Tactical Faith

Equipping Christians in Alabama

Moral Argument

Talking to the World about Christian Morality: Why Shouldn’t Bob Kill Sam?

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Filed Under: Philosophy, Theology, Uncategorized, Worldview Tagged With: , ,

The Moral and Amoral “Why?”

When an ethical law of the form, ‘Thou shalt…’, is laid down, one’s first thought is, ‘And what if I do not do it?’ It is clear, however, that ethics has nothing to do with punishment and reward in the usual sense of the terms. So our question about the consequences of an action must be unimportant.—At least those consequences should not be events. For there must be something right about the question we posed. There must indeed be some kind of ethical reward and ethical punishment, but they must reside in the action itself (Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 6.422).

Imagine a man named Bob. Bob has had a bad run lately. And this seems mostly due to Sam. Sam is smug, arrogant, and very successful. He got the promotion that Bob desperately wanted, won the heart of Bob’s fiancée, and seemed to enjoy rubbing this all in Bob’s face.

Bob is, of course, very angry. Angry enough that he feels somewhat justified in killing Sam. Sam is no physical threat to Bob, but he is a terrible person who has hurt Bob in countless non-physical ways.

Why shouldn’t Bob kill Sam?

This question seems ridiculous to even be asking for any mature person. But the way that we answer this question can expose a serious problem in the way that we think about morality.

Let us say that Bob goes to his lawyer friend, Susan, and has this conversation.

Bob: Why can’t I kill Sam? He’s a terrible person, a menace of a human being!

Susan: Because it is illegal, Bob.

Bob: Why is it illegal to kill such a terrible man?!

Susan: Because a society cannot function if people make up their own standards of who deserves to die or not. We have to set universal laws that apply to all and can be agreed upon by all. So, unless Sam is a serious physical threat to you in a situation where you cannot find another way out of the situation, you cannot kill him. That is murder.

Bob: Why should I care about society functioning properly when my own life is full of misery and shame because of this scumbag?!

Susan: Because society, through its legal arm, will make your life even worse if you try to kill him. You will be arrested, imprisoned, or worse!

Note that there are two kinds of answers given to the “why?” question. One is an explanation of the reasoning behind the prohibition to murder, while the other is a description of the enforcement mechanism.

The reasoning behind the law, which could be described in various ways (from human dignity, to the right to life, etc.), seems to contain something about the actual moral meaning of the law. What makes something moral? We find that in the reasoning behind it, it seems.

The problem with the reasoning behind the law is that people don’t agree. There seem to be exceptions all the time. For example, I’d guess that most of us have seen a film or show or read a book that portrays an instance of vigilante justice—a situation where the legal apparatus of a nation or state was insufficient to deal with a particularly wily or terrible villain, and so some hero went outside the law to mete out justice. These are exceptions we simply embrace.

On the other hand, there are those people who simply disagree, or who believe that their situation is an exception when it is not. When people disagree on what constitutes murder, where there might be exceptions to the law, and so forth, then they’ll not be concerned about the law. Rather, they’ll ask one more “why?” and it is then that we must resort to answering with the enforcement mechanism: threat of punishment or promise of reward.

When we speak of the enforcement mechanism, we are no longer talking about morality. We are talking about something outside the morality. Something is not immoral because you’ll be punished for it, and something does not become good because you are rewarded for it. In fact, if you act purely out of fear of punishment or desire for reward, it seems that you are either acting entirely outside the bounds of morality or even acting immorally.

What’s the point here? The point is simply that legal morality, or secular morality, grounded in the good of a society, is insufficient to deal with Bob’s disagreements. In short, secular morality as presented in the conversation between Bob and Susan cannot deal with too many “whys”.

Can Christian morality do any better? Let us listen in on Bob, who for the sake of argument is a believer (though obviously a very angry and frustrated one) and his educated and thoughtful Christian friend, Christy.

Bob: Why can’t I kill Sam? He’s a terrible person, and probably going to go to hell anyway!

Christy: Because it is against the laws of God and our nation.

Bob: Why would God care?

Christy: Because God values all lives and wants everyone to live in peace and to have the chance to come to know him.

Bob: At this point, I don’t really care if God loves Sam or not. I despise him. So why should I care whether God values him or not?

Christy: Well, if you decide to kill Sam, then you will suffer punishment for what you’ve done. Murderers do not belong in the kingdom.

Let’s pause briefly here. Bob again disagreed with the reason behind the prohibition and so asked “why?” again, and so Christy had to resort to what seems to be the enforcement mechanism (exclusion from the kingdom/hell). It seems then that Christianity has the same problem as secular morality. Though perhaps Christianity has more of a problem! Let’s follow again the conversation.

