The Euthyphro Dilemma

[Guest guest]

Pamho, agtSP!

 

Let discuss the atheistic argument below. Its taking from "What is atheism?

- a short introduction" by Douglas E. Krueger.

 

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Does God command what is good because God recognizes what is good, or is

something good because God commands it?

 

According to Plato this gives the theist a dilemma, because if something is

good because God commands it, then anything can be considered good as long

as God commands it. It would make no sense to ask whether God's commands are

good. God could commands someone to bash infants to death, to commit

genocide, to stone people to death etc. and such things would by definition

be good acts. If this scenario was true then it would not be an ethical

system, but a system of blind obedience to a being. It would be slavery -

they will do whatever God commands. According to many this scenario is

unacceptable, and therefore they deny that something can only be good if God

commands it.

 

The other posibillity, however, is also problematic, because if God

recognizes what is good and then afterwards will what is good, then the

theist is admitting that there is a standard of goodness independent of God,

and is, in fact, admitting that God is not the source of morality. In this

scenario God at best becomes an intermediary or a reporter about ethics, but

he's not its source. This option is also undesirable for the theist, since

it admits that God is not the source of ethics, and if God is not the source

of ethics then there is nothing in principle which could show that the

atheist can't have an ethical system also.

 

Thus, the theist must choose between admitting that he or she has no

standard of ethics but merely a principle of slavery, or admitting thatGod

os not the source of morality.

 

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What do you Vainsavas have to say to this argument. I have a few comments,

but I would like to will listen to all of you first...

 

Ys, AKD