[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on October 19, 2011. It was republished here on November 9, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date.]
Though I disagree with his conclusions, I've always respected the writings of Christian philosopher Mark Murphy on the relationship between God and morality. He has written a book, God and the Moral Law: On the Theistic Explanation of Morality, which will be published by Oxford University Press early next year. Based on the description of the book, it sounds extremely interesting. Murphy criticizes natural law theory and divine command theory, which are the most dominant theistic accounts of morality.
In their place, he defends a new theistic account of morality, which is apparently analogous to how many theists have traditionally understood the relationship between God and the laws of nature. In an attempt to find out more about his new theistic account of morality, I did a web search and discovered a paper he read at Notre Dame's Center for Philosophy of Religion, "God and Moral Law," which appears to provide an overview of his approach. Anyone interested in the relationship between God and morality will surely want to read this.
