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So I was in class today in one of my many senior electives, Philosophy, and we began to discuss the "Promlem of the Euthyphro"

The problem is thus:

"Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"
~ Socrates in repsonse to Euthyphro's statement on what piety is.

In more modern terms, think of it this way:
"Are morally right things loved by God because they are morally right (TO) or are they morally right because they are loved by God. (TS)"

The first part (TO) suggests that things that are morally right are independent of God. God simply acts as a mediator between us and morality. God's divinity lies in God's infallible ability to figure out what among the independent moral things are right and which ones are wrong. God is not deciding what is right and wrong, God simply able to differentiate between right and wrong, and hence decipher which is which.

The second part (TS) suggests that God is integral in moral rightness. God is the creator of morality and decides what is right and wrong (morally right things are not independent of God). His divinity lies in his ability to say "Okay this is right and this is wrong", working more on the idea of "It's right and wrong because I'm God and I say so."

So which, in your opinion, is the better option? TO? TS? Neither?

BEFORE REPLYING, READ THIS
This topic is not a place for you to argue the existence of God. Do not use that argument, because that is not relevant to the discussion. This is a question to be answered from the perspective of one who believes in God, and therefore, to answer it, you must play the part of someone who does believe in God. Do not change this topic into a "Does God exist?" topic.

Both, or more precisely, yes. Next question.

So when is the essay due?

First, do research: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaethics/

Darth Bob wrote:So I was in class today in one of my many senior electives, Philosophy, and we began to discuss the "Promlem of the Euthyphro"

The problem is thus:

"Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"
~ Socrates in repsonse to Euthyphro's statement on what piety is.

This sounds a lot like the conversation between God and Satan in the book of Job. Satan asserts that Job is righteous because God protects him. God says that this is not the case, and the book proceeds from there.

An interesting question yes. You probably could write an entire tome on the subject. Actually I think someone did... Did Aquinas cover this?

I don't know if Job covers this though. Satan, the accuser in this case, not the Satan of the new testament (they're arguably different beings), was asserting the Job does good because God protects him and gives him prosperity. God was asserting that Job would do good even if God didn't protect him and even if Job were at the bottom of the barrel.

The nature of morality I don't think is really covered. If anything, Job would suggest that it doesn't matter. Why something is right isn't important information for us from God's standing. In essence he's saying "just do what I told you too and it'll work out mm'kay?" Not to say that god determines what is morally right, more than whether he supports it because its right or if he determined it is right entirely on his own isn't really the point of the book. The book was more about the relationship between man, god, and evil than the nature of morality as it pertains to god himself.

The Bible would support neither of the above statement's outright as far as I know. Why something is right doesn't matter. God just wants us to shut up stop whining and do it. That's the Christian perspective of course (it probably varies, I speak from a nondenominational perspective).

EDIT: I would suggest the later personally. God made the world. It stands that as supreme creator of the universe (including the humble hats) he created right and wrong as it pertains to us. He made it right because he made it in the first place. If god hadn't created it it wouldn't be there are all.

Darth Bob wrote:So I was in class today in one of my many senior electives, Philosophy, and we began to discuss the "Promlem of the Euthyphro"

The problem is thus:

"Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"
~ Socrates in repsonse to Euthyphro's statement on what piety is.

In more modern terms, think of it this way:
"Are morally right things loved by God because they are morally right (TO) or are they morally right because they are loved by God. (TS)"

The first part (TO) suggests that things that are morally right are independent of God. God simply acts as a mediator between us and morality. God's divinity lies in God's infallible ability to figure out what among the independent moral things are right and which ones are wrong. God is not deciding what is right and wrong, God simply able to differentiate between right and wrong, and hence decipher which is which.

The second part (TS) suggests that God is integral in moral rightness. God is the creator of morality and decides what is right and wrong (morally right things are not independent of God). His divinity lies in his ability to say "Okay this is right and this is wrong", working more on the idea of "It's right and wrong because I'm God and I say so."

So which, in your opinion, is the better option? TO? TS? Neither?

BEFORE REPLYING, READ THIS
This topic is not a place for you to argue the existence of God. Do not use that argument, because that is not relevant to the discussion. This is a question to be answered from the perspective of one who believes in God, and therefore, to answer it, you must play the part of someone who does believe in God. Do not change this topic into a "Does God exist?" topic.

A person is pious because he loves god. He loves god because he believes that god loves him.

But then, I'm a sociopath.

There is no god so it doesn't matter?

