This is the problem of abhorrent commands. This thought experiment–”What if God were to command such acts?”–therefore seems to show that divine command theory is false. However, it just doesn‘t seem to most people to be true that if God commanded such abhorrent acts as rape, murder and genocide then those acts would be morally laudable. The fact that it is possible for God to command such acts therefore implies that it is possible for such acts to be morally laudable. If God were to command rape, murder and genocide, then divine command theory appears to imply that rape, murder and genocide would be morally laudable. As it happens, he chooses not to, the theist will say, but it does seem to follow from God’s omnipotence that he could issue such commands. God, being all-powerful, could possibly command rape, murder and genocide. The problem of abhorrent commands is the problem that divine command theory appears to entail that even morally abhorrent acts such as rape, murder and genocide could possibly be morally good.

The Euthyphro dilemma is an objection to divine command theory introduced with the question, “Are morally good acts willed by God because they are morally good, or are they morally good because they are willed by God?” If the divine command theorist gives the second answer to the question, holding that good acts are good because God wills them, then he faces the arbitrariness problem, the emptiness problem, and the problem of abhorrent commands.

Divine command theory william of ockham