Note: This text was translated from the Russian original by AI.

Robert Adams’ work—his Divine Command Theory and defense of ‘critical realism’—represents an ambitious attempt to ground the objectivity of theistic ethics. In particular, his work The Virtue of Faith, specifically Chapter 7, which addresses ethical wrongness in light of a modified divine command theory, merits detailed analysis. However, upon close examination of these theses, fundamental structural vulnerabilities emerge. This discussion note examines an epistemological dead end that renders the logic of justification internally inconsistent.

1. The Projection Problem and the Epistemological Limit

Robert Adams posits that we are capable of recognizing God’s will through its alignment with His benevolent character. According to his modified theory, “doing X is wrong” implies “doing X is contrary to God’s will”—but only provided that God possesses the property of loving human beings.¹ It is understood that within analytic theology, we are not speaking of direct access to the noumenal essence of God. However, the perception of a mediated signal—through concepts of “love” or “goodness”—inevitably collides with what the literature terms the Projection Problem: mistaking an intersubjective ethical consensus for an objective revelation.²

When we interpret the will of the Absolute, we utilize our finite, human concept of “love.” Although this does not destroy theology as such—which remains possible as an aspiration—it imposes a rigid epistemological limit. In our normative reality, a complete, undistorted contact with the Absolute is unattainable. Consequently, we may know God, but we do not possess sufficient epistemological access to judge the manifestations of His love on the scale of infinity using our human metrics.³

How can we be certain that the “Voice” we hear is not merely a resonance of our own or our community’s ideals? We risk accepting as Divine revelation what would be more accurately termed an “aesthetic alias”: a judgment structurally analogous to taste—based on personal, cultural, or historically conditioned preferences—yet claiming the status of an objective moral fact. Tradition shapes this alias and grants it intersubjective stability, but it does not make it objective in the sense required by Adams’ realism. Tellingly, Adams himself acknowledges that a believer’s concepts of ethical right and wrong “arise within the broader context of his (or his religious community’s) religious life.“⁴ It is precisely this that makes them intersubjective by nature—rather than objective in the sense required by realism.

2. Risk Asymmetry, Fallibilism, and the Jonah Argument

The second question arises during the so-called “teleological suspension of the ethical”—when a perceived “Voice” demands an action that conflicts with one’s moral system.⁵

Modern philosophy operates on fallibilism, recognizing that we make decisions—in medicine, in law—under conditions of probability, lacking one hundred percent certainty. However, a fundamental distinction must be drawn here. When a surgeon makes a risky decision, they operate within an ethical paradigm: they strive to preserve life, and their fallibilism is ethically flawless in its intent. But when a supposed command requires committing an act of direct destruction or violence—violating basic morality—the application of fallibilism becomes impermissible. Justifying the infliction of irreparable harm with a probabilistic hypothesis that it is the “Voice of God” means committing a moral crime, regardless of whether the hypothesis later proves correct.⁶

Adams himself acknowledges the severity of this problem. Considering a hypothetical situation in which “God commanded cruelty for its own sake,” he points out that in such a case, the believer’s “concept of ethical wrongness would break down.“⁷ This is an important admission: the criterion of a loving God is not an external verification tool for the agent—it is woven into the very fabric of their ethical concepts. When this criterion is called into question by a situation of conflict, the agent is simultaneously stripped of both the criterion and their conceptual apparatus.

In this context, the example of the prophet Jonah is illustrative. It is crucial to understand the context: Jonah was a prophet in a world where the destruction of an enemy of God’s people was not a moral flaw, but a high moral task. Nineveh was an imperial power of real violence, and from the perspective of Jonah’s coherent ethical system, justice demanded retribution, not mercy. God’s command to go and save Nineveh directly contradicted this system.⁸

And here is the key point: Jonah possessed absolute, one hundred percent prophetic certainty regarding the Source of the command—yet he still experienced colossal internal resistance because the command violated his moral intuition of justice. Following this command required immense overexertion and an internal breaking point, even with a direct and absolute signal.

If following a morally conflicting command requires such overcoming even with one hundred percent verification of the Source—it is a fortiori impermissible to commit a morally reprehensible act while possessing only probabilistic conviction. Attempting to justify a violation of fundamental ethics in the fundamental absence of a direct, verifiable interface is a structural inconsistency, not an epistemic risk.

3. The Limits of Faith and the Ethics of Belief

It is often argued that religious experience, faith, and dispositions cultivated within a community can compensate for this lack of objective certainty. However, from the standpoint of realism, using faith as a compensator in a moral conflict looks like epistemological capitulation.⁹

Faith as trust or disposition may be rational in matters of personal salvation or theology in general. But if the intensity of faith or the depth of communal rootedness is used to “complete” a signal calling for the violation of a moral law, it merely amplifies subjective or collective distortions—the very thing Adams’ realism is meant to protect against. For a realist, adequacy to objective fact is what matters, not the intensity of a disposition or its social entrenchment.