Bob: But, given that I’m a Christian (or about to become one), Jesus has forgiven me all my sins, so unless you believe in something akin to purgatory, then God won’t punish me for this anyway.

Christy: Well, but that is simply not how Christians should act. Jesus didn’t die for you so that you can kill people. He did it because he loves you and wants you with him. And the New Creation is not a place in which murderers can be.

Bob: But, given Jesus’ sacrifice, I’ll not be a murderer. God sees not me, but Jesus. And, anyway, every sin is worthy of eternal punishment, so since I have already hated Sam, I’ve already murdered him in my heart and therefore am worthy of eternal punishment—which Jesus has thankfully paid for—so killing him won’t change anything about my status.

Christy: *calls police*

A Clue in Forgiveness

It should make us a little uncomfortable that Christianity must resort to appeal to the enforcement mechanism as quickly as secular morality. It seems that God is a better ground for morality itself, not merely a better enforcer of morality. Is Christianity the same as secular morality, just with a supernatural enforcement mechanism?

In fact, I’ve heard more than one atheist criticize Christianity for (purportedly) relying on an enforcement mechanism to make people behave. Morality for an atheist is supposed to be purely a matter of developing good, mature intentions, since there’s no ethereal afterlife where you’ll get punished or rewarded for your deeds in life. But this is a confused criticism. Insofar as one disagrees with the morality in either an atheist or a Christian worldview, one it seems must appeal to the enforcement mechanism. If Bob says he doesn’t care about the effect on society or what God cares about, and asks “why?” again, what else can one appeal to but the enforcement mechanism? But that works for both atheist ethics and Christian ethics.

Perhaps this criticism is launched at Christianity because God, heaven (read: new creation), and hell—enforcer, reward, and punishment—loom so large in our theology. Of course, we should not surrender these elements, but perhaps we have been looking at them wrongly. In fact, my guess is that you feel that Christy did not do a very good job responding to Bob, both in talking about punishment and in talking about forgiveness.

Of course, this issue of forgiveness seems another sticking point for Christian morality. On the one hand, there is a rather horrifying, eternal enforcement mechanism; on the other, it doesn’t matter at all as long as you ask for forgiveness. Which is weird. It seems unjust to punish a kind and caring person so harshly for something like failing to believe in the truth of Christianity, and at the same time to offer eternal reward to a murderous monster just because he asked for forgiveness shortly before getting the chair.

But reflect on this a little. That God is quick to forgive suggests that he does not want our morality motivated from fear of punishment or desire for reward. If he did want the enforcement mechanism to be the answer to that final “why?” he would not offer forgiveness, but rather straightforward justice.

So what does God want our motivation to be? And how might this serve as a response to the criticism of Christianity that it relies too heavily on punishment and reward?

The forgiveness that God offers us is a clue to how we’re supposed to be understanding morality and sin. Forgiveness is not a way to avoid Christian morality, but the door to really understanding it. We’ll reflect more on this in the next post.

Morality as Natural: Why the “I don’t need a god to be moral” critique fails

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Filed Under: Apologetics, Defending the Faith, Worldview Tagged With: , , , , ,

Rather than continue the series on the moral argument with further takeaways—they are too numerable to include in a single post, and it would begin to look silly having a 10-part series—I have decided to develop these ideas as separate arguments in their own posts. I will make reference to claims made in the series on The Moral Argument, with reference specifically to Plato’s Euthyphro.

I want to begin by reiterating and expanding a bit on the contrast between the sophist’s view of human origins and Plato’s, because this shows a central contrast between contemporary Christians and atheists in their perspectives.

Christian Morality as Infantile, and Dangerous

The most frequent claim by atheists—from the everyday Twitter user to those with a huge hearing—is that religious morality (I’ll focus on Christian morality, since I’m a Christian) is childish.

“I don’t need a god to tell me not to murder. I can figure that out all on my own.”

Such a perspective is developed further in a 1961 article by the British philosopher Patrick Nowell-Smith entitled “Morality: Religious and Secular” in which he argues that religious morality is infantile. He defines infantility as being obsessed with laws rather than the more mature view that laws are meant to serve a purpose, and so may have exceptions, require development, changes, etc. Thus, Christian morality is infantile because we obey God like little children obey their parents—without knowing why, or even, perhaps, daring to question the commands.

Nowell-Smith doesn’t think religious morality is evil, just childish. But we could take things a step further and say with Steven Weinberg, “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”

The immaturity of those obedient to religious precepts can cause them to do terrible things: from simple standoffishness and close-mindedness, to acts of terrible violence.

