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You assume that God’s character could have been anything whatsoever. This is not how theists understand God. We understand God to be a necessary being. His character is what it is necessarily. It could not have been otherwise.Thank you. That is a reasonable summary of the dilemma.
This is in fact a fairly well-known apologetic argument that has been made a number of times before. For example, What is the Euthyphro dilemma? Is it a challenge for Christians? | carm.org and What is the solution to Euthyphro's Dilemma?
The response to this apologetic tactic is known as well. Quite simply, you have not resolved Euthyphro's Dilemma, you have simply restated it in a slightly different form. The skeptic can still ask the same question:
If "God is goodness itself", and morality springs from his intrinsic nature, what does that mean?
Can God's character be pronounced to be good because it can be measured by some external standard? If so, we do not need God, we can simply consult this standard.
But if not, then goodness simply means "what God is." Whatever God was would be good. If God was cruel and unjust, cruelty and injustice would be good. If God was capricious and vindictive, then caprice and vindictiveness would be good.
As you correctly put it above, this "suggests that goodness is arbitrary. God says that murder is wrong. But he could have just as well said that murder is good. This makes morality fairly meaningless."
This is still the case if you say that God's character is the foundation of goodness; just a small change to say "God's character makes murder wrong. But his character could just as easily have made murder right." The obvious question is, how do you know that God's character is indeed good? By what yardstick do you measure it? Itself? That would be circular reasoning.
And so Euthyphro's Dilemma continues...
You can avoid the horns of the dilemma by strictly identifying Yahweh with "good", but you render him superfluous as a concept in doing so. We already have a word for good. It's called "good".
Thank you for a thoughtful reply!You assume that God’s character could have been anything whatsoever. This is not how theists understand God. We understand God to be a necessary being. His character is what it is necessarily. It could not have been otherwise.
Keeping my response pithy for now because I’m on my phone. You’re asking the Christian theist to conceive of the inconceivable. It’s both ontologically and logically impossible for God to be cruel. It’s like asking me to suppose that 2+2=5 or to imagine a square circle. Such a state of affairs is not only unreal, it’s impossible. Not even possible to imagine.Thank you for a thoughtful reply!
However, what you have said means nothing more than "that's just how things are," or "God is just good because He is,". In other words, circular reasoning, and therefore not a convincing argument.
Tell me, if God's character had been different, so that He did say that cruelty was good, what could you possibly do except believe Him? You have said yourself, goodness is based on God's character. Whatever God's character is, that becomes good. Therefore, you have no external standard to determine if God's character is good or not.
Therefore, to say "God wouldn't have done such-and-such a thing," is to misunderstand what you are proposing. You have no means to object to anything God does.
Christians don't actually think like you say they think. When they are describing God's actions, they often speak as if God can be judged. "God did a good thing because of this or that reason, "they say, as if they require a justification to call God good. But in fact, what they should be saying is, "God did good because He is God," about absolutely anything God does or could do, including what we think of as evil acts. Because if goodness is simply God's character, then if He does anything, it must be good.
Why not?His character is what it is necessarily. It could not have been otherwise.
If God exists, he is a necessary being. He is necessarily eternal, all powerful, all knowing, the foundation of being, etc. This is what Christians mean when we say “God”.Why not?
Are those facets of His "character"? I'm tall, but that isn't something you say about my character.If God exists, he is a necessary being. He is necessarily eternal, all powerful, all knowing, the foundation of being, etc. This is what Christians mean when we say “God”.
Sure, take your time to respond.Keeping my response pithy for now because I’m on my phone. You’re asking the Christian theist to conceive of the inconceivable. It’s both ontologically and logically impossible for God to be cruel. It’s like asking me to suppose that 2+2=5 or to imagine a square circle. Such a state of affairs is not only unreal, it’s impossible. Not even possible to imagine.
Not in my estimation. As a Hermeneuticist, epistemology is part and parcel of how and why one may hold to (or not hold to) whatever ontological and axiological notions and principles that one does. It's interconnected, and as a corollary, we're accountable for our answers---and our questions.A workable epistemology. But that's a different thread.
Hopefully this thread will put this tired old dilemma to bed once and for all. Somehow I doubt it will.
