Divine Command Theory

Divine Command Theory is the idea that moral obligations are determined by God's commands. The immediate challenge to such a theory is the Euthyphro Dilemma, which asks whether something is good because God commands it, or if God commands it because it is good. Divine Command Theorists argue for the first option. Most defenders of this theory argue for it based on pure religious [or biblical] grounds, though many more are much advanced. Some argue that, when God created humans, humans were ordered in our disposition to have certain acts be beneficial to us and for some to be malignant. So, when God commands for us to not murder, it is because it would not lead to our best health (which is what a loving God would want), and the reason for why it would not lead to our best health is not for some exterior reason (else the center of morality strays from God) but for the fact that God made us in a certain way. So, in another possible world, getting drunk could be beneficial and thus be commanded by God and be good, but that is not the case - so we need not worry about Divine Command Theorist's biggest objection: if morality is based on God's proclamations, then couldn't he command something a horrendous act that would seem to us immoral? Though, the aforementioned argument is fairly weak, so there are a few more options. Call this horrendous act: act H. Some theorists "bite the bullet", and say yes, God could command an act H to be obligatory, yet unless if we actually have reason to believe that God commanded such a thing, then it would be wrong otherwise. The other common response is that God wouldn't order such an act H, as that would be against his character. Now, such a character would be a moral character. Yet, God - in this view - promulgates the moral, thus the response could be boiled down to: God cannot will anything that is against his character of not doing anything other than what he would will. Which, then, does not solve any issues of apparent arbitrariness. One may attempt to save this line of reasoning by arguing that commanding such an act H would be to sin and to fall short of perfection, yet God is omnipotent and thus cannot fall short of anything, thus he cannot 'sin' and command an act H. However, one may simply argue that in the underlying premise of "falling short of perfection" is that there is some third-party standard to which God cannot fall short of. The arguments do get much more complex than what can be said here, but it is definitely an interesting and highly prominent view among religious philosophers.