Moral obligation essay

He also states that human beings can give nothing to God, but they have the obligation to love and give thanks to him because humans owe their existence to him. The divinity and superiority of God make him more valuable to other creatures, and this means that humans must have a supreme love for the highest (Edwards, 2). He also states that we can express virtuous love to fellow creatures because such love originates from God. Hume explains the term benevolence in relation to mankind in regard to those human beings who are at a higher position than others exercising compassion and kindness to other people who need their help or compassion. Power derived from different sources such as noble birth, and abilities, success, and courage make some people attain a status of being viewed as “divine,” and they are said to be benevolent if they are sociable, generous, humane and merciful (Hume, 1).

Edward also states that humans who show benevolent love to other humans and other things go contrary to God’s wishes and it shows selfishness of mankind, and it does not please God (Edwards, 4). Therefore benevolent affection should not be shared with anyone else as long their subordinate of the general being. In short, what Edward is trying to say is that humans should not show supremacy adoration to other people even if there are more powerful than them because it is only God who is divine and supreme and benevolent love towards Him is truly virtuous. David Hume, on the other hand, says that people praise a human man because of the things they derive from him ranging from love, food, clothing, and work for those who do not have and therefore it is like he sustains life around him.

People praise and love such a person because there are beneficial and helpful to them (Hume, 3). The actions that these leaders do in helping others may have negative effects on society, and this makes their intervention to be a weakness rather than a virtue. This contradicts Edward’s argument because we cannot question God’s supremacy or assess His morality and in this case, we can only question His creations morality obligation to show Him benevolent affection. According to Edward the only way that a human can have a virtuous mind is when they are under the sovereign dominion of benevolent love for God because in this state they are glorifying Him as the ultimate end. True goodness is the true virtue of human beings and other created beings, and this is what that draws them to the mind of God, and it also makes them serve the purpose for which they were created (Edwards, 5).