I’ll have to figure out who Kman is and “Thank” him for sending people to my site who make me try to come up with answers to tough questions :-) I wish I had all the answers that could satisfy everyone…but then I suppose there wouldn’t be any discussion and I wouldn’t learn anything myself…and what fun is that?

Some of the laws and commands of God in the old testament are the most difficult things for me to come to grips with as a Christian myself, and something I have been wanting to study a bit further. It would be easier to leave Yahweh out of the discussion and focus only on Jesus, but that’s not what Jesus teaches, so as a Christian, I have some tough questions to answer.

I have some initial thoughts, but I’ll get back to you with my take on the question and why I still believe in Him as a good God, even with the things He commanded in the old testament. Can’t do much more than that…and I’ll refer you to a couple of guys who can add more insight and explain a similar position making more sense than I can. Before that, I’ll try to speak to most of your other points too…

Re: Arbitrarily defining ‘Goodness’

Defining goodness as that which flows from the nature of God (not just acts and commands, but actual attributes, like mercy and justice, etc.) is not an arbitrary definition in my view.

I believe that the existence of an objective moral standard is real and knowable…like we know that we exist. People can argue that maybe we don’t exist as we think and we’re in some kind of Matrix with Keanu Reeves (or Neo if you prefer :-) but that just leaves us with uncertainty about everything. If we don’t accept some things, we are unable to really know anything. In my view, our own existence is a basic human knowledge that has to be taken for granted. If we can’t know we exist, we can’t know anything, so there is no reason for having discussions like this anyway.

I believe basic morality is knowable in much the same way. In my example of torturing babies, for example, I don’t believe it is only our social constructs that makes this a bad thing, but it truly is a bad thing, and there’s no situation where it would be a good thing, period. I’m sure you can understand why someone would hold this view, given your own revulsion to the idea. You may not agree that it is an absolutely objective standard and that would be where we differ in opinion. If it’s not an absolute standard, then there are potential times or situations where torturing babies would be good, and my view of morality would be incorrect. I don’t believe there are possible situations that could make it OK.

If I am correct in thinking there is an absolute morality, to explain it I must find the standard for that morality, and the only thing that makes sense is a moral being that has authority to define the standard. This would be what we think of as God, and I believe, for multiple reasons, many of which I write about on this blog, that the best explanation for who that God is would be the Christian God.

In my view, I am not arbitrarily appealing to God or defining His nature as the source of morality. I believe there are lots of good reasons to believe that a God exists and lots of good reasons that the Christian God fits the profile…and that you or I or any other human don’t fit that profile (if I can be so bold to speak for you on that point :-) So defining goodness as what coincides with my or your nature isn’t the same thing as defining goodness as what coincides with the nature of the being who is necessary for objective morality to exist.

You could break it down something like this:

- There is an objective moral standard we are all held accountable to live by.
- A moral being with authority to set the standard is needed to explain this objective morality.
- The Christian God fits the necessary attributes of the required standard-giver or lawgiver.

There are thousands of issues and questions about the existence of God, why the Christian God, etc, etc. Some of these have been discussed in this blog and others will be, but I’ll never get to them all and I won’t have great answers for some of them anyway!

One of the things I’ve come to realize is that I can logically believe in God even if I don’t have ALL the answers. If I have ten pieces of evidence that point toward the existence of God and one piece that I don’t really understand or seems to point elsewhere…I still have overwhelming evidence for the existence of God. I am not required to throw out the other ten based on the one I don’t ‘get’…and I’m not comfortable in doing so. I have a science background, and that would just be bad science unless something definitively and unequivocally disproved the actual hypothesis. I have seen nothing that comes close to doing that.

So I guess that’s what I have to say about the arbitrariness of defining goodness as coinciding with God’s nature…if you believe in objective morality it needs a standard and I believe the evidence points to God. I’ve written more about objective morality more specifically in other posts.

I’m busy with several projects at the moment, so don’t take it personally if I take a while to get back on any other comments!

Take care, and thanks for your replies.

It just seems that every appeal to God in terms of morality is arbitrary or pointless: [1] Defining “goodness” as coinciding with Yahweh’s nature, arbitrary. It seems to be just defining things and picking standards to go by. [2] God simply commanding something, arbitrary. Others can command things, and might doesn’t make right (we can probably agree on that.) [3] God appealing to a higher standard, pointless (cause then God wouldn’t need to be invoked, and he would be a pointless step–we could appeal directly to that higher standard instead.) All three of these just seem completely and utterly arbitrary or pointless to me. (And apparently you agree about [2] and [3], since you reject that dilemma. But what do you have to say about [1]?)

