What would you lose if Christianity were not true?

[Sanoy]

Maybe I'm dense, but I still don't see how this makes God's morality somehow objective. It's not not an appeal to moral values being objective in and of themselves (again, that would have to mean they somehow existed even independently of God), but to authority.

I guess this would be your answer to the above. But (again I may be dense) I don't see how it follows that because one is maximally great, one must necessarily be maximally good. Is that some sort of natural law?

My faculties point toward some truth (I assume), and definitely toward moral oughts. I just don't believe that just because my intuition is that something is moral in and of itself, that it therefore must be so. Again, take the example of my kids. If I have any moral intuition at all, it's that they are the most valuable things in the universe. I can't not believe that. Yet I know it's not objectively true. I know that this, like any other moral sensibility, is a value statement, not a truth statement. It's undoubtedly true that they are the world's most precious thing to me. But it doesn't make sense to say they are objectively worth so and so much as if it was a matter of fact.

But I don't have to use myself as an example. Looking at what passed for good morality in history, it's obvious to see that people's moral intuitions hardly point at some sort of objective reality. If it did, how can people be so wrong about it? If it's God-given, why is it a mystery at all?

I assumed you would agree with me on the morality of genocide. Not because of some external standard, but because you and I, living in this day and age, most likely will agree on things like that. Was I wrong?

Sure, greed and charity can be seen in moral terms. I could've said self-interest and empathy instead. I'm not appealing to moral standards here, I'm just stating that people are driven by many things at once, and the drives are often in direct conflict with each other.

You said you wouldn't know what perfect morality would look like since you don't have it. Fine, but since your morality is corrupted or at best incomplete, how to you know that anything is morally right or wrong at all? If morality is objective and you, by definition, can't truly know fully what it entails, on what authority can you make any moral judgment at all?

For example, how do you know God is good? Is that just an assumption you make (if so, based on what exactly) or have you deemed his actions to be right and good?

I don't need certainty as in indisputable proof, I'm asking for reasonable evidence for the existence of objective moral values. If I've understood you right, the evidence is
a) because we have moral intuition, objective morality must exist, and
b) God exists, is by definition maximally great, and maximally great necessarily means he must be maximally good

Depends on what you mean by warrant. I'm assuming some axioms, and I think we agree on those. For example, the axiom that you or I aren't the only consciousness that exists. Another axiom: through our senses we can know at least some truth about the world. For example the "law" of cause and effect. I could be that some of our shared axioms are wrong, but the axioms we actually disagree on seem to be
a) that morality can be objective
b) that there is a God

But the dollar still doesn't have an objective value. It doesn't matter how many people agree on it, or on what it objectively can buy.

Like you say, life has value because someone values it. That's really my entire point. Value isn't inherent. It can't be. Just like love, art, or music, it doesn't doesn't exist in and of itself. We may say "this room is full of love," but it isn't. There's not some "love stuff" floating around in the room. It's not some invisible energy or field or vibration. It's something that happens in the minds of those who are there.

I agree. If I'm worth this or that to God, then I'm worth this or that - to God.

Our morals don't have to be optimal, they just have to be better than the competition. And I agree that moral values as we know them today, may not be the "best" evolutionarily speaking. Morality, just like any other evolved trait, may turn out to be less than beneficial when we're placed in a later time or different situation than where it came to be. Social anxiety is a great example. It's a perfectly natural reaction that made a lot of sense when we lived in small groups and depended on not being shunned by several people. For a guy living in a huge city where he'll never run into the same guy two days in a row, it's pretty pointless. It makes no difference if he makes a fool of himself. But his instincts are still those of a caveman.

I'm can't be bothered to take offense, but I hope you can see why many people would. You don't think I'm insane, but according to my own worldview I am... ok.

Anyway. Regarding my loving my kids, my perception of reality isn't the opposite of reality. Because it's not an objective fact that they're worthless. Just like it's not an objective fact that they're precious. Their worth isn't a fact, it's a value. It's a fact that I put this or that value on them, but their value doesn't exist in and of itself as if it were gravity or a mathematical law. The value exists in how I relate to them. When my boy brought home pebbles and rocks of all sorts, they were extremely valuable to him, and, by extension, to me. Nothing objective about it, but they were super precious to him, and he displayed them and guarded them and counted them. Now, Lego is the big thing and the rocks have become worthless and have been thrown out.

You don't (and can't) use objective measures to determine the value of something. I mean, is John Bonham (R.I.P.) of Led Zeppelin a better drummer than a two-year-old banging on pots and pans? If you're like most of us you'll say "yes, obviously." Well, according to what objective, ultimate standard? If you don't have an objective standard, does that mean it's pointless to say one is a better drummer than the other? Would it mean that nobody would care which of them performed?

I didn't think too deeply about this stuff when I was a believer, other than that I bought into the idea that if God doesn't exist, then objective morality doesn't exist either. Which I actually agree with now, only that I don't see how morality could be objective at all, even in principle.

But in any case, I didn't lose the value of anything. My kids are still, probably even more so now than before, the most valuable thing in the world to me. If there is a god, maybe they're valuable to him too. Who knows? How could I figure that out?

Sure, the answer may be A or B, the question is if there are good arguments for either A or B.

Euthyphro continued.
Morality under my view is objective because if there is an ought, God created that ought and He embodies the standard of that ought because he is the ultimate in respect to all that there is because He created all that there is. The person that created the game of Football establishes the ought. That is true for the players, but not the fans. In the case of God all are players, and there are none outside.

MGB.
Our world views don't overlap when it comes to the meaning of Great. For you it is subjective for me it is objective. For me great refers to a larger set of God's nature which includes both his power and His moral nature. For you great refers to whatever you think it is, it is internally defined.

Undesigned Intellectual Faculties.
You believe that your intellectual faculties point toward some truth only because that is what your intellectual faculties tell you. You can't undermine your intellectual faculties without undermining their results. Your claim that you know our moral faculties don't point to anything external relies upon the very intellectual faculties you undermined. Nor is it even consistent to say that you know something like this, while claiming a weak intellectual faculty whose only strengths correlate with genetic propagation. Further, you received your intellectual faculties from the same source as you moral faculties. If your moral faculties don't point toward anything real, why should your intellectual faculties?

It basically comes down to this, you can't undermine your intellect and make consistent and believable claims. And you can't confirm your intellect without rejecting your world view.

You are equivocating moral epistemology with moral ontology when you doubt our faculties due to variation of morals. Law is based on moral semantics, and it's limitations are in semantically identifying a rule for all situations because any moral paradigm requires accurate information and accurate identification. That doesn't mean the faculty doesn't work, it just means it needs accuracy and clarity.