That doesn't really help does it Darth

What is the definition of piety?

To address the first part of your topic, in Genesis, Satan tempts Eve by saying she would be like the gods, able to tell right from wrong, if she ate the forbidden fruit.
It doesn't say she can decide what is right and wrong, but that she would know right from wrong.
God is as bound by laws as the rest of us, but he has a perfect understanding of what makes things work.
By way of example, he cannot say murderers are not able to abide in his presence, and then turn around and say
" just kidding."
Being a God of love and mercy, he could not allow the murderer to be around him because to be in his presence would be worse on the offender than being in Hell.
The murderer shaped his own destiny by the paths he chose which were contrary to the laws God let be known through his prophets thoughout the ages.
God doesn't create laws just because he's God. He gives insights into the laws in place that will make us happy or miserable, depending on how we act within the parameters of those laws.

Relapse wrote:To address the first part of your topic, in Genesis, Satan tempts Eve by saying she would be like the gods, able to tell right from wrong, if she ate the forbidden fruit.

Don't confuse the serpent with Satan. There's nothing but Muslim influence to suggest the serpent was Satan. Christian's picked the idea up in the 12th century, but nothing in the Bible actually supports the belief that Satan, the evil fallen angel one, exists as anything other than a personification or archetype. EDIT: Whether or not Satan really exists is debatable, but he is generally just assumed to exist by tradition since Christianity adopted the idea from the Muslims.

It doesn't say she can decide what is right and wrong, but that she would know right from wrong.

Let's take a look at this.

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" 2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' " 4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

The serpent says knowing good and evil. This only suggests that by eating the fruit, Eve would be able to discern the difference. That God can do the same doesn't really lend us insight as to whether things are good because he makes them good or are good of their own nature. Does he discern them because they are that way, or because he made them that way?

We also need to keep in mind how ancient Jews defined good and evil. Good was doing what god told you. Evil was doing the opposite. Good was order. Evil was chaos. That's how jewish religion (and most mesopotamian religions) worked prior to the rise of Zorastrianism. There wasn't a battle of good and evil as we know it. It was a battle between order and chaos not moral right and moral wrong. The serpent was saying Eve would understand Order and Chaos, both represented by the Garden of Eden and the void before creation respectively.

God is as bound by laws as the rest of us, but he has a perfect understanding of what makes things work.
By way of example, he cannot say murderers are not able to abide in his presence, and then turn around and say
" just kidding."
Being a God of love and mercy, he could not allow the murderer to be around him because to be in his presence would be worse on the offender than being in Hell.

Ironic that God has committed genocide on multiple occasions in the Old Testament. It seems absurd to suggest god is bound by morality as we know it. Job itself made it pretty clear. God doesn't answer to us, we answer to him. The world as we know it answers to God. He isn't bound by the rules of our universe, and whether or not he is bound by any laws of whatever state he exists in isn't mentioned in the Bible, but since the Bible suggests that he is all powerful, we could assume he is bound by nothing, or is bound by something too far outside our realm of comprehension.

God doesn't create laws just because he's God. He gives insights into the laws in place that will make us happy or miserable, depending on how we act within the parameters of those laws.

Where does the Bible, our source of knowledge for God, at all suggest that? The Law of Moses maybe? The Covenant with Abraham? There just isn't enough information in the Bible to answer the question. In honesty this question could have entire series of books written on it, and we'll likely never reach a sure answer. We aren't going to adequately cover the subject at all here

I think the problem was posed philosophically rather than theologically, though the Great Dumb Ox was sainted for squaring platonic balderdash with jewish telephone tag.

Nurglitch wrote:I think the problem was posed philosophically rather than theologically

Theology is inherently philosophical

The question is itself a theological question anyway, as it asks about the nature of god and his relation to morality. If that's not theological I don't know what is Though so far we've only seen it from the Christian perspective. I'd like to see some others. World Religion classes never cover the cool stuff

Darth Bob wrote:The first part (TO) suggests that things that are morally right are independent of God. God simply acts as a mediator between us and morality. God's divinity lies in God's infallible ability to figure out what among the independent moral things are right and which ones are wrong. God is not deciding what is right and wrong, God simply able to differentiate between right and wrong, and hence decipher which is which.

The second part (TS) suggests that God is integral in moral rightness. God is the creator of morality and decides what is right and wrong (morally right things are not independent of God). His divinity lies in his ability to say "Okay this is right and this is wrong", working more on the idea of "It's right and wrong because I'm God and I say so."

