the head of the chain of moral obligation. For example, Adams explained that obligations “that have full moral validity are aptly understood as constituted by divine commands, and thus by requirements arising in a social system in which God is the leading participant (Adams 1999, p. 233).” Though my theory shares this important element with other theistic theories, the pertinent point here is that it includes this important element for objective moral obligation whereas Sterba’s theory does not.

While we do have objective moral obligations to other humans, the key question is, Would we if there was no God—that is, no ultimate moral authority—that we were accountable to? If there is no ultimate moral authority, then we could possibly understand how an evolutionary process would have developed in us strong subjective feelings of moral duty, but in such a scenario, it is hard to see how we could have objective obligations beyond these subjective impulses. At a minimum, we can conclude that it is more clearly the case that we do have objective obligations in such a scenario if there exists a God to whom we are accountable. Without an authority at the top of the moral hierarchy, it is unclear how there could be any ultimate objective moral accountability.

Hare similarly argued that our human-to-human relationships

do sometimes make things morally obligatory. But we should see divine command theory as operating in answer to the normative question why we should hold ourselves under those obligations. Granted, for example, that, if I have promised to take my children out for lunch, and I have an obligation to keep my promises, then I have an obligation to take them out for lunch. There is still the question why I should keep my promises. To draw the implication from my having said “I promise” to my obligation, I need to endorse the institution of promising, and the fact that God requires this faithfulness of me gives me a reason for this endorsement.

(Hare 2015, p. 20)

Such an account does not deny the importance of the situational factors and the obligations we have to other humans, but both of these things are merely links in the chain whereas God functions as the head of the chain pulling the whole thing along. The situation is similar to a truck that is pulling a trailer with a chain—the links in the chain are important, but without the pull of the truck, the trailer goes nowhere. In an analogous way, God, because of his moral authority over us, generates the actual pulling force of objective obligations that we experience as authoritative ‘oughts.’ He is the ultimate source of the pull of our moral obligations, whereas the situational factors and the obligations we have to other humans are merely links in the chain.

Sterba’s theory is lacking because it is implausible that moral or rational principles could, by themselves, generate moral obligations. We are obligated not to impersonal things or principles but to persons. In an impersonal universe with no personal authority at the head of the moral kingdom, there is no one to which we would be accountable. Additionally, our human-to-human personal relationships alone, while important, are not sufficient enough to generate objective moral obligations because other humans do not have ultimate moral authority over us. Alternatively, an ultimate personal moral authority, such as a triune God, provides much greater warrant for concluding we really do have objective moral obligations. Therefore, because a personal authority at the head of the chain of moral obligation is an important element in establishing that moral obligations are objective, and since my Divine Love Theory includes this element whereas Sterba’s theory does not, my theory is a superior explanation for objective moral obligations.

4.6. A Human Telos for Moral Obligation

Another element that is important for a moral theory to include in order to establish that moral obligations are objective is a telos—that is, an ultimate purpose—for human beings. Alasdair MacIntyre noted how critical a telos is to a theory of objective morality when he wrote that “unless there is a telos which transcends the limited goods of practices by constituting the good of a whole human life …, it will both be the case that a certain subversive arbitrariness will invade the moral life and that we shall be unable to specify the context of certain virtues adequately (MacIntyre 2007, p. 203).”

MacIntyre also chronicled a thorough historical account of how, after the teleology-laden classical tradition was discarded, several conceptual systems were proposed that attempted to provide a new account of morality that would maintain the status, authority, and justification of moral rules. There were several attempts to find or construct a new basis for morality such that morality would apply objectively to all and not be merely an appeal of individual desire or will. However, he argued that ever since belief in “teleology was discredited moral philosophers have attempted to provide some alternative rational secular account of the nature and status of morality, but … all these attempts, various and variously impressive as they have been, have in fact failed, a failure perceived most clearly by Nietzsche (MacIntyre 2007, p. 256).” MacIntyre even argued that Kant “in the second book of the second Critique … does acknowledge that without a teleological framework the whole project of morality becomes unintelligible …. If my thesis is correct, Kant was right; morality did in the eighteenth century, as a matter of historical fact, presuppose something very like the teleological scheme of God, freedom and happiness as the final crown of virtue which Kant propounds. Detach morality from that framework and you will no longer have morality” (MacIntyre 2007, p. 56).

