The Problem with Euthyphro's Dilemma

Socrates famously asked Euthyphro, "is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" Both alternatives seem to present problems. Ever since, this famous dilemma has been used in philosophical and religious discussion as a criticism for the claim that God is the source of morality. Here we present one possible response.
Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus.
Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai.
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My books:
--Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn’t: The Beauty of Christian Theism: www.amazon.com...
--Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy: www.amazon.com...
--Anselm’s Pursuit of Joy: A Commentary on the Proslogion: www.amazon.com...
--Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage: www.amazon.com...
--Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future: www.amazon.com...

[@cunjoz]

Ok but if we identify God's nature with good then: 1. we vacate the term "good" of independent meaning and it just becomes a stand-in for saying "godly" 2. consequently, there again arises a question why is godliness desirable, or why one ought to do things that are godly and/or we create a new dillemma 1. God's nature is said to be good in virtue of God having it 2. God's nature is said to be good in virtue of some other standard and we've effectively pushed the problem from God's will to God's nature and we've solved nothing, and that's why Euthyphro's dillemma is still mostly expressed in its original form.

[@cunjoz]

@LEEK Why should we operate from the Biblical framework? We're not talking about things in general nor about God's perfection, but about how appealing to his nature doesn't resolve the dilemma but it places it somewhere else so don't try to throw a herring and shift the conversation, alright buddy? 😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉 Appealing to univocity doesn't do anything. Again, at best you make "good" a synonym of "God". If you don't define good further, you've done nothing. If you say God is xyz and that is good but then you define good as that which is desirable or even obligatory, then the question poses itself as to why xyz is desirable or obligatory. And then again, two questions arise: is xyz such in itself in the virtue of being a logical part of God's nature. etc etc

[@cunjoz]

@LEEK No, not why not. You're starting with it, and you have to justify the biblical framework. Moreover, internal coherence doesn't necessarily mean correspondence to the state of affairs. as far as the last set of premises goes, in n.2. you commit yourself to choosing God horn of the dillemma, and consequentially, whichever the attributes he has, they are desirable because God is desirable. but then the question is, why is God desirable? because the Bible says so. ok. but why would I believe the Bible? and we're right where we started.

[@x-popone6817]

@@cunjoz Why can't someone say that God is desirable just because? Can't I say that God is the good and that just is. You would probably agree that some things just are (universe, morality, logic, necessary initial state, whatever).

[@cunjoz]

@@x-popone6817 it's one thing to say that things just are, and that things just are desired and wholly another that things just are desirable. even though we might want ro categorize each as a brute fact, the latter is value ladden, and that's a problem.

[@x-popone6817]

@@cunjoz Why is that a problem? If you believe in objective morality, your objection would apply to yourself too. A Christian says: "God is the Good and/or the Good is grounded in God." And an atheist moral realist says: "Human flourish is good and the basis for morality." In other words, your critique is more of a critique of objective morality rathen than theistic morality itself. Now, you may not believe in objective morality, but one way to defeat your objection would be to show that objective morality is true, which I do think is possible. Given your definition of good as that which is desirable, can't we say that God, although He is perfect, desires to keep all His characteristics and hence is the Good? In other words, He desires Himself eternally, and so if we define "good" as that which is desirable, couldn't we say that God desires Himself and so He is the Good? And that following creation, we necessarily desire Him spiritually and so even for us, He is the Good? This last paragraph here is speculative, I am not 100% sure if this really works as an argument, but I do at least believe in the first paragraph.

[@Matthew-rl3zf]

Your explanation doesn't change the problem. You say that morality is God's character and not his choice. But in that case, we have to ask the same question: Are virtues like justice, mercy, love, etc. good because they are part of God's character? Or are they part of God's character because they are good? If the former is true (which is what you are saying) then God's goodness becomes meaningless. If the virtues we regard as good are only good because they are part of God's character, then by what measure can we see that God's character is good? We can't say that God is good because he posses a certain set of qualities, because these are only good because God has these qualities. To put it another way, if God's very character was one of hatred, deceitfulness and vanity, we would be obliged to ascribe these qualities as good. The "third" horn of the Euthyphro dilemma renders the statement "God is good" utterly meaningless.

[@Matthew-rl3zf]

@LEEK Just think through what you are saying for a moment: I desire to steal some nice new clothes: Stealing is good QED I desire to commit adultery with another woman Adultery is good QED And also, the 'telos' of mankind according to the Qur'an is Allah, but I'm assuming you don't accept that and you need to give valid arguments as to why the one is different to the other. Why should we trust the Bible and not the Qur'an?

[@x-popone6817]

Why would it be a problem that they are good because they're part of God's character? I've always viewed it as a problem only if God randomly can decide morality, not if it's just part of His character. It also isn't external to Him.

[@Matthew-rl3zf]

@@x-popone6817 The problem is that it is circular reasoning, circular reasoning which leaves you with two nasty implications. The circular reasoning is as follows: Are God's qualities good? Yes. Why? Because they are his qualities. Therefore, God's qualities are good because they are his qualities. The first negative implication is that it removes any meaning to the phrase "God is good" because this statement implies that God, in his being, fits the description of what it means to be good. But if there is no external description of good, then God is good basically means God is God. He isn't good or evil, he's just God. The second implication is that if God has any 'bad' qualities, such as those in Nahum 1:2 (jealous, vengeful, wrathful) we are obliged to say that these too are good, purely because they are part of God's character traits.

[@x-popone6817]

@@Matthew-rl3zf I don't see how the first implication is negative. Saying God is good is the same as saying God is God, yes, but so what? When we say "good," we typically think of actions that are good, without realizing the connection to God. This means that we have separated "God" and "good." I don't see how it is a problem to stop this separation and say that God and the good are literally the same. As for the second implication, well, that's based on an assumption that God has bad qualities. I don't agree with your claims that those qualities you listed are "negative." Being jealous, in this context, is the same as being married and your wife cheats on you. That might make you jealous, but it's not a bad form of it. Vengeful and wrathful are not necessarily bad things. It's part of God's justice and righteousness anger. Don't you think that a person can be righteously angry, such as being angry at a murder?

[@Matthew-rl3zf]

@@x-popone6817 Good, at least you follow my reasoning with the first implication, most people don't get that far. But I want you to go a little further with me. The problem, as I have said, is that when we stop the separation of God and good we make it meaningless to say God is good. For example, how do you describe the colour blue to a blind person? It's impossible, just like trying to describe to an atheist, or even a Christian, why God is good. For the second implication, let's ignore the passage I quoted as that will start a whole new debate, and instead focus on the essence of what I said: *if* God did have any "bad" qualities, we should be forced to call them good.

[@aether4505]

Asking "what if morality extends from God's character" seems to be an oddly anthropomorphized idea. But I would in turn ask, could God's character be any different? If the answer is yes, then you're confronted with arbitrariness once again. If the answer is no, then what dictates God's character?

