Many think that there not only is but that there must be a close connection between ethics and religion. They believe that religion is the foundation of ethics and that ethics is necessarily based on or grounded in religion. From this point of view, there is no morality without religion. Behind this belief about morality and religion is an assumed answer to the question of what makes an action morally right or morally wrong. This assumption can be expressed as follows: If an action is immoral, it is immoral because God has forbidden it, such as adultery, lying, murder, stealing, etc. If an action is morally right, it is morally because God has commanded it, such as being kind to others, giving to the poor, caring for the sick, etc.
Divine Command Theory (DCT) argues that morally right actions are right because God has commanded them or at least because God approves of them and that morally wrong actions are wrong because God has forbidden them or at least because God disapproves of them.
DCT implies that there are objective moral truths unlike Moral Relativism that argues to the contrary that there are no objective moral truths. DCT holds that statements like "Killing an innocent person is wrong" really are true apart from people's beliefs about morality. Suppose that DCT is true and that God has for forbidden killing innocent people; therefore, if God has forbidden this, then it is objectively true that he has forbidden it, and consequently it is objectively true that killing an innocent person is wrong.
