What is the relationship between religion and morality, and does goodness depend on the command of God?
Paper 2 Significant concepts in issues or debates in religion and ethics: the relationship between religion and morality, divine command theory and the Euthyphro dilemma, the autonomy of ethics, and concepts such as duty, virtue, conscience and the good.
An Edexcel A-Level Religious Studies Paper 2 guide to significant concepts in moral debate and the relationship between religion and morality. Covers divine command theory and the Euthyphro dilemma, the autonomy of ethics (Kant, the secular challenge), whether morality depends on God, and key concepts such as duty, virtue, the good and conscience, with the AO2 evaluation the exam rewards.
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What this dot point is asking
Edexcel Paper 2 opens with significant concepts in issues or debates in religion and ethics, the foundational question being the relationship between religion and morality. Does being moral require God? Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good? You study divine command theory, the Euthyphro dilemma, the claim that ethics is autonomous (independent of religion), and the key concepts (duty, virtue, conscience, the good) that the rest of the paper applies. The topic is conceptual and highly evaluative.
The answer
Divine command theory
The view fits the scriptural picture of God as lawgiver (the Decalogue) and underwrites the idea that some acts are wrong absolutely because they are forbidden by God.
The Euthyphro dilemma
Either horn is costly for the believer: one makes God's goodness empty, the other makes morality autonomous.
Responses: the modified divine command theory
Critics reply that this only relocates the dilemma to God's nature: is that nature good by an independent standard, or good by definition? If the former, the autonomy of value returns; if the latter, the emptiness charge returns.
The autonomy of ethics
- Kant grounds morality in reason and the categorical imperative, not in God's commands; God enters as a postulate of practical reason, not as the source of duty. Morality is therefore autonomous.
- The secular challenge. Atheists and humanists plainly act morally and give reasons (harm, fairness, flourishing) without invoking God, which suggests morality does not depend on religious belief.
- The link defended. Theists reply that secular ethics borrows moral capital from a religious heritage, and that objective moral obligation is hard to ground without a moral lawgiver.
Significant concepts
The paper's recurring concepts frame every later debate: duty (obligation, central to Kant and natural law), virtue (character and the good life, central to Aristotle), the good (the end ethics aims at, conceived as pleasure, flourishing or God's will), and conscience (the inner moral voice, read by Aquinas as reason and by others as upbringing). Knowing how each theory uses these concepts lets you compare them precisely.
Examples in context
Try this
Q1. Evaluate the view that a person can be moral without being religious. [20 marks]
- What the marker wants. An AO2 essay setting the autonomy of ethics (Kant, secular reasons, the moral atheist) against the claim that objective obligation needs a divine lawgiver, weighing whether secular ethics borrows religious moral capital, with a justified conclusion.
Q2. Explain the Euthyphro dilemma. [8 marks]
- Cue. Is an act good because God commands it (so morality is arbitrary) or does God command it because it is good (so goodness is independent of God)? Show why each horn is costly. Add the modified divine command reply for the higher marks.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of Pearson Edexcel exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
Edexcel-style20 marksEvaluate the view that morality depends on God.Show worked answer →
A Section C extended essay marked mainly on AO2. The levels reward a sustained case that engages divine command theory, the Euthyphro dilemma and the autonomy of ethics, with a justified conclusion rather than a survey of positions.
State the dependence view. Divine command theory holds that an act is right because God commands it and wrong because God forbids it, so morality is grounded in God's will and without God moral claims would lack objective authority.
Challenge. The Euthyphro dilemma asks whether God commands an act because it is good (then goodness is independent of God) or whether it is good because God commands it (then morality is arbitrary and "God is good" becomes empty). Kant and secular ethics argue reason alone can ground duty, so morality is autonomous; atheists behave morally without belief.
Judge. Weigh whether the modified divine command response (God commands in line with his good nature) escapes the dilemma, and conclude with reasons. A clear verdict reaches the top level.
Edexcel-style20 marksAnalyse the claim that the Euthyphro dilemma defeats divine command theory.Show worked answer →
A Section C essay testing AO1 understanding of the dilemma and AO2 evaluation of its force.
Explain. Plato's Euthyphro poses a fork: either God commands what is already good, making goodness prior to and independent of God and reducing his role to a messenger; or things are good only because God commands them, making morality arbitrary (God could have commanded cruelty) and emptying "God is good" of meaning.
Respond. Defenders offer a modified divine command theory: God's commands flow necessarily from his perfectly good and unchanging nature, so they are neither arbitrary nor external to him; Adams ties moral goodness to God's loving character.
Challenge the response. Critics reply this just relocates the dilemma to God's nature: is that nature good by an independent standard or by definition? Judge whether the modified theory escapes the fork, and conclude with reasons.
Related dot points
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Sources & how we know this
- Pearson Edexcel A-Level Religious Studies (9RS0) specification — Pearson Edexcel (2016)
- Edexcel A-Level Religious Studies Anthology — Pearson Edexcel (2016)