Euthyphro Dilemma and Ethics
in General
I
realize I haven’t said anything in, oh, three months or so. I’ve been a bit busy with these things called
classes…they take up a lot of time.
However, I thought I’d post something that I worked on for my ethics
class over the summer (with some revisions and shorter) about one of the
dilemmas that often confounds Christians, and my rough solution to it. Plato, in the Euthyphro, questioned whether
the gods loved what was good or whether something was good simply because it
was loved by the gods. While people no
longer worship the Greek gods, the question has continued to confound
Christians- is something good only because God loves it, in which case there
seems to be no real meaning to the claim that God is good, but if one claims
otherwise one seems to be challenging His omnipotence, because He is forced to
adhere to some external standard of goodness.
One resolution is introduced by Nelson Pike in Omnipotence and God’s
inability to sin, and my paper shares many similarities to Pike’s resolution
(but was written before I read about him).
Swinburne’s argument is that ethics is a type of necessary moral truth
and therefore God’s inability to will something other than good is related to
the problem that God cannot will the illogical (like creating a door that is
neither open nor closed). One resolution
to this issue is that illogical statements have no meaning, and therefore there
is no meaning to determine whether God can or cannot do them. As I said, though, my paper follows Pike’s
explanation, which is easier to grasp.
Interestingly, if one claims that God’s nature is a necessary truth (as
I do), then the arguments eventually become equivalent because God is limited by
the necessary truth of His nature, which leads to necessarily true moral laws.
My
disclaimer: I’m a sophomore at
One
of the oldest theories is the field of ethics is the Divine Command Theory,
which simply claims that morality is obedience to a set of rules given by a
deity. It is important to consider
precisely what Divine Command Theory claims.
It does not claim that moral rules are illogical or cannot be discovered
by reason independent of a belief in a deity; it simply claims that the
foundation of morality is a basis of rules given by a deity. It is conceivable that these rules can also
be discovered through reason; many would argue that a rational God would give
rational rules, and therefore we should be able to discover them through reason
in addition to appealing to divine revelation.
Divine Command Theory, then, proposes that there are a set of rules that
were revealed by God and are moral because they are God’s commands, regardless
of whether one can discover independent rational reasons supporting them. For the purposes of this paper, I am going to
assume that the God of Divine Command Theory is the traditional monotheist God
(specifically, the Christian God), who is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent. Omnipotent, or all-powerful, simply means
that God can accomplish anything He wills, or that there are no external
limitations on His actions.
Omnibenevolence is simply the claim that everything God wills and does
is good, in some meaning of the word. I
will not attempt to determine the specific meaning of good in this paper, but
to state that it must at minimum be closely related to the common perception of
good, which includes justice.
In
the Euthyphro, Plato makes perhaps the earliest charge at Divine Command Theory,
asking us to “Just consider the following question: is the holy loved by the
gods because it is holy? Or is it holy
because it is loved?” A modern
rephrasing of this challenge would be, “Is an action willed by God because it
is good, or is an action good because it is willed by God?” Initially this question does not seem to
apply to Divine Command Theory, which would respond that good and willed by God
are interchangeable. It does not matter
to a true Divine Command theorist which came first; all
that matters is obedience to the commands.
However, to a Christian theologian, this is a serious challenge to God’s
nature. If one answers that an action is
willed by God because it is good, then there seems to be an independent
standard of good that God is subject to, and then one must question His
omnipotence. However, if one instead
responds that whatever God wills is good, then one seems to deprive God’s
omnibenevolence of meaning. Neither
response is acceptable to a Christian, who believes Psalms 5:4, which states
“For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, Nor shall evil dwell
with you” and agrees with Job, “I know that You [God] can do everything” (Job
42:2).
Theologians
have pondered this question for years, searching for an answer to this apparent
contradiction. Ironically, while the
Euthyphro dilemma seems to create problems for God’s nature, perhaps the
solution is indeed God’s nature. One
solution is that God wills the good, but that the standard of good is not
independent of God because He both can and cannot alter it. At this point, many would challenge that the
previous statement is confusing and reject the entire argument as theological
word mincing. I would have to agree with
them that this solution is confusing; however, the confusion arises from
multiple meanings of the word “can”. For
example, “can” can be used to denote something that is physically possible, as
in, random fluctuations at the quantum level could produce antimatter that
could collide with this paper and cause both the antimatter and my paper to be
converted into energy. Granted, the
statistically probabilities are extremely slim, but it could, in theory, occur-
it can happen. However, “can” is
additionally used in a non-physical sense, perhaps immortalized by George
Washington’s phrase “I cannot tell a lie.”
There is nothing in the physical world preventing George Washington’s
vocal cords from vibrating in such a manner as to create sound waves
corresponding to words that do not form a true statement; instead, George
Washington means that there is something not physical, his nature, that
restricts his action. Thus, he “cannot”
tell a lie, even though physical he “can”.
So, we use “can” to refer both to a lack of something external
limitation and a lack of an internal limitation.
Similarly
to George Washington’s inability to tell a lie, a Christian to God’s supposed
inability often hinges on a similar confusion of the verb “can”. Can God will evil? He can, in that there is no external
limitation, but He cannot, in that there is an internal limitation- His
omnibenevolent nature- that prevents Him.
However, because the limitations are internal, His omnipotence is
unhindered.
As
you can probably tell by that, my ethical system of choice is Divine Command
Theory; however I do still believe that there is a rational way to determine
all of the ethical laws of Scripture.
One could claim that as fallen humans we are doomed to never completely
reason to all of them, which is why I would respond that in personal living
one’s guiding source should always be Scripture. Unfortunately none of the currently popular
ethical theories (egoism, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and as I understand
it, Kantian ethics) provide a solid foundation for a Biblical view of
morality. Someone suggested an ethical
theory based on the concept of authority, and I am anxiously waiting for him to
further expound on that idea.
On
another ethical note, Christianity can also resolve the dilemma between
normative and metaethics (except for some
Calvinists)-
Claim 1- People act to fulfill
desires (psychology)
Claim 2- There exists an
omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent God who has revealed Himself through
Scripture
Claim 3- Within Scripture, God has
included commands for people to follow for fellowship with Him
Claim 4- People either have a desire
for fellowship God or not (at a specific point in time to avoid the
Calvinist/Armenian debate)
Claim 5- Those who do not have a
desire for fellowship with God have other desires, including self-interest
(depravity)
Deduction 1- Because God is
omniscient and omnibenevolent, the commandments He has revealed are indeed the
true path for fellowship with Him
Deduction 2- Therefore, people who
desire fellowship with God ought to follow His commandments in order to fulfill
their desire
Deduction 3- Because God is
omnibenevolent, all of His commandments ultimately benefit people (individually
and corporately)
Deduction 4- Therefore, people who
are self-interested also ought to follow His commandments in order to fulfill
their desires