Prefatory Notes

We can respond to these claims in a number of ways. There are elements in these critiques that are right, but they are mixed with error. And this becomes evident if we understand Christianity as more akin to Plato’s ethics than sophist ethics.

But first some throat clearing: Weinberg is partially right in a number of ways. Some of these will take us too far afield for this post, but we may come back to those in another article. The one that matters for us is that religion does indeed encourage decent people to do terrible things. But saying that religion makes people do bad things is kind of like saying that drinks cause people to have auto accidents. It is true that drinks can cause people to have auto accidents, but those drinks are most often alcoholic. Coffee is a drink, and probably helps prevent more accidents than it causes. So, too, Weinberg says that religion can make people good people do bad things. Yes, false religion and falsely held true religion. I may be accused of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy here, but that will have to be dealt with elsewhere.[1]

As the Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga says in a piece on the evidential problem of evil, it is strange to critique theism or religion removed from the particulars of all the other elements of that religion. He refers to this as “austere theism”—a religion whose adherents number in the zeroes. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Nordic, Greek, Roman, druidic, Wiccan, etc. etc.—these are all classified under “religions.” They are dramatically different. To critique all of them together is easy and essentially useless: Like critiquing drinks for causing accidents. Or complaining about objects for causing pain.

Morality as Natural

With that out of the way, how do we respond to the critique that Christian morality is infantile?

Unfortunately, people on both sides of the debate seem to agree on an erroneous understanding of the source of morality. It in fact comes from a problem noted by Wittgenstein in his Tractatus: For any moral claim, you can always ask, “Why?” Eventually, it seems we always end up with either “There is no reason”[2] or “Because God says so and he’ll punish you for failing to obey.”

Nowell-Smith’s claim that mature people understand the reasons for morality is not the same as saying that mature people will always agree with that morality. One may know perfectly well that action (A) will lead to terrible results for society, but may do it anyway. Do I even need to list out examples for us to recognize that this is true? They are legion.

So, Nowell-Smith might be right in terms of knowing what morality is about, but he seems overly optimistic regarding how much concern individuals have about morality. And this is where a Christian might immediately yell, “See?! You need God to make sure people obey!”

While I think the Christian’s intuition is right—we need morality to be more than (broadly agreed-upon) opinion—to make morality simply God’s opinion, enforceable by his power to punish and reward, does not solve the problem. That casts us into the Euthyphro Dilemma which causes some significant trouble (see the posts on “The Moral Argument” for details).

What is right about the Christian’s intuition is that morality needs a ground that is somehow beyond human beings. The problem is that we keep trying to answer the question of “Why?” with the belief that power—the power to control, punish, reward, in short “lording it over”—must be the ground of morality, or the most fundamental quality of being. What I mean is that we see power as the primary, and therefore the most valuable, of qualities. I’ll write up a separate piece about that issue, because it is perhaps the most important basic idea to grasp when speaking about the one, true God.

But let us say that God is not first and foremost to be understood as powerful, but as loving, self-giving, creative.[3] If that is the case, then how might we answer the “Why?” question?

When we ask, “Why?” we tend to think of motivations, and thus desires. And insofar as our desires are fundamentally aimed toward power—that is, the capacity for acquiring pleasure for ourselves and avoiding pain—then we will ultimately answer the question of “Why?” for morality with an appeal to power (punishment or reward).

But morality isn’t grounded in God’s power, but in his love, his self-giving creation. And so the appeal for morality is not that you’ll be punished for disobeying or rewarded for obeying, but that morality is tied to our very being. For God created us in love, and made us in his image. Therefore, to sin is merely to act against God’s nature, our own nature, and against the nature of the world itself.

Of course, that we are acting against our nature[4] or the nature of the world is not obvious. The world seems to run on the power to possess, control, take. The world system is a mass of life and death struggle into which we fell. But “[b]y faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Heb 11:3 ESV). The visible is the realm of power. But God’s Word—Jesus, who overcame death—has overcome the world.

The Response

So, we find in Christianity a transcendent ground that stands above human opinion or even human consensus, because it is the very stuff of which we have been made. This hearkens back to Augustine’s neoplatonic metaphysics: being is itself good, which means that morality is natural, in the deepest sense of the term. To do good is to bolster one’s very being (think C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce).

And so it is not surprising that everyone from Sam Harris to your unruly teenage neighbor has a sense that murder is bad, and can even reason through complex and rich moral ideas. What they lack is a ground. Which is why utilitarianism and moralities closely related to utilitarianism are perhaps the most popular these days—the deepest foundation we can think of in a world in which there is no God is social benefit. That is, of course, until the individual disagrees. And if the individual asks “Why?”, what ultimate answer can be given? Punishment or reward from society.

