I want to begin by expressing misgivings about a standard way of making out a claim for the dependence of morality on God, misgivings that I do not have about a somewhat less standard way of arguing for this dependence. I will then consider a guiding maxim for how to proceed along this less standard way, a maxim that I draw from Suárez’s account of the relationship between divine activity and the activity of secondary causes. I then sketch one way of conceiving the dependence of morality on God that fits well with this Suarezian maxim.

This paper has three parts; in the first, I look at the question, recently dis­cussed by Mark Murphy, of the role that God plays as an explainer of moral­ity. I argue for a form of explanation that is different from Murphy’s, though I wonder whether there is disagreement here, or simply difference of empha­sis. In the second part, I ask what difference Christianity—and specifically the idea that the Kingdom of heaven is our natural ultimate end—makes to us, as practical and moral agents. I will argue that it makes both a moti­vational and a substantive difference. In the third part I will ask about the way normativity is related to God’s communication of normative matters to us, and I will do this specifically by asking what kinds of speech acts God engages in in communicating normative matters to us. The standard view is that God communicates to us in commands; however, I will suggest some other possibilities.