[@Mygoalwogel]

In catholic (lowercase c intended) thought, John's Logos embraces the Tao of Laozi and Confucius, Sophia of the Greeks, Dharma of Indian thought, Chokmah of the Israelites, etc. A helpful distinction between catholicity and universalism is that catholicity examines the resulting philosophies above bit by bit _through the lense of_ the Logos who is Christ, accepting some bits, rejecting others. So your question absurdly turns a tautology into an interrogative. We might as well ask, "What dictates the Tao's taoiness, or Wisdom's wisdom?", So if you ask, "what dictates God's character?", the most honest answer is that the Logos is coeternal with God and is God. You also asked, "could God's character be any different?" That's an interesting question for overthinking Trinitarian Christians whether or not they embrace catholicity. God is eternal yet God died once. More strangely, he calls himself, "The Lamb who was slain from the foundations." God the Son once made a stone he couldn't move for an evening, and a full day, but brushed it aside in the morning. God is eternally not a human being, except that now God is eternally a human being, and that human being possesses all authority in heaven and on earth, judging the living and the dead. Now I don't think I've given you a yes or no answer. My playful answer for now is that the incomprehensible reality of God transcends conditional if/could logic, but I'm not married to it.

[@kerry8506]

I would think the answer is no, and that nothing dictates God’s character. He’s uncreated and eternal. Meaning He’s outside of time. There wasn’t an event where He became what He is. He just always was. If something had made Him who and what and how He is, He wouldn’t be God. That something would have to be God instead. I suppose then you would ask what distracted that something’s character. But then we’re getting into absurdities. It can’t go on forever. There has to be an uncaused, first cause. If He is uncaused, then nothing about Him has been dictated.

[@aether4505]

@@kerry8506 What I agree with is that your answer neatly parallels the uncaused first cause postulate. But I am curious if you think your answer should be satisfactory to any good faithed person who yet posits the Euthyphro dilemma as a substantive challenge to divine command theory. As I understand, you’ve said God’s character could not be any different, but you did not answer why, instead saying that there is no cause for God’s character. How does that mean it couldn’t have been different?

[@imaginative6315]

That's a whole load of ways to say a whole lot of nothing. All you've done is obfuscated the question. So the answer if how or why god is good is unanswered. You're just presupposing he is based on nothing. @@Mygoalwogel

[@JFromTheLandOfHella]

This is redefining "god" to fit whatever characteristics you need your all encompassing deity to have depending on the situation. It's like when kids are pretending to have super powers and there's always the one kid whose imagination powers negates the other kids imagination powers

[@fungibu7184]

I feel like the most common theistic rebuttal of Socrates' argument is that there is a third option. But logically mostly still arrive at the second option. At 3:47 he made the choice of the second argument. This question is a general polar question. So whatever theistic answer you give you will always arrive at one of the two results.

[@skwills1629]

Not Really. And if You abandon Separating the Two Options of "Because God Said so" and "God said so because it is Naturally so" its not a Dimlemma. And its not. There is No Difference between Because God Said So and Because it is Naturally Good. God created Nature. The Dilemma assumes that it is Either because God merely said So, by a Decree or else something Outside of God determiens it and God merely Recognises it. The Thing is, The Natural World is not Outside of God. God Created it. With that in Mind, the Dilemma is, is something Moral simply because God said so, or does God say it is Moral is because God designed the Universe to Work that way. The Dilemma assumes God did not create The universe. Christians believe God did create The Universe. The very Natural Laws looked to as an Alternative to God making Things Moral were themselves Created by God. This is not a Dilemma, it is a Monolima. either way it is God's Decision.

[@noahfletcher3019]

​@@skwills1629euthyphro dilemma is a problem for midwit brains

[@rodolfo9916]

It remains arbitrary to say that "god is good". Why wouldn't we think "god is evil"?

[@Mygoalwogel]

On the contrary your definitions of good and evil are both arbitrary and self-contradictory. The creedal defintion of God is "Creator of heaven and earth and all things visible and invisible." If there is a Good outside of God that God opposes, then God is not the creator of all things visible and invisible. Therefore a god who is evil is, by definition, not God. God is a specific reality. Good is a specific reality. God is the same specific reality as is Good. God is Good.

[@rodolfo9916]

@@Mygoalwogel First of all, I didn't gave any definition of good and evil, so how do you know if my definition is arbitrary or self-contradictory? Besides, what you said about god also can be said about evil. If there is an evil outside of God that God opposes, then God is not the creator of all things visible and invisible. Therefore a god who is good is, by definition, not God. God is a specific reality. Evil is a specific reality. God is the same specific reality as is evil. God is evil.

[@Mygoalwogel]

@@rodolfo9916 I explained why the phrase "god is evil" is either self-contradictory or arbitrary. What definition could you present that makes it not so? Your reversal doesn't work. As I said above, "Good is a specific reality." Evil is not a specific reality but a falsehood or negation of Good. For analogy, a vaccum isn't a substance but a lack of substance. Cold is relatively slow molecular vibration, not a different form of energy from heat.

[@rodolfo9916]

@@Mygoalwogel If God is omnipresent then how could he be lacking? Furthermore, the Bible clearly says that God created good AND evil.

[@Hugowtum]

@@Mygoalwogel "Your reversal doesn't work" what an argument, Jesus fucking Christ! Also, I can say perfectly that good is a negation of evil, and that the phrase "God is good" is self-contradictory or arbitrary. We can say that vaccum is the lack of a substance, but not a substance itself, or that cold is relatively slow molecular vibration, not a different form of energy from heat because there are objective standards that we can observe, take conclusion out of and differentiate one from another based on them. We don't have such thing for morality if we say God is good, because there is simply no way to know whether God is actually good. You may quote scripture, but if I asked you why the commands are good, you will say it's because God is good, I will ask you how you can say He is good and we will get into a circle, which won't get us nowhere.

[@Laotzu.Goldbug]

Bluntly speaking this is not a solution to anything at all. It is just linguistic sleight-of-hand, a changing of the wording of a term when syntactically the dilemma is exactly as it was before. In the original form the question was between whether something is good because God chooses it or if God chooses it because it is good. When you assert that is a question of nature rather than choice, and that the good is good because it is part of God's nature, that is it is Godly, the question just becomes why is what is Godly good/desirable. Or most simply "why/how does God choose/indicate the good" >> "why/how does God _be_ the good" which of course is the same exact dilemma, just with one more unnecessary level of recursion.

[@skwills1629]

Actually, in the Original Form of The Question, Socrates Asked Eurythropro about Piety, not Morality, and it was if the gods, not God, considered Something Pius because it was Pius or was it Pius because The gods said so. Piety is not the same as Morality. The Reason this Does not Work with God is One None of You seem to want to Admit to. If Nothing Exists Independently of God then it is not a Valid Question. It is Simply Irrelevant if God merely Arbitrarily Decided what is and is not Moral or if Morality is Inherent to His Created order or if Morality is inherent to God's Own Character, as in any Case the End is the same. Without God Morals do not Exist. This is because Without God, Existence does not Exist. If All Things Flow from God then No External Measure exists to Compare it to.

