Can morality be grounded in God? A defense of divine grounded ethics

I argue that objective moral values and duties can be metaphysically grounded in God and that a form of divine nature theory in the tradition of William Alston accomplishes this task more cogently than competing manifestations of divine grounded ethics. I further argue that the normativity-regress objection fails to undermine divine grounded ethics. Wes Morristson’s free-standing moral property objection, which is specifically tailored to confront Alstonian-type theories, is considered, and I attempt to demonstrate that it fails to show that moral values are metaphysically grounded outside of God’s person. I conclude that Alston’s version of divine command theory is compatible with moral values being metaphysically grounded in personhood.