Patrick Reany (posted 19 January 2023)
Some background on Plato's Euthyphro argument.
The ancient greek philosopher Plato put forward in one of his books the
argument that we have a choice of beliefs about what is right and wrong
(or pious and unpious): 1) That which the gods think is pious is received
of them from some outside source, which accounts for their belief that it
is pious. 2) The gods invent their own notion of piety and then hand that
notion down to humans. At stake is the status of piety itself. Is piety
logically prior to the gods, or is it the invention of the gods? And by
'invention', I don't mean merely the concept of piety, but rather the
particular rules of piety. I don't believe that the conceptual origin of
piety is addressed by Plato in his argument. And this is as far as I will
go with the classical version of this topic. The modern-day version of it,
particularly as it pertains to God, especially the Christian God, of whom
I claim to be a follower, is where I'll take the discussion now.
Some background on the modern Euthyphro argument.
We Christians get our moral rules from God, but does God get the
moral rules He hands down to us from some external source? I don't
believe that I can answer this question without making some kind of
principal assumption that bears on the nature of what we mean by a
'set of rules'. So, here goes:
Every intelligible set of rules has an intelligent source.Definition: Something is intelligible (in the form of a communication
One thing I want to make clear from the start is that I do not intend
to use my argument to prove that Christianity is true or that there is
a God. Why? Because my argument begins at the same place that
Plato seemed to start his essay off at, which is that there is a god/s to
begin with. Next, I want to set forth my first rule of rationality:
Whatever is true, is rational.
Now, unless I state otherwise, what I have to say about the notions of right
and wrong are from the Biblical perspective. From that understanding,
people have three modes by which they can learn what God expects of them
in normal right living. The first two of these modes are the overwhelmingly
normal way we are to receive knowledge of God's will for our righteous
living. The third way, I expect to be rather rare for most of us. The first is
'direct revelation' from God. That direct revelation can be first-hand (where
God is talking directly to the individual, either by some epiphany, angel,
vision, or manifestation) or by the mouth or writing of a genuine prophet
of God. The second is through our own conscience, which is where I believe
that God tries to get through to us. I think that we mostly 'feel' through
our conscience, rather than hear a voice through it, though I wouldn't
eliminate that as a possibility. The third way is for God to speak to us
directly, probably in our inner man, yet this individual is not a prophet of
God, and the communication being primarily personal.
To those who are trying to please the God of the Bible, what constitutes
right living before God is very time-dependent, meaning, it is a function of
which dispensation one lives within. The dispensations begin with the time
prior to the Fall, then just after the Fall. Then the time of Noah, which goes
up to the time that God called Abraham to His service, which lasted up to the
time of Moses (when he received the Law of Moses). That period lasted
until the begining of the Church Age, which was instituted by Jesus, and
formally inaugurated when the Holy Spirit gave tongues to the Apostles and
the other disciples on the First Pentacost after Jesus ascended into heaven.
Morality is tailored to the universe that God created
So, is God the inventor of piety or is He the receiver of piety, that is, of
some list of rules concerning right and wrong? Claim: If God is the inventor
of piety, then piety is 'arbitrary', in that it is merely whatever God decides
is right and wrong. Well, my God is a moral God, so the list of rules of moral
code that He then gives us comes from His absolute nature. Still, I suppose
God had some choice in what He would lay on us as requirements of right
living before Him. But does having some leeway in what He gave us
constitute being arbitrary? Well, first we should be clear on what we mean
by being 'arbitrary'.
From https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arbitrary
Existing or coming about seemingly at random or by chance orOf course that dictionary presented other definitions, but I don't want to list
as a capricious and unreasonable act of will.
I think the closest we can come to claiming that God acts arbitrarily is how
He started the whole thing with mankind.
Known unto God are all his works fromSo, in that time before He made Mankind, or the universe, or the angels,
the beginning of the world. -- Acts 15:18
Objective Morality
Proverbs 18:13 (KJV)
He that answereth a matter before he heareth it,
it is folly and shame unto him.
This notion of Objective Morality is a bugaboo to both Christians and
atheists. I definitely believe in morality for humans, but not objective
morality. In other words, the adjective 'objective' really doesn't apply
to the notion of 'morality'. Let's define 'objective'. I'll give my own
definition:
objective -- in the sense of 'objective truth', truth being independentThe whole idea of having an objective truth is to have some kind of
of the particular subject (person) making or investigating the truth
claim (i.e., not subject to mere opinion); universal in its measurement,
as prescribed by Mankind.
If there is some sense of an objective morality, it must be known to God,
not man. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that God knows what
the best moral decision is for each one of us at all times. But that doesn't
mean that, even those who are sincerely trying to always do the right
thing, even know what the right thing is in every circumstance. If, in a
given situation, we only have bad choices before us, we are sure to pick
a bad one.
Situation ethics is a real thing to God!
Jesus, Himself, gave us examples of situation ethics
in Matthew 12:1-8:
At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn;What Jesus is saying is that circumstances have a definite role to play
and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears
of corn and to eat.
But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy
disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day.
But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when
he was an hungred, and they that were with him;
How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread,
which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which
were with him, but only for the priests?
Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days
the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?
But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the
temple.
But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and
not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.
For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.
Recorded in Matthew 5:8, we find Jesus saying, "Blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see God." My interpretation of this
verse is that those whose actions come out of pure motives will be
blessed. And "pure motives" means to be without evil-intent or
hypocrisy.
Furthermore, we are told to apply our consciences to the task of
making personal moral decisions in life. Oddly enough, what can
be totally right behavior for one person, can be totally wrong for
another under the same circumstances. The apostle Paul told us
that we have to be fully convinced when making decisions in these
grey areas. In Romans 14:4-5, we read,
Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his
own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden
up: for God is able to make him stand. One man esteemeth
one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
Is God the Receiver of Moral Truth?
For the sake of argument, let us assume that there exists some Master
Rule book of right and wrong that even God is subject to. Okay. Where
did it come from? God, as an intelligent being, would have to receive
an intelligible encoding of this set of moral rules. But by the first
assumption that I proclaimed, that would have to be devised by an
intelligent being. This source being would have to be somewhat
godlike to be the instructor of God. God Himself claims that no one
has been His instructor/councilor. [Isaiah 40:13]
And this doesn't solve the problem, anyway. We could then ask this
source being to tell us where He got his set of moral rules.
So, what's the upshot of all of this? First, God is a moral being who
gave us moral rules to live by. As there is no other source from which
God could get these rules, He had to be their source. Lastly, if, in the
end, God would even admit that the rules He made up for Himself or
for us is "arbitrary", so what? For me, it's a very simple choice. I
either decide to submit to Him and His rules or I don't. But if we really
want to please God, we have to be All-In.
God isn't losing any sleep fretting over the fact that you have a
problem with how God has been running the universe.
Jesus once said:
And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. -- Matthew 11:6
You either get control of your lusts and feelings of entitlement,
or they will get control of you.
-- Ilfinor