Euthyphro dilemma

[The Grand Nudger]

A god can create a good thing.  So can I.  Neither of our relationships to those things are what makes them good, if the good is inherent to those things. 

It's interesting that you even described this with "creative" language (i.e. what MAKES them). See if you follow me:

You determine to make a thing which, if it ever comes to-be, will have its own inherent goodness. Not-being-anything-at-all-yet, that thing is neither good nor inherently good (it is nothing).

If, before you've created some thing x, you recognize that it will have it's own inherent goodness..it's existence is dependent on you...not it's goodness.  If someone else created it, it would still be good.  If no one created it, it would still be good.  Conversely, if, before you've created some thing x, you recognize that it would not have it;s own inherent goodness, than your creative act would not make the thing good. Option 1.

Then, YOU fulfill the necessary conditions for actually causing that thing to-be AS having-its-own-inherent-goodness. Your fulfilling-of-those-conditions is what GIVES both the thing's-being AND the inherent goodness to the thing.

You gave existence to the thing, not goodness. 

That is to say, BOTH the thing itself and its inherent goodness DIRECTLY depend on your fulfilling-of-its-conditions for being-at-all.

If goodness is created, that's the second option, not the first..not both, and not a third.

Now, I suppose you would say that your relationship to the thing isn't related to what-makes-it-good? If so, I don't understand. Removing your relationship to the thing is the same thing as removing your fulfilling-of-its-conditions for being-at-all. Without you... it never becomes a thing at all.

It may never become a thing, but that has no bearing on whether or not it is or would be a good thing.  A non-profit that feeds people is a good thing regardless of whether or not I form, fund, and operate it.  It's because it is a good thing that I decide to do all of that in the first place.  My intellect recognizes the good...neither it, nor my will creates it.  Option 1

You;re wheedling back and forth between the two options present, not presenting a third. I understand why, despite an affinity to affirm one over the other, you don't wish to accept the consequences - but oh well. This is why it's a dilemma. It's not a dilemma at all for a person who's willing to accept those consequences of either position. If, for example, a person goes with option one, and accepts that there is some independent standard of goodness - no problem. A person who goes with option two, for their part, can accept the attendant arbitrary.

A person who believes, however, that there is no standard of goodness independent of their god, that their god is the author of morality cannot accept the first...and are often compelled to rail against the meaningful arbitrarity of the second. For reasons™ that hilariously swirl the drain of accepting some inherent goodness that they've already rejected.