The Euthyphro Dilemma (ED hereon) seeks to show that there is an absurdity or paradox in the idea of God and his relation to the good. It poses a question, assuming that there are only two possible answers. The question is: "Where does good come from?" In relation to God, the only two possible answers are:
The problem with (1) is that it suggests that there is something superior to God - a standard which even he must submit to and which he does not control. This would appear to diminish his divinity.
- "Good" is a standard outside of God to which even God must submit. God calls something good because it really is good.
- "Good" is simply what God decides to be good. Something is good only because God calls it good.
The problem with (2) is that it suggests that goodness is arbitrary. God says that murder is wrong. But he could have just as well said that murder is good. This makes morality fairly meaningless.
The theist doesn't have to submit to this dilemma because there's a third option. The third option is that "good" is what coheres to God's eternal character. God is good. God is love, he is patient and kind, he is generous, he is beautiful, he is powerful, he values life (he is life), etc... Everything we would normally call "good" really is just some derivative attribute of God and his eternal, unchanging character. God's commands, then, are an expression of his character. They are not based in a standard outside of himself. The standard is himself. And they are not arbitrary because they are based in the most meaningful and enduring reality that there is - the character of the eternal one.
If someone wants to claim that the dilemma has not been solved, I suppose they must show how commands based on God's character are arbitrary. Or they must show how God's character is something outside of himself. Or they must admit there is no dilemma at all.
Not in my estimation. As a Hermeneuticist, epistemology is part and parcel of how and why one may hold to (or not hold to) whatever ontological and axiological notions and principles that one does. It's interconnected, and as a corollary, we're accountable for our answers---and our questions.
So, no choppy-chopping apart of interdisciplinary ties in doing hermeneutics since ... all of human understanding and situatedness in our current reality comes to bear on how we understanding and attempt to use some piece of 'text,' even a text like Euthyphro's often misapplied dilemma.
Good for you.
I've seen your response to Euthyphro. It's garbage, and you should try again.
Are those facets of His "character"? I'm tall, but that isn't something you say about my character.
Let’s be a little more specific. It’s impossible for God to approve of murder because this would be contrary to his nature. His nature is eternal, unchanging, and necessary to his being.Sure, take your time to respond.
A pithy answer is probably best. Let's cut to the point, shall we?
You say it is impossible for God to be cruel.
Why? Is being cruel bad?
It really does seem as if there aren't that many people who share your interest in this, I'm afraid.This is all fine and basic level, brother Tree of Life, but we really need to know how Plato's Socrates even arrived at the need to discern that there was some kind of dilemma present in the first place. And from what I see so far, and over multiple threads, that "how and why" is conspicuously absent, almost each and every time.
Which part of it was garbage.
Are you going to be our leader and teacher here in how to interpret Plato's Euthphro?
If you say so. We can leave that debate for another time. Let us assume, then, that God's nature is eternal and unchanging.Let’s be a little more specific. It’s impossible for God to approve of murder because this would be contrary to his nature. His nature is eternal, unchanging, and necessary to his being.
This is something of a pattern with Philo. Faced with an argument he probably won't be able to defeat, he retreats into a mist of etymological and literary analysis, which means he doesn't have to answer a straightforward question.The part where you continually refuse to engage with it.
Nah, I'm good. That work has been done for centuries. Everyone here, including the OP, seems to understand perfectly well the crux of the dilemma, and that the horns can be applied and interpreted and argued generally, to any number of god concepts, including Yahweh. You're the only person I've ever encountered who doesn't seem to grasp that. So, maybe stop and think about that for a minute.
Or don't. I will continue to engage with the subject of this thread, regardless.
On one level it makes no sense to judge God’s nature or ask whether or not it is good. God’s nature is the standard of goodness. It’s like asking “how do you show that a yard stick is a yard?” Although even that metaphor breaks down.If you say so. We can leave that debate for another time. Let us assume, then, that God's nature is eternal and unchanging.
But how do you show that this nature of His is good?
The part where you continually refuse to engage with it.
Oh really? So, which Jewish theologians would accept your understand? And which one's wouldn't, mr. expert?Nah, I'm good. That work has been done for centuries. Everyone here, including the OP, seems to understand perfectly well the crux of the dilemma, and that the horns can be applied and interpreted and argued generally, to any number of god concepts, including Yahweh. You're the only person I've ever encountered who doesn't seem to grasp that. So, maybe stop and think about that for a minute.
Or don't. I will continue to engage with the subject of this thread, regardless.
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