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The Return of the Euthyphro

November 29, 2021

Summary

Once again, Dr. Craig answers a false dilemma pertaining to the Moral Argument for God.

KEVIN HARRIS: Well, Bill, I’m not sure why the Euthyphro Dilemma keeps coming up. We’ll define it in a moment, even though we’ve done many podcasts on it. It is very often the go-to argument against the moral argument for God. Do you think the Euthyphro Dilemma has been sufficiently answered by Christian philosophers?

DR. CRAIG: Oh, yes. Just repeatedly. I don't think, frankly, there's any life in this dilemma left. It's just beating a dead horse, but people like Jonathan Pearce, I think frankly, are not very well-informed about it.

KEVIN HARRIS: That is the author of this article, Jonathan M. S. Pearce – A Tippling Philosopher blog, “Morality, the Euthyphro Dilemma, & William Lane Craig.”[1] He begins the article,

William Lane Craig (WLC), a noted Christian apologist, uses the “Argument from Morality” as one of his arguments for the existence of God.

This is probably one of the weakest arguments put forward by apologists for the existence of God, as the following article will illustrate.

DR. CRAIG: We'll let our listeners judge whether they think his article illustrates that, but I want to draw attention to a couple of red flags here that ought to alert our listeners whenever they encounter this sort of dismissive attitude. It is not an argument that is simply put forward by apologists. This has been an argument that for centuries has been defended by some of the greatest minds in Western world history. And on the contemporary scene it's defended by people like Robert Adams in what has become a modern classic, Finite and Infinite Goods. In connection with my systematic philosophical theology where I'm now writing on the goodness of God, I re-read Adam's book, and it's no wonder this has become a classic in our day. It is a brilliant treatise on metaethics in which he defends God as the foundation for our objective moral values and duties. And this kind of theistic-based ethics has also been defended by people like Philip Quinn and William Alston, Janine Marie Idziak, John Hare. So Jonathan Pearce . . . when you see this kind of dismissive attitude and the characterization of these people as apologists rather than philosophers, this should alert the listener (or, in the case if you're encountering this yourself, the reader) that you're dealing with a person who really hasn't grasped the profundity of the question that is under discussion.

KEVIN HARRIS: Pearce continues next,

William Lane Craig puts forward his “Morality” syllogism thus:-

Premise 1) If God does not exist then objective moral values & duties do not exist

Premise 2) Objective moral values & duties exist

Conclusion) Therefore, God exists.

Premise 1 is an example of a “Begging the Question” fallacy i.e “smuggling” in a desired conclusion into one of the premises.

DR. CRAIG: That's patently false. One begs the question when your only reason for affirming a premise is that you already believe the conclusion. But premise 1 is a claim that is not made uniquely by theists. This is a claim that is made by very many atheists like Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, J. L. Mackie – they claim that if God does not exist then objective moral values and duties do not exist, and since they are all atheists they cannot be accused of begging the question in affirming the truth of this premise.

KEVIN HARRIS: He says next,

There is no justification to assert that morality is contingent on the existence of a deity, and it is thus a “non-sequitur”, On this basis, one would be equally justified in saying “If 2+2 does not equal 4, then God does not exist; However, 2+2 does equal 4; Therefore, God exists”.

DR. CRAIG: Now, there's two things to be said. First of all, those who have defended this first premise (whether atheist or theist) most certainly do offer arguments on its behalf. I think most powerfully if you remove God from the picture it is very, very difficult to see why on naturalism human morality would be anything more than just a subjective illusion that has evolved among human beings because it has survival value in the struggle for existence. But, secondly, it's almost funny. His parody of the argument is invalid. He says, “If 2+2 does not equal 4, then God does not exist; However 2+2 does equal 4; Therefore God exists.” That's arguing “not p implies not q; p; therefore q” which is an invalid argument! That's the non-sequitur! It's not the moral argument, which is perfectly valid. So Jonathan is completely confused here. The argument that would be parallel to the moral argument would be to say, “If God does not exist, then 2+2 does not equal 4; but 2+2 does equal 4; therefore God exists.” That would be parallel; but the parallel he constructed is simply an invalid argument.

KEVIN HARRIS: I would just offer a tip to bloggers. If you're not a professional philosopher, run your article past some professional philosophers and say, “Is this in fact begging the question? Is this a non-sequitur?” Because it's so obviously not, and as you just said, he gets it completely wrong in the parody. So run it past some people. Next he says,

Worse than this, he does not even specify what “God” he is referring to. Would the Roman god Mars be somehow linked with morality? It seems somewhat unlikely. . . . WLC is probably referencing the Christian god of the New Testament.

So is it necessary to be more specific about which god when you're presenting?

DR. CRAIG: No. The moral argument leads to a kind of generic theism that would be acceptable to Jews, Muslims, Christians, deists. What it's arguing for is that there needs to be a being which grounds and exemplifies moral goodness and whose commands thereby constitute our moral duties, and that's why something like the Roman god Mars would be singularly inappropriate to fill such a role.

KEVIN HARRIS: Jonathan continues,

Premise 2 is also just an assertion with no evidence presented to support it. In his debates, WLC asserted something like “Deep down, we know this to be true”, with no further justification. This is just an “Appeal to Emotion”, and hardly an intellectual defence of this premise.

Since Premises 1 & 2 are problematical, it follows that the conclusion does not warrant belief.