I’d rather be infantile before God than before society, since the former is far greater than the latter.

But far better to get away from morality that must appeal to power for its authority. Christianity grounds morality in love, which is the root of our being.

So how does the Christian answer Nowell-Smith’s claim of infantility, or Weinberg’s claim that religion makes good people do bad things?

Infantility has already been answered. Like a child, we may initially obey God because we are seeking to avoid punishment and gain reward, but once we come to understand that his commands—the greatest being to love God and love neighbor—are instructions on how to become fully what we are, our fear is no longer about punishment, but fear of our own attraction to un-being, nothingness, death. That is why the wages of sin is death—since sin is battling against our very being, death is the obvious result—but the self-giving creative act of God is eternal life—becoming fully what God has and is creating us to be results in life so full that it never ends.

Does religion cause good people to do bad things? Absolutely. Do good people who claim to be acting in the name of Jesus do bad things? Definitely.[5] False religions and false worship—aimed toward that which is most powerful and seeks to emulate that power—will surely encourage people to lean on that power to justify acting upon selfish inclinations. In fact, they worship a selfish god, so why wouldn’t they do selfish things—such as killing noncombatants to secure a place in paradise, tribalism, hateful accusation[6] without offering grace such as securing power through church division and division of the Church.

But being identified with the crucified and risen Jesus, worshiping the self-giving creator Father, through the Holy Spirit who binds the Church together in love—such can only encourage self-sacrificial love on behalf of even one’s enemies. Why? Because we see in the other person the image of the God we worship. And we identify with him who, on the cross, asked for forgiveness for his enemies. And we worship through the One who draws people together in love.

Would that make people do bad things? Surely not. But we are prone to (willful) misunderstanding. We twist. Because, despite what Weinberg says, we are all a mix of good and evil. And the bad is simply a twisting, confusion, breaking of the good (of being). Since evil is merely a twisting or a corruption of the good, when we come across a great good, the opportunity for evil to twist and corrupt grows. That is why, perhaps, those who initially seek power may begin with great ideals, and once achieving power—a place in which greater good can be done—very often and very quickly become corrupt.

A Low View of the Divine

The study of Plato’s Euthyphro in the posts on The Moral Argument noted how a low view of the divine is organically tied to the belief that “might makes right,” which is the sophists’ claim.[7] We Christians have fallen for this view of power as central—which is why one of the biggest divisions within evangelicalism is a question of God’s lording-it-over power in relation to his creation. My claim is that viewing God as fundamentally power(ful) and love as a happy, but secondary or tertiary quality, is in fact a low view of God, akin to what Euthyphro held. This low view led to the fatal critique of the Euthyphro Dilemma.

Plato warned against this almost 2400 years ago. Genesis 1 showed it false well before Plato ever came on the scene.

We might perhaps need a bit more development of this idea that love is closer to the heart of who God is than power. For it might sound like I’m venturing into a universalist Santa Claus god, or perhaps a god who lacks omnipotence. I’m not. In fact, in a strange way, if God is primarily loving, it elevates his power and the demands of his holiness. That is, looking at God as primarily loving gives us a higher view of God. But that will have to wait for another entry.

[1] I could make a simple appeal to Jesus as the center of Scripture, his self-sacrifice and concern even for his enemies, but a critic would simply retort with references to the flood, Jericho, etc., in which God calls for violence. So, even though Jesus being the One to whom all Scripture points is correct and does, I think, deal with the problem, the meaning of this claim has to be fleshed out more to deal with a thoughtful critic of Christianity, which I will do below. Of course, I won’t deal with the violence of Israel’s conquering army or the widespread destruction apparently caused by God himself. That would require more work, but I will say that I do not think there is a real problem here.

[2] “There is no reason” is the substance of claims such as “society dictates such a moral claim” or “I feel like it”—that is, there is no reason beyond mere opinion.

[3] This is not a simple idea to grasp because it is terribly counterintuitive, or at least counter our habits of thinking. But we might say that God’s power arises from his love, rather than love being an admittedly happy, but still secondary or tertiary, property added to someone who is primarily power. Such an idea appears in poetry and stories, in which love is said to conquer all, even death. The resurrection of Jesus proves such a fanciful idea to be based in truth. The doctrine of the Trinity shows that the historical event of the resurrection is grounded in God’s very being.

