The Abrahamic Conflict between Objectivism and Subjectivism

[Jichard]

Within the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, there seems to be a tension between at least two traditions:

An objectivist (or realist) position that recognizes that actions can be morally right or morally wrong independent of what Gos says, commands, etc.

A subjectivist position that claims that actions are morally right or morally wrong in virtue of God's commands, say-so, etc. This is often called divine command theory, or DCT for short.

Some background on this tension:

"Muslim patients and cross-gender interactions in medicine: an Islamic bioethical perspective"
http://pmr.uchicago.edu/sites/pmr.uc...ve,%202010.pdf


"Beyond Divine Command Theory: Moral Realism in the Hebrew Bible"
http://www.hts.org.za/index.php/HTS/...ewFile/160/237

[emphasis added] (308-309)."

This opens up an interesting question: what sort of tradition will various Abrahamic monotheists opt for? Will they opt for the realist/objectivist tradition? Or will they opt for a subjectivist tradition of blind obedience? Some Abahamic monotheists have clearly made their decision...

There is no good reason to think that objective moral facts actually exist, or that if they did that they would have any authority, or in any sense be preferable to theistic moral law.

[robrecht]

Back in the olden days, when people studied Medieval philosophy/theology, this was referred to as the difference between natural law and theological nominalism. The former believed that God revealed himself and other truths through nature and human reason. This tradition was Aristotelian, Thomistic and continued by the Jesuits (in degraded form) in Catholicism. The other tradition thought that it put a higher value on the transcendence of God, his absolute freedom, and our inability to understand him and reality apart from revelation. This neo-Platonic and Augustinian tradition was kept alive by Bonaventure and the Franciscan school and (also in degraded form) was dominant among Luther and the other Protestant reformers. The former lost touch with its fundamentally apophatic dialectic, while the latter devolved into litteralism and anti-intellectualism. It wasn't until the early 20th century that a few seminal Christian thinkers began to put the pieces back together again and, frankly, a new synthesis still eludes the Christian intellectual tradition for the most part. It may be that Christianity is entering a new Dark Ages. A few will keep the dream alive, but their contributions may not be recognized until they are gone.

[Adam]

Yeah, I'm not making any headway in my proposed neo-Cartesian transformation of "I think, therefore I am" (that got lost in Solipsism questioning whether we can prove an external world exists or whether one might just be dreaming or deceived by a demon) into "I think, therefore I was". I hold it necessary to presuppose our intelligences (soul, consciousnesses, whatever) must precede our individual existence, which in turn entails reincarnation or the existence of God creating each person individually. This in turn dismisses the many incompatible epistemologies and metaphysics such as materialism, irrationalism, or atheistic Idealism or Rationalism and sets the table for investigating and determining Truth as in whatever religion can measure up--most likely Christianity in some medieval Realism or such, torn between Aristotelianism or Platonism perhaps.