(October 17, 2017 at 1:00 pm)Khemikal Wrote:(October 17, 2017 at 12:53 pm)SteveII Wrote: The first horn "is something good because the gods will it" orIs his nature good, or do you call it good because it's his nature? [1]
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.
Quote: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.Pointing out goodness as a property possessed by a god is an affirmation of the first proposition, not a third option. [2]
As for the elaboration, the articles of your faith compell you to claim that if god were not good it would not be god..but that's not a logical conclusion. Meanwhile, in this actual world, the "good god" exhorts his followers to rape and genocide. [3] Does that establish that he's not good, or not god? Or are you pretty sure that those exhortations were good?
Your call.
1. Neither. It defines good. All moral theories need an explanatory ultimate. This is a particularly good one since it is eternal and unchanging.
2. Nope. The first horn is clearly talking about a goodness as contingent property. It needs to be arbitrary otherwise the horn has no undesirable conclusion. I am talking about a nature that governs God. God cannot do or command anything in violation of his nature.
3. I don't think he did command rape or genocide.