[4] In Christians circles, we often speak of our having a “sin nature.” This term makes me a bit nervous, because it makes it sound as if we are fundamentally evil creatures (i.e. that God made us evil). Sin is unnatural. Having a “sin nature” therefore means that we have something like a cancer within us that is undermining our being. Of course, the point of the term “sin nature” is to emphasize how we are incapable of curing ourselves of this disease, but rather tend to act in such a way as to encourage the growth of the cancer. That I agree with wholeheartedly.

[5] One of the Ten Commandments is against this very thing (the prohibition of taking the Lord’s name in vain has nothing to do with bad words, and everything to do with declaring that one is acting as a worshiper of God and acting in a way that does not line up with his nature), so it shouldn’t be surprising that it happens.

[6] “Satan” in Hebrew means “accuser.”

[7] It also happens to be the claim of what seems to be the origin stories of the Ancient Near East and the contemporary materialistic evolution/utilitarianism marriage.

Moral Arguments III: Might Might Make Right, Right?

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Filed Under: Apologetics Tagged With: , , , ,

In the previous two posts, we’ve talked about one of the central criticisms of any claim that morality is derived in some way from a divine being: The Euthyphro Dilemma. We’ve looked briefly at the original text of Plato’s Euthyphro, examined how the Dilemma develops in the dialogue. And, so far, we have found Plato/Socrates not to be a critic of the idea that one can derive morality from a divine being, but rather in the kind of divine beings in which Euthyphro believed—a set of gods who are in often violent disagreement over justice and other matters related to virtue and the good.

Given that Christianity holds no such view of God, it may seem that the Euthyphro Dilemma simply has nothing to do with us. But that is not precisely correct. If we reject the claim that there is a standard of good and evil apart from, and above, God, we still have the problem of the possible arbitrariness of God’s commands. Of course, the Christian response would surely be something like this: “But God is unchangingly good, so therefore there is no arbitrariness.”

But realize what is taking place when one makes such a statement: You are appealing to a standard apart from God—for to declare “God is good” is to compare Him to a standard of goodness. In fact, modern formulations of the Euthyphro Dilemma raise this issue—that to embrace the view that something is good only because God loves it is to make the statement “God is good” essentially meaningless.

Some believers might respond thusly: God is the Creator of all things and beings (other than God). There can be no greater justification for absolute authority over a domain than being the creator ex nihilo of the domain and all that inhabits it. Thus, there can be no other standard except God’s will.

This isn’t a bad response. It makes sense. But it makes sense because there is an appeal to a standard apart from God! Did you see it sneak in? The standard of justification for authority over a domain seems to be a standard under which God labors.

In addition, we could imagine, surely, an evil being creating a domain ex nihilo for the sake of torturing it’s hapless inhabitants. Would that being have the right to do so? If the standard of authority over a domain is in fact correct, then yes. But would that being be good? Surely not! Can we ever embrace the claim, lived out by so many in power, that might makes right? We cannot help but appeal to a standard over the one in power. Are we allowed to do so when talking about God? Can we stop ourselves? Can “good” have meaning if we simply let the creator of a domain be the standard by virtue of the power of that being?[1]

The philosopher Leibniz rejected the view that God’s power over creation was sufficient for His command to be good thus:

“In saying, therefore, that things are not good according to any standard of goodness, but simply by the will of God, it seems to me that one destroys, without realizing it, all the love of God and all his glory; for why praise him for what he has done, if he would be equally praiseworthy in doing the contrary? Where will be his justice and his wisdom if he has only a certain despotic power, if arbitrary will takes the place of reasonableness, and if in accord with the definition of tyrants, justice consists in that which is pleasing to the most powerful.”[2]

The more contemporary James Rachels agrees, but claims that this approach undermines our capacity to even declare God to be good:

“[I]f we accept the idea that good and bad are defined by reference to God’s will, this notion is deprived of any meaning. What could it mean to say that God’s commands are good? If ‘X is good’ means ‘X is commanded by God,’ then ‘God’s commands are good’ would mean only ‘God’s commands are commanded by God,’ an empty truism.”[3]

I do not think, though, that we must reject the claim that what is good is determined in some way by God’s will or God’s love. Let’s take another cue from Plato. The Euthyphro, as you’ll recall from the second post in this series, is a dialogue that is written on the backdrop of coercion used to support religious morality. In addition, Euthyphro, the arrogant seer whose pride keeps him from admitting his ignorance, is himself attempting to leverage legal-religious power against his father to compel some sort of religious purity. In short, Plato is surely criticizing the use of and appeal to power as a source of morality. And, of course, gods who themselves exhibit no steady morality can only possess authority over the standard of piety by means of their power. If you’re paying close attention, Plato is writing a dialogue that, at minimum, is declaring emphatically that might does not make right—neither human nor divine might is sufficient to make an action good. But that does not mean that he thinks that morality cannot come from a divine being. It just cannot be derived from power without falling prey to the Euthyphro Dilemma.

