John Loftus wants me to address the Euthyphro Dilemma.  So I figure I’ll go ahead and do that. For a full definition of the Euthyphro Dilemma, click here.

The dilemma is a “problem” for divine command theorists, supposedly.  Let’s examine it in detail.  Let’s begin simply:

1. “Good” acts are good because they are willed by God.

2. God could have willed otherwise.

3. Therefore, “Good” is an arbitrary decree of God and we do not need to follow it.

But of course 3 does not follow.  For that matter, 2 doesn’t either.

When I say that God’s commands determine morality, that does not mean God’s commands are an ad hoc arbitrary set of decrees.  They could theoretically be so, but they are not in actually because God commands based on His nature.

God’s nature is a part of who He is.  It is an attribute of God, just as it is an attribute of God to say that He is omnipresent.

If God’s commands are based on His nature (which means His will is based on His nature) then they are not arbitrary commands, but instead a reflection of Who God is.

The argument against this is: “If morally good acts are morally good because they are willed by God, then there is no reason either to care about God’s moral goodness or to worship him.”  But this likewise does not follow.  There most certainly is reason to care about God’s moral goodness and to worship Him–God is the one who made the rules; He Himself is the reason to care and worship Him.

The fallacy that the non-believer falls into at this point is the fallacy of trying to make mankind equal with God.  God is supreme to man, though, in every way possible.  God is omnipotent–our power is limited; God is omnipresent–our location is localized; God is omniscient–we know only in part; God can set morally good standards–we must follow them.

When we worship God, we are recognizing His supreme value.  We recognize that the only reason we have value is because God values us.  We acknowledge that God is Creator and Sovereign over all things, including the boundaries of what behavior we should or should not engage in.

Atheists don’t like to hear this.  From the beginning, sin has always been an attempt on man’s part to usurp God. (The serpent, after all, tempted Adam and Eve with the promise: “you shall be as gods.”)  Part of our usurption of God’s authority is our delusion of thinking that we can come up with better moral standards than God.  It is only that kind of thinking that can be so audatious as to say, “If God’s commands are arbitrary, we don’t have to obey them.”

This, naturally, presupposes that “arbitrary commands do not need to be followed.”  But how does the atheist know this?  The atheist is assuming a morality–that one does not need to follow arbitrary commands–and then condemning the position of the divine theorist, all the while ignoring the fact that the divine theory is consistent within itself and that it is only when one imports an alien morality that one can claim “contradiction.”

Now, supposedly, the divine command theory suffers from the “emptiness” problem when we look at the above.  The atheist will claim that saying “God is good” when something is good only because God commands it is nothing more than an empty tautology.  “God is good” is therefore true, but trivially pointless.

But this ignores the fact that the statement “God is good” points to an object–God Himself.  It is the case that this functions as a tautology, but it is one of definition.  That is, we are saying God is the standard of goodness; thus if one is going to define goodness, one points to God.  If this is “empty” then all definitions are empty.

If I said, “The ball is brown” then I am referencing the concept of ”browness.”  The concept of “brown” is defined as specific wavelengths of light (for simplicity, wavelength X).  Thus if I have wavelength Y and wish to determine if it is “brown”, I compare it to wavelength X.  If they are the same, then I say wavelength Y is “brown”; if it is different it is not “brown.”  So thus I say:

Wavelength X is brown.

The atheist would say, “That is an empty tautology and is meaningless.”

But it is not.  Likewise, saying “God is good” is not meaningless because God exists and we can compare our behavior to what He says is good.  He is the standard, and since He is not empty the phrase “God is good” is not empty.

The atheist will then try the “abhorrent comands” falacy.  But this falacy is blatantly absurd since it obviously imports a morality not found in the concepts of divine command theory and then pretends that divine command theory is contradictory.  If divine command theory is correct, though, none of the commands of God are “abhorrent” even if we think they are.

Thus, we see that the arguments against divine command theory rely on presuppositions not found in divine command theory.  It remains internally consistent, even if it contradicts an external thought.  As such, the atheist must prove his presuppositions correct in order to show how divine command theory fails.