So which, in your opinion, is the better option? TO? TS? Neither?

The TO option seems better, since if TS is true then we are completely dependent on God to tell us what is wrong and right, as it may not be rationally deducible. If TO is true, then there is a possibility that we can know what is morally right independent of God. This becomes more important once one is allowed to argue whether gods exist or not, since if TS is true then we're pretty screwed, as God can't be shown to exist.

LordofHats:

The theological is distinguished from the philosophical in that the former requires assuming the existence or relevance of god(s), while the latter may take said existence/relevance or leave it according to aesthetic taste. In other words, since the question has been bounded to require an assumption of the existence and/or relevance of god, it appears theological. However, as the summary in the Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy points out, the supposition of a diety is an artificat of the metaphor by which it is posed in the platonic text.

Since the original poster is taking a philosophy course rather than a theology course (not that plenty of theology hasn't been sold in a philosophical wrapper) we should address the question philosophically, i.e. rationally, rather than theologically (by reference to scripture), or historically (by reference to the historical development of a religion).

I mean, I presume the point of the thread is to help the original poster understand the problem

Nurglitch wrote:he theological is distinguished from the philosophical in that the former requires assuming the existence or relevance of god(s), while the latter may take said existence/relevance or leave it according to aesthetic taste.

In many cases, academically, Theology is synonymous with philosophy as it pertains to religion. Though I've never seen the term applied to other religions, so we could call it the philosophy of christian religion unofficially if we wanted to in my experience. That Theology is a specific case of philosophy that assumes god to be real to study its intended focus doesn't make it not philosophy. Not that god is always assumed to be real in modern Theology. One of my theology teachers was agnostic.

The use of the term has changed, whether its technical definition in dictionaries has changed with it I don't know EDIT: The term is somewhat butchered these days. It can refer to several different things.

Regardless, both questions posted, the original and the modified, are asking a philosophical question about god. Theology is part of the discussion if we are to attempt using the Bible to answer the question as Relapse did. I was merely responding to his ideas with my own and theological matters only naturally became part of the discussion.

LordofHats wrote:
Don't confuse the serpent with Satan. There's nothing but Muslim influence to suggest the serpent was Satan. Christian's picked the idea up in the 12th century, but nothing in the Bible actually supports the belief that Satan, the evil fallen angel one, exists as anything other than a personification or archetype. EDIT: Whether or not Satan really exists is debatable, but he is generally just assumed to exist by tradition since Christianity adopted the idea from the Muslims.

Actually the Bible equates Satan with the serpent, predating the Muslims by quite some time.

Rev.12:9 And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which decieveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Relapse wrote:Rev.12:9 And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which decieveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Archetype is typical of Eschatology. There's noting to suggest that Satan actually is the serpent. Far more likely the intent was to equate them as archetypes of a concept, which is the belief held prior to the 12th century when the more literal view held by Muslims came into play in the Christian west (their version of Genesis actually does call the Serpent "Satan" in a clearly literal sense).

We see similar writing in Enoch and Daniel (And similar equations to the serpent). In both cases they were understood to be representative, not to be taken literally when originally written. Taking into account the way Satan was originally viewed at the time period, it's somewhat unlikely that the above was originally intended to be anything more than symbolic. This goes back to the original relationship of God and the serpent as representative of Order and Chaos respectively. Leviathan is also identified as the serpent symbolically.

This is off topic though

I'm still leaning towards the second option if we are assuming god is real myself.

LordofHats wrote:

God is as bound by laws as the rest of us, but he has a perfect understanding of what makes things work.
By way of example, he cannot say murderers are not able to abide in his presence, and then turn around and say
" just kidding."
Being a God of love and mercy, he could not allow the murderer to be around him because to be in his presence would be worse on the offender than being in Hell.

Ironic that God has committed genocide on multiple occasions in the Old Testament. It seems absurd to suggest god is bound by morality as we know it. Job itself made it pretty clear. God doesn't answer to us, we answer to him. The world as we know it answers to God. He isn't bound by the rules of our universe, and whether or not he is bound by any laws of whatever state he exists in isn't mentioned in the Bible, but since the Bible suggests that he is all powerful, we could assume he is bound by nothing, or is bound by something too far outside our realm of comprehension.

