Christopher Hitchens on Divine command theory
Hitchens saw divine command theory as celestial dictatorship — morality reduced to obedience under threat.
Hitchens's critique of divine command theory was among his most passionate. He described it as a form of celestial totalitarianism: a system in which moral goodness is defined as obedience to an unchallengeable authority who demands love under threat of infinite punishment. This was, for Hitchens, not morality but its negation.
He invoked the Euthyphro dilemma with characteristic bluntness: if God commands something because it is good, then goodness is independent of God and we do not need him. If something is good because God commands it, then goodness is arbitrary — God could command torture and it would be moral. Either way, divine command theory fails.
Hitchens compared divine command to the worst earthly tyrannies and argued it was actually worse: at least under Stalin or Kim Jong-il, death provided an escape. Under the God of Christianity, disobedience is punished for eternity. 'At least you can die and leave North Korea,' he would say.
“We are created sick, and commanded to be well. This is the first, and most fundamental, objection to religious faith.”
“The offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can't give way, is an offer of something not worth having.”