[@Boundless_Border]

​@@skwills1629 The original formulation can be reworked for monotheism. And piety in this context would be more equivalent with morality. This nothing existing external to God idea depends on what you mean by nothing. If logic itself is a construct of god then in what way can we logically consider its traits. This is the issue with simply defining your god with the traits you want. The fact that most people now would say that god can do things that aren't logically contradictory is an acceptance that there is an external limitation on their god. If things like that could "exist" without god then the abstract notion of good can similarly exist without a god. The question of the dilemma is mainly asking whether the traits of goodness is something that is independent of a god or is it definitionally a part of a god. If you define it as part of a god then describing god as good loses value. If it is an abstract notion external to god that it conforms to then we can circumvent god and the god is irrelevant.

[@skwills1629]

@@Boundless_Border - I am going to Break This Down, in the Futile Effort to Get an Atheist in Today's Not-Religion Religion to Try to see Past His Dogma and Indoctrination. Since You have Already Decided I am Wrong and The Dogma of Your Not-Religion Religion is True, and that I am an Idiota, what I say Will of Course be Dismissed and Ignored. I am Nevertheless Correct. I am not saying that in Arrogance but The Pseudo-Eurythropro Dilemma is Nonsense and Exposes Why Atheists don't Really Understand the Concept of God. It is the same Problem Faced when You People say Why Think it is The Christian God and not Zeus or Thor or Odin. You People Think all gods are the same, and Pretend Asking How do You Know its the Right god is Effective. The Thing is, Christians do not differ Only in that They have Only one god to Worship, but in that God in Christianity is Nothing Like Zeus or Thor or Odin in terms of God's Nature. For example, and This is Important for This Discussion, God is the Creator of The Universe. Spare Me the List of Creator gods You Copy and Paste from Wikipedia, I've seen it before. The Point is, God is not a god whose Job is Creation, but God is The Creator of Existence, Whilst Zeus and Thor and Odin are Not. And By saying They are not the Creators, I do not mean They are false gods and Mine is the ONE TRUE GOD TM, I mean even in their Own Stories They aren't Described as Creators of The Universe but are Products of The Universe. The Greek gods were never said to have Created The Universe. They are also Not Supernatural. No, it is Not True that “By Definition” gods are Supernatural. In Greek Mythology, Chaos existed in The Beginning then Emerged the Four primordials, from Gaia came Uranus, then Gaia mated with Her Own Son Uranus to Produce The Titains, Who Produced The Olympians Who Overthrew them. This is Simplified and Omits a lot of Detail but the Point is The Olympians aren't even The Original gods. The Olympian gods ruled The Cosmic Order simply Because They Overthrew the Previous Generation of gods Known as The Titains. The Olympain gods did not Create The World They Lived in and Really had No Power over its Fundamental Nature, and were Not All Powerful. This is Why Asking if Something is Pius because the gods said so or do the gods say Something is Pius Because it is By Nature Pius is Powerful, when asking is Something Moral because God said so, or does God say so because it is Moral is Not. “The original formulation can be reworked for monotheism.” Only if You mean Only One God, and ignore that in Christianity, or Judaism and Islam for that Matter, God is Not simply a god in the Universe, but is the Creator of The Universe. “And piety in this context would be more equivalent with morality.” No, it is Not. I Know You want to Salvage this Silly Argument but, Piety means Showing Respect, and is Not the same as Morality at All. It is Why it is Frustrating when You Lot misuse Words. Its like when You Conflate being Devout to being Pius and Refer to Evangelical Protestants as Pious when Evangelicals Reject Pietism and are Not Pius by Definition. You Simply have No Idea what You are on about. And these Words and what They Really Mean do Matter in a Philosophic Discussion. “This nothing existing external to God idea depends on what you mean by nothing.” The Rapist Lawrenve Krauss won't Save You Here. Nothing Literally Means Nothing., Not even Empty Space. And By the way He Child Molestor Larry Krauss, Friends of Jeff Ebb-Stone, Lied to you when he said Aquinas or Others like Plato means Empty Space when They said Nothing as They included Space in the Thing Category and even Space did not Exist. The Silly Ides that The Rapist and Child Molestor Larry Krauss came up with that Nothing is Really Something and it Depends on how You Define Nothing is just a Preposterous Word Game that Evades the Actual Point. It is as Stupide as His Virtual participial and Quantum Foam mean Nothing Gibberish. And No, Liar, I am Not Condemning Science, but The Rapist And Child Molestor Larry Krauss was Not Honest about what he said and Nothing means Nothing, Nothing does not mean Quantum Foam, and it is Really Tiresome to See Sophistry passed off and Reason as The Whole it depends on what You mean by Nothing Canard is just Word Games. Its No Different than the Lie that Faith is Belief Without Evidence thus is Irrational or the Lie that Atheism is a lack of Belief in a god so Even when Atheist say God does Not Exist it doesn't qualify as a Claim and Carries No Burden of Proof. It is Dishonest. “If logic itself is a construct of god” Spell God's Name with a Capital G. Do Not Lie to Me and say god is a Title. Not Only is it a Lie since a Title is a Socially Conferred Position, and God is Not God because Society gave Him the Title of God, but even if God is a Title it is still used in This Sentence as a Name. And No Liar, I am Not Privileging My Christian Religion Over Others. When You Use God to refer to a Specific Person, as You did Here, then it is Treated as a Name. The Joke is, Titles are treated as Names when They are used in Place of Names, too. When You speak of god, and leave god in Lower Case, You are committing a Grammatical Error. I also do not Randomly Capitalise Words. I Use an Older Convention based on an Older Style of English, which is still Early Modern, but is Closer to German, and do so due to being Legally Blind and Dyslexic. Spare Me the Abuse over My Disabilities You Sociopath Atheist Always Hurl. When You Sociopaths Spell the Name god in Lower Case You do so to be Intentionally Insulting and it is Childish. You Also do it to Cvirtue Signal to Your Tribe You Keep insisting doesn't Exist. But it is Abusive and Stupide to spell the Name god in Lower Case. Atheists Demand We Respect them then Ridicule Everyone Else, and I am Sicmk of it. I do not Respect Atheists and You just proved Why. That and all the Peydo- Files that Run Atheist Orginizations and how Atheist Orginizatiosn cover up for Pedyos, like The American Humanist Association, The Freedom From religion Foundation, Recovering From religion, American Atheists, The Centre For Inquiry, The ACA, and Others. Do You want a List of Pedos they Protected? Or do You want to Ridicule Pedo Clergy in Christianity instead as if We haven't Heard that one a Million Times in the Last Hour? Continued Below.

[@vol94]

It isn't a sleight of hand because when you ask what is Godly, the answer is whatever reflects the nature of God. Good is a word for that which reflects the nature of God, and the nature of God is whatever He desires. The question, "How can God *be* the good," already assumes that good is something external to Him that He has to conform to, but we have already established that goodness or godliness is whatever reflects the nature of God. Think of it this way. The word animalistic means whatever represents the nature of an animal. U wouldnt say, "Oh but how can an animal *be* the animalistic," because the answer is whatever the animal is doing will be described as animalistic. That's how definitions work. Definitions are circular by nature, because to define something is to identify it in words, and you can't identify something in words without going in a circle. Imagine if you ask me what's an apple and when I reply, "A specific red fruit," you go, "but what's a specific red fruit." And I reply, "It's an apple," only for you to go, "Oh that's circular, therefore an apple can't be a specific red fruit." If you push the question and say that why do we ought to follow what is godly, the answer is if you want eternal life. Because God's nature cannot admit ungodliness, so if you don't purge yourself of it you can't enter the presence of the originator of life, and hence won't recieve life.