What, then, is the clue that Plato offers us? And can Christians use it to defend a view of morality that is dependent on the will of God?

If not power, then how might God be a source of morality? In the next post, we will look at Plato’s primary philosophical enemy, the sophists, and with that background we can derive some important insights into Plato’s possible solution to the Euthyphro Dilemma.

[1] Another possible response: Maybe God commands His own existence, and thus is judged good by His self-preservation. It is not entirely clear what this means, but it clearly leaves us back where we started. That God calls Himself good simply throws us back to the question: But is God good so that He can call himself good?

[2] G.W. von Leibniz, “Discourse on Metaphysics,” in Selections, ed. Philip P. Wiener (New York: Scribner, 1951), 292.

[3] James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, 4th ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 51. Both this and the previous quote by Leibniz were found in Lewis Vaughn, Doing Ethics, 5th ed. (New York: Norton, 2019), 11.

Moral Arguments II: Disagreeing over God(s)

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Filed Under: Apologetics, Defending the Faith, From the Board, Philosophy Tagged With: , , ,

When we make arguments in support of a Christian view, those arguments can avoid accusations of question-begging by appeal to sources other than Scripture. Given that the Euthyphro Dilemma, which has been wielded against the idea of God as a source of morality, originated with Plato, what if Plato already had within the Euthyphro the answer, or the beginning of an answer, to the Dilemma that in fact supported the Christian perspective?[1]

Socrates’ Disagreement with Euthyphro

Plato’s Euthyphro is a dialogue between Socrates, who is about to be tried, in part, for impiety, and the younger seer Euthyphro, who claims to know all there is to know about religious matters. Socrates seeks to learn what piety is from Euthyphro.

There are a number of important events that take place in the dialogue that impact the way that we should approach the Dilemma. First, Euthyphro is a know-it-all, in the bad sense. Second, the entire episode must be read as driven in large part by force or coercion. What I mean is this: Socrates is driven to this setting (that is, the king-archon’s court, which determined whether issues of religious pollution, such as impiety or murder, should be sent to court) by accusations of wrong-doing by those who were angry at him. In turn, Euthyphro is at the king-archon’s court to accuse his father of murder, due to a complicated situation in which the father (perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not) caused the death of a servant (who himself had killed another servant). In both cases—Socrates’s accusers and Euthyphro—they were using legal compulsion to cause some change in the accused.

Third, while Socrates spends most of the dialogue, as with most of his conversations, simply drawing out the implications of Euthyphro’s own claims, there is one point at which he directly disagrees with Euthyphro.[2] Such a direct disagreement is rarely heard from Socrates, usually appearing no more than once in a dialogue. And that should draw our attention. This disagreement is where we’ll begin to see how Socrates the character[3] (and Plato the author) possesses a view similar to Christianity, and how the arrogant Euthyphro does not.

The disagreement begins with Euthyphro’s justification of his own prosecution of his father by reference to the gods’ activities. After all, Euthyphro claims, “Zeus is the best and most just of the gods, yet…he bound his father because he unjustly swallowed his sons, and that he in turn castrated his father for similar reasons” (5e-6a). Socrates responds, “…I find it hard to accept things like that being said about the gods…Tell me, by the god of friendship, do you really believe these things are true?” (6a-6b).

Already here, we should feel a kind of kinship with Socrates: “…that there is really war among the gods, and terrible enmities and battles, and other such things…” (6b) we, too, would reject. In part, because we’re not polytheists, but also because it does not seem like something worthy of a god to act in such a way. Nevertheless, Euthyphro embraces such stories as true. Socrates, who is trying to draw out of Euthyphro what he believes, simply agrees for the sake of argument, and moves on to talk about piety. Thus begins the usual Socratic dialogue of Euthyphro giving a definition of piety, and Socrates showing how that definition leads to a conclusion that Euthyphro himself cannot accept, and thus asking Euthyphro for another definition. Rinse and repeat, until Euthyphro gives up in frustration and leaves.

Why the Disagreement Matters

The definition that Euthyphro gives that leads to the Dilemma is this: “[T]he pious is what all the gods love” (9e).[4] What could be wrong with this definition? Remember that the gods warred with one another, and that such wars surely arose from disagreements over what is in fact dear. This suggests that they had differing views on, say, what was just and unjust, over what was good and evil, and so forth. If so, then their loving of the same thing was purely a matter of chance. If they could not agree on the good, then why would their unanimous love mean anything except that they happened to all like the same thing. We in the U.S. have managed to be in enmity with one another over everything from politics to how we refer to our dogs[5]–meanwhile, we are borderline unanimous in our love of pizza. Does that make pizza a morally good thing, and eating pizza a virtuous act? If not, then neither would the affection felt by the gods—who seem to have an understanding of the Good that is not qualitatively different than ours—make something good or virtuous.

