So if the divine command theory is true..?

Question

then how is God different from the devil? Is He simply more powerful or what??

(if you dont know what the divine command theory is.. the doctrine that morality depends on religion is called the divine command theory, since God's commands determine what is right and wrong..)

thankssss!

Answer 1

If divine command theory is true and there is more than one god present, then logically the only commands you really need to worry about are the ones that are enforced.

Since a more powerful entity often can overcome a less powerful one, those would normally be the ones you would worry about. Some pantheons do have less powerful gods actually meting out the judgements, though, so depending on which one you favour you would get different results. In your example, you would seem to be correct - because it is presumed that the Devil has no actual control over the ultimate state of the universe, its commands are of no value.

As Plato points out in "Euthyphro", multiple gods that reward and punish completely different things freely puts a rather significant wrench in divine command theory altogether, especially when the situation inevitably arises that pleasing one god is going to upset another one.

Even so, I think it ends up reducing to the above - hopefully the one you please can protect you from the one you don't. And arguably, if divine command theory is true and there are multiple gods, it hardly matters whether you like the situation or whether it's fair or not... those are human values that may never apply.

Answer 2

Well, the devine command theory doesn't require that the devil exists.

But as far as the difference between God and the devil, in Christian belief, the devil was an angel created by God and chose to rebel against God. God then cast the devil out of heaven. Christians believe that God existed before the devil and that God is more powerful than the devil.

Answer 3

Your "divine command theory" isn't a "theory" at all -- it's a religious hypothesis. Since it assumes the existence of a god in the first place...an assumption without evidence...it's essentially an argument about nothing. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Same thing. Peace.

Answer 4

You expanded it to include power. In doing so you are correct!

Indeed someone under inspiration did indeed write, "are we more powerful than God?" (paraphrased)

So God's all encompassing power is what guarantees that things shall proceed in the end - his way.

You ask how does God differ from the Devil? The Devil does things for his own gratification ONLY. He gives a rats derrière about others, their needs, etc.

God does all things out of love. If he indeed was another Devil, you, I, the demons, and the Devil would not exist this moment. It was God's fair-play that the Devil counted on to be able to turn against God and use for his (Devil's) own nefarious purposes.

It is God's fair-play that has caused this delay in getting rid of the Devil since the Devil cause a legal case, a court case to come of it. The fighting of this heavenly court case has now been terminated and is about to be round up.

So God is the personification of justice, mercy, love, and power. This is the direct opposite of what the Devil is, selfish in the extreme, unjust, unloving, and weak (compared to God).

Answer 5

The divine command theory would have been interpreted by man. Morality certainly doesn not depend on religion. I believe that God is Morality! It is actually personified in us. We are all created in the likeness of God not the "devil". I personally don't believe in "the devil". I believe in "devil" behavior that's about it.

Answer 6

Personally, I like to believe that God is more powerful than the devil. But a better answer to the question may be that God simply has more followers than Satan, and that makes him all the more powerful. Overall, even if the power that each one posesses is the same, there are SEVERAL more jews, christians, and muslims, than there are satanists. Ultimately, it's the different ideas that God and Satan have that seperate them. At the moment, much of what we consider 'right' and 'good' comes from the Bible, and is consistant in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Even for people who don't have a religion, they still probably follow religious values, to a cerain extent. If you look at Satan....his congregation is VASTLY smaller than Gods. I think a good way to answer this is by comparing it to a presidential race. God is the elected president, and Satan is the guy who lost. Overall, they aren't that different, they're both human, with roughly the same limitations. However, God won with his ideas, and Satan lost with different ideas. The people went with God. This gives God much more power, like the power that comes with being president, and also the person that most people come to rely on, and sometimes blame, during tough times, making him completely different from Satan.

Answer 7

If the divine command theory is true, we have no foundation for defining "good" outside of "God". In the event that there are more than one competing gods claiming to be the "God" that is "Good", we're sh!t out of luck in terms of distinguishing them on moral grounds.

Answer 8

If God granted free will then commands is a contradiction. God cannot command ...Look, we are all know that we are creators of our own problems, right...Key word is a "problem" which we are experiencing...It is true.we are creators of it , individually and mutually...Devil, as well as right and wrong is entirely human mind creations....HUMAN MIND... Devil considered to be a problem, wrong considered to be a problem and what is right to one would be well wrong to another.Well another problem....actually there is nothing but problems...unless we see it different ways...Free will allowed us to understand that, stated above and fix something in our minds...otherwise we demanding God to clean our own s h i t which we continue to produce...God fairly waiting for us to understand this...Our problems is powerful because it is our creation , literally it is us...But believing that someone omni powerful is responsible making us powerless...to face our own creations...Now does divine command theory still be true? Looks like another escape from taking responsibility for our own clean existence...

Answer 9

I think that is incumbent on the source of, nature of, and use of the power owned.

I dont believe in your theory. It presupposes that the commands are arbitrary, and I think that the existence of globally valid, or universal, truth goes against an arbitrariness.

Answer 10

morality depending on religion sounds about as solid as the color dress you wear depends on religion.man should really adhere to the directions in God's word, the Bible, rather than what a "religion" instructs them to do.the scriptures present advice on morality