Divine command theory is the meta-ethical

Meta-ethics

In philosophy, meta-ethics is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties, statements, attitudes, and judgments. Meta-ethics is one of the three branches of ethics generally recognized by philosophers, the others being normative ethics and applied ethics. Ethical...

 view about the semantics

Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....

 or meaning of ethical sentence

Sentence (linguistics)

In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...

s, which claims that ethical sentences express proposition

Proposition

In logic and philosophy, the term proposition refers to either the "content" or "meaning" of a meaningful declarative sentence or the pattern of symbols, marks, or sounds that make up a meaningful declarative sentence...

s, some of which are true, about the attitudes of God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

. That is, it claims that sentences such as "charity is good" mean the same thing as sentences such as "God commands charity".

This makes divine command theory a subjectivist

Ethical subjectivism

Ethical subjectivism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:# Ethical sentences express propositions.# Some such propositions are true.# Those propositions are about the attitudes of people.This makes ethical subjectivism a form of cognitivism...

 yet universalist

Moral universalism

Moral universalism is the meta-ethical position that some system of ethics, or a universal ethic, applies universally, that is, for "all similarly situated individuals", regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, nationality, sexuality, or any other distinguishing feature...

 form of cognitivism

Cognitivism (ethics)

Cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences express propositions and can therefore be true or false , which noncognitivists deny...

. Divine command theory thus stands in opposition to other forms of ethical subjectivism (e.g.