Socrates capitalizes on this problem by formulating his Euthyphro Dilemma. Now, in fact, it would have been possible for Euthphro to avoid the dilemma had he not agreed to some of the statements made by Socrates that led up to the Dilemma. Most importantly, Socrates makes this series of claims about something being carried and being a carried thing, that sounds rather strange. But his point is something like this: If “piety” simply means “a thing being loved by the gods,” then saying “the pious is that which is loved by the gods” means nothing more than “a thing being loved by the gods is defined as that which is loved by the gods.” You’ll recognize that this definition doesn’t seem helpful in determining what kinds of actions would be pious or impious. And thus it leaves us without any knowledge of what piety could be.

And this problem is not solved by saying that the love of the gods makes something pious. For the gods of Euthyphro, as we’ve already seen, are at war over what constitutes the just and the unjust, and other matters of central important for understanding the good and the virtuous. Therefore, the only method we’d have for determining what is pious is by a poll of the gods at any point (for what they hold as good and evil might change from time to time as well).

The Start of a Solution

Is there a solution to the Dilemma? There are two solutions. Either define morality apart from the gods altogether, or go back to the disagreement and reject Euthyphro’s view of the gods.

As Christians, removing morality from God seems wrong. So, let’s see if there is a solution by going back and rejecting Euthyphro’s view of the gods.

Firstly, we obviously reject his polytheism. And this leads to, secondly, the claim that there is no division within God about what is just and good—God is not at war with Himself, nor are Father, Son, and Spirit at war over what is right and good.

Does this solve the problem? It’s the beginning of the solution, but it does not quite finish the job.

We’ll see further how Plato, and a fan of his, Augustine, can help us finish solving the contemporary form of the Euthyphro Dilemma long before it was ever formulated. We’ll get to that next time.

[1] Of course, I haven’t tried to define “the Christian perspective” on the relationship between God and morality. Let me simply say that I think most Christians believe morality comes from God, but also want to avoid the problem of apparent arbitrariness exposed by the Euthyphro Dilemma.

[2] Such singular disagreements takes place in a number of the dialogues, and, just as in the Euthyphro, mark a significant turning point in the conversation. A couple of the more obvious examples, in case you’re interested, can be found in Republic II, 372d-373a and Meno 86d-87a.

[3] Socrates was very likely a real person, but I refer to him as a “character” here because we are reading here Plato’s presentation of Socrates. How accurate to real life is this depiction? Did these events in fact take place? We can’t be sure.

[4] This specific definition follows from Euthyphro saying that the pious is what is dear to the gods, without specifically claiming that it is what all the gods love. Given that the gods were at war and enmity, and that such strife arises from differences of opinion about important matters, such as justice, beauty, the good, what is dear to the gods (piety) could change from god to god. Thus, something could be both pious and impious (dear to, say, Zeus, and hated by Athena—like the situation faced by Agamemnon in Aeschylus’ tragedy, where two gods demanded opposing actions). The solution for Euthyphro was, therefore, to say that piety is what all the gods agree is good.

[5] If you have a “fur baby”…well, I’ll not comment.

Moral Arguments I: The Euthyphro Dilemma

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Filed Under: Apologetics, Defending the Faith, Philosophy Tagged With: , , , ,

Morality, God, and the Euthyphro Dilemma

Christians often appeal to the moral argument when speaking of the secular movement of our culture, and its (probably related) moral decay: “Without God,” one might say, “there is no ground for morality. We’ve rejected belief in God and now we’re reaping what we’ve sown.”

If you’ve ever made this claim, any atheist who has reflected on this issue at all will respond quickly, “I don’t need a God who tells me what is moral, and I don’t need threats of punishment or promise of rewards to goad me into acting morally.”

I believe there is something important in the Christian claim. And we’ll get to that in time. But I think there is also a tremendously important seed of truth in the atheist criticism of the Christian claim. Isn’t it more virtuous to do the good simply because it is good, rather than because someone tells you to do it? Doesn’t it show a richer and deeper intellect to know what is good without having to be told? To reflect on this, let’s reflect on a writing that’s a few hundred years older than the New Testament.

