If Morality Comes From God, Doesn’t That Make It Arbitrary?

“So if something is only ‘right’ because God says so, couldn’t He just change His mind? Like, what if one day He decided lying or even killing was good? Doesn’t that make morality random and scary?”

“If Christians say morality is all about God’s commands, then doesn’t that mean we’re just doing whatever He says, even if it doesn’t make sense? How do we know God isn’t just making up the rules? Is good actually good — or just whatever God happens to like?”

God doesn’t invent morals on a whim — good flows from who He is.

This challenge is known as the Divine Command Theory debate, and it has been raised since the days of Plato’s Euthyphro. The concern is that if morality is just whatever God commands, then it might be arbitrary. But the Bible shows us something deeper: God’s commands are not random orders — they flow from His perfect, unchanging character.

God’s Nature Defines Goodness:
The Bible says “The Lord is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does” (Psalm 145:17). God doesn’t just decide what’s good — He is the very definition of goodness (1 John 4:8). Because His character is perfectly just, loving, and holy, His commands consistently reflect that.
Answering the Euthyphro Dilemma:
Plato’s old question was: “Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it’s good?” The Christian answer is: God commands what is good because He is good. His nature is the standard, so His commands aren’t arbitrary — they’re expressions of who He is (James 1:17).
Objective Morality:
Without God, morality is left to shifting human opinions and cultures. With God, there’s a fixed anchor: His unchanging nature. That’s why moral values like love, justice, and honesty hold true across all times and places (Malachi 3:6).
Revealed in Christ:
The clearest picture of God’s moral law is seen in Jesus. He summed it up in two commands: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–40). Far from being arbitrary, these commands lead to human flourishing and reveal the heart of divine goodness.
Practical Impact:
God’s commands aren’t designed to enslave but to bring life, justice, and peace (Micah 6:8). They hold us accountable, not to a random dictator, but to a perfectly loving Father who wants what is best for His creation.

Conclusion: Morality isn’t arbitrary, and it isn’t up for grabs. It flows from the eternal, unchanging nature of God. That’s why His commands are trustworthy: they come from who He is, not from a whim.

The REAL Question

If morality is just human opinion, then right and wrong shift with the crowd — and justice is an illusion. But if morality is rooted in God’s character, it’s unshakable. The cross shows God isn’t arbitrary: His love and His justice meet perfectly in Jesus. So the real question isn’t “Is God’s morality arbitrary?” — it’s “Will you keep clinging to a man-made standard that collapses under pressure, or will you submit to the God whose standard never changes and whose mercy is offered to you?”