Supernaturalism

About supernaturalism

Supernaturalism (God-based ethics)

This theory makes ethics depend on God. It teaches that:

• the only source of moral rules is God
• something is good because God says it is
• the way to lead a good life is to do what God wants

Can God be the ultimate source of good?

Supernaturalism relies on revelations from God ©

Throughout history one puzzle has made it difficult to base ethics on God:

Is a thing good because God desires it?

or

Does God desire a thing because it is good?

The Ancient Greek philosopher Plato concluded that God desires a thing because it is good. God's desire doesn't make a thing good - the thing would be good regardless of God.

If Plato is right then the supernaturalism theory is pretty unhelpful, because it doesn't reveal what makes something good or bad.

God's desire would be at best a useful way of discovering what is good and what is bad, but wouldn't tell us anything more than that.

And here's another problem:

If God desired something that everyone thinks is bad - would that make it good?

Atheists and supernaturalism

Ethical atheists and supernaturalism

How do atheists derive their morals? Photo: Marcelo Terraza ©

If supernaturalism is true, how can atheists behave in a consistently moral way?

If religion is the only basis of ethics, it would seem that people who have no faith can have no basis for their moral judgements, and nowhere to turn for guidance on how to live.

But atheists do behave in a consistent moral way, so where do such people get their morality from?

And since atheists and believers totally disagree on the foundations underpinning moral rules, it's surely strange that they so often agree on matters of right and wrong - since they have no common basis for moral judgements, any agreement on moral rules must be coincidence.

One response the supernaturalist might offer is that the atheist does derive his or her ethics from God, even though they are unaware of it. The supernaturalist might say that not believing in God does not mean the atheist would have no awareness of a God-based ethics, and hence their agreement can be explained despite the atheist's different beliefs.

Constructionism devalues God-based ethics

Some who are observant followers of a religion accept that God is a human construction and not a supernatural being.

If this is so, then God-based ethics are no different from humanly constructed ethics based on cultural traditions and rituals.

Different Gods leads to moral disagreement

Since there are many different religions, with different understandings of God and different moral codes, God-based ethics is bound to produce moral disagreement.

God-based ethics provides no way of dealing with ethical conflicts between different religions.

Fearing God as a basis for good behaviour

People may follow the rules of God-based ethics because they are fearful of being punished by God in this life or in some afterlife.

Many theologians teach that a fear- and power-based relationship with God is an inappropriate relationship to have with a loving God and leads to a bad spiritual life.

Many theologians and ethicists argue that such a relationship with God provides a bad model for human power and family relationships.

People may follow the rules of God-based ethics simply because they wish to behave in a way that pleases God.

This is a more helpful model for human power and family relationships.

Discovering what is good

Discovering what is good

How do we know? ©

Even if people accept that things are good because God desires them they still face the problem of discovering what God desires. Strictly speaking this does not count against Supernaturalism as an intellectual position - it may be just be accepted that moral truths are hard to discover - but it does highlight the difficulties.

Discovering God's will

There are several ways in which believers try to find out God's will in ethical matters:

• reading scripture - both to see what God says, and to find relevant examples
• listening to religious teachers
• prayer and meditation
• seeing what is consistent with God's general advice on how to live
• listening to the inner, God-driven, voice
• discussion with teachers and followers of the religion concerned

Many religious people use a combination of these in their approach to moral problems.

It is accepted by many believers that the ways of discovering God's will set out above don't give direct access to God's will, but involve working through intermediaries. Hence the information is passed through social, cultural, religious and psychological filters that can distort it.

Many hold that God's will is only directly known through revelation: God actually communicating his/her will to the person concerned. However, revelation as a source of ethics still presents a problem for certainty: how is the person to know that the revelation they have received has actually come from God?

Find out more

• Christian Ethics
• Morality and secularism