(October 17, 2017 at 12:53 pm)SteveII Wrote: The first horn "is something good because the gods will it" or
The second horn "do the gods will it because it is good?” but now
The third option (that has no unwanted conclusion): it is not God's will that defines the good but his unchanging nature that governs his will and his commands to us.
With a third option, there is no dilemma. The defeater of the dilemma is to point out that God's goodness is a necessary property (which is a third option). Goodness is not a property that God could have lacked. As the greatest conceivable being, there is no possible world where God is not good.
Does the third option as you formulate it take goodness off God's list of responsibilities? If so, goodness, rather than an extra ingredient whipped up by God in creation, becomes His goal. So like us God can only intend and aim for goodness. You might suppose He is better at achieving that goal, maybe He is the best even. But at least goodness isn't something inevitable which God, like some idiot moral savant, cannot help but exude whether intended or not.