Are things right because they are right?
Or are they right by sovereign decree?
This is an interesting point.
And I think it might be a bit like two sides of the same coin, for you can never have one, absent the other.
Does that make sense?
Lying is wrong because it is wrong. And at the same time – a just God could never say that lying was right.
A moral lawgiver is righteous and just – because it is in his very nature.
Understand: Stopping your child from lying is simple, but not easy.
It has sometimes been asked whether God commands certain things because they are right, or whether certain things are right because God commands them. With Hooker, and against Dr Johnson, I emphatically embrace the first alternative.
-C.S. Lewis, The Problem Of Pain (Amazon)