The Euthyphro Dilemma

[Guest guest]

Pamho, agtSP!

 

(1)

 

>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.

 

First of all, the use of the word slave is foolish. The living entity can

choose to follow God or not. Slavery means that we are forced to act against

our own will, and we are not when it comes to choosing God.

 

Second, I see no philosophical problem in the fact that God could have

created everything in any other way. That is in fact the fascinating things

about God - that He chose this way, and that we just have to accept it. God

is almighty and He has the power to change what is moral if He wants, and no

matter how He does we are always subordinate to Him.

 

But He has revealed that some moral standards are here forever, and He has

made us in such a way that it is our nature to act in accordance with these,

and if we do so we will be happy. So we don't have to fear that God will

change everything - we know He will not do so.

 

So by divine revalation we know that:

 

1. Some moral standards are eternal and universal

2. God will never change some moral standards

 

Therefore there is no theological problem.

 

(2)

 

>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.

 

This option is obviously not acceptable for any sane theist. God is the

source of morality, no doubt.

 

Ys, AKD