Genocide, Morals and consistancy.
You continue to claim that you brought up Genocide to compare God's standard with himself, and were not using a moral standard. I still think that when you wrote those words you were operating under and a paradigm that includes an external standard. You stated that it is obvious that a perfectly moral human wouldn't commit genocide. That has nothing to do with God, but humans. So while you may not realize it, it is very clear to me that your world view operates with hidden and contradictory paradigms.

In your reply you now state that Greed and Charity are both morals, and that's all you meant. You are retroactively attributing this to your statement. You said:

"Morality isn't the only thing driving our actions. It's a balancing act between greed and charity and many other competing desires."​

In this sentence you are stating that there is something else that is driving our actions. Something else OTHER than morality. You state that this other thing is greed. So you whether you realize it, or don't want to realize it. Your statements are perpetually inconsistent with your world view.

Moral doubt.
You ask how I know that anything is morally right or morally wrong. Because my moral faculties tell me it's wrong. "But that's circular!". Yeah, well so are our intellectual faculties. IF you accept either of these faculties, you should attribute them to something that makes them likely. God makes them maximally likely.

You ask how I know God is good. Well if God exists then God created my moral faculties to point to Him as a paradigm. Good refers to God's nature, there is nothing else for Good to refer to on that definition. That is like asking how do I know squares are squares.

Inconsistency in world view.
It's not in issue whether or not you need certainty and indisputable proof. What is at issue is that you clearly prefer a robust intellectual epistemology before you will believe something, using words like know, certainty, evidence while claiming to have a weak intellectual faculty. You are not acting like you have a weak intellectual faculty, you are acting like you have a robust intellectual faculty.

The axioms you use to warrant your intellectual faculties come from your intellectual faculties. They can't be used to verify your intellectual faculties. The only way this works is to verify your intellectual faculties and attribute a source that makes it likely that you have those intellectual faculties. Otherwise, as I stated above - you can't undermine your intellect and make consistent and believable claims. And you can't confirm your intellect without rejecting your world view.

Value Objectivity.
The value of a dollar isn't dependent on a persons opinion of the dollar. It is dependent on the purchasing power of the dollar. The more you can purchase with it, the higher the objective value. The value of the dollar, right now, is objectively greater than the Peso. A thing can be objective and have subjective responses that are contrary to it's objective status. God has set the value on life, and He will enforce that value, it is objectively set.

Evolutionary Morality.
Our morals don't have to be optimal. But it's inexplicable why they are uniform as you claim with very little in the optimal range of Genetic propagation. The uniformity is expected on my view, I don't see how it is on yours.

Mental consequences of this world view.
Yes, according your world view you are insane. According to my worldview you are just wrong. Tell me otherwise. Your behavior follows your perceptions of reality, but your perceptions of reality are wrong.

You state that your loving your kids isn't opposite of reality because it's not an objective fact that they're worthless. This rewording doesn't fix a thing. Your perception is that they do have objective value, while in reality they objectively do not. The value you place on them is merely a few ions in your brain. Whether you eat them or love them, the only objective difference is the geographical location of some ions. Now, if you just had a revulsion at the thought of eating them then according to your world view that was an insane thought. But that is upside down and bizzaro right!? Insane would actually be eating them when you should love them. Well if that is true your world view is wrong.

Knowing God values us.
We know that God does value your Children because suffered a torturous death for them.

Objectivity of a moral standard.
The answer to the question of A or B is very easy. Our moral faculties come to us as objective. If we live according to the whims of our moral faculties rather than according to reality then we are insane. If we believe our moral faculties are wrong, while doubting our intellectual faculties we are confused. If we believe we can know something about our intellectual faculties while undermining our intellectual faculties we defeating our own claims. The only way that makes any sense is to accept that our faculties work, and God is the only thing that maximizes that likelihood.

 

[FireDragon76]

Euthyphro continued.
Morality under my view is objective because if there is an ought, God created that ought and He embodies the standard of that ought because he is the ultimate in respect to all that there is because He created all that there is. The person that created the game of Football establishes the ought. That is true for the players, but not the fans. In the case of God all are players, and there are none outside.

You are comparing life to a game, and God is essentially "calling the plays". In a world with horrors like childhood leukemia and mass genocides, that is grotesque.

 

[Sanoy]

You are presenting a false dichotomy. Just because I am skeptical of claims of moral absolutism doesn't mean I myself don't have moral intuitions.

Of course, Christianity has primed your mind to catastrophise about the lack of some big, final answer on moral questions. This is part of trying to gloss over the inherent uncentaity that is part of being a morally responsible human being. The solution to this is an attitude of intellectual humility and being willing to consider alternative perspectives in a measured, but wise, manner: to learn from experience.

You are presenting a strawman, again. I never said you didn't have moral faculties. I have confirmed that you do. You literally just quoted me saying it, but you would rather mangle my comments into something you can work with, than deal with them as I stated them.

I can't talk to you about moral responsibility because you have brought up a health concern to block that discussion.

I am not comparing life to a game, you are strawmanning me again. I brought up a game as a metaphor to assist in explanation. Is there anything objectivley wrong with childhood leukemia and mass genocides? I can't make sense of this comment under your world view.

 

[holo]

The example of homophobia really doesn't indicate that morals are the result of shifting emotions. It looks more like the way you view people adjusting to incorporate better information. You're not going to find many moral realists who would deny that moral growth is possible--the idea that one's personal morality can improve really kind of depends upon it.

Yeah, I was pretty imprecise there. I guess it would be more correct to say that our moral judgments are acutely influenced by our moods, while a somewhat "deeper morality" (I'm struggling to find the right term here but I assume you know what I mean) is influenced by changing/additional information.

The cat example is much stranger. Maybe being susceptible to something like that is a side effect of moral subjectivism, since if you're slowly starving the intuition that moral truths exist, you will be more vulnerable to changed emotional states.

Personally I find that without a fixed set of moral rules I not only get more training in making actual moral judgments, but that I also get more patience and understanding for others, because there's more room to ask why people do things rather than just checking their behaviour against some list of dos and don'ts.

Crimes of passion are a thing. If in a rage, someone decides that it's morally correct to commit murder, then they're going to commit murder. If morality is reduced to how we feel in the moment, then we're left in a situation where there are moments at which we feel like committing crimes, and others in which we don't. We don't even have subjective moral principles anymore.

Don't forget that our personal moral values aren't the only thing that determine our actions. Shame, fear of getting caught, etc. Maybe I should clarify that even though emotions obviously influence our moral judgments, we can also be clear-headed enough to recognize feelings as such and realize that we don't actually think it's OK to punch someone in the face.

None of what I said had much of anything to do with utilitarianism, though. There's a difference between saying that the ends justify the means and saying that the whole concept of morality is a vehicle of oppression that ought to be overthrown.