Similarly, Thomas Nagel, an atheist and a moral realist like Sterba, affirmed the vital role teleology plays in a theory of objective morality. He argued that if reductive materialism is true, then there is no telos, and if there is no telos, then one would have to conclude there are no objective moral truths, that our moral beliefs are merely an accidental side effect of natural selection (Nagel 2012, p. 122) However, he suggested that on “a teleological account the existence of value is not an accident (Nagel 2012, p. 122).” While he rejected the existence of God, he posited a naturalistic teleological order that governs the world from within: “The teleological hypothesis is that these things may be determined not merely by value-free chemistry and physics but also by something else, namely a cosmic predisposition to the formation of life, consciousness, and the value that is inseparable from them (Nagel 2012, p. 123).” Though I find implausible Nagel’s idea that teleology could exist without an intentional agent (i.e., God) behind it10, I wholeheartedly affirm his argument that objective morality seems to require a telos. If Nagel is correct that a telos is required to avoid the conclusion that our moral beliefs are merely accidental and thus arbitrary and subjective, then moral theories with a telos are superior explanations of objective morality than theories without one.

My Divine Love Theory, in contrast to Sterba’s theory, includes an objective telos for human beings that provides a fitting explanation for how and why we have objective moral obligations. Along with Duns Scotus and John Hare, I maintain that God’s ultimate telos for humans is that they join the communion of loving relationships among the persons of the Trinity and enjoy loving relationships with God and others (Hare 2009, pp. 75–122). Hare noted that throughout history “all sorts of figures [say] … that humans are made for some kind of union with God, and that this is the fundamental basis for the moral life (Hare 2009, p. 108).” Evans concurred with this when he wrote that “a plausible [Divine Command Theory] will see moral obligation as something that has as its telos the transformation of humans. The point of morality is to help humans acquire the virtues or excellences that will make it possible for them to become friends of God (Evans 2014, p. 158).”

Under my theory, there is an intentionality at the root of reality that provides the should which is so important for there to be objective moral duties. The objective telos for humans in my trinitarian account provides an objective basis for our moral obligations. In contrast, since Sterba’s theory does not provide an objective purpose for human life, it seems difficult for him to explain how our moral obligations are objectively true. Without divine intentionality behind the universe, it is unclear how we could have an objective purpose or duties. Angus Menuge summed up the situation well: “In a godless world, there is no underlying telos (such as a divine will) according to which some natural properties conform to the way the world is supposed to be, while others do not. In this world, an action which exhibits the natural property kindness is no more supposed to happen than one which exhibits the natural property of cruelty. In that context, it is arbitrary to assert that an act’s being kind makes it right, or that an act’s being cruel makes it wrong …. One needs some teleological principle that tells us how the world is supposed to go (Menuge 2018, p. 8).” Therefore, because a telos for humans is an important element in establishing that moral obligations are objective, and since my Divine Love Theory provides this element whereas Sterba’s theory does not, my theory is a superior explanation for objective moral obligations.

4.7. Evolutionary Debunking Arguments

A more recent objection to moral realism has come about as a result of the development of evolutionary explanations of morality. Even though the basic framework of such evolutionary debunking arguments might be as old as the theory of evolution itself, most contemporary versions follow Gilbert Harman’s approach (Harman 1977). Wielenberg noted that “Harman was perhaps the first contemporary philosopher to outline a case against moral knowledge based on the claim that human moral beliefs can be explained without appealing to any moral truths…. Many epistemological evolutionary debunking arguments can be understood as variations on Harman’s basic idea (Wielenberg 2014, p. 147).” For example, Richard Joyce specifically acknowledged his argument’s connection with Harman’s (Joyce 2007, p. 184). Evolutionary debunking arguments have grown in popularity, in part because of the rise in evolutionary psychology, which began with E. O. Wilson’s 1975 work Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Wilson 1975).