[@noahfletcher3019]

​@@vol94good answer

[@VeridicusX]

"Is God's character good based on some standard, or is it good because He/His prophets says so?"

[@skwills1629]

The fact that You added Prophets instead of making it Ourely about God changes the Question and is Dishinest.

[@VeridicusX]

Perhaps you have overwhelming proof that there are 1) any "gods" and 2) that have made statements or issued commands? Failing that, my form of the question is the honest one.

[@skwills1629]

@@VeridicusX - You Lot Always do that. But, this Topic is not about the Existence of God, and I'm not Dodging that Question. Its simply not the Issue. What You did here is Misrepresentation, and it isn't Worth Anything. You can't hide behind the prove your god is Real Rubbish Your I Have no Religion Religion indoctrinated You with. You are not Asking an Honest Question and that Lie is One I am Sick of You Mindless Atheist Drones repeating too. What next? Accuse me of Cognitive Dissonance or say I am a Perfect Example of Dunning-Krueger? Accuse me of Baring False Witness and Sacrcastically say you though My Holy Book Condemned that? Maybe say I Hate You because You Disagree with Me? What Rehearsed Dogmatic Lie will You tell next? I've heard them All.

[@raphaelfeneje486]

​@@VeridicusX Who does the prophets look up to?? Do they look up to themselves or a God?? That alone destroys your argument and renders it false!

[@pedroamaralcouto]

SisyphusRedeemed published the video "Euthyphro's Trilemma" 13 years ago: "Does God have control of his nature? Or does He not have control of his nature?"

[@ThatisnotHair]

So God is goodness. Then what is goodness? It is god? This is circular reasoning. It solves nothing and ends up in same problem. It doesn't answer why is it good. What it is doesn't matter

[@achristianperspective]

I appreciate seeing something a bit shorter from you once in a while. Keep it up!

[@TruthUnites]

Thanks Matthew!

[@danieljansson7073]

Was curious if you watched Truth United Matt!

[@achristianperspective]

@@danieljansson7073 yeah, sometimes! Gavin was co-leading this pastor-theologian guild-type-thing I attended my last year on campus! I remember interacting with him a bit as he was putting together this channel.

[@MrMattSax]

Why is god’s character what it is? Is god’s character what it is because that is what is good, thus goodness is outside of god? Or is god’s character what determines what is good, thus making the concept of “good” irrelevant because anything that is within God’s character just becomes good? In this case saying “god is good” is the same as saying “god is god”. The problem still exists and the Bible is no help: is genocide objectively bad? Then why does god command it? Is slavery objectively wrong? Then why does god never declare it so and in fact assume that it will always be a feature of human society?

[@noahfletcher3019]

That which is good reflects the nature of God. It's not rocket science.

[@MrMattSax]

@@noahfletcher3019 completely avoided the question

[@noahfletcher3019]

@@MrMattSax Nope. You're making the common mistake of pretending to understand how we deal with this fake dilemma. God is that which exists before all things. Thus God's character is the measure of goodness. It's inherent in the idea that God created all things and that nothing existed outside of him.

[@MrMattSax]

@@noahfletcher3019 how can you demonstrate that the god you are claiming is anything other than a concept you imagine? You define is as before all things. Great. Does the definition make it exist? Can we define something into existence?

[@noahfletcher3019]

@@MrMattSax That is another unrelated debate. All I'm trying to show you is that if God exists (which is assumed in the euthyphro dilemma) then the euthyphro dilemma is dumb.

[@stevehawke9819]

Good point about the Euthyphro dilemma. Regarding divine simplicity, though, I'm still trying to wrap my head around divine simplicity. It seems almost no one objects to divine simplicity if all that's meant is that God has no parts. However, many people who argue for divine simplicity argue or presume in their arguments that there's more to divine simplicity than merely God has no parts. For example, have you encountered the criticisms of divine simplicity (ranging from milder criticisms to stronger criticisms) from John Frame, William Lane Craig, and R. T. Mullins, each of whom comes at divine simplicity from very different theological traditions? Their criticisms of divine simplicity are available through their respective websites or simply by Googling. If so, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts, Dr. Ortlund? Thanks in advance!

[@TruthUnites]

Thanks for the comment! You've probably already seen this, but if not, it may be of interest: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rZ3TlaN3o7uqnas

[@jacobcarne8316]

A helpful primer on divine simplicity that is not extremely technical, but still is very robust, would be James Dolezal’s All That Is In God, a great place to start for a classical theistic understanding of divine simplicity. It clears up a lot of misconceptions and directly interacts with the theistic personalists, including Frame.

[@stevehawke9819]

@@jacobcarne8316 Thanks for the kind recommendation. In fact, I have read Dolezal, but it left me with more questions than answers, to say the least. Also, I read Frame's responses to Dolezal as well as Ryan Mullins, William Lane Craig, and a handful of others. So I guess I am still undecided! But regardless thanks for the recommendation.

[@stevehawke9819]

@@jacobcarne8316 Just to be clear, though, I'm theologically Reformed, and thus much closer to Gavin Ortlund and John Frame and James Dolezal than I am to Craig or Mullins, but I thought in the case of divine simplicity they all made incisive criticisms. But maybe I need to read more than Dolezal's All that Is in God. I've heard the Catholic philosopher Ed Feser makes a good case too, but I haven't read much by him except some of his posts on his weblog.

[@jacobcarne8316]

@@stevehawke9819 there are great reads in the Reformed camp on divine simplicity from theologians such as Turretin to Owen to Charnock and others. Bavinck can be great to read as well, also numerous Catholic theologians such as Weinandy. Dolezal has another book called God without Parts that’s also very good. I can definitely understand why you may have concerns or questions about the doctrine, you’re certainly not alone. Its not one I was familiar with for a while. It’s most definitely not milk for babes but solid meat. I will pray for your study as you continue to dive deep into studying all that is in God.

[@kensey007]

Is good defined as being the same as God's character? Or is God's character defined by a standard of good? This response does nothing to solve the dilemma.

[@skwills1629]

There is No Difference between the Options if God is the Source of Everything that Exists. Its approaching The Singularity. There is no Dilemma. Thee is Only a pretense that somehow Morality can be External to God even Though Nothing is External to God.

[@kensey007]

@@skwills1629 So you're a pantheist?

[@fanghur]

@@skwills1629 that would only be true in the trivial sense that one might say that love stems from the Big Bang, since if no physical universe as we know it existed, love couldn’t exist. So even granting that God exists, at most that would imply that God is at least indirectly responsible for morality. But that isn’t what theists typically mean when they say that morality comes from God. But one could still be perfectly consistent in saying that morality ultimately stems from, for example, objective facts about human nature and interests, which could be true in either theism or naturalism, so long as we allow human beings to exist in both.