Agreed. I wouldn't say such a thing

Honestly, no. I would deny that morality is primarily a matter of emotional states at all. I'd suggest taking a look at some of the Aristotelian ethicists--Philippa Foot is a good non-theistic member of that club. That school of thought would connect morality to the types of behaviors that contribute to the flourishing of the individual, not to whatever emotional states they might be feeling.

"Emotion" was an imprecise term here, sorry. But subjective, yes definitely. Moral judgments, like any other value judgment, will always be subjective. It can't be objective.

Sure, the aspects of morality that involve the communal side of human life require the existence of other people, though that doesn't actually make them a social construct in the same way that the days of the week are. There's a difference between a social convention concerning how to divide time and the rational recognition that another person is a living, thinking individual.

True, morality isn't a social construct in the same way that weekdays, but they both exist in the same realm (our minds and culture). If there are objective moral values, where exactly are they? How can I figure out what they are? If someone disagrees with me on what they are, how could I convince them otherwise?

To be very blunt, you also said in this post that your compassion towards others depends largely on your access to food. That is not developing a sense of moral rights and wrongs based on whether or not others are free and happy--it's holding moral views only when it's convenient to do so, and a significant step away from what most religions would consider the moral ideal.

I'm sure that if humanity at large still depended on outcompeting each other for access to food, we would certainly not have anything like the declaration of human rights, just like a guy with a toothache isn't going to write a work of philosophy

This is not necessarily true. The classical way to resolve the Euthyphro Problem is to deny both that things are right because God says so, and that God says they are right because they are right, and to instead identify the source of goodness with the divine nature itself. I think it's most coherent when you add Trinitarianism to the mix--treating other people well isn't good because God commands it, but because God's nature is ultimately one of self-giving, perfectly loving community, and that this is an objective fact of reality that should be reflected in more authentically moral human societies. Truths about morality don't flow from a set of rules, but from the nature of the Trinitarian God.

Then I have to ask, why is it that God must be perfectly loving?

It's harder to make it work with other religions, or at least I've never been able to figure out a way to make sense of a grounds for communal morality without a communal God.

I think our inherent moral sensibilities are enough. When people react to injustice, it's immediate and instinctive. They don't ask "how does God feel about this," they just instinctively recognize it as wrong.

If you think that some supernatural ideas and axioms are better than others, you're back at needing a genuine standard against which to measure that.

My moral standard is as genuine as they come. I don't agree that there is an objective standard, or that there even can be.

Anyway, I think this conversation has pretty much run its course and there's nothing much more to say, and I need to get some work done anyway, so have a nice night.

Thanks for staying with it thus far. Hope you'll chime in again!

 

[FireDragon76]

You are presenting a strawman, again. I never said you didn't have moral faculties. I have confirmed that you do. You literally just quoted me saying it, but you would rather mangle my comments into something you can work with, than deal with them as I stated them.

I can't talk to you about moral responsibility because you have brought up a health concern to block that discussion.

I am not comparing life to a game, you are strawmanning me again. I brought up a game as a metaphor to assist in explanation. Is there anything objectivley wrong with childhood leukemia and mass genocides? I can't make sense of this comment under your world view.

Why does it have to be objectively wrong? Cancer isn't exactly fun in terms of its phenomenology, in fact it's generally unpleasant.

 

[Sanoy]

Why does it have to be objectively wrong? Cancer isn't exactly fun in terms of its phenomenology, in fact it's generally unpleasant.

I'm asking you, is there anything objectively wrong with childhood leukemia and mass genocides? Crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women would be moral if that is what ones moral faculties report. You bring this up as if it should have any external compulsion. Further, how does fun and pleasantness stand as an external paradigm to conform to.

 

[FireDragon76]

I'm asking you, is there anything objectively wrong with childhood leukemia and mass genocides? You brought it up as if it should have any external compulsion. Further, how does fun and pleasantness stand as an external paradigm to conform to.

You're over-intellectualizing something that is an embodied reality and is known precognitively, and doesn't require this level of intellectualizing. In short, you're engaging in sophistry.

 

[Sanoy]

You're over-intellectualizing something that is an embodied reality and is known precognitively, and doesn't require this level of intellectualizing. In short, you're engaging in sophistry.

Is it intellectualizing to point out that ones own actions are contrary to their claims? The sophistry that has been preformed here is and has only been your repeated strawmans of my position.

On your world view morality is whatever our moral faculties point to. If crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women is what ones moral faculties report then those actions are moral to that person. Genocide is just as moral as helping the poor if that is what ones moral faculties report. If you disagree then explain, don't strawman me, or handwave it away as sophistry just because you have no response. Instead consider that your world view is inconsistent, and really about protecting your own moral world view as right.

 

[FireDragon76]

On your world view morality is whatever our moral faculties point to. If crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women is what ones moral faculties report then those actions are moral. Genocide is just as moral as helping the poor. If you disagree then explain, don't strawman me, or handwave it away as sophistry.

That's not what I mean by "moral intuition". Moral intuition has to do with empathy, which is in turn based on the ability to take the perspective of others. This isn't something that happens consciously, but happens at a precognitive level in the brain through mirror neurons.

People that engage in wanton killing typically have some kind of psychic trauma and/or brain damage. It is not representative at all of the moral intuition I'm talking about.

 

[Sanoy]

That's not exactly what I mean by "moral intuition". Moral intuition has to do with empathy.

You keep saying moral intuition, while I have been referring to moral faculties. I don't know why you keep replacing it with your own word. It won't change anything anyway.

 

[FireDragon76]

You keep saying moral intuition, while I have been referring to moral faculties. I don't know why you keep replacing it with your own word. It won't change anything anyway.

Well, morality simply doesn't work the way you think it does. Our moral faculties comes from our primate and mammalian origins, not an anthropomorphic deity's decrees in a holy book.

 

[holo]

Euthyphro continued.
Morality under my view is objective because if there is an ought, God created that ought and He embodies the standard of that ought because he is the ultimate in respect to all that there is because He created all that there is. The person that created the game of Football establishes the ought. That is true for the players, but not the fans. In the case of God all are players, and there are none outside.

But this is still an appeal to authority, not an objective truth. God's sense of morality would still be subjective. Morality is value judgments, not facts.

MGB.
Our world views don't overlap when it comes to the meaning of Great. For you it is subjective for me it is objective. For me great refers to a larger set of God's nature which includes both his power and His moral nature. For you great refers to whatever you think it is, it is internally defined.

You could say God's commands are objective in the sense that there is no higher authority to obey. But then the obvious question is, "why should we obey the highest authority?"

Even if we can agree that some things are objectively "good" and some things are objectively "bad" we can still ask why we should maximise good and minimize bad. It sounds like pointless word play, but think about it - what does it ultimately boil down to, if not your own subjective preference?

- Do such and such.
- Why?
- Because it's the right thing.
- How do you know it's the right thing?
- Because it's according to God's nature.
- Why should I act according to God's nature?

and so forth. You never really arrive at something objective.

