Commanding Belief

This essay shows three things: first, that we cannot comply with a command from G od to believe in G od; second, that G od cannot command us to believe in G od; and, third, that the divine command theory is false. The third conclusion follows from the second, and the second follows from the first. The essay focuses on an argument from the medieval J ewish philosopher, H asdai C rescas. It also draws from, and is something of a sequel to, an argument from B rown and N agasawa published previously in this journal.