{"id":2698,"date":"2014-09-01T15:44:15","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T15:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/?p=2698"},"modified":"2014-09-01T15:44:15","modified_gmt":"2014-09-01T15:44:15","slug":"christian-theological-ethics-euthyphro-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2014\/09\/01\/christian-theological-ethics-euthyphro-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Theological Ethics: Euthyphro Dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m teaching a class in Christian Theological Ethics<\/a> as an adjunct at Alliance Theological Seminary<\/a> this term.<\/p>\n

For every class I will post a discussion question that will help frame our conversations in class.\u00a0 Often these questions will involve a concrete ethical problem.\u00a0 For the first class, however, our discussion question is a bit more theoretical.\u00a0 It comes from one of Plato’s dialogues and is a classic starting point for thinking about how theology — and particularly the doctrine of God — relates to “ethics.”<\/p>\n

Plato’s dialogues are a unique form of literature.\u00a0 They are presented as reports of conversations between a great teacher, Socrates, and some conversation partner or partners, in this case Euthyphro<\/a>.\u00a0 Socrates probes the assumptions of his interlocutors by asking pointed questions.\u00a0 In the Euthyphro dialogue, Socrates and Euthyphro are having a conversaton about goodness and justice.\u00a0 Socrates asks whether it is good and just for the state to punish a murderer, when the punishment results in harm to the murderer.\u00a0 In other words, Socrates asks why it is ethically acceptable to harm a murderer through punishment but not<\/em> ethically acceptable to harm others by committing murder.\u00a0 Euthyhpro responds by suggesting that the gods have declared murder immoral and subject to punishment.\u00a0 Socrates then asks why the will of the gods should determine what is or is not good and just.\u00a0 Here is a key part of that discussion:<\/p>\n

Euth.<\/b> . . . I should say that what all the gods love is pious and holy, and the opposite which they all hate, impious.<\/p>\n

Soc.<\/b> Ought we to enquire into the truth of this, Euthyphro, or simply to accept the mere statement on our own authority and that of others? What do you say?<\/p>\n

Euth.<\/b> We should enquire; and I believe that the statement will stand the test of enquiry.<\/p>\n

Soc.<\/b> We shall know better, my good friend, in a little while. The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A bit later in the dialogue, Socrates frames the key question as follows:<\/p>\n

Soc.<\/b> And is, then, all which is just pious? or, is that which is pious all just, but that which is just, only in part and not all, pious?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Euthyphro responds by suggesting that piety is just because it honors the gods.\u00a0 Socrates responds that people are pious because they are afraid of the gods, who have the power to destroy their lives, just as oxen or cattle obey a herdsman who weilds a whip:<\/p>\n

Soc.<\/b> I should not say that where there is fear there is also reverence; for I am sure that many persons fear poverty and disease, and the like evils, but I do not perceive that they reverence the objects of their fear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The discussion between Socrates and Euthyhpro then goes on to explore the relationship between piety and fear.<\/p>\n

All of this dialogue establishes what we today call the “Euthyphro Dilemma”:\u00a0 Is what God commands “good” because God commands it, or does God command it because it is “good”?<\/p>\n

If the former is true — what God commands is “good” because God commands it — then it is hard to see how the term “good” has any meangingful content.\u00a0 God’s commands could be entirely arbitrary.\u00a0 One day God might command us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and the next day he might command us to slaughter our neighbors.\u00a0 If we obey these arbirary commands, our obedience will arise only from fear of God’s absolute and terrible power.<\/p>\n

We might respond, then, that God only commands that which is really “good,” even if we do not always fully understand the goodness of God’s commands.\u00a0 But this response suggests that God is bound by a principle higher than God’s self — some principle of “the good.”\u00a0 The problem here is that the definition of “God” entails absolute perfection.\u00a0 There can be no principle of “the good” that limits God’s commands or compels God to act, because God would then not really be “God.”\u00a0 There would be some principle higher<\/em> or more authoritative<\/em> than “God,” which in a sense would itself by “God.”<\/p>\n

In both popular and academic literature, sermons, and so-on, you will often hear statements about morality and ethics that impale themselves on one or the other of the horns of the Euthyphro Dilemma.\u00a0 Why did God command the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites?\u00a0 A common response is along these lines:\u00a0 “Who are we to question God’s commands — God can do whatever He wants.”\u00a0 This kind of response makes God’s commands utterly arbitrary and destroys any objective concept of “the good.”\u00a0 Alternatively, we might suggest that the Biblical witness concerning these commands is untrustworthy and perhaps should be edited out of our Bibles:\u00a0 “God would never command His people to do something unjust.”\u00a0 This kind of response seems to suggest a standard of “justice” that sits in judgment over God Himself.<\/p>\n

The readings assgined for our first class point towards a way between the horns of the Euthyhpro Dilemma for Christian theological ethics.\u00a0 The key, as we will discuss in class, lies in a robust understanding of the doctrine of God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m teaching a class in Christian Theological Ethics as an adjunct at Alliance Theological Seminary this term. For every class I will post a discussion question that will help frame our conversations in class.\u00a0 Often these questions will involve a concrete ethical problem.\u00a0 For the first class, however, our discussion question is a bit more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theology","category-thought"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-Hw","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}