Let's consider Sodom in your mention of Genocide. He gave the option of sparing the city if even 10 good men could be found. Considering that it seemed to be the practice to rape and or murder strangers in the city, given the conversation between Lot and the people of the city at his door, then would it not be a case of divine justice to wipe from the face of the Earth what was essentually a city that Charles Manson would be welcomed as mayor of?
A lot of the fighting in the old testament was brutal and the Jews were beset on all sides and their culture threatened by what was possibly more of the same type of people as were the Sodomites. I beieve this is what led to a lot of the killing that went on.




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LordofHats wrote:

Relapse wrote:Rev.12:9 And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which decieveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Archetype is typical of Eschatology. There's noting to suggest that Satan actually is the serpent. Far more likely the intent was to equate them as archetypes of a concept, which is the belief held prior to the 12th century when the more literal view held by Muslims came into play in the Christian west (their version of Genesis actually does call the Serpent "Satan" in a clearly literal sense).

We see similar writing in Enoch and Daniel (And similar equations to the serpent). In both cases they were understood to be representative, not to be taken literally when originally written. Taking into account the way Satan was originally viewed at the time period, it's somewhat unlikely that the above was originally intended to be anything more than symbolic. This goes back to the original relationship of God and the serpent as representative of Order and Chaos respectively. Leviathan is also identified as the serpent symbolically.

This is off topic though

I'm still leaning towards the second option if we are assuming god is real myself.

True enough, I'm not suggesting that Satan is a serpent, just that he is compared to a serpent. It's interesting to note that Satanic or evil figures were compared to serpents worldwide in many early and isolated cultures.

Relapse wrote:Let's consider Sodom in your mention of Genocide. He gave the option of sparing the city if even 10 good men could be found. Considering that it seemed to be the practice to rape and or murder strangers in the city, given the conversation between Lot and the people of the city at his door, then would it not be a case of divine justice to wipe from the face of the Earth what was essentually a city that Charles Manson would be welcomed as mayor of?

You describe god as love and mercy, which is certainly true, but in the sense of god these carry a more specific meaning. God is very wrathful (he's a tough love type. He ain't afraid to deliver a good ol spank'n ). He's seems more than willing to bring about some divine justice when he has too. That's not really evidence of God somehow being bound by laws like we are. The very nature of the Bible supports the idea of good being an extension of God. That it is good because it is what he said to do. Exactly why he says these things are good isn't really covered. I believe there are elements of Psalms and Solomon that attempt to provide a degree of reasoning (and Proverbs? I can't remember) but it's usually always boiled down to god does/doesn't like it.

Good for Christianity is what god says. Why god says it's good isn't fully explained if an attempt to explain it is at all made. We can only infer an answer to OP's question using the Bible, and while I lean towards TS, I'm sure there's plenty of good Biblical argument for TO. The way good and evil exist in the Bible is very unique to it, and to the Jewish culture which was itself a little bit of the oddball kid on the mesopotamian playground for quite a few centuries

Most of the conflicts the Jews faced upon entering Israel likely didn't have much to do with Sodom. It was destroyed after all assuming it actually existed, for which there's next to no evidence. The entire story of Lot and Sodom may very well be fictitious metaphor. The conflicts in Israel are related to geography. Back millennia ago, Palestine was the most convenient geographic location through which to pass the mountains that sat on either side of the region. When someone wanted to get from what is now Jordan, to what is now Syria/Lebanon, routes typically led through Palestine. Every time some new Empire decided to get up and get feisty the Jews got some new rulers

God didn't really give Israel the most secure piece of real estate I hear the farming is pretty good though

It's interesting to note that Satanic or evil figures were compared to serpents worldwide in many early and isolated cultures.

It is very interesting. The representation of snakes as devious little rascals is nearly universal.

In Aztec theology, Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent, was the creator of humans.

Kilkrazy wrote:In Aztec theology, Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent, was the creator of humans.

A little side note on that:

The White, Bearded God
Quetzalcoatl (Aztecs of Mexico)
He was a teacher of the arts, the wise law-giver, the virtuous prince, the master builder, and the merciful judge.
He was a white man with long, dark hair and a flowing beard and was clothed in a strange dress.
He, along with his helpers, made roads, humanized the people, and civilized them, then disappeared.
He forbade the sacrifice of either human beings or the lower animals.
He forbade wars, fighting, robbery, and all forms of violence.
He came from the east and returned to the east, stating that he and others like him would some day return from that direction.


It's interesting that Jesus, after his ressurection, told his diciples of "other sheep" that he would go to and that they would hear his voice.

The answer is dakka.

I'm deffinitly in the second camp. If you believe that God created the universe then I would say it stands to reason that God decides how said universe works.