[@skwills1629]

@@fanghur - Why do Modern Atheist "Debunkings" Always Rely on a Fundamental Misunderstanding of what is being discussed? It is particularly Irritating when You are the "Not-A-Religion" Community that Invokes them. This is like that Stupid Puddle Analogy being used to Debunk The Fine Tuning Augment, or like saying The First Cause is Debunked by The Multi-Verse. You don't Really Understand what is being Said, and because of Your Beliefs, You refuse to Understand it. Atheism is not a mere lack of belief in a god, and it simply is not True that Modern Atheists like You merely lack belief in a god nothing Else. You decided God does not Exist, and You Decided Religion is Wrong and False and Irrational, and now You look for ways to maintain the narrative that Religion is Irrational and Wrong. You also carry a lot of assumptions rooted in Your Secular Humanist beliefs and Cultural Assumptions , and in the way You Talk to others in Your Tribe about the Issues. Its Why if the Word "Faith" is used You Immediately Attack it as irrational since the person Definitely means Belief Without Evidence since its what Your Tribe says Faith Means even if hat person just Told You this is not what it means. Instead of making it Your Goal to Finding Fault with Anything a "Theist" says, and by "Theist: We Really mean a Christian as that's the Only "Theist" Type You ever Attack, Why not Try to Understand the Things they are Saying? Because Assuming they are Wrong and based on Logical Fallacies and Simply Looking over a Check List of Fallacies to Assign them is not going to Really Help You Understand the Issues. You said This. "that would only be true in the trivial sense that one might say that love stems from the Big Bang, since if no physical universe as we know it existed, love couldn’t exist. So even granting that God exists, at most that would imply that God is at least indirectly responsible for morality. But that isn’t what theists typically mean when they say that morality comes from God." How do You Know what Theists mean when they say Morality comes from God? "But one could still be perfectly consistent in saying that morality ultimately stems from, for example, objective facts about human nature and interests, which could be true in either theism or naturalism, so long as we allow human beings to exist in both." This doesn't Mean Anything in This Context. We are discussing The Pseudo-Eurythropro Dilemmas.

[@noahfletcher3019]

How could God be indirectly responsible for morality if he is the creator of all things? Even if I granted that he is indirectly responsible I think that's a concession on your part. We can atleast say that he isn't being determines by something outside of his nature since it is his nature that he creates in accordance with and there was nothing but his own nature before he created anything.

[@WhatYourPastorDidntTellYou]

0:47 i would assume by “technical” you mean professional? If so I would be genuinely surprised if someone at the “technical” level was using the “what caused God” response. It’s terrible.

[@balanceseeker]

@Truth Unites, I saw that you liked comments that approved of this video from just a few months ago. However, you never responded to the number one comment on your video, a critique of your attempt at refutation of the dilemma, posted around the time of the video. Did I miss something in the comments or your videos where you handle this critique? And just to reformulate the objection by borrowing from professor of philosophy, any attempt at splitting the horns of Euthyphro by appealing to some X devolves into the same basic structure: Does God control X or does X control God? If God controls X, then X is arbitrary, and thus all of morality is arbitrary. If X controls God, then X is the standard of morality, not God. There is a reason that of the minority of philosophers who subscribe to Divine Command Theory, many just bite the bullet and say something like, "Yep, good is what God says is good. God knows best, and thus, it was moral for God to order the executions in the Old Testament."

[@charliespider7598]

If it extends from him cause of his character and if he can make choices why does he allow evil to exist? If he allows evil to exist in order to test you, why does he need to test you if he is all knowing and knows beforehand what you will choose?

[@RubenBinyet]

Great to hear that again in a very short format. Thanks!

[@TruthUnites]

Thanks! Was aiming for brevity, lol!

[@mikebrown354]

You are saying that "Good" is internal to God because that is God's character. That is still the same as saying "something is pious because it is loved by the gods". In your example, God is basically saying "I am like this so this is good and you follow my character because it's good because it's my character" Also, you mentioned it's not dependent on God's will or his choice, which means "goodness" is greater than God, for God has no power over it.

[@Brandon.Germany]

That was awesome

[@synaestheziac]

If God is simple then how can you distinguish between God’s will and God’s character?

[@peterlombard2292]

It is also interesting to note that a number of chalenges made in resposne to this view (expressed in the video) is to claim it undermines the idea of goodness. This is not true, from a logical perspective and it is why Russel was wrong. In the statement "God is good", the key word is "IS". Goodness is a qualitataive aspect of the nature of the dvine. It ialso underpins the idea that mankind is made in God's image, We possess the capacity for goodness in a away that animals, by instinct alone, cannot. To this end, the Euthyphro dilemma ceases to be a challenge to the existence of the divine and instead becomes more of a proof.

[@davidsingh5683]

You literally just created a separate dilemma

[@regularsherlock6237]

When you say ‘it’s dependant on his character’ ie ‘god is goodness’ you then have to flesh that out. You cant say ‘morality IS god’ in this dilemma because then thats a tautology. You’re essentially saying “we need God for mortality because without god we would have no morality”, or “we need god for god because without god we would have no god”. If you say “the divine commandments are a code for morality” then how does that work? Why does god hold these commandments to be moral?

[@trick0171]

This is not a third option from the dilemma, meaning if "god is that which is good" and god commanded that his nature is such that "torturing children in basements is good", then it simply would be that which is good. This dependency on the good "being god" or "being god's nature" is just as arbitrary as the "goodness" being what "god prefers (or thinks pious)". Sorry, this does not escape the horns of the dilemma in any way that diminish the argument.

[@drednaught608]

I agree with how a third option is kind of a copout, but what I want to know is how those two options are even a dilemma. What's contradictory about them?

[@trick0171]

@@drednaught608 Either what is good is (p) independent of god or (~p) not independent of god. Those are in direct opposition.

[@arielcosentino2202]

God is necessary so he couldn’t have been another way. He is eternal and unchanging. If he could have been different he could have not existed. But if god exists he could not have not existed. God could not have been a different way because he is also necessary. That is another part of his nature.

[@trick0171]

@@arielcosentino2202 None of those traits escape the horns of the dilemma (and have their own problems such as an unchanging eternal existence and a creation event in which the universe did not exist prior being logically incompatible)

[@arielcosentino2202]

@@trick0171 god being necessary does escape the dilemma because god couldn’t have had a nature where he tortures little kids for fun do morality is not arbitrary. And please elaborate when you say an unchanging god and a creation of a universe are logically incompatible.

[@scarziepewpew3897]

so is gods character moral /or god is good. because he follows a criteria of good? or its good because he is like that. ur not helping urself out of it

[@Iam_Limye]

I want to ask, should a Christian believer go to jail if they commit a crime because they believe god told them to? I ask this because I don't see this as a good argument against the Euthyphro Dilemma, especially when considering the atrocities in the bible. If God asked me to commit genocide which he has in many passages that must be good, this is telling because, in any other context, it's a deplorable action. Even when God says to not murder, it only becomes permissible if he takes back that commandment for a time. This is why I think the Dilemma works so well, God's own character works against himself. In fact, if these things are caused or sanctioned by God they can no longer be called atrocities either, genocide, rape, homophobia, child abuse, murder all these things found in the bible now become good. For this question all you would have to do is look in the bible and see if their crime is biblical if its not then they're probably lying and should go to jail, but if it is... what then?