The basic concern behind evolutionary debunking arguments is that if atheism and evolution are true, then there is no good reason to think our moral beliefs point to, or are connected with, objective moral truths that exist beyond our own subjective preferences. Moral psychologist Joshua Greene explained that science offers

a ‘behind the scenes’ look at human morality. Just as a well-researched biography can, depending on what it reveals, boost or deflate one’s esteem for its subject, the scientific investigation of human morality can help us to understand human moral nature, and in so doing change our opinion of it …. Understanding where our moral instincts come from and how they work can … lead us to doubt that our moral convictions stem from perceptions of moral truth rather than projections of moral attitudes.

(Greene 2003)

If the origination of our subjective moral beliefs can be explained by their evolutionary survival value, then what reason is there to think that they also happen to be objectively true? Surely there is no objective evidence for them; all we have to go on is our subjective intuitions and, given atheism and evolution, there is no reason to think those are somehow related to some sort of objective truth.

Noted atheist and evolutionary debunking argument proponent Michael Ruse explained this situation well when he wrote that the

position of the modern evolutionist … is that humans have an awareness of morality … because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth …. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” they think they are referring above and beyond themselves …. Nevertheless … such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction … and any deeper meaning is illusory.

(Ruse 1989, pp. 261–69)

He also noted that “Darwinian theory shows that in fact morality is a function of (subjective) feelings, but it shows also that we have (and must have) the illusion of objectivity …. In a sense, therefore, morality is a collective illusion foisted upon us by our genes (Ruse 1986, p. 253).” According to this position, our moral beliefs are not connected in any way to objective moral truth because, first of all, there are no such truths. Instead, our moral beliefs are merely accidental, arbitrary, subjective human ideas nature selected because in our evolutionary path, they happened to increase our chances of survival and reproduction. If there is no God, then it is hard to see how the Nobel laureate biochemist Jacques Monod was incorrect when he wrote that “man at last knows that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he emerged only by chance. His destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty” (Monod 1971, p. 180).

Sterba affirmed our moral beliefs came about via evolution when he gave his explanation of “how we humans came to endorse morality” by noting that “an appropriate weighing of our own interests and the interests of others became an attractive way of making decisions and acting on them [because] we could get others to come together and act collectively in this way. Accordingly, this strategy for deciding and acting, or something very close to it, came to be called morality (Sterba and Johnson 2024).” In other words, our idea of fairness came about because it was helpful pragmatically; over time humans came to find fairness attractive because it worked in getting people to act collectively. As the story is often told, there was an evolutionary advantage to groups that worked together well—which involves aspects such as fairness, reciprocity, and cooperation—because they could better compete against other groups in the battle for scarce resources ((Haidt 2012, pp. 189–220). See also (Wilson 1998)).

Proponents of evolutionary debunking arguments maintain that morality is arbitrary because if our moral beliefs came about through a random, accidental process of evolution, then such beliefs would be radically different if our evolutionary path would have played out differently. Darwin himself recognized this when he wrote “If … [humans] were reared under … the same conditions as … bees … our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering (Darwin 1909, pp. 100–1).” If what counts as a moral requirement can shift so dramatically based on the accidents of biology or circumstance, our resulting moral beliefs are more akin to adaptive social conventions than objective truth. This threatens to collapse morality into a form of relativism where our moral beliefs are determined by accidental facts about human beings, rather than by any objective moral truths.

For instance, what we call love is merely a chemical reaction nature selected in our random evolutionary path because it led to greater chances of reproduction. If our moral beliefs and practices arose accidentally as helpful adaptions to our environment, then, as James Rachels pointed out, we “are not entitled … to regard our own adaptive behavior as ‘better’ or ‘higher’ than that of a cockroach, who, after all, is adapted equally well to life in its own environmental niche (Rachels 1990, p. 70).” If atheism and evolution are true, then our moral beliefs are random, subjective, and arbitrary. Bertrand Russell summed up this idea when he wrote that “man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving … his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms (Russell 1903, p. 416).”

Atheistic moral realists have tried to refute evolutionary debunking arguments because they aim to show that our moral convictions are the result of an accidental random process, rendering such convictions arbitrary and subjective. Such realists maintain that morality is objectively real and that we can have true moral knowledge, even if atheism and evolution are true (See Martin 2003; Sinnott-Armstrong 2009; Enoch 2011; Huemer 2005; Shafer-Landau 2012). My purpose in this section is to argue that Sterba is unsuccessful in his attempt to deflect the major concern raised by evolutionary debunking arguments and show how theism provides a more satisfactory response to such arguments.