DR. CRAIG: I wonder if Jonathan believes that there are objective moral values and duties. I wonder if he thinks that torturing a little girl just to watch her scream is morally indifferent. What does Jonathan think about that? When I say “deep down we know that there are objective moral values and duties” what I mean is that if we're honest with ourselves then we'll admit we know this. People like Jonathan might give lip service to relativism, but I don't think they really believe it. I think when you're honest with yourself you will recognize the reality of objective moral values and duties. So this isn't just appealing to emotions. I'm asking people to be honest with themselves and to look at their moral intuitions. I remember in my debate with the atheist philosopher Louise Antony she put it so well. She said any argument for moral skepticism will be based upon premises which are less obvious than the reality of moral values themselves. Now, if that's right (and I think it is) then it would never be justified to be a moral skeptic.

KEVIN HARRIS: Well, next he brings up the Euthyphro. He says,

In any event, the moral argument is easily refuted using the Euthyphro Dilemma.

The dilemma, which is adapted from a Socratic discourse, is expressed thus:-

“(a) Does God say something is moral because it is moral, or (b) is something moral because God says so”

If the answer is (a) then there must be a standard outside God for judging what is moral, so God is just passing along moral standards external to him, and thus it makes God redundant in determining what is moral.

If the answer is (b) then God’s commandments are basically arbitrary. One day God could say murder, rape & robbery was OK and we would have no choice but to follow his commandments, because he is all-powerful, and can impose any standard he likes on his subjects (“Might makes Right”).

Is that defined right?

DR. CRAIG: Yes. It's a popular version, but I think that it basically presents the alleged dilemma. I've argued that this is not a genuine dilemma, that you can do the escape that is performed by both philosophers and matadors alike which is called splitting the horns of the dilemma. You craft a third alternative that avoids these two unpleasant horns.

KEVIN HARRIS: Pearce then says,

Apologists, like WLC, try to circumvent this dilemma, by saying there is a third option . . .

Let me just stop there. That's one of those red flags again, saying “apologists” like William Lane Craig, not realizing that he is an apologist as well. He's defending a particular view trying to give arguments and evidence for his views. So he's one, too.

DR. CRAIG: Yeah, and it's insulting not just to me but to people like Robert Adams and Philip Quinn and John Hare and David Baggett and so many other fine ethicists who think that the Euthyphro Dilemma is invalid and that there is a very clear third option that is quite acceptable.

KEVIN HARRIS: OK. He says,

. . . try to circumvent this dilemma, by saying there is a third option (ie a Trilemma), that is God’s commandments are “good” because “God’s nature is good”. So, they are trying to use (b) with the extra condition that it is impossible for God to issue any commandment that is not “good”.

DR. CRAIG: Now, if I could just interject here. The idea here, for example Robert Adams’ divine command theory, is that our moral duties are constituted by the commands of a just and loving God so that God is by nature just and loving and that he issues commands to us that reflect that nature. So his commands are indeed the source of our moral obligation, but this avoids the arbitrariness objection because those commands must be consistent with God's nature.

KEVIN HARRIS: He continues,

This presents a whole raft of problems since this is saying that God has no “free will”, since he can never initiate any “evil” command or do any “evil” deed by his action, or inaction. How can theists say that “free will” is such an important attribute given to humankind, even though it will allow some evil, when even God does not possess it? Does this mean that humans have a power that even God doesn’t have, and he is therefore NOT omnipotent? That seems to be the case, if this is proposed. Apologists argue, it is not that God could do evil and simply “decides” not to do evil, it is “impossible” for God to do evil because of his “nature”.

Several things to respond to there.

DR. CRAIG: Right. Here Jonathan has really deserted the question of the Euthyphro Dilemma instead to talk about whether omnipotence is consistent with God's moral perfection so that God is unable to do evil. That's a different section of my philosophical theology that I'm working on – the omnipotence of God. And I would say that overwhelmingly philosophical theologians contend that divine omnipotence does not imply the ability to actualize logically impossible states of affairs like a square circle or a married bachelor. And so it is logically impossible to actualize the state of affairs of God's doing something evil, and therefore this is not an inhibition upon omnipotence. God has free will just in case nothing determines him to act as he does. It's up to him, and certainly he does have free will in that sense. God is not determined by anything to do what he does, but that doesn't mean that therefore he can act contrary to his own nature and bring about something that is logically impossible. So there's no inconsistency here with either the concept of omnipotence nor with God's having freedom of the will.

KEVIN HARRIS: He brings the article to a conclusion by saying,

If apologists, like Craig, say that “God’s nature is good”, we can ask a similar question to the original dilemma ie (a) Is God’s nature “good” according to an “external” standard, or (b) is his nature “good” when based on his “internal” standard?

DR. CRAIG: Well, we've already answered that question. God's nature is the good – it is the paradigm that determines what goodness is. Here's an analogy that William Alston gave. The length of a meter used to be determined not by a certain abstract length that you measured; rather, the length of the meter was determined by a meter bar which was housed in the Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris. It was the paradigm of a meter. So whatever was the same length as that bar is a meter long. Now, that has proved to be too ambiguous for modern subatomic physics and so the meter has been redefined. But nevertheless it gives an illustration of how something can be the paradigm for something else and thereby define what it is to be a meter, or in God's case to be good. And so the answer to the dilemma is that the good is what God is. That is the paradigm of goodness. And things are good insofar as they resemble that paradigm.

KEVIN HARRIS: Well, Bill, the Euthyphro Dilemma just keeps coming up year after year. I guess we'll continue to address it from time to time anytime it starts making the rounds.

DR. CRAIG: I would say that the profit from Jonathan’s blog here would be that it would be a really nice exam in a freshman course on apologetics where the moral argument has been discussed. Say, “OK, answer this.” And I think the students would really have fun in doing that.[2]

 

[2] Total Running Time: 18:00 (Copyright © 2021 William Lane Craig)