Undesigned Intellectual Faculties.
You believe that your intellectual faculties point toward some truth only because that is what your intellectual faculties tell you.

Yes, of course. That's the case for all of us.

You can't undermine your intellectual faculties without undermining their results. Your claim that you know our moral faculties don't point to anything external relies upon the very intellectual faculties you undermined. Nor is it even consistent to say that you know something like this, while claiming a weak intellectual faculty whose only strengths correlate with genetic propagation.

The only thing I can truly know is my own consciousness. And I know that my moral intuitions do feel like they point to something that's fundamentally true in and of itself.

Further, you received your intellectual faculties from the same source as you moral faculties. If your moral faculties don't point toward anything real, why should your intellectual faculties?

The thing is, if my faculties point something, I can investigate if those things really exist. My intuition would tell me the Earth is flat. Intuitively, it seems crazy that we're walking around on a spherical object, but we know it's the case because we can make measurements and calculations and observations etc. That's why most people don't believe in, say, ghosts. We can't say for sure that ghosts don't exist, but we have no way of measuring them (plus their supposed activities often have more probable explanations). So if someone tells me objective values exist, I naturally ask what's the evidence for it. And really, I see none at all, just assertations. Apparently people can't even tell me what those values are, just that they exist somehow.

What would be an example of an objective moral rule, and how do you know it's objective?

It basically comes down to this, you can't undermine your intellect and make consistent and believable claims. And you can't confirm your intellect without rejecting your world view.

This is the case for both of us. Surely you don't think your intellectual abilities are infallible either?

Genocide, Morals and consistancy.
You continue to claim that you brought up Genocide to compare God's standard with himself, and were not using a moral standard.

My point was that it's hard to use God's nature as a base for morality if that God commands genocide. That means that genocide and infanticide can be morally right for humans, or that God holds us to a different (and seemingly higher) standard than himself. In any case it makes it hard to tease out what exactly the objective moral standard is. But I know you don't subscribe to that theology.

I still think that when you wrote those words you were operating under and a paradigm that includes an external standard. You stated that it is obvious that a perfectly moral human wouldn't commit genocide. That has nothing to do with God, but humans. So while you may not realize it, it is very clear to me that your world view operates with hidden and contradictory paradigms.

It does appear obvious to me that a perfectly moral person wouldn't commit genocide (unless it was somehow for a greater purpose, i.e. he had to do it to save the rest of humanity or something).

In your reply you now state that Greed and Charity are both morals, and that's all you meant.

No, I meant that greed and charity can be understood in moral terms.

You are retroactively attributing this to your statement. You said:

"Morality isn't the only thing driving our actions. It's a balancing act between greed and charity and many other competing desires."​

In this sentence you are stating that there is something else that is driving our actions. Something else OTHER than morality. You state that this other thing is greed.

Not THIS other thing, as if it were only morality and one other factor. Greed, self-preservation, fear, hunger, empathy, culture and you name it. The point is that our actions can't be understood in only one variable.

Moral doubt.
You ask how I know that anything is morally right or morally wrong. Because my moral faculties tell me it's wrong. "But that's circular!". Yeah, well so are our intellectual faculties.

Yes.

How do you know your moral faculties are in line with objective morality?

IF you accept either of these faculties, you should attribute them to something that makes them likely. God makes them maximally likely.

I really don't see how it's likely at all. :/

Various regimes have implemented or tried to implement secret laws. As one guy put it when someone wanted to implement secret terrorism laws in the US, "a secret law isn't a law." I'm reminded of that because people keep telling me an objective moral law exists, but they apparently can't tell me neither what exactly it says, nor how to find out.

You ask how I know God is good. Well if God exists then God created my moral faculties to point to Him as a paradigm. Good refers to God's nature, there is nothing else for Good to refer to on that definition. That is like asking how do I know squares are squares.

But that seems to essentially make the whole idea of "good" meaningless, because "good" really only means "god."

Inconsistency in world view.
It's not in issue whether or not you need certainty and indisputable proof. What is at issue is that you clearly prefer a robust intellectual epistemology before you will believe something, using words like know, certainty, evidence while claiming to have a weak intellectual faculty. You are not acting like you have a weak intellectual faculty, you are acting like you have a robust intellectual faculty.

As do we all. But I recognize that I probably don't have the intellectual faculty to see all of reality as it really is. I assume it's the same for you. We can believe in all sorts of stuff "outside of" our intellects, like God, but in any case even God is perceived through those very faculties, right?

The axioms you use to warrant your intellectual faculties come from your intellectual faculties. They can't be used to verify your intellectual faculties.

Yes. Again, this is the case for all of us.

Value Objectivity.
The value of a dollar isn't dependent on a persons opinion of the dollar. It is dependent on the purchasing power of the dollar. The more you can purchase with it, the higher the objective value. The value of the dollar, right now, is objectively greater than the Peso. A thing can be objective and have subjective responses that are contrary to it's objective status.

It's an objective fact that the value of a dollar is agreed on to be so and so, and that it can objectively buy this and that. But that's not my point, I'm saying that the dollar has no value in and of itself. It's not like the dollar and its value were discovered - it was created, it was agreed upon. If the dollar had an objective value, it would still be valuable even if every last human on the planet were dead.

God has set the value on life, and He will enforce that value, it is objectively set.

What is the value of life?

Evolutionary Morality.
Our morals don't have to be optimal. But it's inexplicable why they are uniform as you claim with very little in the optimal range of Genetic propagation. The uniformity is expected on my view, I don't see how it is on yours.

If evolution is true, I would expect morality to be largely uniform, but still with a lot of differences, and definitely subject to change with time and circumstance - which is how the world seems to be. If it were God-given, I would expect it to be completely in line with God's own morality, and that if not, it would be abundantly clear when it wasn't. But it's not.

Mental consequences of this world view.
Yes, according your world view you are insane. According to my worldview you are just wrong. Tell me otherwise. Your behavior follows your perceptions of reality, but your perceptions of reality are wrong.

I don't know that they are categorically wrong, but they're definitely incomplete. How about yours?

You state that your loving your kids isn't opposite of reality because it's not an objective fact that they're worthless. This rewording doesn't fix a thing. Your perception is that they do have objective value, while in reality they objectively do not.

Yes, because I realize that value, by definition, can't be objective.

The value you place on them is merely a few ions in your brain. Whether you eat them or love them, the only objective difference is the geographical location of some ions.

That's one way to put it. If your frontal lobe is destroyed by an accident or a tumor, you'll get all sorts of problems with self-control. It's not proven that the brain causes consciousness etc, but there's definitely a correlation. Influencing the brain seems to influence the mind.

Now, if you just had a revulsion at the thought of eating them then according to your world view that was an insane thought. But that is upside down and bizzaro right!? Insane would actually be eating them when you should love them. Well if that is true your world view is wrong.

