William Lane Craig on Divine command theory
Craig defends a modified divine command theory, arguing God's nature — not arbitrary will — grounds moral obligations.
Craig defends a modified divine command theory in which God's commands are not arbitrary but flow necessarily from his perfectly good nature. On this view, God could not command torture for fun because such a command would contradict his essential goodness. The Euthyphro dilemma is resolved: things are good because God's nature is the standard of goodness, and our moral duties are constituted by the commands of this essentially good God.
This distinguishes Craig from crude voluntarism (the view that anything God commands becomes good by fiat). Craig grounds moral values in God's nature and moral duties in God's commands. God's nature is the paradigm of goodness; his commands translate that nature into specific obligations.
Critics argue that this merely pushes the problem back: what makes God's nature good? Craig responds that God's nature simply is the standard of goodness — it is not measured against some external criterion but rather is the ultimate criterion itself. This is not circular, he argues, but foundational — analogous to how the laws of logic are not justified by further laws but serve as the bedrock of reasoning.
“God's moral nature is what Plato called the Good. God's commands flow necessarily from his moral nature, and they constitute our moral duties.”