Euthyphro dilemma

[Neo-Scholastic]

Jor, I’m quoting you out of order to focus on individual topics.

Oh do fuck off, Neo. I give you a rational argument and you give me a sleepy sermon. The biblical evidence is that your God is not unchanging… Before the flood, God thought it was okay to drown all of humanity. After the flood, he changed his mind and decided that he wouldn't do it ever again. That's a change.

If you want to ignore a more nuanced interpretive approach that takes in the whole counsel of Scripture in favor of some overly-simplistic hermeneutic that’s your business. I really don’t feel like proof-texting with an atheist. Personally, I find it ironic when atheists criticize Christians for taking the Bible literally and then take the Bible literally in order to criticize it.

You let loose with a barrage of bare assertions that don't even begin to approach the question. I gave reasons for why considering God as the sole standard for good results in arbitrary morals. You give me dogma.

You did indeed give reasons. I don’t fault your reasoning. Maybe the problem is not your reasoning; but rather, the first principles from which you are reasoning. I don’t know where you are at philosophically at the moment, but my assessment of your past positions was that they were along the lines of not trusting reason and that there can be no certainties about the world as-it-is. If that is accurate and still the case then your reasoning from first principles that ultimately devolve into intellectual and moral nihilism. No wonder, you cannot resolve the dilemma!

And yes, I have my own set of dogmas (I call them self-evident first principles like the intelligibility of the world and the efficacy of reason). I accept them because they avoid intellectual and moral nihilism, and provide a rational framework for the acquisition of knowledge. You can choose otherwise, many do, but don’t be surprised when it leads you to paradox and absurdity.

The fact of the matter is that saying God is good is meaningless if God is both the standard and source for good. All you're saying is that "God is God." How would things be different if God's nature were any different? You'd still be saying that he's good, and necessarily so. Your words don't pick out a particular reality, but rather whatever the case happens to be, that's what your words describe.

You’re assuming that God’s nature couldbe different. There is not a possible world in which the God of Classical Theism could be other that what He is any more than the value of pi could vary in different possible worlds. Saying that pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter does indeed pick out a particular reality…not just what happens to be, but also something that could not be otherwise. What goes for pi can be applied to God. It can only be what it is and nothing else. That’s not dogma so much as the logical conclusion of multiple demonstrations (5 to be exact) based on common observations about the world.