All of the religions systematize moral thought to a certain extent...

All of the religions systematize moral thought to a certain extent, for all religions issue imperatives disobedience to which is considered morally as well as religiously wrong. Must moral theory conform to the moral concepts embodied in religion? Can there be altruistic ideals that go beyond the moral ideals of religion? Can religion issue orders which nullify moral imperatives? Can a person be morally reprehensible without violating any religious law?

Can a rational ethics put constraints on an acceptable interpretation of religion? How could God, who is perfectly good, order Abraham to kill his son? This last question was forcefully raised by Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1885), and it is still a problem frequently discussed among Christian philosophers and theologians.

Kierkegaard's answer, of course, was that religion issues orders with a force beyond anything found in morality, orders which from the point of view of reason would be considered wrong. Philosophers and theologians who are not satisfied with this fideist approach to religious commands must find a plausible reconciliation between reason and moral intuition, on the one hand, and religious rulings and actions of those considered faultless, on the other.

The question of the relation between divine commands and moral imperatives has become the focus of considerable debate among contemporary philosophers of religion largely as a result of the work of Robert M. Adams.[^15] In his articles on divine command theories of morality, Adams has sought to reconcile the idea that actions are wrong or right because they are forbidden or commanded by God with the idea that God's commands are not arbitrary.

Adams is no Ash'arite, and will not accept the claim that if God were to command cruelty and infidelity then torture and treason would be morally praiseworthy. God's commands have moral force, according toAdams, only because God is perfectly good, just and benevolent; but without God's commands, Adams contends there would be no moral imperatives at all. Other recent publications in which the relation between religion and morality are discussed include J. L.

Mackie's The Miracle of Theism[^16] and many of the writings of Alasdair MacIntyre.[^17] Mackie argues as an admitted atheist that the only ways to make sense of the relation between fact and value is either through Hume's moral philosophy or through a religious theory.