The Euthyphro Dilemma: Or the Problem with Appealing to God for Morality

In the dialogue Euthyphro,[1] we find Socrates, about to go to trial for alleged impiety and corruption of the youth, talking with the religiously knowledgeable eponymous interlocuter. Euthyphro is not ashamed to declare his own superiority in all things religious to most Greeks, and so Socrates engages him in his famous style of asking what some virtue is. In this case, Socrates is seeking some way to respond to the accusation of impiety, for he claims (in his usual way) not to know what piety is. He asks Euthyphro (in his usual “What is X?” way) what piety is. Euthyphro is quick to offer various answers, all of which fail.[2] And that is how the dialogue seems to end—with no good answer to the question.

But the dialogue contains a discussion that has become a perennial response to any morality that appeals to a divine being. Euthyphro, after already failing in a few responses, comes to the following claim: “[T]he pious is what all the gods love.”[3] How Socrates responds to this claim, leading Euthyphro to the dilemma named after him, is almost universally known among philosophers, and has morphed into a modernized version of the Euthyphro Dilemma. The Dilemma is quite simple, though not so simply answered: Is something pious because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is pious?

The Dilemma is troubling because of the implications of each choice. If we choose the latter choice—that God (for Euthyphro, all the gods unanimously, but we’ll just switch to “God” here) loves it because it is pious, then we recognize a moral standard that is external (and probably above) God. If that is the case, then we do not need God for morality.

What of the other option—the one a Christian might more likely choose—that something is pious because God loves it? This option creates two related problems. The first is that it seems to mean that God could love (or command) something that is terrible, and that would make it good. So, say, God decides that torturing children is a good thing. Would we have no means of judging God’s command to be evil?[4] If we can only appeal to God’s love or command, then we cannot take into account the cries and pleas of the children. And that seems absurd.

The second problem is related: If God’s love/will/command makes something pious (or, more broadly, good), then we have no capacity for discerning what is good in any particular situation unless we have been given a clear command from God. So, in most instances, it seems we would be left unsure about whether something is good or bad. Morality would be, from our perspective, arbitrary.

There are other issues that can arise from choosing this option in the Dilemma, but these are, I think, sufficient to make the point.

And what is the point? It seems, in this way of presenting the Euthyphro Dilemma, that appeal to God’s will, love, command, whatever, to determine what is good is meaningless. For if God loves something because it is good, then God is a needless addition to morality. And if something is good because God loves it, then morality is so arbitrary from our perspective that it is not helpful in determining most of our choices.[5]

The Euthyphro Dilemma, as applied to contemporary ethics therefore seems to side with the atheist: It’s best to keep God and morality separate—but now, not merely because one seems more thoughtful and more virtuous when acting morally without reference to God, but because appeal to God leads to unacceptable conclusions.

What Would…er…Socrates Do?

My guess is that, if you’re reading this, you very likely have an answer for this problem, or could probably point to a resource that responds to this problem. I was always somewhat perplexed by the Euthyphro Problem because it seemed that a Christian solution to the problem was, though not exactly simple, readily available.

But, in good apologetic fashion, I’ll not appeal to Scripture or Christian theology to respond to this problem. Rather, I plan to dive a bit more into the Euthyphro, to see if the pre-Christian philosopher Plato offers any possible response to this problem, and whether his answer is compatible, or even sheds some light on the Christian view. (Hint: He does. And, I’ll argue, it does.)

We’ll get to that in the following piece.

 

[1] If you’d like to read it, you can find it online and in various books. For a great source in which you can read it in English and in the Greek (and it also includes lexicon and parsing working on site), check out http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/  For a direct link to the English translation of the Euthyphro, go here: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0170%3atext%3dEuthyph.

[2] An answer that fails in a dialogue with Socrates is an answer that leads to some inconsistency with another belief that the answerer holds or to some contradictory set of claims. Such failure is not a matter of the person giving an answer that does not match what Socrates knows is the right answer—because Socrates never gives the right answer, and claims not to have known any of the right answers.

[3] Plato, Euthyphro, 9e.

[4] In addition, we have no means of determining that “God is good,” because there is no standard by which we can measure Him. “God is good” would simply translate into “God does what God does,” which amounts to saying nothing at all. Or, perhaps, what is implied in a statement such as “God is good” would be something a bit more sinister: Might makes right.

[5] Of course, we have what Scripture offers us, but I think most of us believe that we have some awareness of, and ability to reason about, ethics apart from Scripture. We believe that we should be able to discuss rights, obligations, good and evil with people of varying backgrounds, not simply with those who hold to Scripture. And therefore it seems that we have to have some sort of knowledge of ethics apart from reference to the one, true God. Therefore saying that we know of morality only because of God’s commands in Scripture seems like something to which few of us would really agree.