[@fortysevenfortyniner]

Keep em coming, I learn alot from you and are pushed to seek more.

[@TruthUnites]

glad to hear that, thanks for letting me know!

[@marcelolawranne6790]

For me it doesn't matter what makes a thing pious, what matters is those good actions produce good result. That alone is enough reason for me to continue doing good deeds.

[@skwills1629]

Piety is not a Good Deed but a Show of Respect. Its Why I don't Like how Modern Atheist Turn the paradox into Morality and about God. The gods of Greek Mythology did not Create The Universe and the Discussion had Nothing to do with Morality. Besides, in Traditional Theology, God crested The Universe and Established the Natural Laws, so in a way You are Right. God crested The Universe so Good is that Which yields the best Results and Evil the Adverse ones. or more accurately Living within the Bounds of Behaviour that is in accordance with the way We are supposed to Live yields better Results than not. Morality stems from Nature and Nature from God. Morals are not simply a set of Rules Arbitrarily Decided upon. And God Created The Natural Order, so its not Independent of Him.

[@ThatisnotHair]

@@skwills1629 Why did God created them?

[@ThatisnotHair]

But question still remains. Why good is good

[@rohaninitiative6058]

Who's good? Yours?

[@skooma103]

This doesn't address the problem, it only relocates it. Now we have to ask the question: is God's nature good because it belongs to God, or does God have the nature he does because it's good. Option one leads to the arbitraryness problem whereas option two implies a standard of good and bad independent of God.

[@robertschwalb4469]

So God's character is the source of morality. If this is the case then it means nothing to say that God is good. If we define good as that which aligns with God's character then God necessarily has to be good no matter what he does. If it were part of God's character to torture children for no reason then that would be good because it aligns with God's character, which is a fantastic example of a thing being arbitrary. If you disagree and say that such thing being part of God's character would not make it good then something being part of God's character evidently does not make it good and you need a new definition of good.

[@lukeabbott3591]

But God is not contingent-i.e. God could not be other than what He is. If God could be other than what He is (if God is X but could have been Y), that would mean that God is X rather than Y because of some cause outside Himself which made Him X rather than Y. But anything that can fall subject to any kind of extrinsic cause *could not be God because God is non-contingent.* Therefore, whenever you find yourself advancing an argument against God's goodness which begins "what *if* God were Y rather than X" you are not really talking about God (at least not God as traditionally understood in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), because classical theists believe it is not logically possible for God to be other than He is.

[@robertschwalb4469]

@@lukeabbott3591 "God is non-contingent." To support this you provide the argument that if God were x, but could have been y, then something made him x. You then say that we would then not be talking about God, because God cannot be subject to cause and effect himself. He couldn't be subject to cause and effect, because he is non-contingent. But wait a minute. Him being non-contingent is what you started with. Meaning this is begging the question. "God is non-contingent because God cannot be subject to cause and effect. He cannot be subject to cause and effect because he is non-contingent." See the problem?

[@skwills1629]

I Know You Will Move the Goal Posts and say prove Your God Exists or some other Nonsense but, if God is the Creator of Everything, then Wouldn't Morality either also be Created by God or else be Part of God? In This Argument, which I am Explaining not Agreeing with You Lot Always Confuse the Two, God's Character is the Measure of what is Good because God Created Everything Else. For some Reason Atheists today want to Argue as if God did not Create The Universe to Debunk this. But if Nothing Excised by but God until God Created Something, and that Something is a Reflection of God Himself in that it is His Creation and thus Represents His Character, then it makes No Sense to call it Meaningless to say Morality is God's Character. Of course it makes Sense. Because God is the Creator of Everything Else then Everything Else is Measured by God's Standards. his is not a Tautology. Its not Circular Reasoning. its Inherent in the Premise that God Created Everything Else. The is No Eternal Standard from which Morals can be Measured that Actually exists Independently of God Creating it. Even Satan was Created by God. Even using Satan to Base our Morality on is Ultimately basing it on God in an Indirect Way. nd No, I am not saying it'd be a Good Idea to do so. The Point is, there is Nothing that Exists that is Independent of God that can Serve to be the basis of Morality and Everything that Exists was Created By God and in Some Way Reflects God's Character. God's Character is what , for want of a Better Term, Directed God to Make The Universe the Way He did. This is Why the is it Moral because God says so or does God say so because its Good Argument Falls apart. Its Both. Both Answers are Simultaneously True. God m is not the Greek gods Wo did not Create The universe they Inhabited and were predicts of it. God is the Very Basis for All Existence. How can You have Morality if Nothing Existed?

[@robertschwalb4469]

​@@skwills1629 ​ @SK Wills "For some Reason Atheists today want to Argue as if God did not Create The Universe to Debunk this." And when exactly did I argue anything of the sort? My counter argument was that if you want define morally good as that which aligns with Gods character then morality is still arbitrary. "But if Nothing Excised by but God until God Created Something, and that Something is a Reflection of God Himself in that it is His Creation and thus Represents His Character, then it makes No Sense to call it Meaningless to say Morality is God's Character. Of course it makes Sense. " You seem to be confused about what I said. Quite frankly I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, there are some glaring grammatical errors and such. Anyway, I was saying that if we define good as that which aligns with God's character then it is meaningless to say "God is good", unless you're expressing that definition, because you've defined everything God does as good. In the same way that it's meaningless to say "the Bible is biblical", biblical means of, relating to, or contained in the Bible. "Because God is the Creator of Everything Else then Everything Else is Measured by God's Standards." Defend this. How does God creating x then mean we should measure x according to standards also from God? Unless you're going to say that all standards were also made by God. "The is No Eternal Standard from which Morals can be Measured that Actually exists Independently of God Creating it." Please define good as you use it in your argument. Exactly what does "good" mean. Be extremely specific. "Its Both. Both Answers are Simultaneously True." Then morality is still arbitrary. "God m is not the Greek gods Wo did not Create The universe they Inhabited and were predicts of it. God is the Very Basis for All Existence." "How can You have Morality if Nothing Existed?" This last comment seems to assume that I accept the "God is the basis for all existence" premise, I do not believe God exists at all.

[@skwills1629]

@@robertschwalb4469 - You Lot keep saying "That's Circular Reasoning" when its not. You decided in advance to Disprove Christianity, and now simply Look for A4rguments to support what You want the Outcome to be. So You are Engaged in Circular Reasoning. What You said is also Stupid. No One says the Argument is God cannot be subject to Cause and Effect because God is Non-Contingent. No One says This. Its like saying God did not have a Beginning because God did not have a Beginning. Non-Contingent means the same Thing as Not subject to Cause and Effect. God being Non-Contingent is not Why he is not subject to Cause and Effect, it is Him not being subject to Cause and Effect. They are Synonyms. So You Contrived a way to say something is Circular when its not by Conflating Synonyms as if Someone says Synonym 1 makes Synonym 2 and Synonym 2 makes Synonym 1. No One said that. Both Synonym 1 and Synonym 2 mean the same Bloody Thing.

