Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Divine command theory

Hirsi Ali's rejection of divine command theory is rooted in lived experience rather than philosophical abstraction. She grew up in a culture where God's commands — as interpreted by religious authorities — dictated every aspect of life: dress, diet, marriage, sexuality, and punishment. The result, she witnessed, was systematic cruelty justified by divine authority.

Her personal experience of forced marriage and female genital mutilation demonstrated the practical consequences of a morality grounded in divine command. When God's will is the ultimate moral authority, and human interpretation of God's will is treated as infallible, the result is a system in which any cruelty can be sanctioned and any questioning is heresy.

Hirsi Ali's critique applies broadly, though she has focused primarily on Islam. The structure of divine command theory — obedience to an unquestionable authority — is, she argues, inherently authoritarian regardless of which religion deploys it. Her 2023 conversion to Christianity has complicated but not fundamentally altered this position.