Notes from the Abyss

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. (Originally written: Oct. 17, 2019; Revised: May 7, 2025) — The Divine Command Theory is one of the justifications for the notion that a supreme being is the ultimate source of morality. What the being—for the sake of brevity, we’ll use the traditional Western conception of a monotheistic, masculine God—commands is moral, and a moral person does what God commands.

Given that God is assumed to be perfect and just, his commands are likewise—at least should be—perfect and just. But let us evaluate Divine Command Theory based on several scenes from the 2014 movie Noah (Aronofsky 2014), starting from the standpoint of one of the theory’s biggest challenges: the Euthyphro dilemma.

Euthyphro, in a dialogue with Socrates, was challenged by the latter to define what is holy and what is not. Euthyphro answered, “I say, then, what the Gods love is holy, and what they do not love is unholy” (Plato 1906, 17).

Socrates then pressed Euthyphro for more details, such as in cases where the Gods disagreed. Euthyphro seemed to buckle under the onslaught of Socrates’s questions. When pressed to state clearly what comprises holiness and what comprises unholiness, Euthyphro answered, “But, Socrates, I really do not know how to tell you what I think. Whatever we set up seems somehow to move away: it refuses to stay where we put it” (Plato 1906, 33).

I argue that we do not need a clear answer from Euthyphro to find an even deeper problem with Divine Command Theory. The scenes from the movie Noah suggest Divine Command Theory is untenable because those who claim ability to interpret God’s commands are themselves flawed and may draw the wrong conclusions from what has been revealed to them by God (or what they imagine to be God).

In one scene from the movie, Noah visits his grandfather Methuselah in a cave. Methuselah assures him that God communicates with us in a way that we can understand. While there, Noah receives a vision of a great flood that separates the just from the unjust. Noah concludes that God intends to wipe out all life on Earth. This vision leads to further conflict in the movie when his daughter-in-law, Ila, has twins and Noah resolves to kill them.

The problem here is that, while God apparently does intend to wipe out much of the life on Earth—arguably another challenge to the Divine Command Theory as it is arguably an excessive response to the problem of the wicked humans on Earth, who could just as easily and more efficiently be removed via a plague, or better, be confronted with a crisis that forces humans to live and work together in peace and harmony if the species is going to have a future—the fact is that some life is meant to survive. This is presented to Noah in the vision, but he fails to give the observation the consideration it is due and suggests that Methuselah’s comment should be modified to say that God, if he exists, communicates with us in a way that we can perceive, not necessarily understand.

Noah goes into building the ark with the understanding that he and his family will be the last humans on Earth. There will be no more after them. So, in another scene, after Noah’s two twin granddaughters are born, he resolves to kill them. In his mind, Noah believes there are to be no more humans.

Ila argues for the fate of her daughters, but Noah seems unpersuaded. But, as he raises the knife to kill the girls, he—in a moment reminiscent of the story of Abraham and Isaac—stays his hand and kisses the girls instead. It should be a moment of reconciliation, as in the climax of the movie The Searchers when Ethan Edwards saves his niece Debbie Edwards instead of killing her, but it is not. Noah descends below deck, feeling as if he has failed God because of his failure to exterminate the sprigs of a resurgent, post-flood human life.

In the final scene, Noah is living in self-imposed exile because of his perceived failure to follow God’s command. But this is Ila’s turn to step into the savior role. She, as Methuselah before her, tells him that he was chosen for a reason. Not because he was expected to blindly follow orders, but because God expected Noah to make the right decision—act, and act wisely, upon his own initiative—when the orders given seemed inappropriate for the objective at hand.

Apparently, God picked wisely when he picked Noah for the savior of humanity. To the extent that God knew all that would happen, he knew that Noah would make the right decision when the time came for action.

But the movie also shows the danger in relying too much upon revelation rather than reason—or even love. Even if God commands us to take action, we humans, as the fallible creatures we are, have a tendency to muck it up. We cannot rely upon God as the source of our morality because we may have garbled the command ourselves. In the end, we have to act upon our own initiative, accept responsibility for the consequences, and hope that more often than not we act wisely.

Editor’s Note: This piece was originally written for an ethics class at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College and submitted on Oct. 17, 2019.

Literature cited

Aronofsky, Darren. 2014. Noah. Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, and Anthony Hopkins, Logan Lerman. Visual Effects and Animation by Industrial Light & Magic. Music by Clint Mansell. Costume Designer Michael Wilkinson. Edited by Andrew Weisblum. Production Designer Mark Freiberg. Director of Photography Matthew Libatique. Executive Producers Ari Handel, Chris Brigham. Produced by Scott Franklin, Darren Aronofsky, Mary Parent, Arnon Milchan. Written by Darren Aronofsky & Ari Handel. Directed by Darren Aronofsky. USA: Paramount Pictures.

Plato. 1906. The Euthyphro, Apology, & Crito. Translated by F.M. Stawell. edited by F.M. Stawell. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.