I don't see what you mean by this. I'm not the one saying I "should" anything, as if I'm supposed to conform to some external purpose.

Knowing God values us.
We know that God does value your Children because suffered a torturous death for them.

Well, I don't believe he actually did, and I don't see why he should want to, or have to, or need to do such a thing. It also seems strange to me that he wouldn't make this undoubtedly clear to everyone, etc etc, but that's for a different thread I guess.

Objectivity of a moral standard.
The answer to the question of A or B is very easy. Our moral faculties come to us as objective. If we live according to the whims of our moral faculties rather than according to reality then we are insane.

Would you say a Christian who believed slavery was OK, was insane?

What is the reality of the morality here, and how do you know? Why didn't he know?

If we believe our moral faculties are wrong, while doubting our intellectual faculties we are confused. If we believe we can know something about our intellectual faculties while undermining our intellectual faculties we defeating our own claims. The only way that makes any sense is to accept that our faculties work, and God is the only thing that maximizes that likelihood.

Here's simple proof that our intellectual abilities are certainly limited:

Does it mean we can't trust our faculties at all? Could be. We can't truly know. You and I accept/assume that our faculties work at least to some extent (or we wouldn't be having this conversation, obviously). But I don't see why God is necessary for our faculties to work.

 

[Sanoy]

But this is still an appeal to authority, not an objective truth. God's sense of morality would still be subjective. Morality is value judgments, not facts.

You could say God's commands are objective in the sense that there is no higher authority to obey. But then the obvious question is, "why should we obey the highest authority?"

Even if we can agree that some things are objectively "good" and some things are objectively "bad" we can still ask why we should maximise good and minimize bad. It sounds like pointless word play, but think about it - what does it ultimately boil down to, if not your own subjective preference?

- Do such and such.
- Why?
- Because it's the right thing.
- How do you know it's the right thing?
- Because it's according to God's nature.
- Why should I act according to God's nature?

and so forth. You never really arrive at something objective.

Yes, of course. That's the case for all of us.

The only thing I can truly know is my own consciousness. And I know that my moral intuitions do feel like they point to something that's fundamentally true in and of itself.

The thing is, if my faculties point something, I can investigate if those things really exist. My intuition would tell me the Earth is flat. Intuitively, it seems crazy that we're walking around on a spherical object, but we know it's the case because we can make measurements and calculations and observations etc. That's why most people don't believe in, say, ghosts. We can't say for sure that ghosts don't exist, but we have no way of measuring them (plus their supposed activities often have more probable explanations). So if someone tells me objective values exist, I naturally ask what's the evidence for it. And really, I see none at all, just assertations. Apparently people can't even tell me what those values are, just that they exist somehow.

What would be an example of an objective moral rule, and how do you know it's objective?

This is the case for both of us. Surely you don't think your intellectual abilities are infallible either?

My point was that it's hard to use God's nature as a base for morality if that God commands genocide. That means that genocide and infanticide can be morally right for humans, or that God holds us to a different (and seemingly higher) standard than himself. In any case it makes it hard to tease out what exactly the objective moral standard is. But I know you don't subscribe to that theology.

It does appear obvious to me that a perfectly moral person wouldn't commit genocide (unless it was somehow for a greater purpose, i.e. he had to do it to save the rest of humanity or something).

No, I meant that greed and charity can be understood in moral terms.

Not THIS other thing, as if it were only morality and one other factor. Greed, self-preservation, fear, hunger, empathy, culture and you name it. The point is that our actions can't be understood in only one variable.

Yes.

How do you know your moral faculties are in line with objective morality?

I really don't see how it's likely at all. :/

Various regimes have implemented or tried to implement secret laws. As one guy put it when someone wanted to implement secret terrorism laws in the US, "a secret law isn't a law." I'm reminded of that because people keep telling me an objective moral law exists, but they apparently can't tell me neither what exactly it says, nor how to find out.

But that seems to essentially make the whole idea of "good" meaningless, because "good" really only means "god."

As do we all. But I recognize that I probably don't have the intellectual faculty to see all of reality as it really is. I assume it's the same for you. We can believe in all sorts of stuff "outside of" our intellects, like God, but in any case even God is perceived through those very faculties, right?

Yes. Again, this is the case for all of us.

It's an objective fact that the value of a dollar is agreed on to be so and so, and that it can objectively buy this and that. But that's not my point, I'm saying that the dollar has no value in and of itself. It's not like the dollar and its value were discovered - it was created, it was agreed upon. If the dollar had an objective value, it would still be valuable even if every last human on the planet were dead.

What is the value of life?

If evolution is true, I would expect morality to be largely uniform, but still with a lot of differences, and definitely subject to change with time and circumstance - which is how the world seems to be. If it were God-given, I would expect it to be completely in line with God's own morality, and that if not, it would be abundantly clear when it wasn't. But it's not.

I don't know that they are categorically wrong, but they're definitely incomplete. How about yours?

Yes, because I realize that value, by definition, can't be objective.

That's one way to put it. If your frontal lobe is destroyed by an accident or a tumor, you'll get all sorts of problems with self-control. It's not proven that the brain causes consciousness etc, but there's definitely a correlation. Influencing the brain seems to influence the mind.

I don't see what you mean by this. I'm not the one saying I "should" anything, as if I'm supposed to conform to some external purpose.

Well, I don't believe he actually did, and I don't see why he should want to, or have to, or need to do such a thing. It also seems strange to me that he wouldn't make this undoubtedly clear to everyone, etc etc, but that's for a different thread I guess.

Would you say a Christian who believed slavery was OK, was insane?

What is the reality of the morality here, and how do you know? Why didn't he know?

Here's simple proof that our intellectual abilities are certainly limited:

Does it mean we can't trust our faculties at all? Could be. We can't truly know. You and I accept/assume that our faculties work at least to some extent (or we wouldn't be having this conversation, obviously). But I don't see why God is necessary for our faculties to work.

Euthyphro continued.
It's not a an appeal to an authority, it is an appeal to a nature. I have told you my definition of goodness, and yet you continually try to reform it to something else. You need to deal with what I said, not reformulate what I said into something you can manage.

MGB

You ask why we should obey the highest authority. There are several reasons, the most obvious being what the term authority means - the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.
This is further self explanatory in regards to why we should optimize good.

Undesigned Intellectual faculties and moral faith
Yes, each of us believes our intellectual faculties. The difference is I have a reason which can make that belief valid, you do not.

