Theists: how do you account for psychopaths?

[The Grand Nudger]

That makes god secondary and unneccessary to the equation.  

If the state of nature is the reason that murder is wrong...imagine two otherwise identical universes, one created by god and one existing by -any- other means.

Murder is equally wrong in both universes.  God just so happened to be involved in one, but the moral status of murder in either does not proceed or derive from that gods existence or involvement.

Natural law doesn;t come from gods nature after all..and gods ability to create a universe in which murder is immoral is -constrained- by natural law.

[SteveII]

There are two ways to look at Divine Law (assuming such a thing exists):

1. Murder is wrong just because God says so.
or
2. Murder is wrong independently of what God says, but he forbids it because he is loving and just.

Your assertion that morality can only be objective in a universe created purposefully by God, seems to indicate that you fall into the first camp. But I don't think you do. I think you accept #2. But as a thought experiment, let's follow conclusion #1 to its logical end. Let's say that God comes before you and tells you that (if you want to) you can murder your neighbor's wife. If you do this, you won't have to ask for forgiveness, there is no threat of eternal damnation--none of that. God has said that it is okay.

The question is: would you kill your neighbor's wife if God allowed it? If God allowed it, would that make it morally right? If the answer is no: why not? 

Maybe it's because killing this woman would deprive her husband of a wife, and her two children of a mother. Maybe it's because it is her life, and you don't have the right to take it from her. Maybe it's because she is a human being with dreams and aspirations, and your desire to kill her is superseded by her right to live. But if God gave you permission, would any of these reasons that murder is wrong change?

Morality can neither hinge solely on the utterances of God, nor is it in any way impacted by God's purposes in creating the universe. Otherwise, murdering someone would be somehow become morally right just because God allows it (even though, by any other metric, it is the exact same deed). And (assuming there is a God overseeing this universe) it would become morally right to commit murder in an exact carbon copy of this universe if said universe were to come about by happenstance.

No, there is a third way to look at this. 

3. Murder is wrong because God forbids it. God forbids it because it runs contrary to his nature ('nature' as in cannot be separated from the whole of God and so definitionally all of God's commands must be consistent with his nature). Not only is God's nature good, it is the paradigm of goodness (as the greatest conceivable being).  Therefore murder is objectively wrong ultimately because God's unchanging nature has determined it to be so. Additionally, you don't have to actually know that God forbids it--he wrote basic morality on the hearts/minds of all normally-functioning people.

[brewer]

god must be exempt from the murder clause. god has killed humans (according to your stories) so it is in gods nature to murder.

[The Grand Nudger]

There are two ways to look at Divine Law (assuming such a thing exists):

1. Murder is wrong just because God says so.
or
2. Murder is wrong independently of what God says, but he forbids it because he is loving and just.

Your assertion that morality can only be objective in a universe created purposefully by God, seems to indicate that you fall into the first camp. But I don't think you do. I think you accept #2. But as a thought experiment, let's follow conclusion #1 to its logical end. Let's say that God comes before you and tells you that (if you want to) you can murder your neighbor's wife. If you do this, you won't have to ask for forgiveness, there is no threat of eternal damnation--none of that. God has said that it is okay.

The question is: would you kill your neighbor's wife if God allowed it? If God allowed it, would that make it morally right? If the answer is no: why not? 

Maybe it's because killing this woman would deprive her husband of a wife, and her two children of a mother. Maybe it's because it is her life, and you don't have the right to take it from her. Maybe it's because she is a human being with dreams and aspirations, and your desire to kill her is superseded by her right to live. But if God gave you permission, would any of these reasons that murder is wrong change?

Morality can neither hinge solely on the utterances of God, nor is it in any way impacted by God's purposes in creating the universe. Otherwise, murdering someone would be somehow become morally right just because God allows it (even though, by any other metric, it is the exact same deed). And (assuming there is a God overseeing this universe) it would become morally right to commit murder in an exact carbon copy of this universe if said universe were to come about by happenstance.

No, there is a third way to look at this. 

3. Murder is wrong because God forbids it. God forbids it because it runs contrary to his nature ('nature' as in cannot be separated from the whole of God and so definitionally all of God's commands must be consistent with his nature). Not only is God's nature good, it is the paradigm of goodness (as the greatest conceivable being).  Therefore murder is objectively wrong ultimately because God's unchanging nature has determined it to be so. Additionally, you don't have to actually know that God forbids it--he wrote basic morality on the hearts/minds of all normally-functioning people.

 Subjective and arbitrary. If gods nature were otherwise then murder could be moral. Theres nothing about murder, itself..no moral fact of the matter of murder..that makes it immoral..in that formulation.

The idea of god writing on hearts is just a silly superstition. You don;t really think thats how hearts -or- morality works..do you?

[Catholic_Lady]

If you believe the stories in the OT are historically factual and not written allegorically.

Jesus never killed anyone, and specifically taught us not to.

[Amarok]

Natural law renders god redundant. And no nothing inherent to his character or nature  can make him moral.Thus the nature law theory for theism is bunkum . You can't found morality on a god it always results in subjectivity .

---

If you believe the stories in the OT are historically factual and not written allegorically. 

Excuses

Jesus never killed anyone, and specifically taught us not to

No he's just waiting till his return to kill people

[The Grand Nudger]

I;m entirely sure that whole business about god creating the universe was allegorical, not historical, lol.

[brewer]

If you believe the stories in the OT are historically factual and not written allegorically.

Jesus never killed anyone, and specifically taught us not to.

So you're a pick and choose. jesus promises to kill in revelations. john got it straight from the horses mouth.

[The Grand Nudger]

It;s not as if theres any choice.  The pov expressed by believers as regards morality in this thread is wildly incoherent, and isn;t made coherent by picking and choosing..just easier for them to swallow.

[Amarok]

If you believe the stories in the OT are historically factual and not written allegorically.

Jesus never killed anyone, and specifically taught us not to.

So you're a pick and choose. jesus promises to kill in revelations. john got it straight from the horses mouth.

And the whole not stopping people like Hitler does not help .