[@jasonthibodeauphilosophy]

Your explanation for what follows from (what you are calling) the first horn of the dilemma is wrong. The first horn (as you describe it) is: Something is good because it is loved or chosen by the gods. You say that this horn is associated with the problem of arbitrariness. It is true that arbitrariness is one of the problems associated with this horn of the dilemma, but (a) this is not the only problem (as you suggest), and (b) when you were explaining the problem of arbitrariness, you weren't actually talking about arbitrariness, but about contingency. You say, "Love could have been bad. Murder could have been good." That love could have been bad is a concern about the contingency of a moral fact (that love is good). The problem that you were mentioning, that is, is the problem that, on this horn, all moral facts could be otherwise. But this is not the problem of arbitrariness. If something is arbitrary, then it is not grounded in reasons. The arbitrariness concern is that, if morality is grounded in divine will, then the gods (or God) cannot have reasons that justify their/his acts of will. If you are interested, I've made a video that attempts to carefully explain the Euthyphro dilemma and explain how it grounds objections to divine command theory: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bHick5mel8d5jKs

[@oweeoh7895]

So does this make it impossible for us to raise any moral objections against Islam?

[@gabrielteo3636]

Still runs into the same dilemma. Divine command theory is just, God says it is good.

[@imaginative6315]

You are just kicking the can down the road until you run into Euthyphro's dilemma again. If good is not because of God's will or choice, and it's due to his "character", that means there is something about God which he can't control, thus he's not omnipotent, because he was not "good" because of his will or choice, as you've just said.

[@rod-resiss]

It is holy/good because is it like god. God is not good (because that linguistically posits goodness as external), not is it an attribute that god has (which does the same thing), but God is goodness. Just as water is not wet, or having wetness, but is wetness. To say that "it is good because the gods love it" again linguistically in saying that they "love it" posits that is it something external which they express love towards. If "godly" is "that which is loved by the gods" then both statements of the dilemma become the same.

[@inconsistent684]

This guy tried to convince me online of how Christianity is disproven by Euthyphros Dilemma and this video helped me to completley dismantle his theory thank you so much! Liked and subscribed

[@efont81]

Still think it's a dilemma after watching this video. Also, your explainers of why asking, what caused god, is more of the same special pleading arguments. Thanks for trying though.

[@Georgem7307]

You are simply awesome my friend, keep them coming!

[@TruthUnites]

Thanks a lot!

[@MilesDavisKDAB]

Claiming that God's character is the solution to the Euthyphro dilema fails because you now have to explain what or who is responsible for creating God's character. If you say God created his own character then that means God can change his character and you are right back where you started. If something or someone else created God's character then God ceases to be the ultimate arbiter of what is moral or anything else for that matter. So finally you are left with saying that God's character must be a brute fact which means there is no reason why good and evil cannot also be brute facts so there is no need for God to provide morals. In fact morality is an entirely human creation. There is no good or evil in biology. Organisms have behaviours which lead to evolutionary success or failure often this involves inflicting pain and suffering on other organisms & sometimes even on organisms of the same species. Humans are no exception to this but we also evolved an ability to cooperate with others and to empathise with others. Again humans are not unique in this ability but our greater cognitive & imaginitive abilities have led to ever increasing social interactions that have required that we develop a sense of moral good and evil. Each person decides for themself what they think is moral and immoral. Don't believe me? Just conduct a survey of 100 people and present them with various moral dilemmas. You will get a wide range of opinions. Societies struggle to define what is good or evil usually by passing laws. Those laws change with time as different opinions become popular or lose populartiy. There are no moral absolutes by which society or individuals can discern what is good or evil. Is it evil for a parasitic worm to cause blindness in another animal? No. The parasitic worm has no choice. Is it evil for a parasitic wasp to lay its egg in another insects larva eventually leading to that larva being eaten from the inside out by the wasp larva? No, because the wasp has no choice. Nothing in biology is evil or good UNLESS you argue that some sort of superbeing created it that way in a deliberate act. So IF a "god" created the biology we have today & that "god" had the ability to create something different then, in my own human and subjective opinion, that "god" is evil because it deliberately and unecessarily created extreme suffering for many organisms including me.

[@Mygoalwogel]

Your argument does not matter. Help people understand if you want. Or don't. It doesn't matter. Soon you will be deleted. The people who you have enlightened will be deleted. The Universe such as it is will be deleted. Suffering or pleasure all amount to zero. You are nothing. You are not important. You do not matter.

[@skwills1629]

The Problem is, Suffering does not Matter. It is not part of The Dilemma here and is not a Real Issue Anyway unless You Think This Life is the Only One there is. Even the Wasp Example is not Really Valid. And I am not saying God Punishes us for Evil and causing Suffering in The Afterlife. The Point is, God's Reasons are never taken into Account. You just say Suffering Exists this God is Evil if God Exists as if that is Self Evidently True. it is not.

[@MilesDavisKDAB]

@@skwills1629 "God's reasons"....OK, 1. How can we know what God's reasons are or were? 2. What possible "good" reason could there be for any of the myriad of evil things that happen many of which are claimed to be done by God. As for the question of God's existence. The gods invented by humans do not exist. Could there be some sort of first cause for the universe we inhabit? Possibly, but it is not currently possible to answer that question other that to say it seems unlikely and even if such a thing does exist it is not likely to be a God or anything worthy of worship.

[@skwills1629]

Also, o One "Created God's Character" if God is not created. Character is an Aspect of God, not separate from God.

[@introvertedchristian5219]

If goodness is identical with God, then doesn't that make the statement, "God is good," a tautology?

[@TruthUnites]

Thanks for the comment! You've probably already seen this, but if not, it may be of interest: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rZ3TlaN3o7uqnas

[@randomperson2078]

In the same sense that a triangle is triangular is a tautology.

[@Stuffingsalad]

Yes, it does. If someone defines goodness as ‘whatever is consonant with god’s nature’, then calling god ‘good’ is the exact equivalent of saying ‘god is what god is’ or ‘god says what god says’ if you’re a divine command theorist. It’s only a problem if you are comfortable with admitting how meaningless it then becomes to call your god ‘good’ if this is what you mean by it. I don’t know how convincing you’re going to be when to try to persuade someone that your god is good but then appeal to what that god does as the standard for measuring that good. The best way to illustrate it is by positing two gods. Both are maximally powerful and knowledgeable. However, one of these gods are good and the other is evil, indifferent or just not perfectly good. How do you go about determining which is the good god? Well, if you’re using the god as the standard for good, then both gods can be said to be good by that standard. If you choose one particular god and measure their standard against the other, it does without saying that the god you choose is going to be considered the ‘good’ one, whether you choose the first or second god. It’s not so much of an inconsistency. It just becomes a pretty meaningless and unimpressive statement to call god ‘good’ if this is the measure. That’s the problem with wanting god to be called ‘good’ and be the standard for that goodness. There’s no way around it.

[@randomperson2078]

@@Stuffingsalad If you think theistic virtue ethics and DCT are the same - or even that your critique of DCT applies to all variations of it - you’re just factually wrong. They differ in both their claims and in their outcomes as to the nature of God.

[@Stuffingsalad]

@@randomperson2078 It has to be a very different and strange version of DCT then. Because there’s no getting around the circulatory for it (it’s literally definitional). And if it does, then it’s probably going to appeal to some standard outside of god. If you think there is a version of DCT that keeps god as the standard and avoids the circular reasoning/vapid tautology of calling god ‘good’, then I would love to hear it. Not just the assertion that one exists.