You and I both have the same moral intuition here, that our moral faculties point toward something fundamentally true in and of itself. We can make that same statement in regards to our intellectual faculties. Both faculties came from the same source, God or evolution. You cannot doubt one without doubting the other. When your actions accord with your moral faculties rather than your intellectual faculties, as with your kids here, you are acting in faith. You are trusting that intuition over your own intellectual intuitions. So your actions are contrary to your intellectual world view. I think you are mistaken regarding what is happening here, but you believe that your intellectual faculties tell you that your moral faculties are wrong. Lets call that proposition 1. For proposition 1 to warrant true belief, it must be derived through a reliable process, however it is being derived through an intellectual process that shares the same source as that which it doubts (moral and intellectual faculties came from the same source). On top of that, what you attribute as the source of your moral and intellectual faculties makes it unlikely that proposition 1 is a true belief. Everything is fixed in 1 true belief...God. Jesus wasn't kidding when He said He was the truth.

It is very easy to confuse observation with confirming intellectual faculties, but observation doesn't lead to a conclusion, intellectual faculties do. Crazy people have the same observations as we do sometimes, their conclusions are wrong, and yet their observations confirm their conclusions. Now this brings up a second feature though, our tools of data acquisition like the eye. The majority of what we see isn't what is really occurring. What is really occurring looks more like a waveform monitor, but even that is distant from reality.

There are two objective moral rules. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. It's objective because God created all that there is and set these objectives.

Genocide, Morals and consistency.
You say that it's 'hard to use God's nature as a base for morality when He commands Genocide'. But that belies the very issue I have been stating, that you are a moving in and out of your world view using two paradigms. You are creating a dialectical loop in your head, Good refers to God's nature, God is good, God is doing what is not Good. You are combining my paradigm in the first case, but reverting back to your paradigm to determine what is Good. Your paradigm doesn't matter in regards to what God does. And unless you can affirm an objective standard in regards to what a perfectly moral person looks like you can't objectively state that they wouldn't commit genocide. All you are doing is stating the result of an ion exchange in your head, not objectivity. You said earlier that you don't believe in shoulds, but you do appear to believe in should nots, as in no one should commit genocide.

Greed and Charity
Your sentence regarding what things drive our morality, is either wholly mistaken or being retroactively attributed. You state.

"Morality isn't the only thing driving our actions. It's a balancing act between greed and charity and many other competing desires."​

I agree you meant many other things besides greed, as you follow through with "and many other competing desires". But the whole statement declares that our actions are in competition from moral desires, and non moral desires. There is no other way to read this, you are stating that Charity is moral and Greed is not moral. I understand your point from that statement, but my point in bringing it up is that you are not being consistent with your world view.

Moral and intellectual doubt.
I believe I received my moral faculties from the same source as my intellectual faculties, God, who placed them there to point toward Him.

A secret law is one that no ones knows. Who taught you to eat and drink? Was it a secret? No, it entered your consciousness to do so. All our laws come from what we apprehend from our moral faculties. Just because something can't be fully semantically represented doesn't mean it's not a very concise thing when it is apprehended. Describe the Blue, no matter who I ask, no one can tell me exactly what it is.

You seem disappointed that Good only means God. Good is meaningless right now in your world view, it's literally whatever you think it is. So it makes no sense to me that you would be disappointed that good actually refers to the greatest possible being. Actually scratch that, it does make sense in one scenario. It makes sense when you are sheltering your own view from external criticism. God's nature is disappointing because it's not what you think he should be according to your paradigm, but who are you to define moral reality against the one who created you and reality. That is what I think it comes down to, your will over His. In any case it's certainly not meaningless as there are eternal consequences in regards to ones response to God.

Inconsistency in World View.
I don't need to have intellectual faculties that can see reality exactly as it is. Instead I see exactly as I was created to see it, for a purpose that includes my well being. I don't need to see ultraviolet light, I need to see what God wants me to see because He created me for a particular purpose. In our actual lives we all screw up and act inconsistent with what we want to do. But that is different from intellectually vacillating between two world views, to defend the world view that hold to. If we have to step out of our world view to defend our world view that world view is broken and effete.

Value Objectivity.
I agree the dollar has no value itself, that value is imposed externally upon it. A human is limited in what it can impose, God is not. If all humans ceased to exist, so would the value of a dollar. God cannot cease to exist. As I said the issue with this metaphor is that it is using humans. The value of life is greater than ones own as Jesus demonstrated on the Cross.

Evolutionary Morality.
Your expectation of evolutionary morality is that it would be uniform with a lot of differences. That is an oxymoron. You have hedged your bets so hard here that I can't tell what this even means. In any case differences between one person and another person isn't what I called into question. What I called into question is that the vast majority of this uniformity goes against genetic propagation.

Mental consequences of this world view.
According to my world view my faculties are functioning as intended. According to yours they are not intended to function. I didn't see an explication in regards to why your world view wouldn't make you insane. And further if your perceptions of reality don't match reality, or any designated purpose why should anyone, including yourself, believe your world view is true. You could give a reason why, but that would immediately be undermined by your world view.

What I meant by example of eating or helping your kids is that you are operating contrary to your world view on a consistent basis. You claim that your intellectual world view is correct, but you act according to your moral world view. That tells me you have greater trust in your moral faculties than your intellectual faculties which is the exact opposite of what you claim.

Objectivity of a moral standard.
A christian who believed slavery was OK is mistaken, not insane. The reality of morality is that acting morally or immorally changes ones own nature and has eternal consequence.

Reliable intellectual faculties.
The reason why our eyes mistake this optical illusion is because we have cells in our visual system which turns certain lines into shapes so that we can quickly identify something. You can turn that off and lose the illusion, but not without consequence. What we have are intellectual faculties that were created according to God's purposes. They are not what they should be in this age, but that is our doing. They don't need to be without mistake, they need to be reliable. Now you state that you don't see why God is necessary for our faculties to work, and yet I have repeatedly ask why working intellectual faculties would be likely on evolution. Until you actually have a reason why our intellectual faculties should work, you should claim that isn't necessary. He is necessary because there is nothing else that would make it likely that our faculties would result in a true belief.

 

[Sanoy]

Well, morality simply doesn't work the way you think it does. Our moral faculties comes from our primate and mammalian origins, not an anthropomorphic deity's decrees in a holy book.

I thought you believed in subjective morality, which you can't actually believe if you are telling me morality doesn't work the way I think it does. That is what subjective means, so you just contradicted your own worldview in your first sentence. Maybe 'intellectualizing' isn't as bad as you imagined.

It doesn't really add anything to note that on your wold view our moral faculties come from evolution, I have been stating that for several pages now. What would add something is if you could tell me why it isn't moral to murder if the moral faculty one has tells them they should murder. I have been waiting for that for several posts now, but you keep coming back with other things and side stepping the difficult responses. I think this world view is merely there to shelter your own moral position from condemnation.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

Hello again, Holo and Sanoy. I hope you don't mind me joining in. This looks like fun!

Euthyphro continued.
It's not an appeal to an authority, it is an appeal to a nature.

