@Bruce_Leiter and @Johann
2nd Part
lets talk abt DCT specifically as it plays an important role here.
Ontological Foundations of DCT: Morality as Anchored in God’s Essence and Will
DCT begins with the premise that moral facts are not independent platonic forms or human constructs but are constituted by God’s commands, which flow from His necessary, perfect nature.
In the Euthyphro dilemma posed by Plato
Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods.
DCT resolves the impasse by asserting that goodness is neither arbitrary not external to God; rather, God’s will is the standard goodness because he is the ground of being, ipsum esse subsistens. For 1 Samuel 15:3, this means the command to enact herem (Total devotion to destruction) is morally obligatory not because it conforms to an abstract justice but because it emanates from YHWH, the covenant God, whose essence is moral perfection.
Voluntarist strands of DCT, championed by Willian of Ockham and Duns Scotus emphasize God’s absolute sovereignty:
Moral norms are what they are solely because God wills them, unbound by prior constraints.
In this view, even the destruction of Amalekite infants, incapable of repentance or fight, is right simply because God commands it through Samuel to Saul.
Ockham’s nominalism reinforces this:
Universals like “justice” have no independent existence; they are names for God’s decrees.
Thus, the command’s inclusion of infants doesnt pose a moral problem, it exemplifies God’s unfettered absolute power, where He could, in principle, command otherwise, but His actual command defines the Good.
This voluntarism guards against anthropomorphism:
Human intuitions about infant innocence, rooted in Imago Dei, are subordinate to divine prerogative, preventing us from judging God by creaturely standards.
Conversely, intellectualist variants as in St. Thomas Aquinas and C.S. Lewis, integrate God’s will with His intellect:
Commands are not arbitrary but reflective of His rational, eternal nature.
Aquinas argues in Summa Contra Gentiles that God’s will is ordered to His goodness, so commands align with the divine essence.
Applied to 1 Samuel 15:3, the command is just because it coheres with God’s holiness, punishing Amalek’s generational enmity to preserve redemptive order. Infants’ death while tragic from a human vantage, are morally licit as part of corporate judgement, where God’s omniscience foresees the greater good (preventing perpetuated evil) without violating His loving essence. This intellectualism tempers voluntarism’s potential for arbitrariness, portraying God as a necessary being whose commands are necessarily good, akin to Leibniz’s “best of all possible worlds” where moral truths are analytic propositions grounded in divinity.
Addressing Criticisms: The Arbitrariness Objection and the Infant Paradox in DCT
A perennial critique of DCT is the arbitrariness objection:
If morality depends on God’s commands, could He command atrocities and render them good? (Important Question)
In the Amalekite context, this surfaces acutely, why infants? Whose natural law remains untarnished and whose rationality/ free will is latent?
Voluntarists like Kierkegaard, in Fear and Trembling, embrace the “teleological suspension of the ethical”
Abraham’s binding of Issac parallels Saul’s task, where faith transcends universal ethics. For 1 Samuel 15:3, the command suspends ordinary moral norms for a higher divine telos - eradicating opposition to God’s kingdom.
Infants’ inability to repent underscores this:
Morality isnt contingent on human capacity but on divine fiat, echoing Kierkegaard’s knowing of faith who obeys beyond reason.
Intellectualists counter arbitrariness by invoking God’s immutable character:
He cannot command evil because His nature precludes it
Philosopher Robert Adams refines DCT in Finite and Infinite Goods with a “modified” version:
Goodness is a resemblance to God’s loving nature, so commands are constrained by His benevolence.
Thus, the infant killings are not arbitrary but merciful in eternal scope, transitioning souls to paradise before corruption (per evangelical views on infant salvation, grounded in Christ’s atonement, Romans 5:18).
God’s foreknowledge integrates here:
As an atemporal being (Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, Book 5), He sees infants’ potential trajectories in a wicked culture, making destruction a preventive grace, not caprice.
Another objection is the “epistemic problem” questions how we discern the genuine commands.
DCT responds via revelation:
Scripture, as God’s self-attestation, authenticates 1 Samuel 15:3, with internal coherence (eg consistency with Exodus 17) and fulfillment in Christ. For infants’ free will/ rationality, DCT posits these as divine endowments, but their exercise is irrelevant; morality flows from command, not creaturely autonomy.
Philosopher Eleonore Stump said, that biblical stories like Amalek reveal God’s relational pedagogy, where DCT invites trust amid mystery.
DCT’s implication for Theodicy in 1 Samuel 15:3: Justice, Mercy and Eternal Harmony.
In theodical terms, DCT reframes the Amalekite destruction as indicating God’s goodness without external metrics.
Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense extends to divine commands:
Moral evil’s possibility arises from creaturely freedom (Amalek’s rebellion), but God’s command rectify it sovereignly.
Contemporary analytic DCT, as in William Lane Craig’s work, incorporates modal logic:
In all possible worlds where God exists, His commands define the good necessarily. Thus 1 Samuel 15:3’s command is modally necessary for this world’s redemptive arc, culminating in Christ’s cross, where God commands His own “destruction” (Philippians 2:8) to atone universally.
Peace
Sam