[@otakurocklee]

This answers absolutely nothing. You have exactly the same dilemma as before. If god was a sadist, and sadism is part of his character, would that automatically make sadism a good character trait? Is compassion good because it is a character trait of god? So if it wasn't a trait of god it would not be good? So being compassionate is only a good thing because it's a character trait of god? All this shows to me is that religious people are not moral. They don't do good things because they are good. They only do good things out of fear of god, or to imitate god. It is pure self-interest.

[@davsamp7301]

It would be indeed necessary to include further Options, but Not, where non are possible. It is No Option, that god is goodness itself, Nor, that a god is simple and good too, for goodness is a Relation and the simple Thing has No Attributes other then negative ones. The only 'thing' simple that i can think of is, what can be refered to as 'Being' itself. But being itself is neither good, Nor Bad, Nor knowledgable, nor Loving, Nor anything. Not creating, Nor destroying. At Last, to know of a god that is also goodness by Nature would Render either one of them obsolete. Furthermore, one can be Well good without even believing in any god, for it is already the Case, that those believing in one are neither in accord, Nor could they possibly suggest some to be right or wrong without reason, which is Common to all. Reason is Logically Prior to any thinking, and also of any god.

[@The.Last.Tempest]

In other words God is such a vague abstract concept that you could deflect all attacks without even trying. It's essentially logic gatekeeping. You create a framework of logic that defies all conventional wisdom but you're the only one who's allowed to use that framework. Well I hate to tell you but you and I live in the same reality. When you reach into the cloud of magical logic and reasoning to pull out an argument, that same cloud is within my reach. And then when I patch work together a counter argument using the same talking points you will say well now you're just describing God. Well of course I am because God literally is just describing everything and nothing at the same time at this point. It's just a meaningless concept. You created this amorphous concept of a supernatural being that could take any shape you needit to while simultaneously evading all arguments.

[@adamadams2753]

Weak

[@toomanymarys7355]

You're wrong about Islam. Islam's god has parts (sifaat) which are joined in his being (dhat). And what is good and evil on earth is only good and evil by fiat because most of them are explicitly allowed and in fact given as a reward in Paradise.

[@jettoth3]

I really like the way you explained this, Gavin! Simple, and right to the heart of the matter.

[@WilliamFAlmeida]

I love these, and also wish that these were podcast form. Thanks for all you do

[@TruthUnites]

So glad it is of use to you!

[@vespuzzi]

I can see that you really _want to believe_

[@skwills1629]

You just want to Not beleive.

[@PowerFromAbove]

Once again, confirmation bias overrides logic and changes the terms to its own subjective whims

[@user-qm8cc5go8r]

Very poor apologetic, there is no way out of it for theists try as they may. Either accept the evil that your god supposedly does or admit he is useless. I can’t even bring myself to say nice try

[@thuscomeguerriero]

Tho I'm a Christian I've never bought into the moral argument. I simply dont see the force of the argument for the existence of something Outside us by appealing to the existence of something Inside us.. objective morality to wit. There is no species on earth that does not at some level exhibit social structure. I think the problem is we imagine moral values to exist in a sort of Transcendental realm of sorts..like Platonic ideas. That a human being walks about the earth in a higher plane of consciousness..that of good and evil. His moral knowledge lifts him above the level of beast into that of higher being (As God says in Genesis, "The man has become like us Knowing good and evil") The story is compelling. My problem is that any logically necessary reason to look past OURSELVES to explain something we learn anout OURSLEVES. I dont disagree with the Christian conclusion. What I'm saying is that we cant start we something down here in us..to get to something transcendental above us. We can't get past our thoughts, feelings, intuitions about morality to the existence of another being because they, moral ideas are Expieriencaly just that..OURS!!

[@robfb7]

I believe this argument weakens itself at the outset since it is taken from a polytheistic context and applied to a monotheistic context. What the modern so-called Euthyphro Dilemma states is not Plato’s original argument.

[@pascalmassie4706]

Need PHL 101.

[@coreygossman6243]

Not an apologist, or a priest. Heres my take. God creates nature. Part of that nature is goodness. God's choice of goodness is, for him, arbitrary. For us, it is as absolute as gravity and chemistry. It is God's spiritual choice. He could have made a universe where killing was "good". Consider Valhalla, the afterlife where you slay each other in battle over and over and feast with the people you slew over again every morning. God made this world, and he made it such that killing is an evil act. It is against his will. If God's will was that you should kill all non-believers, that too would be moral. The reason we need to talk about how morality is part of creation is that we must realize that morality is stamped on our hearts. The law is written on our hearts and our conscience. So when I propose an alternate moral world, though it is possible for God to create such a world, our conscience rejects it because we are made for this world and this life. There you go. Morality is locally absolute, but globally it is God's "arbitrary" will.

[@Iandar1]

That was terrible.

[@raphaelfeneje486]

​​@@Vulture402 Iove your sarcasm 😂 Atheists are mentally dumb these days

[@papercut7141]

10/10 argument

[@Iandar1]

@@papercut7141 imagine thinking I was making an argument.

[@Iandar1]

@@Vulture402if you want an actual rebuttal checkout TMM’s debunking of WLC who instead used nature instead of character.

[@Iandar1]

@@Vulture402 love the projection and dunning Kruger there. “Is gods nature/character because he says it is” since your so smart you should be able to fill in the blanks for the next part.

[@Trollkvinnan]

There no other options between arbitrary and founded moral or character.

[@darkensdiablos]

Nono.. If God is simple, his character and will are the same. Ergo God wills it and then it is good. That is exactly the same as the first horn of the dilemma. God would change if God's character changed. Or just say that murdering innocents are good, because that is what God did. Rape is good because that is what God did.

[@skwills1629]

The Problem is, if God's Character Changed, so would Existence. You seem to Argue from a Position that The Universe and All that is in it Exists Independently of God. That's not Really what Christians Believe.

[@SashoMinov]

It is Εὐθύφρων not Εὐθύφρω!Plato debate about language they used.E’U’T’H’U(it is upsilon!)&I(we can analyze this also)F’R’O&OO’reduction follows= E’U’T’H’U’F’Rp&Roo’N=i will analyze indirect speech only,past itine=Peoper-Analogically= Matching-ed=Accidental-Responsible declaration-acknowledgement=confirmation-opinion=abstraction=concept is dreamed= Romanced-imagined-invented by ammunition=hit-velocity’s=speedy=spent-directing-ed=directive declaration-acknowledgement= Confirmation-opinion=abstraction=concept of air-ing-ed=streaming-ed=radiating-ed=current-breathing-ed=respiring-ed-stimulative-ing-ed=inspirational=motivational rooting-ed=radical-essential=identifying-ed-meaningful=important=significant(Ro)&resaident-introducing-ed-ing-logical=rational=profound(Roo) mother=maternal=sanctification-ustrojstvo=organisation=structure=constitution-civilization. Plato had been disappointed about language they logicians created!It was not capable to express logical=rational=profound sense of world!