I haven't read the whole of this thread in detail, but I believe I did read your argument. I believe that you are attempting to resolve the Euthyphro dilemma:
"Are moral acts good because they are willed by God, or are they willed by God because they are good?"
This is explained quite competently by Matt Slick of the CARM Ministry: What is the Euthyphro dilemma? | CARM.org
"Another way of saying it is, does God say that things are moral because they are by nature moral, or do they become moral because God declares them to be?
The dilemma is that if the acts are morally good because they are good by nature, then they are independent of God and morality somehow exists apart from God. These acts would already be good in themselves, and God would have to appeal to them to "find out" what is good. Of course, This raises questions on how moral absolutes can exist as independent abstract entities apart from a divine being. On the other hand, if something is good because God commands that it is good, then goodness is arbitrary, and God could have called murder, good, and honesty not good. The problem here is that it means God could also be a tyrant if he so chose to be. But, he chooses to be nice."
The article then attempts to resolve the dilemma. Am I right in thinking you're using the same argument as this?
"The Euthyphro dilemma is actually a false dichotomy. That is, it proposes only two options when another is possible. The third option is that good is based on God’s nature. God appeals to nothing other than his own character for the standard of what is good and then reveals what is good to us...Both of these situations ignore the biblical option that good is a revelation of God's nature. In other words, God is the standard of what is good. He is good by nature, and he reveals his nature to us. Therefore, for the Christian, there is no dilemma since neither position in Euthyphro’s dilemma represents Christian theology."
If that is the argument you are making, there is an error in it: quite simply, the Euthyphro dilemma has not been solved, merely pushed back one place. Alright, so you say God is good due to goodness being the essential nature of His character? In that case, the same question arises: do we call God's character good because it measures up to some external standard (in which case, we can also discover what it is and follow it without God being necessary) or is goodness defined as being what God's character is and does? If so, then all we are saying is:
God is good.
Good is God.
Therefore, God is God.
And that means nothing at all. Because if goodness is whatever God's nature is, then goodness means nothing at all, because God's nature could be anything - and whatever it was, you would call it good, and would have no way of telling if it really was or not.
In short, the Euthyphro dilemma stands, and attempts to justify morality by a divine ethic fail.

You ask why we should obey the highest authority. There are several reasons, the most obvious being what the term authority means - the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.

The power to give orders? Just because someone has the power to order me to do something, how does it make it right for me to do so?
The right to give orders? That is not necessarily the same as the right to have those orders obeyed. And saying "God can give orders because He has the right to give orders," is tautological, and does nothing to explain where his knowledge of morality comes from.
What you are saying comes down to nothing more than might makes right.

There are two objective moral rules. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. It's objective because God created all that there is and set these objectives.

And why does that make it right to do so? We're back at the Euthyphro dilemma: did God tell us to love Him and each other because it is right to do so, or is it right to do so because He tells us to?

You seem disappointed that Good only means God. Good is meaningless right now in your world view, it's literally whatever you think it is.

It looks more like good is meaningless in your worldview. Good is whatever God says and does, and therefore meaningless; the Euthyphro dilemma has not been resolved.

Now you state that you don't see why God is necessary for our faculties to work, and yet I have repeatedly ask why working intellectual faculties would be likely on evolution. Until you actually have a reason why our intellectual faculties should work, you should claim that isn't necessary. He is necessary because there is nothing else that would make it likely that our faculties would result in a true belief.

That doesn't seem to make sense. A reason why our intellectual facilities should work? Because intellectual facilities that did not work would have been weeded out by natural selection. Our intellectual facilities demonstrably help us to survive, live together and prosper, and if they had been at fault they would not have enabled us to do these things. In short, we know that our intellectual facilities work because the world we live in has so shaped them.
God is necessary because there is nothing else that could give us intellectual facilities? Of course there is. Evolution.

 

[Sanoy]

Hello again, Holo and Sanoy. I hope you don't mind me joining in. This looks like fun!


I haven't read the whole of this thread in detail, but I believe I did read your argument. I believe that you are attempting to resolve the Euthyphro dilemma:
"Are moral acts good because they are willed by God, or are they willed by God because they are good?"
This is explained quite competently by Matt Slick of the CARM Ministry: What is the Euthyphro dilemma? | CARM.org
"Another way of saying it is, does God say that things are moral because they are by nature moral, or do they become moral because God declares them to be?
The dilemma is that if the acts are morally good because they are good by nature, then they are independent of God and morality somehow exists apart from God. These acts would already be good in themselves, and God would have to appeal to them to "find out" what is good. Of course, This raises questions on how moral absolutes can exist as independent abstract entities apart from a divine being. On the other hand, if something is good because God commands that it is good, then goodness is arbitrary, and God could have called murder, good, and honesty not good. The problem here is that it means God could also be a tyrant if he so chose to be. But, he chooses to be nice."
The article then attempts to resolve the dilemma. Am I right in thinking you're using the same argument as this?
"The Euthyphro dilemma is actually a false dichotomy. That is, it proposes only two options when another is possible. The third option is that good is based on God’s nature. God appeals to nothing other than his own character for the standard of what is good and then reveals what is good to us...Both of these situations ignore the biblical option that good is a revelation of God's nature. In other words, God is the standard of what is good. He is good by nature, and he reveals his nature to us. Therefore, for the Christian, there is no dilemma since neither position in Euthyphro’s dilemma represents Christian theology."
If that is the argument you are making, there is an error in it: quite simply, the Euthyphro dilemma has not been solved, merely pushed back one place. Alright, so you say God is good due to goodness being the essential nature of His character? In that case, the same question arises: do we call God's character good because it measures up to some external standard (in which case, we can also discover what it is and follow it without God being necessary) or is goodness defined as being what God's character is and does? If so, then all we are saying is:
God is good.
Good is God.
Therefore, God is God.
And that means nothing at all. Because if goodness is whatever God's nature is, then goodness means nothing at all, because God's nature could be anything - and whatever it was, you would call it good, and would have no way of telling if it really was or not.
In short, the Euthyphro dilemma stands, and attempts to justify morality by a divine ethic fail.


The power to give orders? Just because someone has the power to order me to do something, how does it make it right for me to do so?
The right to give orders? That is not necessarily the same as the right to have those orders obeyed. And saying "God can give orders because He has the right to give orders," is tautological, and does nothing to explain where his knowledge of morality comes from.
What you are saying comes down to nothing more than might makes right.


And why does that make it right to do so? We're back at the Euthyphro dilemma: did God tell us to love Him and each other because it is right to do so, or is it right to do so because He tells us to?


It looks more like good is meaningless in your worldview. Good is whatever God says and does, and therefore meaningless; the Euthyphro dilemma has not been resolved.