I suppose I’ll talk about the rest of the post here too:

In your demonstration for objective values, you ask that question about torturing babies, and you ask if it is wrong (for everyone, everywhere.) Don’t we have to define wrong first? If we define it as going against a particular standard, then don’t we have to choose the standard? So, to the answer for that question, I ask, “By what standard?” I would say, that by my standard, yes it is wrong. But I recognize that my standard is subjective (“characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind.” — Merriam-Webster.) This doesn’t mean I have to say that torturing babies may be right in some circumstance, my standard my prohibit that action in any circumstance. But again, my standard is subjective. It is objectively true that I have a subjective standard, but the standard itself is subjective (and ultimately there because of evolution, and shaped by a culmination of all my past experiences and how I have perceived them.)

I just feel that if objective or absolute morality exists, independent of our beliefs and perceptions, (in the same way that a certain house may be painted red, independently of what color we believe it is,) then something inherent about a particular action must be shown to be “right” or “wrong” in the same way something is shown to be “red” or “round.” And I haven’t seen that inherent or intrinsic property demonstrated to exist yet.

Note: Just because a standard is subjective, it doesn’t mean it is any less useful in terms of helping create an happy and healthy and safe environment (but I think you probably already know that, since you concede that atheists can be moral too, so I won’t get into that, unless you just want to :P)

And when you mentioned the “push an old lady down or help her across the street” thing in the comment above (don’t want to quote the whole thing, but you know what I’m talking about), lets take an actual look at one of these “good” things that is consistent with Yahweh’s nature, something actually found in the Bible in this reality, found in the book of Numbers:

Numbers 15:32-36 (King James Version)
32And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day.
33And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation.
34And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him.
35And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.
36And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses.

Your old lady scenario reminded me of this passage. Here, instead of an old lady, we have a man, and instead of crossing the street, we see he is gathering sticks (we don’t know what for, maybe it was to build a fire, or to trade, it doesn’t say.) Do they stop to help him? No. And it would have been much nicer to push him down, rather than what they actually did do. They locked him up and stoned him to death. For gathering sticks on a Saturday. The Death Penalty. For gathering sticks on a Saturday.

I’m not saying that this disproves Yahweh or anything (I think the argument from evil is flawed.) I’m simply raising the question to you: Is this really the nature/standard that you think should be used as a standard for “goodness”?

(And there’s plenty of other verses I could choose, like Yahweh’s Old Testament law forcing poor, unmarried girls who get raped to marry the man who raped her, but I think the example above should suffice for now at least.)

Also, this is “Guest” from the last note, if you couldn’t tell. And, by the way, nice to meet you Rod :) A guy I met in a chat room pointed me to this site… he said he was a friend of yours. His screen name was Kman.
And I like the site btw, its a nice setup you got here :P
Anyways, take care :)

“God is either bound by His nature or not bound by His nature” I agree! Rather than a dilemma, this appears to me to be a basic rule of logic, such as “My wife is either pregnant, or she is not pregnant.” (Though some philosopher out there may want to argue the terminology for some reason I’m unaware of. ) This is not Euthyphro’s Dilemma…the second part of your statement is actually what I use to show Eythyphro’s Dilemma is a false one.

I have no problem with God being ‘bound’ by His own nature.

The idea that morality stems from the nature of God, and God is unable to act in contradiction to his own nature (or is ‘bound’ by His own nature, if you will), is not one of the horns of Euthyphro , but the third option I have presented in other posts that splits the horns of Euthyphro’s dilemma!

Euthyphro’s problem was that God either 1) made up the rules arbitrarily, or was 2) bound by a higher moral authority that was greater than God. If morality flows from God’s nature, it is not from a higher moral authoirity, but God Himself. If he is bound by His own nature as to what laws and commandments He gives, it eliminates the problem of arbitrary law making.

So I would say there is no dilemma, and I agree with the second part of your statement…that God is bound by His own nature. This fits perfectly with the argument from morality for the existance of God and the Christian concept of God as the source of all morality.

Thanks again for your comment.