The Euthyphro Dilemma -Part Two

C messier, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

In my last article, I introduced you to the famous objection to the Moral Argument for the existence of God known as the Euthyphro Dilemma; for a refresher, it goes like this: “Is something good because God says it is good, or does God say that something is good because it is good?” Of course, neither of these two options is palatable to the biblical Christian, as the implications drawn from both horns of the dilemma cause some heavy philosophical problems. If something is good merely because God says it is good, then moral values would seem arbitrary, and the skeptic will say, “So if God said that rape is good, then rape is good?” On the other hand, if God only says that something is good because it is good, then the grounding of moral values transcends God Himself, and the skeptic will say, “What do we need God for?” Do you recall the answer to this dilemma from the last article? Take a quick pause from reading this to reflect on how you would answer this question were a nonbeliever to ask you...

The answer is that Euthyphro is a false dilemma, as there are not merely two options to choose from. There is a third which is this: Morality is grounded in the nature of God, not merely His divine commands. Something is good if it is consistent with God’s nature, as He is the paradigm of goodness. Things that are inconsistent with God’s nature are not good for the same reason. Now, before I address the objection to this answer, the answer also brings up a deeper question that I mentioned in part 1; The answer to Euthyphro states that morality is grounded in the nature of God, and not merely His divine commands. But as Christians, we believe that if God commands something, we are obligated to obey His commands. There is no conflict here. As I mentioned in part 1, there is a difference between moral virtues, and moral duties. We will now explore these two categories in order to better understand them.

Apologist Dr. David Baggett put it this way; there are things that we can do that are good, and there are things that we can do that are right. It is a good thing for someone to volunteer at a soup kitchen on the weekend, but we cannot say that they are obligated to do so. Whereas if you were walking down by the river and saw a child drowning, (assuming that you can swim proficiently and there is no danger in going into the river after him), you are obligated to save the child, as to ignore the situation would show disregard for an innocent life, which is immoral. But it is not necessarily immoral to not volunteer at the soup kitchen on the weekend. Now, I know some of you are probably thinking of different factors that could change whether these examples fall into one category or another, and life is complicated and full of complex situations where it may be extremely difficult to discern whether something is merely good, or obligatory. The point of the example is simply to explain the difference between moral virtues and moral duties.

In Theistic Ethics, there is a branch known as “Divine Command Theory.” On the strong end of DCT, there are those who simply accept the horn of the Euthyphro dilemma that says something is good because God commands it. I am not a scholar or an ethicist by any stretch of the imagination, but from my studies on this subject, I would take a modified position within Divine Command Theory that emphasizes the difference between virtues and duties. Basically, I would say, something is good if it is consistent with the nature of God, the paradigm of moral excellence, and something is obligatory because God commands it. Of course, God would only command something consistent with His nature. Much more could be said on this subject, but it is beyond the scope of this article, so we will now turn to an objection to the answer to the Euthyphro dilemma.

When I reflect on subjects of apologetics, I try to find not only the best answer to a question, but also to think of the best objection that I am likely to hear from a skeptic when given that answer. This question occurred to me when I first studied Euthyphro, but it was perhaps years until I finally heard an atheist in a debate ask this question and also the answer given to it by the Christian. The atheist in this case was Dr. Zachary Moore. The Christian, to my delight, was one of my favorite Christian Philosophers, Dr. William Lane Craig. Remember that the answer to Euthyprho is that morality is grounded in the nature of God, not merely His divine commands. Dr. Moore was not impressed with this answer, and claiming that the answer only pushed the dilemma back one step, he said in the debate:

“Is God’s nature good because it creates the good, or because it recognizes the good?”

Now, I couldn’t really think of a good answer to this rebuttal during all those years thinking about it, and when I finally heard Dr. Craig interact with this question, I was honestly flabbergasted by the simplicity with which he engaged the argument. “Why didn’t I think of that?” All he had to do was draw out the absurd implication of the argument. This is a method known as “reductio ad absurdum.” To do this, one must go along with the argument of their opponent for the sake of exposing the absurd consequences of their argument. Let’s apply this method to Dr. Moore’s rebuttal.

Suppose that morality, or “the good” as it were, is outside of God. If Dr. Moore believes that there is objective morality, he must have some grounding for it. We will call Dr. Moore’s grounding of morality “X”, whatever it happens to be. So then whatever he would appeal to could be asked the same question. “Is ‘X’ good because it creates the good, or because it recognizes the good?” And if there were something extrinsic to ‘X’ to ground morality, let’s call it ‘Y’, the dilemma applies to ‘Y’ as well. And this could simply happen on to infinity, which is absurd. You would never reach an ultimate grounding of morality.

Perhaps Dr. Moore believes in a Platonic view of morality; that there is this sort of abstract object out there in the ether that grounds morality, commonly referred to as “the good.” Here Dr. Craig suggests that when pressed on whether “the good” is good because it creates the good, or because it recognizes the good, Dr. Moore would probably say, “well, neither. It just is the good.” And that is exactly what theists are claiming about God; God Himself is definitive of what is good and what is evil. So the atheist faces the same situation as the theist in this regard. Although, morality seems to be incompatible with an abstract object. It makes sense to say that someone is good or bad, or an action was good or bad, but to say that abstract objects or specifically, an abstract object called “the good,” can be good or bad seems incoherent, for “the good” cannot be good. The number 2, as an abstract object, cannot be just, merciful, loving, or spiteful, hateful, or evil. On the contrary, it makes perfect sense for a personal being that is the metaphysically ultimate to be the grounding of morality. In light of all of this, Dr. Moore’s rebuttal has no teeth. I encourage you to listen to Dr. Craig’s video (which is mostly a snippet from his podcast on youtube) on this subject which I have linked below.

God is good.

Recommended Resources:

(1) The Moral Argument - YouTube by InspiringPhilosophy
(2) The Euthyphro Dilemma (William Lane Craig) - YouTube by Dr. Craig Videos
(3)Amazon.com: Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality (9780199751815): Baggett, David, Walls, Jerry L.: Books