Noteworthy proponents of evolutionary debunking arguments include Joshua Greene, Peter Singer, Richard Joyce, and Sharon Street (Greene 2013; Singer 1982; Street 2006; Joyce 2007). However, the discussion below will focus on Street’s argument since that is the one to which Sterba attempted to respond (Sterba 2024, pp. 12–16). She wrote,

Allowing our evaluative judgments to be shaped by evolutionary influences is analogous to setting out for Bermuda and letting the course of your boat be determined by the wind and tides: just as the push of wind and tides on your boat has nothing to do with where you want to go, so the historical push of natural selection on the content of our evaluative judgments has nothing to do with evaluative truth. … Of course it is possible that as a matter of sheer chance, some large portion of our evaluative judgments ended up true, due to a happy coincidence between the realist’s independent evaluative truths and the evaluative directions in which natural selection tended to push us, but this would require a fluke of luck that is not only extremely unlikely, in view of the huge universe of logically possible evaluative judgments and truths, but also astoundingly convenient to the realist.

(Street 2006, pp. 121–22)

Street’s concern is that even if there are such things as objective moral truths as moral realists claim, then it would be quite a lucky coincidence if our moral beliefs corresponded to them, given that such beliefs developed haphazardly through an evolutionary process that selected for survival and reproduction, not for an ability to know truth. If evolution works as many claim, that it is driven by accidental random mutations as well as chance changes in the environment (climate changes, meteorites, etc.), then it would be a lucky coincidence if it just so happened to shape our moral beliefs so that they matched up with the supposed independent objective moral truths proposed by moral realists. Therefore, according to Street, we cannot have any confidence that our moral beliefs represent objective moral truths of the type proposed by moral realists.

This lucky coincidence objection would lose much of its bite if moral facts and properties somehow played a causal role in forming our moral beliefs. However, many proponents of moral realism reject the idea that objective moral truth has such causal power since they consider them to be more akin to abstract objects, as discussed above in Section 4.2. For instance, Wielenberg explained that an “important feature of my view is that… the moral properties themselves are epiphenomenal—they have no causal impact on the rest of reality. That aspect of moral properties makes the question of how we could have knowledge of them particularly pressing (Wielenberg 2014, pp. 13–14).” While discussing the difficulty of explaining why we should think objective moral facts and our moral beliefs correspond, Wielenberg reminded his readers that moral realists like himself are “hamstrung in this task by the fact that there is no causal connection between moral facts and moral beliefs (Wielenberg 2014, p. 155).” He summed up Street’s objection well when he noted that “if moral facts do not explain the moral beliefs of human beings, then those beliefs being correct would involve a lucky coincidence that is incompatible with genuine knowledge (Wielenberg 2014, p. 153).”

In response to Street’s evolutionary debunking argument, Sterba suggested that his proposed moral principle of fairness could simply be used “to evaluate kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and other past, present, or future outcomes of Darwinian evolution to determine when such outcomes can be morally justified …. Understood in this way, the outcomes of Darwinian evolution can be appropriately integrated into an objective ethics, thus eliminating any need for the subjectivist (antirealist) ethics that Street proposes (Sterba 2024, p. 15).” Unfortunately, Sterba failed to realize that his fairness principle is the very type of objective moral belief that evolutionary debunking arguments call into question. If someone is questioning whether our moral beliefs are objectively true, it does not address their concern at all to suggest using those very beliefs to judge whether or not our behavior is objectively morally good.

It becomes even more clear that Sterba did not understand Street’s concern when he argued that

one easy way to see how Street is wrong about the implications of Darwinian evolutionary theory … is to realize that … whatever survives the evolutionary process is adaptive or a byproduct of what is adaptive. Now, ask yourself whether we, surviving humans, have the abilities to come to know normative and nonnormative truth. I think it is obvious that we do have such abilities, or we would not be able to participate in any productive discussion here …. [B]y exercising these abilities, we do come to know normative and nonnormative truths even while recognizing the influence of Darwinian evolutionary.

