 In a system of divine command ethics, human beings are obliged to do what God asks them to do because God commands it, not because there is some underlying system of absolute goodness that ethical precepts should ideally mirror. William Ockham had subscribed to such a view. He had argued that no contradiction would arise if God were to command that the Ten Commandments, the precepts fundamental to both the Old and New Laws, were no longer in effect and that from then on people would be obliged to obey their opposites. Most of Ockham’s sympathizers backed away from the idea that God could command people to hate him, on the grounds that that command, at least, would be contradictory. But Holkot followed Ockham in subscribing to the ultimate contingency of the decalogue.