Thus, Adams’ system reveals a structural vulnerability precisely at the point of the “teleological suspension of the ethical”: it fails to provide an epistemological criterion sufficient to distinguish genuine revelation from collective projection in situations of direct moral conflict. Without such a criterion, the appeal to Divine Commands in these situations remains open to being used for purposes directly opposite to those claimed—justifying a subjective or group will under the guise of an objective moral requirement.

Notes

  1. Adams articulates the core of his modified theory as follows: “‘Doing X is wrong’ implies ‘Doing X is contrary to God’s will.’ However, ‘doing X is contrary to God’s will’ implies ‘doing X is wrong’ only if we assume that God possesses the property that I believe He has—to love the human beings He has created” (Adams 1987, pp. 131–132 [Russian edition]). It is precisely the qualifier of a loving God that is intended to resolve the problem of arbitrariness.
  2. Regarding the Projection Problem as a structural challenge to theistic ethics, see: Feuerbach (1841) 1989; Zagzebski 2004.
  3. The epistemological boundaries of mediated religious perception are explored in: Alston 1991. Alston defends a moderate realism regarding religious experience while acknowledging its doxastic conditioning. The present argument asserts that it is precisely this conditioning that becomes disqualifying in cases of direct moral conflict.
  4. Adams 1987, p. 134 [Russian edition]: “The believer’s concepts of ethical wrongness and permissibility arise within the broader context of his (or his religious community’s) religious life, and therefore within the context of the assumption of God’s love for human beings.” The present argument does not dispute this thesis but points to its consequence: the intersubjective origin of these concepts makes them vulnerable to precisely the critique that Adams’ realism is meant to deflect.
  5. The concept of the “teleological suspension of the ethical” was introduced by Kierkegaard: Kierkegaard (1843) 1983. Regarding its application within Divine Command Theory and the paradox of Abraham, see specifically: Quinn 1992; Evans 2013.
  6. For the classic formulation of the problem of the ethics of belief in the context of risk asymmetry, see: Clifford 1877; James 1896. As applied to theistic ethics and the diagnosis of structural vulnerabilities in Adams’ position, see specifically: Murphy 2011.
  7. Adams 1987, p. 132 [Russian edition]: “If I really believed that God commanded cruelty for its own sake, my very concept of ethical wrongness would break down.” The present argument accepts this analysis but points to its epistemological consequence: the criterion of God’s character is not an operational verification tool for the agent—it breaks down along with the conceptual apparatus in a situation of conflict.
  8. The biblical narrative explicitly indicates that Jonah’s resistance was dictated not by fear, but by theological and moral disagreement with God’s mercy towards a cruel empire (cf. Jonah 4:1-2: “for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful… and repentest thee of the evil”). Regarding the academic interpretation of Jonah’s position as a demand for “strict justice” as opposed to unmerited forgiveness, see, for example: Bickerman 1967; Fretheim 1977.
  9. Adams acknowledges the force of the arbitrariness objection and responds to it via the qualifier of a loving God (Adams 1987, pp. 131–134 [Russian edition]). The present argument does not dispute this response in general terms, but argues that it is structurally insufficient precisely in situations of direct moral conflict, where the intensity of faith or communal rootedness cannot replace the absent verification criterion. The fundamental requirement for the ethics of belief is formulated in: Clifford 1877.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

  • Adams, Robert M. 1987a. “A Modified Divine Command Theory of Ethical Wrongness.” In The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology, 97–122. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Adams, Robert M. 1987b. “Divine Command Metaethics Modified Again.” In The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology, 128–143. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Adams, Robert M. 1999. Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.

Secondary Literature

  • Alston, William P. 1991. Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
  • Bickerman, Elias. 1967. Four Strange Books of the Bible: Jonah, Daniel, Koheleth, Esther. New York: Schocken Books.
  • Clifford, William Kingdon. 1877. “The Ethics of Belief.” Contemporary Review 29: 289–309.
  • Evans, C. Stephen. 2013. God and Moral Obligation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Feuerbach, Ludwig. (1841) 1989. The Essence of Christianity. Translated by George Eliot. Amherst: Prometheus Books.
  • Fretheim, Terence E. 1977. The Message of Jonah: A Theological Commentary. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House.
  • James, William. 1896. “The Will to Believe.” New World 5: 327–347.
  • Kierkegaard, Søren. (1843) 1983. Fear and Trembling. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • Murphy, Mark C. 2011. God and Moral Law: On the Theistic Explanation of Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Quinn, Philip L. 1992. “The Primacy of God’s Will in Christian Ethics.” Philosophical Perspectives 6: 493–513.
  • Zagzebski, Linda. 2004. Divine Motivation Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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