A Response to the Euthyphro Dilemma

The Euthypro Dilemma is an attempt to show that the Divine Command Theory is false. In this blog I will attempt to show that this dilemma falls short of accomplishing this task.

The Euthypro Dilemma:

The Dilemma begins by posing a question that is intended to show that the DCT is false. The question is, "Are morally good acts willed by God because they are morally good, or are they morally good because they are willed by God?" Lets take a look at these alternatives.

If They Are Good...

If the theist attempting to defend the divine command theory were to answer the dilemma by saying that God wills morally good acts because they are morally good, then he seems to fall into a trap. This trap is called the independence problem, which basically says that if God wills moral acts because they are morally good, then these acts must be morally good prior to God willing them, which means that they are good independently of God's will. The full implaction of this is that moral goodness is independent of God, which means that God is merely a messenger for the moral law. This is not good for Christians, seeing as how they hold that God is not subject to anything outside of Himself. Yet, if the moral law exists independently of Him, then it appears that He is subject to a law outside of Himself. So this answer cannot be correct.

If God Wills Them...

On the other hand, if an actions moral worth is based solely on whether or not God deems it moral at that moment, then all moral commands are arbitrary. To illustrate this point, imagine that God, right at this moment, decreed that wearing sandles with velcro straps was a moral evil. Well, as far as we know, it has never before been a moral evil to wear velcro strap sandles. However, all it takes for an action to gain moral worth (or to lose it) would be for God to say, "thus says the Lord." Even though this option could answer objections to some of God's seemingly immoral conduct (such as His command to have Abraham sacrafice his son Isaac), I highly doubt anyone would really give full support to this idea.

The Dilemma

So, it would appear that we have reached a dilemma. If God wills good acts because they are good, then He is not as great as we had thought, and if an acts moral goodness is dependent upon God's decree, then morality is arbitrary. However, I believe that this dilemma can be answered with a variation of the first option.

A Look at God's Nature

We must first take a brief look at the nature of God in order to understand how this solution will work. For starters, we must remember that God is absolute. In other words, He is the ultimate reality. There is nothing that can exist independently of God, not even a concept or a quality. Lets take the quality of beauty for example. Is God beautiful? No, God is not beautiful. Rather, God is beauty. What I mean by this is that God does not merely possess the quality of beauty, but rather the quality itself exists because God is beauty. Likewise, God is not good because He adheres to a standard of morality outside of Himself, but in actuality God Himself is that standard. So when God says that it is wrong to do something, He is not saying it because He has a scroll that He found sometime during His eternal existence that tells Him what to do. Rather, God's decrees of right and wrong are a reflection of His own moral character. So in reality, when we do something immoral what we are actually doing is acting contrary to God's character; we are in a sense, rebelling against Him. We must remember that we are made in the image of God, and so we are held to the very standard of God Himself. Every time we do something wrong (like steal, kill, lust) we are violating the image of God that He has given us, and likewise, we are sinning against God Himself. Lets look at an example:

Lets say that you are a father, and you have a beautiful daughter. Now lets say your daughter has a problem. Everytime a guy asks to have sex with her, she agrees, and you have to watch. Over time, you would probably see that she begins to change drastically. She may begin to hate herself, and act out accordingly. Her sin affects her very soul, and she begins to deteriorate. However, her sins also affect you, her father. That is how it is with God. When we sin we are affected personally (and so are the people in our lives), but God is also offended deeply by what we do. The reason for this, as said before, is that we are made in God's image, and are expected to live accordingly. Our failure to do so is what is known as sin.

(Note: I understand that this may be difficult to understand, and if you want me to I will be more than willing to go more in depth with this subject in another post. The main point is simply that we are made in God's image, and as a result, we are expected to live accordingly. When we sin we are not violating some law that exists independently of God, we are sinning directly against God, who is the standard.)

The Solution

In a sense, answer one is correct. God wills good acts because they are good, but the source of their goodness is found in God's own being. He Himself is the moral standard by which we are held accountable. The dilemma fails to recognize this as a possible answer, and for that reason fails to conclusively show that the Divine Command Theory is false.

In Closing

I apologize for any confusion you may have encountered. I was expecting this blog to be much shorter, and much simpler. However, in order to make my point I had to talk a bit about God's nature (which is a thing of wonder and amazement). Hopefully this has been a blessing to you! Until next time,

God bless and Jesus loves you!!