Q&A: The Obligation to Obey God’s Command
The Obligation to Obey God’s Command
Question
Let’s say I accept the following two premises:
1. God created the world
2. God commanded us to observe the commandments
Where does the obligation come from for me to observe the commandments?
(Seemingly, an ethical obligation can’t come out of this either because of the naturalistic fallacy, right?)
If the Rabbi has already discussed this topic, I’d be glad for a reference.
Thanks
Answer
This question just came up in another thread.
Look at a parallel question:
Premise: I understand that morality obligates us not to murder.
Conclusion: It is forbidden to murder.
How is the conclusion derived from the premise? Because the meaning of morality is that the content of its commands is binding. Someone who doesn’t understand that doesn’t understand what morality is, and therefore doesn’t really accept the premise.
The same is true of God. By virtue of being God, His commands are binding. Someone who accepts that there is a God but is not bound by His commands does not really accept the ‘fact’ that there is a God. This is not a fact only in the physical sense, but a fact loaded with normative content, just as a moral obligation is not a fact only in that sense.
By the way, this is not necessarily because He created the world. There are those who do not base the obligation on that.
And one more comment: every moral argument suffers from the naturalistic fallacy when one does not put on the table the premise that moves us from the facts to the conclusion. If you add the premise that God’s commands are to be observed, then the argument is valid. Of course, you can question that premise itself, but the naturalistic fallacy is no longer the issue.
Discussion on Answer
The decision to obey moral/religious commands has nothing to do with morality. It is a psychological matter.
A person submits to these dictates sometimes out of fear, sometimes out of laziness, sometimes out of pride, and for other reasons.
It’s hard to explain first principles. Any explanation will itself have to rely on other principles, and regarding them too you can ask where they come from. It’s like explaining why morality is binding (the example I gave).
As for gratitude, see my article on the subject:
The Rabbi is basically defining the concept of God as “that which one must obey its laws.” That is a different God from God according to the definition “that which created the world.”
The proofs the Rabbi brings for the existence of God (in the notebooks) do not fit this definition; they fit a God who created the world (except for ‘the proof from morality,’ and even about that I’m not sure).
So how do we know there is God?
That is not necessarily a definition of God. It follows from His definition. Just as one might say that a person has rights by virtue of being human, but it would not be correct to define a human being as a creature that has rights.
If you read the notebooks, and at greater length in the book The First Existent, then you surely know that I explained there that every proof for the existence of God assumes a certain definition of Him, and in each proof the definition is different. The identification of all these gods (Occam’s razor), and identifying them with the God of Sinai, is a continuation of the philosophical arguments and not part of them.
“Look at a parallel question:
Premise: I understand that morality obligates us not to murder.
Conclusion: It is forbidden to murder.
How is the conclusion derived from the premise? Because the meaning of morality is that the content of its commands is binding. Someone who doesn’t understand that doesn’t understand what morality is, and therefore doesn’t really accept the premise.”
There are 2 necessary stages on our way to the conclusion that murder is forbidden.
Stage A – an intuition (as strong as all the intuitions on which science is based, as you taught us) that obligates us to be moral.
Stage B – part of morality is not murdering.
Conclusion – murder is forbidden.
The conclusion cannot be reached from Stage B alone without Stage A. For without Stage A we would not arrive at the conclusion that the meaning of morality is that the content of its commands is binding.
In order for you to draw a parallel between morality and the divine command, you would need to show a basic human intuition that subjects a person to the divine command, like moral intuition. And that is what would bring us to the conclusion that the meaning of God is that one must obey His commandments.
And obviously there is no such intuition. Therefore we cannot infer that the meaning of God is that one is obligated to obey Him.
Oren, I’m willing to accept every word you wrote except “obviously.” It is not obvious at all. I do have such an intuition, and in my estimation so does most of the world, including atheists. Even you yourself do, since you yourself wrote regarding morality that if morality obligates something, your intuition says it should be carried out. But as I’ve written more than once, without God there is no valid morality.
In any case, as I wrote above, there is no point arguing about first principles (axioms). If you think you shouldn’t obey Him—then don’t obey.
Thank you very much for the detailed explanation.
I’d be glad if you could explain a bit why, by virtue of being God, His commands are binding. Can’t I assume that there is some powerful being who created the world, but that we are not obligated to listen to Him?
Why exactly can’t I accept the existence of God only in the physical sense and not in the normative sense?
(The answers I’ve seen are that because God created the world, one should listen to Him out of gratitude, or because He revealed to us that this is the way one should act in the world, or something along those lines—but that seems too simplistic to me.)