That doesn't seem to make sense. A reason why our intellectual facilities should work? Because intellectual facilities that did not work would have been weeded out by natural selection. Our intellectual facilities demonstrably help us to survive, live together and prosper, and if they had been at fault they would not have enabled us to do these things. In short, we know that our intellectual facilities work because the world we live in has so shaped them.
God is necessary because there is nothing else that could give us intellectual facilities? Of course there is. Evolution.

It takes me an hour or more to reply to Holo. I don't have time to reply to another large format post.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

It takes me an hour or more to reply to Holo. I don't have time to reply to another large format post.

Fair enough.

 

[holo]

It takes me an hour or more to reply to Holo. I don't have time to reply to another large format post.

It takes me a while too
I'll reply when I have the time. But I probably won't say much more about the Euthypro stuff because @InterestedAtheist said pretty much exactly what I'm thinking, he just explains it better.

I will try to shorten my replies for the sake of everyone. Thanks for keeping up with me this far, this is one of the most interesting discussions I've participated in.

 

[FireDragon76]

Hello again, Holo and Sanoy. I hope you don't mind me joining in. This looks like fun!


I haven't read the whole of this thread in detail, but I believe I did read your argument. I believe that you are attempting to resolve the Euthyphro dilemma:
"Are moral acts good because they are willed by God, or are they willed by God because they are good?"
This is explained quite competently by Matt Slick of the CARM Ministry: What is the Euthyphro dilemma? | CARM.org
"Another way of saying it is, does God say that things are moral because they are by nature moral, or do they become moral because God declares them to be?
The dilemma is that if the acts are morally good because they are good by nature, then they are independent of God and morality somehow exists apart from God. These acts would already be good in themselves, and God would have to appeal to them to "find out" what is good. Of course, This raises questions on how moral absolutes can exist as independent abstract entities apart from a divine being. On the other hand, if something is good because God commands that it is good, then goodness is arbitrary, and God could have called murder, good, and honesty not good. The problem here is that it means God could also be a tyrant if he so chose to be. But, he chooses to be nice."
The article then attempts to resolve the dilemma. Am I right in thinking you're using the same argument as this?
"The Euthyphro dilemma is actually a false dichotomy. That is, it proposes only two options when another is possible. The third option is that good is based on God’s nature. God appeals to nothing other than his own character for the standard of what is good and then reveals what is good to us...Both of these situations ignore the biblical option that good is a revelation of God's nature. In other words, God is the standard of what is good. He is good by nature, and he reveals his nature to us. Therefore, for the Christian, there is no dilemma since neither position in Euthyphro’s dilemma represents Christian theology."
If that is the argument you are making, there is an error in it: quite simply, the Euthyphro dilemma has not been solved, merely pushed back one place. Alright, so you say God is good due to goodness being the essential nature of His character? In that case, the same question arises: do we call God's character good because it measures up to some external standard (in which case, we can also discover what it is and follow it without God being necessary) or is goodness defined as being what God's character is and does? If so, then all we are saying is:
God is good.
Good is God.
Therefore, God is God.
And that means nothing at all. Because if goodness is whatever God's nature is, then goodness means nothing at all, because God's nature could be anything - and whatever it was, you would call it good, and would have no way of telling if it really was or not.
In short, the Euthyphro dilemma stands, and attempts to justify morality by a divine ethic fail.

There's no question that Euthyphro is a severe critique of divine command ethics. And that really was Socrates whole point.

 

[Redac]

Hope no one minds if I chime in on this part specifically.

I haven't read the whole of this thread in detail, but I believe I did read your argument. I believe that you are attempting to resolve the Euthyphro dilemma:
"Are moral acts good because they are willed by God, or are they willed by God because they are good?"
This is explained quite competently by Matt Slick of the CARM Ministry: What is the Euthyphro dilemma? | CARM.org
"Another way of saying it is, does God say that things are moral because they are by nature moral, or do they become moral because God declares them to be?
The dilemma is that if the acts are morally good because they are good by nature, then they are independent of God and morality somehow exists apart from God. These acts would already be good in themselves, and God would have to appeal to them to "find out" what is good. Of course, This raises questions on how moral absolutes can exist as independent abstract entities apart from a divine being. On the other hand, if something is good because God commands that it is good, then goodness is arbitrary, and God could have called murder, good, and honesty not good. The problem here is that it means God could also be a tyrant if he so chose to be. But, he chooses to be nice."
The article then attempts to resolve the dilemma. Am I right in thinking you're using the same argument as this?
"The Euthyphro dilemma is actually a false dichotomy. That is, it proposes only two options when another is possible. The third option is that good is based on God’s nature. God appeals to nothing other than his own character for the standard of what is good and then reveals what is good to us...Both of these situations ignore the biblical option that good is a revelation of God's nature. In other words, God is the standard of what is good. He is good by nature, and he reveals his nature to us. Therefore, for the Christian, there is no dilemma since neither position in Euthyphro’s dilemma represents Christian theology."
If that is the argument you are making, there is an error in it: quite simply, the Euthyphro dilemma has not been solved, merely pushed back one place. Alright, so you say God is good due to goodness being the essential nature of His character? In that case, the same question arises: do we call God's character good because it measures up to some external standard (in which case, we can also discover what it is and follow it without God being necessary) or is goodness defined as being what God's character is and does? If so, then all we are saying is:
God is good.
Good is God.
Therefore, God is God.
And that means nothing at all. Because if goodness is whatever God's nature is, then goodness means nothing at all, because God's nature could be anything - and whatever it was, you would call it good, and would have no way of telling if it really was or not.
In short, the Euthyphro dilemma stands, and attempts to justify morality by a divine ethic fail.

This is interesting objection to the common answer given to the Euthyphro dilemma. I'm not sure I agree that the dilemma still stands, but it is the sort of thing that requires more digging to explain the Christian position. I'll try to give a sort of Scholastic or Thomistic response to this -- though admittedly I probably won't represent it as well as it could be represented.

In the Scholastic view, will follows from intellect (in contrast with some other views), so we might say God acts according to reason. It states that what is "good" or "bad" is determined by the telos, the ends, that are set by our very nature. It is also states that there are certain things that are absolutely good or bad for us. Since God's intellect is utterly perfect, and because will follows thereupon, then in principle He could not command us to do some thing which would be an absolute "bad" for us given our nature. That eliminates one option, since here God's commands are not at all arbitrary; He could not just order us to kill toddlers for fun because there is no way in principle that such a thing could ever be anything but bad for us. On the other hand, the essences which determine the ends of things aren't said to exist independently of God either. My understanding is that in the Scholastic view those essences pre-exist in God's intellect as a sort of reference that He makes use of. Thus the other option also falls away, and the dilemma along with it.

So yes, God is goodness -- which, according to divine simplicity, is synonymous with His will, his existence, and so on -- but I don't think it's accurate to say that God's nature is arbitrary or that it "could be anything."