(Sterba 2024, p. 15)

Above, we saw Sterba suggest that we can just use his theory to morally evaluate our behavior, which has been produced by evolutionary forces. Then here, he claimed it is obvious we have the ability to come to know moral truths. However, the glaring problem is: What are we going to use to morally evaluate his theory and to morally evaluate whether or not we have the ability to correctly know moral truth? Under his proposal, the only thing we have to use for these evaluations is our own moral beliefs that evolution produced, but this is the very thing that evolutionary debunking arguments are questioning.

If someone is questioning whether their ruler measures length accurately, it would not do any good for her to use the very same ruler to evaluate its own accuracy because that is the very thing under question. It is viciously circular to use what is being questioned—our moral belief of fairness and our ability to correctly know moral truths—to evaluate the very thing under question—our moral beliefs and our ability to correctly know moral truths. Any such attempt would fail because, to even begin such a move, someone would have to first assume their ability to correctly know moral truths was reliable, which is the very issue under suspicion. In attempting such a strategy, one would be utilizing the very ability under question in order to evaluate its own reliability. It just does not work to use our moral beliefs to evaluate our moral beliefs, especially if we grant that such beliefs are the result of an arbitrary haphazard process of evolution that selected for survival and reproduction, not truth-knowing.

Street pointed this circularity out as well when she replied to David Copp’s attempt to solve her Darwinian Dilemma (Street 2008). Copp proposed using our moral intuitions to discern which of our beliefs are morally true, but Street explained that those intuitions have also come about by the same evolutionary path that resulted in our moral beliefs. She argued that this approach does not help the moral realist because they are trying to evaluate something that came about via an accidental haphazard path of evolution—our moral beliefs—with something else that came about via the same accidental haphazard path of evolution—our moral intuition. First, since both our moral beliefs and our moral intuition came about the same way, it is not surprising that they match up nicely.

Second, it does not work to use one to evaluate the other because they both come from the same source. As William FitzPatrick explained in his summary of Street’s reply to Copp, “[i]t would be different if God independently (and convincingly) revealed to us what the moral truths are, so that we could then go check our moral beliefs against them and perhaps discover that they line up pretty well; but instead, all we’re doing [in Copp’s proposal] is comparing our moral beliefs with a purported list of moral truths yielded by a theory we find plausible precisely because it is appealing to our evolved sensibilities …. (FitzPatrick 2008)” If we are concerned about the accuracy of a mechanic’s knowledge of automobiles, our concerns will not be alleviated by the mechanic’s belief that his knowledge is accurate.

Now let us now consider whether my Divine Love Theory provides a superior explanation, compared to Sterba’s, of how and why our moral beliefs correspond accurately with objective moral truth. If we think our moral beliefs do match up correctly with such truth, which theory is a more plausible explanation of how this correspondence has come about?

If we were created by God to love Him and to love others, it is reasonable to conclude that He would orchestrate the development of our moral beliefs, even if He possibly used evolution in part to do so, such that they would match up with objective moral truth. There would be no lucky coincidence if our moral intuition, which generates our moral beliefs, was formed by God because He could form it to reliably ascertain what is objectively true. Other theists have argued similarly; for example, Adams wrote that “if we suppose that God directly or indirectly causes human beings to regard as excellent approximately those things that are Godlike in the relevant way, it follows that there is a causal and explanatory connection between facts of excellence and beliefs that we may regard as justified about excellence, and hence that it is in general no accident that such beliefs are correct when they are (Adams 1999, p. 70). Mark Linville has even suggested a specific “moral fine-tuning argument …. Certain of our moral beliefs—in particular, those that are presupposed in all moral reflection—are truth-aimed because human moral faculties are designed [by God] to guide human conduct in light of moral truth (Linville 2012, p. 5).”

