FIRST
The argument that “morality is grounded in God’s nature, not His commands” is unconvincing and leaves one feeling like one has been lied to.
It’s just shifting the problem around. If someone claims God's nature is the standard of morality, we still have to ask: Who gets to define that nature? And how do they know?
In practice, it still ends up with individuals speaking as though they know God’s mind — which brings us right back to the same confusion and moral disagreement.
THE ARGUMENT
Premise: A "logical ought" (a normative claim) cannot be derived from an "is" (a descriptive claim).
Implication: Even if someone believes there's another valid method (besides pure logic) to derive oughts from is (e.g., intuition, revelation, divine command), it's still not useful unless we can show it—with evidence and wisdom.
Conclusion: Even if God could bridge the is–ought gap, that doesn’t help us, because we cannot access that same method in an accurate, demonstrable, rational, or epistemically shareable way. We cannot understand what it is like to be God - or get an accurate simulation.
We should be cautious of anyone who claims the moral gap has been bridged — especially when they present themselves as a kind of moral authority, speaking on behalf of God or truth. We should be cautious of a God who supposedly gives the information and authority to his prophets and clerics.
If I tried to bridge on my own, I'd be met with disagreement from all sides. And a lot of that would be down to people thinking I am trying to dictate to them or unduly influence them. That’s not a path to clarity — it’s a recipe for confusion. It is the same if I do it as part of a group.
Real moral insight doesn’t come from claiming certainty or clarity. It comes from recognizing the limits of our own perspective. If that leads to a "liberal" or clumsy morality then so be it.
APPENDIX - IF GOD INVENTS MORALITY, OR IF IT IS AN INDEPENDENT STANDARD AND EVEN IF HE IS THAT STANDARD PARADOXICALLY HE IS STILL MORALLY IRRELEVANT
Either God determines what is moral, or morality exists independently of him. The common claim that God's nature is the standard of morality attempts to avoid this dilemma, but it does not resolve it. If morality is grounded in God's nature, then God does not create moral standards—he simply reflects or embodies them. In that case, morality is still independent in the sense that it is not a product of divine will, but rather a feature of God's being. This explanation tells us where morality is located, not why it is authoritative or how it is justified. Therefore, the appeal to God's nature does not eliminate the distinction between morality being created by God and being independent of him—it merely shifts the independence to a different level.
That the independence is there is what matters not where it is - so while it attempts to make God crucial for moral awareness by locating independence in him a fact remains. Where it is is irrelevant. God paradoxically is irrelevant.
There is no way to sustain the idea that God can ever ground morality or make it matter. He is not the God of morality - he is not its proprietor.
APPENDIX:
Hypothetical choices either/or and forget/remember might seem dramatic, but they’re powerful tools for self-awareness.
Why? Because:
They bypass rationalizations — you can’t pick both, so your gut steps in.
They trigger instinctive emotion, not just surface logic.
They force value ranking — what do you really prioritize when you can’t have it all?
They expose inner conflict — the discomfort shows what’s unresolved.
They cut through social scripts — what you’re “supposed” to value falls away.
Bottom line:
The things you can’t bear to lose — even in thought — are usually the things you truly value.
We can apply either/or and forget/remember to God too. It tests him and what we want of him, what we want him to be.
The Christian God is love - he is somehow morality.
They think he is the reason an is can give rise to a moral ought.
What if he/they had to forget that he is the reason and hold that morality is real anyway?
The latter would be best though it would mean forgetting God and declaring morality to be independent of what he says.
If God's nature is the moral standard, it raises the problem of who defines that nature and how they know - in essence it’s people claiming to speak for God which is simply not their place.
If God/Christians need to forget one then which one? Is it that God's nature is the moral standard? Or that there is no getting away from how that is a human claim - even if it is true? It would need to be the first.
And what if God hypothetically had to become fully an ordinary man - like Jesus supposedly- to realise that he grounded morality? And so that he could say he grounded it and be honest that he knew what he was talking about?
The tests show that if you put morality and God on equal footing and/or even fuse them, you contradict yourself. And that happens even if you are God!