Nice quote

From a comment on Butterflies And Wheels
But religion is filled with contradictions like this. The reason there are contradictions, of course, is that there is no god, and the belief that there is collides with reality. That more people don’t notice this is, I believe, because recognising self-deception would, for many, completely destroy the world of meaning they have created to protect themselves from suffering and death, even when that world is already in the process of collapsing. It is much better, I think, to face serious illness in the way that you do, without illusions. That way, at least, as my wife said, you can learn things about yourself you never knew. Fooling yourself with goddy dreams is, after all, to refuse to learn anything at all.

Sums thing up nicely I think.

God & Morality? An alternative account

(Part 1)

In describing an alternative account of the relationship between God and morality, Wielenberg notes that the rejection of the Control Thesis and the Dependency Thesis raises some questions:

"If the Dependency Thesis is false, then there are some true ethical claims whose truth is not due to some act of will on the part of God. What then makes these ethical claims true? If the Control Thesis is false, then there are some logically consistent ethical claims that not even God could make true. Why is God unable to make such claims true? Is this inability consistent with God's omnipotence?."

The claim that some ethical truths are necessary truths provides us with a view that provides answers to these questions, according to Wielenberg.

"Consider for instance, the claim that suffering is intrinsically evil. I suggest that this ethical claim is true, and, furthermore, that it is a necessary truth...Just as there is no possible universe in which 2 + 2 = 5, there is no possible universe in which suffering is not intrinsically evil. Suffering is bad in virtue of its intrinsic nature - and this is true in every possible universe."

I suppose someone could object that suffering can lead to some kind of "good", similar to Hick's response to the problem of evil above. Whilst this may be the case, I'm not sure that this disposes of the intrinsic evil of suffering, as Wielenberg might say, but rather provide an explanation or excuse for it's existence - on this view suffering is still evil.
Wielenberg continues:

"This is a view that can be accepted by atheist and theist alike. With respect to the nature of what makes these ethical claims true? my answer is that it is the same sort of thing that makes other necessary truths true - namely, the essential nature of the entities that those claims are about."

Those who hold to a presuppositionalists position might believe that this is some kind of admission that God is, after all, the architect of morality. Presuppositionalists seem thus far unable to justify that claim (and in fact, the claims appear somewhat incoherent to me), and therefore I think we can ignore this possible response for now.
After describing further how necessary ethical truths could/would relate to God and His omnipotence - "He is unable to render them false because they simply cannot be rendered false; as necessary truths, they have but one possible truth value - true. It is widely held that omnipotence does not include the ability to do what is impossible." Wielenberg continues that not all ethical truths are necessary:

"I do not mean to suggest that all ethical truths are necessarily true. Indeed, it is clear that many ethical truths are contingent truths. For instance suppose that I promise to meet you for lunch on a certain occasion. Also suppose that on the occasion in question I have no sufficiently weighty reason not to keep my promise. It follows that I am obligated to meet you for lunch. This is an ethical truth, yet it is a contingent truth. I might not have promised to meet you in the first place; indeed, I might not have been born at al. In either case the ethical claim in question would have been false. But it seems to me that contingent ethical truths like these are always partly grounded in some necessary ethical truth (or truths)."

So, on Wielenberg's account, contingent ethical truths are dependant on necessary ethical truths. He sees the necessary truths as "part of the furniture of the universe." and if God were to exist, they are not dependant upon His will or rendered true by Him.
Wielenberg illustrates that this is consistent with the view that God, if He exists, has some role to play:

"That this is so may be seen by considering a familiar kind of case involving humans. Suppose a friend of yours does a huge favour for you. He is happy to do you the favour, but notes (correctly) that 'you owe me one'. A few weeks later, we may suppose, your friend calls you and informs you that he really needs to borrow your car for the day. You have no pressing need for the car yourself and your friend gently reminds you of the favor he did for you. It is plausible to suppose that, under these circumstances, you have a moral obligation to loan your friend your car for the day. In this case, your friend's request to borrow the car has imposed an obligation on you that you would not otherwise have had...The system of morality itself licenses this sort of thing under certain circumstances. This case suggests another possible relationship between God and ethics."

The next post will cover Wielenberg's discussion of God as Divine Commander...