Atheists have also recognized the advantages theism has in explaining how our moral beliefs accurately correspond to objective moral truth. Wielenberg noted that “there is … one view that might seem to require much less luck for moral knowledge …. That view is our old friend theism (Wielenberg 2014, p. 173).” Surprisingly, Nietzsche wrote that “[i]t is unfair to Descartes to call his appeal to God’s credibility frivolous. Indeed, only if we assume a God who is morally our like can ‘truth’ and the search for truth be at all something meaningful and promising of success. This God left aside, the question is permitted whether being deceived is not one of the conditions of life (Nietzsche 2003, p. 26).” Even Sterba acknowledged that there is “some merit in the idea that an all-good, all-powerful being would be capable of molding us into good perceivers of moral and nonmoral truths ….” (Sterba 2024, p. 17 footnote 25).

If atheism and evolution are true, then it would be an extremely lucky coincidence if our moral beliefs reliably corresponded with objective moral truth. On the other hand, a triune God, as the source and coordinator of all things, provides a much more plausible explanation for why our moral beliefs match up correctly with objective moral truth. Even if God used evolutionary processes to develop our moral beliefs, this is different than a situation where God does not exist and our moral beliefs came about via evolution. In the former, God is behind the scenes guiding the evolutionary process so that it produces moral beliefs that match up correctly with objective moral truths. However, in the latter, because there is no teleological guidance provided, it is unlikely that the random, haphazard process of evolution would luckily produce moral beliefs that just so happen to match up correctly with preexisting objective moral truth.

5. Conclusions

In this paper, I argue that my Divine Love Theory is a better explanation of objective morality than Sterba’s theory. My theory grounds the objectivity of moral truth in the morally perfect nature of the trinitarian God proposed by Christianity, thereby providing a metaphysical anchor for moral truth that is immune to the kind of contingency Sterba’s account permits. Without such an anchor, Sterba’s account reduces morality to our subjective beliefs that developed over time through evolutionary selective pressures, thus causing such beliefs to lack the universality that objective moral truths are supposed to possess. This is at odds with the very notion of objective morality, which is typically understood to involve truths that are not contingent on such arbitrary circumstances.

Since Sterba does not explain why we should regard fairness as authoritatively binding rather than as a useful social convention, his account inevitably collapses into a form of evolutionary pragmatism where moral norms are justified by their adaptive utility rather than their objective truth. Evolutionary debunking arguments suggest that our moral dispositions are the product of contingent selective pressures that could have easily produced different moral intuitions and beliefs under different environmental conditions. If our sense of fairness is merely an evolved trait, then its claim to objectivity is suspect because it simply reflects what was adaptive for our ancestors, not what is objectively true. We subjectively value fairness because we have evolved to value it, but this does not generate confidence that fairness itself is objectively true.

Sterba failed to recognize that proponents of evolutionary debunking arguments are not merely pointing out that evolutionary processes have influenced our moral beliefs; rather, they argue that if those processes are not truth-tracking with respect to moral facts, then our confidence in the objectivity of those beliefs is undermined. Sterba’s response, which attempted to preserve the objectivity and authority of moral norms by rooting them in fairness and rational compromise, does not grapple with the implications of such arguments, namely, that our deepest moral convictions are adaptive rather than objectively true. Therefore, Sterba’s theory is vulnerable to the charge that our moral beliefs are, at best, unreliable guides to moral truth, and at worst, accidental byproducts of evolutionary history. In addition, Sterba’s analogy to logic or mathematics is unconvincing because, while our logical and mathematical faculties may also be shaped by selective pressures according to evolutionary theory, the objectivity of our logical and mathematical beliefs is less dependent on contingent evolutionary history than is the case for our moral beliefs.

If Sterba’s position is that fairness is a brute abstract object, then he faces the challenge of explaining why we should regard such a brute fact as authoritative. However, if his position is that fairness is a useful pragmatic principle that is justified by its evolutionary success, then the objectivity of fairness is undermined by its adaptive origins. This evolutionary challenge is not merely that our moral beliefs have been shaped by selection pressures, but that if atheism and evolution are true, then the very standards by which we evaluate those beliefs are themselves the products of evolutionary forces. In other words, if the evolutionary account is correct, then not only is our commitment to fairness a product of contingent evolutionary history, but any attempt to justify fairness by appealing to our moral or rational standards is also subject to the same evolutionary debunking. This is the case because, if evolutionary forces shaped our standards of morality and rationality, then our confidence in those standards is undermined as well. Unfortunately, Sterba does not address this circular, self-referential problem in his response to evolutionary debunking arguments.